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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth
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Youth
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Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood (maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. Youth is also defined as "the appearance, freshness, vigor, spirit, etc., characteristic of one, who is young". Its definitions of a specific age range varies, as youth is not defined chronologically as a stage that can be tied to specific age ranges; nor can its end point be linked to specific activities, such as taking unpaid work, or having sexual relations.
Youth is an experience that may shape an individual's level of dependency, which can be marked in various ways according to different cultural perspectives. Personal experience is marked by an individual's cultural norms or traditions, while a youth's level of dependency means the extent to which they still rely on their family emotionally and economically.
Terminology and definitions
General
Around the world, the English terms-- youth, adolescent, teenager, kid, youngster and young person, are interchanged, often meaning the same thing, but they are occasionally differentiated. Youth can be referred to as the time of life, when one is young. The meaning may in some instances also include childhood. Youth also identifies a particular mindset of attitude, as in "He is very youthful". For certain uses, such as employment statistics, the term also sometimes refers to individuals from the ages of 14 to 21. However, the term adolescence refers to a specific age range during a specific developmental period in a person's life, unlike youth, which is a socially constructed category.
The United Nations defines youth as persons between the ages of roughly 15 and 24, with all UN statistics based on this range, the UN states education as a source for these statistics. The UN also recognizes that this varies without prejudice to other age groups listed by member states such as 18–30. A useful distinction within the UN itself can be made between teenagers (i.e. those between the ages of 13 and 19) and young adults (those between the ages of 20 and 29). While seeking to impose some uniformity on statistical approaches, the UN is aware of contradictions between approaches in its own statutes. Hence, under the 15–24 definition (introduced in 1981) children are defined as those under the age of 14 (someone 13 and younger) while under the 1979 Convention on the Rights of the Child, those under the age of 18 are regarded as children. The UN also states they are aware that several definitions exist for youth within UN entities such as Youth Habitat 15–32, NCSL 12-24, and African Youth Charter 15–35.
On November 11, 2020, the State Duma of the Russian Federation approved a project to raise the cap on the age of young people from 30 to 35 years (the range now extending from 14 to 35 years).
Although linked to biological processes of development and aging, youth is also defined as a social position that reflects the meanings different cultures and societies give to individuals between childhood and adulthood. The term in itself when referred to in a manner of social position can be ambiguous when applied to someone of an older age with very low social position; potentially when still dependent on their guardians. Scholars argue that age-based definitions have not been consistent across cultures or times and that thus it is more accurate to focus on social processes in the transition to adult independence for defining youth.
"This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease." – Robert Kennedy
Youth is the stage of constructing the self-concept. The self-concept of youth is influenced by variables such as peers, lifestyle, gender, and culture. It is a time of a person's life when their choices are most likely to affect their future.
Other definitions
In much of sub-Saharan Africa, the term "youth" is associated with young men from 12 to 30 or 35 years of age. Youth in Nigeria includes all members of the Federal Republic of Nigeria aged 18–35. Many African girls experience youth as a brief interlude between the onset of puberty and marriage and motherhood. But in urban settings, poor women are often considered youth much longer, even if they bear children outside of marriage. Varying culturally, the gender constructions of youth in Latin America and Southeast Asia differ from those of sub-Saharan Africa. In Vietnam, widespread notions of youth are sociopolitical constructions for both sexes between the ages of 15 and 35.
In Brazil, the term youth refers to people of both sexes from 15 to 29 years old. This age bracket reflects the influence on Brazilian law of international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO). It is also shaped by the notion of adolescence that has entered everyday life in Brazil through a discourse on children's rights.
The OECD defines youth as "those between 15 and 29 years of age".
August 12 was declared International Youth Day by the United Nations.
Youth rights
Children's rights cover all the rights that belong to children. When they grow up, they are granted new rights (like voting, consent, driving, etc.) and duties (criminal response, etc.). There are different minimum limits of age at which youth are not free, independent or legally competent to take some decisions or actions. Some of these limits are: voting age, age of candidacy, age of consent, age of majority, age of criminal responsibility, drinking age, driving age, etc. After youth reach these limits, they are free to vote, have sexual intercourse, buy or consume alcoholic beverages or drive cars, etc.
Voting age
Voting age is the minimum age established by law that a person must attain to be eligible to vote in a public election. Typically, the age is set at 18 years; however, ages as low as 16 and as high as 21 exist (see list below). Studies show that 21% of all 18-year-olds have experience with voting. This is an important right since, by voting, they can support politics selected by themselves and not only by people of older generations.
Age of candidacy
Age of candidacy is the minimum age at which a person can legally qualify to hold certain elected government offices. In many cases, it also determines the age at which a person may be eligible to stand for an election or be granted ballot access.
Age of consent
The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered legally competent to consent to sexual acts, and is thus the minimum age of a person with whom another person is legally permitted to engage in sexual activity. The distinguishing aspect of the age of consent laws is that the person below the minimum age is regarded as the victim, and their sex partner as the offender.
Defense of infancy
The defense of infancy is a form of defense known as an excuse so that defendants falling within the definition of an "infant" are excluded from criminal liability for their actions, if at the relevant time, they had not reached an age of criminal responsibility. This implies that children lack the judgment that comes with age and experience to be held criminally responsible. After reaching the initial age, there may be levels of responsibility dictated by age and the type of offense committed.
Drinking age
The legal drinking age is the age at which a person can consume or purchase alcoholic beverages. These laws cover a wide range of issues and behaviors, addressing when and where alcohol can be consumed. The minimum age alcohol can be legally consumed can be different from the age when it can be purchased in some countries. These laws vary among different countries and many laws have exemptions or special circumstances. Most laws apply only to drinking alcohol in public places, with alcohol consumption in the home being mostly unregulated (an exception being the UK, which has a minimum legal age of five for supervised consumption in private places). Some countries also have different age limits for different types of alcoholic drinks.
Driving age
Driving age is the age at which a person can apply for a driver's license. Countries with the lowest driving ages (below 17) are Argentina, Australia, Canada, El Salvador, Iceland, Israel, Macedonia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, the United Kingdom (Mainland) and the United States. The Canadian province of Alberta and several U.S. states permit youth driving as low as 14. Niger has the highest minimum driving age in the world at 23. In India, driving is legal after getting a license at the age of 18.
Legal working age
The legal working age is the minimum age required by law for a person to work in each country or jurisdiction. The threshold of adulthood, or "the age of majority" as recognized or declared in law in most countries, has been set at age 18. Some types of labor are commonly prohibited even for those above the working age, if they have not reached the age of majority. Activities that are dangerous, harmful to the health or that may affect the morals of minors fall into this category.
Student rights in higher education
Student rights are those rights, such as civil, constitutional, contractual and consumer rights, which regulate student rights and freedoms and allow students to make use of their educational investment. These include such things as the right to free speech and association, to due process, equality, autonomy, safety and privacy, and accountability in contracts and advertising, which regulate the treatment of students by teachers and administrators.
Smoking age
The smoking age is the minimum age a person can buy tobacco and/or smoke in public. Most countries regulate this law at the national level while at some point it is done by the state or province.
School and education
Young people spend much of their lives in educational settings, and their experiences in schools, colleges and universities can shape much of their subsequent lives. Research shows that poverty and income affect the likelihood for the incompletion of high school. These factors also increase the likelihood for the youth to not go to a college or university. In the United States, 12.3 percent of young people ages 16 to 24 are disconnected, meaning they are neither in school nor working.
Health and mortality
The leading causes of morbidity and mortality among youth and adults are due to certain health-risk behaviors. These behaviors are often established during youth and extend into adulthood. Since the risk behaviors in adulthood and youth are interrelated, problems in adulthood are preventable by influencing youth behavior.
A 2004 mortality study of youth (defined in this study as ages 10–24) mortality worldwide found that 97% of deaths occurred in low to middle-income countries, with the majority in southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Maternal conditions accounted for 15% of female deaths, while HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis were responsible for 11% of deaths; 14% of male and 5% of female deaths were attributed to traffic accidents, the largest cause overall. Violence accounted for 12% of male deaths. Suicide was the cause of 6% of all deaths.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed its Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) in 2003 to help assess risk behavior. YRBSS monitors six categories of priority health-risk behaviors among youth and young adults. These are behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence;
tobacco, alcohol and other drug use;
sexual behaviors that contribute to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection;
unhealthy dietary behaviors;
physical inactivity—plus overweight.
YRBSS includes a national school-based survey conducted by CDC as well as state and local school-based surveys conducted by education and health agencies.
Universal school-based interventions such as formal classroom curricula, behavioural management practices, role‐play, and goal‐setting may be effective in preventing tobacco use, alcohol use, illicit drug use, antisocial behaviour, and improving physical activity of young people.
Obesity
Obesity now affects one in five children in the United States, and is the most prevalent nutritional disease of children and adolescents in the United States. Although obesity-associated morbidities occur more frequently in adults, significant consequences of obesity as well as the antecedents of adult disease occur in obese children and adolescents.
Discrimination against overweight children begins early in childhood and becomes progressively institutionalized. Obese children may be taller than their non-overweight peers, in which case they are apt to be viewed as more mature. The inappropriate expectations that result may have an adverse effect on their socialization.
Many of the cardiovascular consequences that characterize adult-onset obesity are preceded by abnormalities that begin in childhood. Hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and abnormal glucose tolerance occur with increased frequency in obese children and adolescents. The relationship of cardiovascular risk factors to visceral fat independent of total body fat remains unclear. Sleep apnea, pseudotumor cerebri, and Blount's disease represent major sources of morbidity for which rapid and sustained weight reduction is essential. Although several periods of increased risk appear in childhood, it is not clear whether obesity with onset early in childhood carries a greater risk of adult morbidity and mortality.
Bullying
Bullying among school-aged youth is increasingly being recognized as an important problem affecting well-being and social functioning. While a certain amount of conflict and harassment is typical of youth peer relations, bullying presents a potentially more serious threat to healthy youth development. The definition of bullying is widely agreed on in literature on bullying.
The majority of research on bullying has been conducted in Europe and Australia. Considerable variability among countries in the prevalence of bullying has been reported. In an international survey of adolescent health-related behaviors, the percentage of students who reported being bullied at least once during the current term ranged from a low of 15% to 20% in some countries to a high of 70% in others. Of particular concern is frequent bullying, typically defined as bullying that occurs once a week or more. The prevalence of frequent bullying reported internationally ranges from a low of 1.9% among one Irish sample to a high of 19% in a Malta study.
Research examining characteristics of youth involved in bullying has consistently found that both bullies and those bullied demonstrate poorer psychosocial functioning than their non-involved peers. Youth who bully others tend to demonstrate higher levels of conduct problems and dislike of school, whereas youth who are bullied generally show higher levels of insecurity, anxiety, depression, loneliness, unhappiness, physical and mental symptoms, and low self-esteem. Males who are bullied also tend to be physically weaker than males in general. The few studies that have examined the characteristics of youth who both bully and are bullied found that these individuals exhibit the poorest psychosocial functioning overall.
Sexual health and politics
General
Globalization and transnational flows have had tangible effects on sexual relations, identities, and subjectivities. In the wake of an increasingly globalized world order under waning Western dominance, within ideologies of modernity, civilization, and programs for social improvement, discourses on population control, 'safe sex', and 'sexual rights'. Sex education programmes grounded in evidence-based approaches are a cornerstone in reducing adolescent sexual risk behaviours and promoting sexual health. In addition to providing accurate information about consequences of Sexually transmitted disease or STIs and early pregnancy, such programmes build life skills for interpersonal communication and decision making. Such programmes are most commonly implemented in schools, which reach large numbers of teenagers in areas where school enrollment rates are high. However, since not all young people are in school, sex education programmes have also been implemented in clinics, juvenile detention centers and youth-oriented community agencies. Notably, some programmes have been found to reduce risky sexual behaviours when implemented in both school and community settings with only minor modifications to the curricula.
Philippines
The Sangguniang Kabataan ("Youth Council" in English), commonly known as SK, was a youth council in each barangay (village or district) in the Philippines, before being put "on hold", but not quite abolished, prior to the 2013 barangay elections. The council represented teenagers from 15 to 17 years old who have resided in their barangay for at least six months and registered to vote. It was the local youth legislature in the village and therefore led the local youth program and projects of the government. The Sangguniang Kabataan was an offshoot of the KB or the Kabataang Barangay (Village Youth) which was abolished when the Local Government Code of 1991 was enacted.
In the Global South
The vast majority of young people live in developing countries: according to the United Nations, globally around 85 per cent of 15- to 24-year-olds live in developing countries, a figure projected to grow 89.5 per cent by 2025. Moreover, this majority are extremely diverse: some live in rural areas but many inhabit the overcrowded metropolises of India, Mongolia and other parts of Asia and in South America, some live traditional lives in tribal societies, while others participate in global youth culture in ghetto contexts.
Many young lives in developing countries are defined by poverty, some suffer from famine and a lack of clean water, while involvement in armed conflict is all common. Health problems are rife, especially due to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in certain regions. The United Nations estimates that 200 million young people live in poverty, 130 million are illiterate and 10 million live with HIV/AIDS.
See also
Children, Youth and Environments
Comprehensive sex education
Index of youth articles
Positive youth development
Youth activism
Youth Climate Movement
Youth culture
Youth politics
Youth unemployment
Youth voice
References
External links
"Youth", BBC Radio 4 discussion with Tim Whitmarsh, Thomas Healy and Deborah Thom (In Our Time, Apr. 23, 2003)
Youth
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379507
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchrotron%20light%20source
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Synchrotron light source
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A synchrotron light source is a source of electromagnetic radiation (EM) usually produced by a storage ring, for scientific and technical purposes. First observed in synchrotrons, synchrotron light is now produced by storage rings and other specialized particle accelerators, typically accelerating electrons. Once the high-energy electron beam has been generated, it is directed into auxiliary components such as bending magnets and insertion devices (undulators or wigglers) in storage rings and free electron lasers.
These supply the strong magnetic fields perpendicular to the beam that are needed to stimulate the high energy electrons to emit photons.
The major applications of synchrotron light are in condensed matter physics, materials science, biology and medicine. A large fraction of experiments using synchrotron light involve probing the structure of matter from the sub-nanometer level of electronic structure to the micrometer and millimeter levels important in medical imaging. An example of a practical industrial application is the manufacturing of microstructures by the LIGA process.
Synchrotron is one of the most expensive kinds of light source known, but it is practically the only viable luminous source of wide-band radiation in far infrared wavelength range for some applications, such as far-infrared absorption spectrometry.
Spectral brightness
The primary figure of merit used to compare different sources of synchrotron radiation has been referred to as the "brightness", the "brilliance", and the "spectral brightness," with the latter term being recommended as the best choice by the Working Group on Synchrotron Nomenclature. Regardless of the name chosen, the term is a measure of the total flux of photons in a given six-dimensional phase space per unit bandwidth (BW).
The spectral brightness is given by:
where is the photons per second of the beam, and are the root mean square values for the size of the beam in the axes perpendicular to the beam direction, and are the RMS values for the beam solid angle in the x and y dimensions, and is the bandwidth, or spread in beam frequency around the central frequency. The customary value for bandwidth is 0.1%.
Spectral brightness has units of time−1⋅distance−2⋅angle−2⋅bandwidth−1.
Properties of sources
Especially when artificially produced, synchrotron radiation is notable for its:
High brilliance, many orders of magnitude more than with X-rays produced in conventional X-ray tubes: 3rd generation sources typically have a brilliance larger than 1018 photons·s−1·mm−2·mrad−2/0.1%BW, where 0.1%BW denotes a bandwidth 10−3w centered around the frequency w.
High level of polarization (linear, elliptical or circular)
High collimation, i.e. small angular divergence of the beam
Low emittance, i.e. the product of source cross section and solid angle of emission is small
Wide tunability in energy/wavelength by monochromatization (sub-electronvolt up to the megaelectronvolt range)
Pulsed light emission (pulse durations at or below one nanosecond, or a billionth of a second).
Synchrotron radiation from accelerators
Synchrotron radiation may occur in accelerators either as a nuisance, causing undesired energy loss in particle physics contexts, or as a deliberately produced radiation source for numerous laboratory applications. Electrons are accelerated to high speeds in several stages to achieve a final energy that is typically in the gigaelectronvolt range. The electrons are forced to travel in a closed path by strong magnetic fields. This is similar to a radio antenna, but with the difference that the relativistic speed changes the observed frequency due to the Doppler effect by a factor . Relativistic Lorentz contraction bumps the frequency by another factor of , thus multiplying the gigahertz frequency of the resonant cavity that accelerates the electrons into the X-ray range. Another dramatic effect of relativity is that the radiation pattern is distorted from the isotropic dipole pattern expected from non-relativistic theory into an extremely forward-pointing cone of radiation. This makes synchrotron radiation sources the most brilliant known sources of X-rays. The planar acceleration geometry makes the radiation linearly polarized when observed in the orbital plane, and circularly polarized when observed at a small angle to that plane.
The advantages of using synchrotron radiation for spectroscopy and diffraction have been realized by an ever-growing scientific community, beginning in the 1960s and 1970s. In the beginning, accelerators were built for particle physics, and synchrotron radiation was used in "parasitic mode" when bending magnet radiation had to be extracted by drilling extra holes in the beam pipes. The first storage ring commissioned as a synchrotron light source was Tantalus, at the Synchrotron Radiation Center, first operational in 1968. As accelerator synchrotron radiation became more intense and its applications more promising, devices that enhanced the intensity of synchrotron radiation were built into existing rings. Third-generation synchrotron radiation sources were conceived and optimized from the outset to produce brilliant X-rays. Fourth-generation sources that will include different concepts for producing ultrabrilliant, pulsed time-structured X-rays for extremely demanding and also probably yet-to-be-conceived experiments are under consideration.
Bending electromagnets in accelerators were first used to generate this radiation, but to generate stronger radiation, other specialized devices – insertion devices – are sometimes employed. Current (third-generation) synchrotron radiation sources are typically reliant upon these insertion devices, where straight sections of the storage ring incorporate periodic magnetic structures (comprising many magnets in a pattern of alternating N and S poles – see diagram above) which force the electrons into a sinusoidal or helical path. Thus, instead of a single bend, many tens or hundreds of "wiggles" at precisely calculated positions add up or multiply the total intensity of the beam.
These devices are called wigglers or undulators. The main difference between an undulator and a wiggler is the intensity of their magnetic field and the amplitude of the deviation from the straight line path of the electrons.
There are openings in the storage ring to let the radiation exit and follow a beam line into the experimenters' vacuum chamber. A great number of such beamlines can emerge from modern third-generation synchrotron radiation sources.
Storage rings
The electrons may be extracted from the accelerator proper and stored in an ultrahigh vacuum auxiliary magnetic storage ring where they may circle a large number of times. The magnets in the ring also need to repeatedly recompress the beam against Coulomb (space charge) forces tending to disrupt the electron bunches. The change of direction is a form of acceleration and thus the electrons emit radiation at GeV energies.
Applications of synchrotron radiation
Synchrotron radiation of an electron beam circulating at high energy in a magnetic field leads to radiative self-polarization of electrons in the beam (Sokolov–Ternov effect). This effect is used for producing highly polarised electron beams for use in various experiments.
Synchrotron radiation sets the beam sizes (determined by the beam emittance) in electron storage rings via the effects of radiation damping and quantum excitation.
Beamlines
At a synchrotron facility, electrons are usually accelerated by a synchrotron, and then injected into a storage ring, in which they circulate, producing synchrotron radiation, but without gaining further energy. The radiation is projected at a tangent to the electron storage ring and captured by beamlines. These beamlines may originate at bending magnets, which mark the corners of the storage ring; or insertion devices, which are located in the straight sections of the storage ring. The spectrum and energy of X-rays differ between the two types. The beamline includes X-ray optical devices which control the bandwidth, photon flux, beam dimensions, focus, and collimation of the rays. The optical devices include slits, attenuators, crystal monochromators, and mirrors. The mirrors may be bent into curves or toroidal shapes to focus the beam. A high photon flux in a small area is the most common requirement of a beamline. The design of the beamline will vary with the application. At the end of the beamline is the experimental end station, where samples are placed in the line of the radiation, and detectors are positioned to measure the resulting diffraction, scattering or secondary radiation.
Experimental techniques and usage
Synchrotron light is an ideal tool for many types of research in materials science, physics, and chemistry and is used by researchers from academic, industrial, and government laboratories. Several methods take advantage of the high intensity, tunable wavelength, collimation, and polarization of synchrotron radiation at beamlines which are designed for specific kinds of experiments. The high intensity and penetrating power of synchrotron X-rays enables experiments to be performed inside sample cells designed for specific environments. Samples may be heated, cooled, or exposed to gas, liquid, or high pressure environments. Experiments which use these environments are called in situ and allow the characterization of atomic- to nano-scale phenomena which are inaccessible to most other characterization tools. In operando measurements are designed to mimic the real working conditions of a material as closely as possible.
Diffraction and scattering
X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scattering experiments are performed at synchrotrons for the structural analysis of crystalline and amorphous materials. These measurements may be performed on powders, single crystals, or thin films. The high resolution and intensity of the synchrotron beam enables the measurement of scattering from dilute phases or the analysis of residual stress. Materials can be studied at high pressure using diamond anvil cells to simulate extreme geologic environments or to create exotic forms of matter.
X-ray crystallography of proteins and other macromolecules (PX or MX) are routinely performed. Synchrotron-based crystallography experiments were integral to solving the structure of the ribosome; this work earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009.
The size and shape of nanoparticles are characterized using small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). Nano-sized features on surfaces are measured with a similar technique, grazing-incidence small angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS). In this and other methods, surface sensitivity is achieved by placing the crystal surface at a small angle relative to the incident beam, which achieves total external reflection and minimizes the X-ray penetration into the material.
The atomic- to nano-scale details of surfaces, interfaces, and thin films can be characterized using techniques such as X-ray reflectivity (XRR) and crystal truncation rod (CTR) analysis. X-ray standing wave (XSW) measurements can also be used to measure the position of atoms at or near surfaces; these measurements require high-resolution optics capable of resolving dynamical diffraction phenomena.
Amorphous materials, including liquids and melts, as well as crystalline materials with local disorder, can be examined using X-ray pair distribution function analysis, which requires high energy X-ray scattering data.
By tuning the beam energy through the absorption edge of a particular element of interest, the scattering from atoms of that element will be modified. These so-called resonant anomalous X-ray scattering methods can help to resolve scattering contributions from specific elements in the sample.
Other scattering techniques include energy dispersive X-ray diffraction, resonant inelastic X-ray scattering, and magnetic scattering.
Spectroscopy
X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is used to study the coordination structure of atoms in materials and molecules. The synchrotron beam energy is tuned through the absorption edge of an element of interest, and modulations in the absorption are measured. Photoelectron transitions cause modulations near the absorption edge, and analysis of these modulations (called the X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) or near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS)) reveals information about the chemical state and local symmetry of that element. At incident beam energies which are much higher than the absorption edge, photoelectron scattering causes "ringing" modulations called the extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS). Fourier transformation of the EXAFS regime yields the bond lengths and number of the surrounding the absorbing atom; it is therefore useful for studying liquids and amorphous materials as well as sparse species such as impurities. A related technique, X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD), uses circularly polarized X-rays to measure the magnetic properties of an element.
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) can be performed at beamlines equipped with a photoelectron analyzer. Traditional XPS is typically limited to probing the top few nanometers of a material under vacuum. However, the high intensity of synchrotron light enables XPS measurements of surfaces at near-ambient pressures of gas. Ambient pressure XPS (AP-XPS) can be used to measure chemical phenomena under simulated catalytic or liquid conditions. Using high-energy photons yields high kinetic energy photoelectrons which have a much longer inelastic mean free path than those generated on a laboratory XPS instrument. The probing depth of synchrotron XPS can therefore be lengthened to several nanometers, allowing the study of buried interfaces. This method is referred to as high-energy X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (HAXPES). Furthermore, the tunable nature of the synchrotron X-ray photon energies presents a wide range of depth sensitivity in the order of 2-50 nm. This allows for probing of samples at greater depths and for non destructive depth-profiling experiments.
Material composition can be quantitatively analyzed using X-ray fluorescence (XRF). XRF detection is also used in several other techniques, such as XAS and XSW, in which it is necessary to measure the change in absorption of a particular element.
Other spectroscopy techniques include angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), soft X-ray emission spectroscopy, and nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy, which is related to Mössbauer spectroscopy.
Imaging
Synchrotron X-rays can be used for traditional X-ray imaging, phase-contrast X-ray imaging, and tomography. The Ångström-scale wavelength of X-rays enables imaging well below the diffraction limit of visible light, but practically the smallest resolution so far achieved is about 30 nm. Such nanoprobe sources are used for scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM). Imaging can be combined with spectroscopy such as X-ray fluorescence or X-ray absorption spectroscopy in order to map a sample's chemical composition or oxidation state with sub-micron resolution.
Other imaging techniques include coherent diffraction imaging.
Similar optics can be employed for photolithography for MEMS structures can use a synchrotron beam as part of the LIGA process.
Compact synchrotron light sources
Because of the usefulness of tuneable collimated coherent X-ray radiation, efforts have been made to make smaller more economical sources of the light produced by synchrotrons. The aim is to make such sources available within a research laboratory for cost and convenience reasons; at present, researchers have to travel to a facility to perform experiments. One method of making a compact light source is to use the energy shift from Compton scattering near-visible laser photons from electrons stored at relatively low energies of tens of megaelectronvolts (see for example the Compact Light Source (CLS)). However, a relatively low cross-section of collision can be obtained in this manner, and the repetition rate of the lasers is limited to a few hertz rather than the megahertz repetition rates naturally arising in normal storage ring emission. Another method is to use plasma acceleration to reduce the distance required to accelerate electrons from rest to the energies required for UV or X-ray emission within magnetic devices.
See also
List of synchrotron radiation facilities
List of light sources
References
External links
Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste - Elettra and FERMI lightsources
Imaging ancient insects with synchrotron light source -- BBC
Synchrotron light at IOP
Synchrotron radiation
Synchrotron-related techniques
Particle physics
Light
Light sources
Materials testing
Particle accelerators
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panoramic%20photography
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Panoramic photography
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Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography. The term has also been applied to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively wide aspect ratio, like the familiar letterbox format in wide-screen video.
While there is no formal division between "wide-angle" and "panoramic" photography, "wide-angle" normally refers to a type of lens, but using this lens type does not necessarily make an image a panorama. An image made with an ultra wide-angle fisheye lens covering the normal film frame of 1:1.33 is not automatically considered to be a panorama. An image showing a field of view approximating, or greater than, that of the human eye – about 160° by 75° – may be termed panoramic. This generally means it has an aspect ratio of 2:1 or larger, the image being at least twice as wide as it is high. The resulting images take the form of a wide strip. Some panoramic images have aspect ratios of 4:1 and sometimes 10:1, covering fields of view of up to 360 degrees. Both the aspect ratio and coverage of field are important factors in defining a true panoramic image.
Photo-finishers and manufacturers of Advanced Photo System (APS) cameras use the word "panoramic" to define any print format with a wide aspect ratio, not necessarily photos that encompass a large field of view.
History
The device of the panorama existed in painting, particularly in murals as early as 20 A.D. in those found in Pompeii, as a means of generating an immersive 'panoptic' experience of a vista, long before the advent of photography. In the century prior to the advent of photography, and from 1787, with the work of Robert Barker, it reached a pinnacle of development in which whole buildings were constructed to house 360° panoramas, and even incorporated lighting effects and moving elements. Indeed, the careers of one of the inventors of photography, Daguerre, began in the production of popular panoramas and dioramas.
The idea and longing to create a detailed cityscape without a paintbrush, inspired Friedrich von Marten. von Marten created panoramic daguerreotype by using a special panoramic camera that he created himself. The camera could capture a broad view on a single daguerreotype plate. In complete and vivid detail, a cityscape is laid out before the viewer.
The development of panoramic cameras was a logical extension of the nineteenth-century fad for the panorama. One of the first recorded patents for a panoramic camera was submitted by Joseph Puchberger in Austria in 1843 for a hand-cranked, 150° field of view, 8-inch focal length camera that exposed a relatively large Daguerreotype, up to long. A more successful and technically superior panoramic camera was assembled the next year by Friedrich von Martens in Germany in 1844. His camera, the Megaskop, used curved plates and added the crucial feature of set gears, offering a relatively steady panning speed. As a result, the camera properly exposed the photographic plate, avoiding unsteady speeds that can create an unevenness in exposure, called banding. Martens was employed by Lerebours, a photographer/publisher. It is also possible that Martens camera was perfected before Puchberger patented his camera. Because of the high cost of materials and the technical difficulty of properly exposing the plates, Daguerreotype panoramas, especially those pieced together from several plates (see below) are rare.
After the advent of wet-plate collodion process, photographers would take anywhere from two to a dozen of the ensuing albumen prints and piece them together to form a panoramic image (see: Segmented). This photographic process was technically easier and far less expensive than Daguerreotypes. While William Stanley Jevons' wet-collodion Panorama of Port Jackson, New South Wales, from a high rock above Shell Cove, North Shore survived undiscovered until 1953 in his scrap-book of 1857, some of the most famous early panoramas were assembled this way by George N. Barnard, a photographer for the Union Army in the American Civil War in the 1860s. His work provided vast overviews of fortifications and terrain, much valued by engineers, generals, and artists alike. (see Photography and photographers of the American Civil War) In 1875, through remarkable effort, Bernard Otto Holtermann and Charles Bayliss coated twenty-three wet-plates measuring 56 by 46 centimetres to record a sweeping view of Sydney Harbour.
Following the invention of flexible film in 1888, panoramic photography was revolutionised. Dozens of cameras were marketed, many with brand names indicative of their era; such as the Pantascopic, (1862) Cylindrograph survey camera (1884), Kodak Panoram (1899), Wonder Panoramic (1890), and Cyclo-Pan (1970). More portable and simple to operate, and with the advantage of holding several panoramic views on the one roll, these cameras were enthusiastically deployed around the turn of the century by such photographers as the American adventurer Melvin Vaniman, who popularised the medium in Australia where it was taken up by both Pictorialist and postcard photographers, such as Robert Vere Scott,. Richard T. Maurice (1859-1909), H.H. Tilbrook (1884-1937), and Harry Phillips (1873-1944).
Panoramic cameras and methods
Stereo Cyclographe
A camera with combined two-fixed focus panoramic camera in one mahogany-wooded box. The lenses were eight centimeters apart from each other with an indicator in between the lens to help the photographer set the camera level. A clock motor transported the nine-centimeter-wide film along with turning the shaft that rotated the camera. The camera could make a 9 × 80 cm pair that required a special viewer. These images were mostly used for mapping purposes.
Wonder Panoramic Camera
Made in 1890 in Berlin, Germany, by Rudolf Stirn, the Wonder Panoramic Camera needed the photographer for its motive power. A string, inside of the camera, hanging through a hole in the tripod screw, wound around a pulley inside the wooden box camera. To take a panoramic photo, the photographer swiveled the metal cap away from the lens to start the exposure. The rotation could be set for a full 360-degree view, producing an eighteen-inch-long negative.
Periphote
Built by Lumiere Freres of Paris in 1901. The Periphote had a spring-wound clock motor that rotated, and the inside barrier held the roll of film and its take-up spool. Attached to the body was a 55mm Jarret lens and a prism that directed the light through a half-millimeter-wide aperture at the film.
Short rotation
Short rotation, rotating lens and swing lens cameras have a lens that rotates around the camera lens's rear nodal point and use a curved film plane. As the photograph is taken, the lens pivots around its rear nodal point while a slit exposes a vertical strip of film that is aligned with the axis of the lens. The exposure usually takes a fraction of a second. Typically, these cameras capture a field of view between 110° and 140° and an aspect ratio of 2:1 to 4:1. The images produced occupy between 1.5 and 3 times as much space on the negative as the standard 24 mm x 36 mm 35 mm frame.
Cameras of this type include the Widelux, Noblex, and the Horizon. These have a negative size of approximately 24x58 mm. The Russian "Spaceview FT-2", originally an artillery spotting camera, produced wider negatives, 12 exposures on a 36-exposure 35 mm film.
Short rotation cameras usually offer few shutter speeds and have poor focusing ability. Most models have a fixed focus lens, set to the hyperfocal distance of the maximum aperture of the lens, often at around . Photographers wishing to photograph closer subjects must use a small aperture to bring the foreground into focus, limiting the camera's use in low-light situations.
Rotating lens cameras produce distortion of straight lines. This looks unusual because the image, which was captured from a sweeping, curved perspective, is being viewed flat. To view the image correctly, the viewer would have to produce a sufficiently large print and curve it identically to the curve of the film plane. This distortion can be reduced by using a swing-lens camera with a standard focal length lens. The FT-2 has a 50 mm while most other 35 mm swing lens cameras use a wide-angle lens, often 28 mm].
Similar distortion is seen in panoramas shot with digital cameras using in-camera stitching.
Full rotation
Rotating panoramic cameras, also called slit scan or scanning cameras are capable of 360° or greater degree of rotation. A clockwork or motorized mechanism rotates the camera continuously and pulls the film through the camera, so the motion of the film matches that of the image movement across the image plane. Exposure is made through a narrow slit. The central part of the image field produces a very sharp picture that is consistent across the frame.
Digital rotating line cameras image a 360° panorama line by line. Digital cameras in this style are the Panoscan and Eyescan. Analogue cameras include the Cirkut (1905), Leme (1962), Hulcherama (1979), Globuscope (1981), Seitz Roundshot (1988) and Lomography Spinner 360° (2010).
Fixed lens
Fixed lens cameras, also called flatback, wide view or wide field, have fixed lenses and a flat image plane. These are the most common form of panoramic camera and range from inexpensive APS cameras to sophisticated 6x17 cm and 6x24 cm medium format cameras. Panoramic cameras using sheet film are available in formats up to 10 x 24 inches. APS or 35 mm cameras produce cropped images in a panoramic aspect ratio using a small area of film. Specialized 35 mm or medium format fixed-lens panoramic cameras use wide field lenses to cover an extended length as well as the full height of the film to produce images with a greater image width than normal.
Pinhole cameras of a variety of constructions can be used to make panoramic images. A popular design is the 'oatmeal box', a vertical cylindrical container in which the pinhole is made in one side and the film or photographic paper is wrapped around the inside wall opposite, and extending almost right to the edge of, the pinhole. This generates an egg-shaped image with more than 180° view.
Because they expose the film in a single exposure, fixed lens cameras can be used with electronic flash, which would not work consistently with rotational panoramic cameras.
With a flat image plane, 90° is the widest field of view that can be captured in focus and without significant wide-angle distortion or vignetting. Lenses with an imaging angle approaching 120 degrees require a center filter to correct vignetting at the edges of the image. Lenses that capture angles of up to 180°, commonly known as fisheye lenses exhibit extreme geometrical distortion but typically display less brightness falloff than rectilinear lenses.
Examples of this type of camera are: Taiyokoki Viscawide-16 ST-D (16 mm film), Siciliano Camera Works Pannaroma (35mm, 1987), Hasselblad X-Pan (35 mm, 1998), Linhof 612PC, Horseman SW612, Linhof Technorama 617, Tomiyama Art Panorama 617 and 624, and Fuji G617 and GX617 (Medium format (film)).
The panomorph lens provides a full hemispheric field of view with no blind spot, unlike catadioptric lenses.
Digital photography
Digital stitching of segmented panoramas
With digital photography, the most common method for producing panoramas is to take a series of pictures and stitch them together. There are two main types: the cylindrical panorama used primarily in stills photography and the spherical panorama used for virtual-reality images.
Segmented panoramas, also called stitched panoramas, are made by joining multiple photographs with slightly overlapping fields of view to create a panoramic image. Stitching software is used to combine multiple images. Ideally, in order to correctly stitch images together without parallax error, the camera must be rotated about the center of its lens entrance pupil. Stitching software can correct some parallax errors and different programs seem to vary in their ability to correct parallax errors. In general specific panorama software seems better at this than some of the built in stitching in general photomanipulation software.
In-camera stitching of panoramas
Some digital cameras especially smartphone cameras can do the stitching internally, sometimes in real time, either as a standard feature or by installing a smartphone app.
Catadioptric cameras
Lens- and mirror-based (catadioptric) cameras consist of lenses and curved mirrors that reflect a 360-degree field of view into the lens' optics. The mirror shape and lens used are specifically chosen and arranged so that the camera maintains a single viewpoint. The single viewpoint means the complete panorama is effectively imaged or viewed from a single point in space. One can simply warp the acquired image into a cylindrical or spherical panorama. Even perspective views of smaller fields of view can be accurately computed.
The biggest advantage of catadioptric systems (panoramic mirror lenses) is that because one uses mirrors to bend the light rays instead of lenses (like fish eye), the image has almost no chromatic aberrations or distortions. The image, a reflection of the surface on the mirror, is in the form of a doughnut to which software is applied in order to create a flat panoramic picture. Such software is normally supplied by the company who produces the system. Because the complete panorama is imaged at once, dynamic scenes can be captured without problems. Panoramic video can be captured and has found applications in robotics and journalism. The mirror lens system uses only a partial section of the digital camera's sensor and therefore some pixels are not used. Recommendations are always to use a camera with a high pixel count in order to maximize the resolution of the final image.
There are even inexpensive add-on catadioptric lenses for smartphones, such as the GoPano micro and Kogeto Dot.
Artistic uses
Strip panoramas
Ed Ruscha's Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966) was made by photographing building facades contiguously as seen from the back of a pickup truck traveling a 4 km length of the street. In the ironically 'deadpan' spirit of his work at the time, he published the work in strip form in a foldout book, intended to be viewed from one end or the other to see either side of 'The Strip' in correct orientation.
Preceding Ruscha's work, in 1954, Yoshikazu Suzuki produced an accordion-fold panorama of every building on Ginza Street, Tokyo in the Japanese architecture book Ginza, Kawaii, Ginza Haccho.
Joiners
Joiners (for which the terms panography and panograph have been used) is a photographic technique in which one picture is assembled from several overlapping photographs. This can be done manually with prints or by using digital image editing software and may resemble a wide-angle or panoramic view of a scene, similar in effect to segmented panoramic photography or image stitching. A joiner is distinct because the overlapping edges between adjacent pictures are not removed; the edge becomes part of the picture. 'Joiners' or 'panography' is thus a type of photomontage and a sub-set of collage.
Artist David Hockney is an early and important contributor to this technique. Through his fascination with human vision, his efforts to render a subjective view in his artworks resulted in the manual montaging of 10x15cm high-street-processed prints of (often several entire) 35mm films as a solution. He called the resulting cut-and-paste montages "joiners", and one of his most famous is "Pearblossom Highway", held by the Getty Museum. His group was called the "Hockney joiners", and he still paints and photographs joiners today.
Jan Dibbets' Dutch Mountain series (c.1971) relies on stitching of panoramic sequences to make a mountain of the Netherlands seaside.
Revivalists
In the 1970s and 1980s, a school of art photographers took up panoramic photography, inventing new cameras and using found and updated antique cameras to revive the format. The new panoramists included Kenneth Snelson, David Avison, Art Sinsabaugh, and Jim Alinder.
Digital stitching
Andreas Gursky frequently employs digital stitching in his large-format panoramic imagery.
See also
Anamorphic format
Cinerama
Hemispherical photography
Panorama portraits
Panoramic tripod head
Photo finish
Photo stitching software
Route panorama, a type of "parallel motion" or "linear" or "multi-viewpoint" panorama
Slit-scan photography
VR photography
References
Further reading
External links
A timeline of panoramic cameras 1843–1994
Stanford University CS 178 interactive Flash demo explaining the construction of cylindrical panoramas.
How to build a panoramic camera with intricate technical details and optical specifications for constructing a swing-lens panoramic camera.
A home-made panoramic head bracket for taking panoramic photographs.
IVRPA - The International VR Photography Association
Photography by genre
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall%20of%20Sound
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Wall of Sound
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The Wall of Sound (also called the Spector Sound) is a music production formula developed by American record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios, in the 1960s, with assistance from engineer Larry Levine and the conglomerate of session musicians later known as "the Wrecking Crew". The intention was to exploit the possibilities of studio recording to create an unusually dense orchestral aesthetic that came across well through radios and jukeboxes of the era. Spector explained in 1964: "I was looking for a sound, a sound so strong that if the material was not the greatest, the sound would carry the record. It was a case of augmenting, augmenting. It all fit together like a jigsaw."
A popular misconception holds that the Wall of Sound was created simply through a maximum of noise and distortion, but the method was actually more nuanced. To attain the Wall of Sound, Spector's arrangements called for large ensembles (including some instruments not generally used for ensemble playing, such as electric and acoustic guitars), with multiple instruments doubling or tripling many of the parts to create a fuller, richer tone. For example, Spector often duplicated a part played by an acoustic piano with an electric piano and a harpsichord. Mixed well enough, the three instruments would then be indistinguishable to the listener.
Among other features of the sound, Spector incorporated an array of orchestral instruments (strings, woodwind, brass and percussion) not previously associated with youth-oriented pop music. Reverb from an echo chamber was also highlighted for additional texture. He characterized his methods as "a Wagnerian approach to rock & roll: little symphonies for the kids". The combination of large ensembles with reverberation effects also increased the average audio power in a way that resembles compression. By 1979, the use of compression had become common on the radio, marking the trend that led to the loudness war in the 1980s.
The intricacies of the technique were unprecedented in the field of sound production for popular music. According to Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson, who used the formula extensively: "In the '40s and '50s, arrangements were considered 'OK here, listen to that French horn' or 'listen to this string section now.' It was all a definite sound. There weren't combinations of sound and, with the advent of Phil Spector, we find sound combinations, which—scientifically speaking—is a brilliant aspect of sound production."
Origins
During the late 1950s, Spector worked with Brill Building songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller during a period when they sought a fuller sound by the use of excessive instrumentation, using up to five electric guitars and four percussionists. Later this evolved into Spector's Wall of Sound, which Leiber and Stoller considered to be very distinct from what they were doing, stating: "Phil was the first one to use multiple drum kits, three pianos and so on. We went for much more clarity in terms of instrumental colors, and he deliberately blended everything into a kind of mulch. He definitely had a different point of view."
Spector's first production was the self-penned 1958 song "Don't You Worry My Little Pet", performed with his group the Teddy Bears. The recording was achieved by taking a demo tape of the song and playing it back over the studio's speaker system to overdub another performance over it. The end product was a cacophony, with stacked harmony vocals that could not be heard clearly. Spector spent the next several years further developing this unorthodox method of recording.
In the 1960s, Spector usually worked at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles because of its exceptional echo chambers. He also typically worked with such audio engineers as Larry Levine and the conglomerate of session musicians who later became known as The Wrecking Crew.
Etymology
Andrew Loog Oldham coined the phrase "Phil Spector's Wall of Sound" within advertisements for the Righteous Brothers 1964 single "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'". An earlier usage of the phrase "wall of sound" was made in reference to the instrumentation of jazz artist Stan Kenton, who utilized numerous brass instruments to create a vibrating sound that jolted human ears.
Process
Layering
The process was almost the same for most of Spector's recordings, with Spector starting by rehearsing the assembled musicians for several hours before recording. The backing track was performed live and recorded monaurally; a bass drum overdub on "Da Doo Ron Ron" was the exception to the rule.
Songwriter Jeff Barry, who worked extensively with Spector, described the Wall of Sound as "by and large ... a formula arrangement" with "four or five guitars ... two basses in fifths, with the same type of line ... strings ... six or seven horns adding the little punches ... [and] percussion instruments—the little bells, the shakers, the tambourines".
Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans' version of "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" formed the basis of Spector and Levine's future mixing practices, almost never straying from the formula it established. For the recording of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", engineer Larry Levine described the process thus: they started by recording four acoustic guitars, playing eight bars over and over again, changing the figure if necessary until Spector thought it ready. They then added the pianos, of which there were three, and if they didn't work together, Spector started again with the guitars. This is followed by three basses, the horns (two trumpets, two trombones, and three saxophones), then finally the drums. The vocals were then added with Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield singing into separate microphones and backing vocals supplied by the Blossoms and other singers.
Daniel Lanois recounted a situation during the recording of the track "Goodbye" from Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball: "We put a huge amount of compression on the piano and the mandoguitar, and it turned into this fantastic, chimey harmonic instrument. We almost got the old Spector '60s sound, not by layering, but by really compressing what was already there between the melodic events happening between these two instruments." Nonetheless, layering identical instrumental parts remained an integral component of many of Spector's productions, as session musician Barney Kessel recalled:
All early Wall of Sound recordings were made with a three-track Ampex 350 tape recorder. Levine explained that during mixing, "I [would] record the same thing on two of the [Ampex machine's] three tracks just to reinforce the sound, and then I would erase one of those and replace it with the voice. The console had a very limited equalizer for each input ... That was basically it in terms of effects, aside from the two echo chambers that were also there, of course, directly behind the control room."
Echo
Microphones in the recording studio captured the musicians' performance, which was then transmitted to an echo chamber—a basement room fitted with speakers and microphones. The signal from the studio was played through the speakers and reverberated throughout the room before being picked up by the microphones. The echo-laden sound was then channeled back to the control room, where it was recorded on tape. The natural reverberation and echo from the hard walls of the echo chamber gave Spector's productions their distinctive quality and resulted in a rich, complex sound that, when played on AM radio, had a texture rarely heard in musical recordings. Jeff Barry said: "Phil used his own formula for echo, and some overtone arrangements with the strings."
Spill
During the mixing for "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah", Spector turned off the track designated for electric guitar (played on this occasion by Billy Strange). However, the sound of the guitar could still be heard spilling onto other microphones in the room, creating a ghostly ambiance that obscured the instrument. In reference to this nuance of the song's recording, music professor Albin Zak has written:
Levine disliked Spector's penchant for mic bleeding, accordingly: "I never wanted all the bleed between instruments – I had it, but I never wanted it – and since I had to live with it, that meant manipulating other things to lessen the effect; bringing the guitars up just a hair and the drums down just a hair so that it didn't sound like it was bleeding." In order to offset the mixing problems percussion leakage caused, he applied a minimal number of microphones to the drum kits, using Neumann U67s overhead and RCA 77s on the kick to establish a feeling of presence.
Mono
According to Zak: "Aside from the issues of retail and radio exposure, mono recordings represented an aesthetic frame for musicians and producers, who had grown up with them." Despite the trend toward multi-channel recording, Spector was vehemently opposed to stereo releases, claiming that it took control of the record's sound away from the producer in favor of the listener, resulting in an infringement of the Wall of Sound's carefully balanced combination of sonic textures as they were meant to be heard. Brian Wilson agreed, stating: "I look at sound like a painting, you have a balance and the balance is conceived in your mind. You finish the sound, dub it down, and you’ve stamped out a picture of your balance with the mono dubdown. But in stereo, you leave that dubdown to the listener—to his speaker placement and speaker balance. It just doesn't seem complete to me."
Misconceptions
As a maximum of noise
It has been inaccurately suggested in critical shorthand that Spector's "wall of sound" filled every second with a maximum of noise. Levine recalled how "other engineers" mistakenly thought that the process was "turning up all the faders to get full saturation, but all that achieved was distortion." Biographer David Hinckley wrote that the Wall of Sound was flexible, more complex, and more subtle, elaborating:
The Wall of Sound has been contrasted with "the standard pop mix of foregrounded solo vocal and balanced, blended backing" as well as the airy mixes typical of reggae and funk. Musicologist Richard Middleton wrote: "This can be contrasted with the open spaces and more equal lines of typical funk and reggae textures [for example], which seem to invite [listeners] to insert [themselves] in those spaces and actively participate." Supporting this, Jeff Barry said, "[Spector] buried the lead and he cannot stop himself from doing that ... if you listen to his records in sequence, the lead goes further and further in and to me what he is saying is, 'It is not the song... just listen to those strings. I want more musicians, it's me.
Closer reflection reveals that the Wall of Sound was compatible with, even supportive of, vocal protagonism. Such virtuosity was ultimately serving of Spector's own agenda—The Righteous Brothers' vocal prowess provided him a "secure and prosperous headrest", such as in Bobby Hatfield's rendering of "Unchained Melody".
As a generic term
According to author Matthew Bannister, Spector's Wall of Sound is distinct from what's typically characterized as a "wall of sound" in rock music. Bannister writes that, during the 1980s, "Jangle and drone plus reverberation create[d] a contemporary equivalent of Spector's 'Wall of Sound' – a massive, ringing, cavernous noise and a device used by many indie groups: Flying Nun, from Sneaky Feelings' Send You to Straitjacket Fits and the JPS Experience". He cites 1960s psychedelic and garage rock such as the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" (1966) as a primary musical influence on the movement.
Legacy and popularity
Phil Spector
The Wall of Sound forms the foundation of Phil Spector's recordings. Certain records are considered to have epitomized its use. Spector himself is quoted as believing his production of Ike and Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High" to be the summit of his Wall of Sound productions, and this sentiment has been echoed by George Harrison, who called it "a perfect record from start to finish".
Brian Wilson
Outside of Spector's own songs, the most recognizable example of the "Wall of Sound" is heard on many classic hits recorded by The Beach Boys (e.g., "God Only Knows", "Wouldn't It Be Nice"—and especially, the psychedelic "pocket symphony" of "Good Vibrations"), for which Brian Wilson used a similar recording technique, especially during the Pet Sounds and Smile eras of the band. Wilson considers Pet Sounds to be a concept album centered around interpretations of Phil Spector's recording methods. Author Domenic Priore observed, "The Ronettes had sung a dynamic version of The Students' 1961 hit 'I'm So Young', and Wilson went right for it, but took the Wall of Sound in a different direction. Where Phil would go for total effect by bringing the music to the edge of cacophony – and therefore rocking to the tenth power – Brian seemed to prefer audio clarity. His production method was to spread out the sound and arrangement, giving the music a more lush, comfortable feel."
According to Larry Levine, "Brian was one of the few people in the music business Phil respected. There was a mutual respect. Brian might say that he learned how to produce from watching Phil, but the truth is, he was already producing records before he observed Phil. He just wasn't getting credit for it, something that in the early days, I remember really used to make Phil angry. Phil would tell anybody who listened that Brian was one of the great producers."
Others
After Sonny Bono was fired from Philles Records, he signed up with Atlantic Records and recruited some of Spector's colleagues to create "I Got You Babe" (which went to No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100) and "Baby Don't Go" (No. 8), both of which featured elements of the Wall of Sound, among other songs. Similarly, when the Righteous Brothers ended their relationship with Spector and signed with Verve/MGM Records in 1966, they released "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration", which Medley produced using this approach and also reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and stayed at the top for three weeks.
One of the earliest persons outside of Spector's talent pool to adopt the Wall of Sound approach was British producer Johnny Franz, specifically his work with Dusty Springfield and the Walker Brothers, with songs such as "I Only Want to Be with You" and "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" for the former and "Make It Easy On Yourself" and "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)" for the latter (both of which were No. 1 hits in the United Kingdom).
Another was the productions of Shadow Morton, such as his work with the Shangri-Las, one of which, "Leader of the Pack", went to No. 1 in the United States. According to Billy Joel (who played piano in another Shangri-Las song, "Remember (Walking in the Sand)"), Morton aspired to become the Phil Spector of the East Coast.
Another prominent example that reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 was Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge over Troubled Water", which utilized the Wall of Sound with great effect towards the end, with the help of the Wrecking Crew. The production was modeled on the Righteous Brothers' version of "Old Man River", and Art Garfunkel has explicitly compared it to the Spector-produced "Let It Be". Spector's work with the Righteous Brothers also influenced the R&B band Checkmates, Ltd., with songs such as "I Can Hear the Rain", "Please Don't Take My World Away", and "Walk in the Sunlight". It was because of such experiments that their manager sought to secure Spector's involvement for their second album, Love Is All We Have to Give.
In 1973, British band Wizzard revived the Wall of Sound in three of their hits "See My Baby Jive", "Angel Fingers" and "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday". "See My Baby Jive" later influenced ABBA's song "Waterloo".
ABBA also utilized the technique for songs starting with "People Need Love" and fully realized with songs such as "Ring Ring", "Waterloo", and "Dancing Queen"; prior to recording "Ring Ring", engineer Michael B. Tretow had read Richard Williams' book Out of His Head: The Sound of Phil Spector, which inspired him to layer multiple instrumental overdubs on the band's recordings to simulate an orchestra, becoming an integral part of ABBA's sound. Bruce Springsteen also emulated the Wall of Sound in his album Born to Run, starting with the titular song, backed by the E Street Band. The E Street Band would become famous practitioners of this method, with songs such as Ronnie Spector's cover of Billy Joel's "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" (itself conceived as a tribute to the Ronettes).
Jim Steinman and Todd Rundgren, composer and producer of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, respectively, utilized the Wall of Sound for the album. Steinman composed the songs based on Spector's productions as well as Wagner and Springsteen (also including the E Street Band's Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg on piano and drums, respectively), with the title track also being influenced by songs such as "Leader of the Pack". As with Brian Wilson, Steinman had aimed to create "anthems to the kind of feeling you get listening to 'Be My Baby for the album. Steinman would later similarly utilize such instrumentation in his own productions for other songs, such as Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (produced specifically in Spector's model), to the point that his discography ranging from Air Supply ("Making Love Out of Nothing at All") to Celine Dion ("It's All Coming Back to Me Now") has been described as an "alternate-universe Wall of Sound". When asked about his involvement with Dion for songs such as "River Deep – Mountain High" in the album Falling Into You, Spector denounced Steinman and other producers as "amateurs, students, and bad clones of yours truly", to which Steinman responded, "I’m thrilled to be insulted by Phil Spector. He’s my God, my idol. To be insulted by Phil Spector is a big honor. If he spits on me I consider myself purified."
The Wall of Sound was also utilized by The Jesus and Mary Chain ("Just Like Honey"), Mark Wirtz ("Excerpt from A Teenage Opera"), The Kursaal Flyers ("Little Does She Know"), The Alan Parsons Project ("Don't Answer Me"), Spiritualized (Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, Let It Come Down) and Eiichi Ohtaki (Niagara Calendar).
Wagnerian rock derives its characterization from a merge between Spector's Wall of Sound and the operas of Richard Wagner.
Citations
General bibliography
Music production
Musical techniques
Musical terminology
Phil Spector
Recording
Sound production
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music%20of%20Iceland
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Music of Iceland
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The music of Iceland includes vibrant folk and pop traditions, as well as an active classical and contemporary music scene. Well-known artists from Iceland include medieval music group Voces Thules, alternative rock band The Sugarcubes, singers Björk, Hafdís Huld and Emiliana Torrini, post-rock band Sigur Rós, post-metal band Sólstafir, indie folk/indie pop band Of Monsters and Men, blues/rock band Kaleo, metal band Skálmöld and techno-industrial band Hatari. Iceland's traditional music is related to Nordic music forms. Although Iceland has a very small population, it is home to many famous and praised bands and musicians.
Folk music
Icelandic music has a very long tradition, with some songs still sung today dating from 14th century. Folk songs are often about love, sailors, masculinity, hard winters, as well as elves, trolls and other mythological creatures, and tend to be quite secular and often humorous. Bjarni Þorsteinsson collected Icelandic folk music between 1906 and 1909, and many of the songs he encountered were accompanied by traditional instruments like the langspil and fiðla, which are among the few musical instruments traditionally played in Iceland. Chain dances, known as víkivaki, have been performed in Iceland since the 11th century at a variety of occasions, such as in churches and during the Christmas season. An example is "Ólafur Liljurós", an Icelandic víkivaki folk song dating to the 14th century, about a man who, while on his way to meet his mother, is seduced, kissed, and stabbed by an elf woman while riding his horse, then eventually dies.
Iceland's isolation meant that, until the 18th century, foreign influences were almost completely absent, which resulted in the maintenance of a particular rhythm, called hákveða, lost in other Nordic countries and considered one of the main characteristics of Icelandic folk music. Hákveða refers to a special emphasis placed on some of the words of a song, often the last word of each sentence in each verse. In the following example, taken from the song "Ólafur Liljurós", hákveða is shown in italics:
Ólafur reið með björgunum fram, villir Hann, stillir "Hann,
hitti hann fyrir sér álfarann, þar rauði loginn brann,
Blíðan lagði byrinn undan björgunum, blíðan lagði byrinn undan björgunum fram.
Rímur are epic tales sung as alliterative, rhyming ballads, usually a cappella. Rímur can be traced back to the Viking Age Eddic poetry of the skalds and employs complex metaphors and cryptic rhymes and forms. Some of the most famous rímur were written between the 18th and early 20th centuries, by poets like Hannes Bjarnason (1776–1838), Jón Sigurðsson (1853–1922) and Sigurður Breiðfjörð (1798–1846).
In the early 18th century, European dances like polka, waltz, reel and schottische begin to arrive via Denmark. These foreign dances are today known as gömlu dansarnir or literally the "old dances". After their arrival, native dance and song traditions fell into serious decline. For a long time, rímur were officially banned by the church. Paradoxically, many Icelandic priests were keen in making rímur. Rímur remained popular recreation until the early 20th century. In recent years, efforts have been made to revive native Icelandic forms. For example, a modern revitalization of the Rímur tradition began in 1929 with the formation of the organization Iðunn.
Protestantism has also left its mark on the music of Iceland. Hallgrímur Pétursson wrote numerous Protestant hymns in the 17th century. In the 19th century, Magnús Stephensen brought pipe organs to Iceland, soon to be followed by harmonium pumped reed-organs. "Heyr himna smiður" ("Hark, Creator of the Heaven") is probably the oldest psalm which is still sung today; it was composed by Kolbeinn Tumason in 1208.
Popular music
The music of Iceland includes vibrant folk and pop traditions and is expanding in its variety of sound styles and genres. Well-known artists from Iceland include alternative rock band The Sugarcubes, singers Björk, Hafdís Huld and Emilíana Torrini, and post-rock band Sigur Rós, as well as electronic music groups like GusGus. Iceland's traditional music is related to Nordic music forms.
Icelandic popular music today includes many bands and artists, ranging from indie and pop-rock to electronic music. It is also increasingly becoming recognized for its vibrant and growing metal and hardcore scene.
One widely known Icelandic artist is eclectic singer and composer Björk, who has received 15 Grammy nominations and sold over 15 million albums worldwide, including two platinum albums and one gold album in the United States. Another is the post-rock formation Sigur Rós and its lead singer Jónsi. Widely known outside Iceland, they were immortalized in an episode of The Simpsons and more recently in an episode of Game of Thrones.
Popular artists
Indie and pop-rock
According to the Icelandic label Record Records, the indie pop-folk group Of Monsters and Men is Iceland's biggest act since Björk and Sigur Rós. Their debut album My Head Is an Animal, as well as their first single “Little Talks”, reached high positions in single and album charts worldwide. In 2013 they won the European Border Breakers Awards. Singer-songwriter Ásgeir Trausti did likewise in 2014, and ever since has been successfully touring Europe and the U.S. with his melodic-folk-pop songs, which he sings both in his native language Icelandic and in English. Female singer-songwriter Emiliana Torrini is an established Icelandic artist. Her song "Jungle Drum", from her 2008 album Me and Armini, is well known abroad and reached number one in the German, Austrian, Belgium and Icelandic single charts. Her latest album Tookah, released in 2013, reached the Top 50 album charts in several countries.
Other artists that are attracting attention outside Iceland include the electro-pop group FM Belfast, indie pop / rock / folk band Kaleo as well as the singers and composers Sóley and Sin Fang, who are both known as founding members of the band Seabear.
Alternative and metal
The alternative and metal scene is vibrant with Icelandic bands playing large festivals in Europe and the United States. The metal-band Sólstafir is widely known outside Iceland. Already back in 1999 they had a contract for their debut album with a German record label. The Viking-Metal Band Skálmöld played two sold out shows with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in the capital's concert hall Harpa in December 2013. Agent Fresco combine metal, rock and alternative elements with the unique voice of singer Arnór Dan Arnarson and have also gained international attention. The instrumental post-rock and alternative-rock band For a Minor Reflection is widely known since supported Sigur Rós on tour back in 2009. Their sound is often compared to Explosions in the Sky or the Scottish post-rock band Mogwai. Dead Skeletons are not only known for their unique psychedelic-rock sound but also for their artwork and an art gallery in Reykjavik run by front man and singer Jón Sæmundur Auðarson.
The Vintage Caravan, founded by two of the members in 2006 when they were only 12 years old, have played festivals in Europe, including the Wacken Open Air and toured with bigger bands like Europe and Opeth.
Iceland also has a thriving extreme metal scene which is gaining recognition abroad. The black metal band Svartidauði are widely considered a central figure in the development of the Icelandic black metal scene. Many of the scene's most significant albums were recorded and produced at Studio Emissary, a recording studio set up by Irish musician Stephen Lockhart, and the cassette label Vánagandr has also had a significant role in the development of the country's black metal scene. In 2016, the music festival Oration MMXVI debuted as Iceland's first black metal festival, and subsequently returned for two final instalments in 2017 and 2018. In 2016, black metal band Misþyrming were selected as one of Roadburn Fesitval's artists in residence.
Electronic music
The techno house group GusGus is one of Iceland's most successful exports in the field of electronic music. So far they released nine studio albums. The latest Lies Are More Flexible came out in February 2018.
Other artists include DJ duo Gluteus Maximus, Hermigervill, Bloodgroup and Sísý Ey.
The international franchise Sónar held their first festival in Reykjavik in 2013 with a long roster of international and local electronic acts.
Experimental
Ben Frost, born in Melbourne, living in Reykjavik, is bringing together electronic soundscapes with classical elements and noisy tunes. His latest album, Aurora, was released in June 2014.
Classical elements also characterize the symphonic music of Icelandic born composer and singer Ólafur Arnalds. Other widely known experimental bands are Múm and the high school originated Hjaltalín.
The trio Samaris have gained attention, especially in Europe, and have played festivals all over Europe. Their self-released EP, Stofnar falla, received positive reviews and was followed by their self-titled debut album, released in July 2013.
Mengi in Reijkjavik is a centre for avant garde music, experimental music and contemporary music. The organisation organizes performances, exhibitions, conferences and runs a recording studio and a record label.
Classical music
Composition
Classical music came to Iceland comparatively late, with the first Iceland composers working in the western, classical tradition emerging in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Among them was Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson, who is considered to have been the first Icelandic professional composer. Among his contributions to Icelandic music is the national anthem, Lofsöngur. Belonging to this first generation of Icelandic composers were Sigvaldi Kaldalóns and Sigfús Einarsson, and Emil Thoroddsen, best known for their songs with piano accompaniment. The most significant Icelandic composer in the first half of the 20th century was Jón Leifs.
Today, Iceland has a vibrant classical music scene, with numerous composers of contemporary music achieving international success. These include Haukur Tómasson, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Daníel Bjarnason, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Hugi Gudmundsson.
Performance
The first proper orchestral concert in Iceland was held in 1921, in conjunction with the royal visit of Christian X of Denmark, the reigning monarch of Iceland. The ensemble created for the occasion was given the name Hljómsveit Reykjavíkur (The Reykjavík Orchestra), and performed sporadically in the years that followed under the direction of Sigfús Einarsson and Páll Ísólfsson. Following the founding of the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service in 1930, and the festivities at the 1000th anniversary of the Alþingi, and through the pioneering work of musicians like Franz Mixa, Victor Urbancic and Róbert A. Ottóson, this ensemble was slowly transformed into the professional symphony orchestra known today as the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra resides in Harpa, Reykjavík's largest concert house, and holds weekly concerts in its Eldborg hall.
Additionally, a number of musical ensembles regularly perform in Reykjavík, playing music that ranges from Baroque to contemporary music. These include Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra, CAPUT ensemble and Nordic Affect. Several classic music festivals are held in Reykjavík and all around Iceland annually, including Dark Music Days and Reykjavík Midsummer Music.
Icelandic classical instrumentalists have achieved success internationally. Undoubtedly, the most famous Icelandic citizen within the world of classical music is the Russian pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, who settled in Iceland with his Icelandic wife Þórunn Jóhannsdóttir in 1968, following their defection from the Soviet Union. He was awarded Icelandic citizenship in 1972. Other notable, Icelandic classical instrumentalists with international careers include Sigurbjörn Bernharðsson, violinist and member of the Pacifica Quartet, Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir, violinist, Víkingur Ólafsson, pianist, and the cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir.
List of Icelandic music artists
Á Móti Sól
Árstíðir
Agent Fresco
AMFJ
Amiina
Anna Mjöll
Apparat Organ Quartet
Ásgeir Trausti
Bang Gang
Björk
Bony Man
Botnleðja
Bubbi Morthens
Daði Freyr
Daníel Ágúst
Dikta
DIMMA
Eberg
Egó
Emilíana Torrini
Eurobandið
For a Minor Reflection
FM Belfast
GDRN
Glowie
GusGus
HAM
Hafdís Huld
Hatari
Hildur Guðnadóttir
Hilmar Jensson
Hjálmar
Hjaltalín
Jagúar
Jakobínarína
Jófríður Ákadóttir
Jóhann Jóhannsson
JóiPé
Jónsi
Jónsi & Alex
Just Another Snake Cult
Kaleo
Katrín Lea
Kiasmos
Kukl
Laufey
Lay Low
Leaves
Leoncie
Low Roar
Magni Ásgeirsson (Rock Star Supernova)
Maus
Megas
Mammút
Mezzoforte
Mínus
Moses Hightower
Mugison
múm
Noise
Of Monsters and Men
Ókindarhjarta
Ólafur Arnalds
Ólafur Kram
Ólöf Arnalds
Páll Óskar
Parachutes
Pascal Pinon
Purrkur Pillnikk
Quarashi
Ragnheiður Gröndal
Rökkurró
Samaris
Sálin hans Jóns míns
Sigur Rós
Sign
Seabear
Sin Fang
Singapore Sling
Skálmöld
Skoffín
Snorri Helgason
Sóley
Sólstafir
Stafrænn Hákon
Steed Lord
Stjórnin
Supersport!
Svala Björgvinsdóttir
Svartidauði
The Sugarcubes
Tappi Tíkarrass
Teitur Magnússon
Todmobile
Trabant
Una Torfa
Utangarðsmenn
Valdimar
Valgeir Sigurðsson
Vök
Weapons
Yohanna
Þeyr
National anthem
The national anthem of Iceland is "Lofsöngur", written by Matthías Jochumsson, with music by Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson. The song, in the form of a hymn, was written in 1874, when Iceland celebrated the one thousandth anniversary of settlement on the island. It was first published under the title "A Hymn in Commemoration of Iceland's Thousand Years".
Music institutions
Iceland Music aims to aid in exporting Icelandic music abroad. It runs a website and newsletter with information about Icelandic music, with a social media presence where an audience can follow development in Icelandic music. ÚTÓN is the local wing of Iceland Music which educates musicians on matters of music promotion as well as administering funds and general consultation.
The Music Information Center (MIC) is a national agency for contemporary and older, mostly classical, music. It is also part of the International Music Information center.
Samtónn is an umbrella organization for Icelandic authors, performers and producers.
Mengi in Reijkjavik is a centre for avant garde music, experimental music and contemporary music. The organisation organizes performances, exhibitions, conferences and runs a recording studio and a record label.
Festivals
Iceland hosts a variety of music festivals. The biggest festival is Iceland Airwaves with over 9000 guests. It takes place in the central area of Iceland's capital city Reykjavík for five days at the beginning of November. There is also an up-and-coming festival, Secret Solstice, which was held for the first time in the summer of 2014, June 20–22. The festival took place at the Laugardalur recreational area, also known as Hot Spring Valley, which is located just 15 minutes from downtown Reykjavik. There are also a number of intimate and transformative festivals that happen year-round in the countryside, such as Saga Fest in Selfoss and LungA Art Festival in Seyðisfjörður.
Other festivals are:
Dark Music Days
Sónar Reykjavík
Reykjavik Folk Festival
Battle of the Bands - Músíktilraunir
AK Extreme
Tectonics
Reykjavík Blues Festival
Aldrei fór ég suður
Norðanpaunk
Gardabaer Jazz Festival
RAFLOST
Reykjavík Arts Festival
Reykjavík Music Mess
Reykjavík Midsummer Music
IS NORD
Við Djúpið - Summer Courses and Music Festival
JEA Jazz Festival
Blue North Music Festival
Kirkjubæjarklaustur Chamber Music Festival
Skálholt Summer Concerts
Folk music festival of Siglufjordur
Rauðasandur Festival
All Tomorrow's Parties
The Blue Church Concert Series
Eistnaflug
Extreme Chill Festival
Frum - Contemporary Music Festival
LungA
Saga Fest
Reykjavik Accordion Festival
Reykholt Music Festival
Bræðslan
Síldarævintýrið
Innipúkinn
Neistaflug
Þjóðhátíð í Eyjum
The Icelandic Chamber Music Festival
Pönk á Patró
Reykjavík Jazz Festival
Gæran
Tradition for tomorrow
Reykjavik Cultural Festival
Melodica Acoustic Festival Reykjavik
Night of lights
Októberfest á Íslandi
Rokkjötnar
Sláturtíð
Venues
Concert hall Harpa held its opening concert on May 4, 2011. Bigger concerts are held in sportshalls Laugardalshöll, Egilshöll and Kórinn. Theaters such as Gamla bíó, Bæjarbíó and Iðnó are used for concerts. Austurbær is an old movie theater.
Smaller concerts are held at smaller venues or pubs located mainly around capital area.
Record labels
Some of the labels mostly concentrate on one genre, whilst others are promoting many types of music. 12 Tónar and Smekkleysa run record stores in Reykjavik.
12 Tónar
Bedroom Community
Blánótt
Ching Ching Bling Bling
Dimma
Dirrindí
Geimsteinn
Hljóðaklettar
Kimi Records
Kóp Boys Entertainment (KBE)
Lady Boy Records
Lagaffe Tales
Mugiboogie
Möller Records
Record Records
Sena
SJS Music
Smekkleysa SM/Bad Taste SM
Synthadelia
Zonet Music
Producers and studios
Bang Studio
Greenhouse Studios
Hljodriti (Studio Syrland Hafnarfjordur)
Medialux HQ
Orgelsmiðjan
Studio Syrland
Sundlaugin Studio
Gryfjan
Notes
References
The Icelandic music scene after the economic collapse
The Real Icelandic Music Scene -- REDEFINE magazine
</ref>
External links
Icelandiclyrics.com
Iceland Music, the music export office of Iceland which includes a comprehensive database of Icelandic music and musicians (in English)
Kraumur Music Fund, supports Icelandic artists, Björk and Kjartan Sveinsson of Sigur Rós are board members (in English)
Musik.is: The Icelandic Music Page
Music From The Moon A scenic documentary movie about music in Iceland & Greenland
ShopIcelandic Music
Iceland Airwaves
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch%20Schultz
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Dutch Schultz
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Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer; August 6, 1901October 24, 1935) was an American mobster based in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Schultz made his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging and the numbers racket. Schultz's rackets were weakened by two tax evasion trials led by prosecutor Thomas Dewey, and also threatened by fellow mobster Lucky Luciano. Schultz asked the Commission for permission to kill Dewey, in an attempt to avert his conviction, which they refused. When Schultz disobeyed them and made an attempt to kill Dewey, the Commission ordered his murder in 1935. Schultz was shot at a restaurant in Newark and died the next day.
Early life
Arthur Simon Flegenheimer was born on August 6, 1901, to German Jewish immigrants Herman and Emma (Neu) Flegenheimer, who had married in Manhattan on November 10, 1900. He had a younger sister, Helen, born in 1904. Herman Flegenheimer apparently abandoned his family, and Emma is listed as divorced in the 1910 US Census. (In her 1932 petition for U.S. citizenship, however, she wrote that her husband had died in 1910–though it is unclear whether he died before or after the 1910 US Census.) The event traumatized young Flegenheimer, who spent the rest of his life denying that his father had abandoned his family. Flegenheimer dropped out of school in the eighth grade to help support himself and his mother. He worked as a feeder and pressman for the Clark Loose Leaf Company, Caxton Press, American Express, and Schultz Trucking in the Bronx between 1916 and 1919.
Criminal beginnings
When Flegenheimer began working at a neighborhood night club owned by a small-time mobster, he started robbing craps games before turning to burglary. Eventually he was caught breaking into an apartment and sent to the prison on Blackwell's Island (now called Roosevelt Island). Flegenheimer/Schultz's mugshot, aged 18, was published in the 2010 book New York City Gangland. He proved to be such an unmanageable prisoner that he was transferred to a work farm in Westhampton, Long Island. After he was recaptured following an escape, he had an extra two months added to his sentence.
Flegenheimer was released on parole on December 8, 1920, and went back to work at Schultz Trucking. With the enactment of the Volstead Act and the start of Prohibition in the United States, the shipping company began smuggling liquor and beer into New York City from Canada. This led Flegenheimer to start associating with known criminals. It was also during this time that Flegenheimer became better known as "Dutch" Schultz. Following a disagreement, he left Schultz Trucking and went to work for their Italian competitors.
Criminal career
Bootlegger
In the mid-1920s, Schultz had begun work as a bouncer at the Hub Social Club, a small speakeasy in the Bronx owned by a gangster named Joey Noe. Noe was impressed with Schultz's ruthlessness and reputation for brutality when he lost his temper, and he made him a partner. Together they soon opened more illegal drinking joints around the Bronx. Using their own trucks to reduce high delivery costs, they brought in beer made by Frankie Dunn, a brewer in Union City, New Jersey. Schultz often rode shotgun to guard the trucks from hijackers.
Schultz and Noe soon had to deal with the brothers John and Joe Rock, who were already running a bootlegging operation in the Bronx. Initially the brothers refused to buy beer from Noe and Schultz, but eventually John, the elder brother, agreed to cooperate; however, his younger brother Joe refused. One night the Noe-Schultz gang kidnapped Joe, beat him and hung him by his thumbs from a meat hook. They then allegedly wrapped a gauze bandage smeared with discharge from a gonorrhea infection over his eyes. His family reportedly paid $35,000 for his release. Shortly after his return, he went blind. From then on, the Noe-Schultz gang met little opposition as they expanded across the entire Bronx. Bootlegging during Prohibition made Schultz very wealthy.
Gang wars
The Noe-Schultz operation, which had begun to flourish in the Bronx, soon became the only gang able to rival the network of Italian crime syndicates that became the Mafia's Five Families. When the gang expanded from the Bronx over to Manhattan's Upper West Side and the neighborhoods of Washington Heights, Yorkville and Harlem, they moved their headquarters to East 149th Street in The Bronx. However, this brazen move led to a bootleg war with New York's Irish Mob, led by Jack "Legs" Diamond.
In the early hours of October 16, 1928, Noe was shot several times outside the Chateau Madrid, a speakeasy at 231 West 54th. Although seriously wounded, he managed to return fire. A blue Cadillac was seen hitting some parked cars and losing one of its doors before speeding away. When police found the car an hour later, they discovered the body of a Louis Weinberg (no relation to Schultz gang members Abraham "Bo" Weinberg and George Weinberg) in the back seat. Noe's wounds became infected and he died on November 21. Schultz was left angry and distraught by the loss of his friend and mentor.
Retaliation started a few weeks later when Arnold Rothstein, a kingpin in the Jewish mob, was found fatally shot near the service entrance to the Park Central Hotel on November 6, 1928. Although George "Hump" McManus supposedly killed Rothstein over a bad gambling debt, Schultz is believed to have ordered the killing in retribution for Noe's death. This theory is supported by the fact that the first person McManus rang after the killing was Schultz's attorney, Dixie Davis. Schultz's trusted lieutenant, Bo Weinberg, then picked up McManus and drove him away from the murder scene. McManus was later cleared of the killing.
On October 12, 1930, Legs Diamond was shot and wounded at the Hotel Monticello on Manhattan's West Side. Two gunmen forced their way into Diamond's room and shot him five times before fleeing. Still in his pajamas, Diamond staggered into the hallway and collapsed. When asked later by the New York Police Commissioner how he managed to walk out of the room, Diamond said he drank two shots of whiskey first. Diamond was rushed to the Polyclinic Hospital in Manhattan, where he eventually recovered. On December 30, 1930, Diamond was discharged from Polyclinic. During his absence, his gang was forced to leave the city. When he returned home, Diamond began carving out a new territory for himself in Albany. He was killed in a cheap Albany rooming house at 67 Dove Street by two gunmen in December 1931.
Schultz also had to deal with internecine conflicts within his own gang. In 1930, one of Schultz's enforcers, Vincent Coll, demanded to be made an equal partner. This was because Schultz gang members received a flat salary instead of the customary percentage from the take—a unique arrangement compared to other major gangs in organized crime. When Schultz refused, Coll formed his own crew with the ultimate goal of murdering Schultz and taking over his territory. In the bloody gang war that followed, Coll lost his older brother Pete and earned the nickname "Mad Dog" from the press after a child was killed during a botched assassination attempt committed by his gang. In February 1932, Coll was lured into a trap. While he was taking a call in a drugstore phone booth, gunmen entered the store and machine-gunned him to death. The killers may have included Edward "Fats" McCarthy and the brothers Bo and George Weinberg.
Racketeer
With the end of Prohibition, Dutch Schultz needed to find new sources of income. His answer came with Otto "Abbadabba" Berman and the Harlem numbers racket. The numbers racket, the forerunner of "Pick 3" lotteries, required players to choose three numbers, which were then derived from the last number before the decimal in the handle (total amount bet) taken daily at Belmont Park. Berman was a middle-aged accountant and math whiz who helped Schultz fix this racket. In a matter of seconds, Berman could mentally calculate the minimum amount of money Schultz needed to bet at the track to alter the odds at the last minute. This strategy ensured that Schultz always controlled which numbers won, guaranteeing a larger number of losers in Harlem and a multimillion-dollar-a-month tax-free income for Schultz. Berman was reportedly paid $10,000 a week ().
Along with the policy rackets, Schultz began extorting New York restaurant owners and workers. Schultz, working through a hulking gangster named Jules Modgilewsky, also known as Julie Martin, made deals with the leaders of Waiters Local 16 and Cafeteria Workers Local 302 to extort money by forcing restaurant owners to join the Metropolitan Restaurant & Cafeteria Owners Association, an employer association that Schultz had founded. Those who refused to join the Association were faced with exorbitant wage demands from the unions, followed by strikes and stink bomb attacks. The Metropolitan Association then stepped in to arrange a settlement of the strike with a sweetheart contract for low wages contingent on the employer joining the Association. Martin/Modgilewsky successfully extracted thousands of dollars of tributes and "dues" from the terrorized restaurant owners for Schultz.
During Schultz's tax trial (see below) he began to suspect that Martin was skimming from the shakedown operation; Schultz had recently discovered a $70,000 disparity in the books. On the evening of March 2, 1935, Schultz invited Martin to a meeting at the Harmony Hotel in Cohoes, New York. At the meeting, at which chief enforcer Bo Weinberg and mob lawyer Dixie Davis were also present, Martin belligerently denied Schultz's charges and began arguing with him. Both men were drinking heavily as the argument continued, and Schultz sucker-punched Martin. Finally, Martin admitted that he had taken $20,000, which he believed he was "entitled to" anyway. Dixie Davis related what happened next:
As Martin contorted on the floor, Schultz apologized to Davis for killing someone in front of him. When Davis later read a newspaper story about Martin's murder, he was shocked to find out that the body was found on a snow bank with a dozen stab wounds to the chest. When Davis asked about this, Schultz replied, deadpan, "I cut his heart out."
Trials for tax evasion
In the early 1930s, U.S. Attorney Thomas Dewey had set his sights on convicting Schultz for non-payment of federal taxes. Schultz was indicted in New York in January 1933 and became a fugitive. (Dewey subsequently left the Justice Department, first for private practice, then as a state-appointed Special Prosecutor and D.A.) Schultz surrendered in Albany, New York, in November 1934. This was part of his plan to have his trials moved from New York City to upstate. His first tax evasion trial, in Syracuse, ended in a hung jury, with many speculating he'd bribed the jurors. He would face retrial in Malone, New York.
With the case going to a second trial, Schultz quickly set about presenting himself to the townspeople of Malone as a country squire and good citizen. He donated cash to local businesses, gave toys to sick children, and performed other charitable deeds. The strategy worked, as he was acquitted of tax evasion in late summer 1935. The mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia, was so outraged at the verdict that he issued an order that Schultz should be arrested on sight should he return to the city. As a result, Schultz was forced to relocate his base of operations across the Hudson River to Newark.
Assassination
Betrayal
As the defense costs to fight his tax case mounted, Schultz had found it necessary to reduce the commission he paid to those running his policy rackets to bolster what he called the "Arthur Flegenheimer Defense Fund." That tactic angered the runners and the games' controllers, who, despite being threatened with violence for showing any dissent, hired a hall, held a mass protest meeting, and declared a strike of sorts. Very quickly the cash flow dried up, and Schultz was forced to back down, which permanently damaged the relationship between his gang and their associates.
Bo Weinberg, Schultz's chief lieutenant, was so concerned about the amount of money that Schultz was taking from the rackets to fund his legal defense that he sought advice from New Jersey mob boss Longy Zwillman, who put him in touch with the Sicilian-born gangster Charlie "Lucky" Luciano. The deal that Weinberg wanted was to retain a percentage and keep overall control of the Schultz gang. However, Luciano planned to break up the gang's rackets and territory among his own associates once Schultz was convicted of tax evasion. Believing that a guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion at the second trial, Luciano and his allies implemented their plan to take control. Their plan met little resistance because of the ongoing bad feelings over the attempted pay cuts and the support of Weinberg.
However, after Schultz was acquitted, he quickly arranged a meeting with Luciano through the Commission to clarify the situation. Luciano explained to Schultz that they were just "looking after the shop" while he was away to ensure that everything ran smoothly and that full control of his rackets would be returned to Schultz once the heat died down. Publicly, Schultz was forced to accept that version of events because of the ongoing attention from law enforcement agencies and Thomas Dewey, now a Special Prosecutor appointed by LaGuardia. A month after his acquittal, his own chief lieutenant Bo Weinberg was never seen again after he had walked out of a midtown Manhattan nightclub.
Schultz had proposed to the National Crime Syndicate, a confederation of mobsters, that Dewey be murdered. Luciano argued that a Dewey assassination would precipitate a massive law enforcement crackdown. The Commission later voted unanimously against the proposal. An enraged Schultz said he would kill Dewey anyway and walked out of the meeting. The Murder, Inc. leader Albert Anastasia approached Luciano with information that Schultz had asked him to stake out Dewey's apartment building on Fifth Avenue. Upon hearing the news, the Commission held a discreet meeting to discuss the matter. After six hours of deliberations, the Commission ordered Louis Buchalter to eliminate "The Dutchman."
Shooting
Schultz was shot on October 23, 1935, while he was at the Palace Chop House restaurant at 12 East Park Street in Newark, New Jersey, with Otto Berman, his accountant; Abraham “Abe” Landau, his new chief lieutenant; and his personal bodyguard, Bernard "Lulu" Rosenkrantz. While Schultz was in the bathroom, two Murder, Inc. hitmen named Charles "The Bug" Workman and Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss entered the establishment.
Workman and Weiss entered the back room of the restaurant, where they fired numerous times at the Schultz gang members. Berman collapsed immediately after he was shot. Landau's carotid artery was severed by a bullet passing through his neck, and Rosenkrantz was hit repeatedly at point-blank range. Nevertheless, despite their injuries, both gangsters rose to their feet, returned fire, and drove the assassins out of the restaurant. Weiss jumped into the getaway car and ordered the driver to abandon Workman. Landau chased Workman out of the bar and emptied his pistol at him but missed. After Workman had fled on foot, Landau finally collapsed onto a nearby trash can.
Witnesses say Schultz staggered out of the bathroom, clutching his side, and sat at his table. He called for anyone who could hear him to get an ambulance. Rosenkrantz rose to his feet and demanded that the barman, who had hidden during the shootout, give him some change. Rosenkrantz called for an ambulance before he lost consciousness.
When the first ambulance arrived, medics determined Landau and Rosenkrantz were the most seriously wounded and needed to be taken immediately to Newark City Hospital. A second ambulance was called to take Schultz and Berman. Berman was unconscious, but Schultz was drifting in and out of lucidity, as police attempted to comfort him and get information. Because the medics had no pain relievers, Schultz was given brandy to relieve his suffering. When a second ambulance arrived from Newark City Hospital, Schultz gave an intern in the ambulance $3,000 in cash because he thought he was dying and said that it was not going to do him any good where he was going. After surgery, when it looked as if Schultz might live, the intern was so worried that Schultz would come back for his cash that he handed in the money. Landau and Rosenkrantz refused to say anything to the police until Schultz had given them permission after he had arrived in the second ambulance. Even then, they provided the police with only minimal information.
At 2:20 am, Otto Berman, the oldest and least physically fit of the four men, was the first to die. Abe Landau died of exsanguination at 6 am. When Rosenkrantz was taken into surgery, the surgeons were so incredulous that Rosenkrantz was still alive despite his blood loss and ballistic trauma that they were unsure of how to treat him. He eventually died from his injuries 29 hours after the shooting.
Death
Schultz received the last rites from a Catholic priest at his request just before he went into surgery. He reportedly believed Jesus enabled him to beat an indictment and had promised to convert. He lingered for almost one day, speaking in various states of lucidity with his wife, mother, a priest, police, and hospital staff, before he died of peritonitis on October 24, 1935.
Schultz was permitted interment in the Roman Catholic Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, Westchester County, New York, but at the request of his Orthodox Jewish mother, Schultz's body was draped with a talit, a traditional Jewish prayer shawl.
In 1941, Charles Workman was convicted of killing Schultz. The building that housed the Palace Chop House was torn down in 2008.
Final words and legacy
Schultz's last words were a strange stream-of-consciousness babble spoken in his hospital bed to police officers who attempted to calm him and question him for useful information. Although the police were unable to extract anything coherent from Schultz, his rambling was fully transcribed by a police stenographer. These include:
A boy has never wept...nor dashed a thousand kim.
You can play jacks, and girls do that with a soft ball and do tricks with it.
Oh, Oh, dog Biscuit, and when he is happy he doesn't get snappy.
Schultz's last words have inspired a number of writers to devote works related to them. Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs published a screenplay in novel form titled The Last Words of Dutch Schultz in the early 1970s, while Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson connected Schultz's words to a global Illuminati-related conspiracy, making them a major part of 1975's The Illuminatus! Trilogy. (In Wilson's and Shea's story, Schultz's ramblings are a coded message.) In his 1960 anthology Parodies, Dwight Macdonald presents Schultz's last words as a parody of Gertrude Stein. In E. L. Doctorow's novel Billy Bathgate, the title character uses clues from Schultz's deathbed ramblings to locate his hidden money.
Although Schultz's gang was meant to be crippled, several of his associates survived the night. Martin "Marty" Krompier, whom Schultz left in charge of his Manhattan interests while he hid in New Jersey, survived an assassination attempt the same night as the shootings at the Palace Chop House. No apparent attempt was made on the life of Irish-American mobster John M. Dunn, who later became the brother-in-law of mobster Edward J. McGrath and a powerful member of the Hell's Kitchen Irish mob.
After Schultz's death, it was discovered that he and his wife had never gone through an official marriage ceremony, and the possible existence of another wife emerged with the discovery of letters and pictures of another woman and children among his effects at the hotel where he was staying in Newark. This was never resolved, as his common-law wife refused to talk about it and the mystery woman never came forward. Two other women also called at the morgue to receive his effects, but their identities were never established. Though he was estimated to be worth $7 million when he died, no trace of the money was ever found.
Shortly before his death, fearing that he would be incarcerated as a result of Dewey's efforts, Schultz commissioned the construction of a special airtight and waterproof safe into which he placed $7 million in cash and bonds (). Schultz and Rosenkrantz then drove the safe to an undisclosed location somewhere in upstate New York and buried it. At the time of his death, the safe was still interred; as no evidence existed to indicate that either Schultz or Rosenkrantz had ever revealed the location of the safe to anyone, the exact place where the safe was buried died with them. Schultz's enemies are said to have spent the remainder of their lives searching for the safe. As the safe has never been recovered, treasure hunters have annually returned to look for it in the Catskills. One such meeting became the documentary film Digging for Dutch: The Search for the Lost Treasure of Dutch Schultz.
In popular culture
Several actors have portrayed Dutch Schultz in film and television: Vic Morrow in Portrait of a Mobster (1961), Vincent Gardenia in Mad Dog Coll (1961), James Remar in The Cotton Club (1984), Dustin Hoffman in Billy Bathgate (1991), Lance Henriksen in The Outfit (1993), and Tim Roth in Hoodlum (1997).
On television, in the 1959 The Untouchables episodes "Vincent 'Mad Dog' Coll", "The Dutch Schultz Story" and "Jack 'Legs' Diamond", Schultz was played by Lawrence Dobkin. In the 1993–1994 series The Untouchables, he was portrayed by Si Osborne in the 1993 episode "Attack on New York".
On November 18, 2020, a PBS Secrets of the Dead episode entitled "Gangster's Gold" premiered which detailed the investigation and the hunt for Schultz's lost treasure. In July 2022, an episode of Expedition Unknown, titled "The Bootlegger's Millions", focused on Schultz and his treasure.
See also
List of Jewish American mobsters
Prohibition Operations in Getty Square neighborhood in Yonkers, New York
Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow
Button Man by Andrew Gross
References
External links
New York City Gangland by Arthur Nash
The Last Words of Dutch Schultz at the Wayback Machine (archived October 12, 2016)
Kill the Dutchman!: The Story of Dutch Schultz by Paul Sann
FBI files on Arthur Flegenheimer (FBI's Freedom of Information Archive)
Gangster City Profiles: Dutch Schultz
Dutch Schultz – Gangster @J-Grit: The Internet Index of Tough Jews
Gangster's Gold Secrets of the Dead
1901 births
1935 deaths
1935 murders in the United States
American crime bosses
American people convicted of tax crimes
American people of German-Jewish descent
Burials at Gate of Heaven Cemetery (Hawthorne, New York)
Catholics from New York (state)
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism
Criminals from the Bronx
Deaths by firearm in New Jersey
Deaths from peritonitis
Depression-era gangsters
Male murder victims
Gangsters from New York City
Murdered Jewish American gangsters
Numbers game
People from Roosevelt Island
People murdered by Murder, Inc.
People murdered in New Jersey
Prohibition-era gangsters
20th-century American Jews
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%20of%20Warcraft
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World of Warcraft
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World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the Warcraft fantasy universe, World of Warcraft takes place within the world of Azeroth, approximately four years after the events of the previous game in the series, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. The game was announced in 2001, and was released for the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise on November 23, 2004. Since launch, World of Warcraft has had nine major expansion packs: The Burning Crusade (2007), Wrath of the Lich King (2008), Cataclysm (2010), Mists of Pandaria (2012), Warlords of Draenor (2014), Legion (2016), Battle for Azeroth (2018), Shadowlands (2020), and Dragonflight (2022).
Similar to other MMORPGs, the game allows players to create a character avatar and explore an open game world in third- or first-person view, exploring the landscape, fighting various monsters, completing quests, and interacting with non-player characters (NPCs) or other players. The game encourages players to work together to complete quests, enter dungeons and engage in player versus player (PvP) combat, however, the game can also be played solo without interacting with others. The game primarily focuses on character progression, in which players earn experience points to level up their character to make them more powerful and buy and sell items using in-game currency to acquire better equipment, among other game systems.
World of Warcraft was a major critical and commercial success upon its original release in 2004 and quickly became the most popular MMORPG of all time, reaching a peak of 12 million subscribers in 2010. The game had over one hundred million registered accounts by 2014 and by 2017, had grossed over in revenue, making it one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time. The game has been cited by gaming journalists as the greatest MMORPG of all time and one of the greatest video games of all time and has also been noted for its long lifespan, continuing to receive developer support and expansion packs over 15 years since its initial release. In 2019, a vanilla version of the game titled World of Warcraft Classic was launched, allowing players to experience the base game before any of its expansions launched, with versions of Classic for the first and second expansions being released subsequently, with minor changes. In 2022, Blizzard and NetEase cancelled an unannounced World of Warcraft mobile spin-off game.
Gameplay
Starting a character or play session
As with other MMORPGs, players control a character avatar within a game world in third- or first-person view, exploring the landscape, fighting various monsters, completing quests, and interacting with non-player characters (NPCs) or other players. Also similar to other MMORPGs, World of Warcraft requires the player to pay for a subscription by using a credit or debit card, using prepaid Blizzard game cards or using a WoW Token purchased in-game. Players without a subscription may use a trial account that lets the player character reach up to level 20 but has many features locked.
To enter the game, the player must select a server, referred to in-game as a 'realm'. Each realm acts as an individual copy of the game world and falls into one of two categories. Available realms types are:
Normal – a regular type realm where the gameplay is mostly focused on defeating monsters and completing quests, with player-versus-player fights and any roleplay are optional.
RP (roleplay) – which works the same way as a "Normal" realm, but focuses on players roleplaying in character.
Before the introduction of World of Warcraft's seventh expansion "Battle for Azeroth", both "Normal" and "RP" servers were each divided into two separate categories: PvE servers and PvP servers. This has since been removed after the implementation of the "War Mode" option, which allows any player (of level 20 and higher) on any server to determine whether they want to actively participate in PvP combat or not, by enabling War Mode in two of the game's capital cities.
Realms are also categorized by language, with in-game support in the language available.
Players can make new characters on all realms within the region, and it is also possible to move already established characters between realms for a fee.
Races and factions
To create a new character, in keeping with the storyline of previous Warcraft games, players must choose between the opposing factions of the Alliance or the Horde; Pandaren, which were added in Mists of Pandaria, do not commit to a faction until after the starting zone is completed. Characters from the opposing factions can perform rudimentary communication (most often just "emotes"), but only members of the same faction can speak, mail, group and join guilds. The player selects the new character's race, such as orcs or trolls for the Horde, or humans or dwarves for the Alliance. Players must select the class for the character, with choices such as mages, warriors, and priests available. Most classes are limited to particular races.
Ongoing gameplay
As characters become more developed, they gain various talents and skills, requiring the player to further define the abilities of that character. Characters can choose two primary professions that can focus on producing items, such as tailoring, blacksmithing or jewelcrafting or on gathering from resource nodes, such as skinning or mining. Characters can learn all three secondary skills: archeology, cooking, and fishing. Characters may form and join guilds, allowing characters within the guild access to the guild's chat channel, the guild name and optionally allowing other features, including a guild tabard, guild bank, guild repairs, and dues.
Much of World of Warcraft play involves the completion of quests. These quests are usually available from NPCs. Quests usually reward the player with some combination of experience points, items, and in-game money. Quests allow characters to gain access to new skills and abilities, as well as the ability to explore new areas. It is through quests that much of the game's story is told, both through the quest's text and through scripted NPC actions. Quests are linked by a common theme, with each consecutive quest triggered by the completion of the previous, forming a quest chain. Quests commonly involve killing a number of creatures, gathering a certain number of resources, finding a difficult to locate object, speaking to various NPCs, visiting specific locations, interacting with objects in the world, or delivering an item from one place to another to acquire experience and treasures.
While a character can be played on its own, players can group with others to tackle more challenging content. Most end-game challenges are designed in such a way that they can only be overcome while in a group. In this way, character classes are used in specific roles within a group. World of Warcraft uses a "rested bonus" system, increasing the rate that a character can gain experience points after the player has spent time away from the game. When a character dies, it becomes a ghost—or wisp for Night Elf characters—at a nearby graveyard. Characters can be resurrected by other characters that have the ability or can self-resurrect by moving from the graveyard to the place where they died. If a character is past level ten and they resurrect at a graveyard, the items equipped by the character degrade, requiring in-game money and a specialist NPC to repair them. Items that have degraded heavily become unusable until they are repaired. If the location of the character's body is unreachable, they can use a special "spirit healer" NPC to resurrect at the graveyard. When the spirit healer revives a character, items equipped by the character at that time are further degraded, and the character is significantly weakened by what is in-game called "resurrection sickness" for up to ten minutes, depending on the character's level. This "resurrection sickness" does not occur and item degradation is less severe if the character revives by locating its body, or is resurrected by another player through spells or special items.
World of Warcraft contains a variety of mechanisms for player versus player (PvP) play. Players on player versus environment (PvE) servers can opt to toggle "War Mode" themselves, making themselves attackable to players of the opposite faction. Depending on the mode of the realm, PvP combat between members of opposing factions is possible at almost any time or location in the game world—the only exception being the starting zones, where the PvP "flag" must be enabled by the player wishing to fight against players of the opposite faction. PvE (called normal or RP) servers, by contrast, allow a player to choose whether or not to engage in combat against other players. On both server types, there are special areas of the world where free-for-all combat is permitted. Battlegrounds, for example, are similar to dungeons: only a set number of characters can enter a single battleground, but additional copies of the battleground can be made to accommodate additional players. Each battleground has a set objective, such as capturing a flag or defeating an opposing general, that must be completed to win the battleground. Competing in battlegrounds rewards the character with tokens and honor points that can be used to buy armor, weapons, and other general items that can aid a player in many areas of the game. Winning a battleground awards more honor and tokens than losing. In addition, players also earn honor when they or nearby teammates kill players in a battleground.
Setting
World of Warcraft is set in the same universe as the Warcraft series of real-time strategy games and has a similar art direction. World of Warcraft contains elements from fantasy, steampunk, and science fiction, including gryphons, dragons, elves, steam-powered automata, zombies, werewolves, other horror monsters, time travel, spaceships, and alien worlds.
World of Warcraft takes place in a 3D representation of the Warcraft universe that players can interact with through their characters. The game world initially consisted of the two continents in Azeroth: Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. Four separate expansions later added to the game's playable area the realms of Outland and Draenor and the continents of Northrend and Pandaria. As a player explores new locations, different routes and means of transportation become available. Players can access "flight masters" in newly discovered locations to fly to previously discovered locations in other parts of the world. Players can also use boats, zeppelins, or portals to move from one continent to another. Although the game world remains relatively similar from day to day, seasonal events reflecting real world events, such as Halloween (Hallow's End), Christmas (Winter Veil), Children's Week, Easter (Noblegarden), and Midsummer have been represented in the game world. Locations also have variable weather including, among other things, rain, snow, and dust storms.
A number of facilities are available for characters while in towns and cities. In each major city, characters can access a bank to deposit items, such as treasures or crafted items. Each character has access to personal bank storage with the option to purchase additional storage space using in-game gold. Additionally, guild banks are available for use by members of a guild with restrictions being set by the guild leader. Auction houses are available for players to buy and sell items to others in a similar way to online auction sites such as eBay. Players can use mailboxes, which can be found in almost every town. Mailboxes are used to collect items won at auction, and to send messages, items, and in-game money to other characters.
Some of the challenges in World of Warcraft require players to group together to complete them. These usually take place in dungeons—also known as "instances"—that a group of characters can enter together. The term "instance" comes from each group or party having a separate copy, or instance, of the dungeon, complete with their own enemies to defeat and their own treasure or rewards. This allows a group to explore areas and complete quests without others interfering. Dungeons are spread over the game world and are designed for characters of varying progression. A typical dungeon will allow up to five characters to enter as part of a group. Some dungeons require more players to group together and form a "raid" of up to forty players to face some of the most difficult challenges. As well as dungeon-based raid challenges, several creatures exist in the normal game environment that are designed for raids to attack.
Subscription
World of Warcraft requires a subscription to allow continued play, with options to pay in one-month, three-month, or six-month blocks, and time cards of varying lengths available from retailers, or purchasing a "WoW Token" using in-game currency. Expansion packs are available online and from retailers. As the game client is the same regardless of the version of World of Warcraft the user owns, the option to purchase expansions online was added as it allows for a quick upgrade. World of Warcraft is also available as a free Starter Edition, which is free to play for an unlimited amount of time. Starter Edition characters are unable to gain experience after reaching level 20, and there are other restrictions in effect for Starter Edition accounts, including the inability to trade, use mail, use Auction House, use public chat channels, join guilds or amass more than ten gold.
In January 2015, accounts that have lapsed subscriptions, which previously would not let a player log in, work like a restricted Starter Edition account with the one difference that sub-level 20 characters will be able to join a guild if any other characters on the account are still in that guild.
In April 2015, an alternate way to cover the subscription was introduced. A player may spend real money ($20 in North America and differing amounts in other regions) on a WoW Token, which is sold on the auction house for the in-game currency, gold, that initially could only be used to add 30 days of playtime. At the launch of the feature in North America, a token sold for 30,000 gold and 24 hours later sold for 20,000 gold; therefore, the gold amount changes depending on what players are willing to spend. Subsequently, the amount that a North American token sells for remained at above 30,000 gold, and the other Battle.net regions were well above that value. Once a player buys a token on the auction house, it is account bound and cannot be resold. As of February 2017, the WoW Token can also be exchanged for $15 in Battle.net balance that can be used as credit for purchases in most of Blizzard's games as well as in Destiny 2.
Parental controls
The company offers parental controls that allow various limits to be set on playing time. It is possible to set a daily limit, a weekly limit, or to specify an allowed playing schedule. In order to control these settings, it is necessary to log in with different credentials than are used just to enter the game. It is also possible to receive statistics on the time spent playing. Apart from controlling children, adults sometimes use parental controls on themselves. The company supports this kind of protection as otherwise the potential players or their supervisors may choose to uninstall or block the game permanently.
Plot
Intent on settling in Durotar, Thrall's Horde expanded its ranks by inviting the undead Forsaken to join orcs, tauren, and trolls. Meanwhile, dwarves, gnomes, and the ancient night elves pledged their loyalties to the Alliance, guided by the human kingdom of Stormwind. After Stormwind's king, Varian Wrynn, mysteriously disappeared, Highlord Bolvar Fordragon served as Regent but his service was affected by the mind control of the black dragon Onyxia, who ruled in disguise as a human noblewoman. As heroes investigated Onyxia's manipulations, the ancient elemental lord Ragnaros resurfaced to endanger both the Horde and Alliance. The heroes of the Horde and Alliance defeated Onyxia and sent Ragnaros back to the Elemental Plane.
Assault on Blackwing Lair
Deep within Blackrock Mountain, the black dragon Nefarian conducted twisted experiments with the blood of other dragonflights. Intent on seizing the entire area for his own, he recruited the remaining Dark Horde, a rogue army that embraced the demonic bloodlust of the old Horde. These corrupt orcs, trolls, and other races battled against Ragnaros and the Dark Iron dwarves for control of the mountain. Nefarian created the twisted chromatic dragons and a legion of other aberrations in his bid to form an army powerful enough to control Azeroth and continue the legacy of his infamous father, Deathwing the Destroyer. Nefarian was vanquished by the heroes from the Horde and the Alliance.
Rise of the Blood God
Years ago, in the ruined temple of Atal'Hakkar, loyal priests of the Blood God Hakkar the Soulflayer attempted to summon the wrathful deity's avatar into the world. But his followers, the Atal'ai priesthood, discovered that the Soulflayer could only be summoned within the Gurubashi tribe's ancient capital, Zul'Gurub. Newly reborn in this jungle fortress, Hakkar took control of the Gurubashi tribe and mortal champions of the trolls' mighty animal gods. The Soulflayer's dark influence was halted when the Zandalari tribe recruited heroes and invaded Zul'Gurub.
The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj
The great desert fortress of Ahn'Qiraj, long sealed behind the Scarab Wall, was home to the insectoid qiraji, a savage race that had once mounted an assault to devastate the continent of Kalimdor. But something far more sinister lurked behind Ahn'Qiraj's walls: the Old God C'Thun, an ancient entity whose pervasive evil had suffused Azeroth since time immemorial. As C'Thun incited the qiraji to frenzy, both the Alliance and Horde prepared for a massive war effort. A mixed force of Alliance and Horde soldiers, dubbed the Might of Kalimdor, opened the gates of Ahn'Qiraj under the command of the orc Varok Saurfang. The heroes laid siege to the ruins and temples of Ahn'Qiraj and vanquished C'Thun.
Shadow of the Necropolis
In the Lich King's haste to spread the plague of undeath over Azeroth, he gifted one of his greatest servants, the lich Kel'Thuzad, with the flying citadel of Naxxramas, as a base of operations for the Scourge. Consistent attacks from the Scarlet Crusade and Argent Dawn factions weakened the defenses of the floating fortress, enabling an incursion from the heroes that led to Kel'Thuzad's defeat. However, a traitor among the ranks of the knightly order of the Argent Dawn ran away with Kel'Thuzad's cursed remains and fled to Northrend, where the fallen lich could be reanimated.
Development
World of Warcraft was first announced by Blizzard at the ECTS trade show in September 2001. Released in 2004, development of the game took roughly 4–5 years, including extensive testing. The 3D graphics in World of Warcraft use elements of the proprietary graphics engine originally used in Warcraft III. The game was designed to be an open environment where players are allowed to do what they please. Quests are optional and were designed to help guide players, allow character development, and to spread characters across different zones to try to avoid what developers called player collision. The game interface allows players to customize appearance and controls, and to install add-ons and other modifications.
World of Warcraft runs natively on both Mac and Windows platforms. Boxed copies of the game use a hybrid CD to install the game, eliminating the need for separate Mac and Windows retail products. The game allows all users to play together, regardless of their operating system. Although there is no official version for any other platform, support for World of Warcraft is present in Windows API implementations Wine and CrossOver allowing the game to be played under Linux and FreeBSD. While a native Linux client is neither released nor announced by Blizzard, in January 2011 IT journalist Michael Larabel indicated in a Phoronix article that an internal Linux client might exist but is not released due to the non-standardization of the Linux distro ecosystem.
Regional variations
In the United States, Canada, and Europe, Blizzard distributes World of Warcraft via retail software packages. The software package includes 30 days of gameplay for no additional cost. To continue playing after the initial 30 days, additional play time must be purchased using a credit card or prepaid game card. The minimum gameplay duration that a player can purchase is 30 days using a credit card, or 60 using a prepaid game card. A player also has the option of purchasing three or six months of gameplay at once for a 6–15% discount. In Australia, the United States, and many European countries, video game stores commonly stock the trial version of World of Warcraft in DVD form, which includes the game and 20 levels of gameplay, after which the player would have to upgrade to a retail account by supplying a valid credit card, or purchasing a game card as well as a retail copy of the game.
In Brazil, World of Warcraft was released on December 6, 2011, via BattleNet. The first three expansions are currently available, fully translated, including voice acting, into Brazilian Portuguese.
In South Korea, there is no software package or CD key requirement to activate the account. However, to play the game, players must purchase time credits online. There are two kinds of time credits available: one where the player is billed based on the actual number of minutes that will be available, and one where the player can play the game for a number of days. In the former, time can be purchased in multiples of 5 hours or 30 hours, and in the latter, time can be purchased in multiples of 7 days, 1 month, or 3 months. As software packages are not required, expansion pack contents are available to all players on launch day.
In China, because a large number of players do not own the computer on which they play games (e.g. if they play in Internet cafés), the CD keys required to create an account can be purchased independently of the software package. To play the game, players must also purchase prepaid game cards that can be played for 66 hours and 40 minutes. A monthly fee model is not available to players of this region. The Chinese government and NetEase, the licensee for World of Warcraft in China, have imposed a modification on Chinese versions of the game which places flesh on bare-boned skeletons and transforms dead character corpses into tidy graves. These changes were imposed by the Chinese government in an attempt to "promote a healthy and harmonious online game environment" in World of Warcraft. The Chinese government delayed the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, due to what it deemed objectionable content. NetEase took over licensing of World of Warcraft from The9 in June 2009 following the expiration of The9's contract, and were able to secure a launch for Wrath of the Lich King on August 31, 2010, nearly two years after its Western release. Due to a contract dispute, these servers were shut down on January 23, 2023.
Post-release content
The World of Warcraft launcher (referred to in press releases and the menu bar as the "Blizzard Launcher") is a program designed to act as a starting point for World of Warcraft players. It provides a way to launch World of Warcraft and starts the Blizzard updater. It was first included with the version 1.8.3 patch. The 2.1.0 patch allowed for an option to bypass the use of the launcher. Features of the launcher include news and updates for World of Warcraft players, access to World of Warcrafts support website, access to the test version of World of Warcraft when it is available to test upcoming patches, updates to Warden, and updates to the updater itself. The 3.0.8 patch redesigned the launcher and added the ability to change the game settings from the launcher itself. The launcher update from patch 4.0.1 also allows people to play the game while non-crucial pieces of the game are downloaded. This requires a high-speed broadband internet connection.
Patch 1.9.3 added native support for Intel-powered Macs, making World of Warcraft a universal application. As a result of this, the minimum supported Mac OS X version has been changed to 10.3.9; World of Warcraft version 1.9.3 and later will not launch on older versions of Mac OS X. PowerPC architecture Macs are no longer supported since version 4.0.1.
When new content is added to the game, official system requirements may change. In version 1.12.0 the requirements for Windows were increased from requiring 256 MB to 512 MB of RAM. Official Windows 98 technical support was dropped, but the game continued to run there until version 2.2.3. Before Mists of Pandaria in 2012, World of Warcraft officially dropped support for Windows 2000, followed by Windows XP and Vista in October 2017, as well as all 32-bit support.
Starting with 4.3, players could try out an experimental 64-bit version of the client, which required manual downloading and copying files into the installation folder. Since 5.0, the 64-bit client is automatically installed, and used by default.
Since World IPv6 Day, the client and most of the servers support IPv6.
Expansions
Nine expansions have been released: The Burning Crusade, released in January 2007; Wrath of the Lich King, released in November 2008; Cataclysm, released in December 2010; Mists of Pandaria, released in September 2012; Warlords of Draenor, released in November 2014; Legion, released in August 2016; Battle for Azeroth, released in August 2018; Shadowlands, released in November 2020; and Dragonflight, released in November 2022. Players are not required to purchase expansions in order to continue playing; however, new content and features such as higher level caps and new areas may not be available until they do so.
The fifth expansion, Warlords of Draenor, was announced at BlizzCon 2013 on November 8, 2013, and entered beta on June 27, 2014. Warlords of Draenor was released on November 13, 2014. On August 6, 2015, Blizzard announced the sixth expansion, Legion, at Gamescom 2015. In November 2015, the Legion alpha testing started and in April 2016 the beta test started; the Legion expansion was released on August 30, 2016. The seventh expansion, Battle for Azeroth, was released worldwide on August 13 and 14 (depending on location) in 2018. The eighth expansion, Shadowlands, was announced on November 1, 2019, and released on November 23, 2020. The ninth expansion, Dragonflight, was announced on April 19, 2022 and was released on November 28, 2022.
Blizzard routinely applies older expansions to all accounts as new expansions are released. On June 28, 2011, The Burning Crusade expansion was automatically applied to all previous Warcraft accounts at no cost. On September 19, 2012, the same thing was done with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and on October 15, 2013, the Cataclysm expansion was also applied. On October 15, 2014, Mists of Pandaria was applied to all accounts following the release of Warlords of Draenor. On May 17, 2016, Warlords of Draenor was applied to all accounts to coincide with the release of the Warcraft movie that gives a 30-day trial of the game.
All The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor content is now effectively part of the original game, with all new World of Warcraft accounts automatically including these expansions upon creation. As of the release of the Dragonflight expansion in 2022, all expansions up to Shadowlands are included in the base game.
Music
Almost all of the music in World of Warcraft is orchestral, with a wide variety of classical and folk instruments in harmony, often playing widely transformative, non-repetitive melodies. While the player is in game, music is usually playing from a set of tracks composed to match the mood of the type of environment your character is in such as "mountain", "forest", "plains", "jungle", et cetera; while some individual zones and cities such as Elwynn Forest and Thunder Bluff are given their own set of tracks. Some environments play different music depending on the time of day you are in them.
The soundtrack for the original release of World of Warcraft was composed and arranged by Jason Hayes, Tracy W. Bush, Derek Duke, and Glenn Stafford and conducted by Eímear Noone. Most of the music from the game and the cinematic trailers was released in the official album on November 23, 2004, together with the collector's edition of the game. It is sold separately on one CD in the MP3 format. More music was composed for each of the game's expansions, which were also given their own album releases.
On January 12, 2011, Alfred Publishing produced a sheet music series for vocalists, pianists, strings, and other instruments, World of Warcraft Sheet Music Anthology in solo and accompaniment formats with CD. These works include four pages of collectible artwork and vary by number of songs included.
In 2018, a remix of the song from the game, "Hymn of the Firstborn Son", was nominated for "Best Game Music Cover/Remix" at the 16th Annual Game Audio Network Guild Awards.
Reception
World of Warcraft received very positive reviews upon release, following a period of high anticipation before launch. Although the game follows a similar model to—and was noted for using many familiar concepts from—the role-playing genre, the new approaches to reducing pauses between game encounters were well liked. A common example was the approach to character death. In some previous MMORPGs, a player would suffer a high penalty for character death; in World of Warcraft, a player is able to recover and start playing quickly. Combat was another area where "downtime", or pauses between play, was reduced. By allowing all character types to recover from damage taken, players can return to combat quickly. Reviewers felt that these changes in pacing would make the genre more accessible to casual players—those who play for short periods of time— while still having "deep" gameplay that would attract players of all levels of interest. The concept of a "rested bonus", or increasing the rate at which a player's character gains experience, was also welcomed as a way for players to quickly catch up with their friends in progression.
Questing was described as an integral part of the game, often being used to continue a storyline or lead the player through the game. The high number of quests in each location was popular, as well as the rewards for completing them. It was felt that the range of quests removed the need for a player to "grind", or carry out repetitive tasks, to advance their character. Quests also require players to explore every section of the game world, potentially causing problems for social gamers or roleplayers seeking somewhere quiet. Quests that required the player to collect items from the corpses of creatures they had killed were also unpopular; the low "drop rate", or chance of finding the items, makes them feel repetitive as a high number of creatures need to be killed to complete the quest. A large number of new players in a particular area meant that there were often no creatures to kill, or that players would have to wait and take turns to kill a particular creature to complete a quest. Some critics mentioned that the lack of quests that required players to group up made the game feel as if it were designed for solo play. Others complained that some dungeon or instanced group quests were not friendly to new players, and could take several hours to complete. Upon release, a small number of quests had software bugs that made them impossible to complete.
Characters were felt to be implemented well, with each class appearing "viable and interesting", having unique and different mechanisms, and each of the races having a distinct look and feel. Character development was also liked, with the talent mechanism offering choice to players, and profession options being praised. Character customization options were felt to be low, but the detail of character models was praised.
The appearance of the game world was praised by critics. Most popular was that a player could run from one end of the continent to the other without having to pause at a "loading screen" while part of the game is retrieved from storage. The environment was described as "breathtaking". Players found it difficult to become lost, and each area in the game world had a distinct look that blended from one to the next. Critics described the environment as "a careful blend of cartoon, fantasy art, and realism". The game was found to run smoothly on a range of computer systems, although some described it as basic, and mentioned that the bloom light rendering effect can blur things. One reviewer described the ability to fly over long stretches of scenery as "very atmospheric". The user interface was liked, being described as "simple", with tooltips helping to get the player started.
The game's audio was well received, particularly the background music. By assigning music to different areas of the game world, reviewers felt that the fantasy style added to the player's immersion, and that the replay value was increased. The sounds and voices used by characters and NPCs, as well as the overall sound effects, were felt to add a "personality" to the game.
Accolades
World of Warcraft won several awards from critics upon release, including Editor's Choice awards. In addition, it won several annual awards from the media, being described as the best game in the role-playing and MMORPG genres. The graphics and audio were also praised in the annual awards, with the cartoonish style and overall sound makeup being noted. The game was also awarded Best Mac OS X Entertainment Product at the 2005 Apple Design Awards. Computer Games Magazine named World of Warcraft the best computer game of 2004, and the magazine's Steve Bauman described his "feeling that Blizzard has analyzed every element of every existing game, pulled out the best ones, and then lovingly lavished an absurd amount of attention to their implementation." It also won the magazine's "Best Art Direction", "Best Original Music" and "Best Interface" awards.
World of Warcraft was recognized at the 2005 Spike TV Video Game Awards where it won Best PC Game, Best Multiplayer Game, Best RPG, and Most Addictive Game. During the 8th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awarded World of Warcraft with "Massively Multiplayer/Persistent World Game of the Year", as well as nominations for "Computer Game of the Year" and "Game of the Year". In 2008, World of Warcraft was honoured—along with Neverwinter Nights and EverQuest—at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the art form of MMORPG games. GameSpot named it the best massively multiplayer game of 2004, and nominated it for the publication's "Best Graphics, Artistic" award. In 2009, Game Informer ranked World of Warcraft 11th on their list of "The Top 200 Games of All Time". In 2015, the game placed 3rd on USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list. In 2015, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted World of Warcraft to its World Video Game Hall of Fame.
Commercial performance
World of Warcraft was the best-selling PC game of 2005 and 2006. In the United States, it sold 1.4 million copies ($68.1 million) by August 2006. It was the country's third best-selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006. On January 22, 2008, World of Warcraft had more than 10 million subscribers worldwide, with more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia. At its peak in October 2010 the game had 12 million subscribers. As of November 2014 the game has over 10 million active subscribers. On January 28, 2014, Blizzard announced that 100 million accounts have been created for the game. On May 7, 2015, it was announced that there were 7.1 million active subscriptions. At the end of June 2015, subscriptions dropped down to 5.6 million, lowest since 2005. By the end of September, subscribers were at 5.5 million.
Less than two months after beginning operation of World of Warcraft in China on September 19, 2009, NetEase was ordered to immediately stop charging players and to cease accepting registrations. A press estimate indicated that if World of Warcraft were shut down in China, the loss of subscribers would have caused Activision Blizzard's earnings to fall from 65 cents per share to 60 cents per share. In April 2008, World of Warcraft was estimated to hold 62 percent of the MMORPG subscription market. The game has grossed in revenue, making it one of the highest-grossing video games of all time, along with Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Street Fighter II. In early 2012, Blizzard started its own series of tournaments for World of Warcraft and StarCraft II, known as the Battle.net World Championship Series.
Security concerns
In September 2006, reports emerged of spoof World of Warcraft game advice websites that contained malware. Vulnerable computers would be infected through their web browsers, downloading a program that would then relay back account information. Blizzard's account support teams experienced high demand during this episode, stating that many users had been affected. Claims were also made that telephone support was closed for isolated periods due to the volume of calls and resulting queues. In April 2007, attacks evolved to take advantage of further exploits involving animated cursors, with multiple websites being used. Security researcher group Symantec released a report stating that a compromised World of Warcraft account was worth US$10 on the black market, compared to US$6 to US$12 for a compromised computer (correct as of March 2007). In February 2008, phishing emails were distributed requesting that users validate their account information using a fake version of the World of Warcraft account management pages. In June 2008, Blizzard announced the Blizzard Authenticator, available as a hardware security token or mobile application that provides two-factor security. The token generates a one-time password based code that the player supplies when logging on. The password, used in addition to the user's own password, is only valid for a couple of minutes, thus providing extra security against keylogging malware.
Blizzard makes use of a system known as Warden on the Windows version of the game to detect third-party programs, such as botting software, allowing World of Warcraft to be played unattended. There has been some controversy as to the legality of Warden. Warden uses techniques similar to anti-virus software to analyze other running software on the players' PCs, as well as the file system. However, unlike most anti-virus software, it sends a portion of this information back to Blizzard, which caused privacy advocates to accuse it of being spyware. One example of the information Warden collects is the title of every window open on the system while WoW is running. On the other hand, many gamers responded positively to the development, stating that they supported the technology if it resulted in fewer cases of cheating. Blizzard's use of Warden was stated in the Terms of Agreement (TOA).
The Warden's existence was acknowledged in March 2008, during the opening legal proceedings against MDY Industries. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Arizona, and also listed Michael Donnelly as a defendant. Donnelly was included in the suit as the creator of MMO Glider, software that can automatically play many tasks in the game. Blizzard claimed the software is an infringement of its copyright and software license agreement, stating that "Glider use severely harms the WoW gaming experience for other players by altering the balance of play, disrupting the social and immersive aspects of the game, and undermining the in-game economy." Donnelly claims to have sold 100,000 copies of the $25 software.
Real ID
On July 6, 2010, Blizzard Entertainment announced that on its forums for all games, users' accounts would display the real names tied to their accounts. Blizzard announced the change following an agreement with Facebook to allow Facebook to connect persons who choose to become friends to share their real identity (Real ID, as Blizzard calls the feature). The integration of the feature into the forums on the Blizzard Entertainment site raised concerns amongst fans of the many game series Blizzard has created over the years.
In response to the concerns, Blizzard released an updated statement on July 9, 2010, announcing that the Real ID integration with the official forums was being canceled.
Community and study of player interaction
In addition to playing the game itself and conversing on discussion forums provided by Blizzard, World of Warcraft players often participate in the virtual community in creative ways, including fan artwork and comic strip style storytelling.
Blizzard garnered criticism for its decision in January 2006 to ban guilds from advertising sexual orientation preferences. The incident occurred after several players were cited for "harassment" after advocating a group that was a gay-straight alliance. Blizzard later reversed the decision to issue warnings to players promoting LGBT-friendly guilds.
On October 7, 2010 World of Warcraft reached a subscriber base of over 12 million players. Since May 2011, the number of players playing had decreased by 10% from 11.4 million to 10.3 million. Blizzard's CEO Mike Morhaime said that the reason was probably due to a drop-off in the Eastern markets. In 2012, senior producer John Lagrave told Eurogamer that the drop in subscriptions may have also been attributed to the recent release of BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Sale of virtual goods in the real world
As with other MMORPGs, companies have emerged offering to sell virtual gold and associated services. The practice of amassing gold and in-game items for financial profit is frequently referred to as gold farming.
After Blizzard started offering free trial gameplay accounts, players noticed an increase in spam from bots advertising these services. One study shows that this problem is particularly prevalent on the European realms, with gold being over 14 times more expensive to buy on US realms than their European counterparts.
In patch 2.1, Blizzard responded to this by adding additional anti-spam mechanics including whisper throttling and the report spam function. Additionally, trial accounts are prevented from speaking in the public chat channels (although they may speak to players within range or whisper to other players that have first whispered to them), participating in in-game trades, and using the Auction House and the mail feature, among other limitations.
In May 2007, Blizzard filed a complaint against in Game Dollar LLC (trading as peons4hire) in U.S. federal court. In February 2008, the parties filed a consent decree in which in Game Dollar agreed to refrain from using any World of Warcraft chat or communication to advertise any business or sell any services relating to World of Warcraft. In June 2007, World of Warcraft player Antonio Hernandez filed a class action lawsuit against IGE for interfering with the intended use of the game.
As characters progress in World of Warcraft and take on some of the toughest challenges, many of the rewards received are bound to that character and cannot be traded, generating a market for the trading of accounts with well-equipped characters. The highest noted World of Warcraft account trade was for £5000 (€7000, US$9,900) in early September 2007. The high price was due to the character possessing items that at the time were owned by only a handful out of the millions of active players, due to the difficulty in acquiring them. However, Blizzard banned the account five days after the purchase.
The practice of buying or selling gold in World of Warcraft has generated significant controversy. On February 21, 2008, Blizzard released a statement concerning the consequences of buying gold. Blizzard reported that an "alarmingly high" proportion of all gold bought originates from "hacked" accounts. The article also stated that customers who had paid for character leveling services had found their accounts compromised months later, with all items stripped and sold for virtual gold. The article noted that leveling service companies often used "disruptive hacks ... which can cause realm performance and stability issues". In April 2015, introduced a means to sell in-game gold for real money. A player may spend $20 on a one-month "game time token" that can be sold for in-game gold on the auction house.
In December 2015, Blizzard sold an in-game battle pet named Brightpaw for $10 with all proceeds going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. This resulted in a new Blizzard record donation of over $1.7 million to Make-A-Wish. In December 2016, Blizzard again sold a battle pet named Mischief for $10; it helped raise more than $2.5 million for Make-A-Wish. In September 2017, Blizzard sold a battle pet named Shadow the fox for $10, with proceeds going to the Red Cross to help with disaster relief.
Corrupted Blood plague incident
The Corrupted Blood plague incident was one of the first events to affect entire servers. Patch 1.7 saw the opening of Zul'Gurub, the game's first 20-player raid dungeon where players faced off against a tribe of trolls. Upon engaging the final boss, players were stricken by a debuff called "Corrupted Blood" which would periodically sap their life. The disease was passed on to other players simply by being near infected players. Originally this malady was confined within the Zul'Gurub instance, but it made its way into the outside world by way of hunter pets or warlock minions that contracted the disease.
Within hours, Corrupted Blood had completely infected major cities because of their high player concentrations. Low-level players were killed in seconds by the high-damage disease. Eventually, Blizzard fixed the issue so that the plague could not exist outside of Zul'Gurub.
The Corrupted Blood plague so closely resembled the outbreak of real-world epidemics that scientists are currently looking at the ways MMORPGs or other massively distributed systems can model human behavior during outbreaks. The reaction of players to the plague closely resembled previously hard-to-model aspects of human behavior that may allow researchers to more accurately predict how diseases and outbreaks spread amongst a population.
Legacy
World of Warcraft redefined the MMORPG genre. Its innovations were not necessarily original in isolation, but together they created a model for the genre as a theme park rather than a simulation. Its environment had tonal variety with serious lore and full characters but the intention to entertain. The game used quest completion for experience progression, making gameplay into a shopping list and encouraging mobility rather than dominating a location. Its use of instanced dungeons let players progress together without running into others, such that different areas of the game had different purposes, separating places for group challenges, mass challenges, and leveling. World of Warcraft original talent system, which let players distribute points among upgrades, saw wide adoption, including by Star Wars: The Old Republic. World of Warcraft also gave structure to the "raid" group activity, in which players needed a specific strategy. Emergent behavior from raid strategies were later built into the game.
While not the first MMORPG to lead to hundreds of hours of commitment, World of Warcraft was the most successful one in its time. "Most people", wrote Vice in 2019, "know someone who's said they were 'addicted' to World of Warcraft". For some, the game became a near-total obsession taking precedent over basic necessities and relationships. The game's bountiful quests provided a sense of purpose or coping mechanism for many who were unfulfilled with their lives, even though that time investment resulted in little to no change to their life fulfillment. The game inspired Wowaholics Anonymous, a community for players seeking to quit playing. World of Warcraft also provided hope and purpose to players, some leading to in-person romance.
Prior to running Breitbart News and joining the Trump campaign and administration, Steve Bannon found a political audience in World of Warcraft players. He was involved in Internet Gaming Entertainment, a company that employed World of Warcraft "gold farmers" whose gold would be resold for real money, which introduced Bannon to what he saw as "rootless, white males" with "monster power" even prior to the rise of Reddit. He built Breitbart into a far-right news and entertainment website in part by hiring Milo Yiannopoulos to pursue disaffected gamers.
Vitalik Buterin, who later co-founded the cryptocurrency Ethereum, was driven to pursue decentralized technologies following a 2010 patch that changed his World of Warcraft avatar's preferred spell. Requests by World of Warcraft players also led Microsoft to alter how hotkeys work in their Windows operating system.
In other media
World of Warcraft has inspired artists to satirize it and acknowledge its mark in popular culture. One example is the Emmy Award-winning South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft". The game has been used to advertise unrelated products, such as Toyota trucks.
In late 2007, a series of television commercials for the game began airing featuring pop culture celebrities such as Mr. T, William Shatner, and Verne Troyer discussing the virtues of the character classes they play in the game. A Spanish commercial featuring Guillermo Toledo, and a French commercial featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme, were also televised. Two more were shown in November 2008, featuring Ozzy Osbourne and Steve Van Zandt. Another commercial in the series, which began airing in November 2011, featured Chuck Norris and played on the Internet phenomenon of "Chuck Norris facts".
World of Warcraft has inspired three board games: World of Warcraft: The Board Game (including Shadow of War and The Burning Crusade expansions), World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game (produced by Fantasy Flight Games), and a World of Warcraft edition of Trivial Pursuit. There is also a trading card game, and a collectible miniatures game on the market, both formerly produced by Upper Deck Entertainment, now produced by Cryptozoic Entertainment. Cryptozoic released an "Archives" set which contains foil reproductions of older cards produced by Upper Deck. In August 2012, Megabloks launched a licensed line of World of Warcraft 'building block' toys based on the game scenes, scenarios and characters. In March 2014, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft was released, which is a free-to-play digital card game based on the Warcraft universe, using classes similar to World of Warcraft.
In November 2007, DC Comics published the first issue of the World of Warcraft comic under their WildStorm imprint.
In 2015, Blizzard released Heroes of the Storm, a crossover multiplayer online battle arena video game, in which players can control over 35 heroes from Warcraft universe such as Arthas, Gul'dan, Kel'thuzad, Malfurion, Ragnaros, Sylvanas, Thrall and Varian. The game features a Warcraft-themed battleground named Alterac Pass. A number of Warcraft-themed skins have been introduced for Heroes of the Storm in the "Echoes of Alterac" event in June 2018. Various soundtracks from World of Warcraft, such as Obsidian Sanctum from Wrath of the Lich King, The Wandering Isle from Mists of Pandaria, and Stormwind theme, are present as background music in the game.
Crossover promotions
To mark the release of Hearthstone, Blizzard released the Hearthsteed mount for World of Warcraft players. The mount is obtained through winning three games in Arena or Play mode. Widely advertised on various World of Warcraft websites, this promotion encourages World of Warcraft players to try Hearthstone and marked the first significant crossover implemented between Blizzard games.
Players who purchase Warlords of Draenor Collector's or Digital Deluxe Edition receive an Orc themed card back in Hearthstone. Heroes of the Storm players who reach level 20 receive the Grave Golem battle pet in World of Warcraft and after reaching level 100 in World of Warcraft receive an Ironside Dire Wolf mount in Heroes of the Storm. Starting on March 11, 2016, players who level a character to 20 in WoW, which can be completed with the free starter edition, earn the alternate Paladin hero Lady Liadrin in Hearthstone.
Players who buy Overwatch Origins, Game of the Year, or Collectors Edition are given the Baby Winston battle pet in WoW.
Notes
References
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United%20States%20House%20Select%20Committee%20on%20Assassinations
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United States House Select Committee on Assassinations
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The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was established in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963 and 1968, respectively. The HSCA completed its investigation in 1978 and issued its final report the following year, which concluded that Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. In addition to now-discredited acoustic analysis of a police channel dictabelt recording, the HSCA also commissioned numerous other scientific studies of assassination-related evidence that corroborate the Warren Commission's findings.
The HSCA found that although the Commission and the different agencies and departments examining Kennedy's assassination performed in good faith and were thorough in their investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald, they performed with "varying degrees of competency" and the search for possible conspiracy was inadequate. The HSCA determined, based on available evidence, that the probable conspiracy did not involve the governments of Cuba or the Soviet Union. The committee also stated that the conspiracy did not involve any organized crime group, anti-Castro group, nor the FBI, CIA, or Secret Service. The committee found that it could not exclude the possibility that individual members of the national syndicate of organized crime or anti-Castro Cubans were involved in a probable conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. However, some members of the committee would later state their personal belief that one of those groups was involved in the assassination, with Representative Floyd Fithian believing that the Kennedy assassination was orchestrated by members of organized crime.
In a memorandum written to the House Judiciary Committee in 1988 by Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General William F. Weld, the recommendations of the HSCA report were formally reviewed and a conclusion of active investigations was reported. In light of investigative reports from the FBI's Technical Services Division and the National Academy of Sciences Committee determining that "reliable acoustic data do not support a conclusion that there was a second gunman" in the Kennedy assassination, and that all investigative leads known to the Justice Department for both assassinations had been "exhaustively pursued", the Department concluded "that no persuasive evidence can be identified to support the theory of a conspiracy in either the assassination of President Kennedy or the assassination of Dr. King."
Historic context
Several forces contributed to the formation of the HSCA. With the growing body of assassination conspiracy material, public trust in the findings of the Warren Commission report was declining. The Hart-Schweiker and Church Committee hearings had recently revealed CIA ties to other assassinations and assassination attempts and illegal actions from federal administration (FBI and IRS).
The Church Commission also conducted an investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, concluding that the federal agencies the FBI and the CIA had failed in their duties and responsibilities and that the investigation into the assassination had been deficient.
There was also significant public interest after a video segment of the Zapruder film was first shown on TV on March 6, 1975 in Good Night America, after being stored by Life magazine out of view for almost twelve years. The footage showed the president's head recoiling violently backwards inside the presidential limousine during the fatal shooting as Lee Harvey Oswald was more than 80 yards behind. The public, having more and more difficulty accepting the conclusions of the Warren Commission report, led members of Congress to ask for new investigations into the assassination, within the framework of a new Commission of Inquiry.
Formation
In September 1976, the United States House of Representatives voted 280–65 to establish the Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in order to investigate the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
The committee was both controversial and divided among itself. The first chairman, Thomas N. Downing of Virginia retired in January 1977 and was replaced by Henry B. Gonzalez on February 2, 1977. Gonzalez and Chief Counsel Richard A. Sprague had irreconcilable disagreements over control of the committee, budget and investigative techniques, ending with Gonzalez's resignation. Sprague also resigned, in part to increase the chances of Congress voting to reconstitute the HSCA for the new two-year congressional term. Sprague's like-minded deputy Robert K. Tanenbaum also resigned shortly thereafter. Louis Stokes replaced Gonzalez as chairman and G. Robert Blakey was appointed as Chief Counsel and Staff Director to replace Sprague.
Members, 95th Congress
Members of the Subcommittee on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., 95th Congress
Members of the Subcommittee on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, 95th Congress
Investigations
The HSCA commissioned a number of expert scientific studies to re-investigate the physical evidence of the JFK assassination. In comparison to witness testimony and government documents, the committee felt that such investigations would particularly benefit from the scientific advances of the fifteen years since the Warren Commission. Several lines of inquiry were followed to both reaffirm the single shooter/single-bullet theory as well as to disprove specific conspiracy theory allegations. The HSCA concluded that these scientific studies of assassination-related evidence do "not preclude the possibility of two gunmen firing at the President."
Ballistic analysis
Forensic analysis confirmed that the mostly-intact stretcher bullet, bullet fragments from the presidential limo and the three cartridge casings from the sniper's nest were all fired from Oswald's rifle to the exclusion of all others. A technique using neutron activation analysis (NAA), a form of what has become known as comparative bullet-lead analysis (CBLA), was used to analyse the bullet lead from the JFK assassination. It revealed that it was highly likely that only two lead bullets were the source of all the following pieces of evidence: the mostly-intact stretcher bullet, fragments found in the presidential limousine's front seat and rug, fragments recovered from JFK's brain autopsy and fragments recovered from Governor Connally's wrist. Whether CBLA data can be used to actually exclude the possibility that there were fragments from more than two bullets in the wounds and the car has been the subject of controversy. (See single bullet theory)
Additionally, the location of the shooter (at the 6th floor Texas School Book Depository window) was determined using trajectory analysis. The origin of the rifle bullets was calculated using the location of the presidential limousine and its occupants combined with the bullet wounds found on the president and governor.
Photographic analysis
A team of photographic experts were used to answer several questions related to the photographic evidence of the case. Forensic anthropologists as well as photographic and radiographic experts, based on unique anatomical details, verified that JFK's autopsy photos and x-rays were only of the late president. Forensic anthropologists were also used to verify that all relevant photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald were of only one person. They verified that the backyard photos (showing Oswald holding the rifle used to kill the president) depicted the same rifle found in the Texas school book depository building after the crime. The panel of photographic experts were also used to verify the authenticity of the assassination-related photos and to analyze for any tampering or fakery; none was detected.
Forensic Pathology Panel
The HSCA's Forensic Pathology Panel included Michael Baden, John I. Coe, Joseph H. Davis, George S. Loquvam, Charles S. Petty, Earl Rose, Werner Spitz, Cyril Wecht, and James T. Weston.
With the benefit of authenticated photographs, x-rays and notes from the Kennedy autopsy, a nine-doctor panel of expert pathologists reviewed and corroborated the Warren Commission's medical findings. Although the HSCA medical panel was critical of the thoroughness and methodology of the original autopsy, they concurred, although Cyril Wecht dissented, with the Warren Commission's conclusion that two, and only two bullet wounds entered from above and behind (the direction of Oswald in the Book Depository). Their conclusion that the President was struck by a bullet that entered in the right rear of the head near the cowlick area and exited from the right front side of the head differed from a diagram in the Warren Commission's report showing this entrance wound low in the back of the head.
Fingerprint and handwriting analysis
The authenticity of several fingerprints and a palm print found on assassination-related materials was reaffirmed by a fingerprint expert. Lee Harvey Oswald's prints were found on the trigger guard and underside of the Mannlicher–Carcano rifle used to shoot the president, the brown paper container used to transport the rifle, several cardboard boxes in the sniper's nest and on the magazine order form to purchase the rifle.
In addition, dozens of documents were analyzed by a panel of three handwriting experts who verified that "the signatures and handwriting purported to be by Oswald are consistently that of one person." These include such incriminating items as the envelope and order form used to purchase the rifle, the application forms to rent the PO Box that the rifle was delivered to, and the notated backyard photo depicting Oswald holding the rifle.
Secret Services Actions analysis
The Department of Justice, the F.B.I, the C.I.A. and the Warren Commission were all criticized for the quality of the investigations carried out and for the way they informed the Warren Commission.
The Secret Services was criticized for the weak protection of the president, which was weakened between the parade in Houston on November 21 and Dallas on November 22, 1963. During the parade in Houston, the HSCA noted that 33 motorcyclists – including 6 on the flanks of the same presidential limousine- were deployed throughout the journey, which was not the case in Dallas 24 hours later. The HSCA reported that in its own report that : "(104) The Secret Service's alteration's of the Dallas Police Department's original motorcycle deployment plan prevented the use of maximum safety precautions."
Dictabelt audio recording
Although the HSCA had prepared a draft report confirming the Warren Commission's single shooter theory and finding no evidence of conspiracy, at the eleventh hour, the committee was swayed by a since-disputed acoustic analysis of a dictabelt police channel recording. This acoustic analysis of the dictabelt recording by the firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman Inc. concluded that four shots were fired at the president, thus causing the HSCA to reverse its earlier position and report "that Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy." In terms of scientific evidence, the HSCA acknowledged that the existence of a second shooter was only supported by this acoustic analysis.
As recommended by the HSCA, the Justice Department reviewed those findings through the FBI's Technical Services Division and by contracting the National Academy of Sciences, which specially appointed the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics (CBA). Both the FBI and CBA analyzed the acoustic data and BBN's scientific methodology and concluded that their findings were mistaken. Although there has been some recent back-and-forth between different researchers, the HSCA's acoustic analysis is widely considered to be discredited.
Witness auditions
Unlike the Warren Commission and the FBI who had concluded that there was a minor interest in their investigation of this aspect of the life of the former marine without digging further on the grounds that their investigation had not revealed the presence of Lee Harvey Oswald. at 544 Camp Street17, the HSCA revealed on the contrary several witnesses who confirmed the presence of Lee Harvey Oswald within the illegal branch of the CIA, including the brothers Allen and Daniel Campbell, former marines recruited by Guy Banister, his secretary Delphine Roberts or his own brother again.
In the address book of Lee Harvey Oswald was also found the coordinates of several notorious anti-Castroists.
The committee found too a connection between Lee Harvey Oswald and David Ferrie. The committee indicated that Lee Harvey Oswald and David Ferrie knew each other since 1955 and their actions in the civil air patrol.
The HSCA did not interview the personal physician of John F Kennedy, the doctor Georges Burkley who was never interviewed by the Warren Commission.
Conclusions
General conclusions
In particular, the various investigations performed by the U.S. government were faulted for insufficient consideration of the possibility of a conspiracy in each case. The committee in its report also made recommendations for legislative and administrative improvements, including making some assassinations Federal crimes.
Conclusions regarding the King assassination
On the King assassination, the committee concluded in its report that while King was killed by one rifle shot from James Earl Ray, "there is a likelihood" that it was the result of a conspiracy, and that no U.S. government agency was part of this conspiracy; on the contrary, it was more likely to be between Ray and his brothers.
Conclusions regarding the Kennedy assassination
On the Kennedy assassination, the HSCA concluded in its 1979 report that:
Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at Kennedy. The second and third shots Oswald fired struck the President. The third shot he fired killed the President.
Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that at least two gunmen fired at the President. Other scientific evidence does not preclude the possibility of two gunmen firing at the President. Scientific evidence negates some specific conspiracy allegations.
The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy.
The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination of Kennedy.
The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the assassination of Kennedy.
The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.
The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.
The Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the assassination of Kennedy.
Agencies and departments of the U.S. Government performed with varying degrees of competency in the fulfillment of their duties. President Kennedy did not receive adequate protection. A thorough and reliable investigation into the responsibility of Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination was conducted. The investigation into the possibility of conspiracy in the assassination was inadequate. The conclusions of the investigations were arrived at in good faith, but presented in a fashion that was too definitive.
The committee further concluded that it was probable that:
four shots were fired
the fourth shot came from a second assassin located on the grassy knoll, but missed. The HSCA concluded the existence and location of this alleged fourth shot based on the later discredited Dallas Police Department Dictabelt recording analysis.
The HSCA agreed with the single bullet theory, but concluded that it occurred at a time point during the assassination that differed from any of the several time points the Warren Commission theorized it occurred.
The Department of Justice, FBI, CIA, and the Warren Commission were all criticized for not revealing to the Warren Commission information available in 1964, and the Secret Service was deemed deficient in their protection of the President.
The HSCA made several accusations of deficiency against the FBI and CIA as the Church Committee in 1976. The accusations encompassed organizational failures, miscommunication, and a desire to keep certain parts of their operations secret. Furthermore, the Warren Commission expected these agencies to be forthcoming with any information that would aid their investigation. But the FBI and CIA only saw it as their duty to respond to specific requests for information from the commission. However, the HSCA found the FBI and CIA were deficient in performing even that limited role.
Criticisms
Although the HSCA publicly released its findings in 12 volumes and a single-volume summary report, the majority of primary documents were sealed for 50 years under congressional rules. In 1992, Congress passed legislation to collect and open up all the evidence relating to Kennedy's death, and created the Assassination Records Review Board to further that goal. No materials have been uncovered which significantly change the conclusions or opinion of the HSCA.
The ARRB reported: "Because the HSCA investigation was marked by internal squabbling and disillusioned staffers, the committee's records were the subject of ongoing controversy. Some ex-staffers claimed the HSCA report did not reflect their investigative work, and that information that did not conform with the committee leadership's preconceived conclusions was ignored or left out of the report and supporting volumes."
In 1992, author Bonar Menninger dismissed the committee report as Blakey's $5 Million Folly.
Robert Blakey, the chief counsel of the committee, later changed his views that the CIA was being cooperative and forthcoming with the investigation when he learned that the CIA's special liaison to the committee researchers, George Joannides, was actually involved with some of the organizations that Lee Harvey Oswald was allegedly involved with in the months leading up to the assassination. Among these organizations was an anti-Castro group, the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil, which was linked to the CIA (Joannides was in fact working for the CIA in 1963). Chief Counsel Blakey later stated that Joannides should have in fact been interviewed by the HCSA, rather than serving as a gatekeeper to the CIA's evidence and files regarding the assassination. He further disregarded and suspected all the CIA's statements and representations to the committee, accusing it of obstruction of justice.
In the same 2003 interview, Blakey issued a statement on the Central Intelligence Agency:
...I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the [Central Intelligence] Agency and its relationship to Oswald.... We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA–Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission of a chance to obtain the full truth, which will now never be known. Significantly, the Warren Commission's conclusion that the agencies of the government co-operated with it is, in retrospect, not the truth. We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976–79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency. Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story. I am now in that camp.
According to a 2015 Politico report, newly declassified documents show that CIA director John A. McCone hid evidence from the Warren Commission. According to a once-secret report written in 2013 by the CIA's top in-house historian, David Robarge, the CIA admits McCone and other senior CIA officials withheld 'incendiary' information from the Warren Commission.
References
External links
Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives (March 29, 1979). Stokes, Louis Chairman, House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Appendix Volumes to the Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives (March 29, 1979). Stokes, Louis Chairman, House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Assassinations
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Official enquiries concerning the assassination of John F. Kennedy
1976 establishments in the United States
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaquita
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Vaquita
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The vaquita ( ; Phocoena sinus) is a species of porpoise endemic to the northern end of the Gulf of California in Baja California, Mexico. Reaching a maximum body length of (females) or (males), it is the smallest of all living cetaceans.
The species is currently on the brink of extinction, and currently listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List; the steep decline in abundance is primarily due to bycatch in gillnets from the illegal totoaba fishery.
Taxonomy
The vaquita was defined as a species by two zoologists, Kenneth S. Norris and William N. McFarland, in 1958 after studying the morphology of skull specimens found on the beach. It was not until nearly thirty years later, in 1985, that fresh specimens allowed scientists to describe their external appearance fully.
The genus Phocoena comprises four species of porpoise, most of which inhabit coastal waters (the spectacled porpoise is more oceanic). The vaquita is most closely related to Burmeister's porpoise (Phocoena spinipinnis) and less so to the spectacled porpoise (Phocoena dioptrica), two species limited to the Southern Hemisphere. Their ancestors are thought to have moved north across the equator more than 2.5 million years ago during a period of cooling in the Pleistocene. Genome sequencing from an individual captured in 2017 indicates that the ancestral vaquitas had already gone through a major population bottleneck in the past, which may explain why the few remaining individuals are still healthy despite the very low population size.
"Vaquita" is Spanish for "little cow".
Description
The smallest living species of cetacean, the vaquita can be easily distinguished from any other species in its range. It has a small body with an unusually tall, triangular dorsal fin, a rounded head, and no distinguished beak. The coloration is mostly grey with a darker back and a white ventral field. Prominent black patches surround its lips and eyes. Sexual dimorphism is apparent in body size, with mature females being longer than males and having larger heads and wider flippers. Females reach a maximum size of about , while males reach about . Dorsal fin height is greater in males than in females. They are also known to weigh around to . This makes them one of the smallest species in the porpoise family.
Distribution and habitat
Vaquita habitat is restricted to a small portion of the upper Gulf of California (also called the Sea of Cortez), making this the smallest range of any cetacean species. They live in shallow, turbid waters of less than depth.
Diet
Vaquitas are generalists, foraging on a variety of demersal fish species, crustaceans, and squids, though benthic fish such as grunts and croakers make up most of the diet.
Social behavior
Vaquitas are generally seen alone or in pairs, often with a calf, but have been observed in small groups of up to 10 individuals.
Little is known about the life history of this species. Life expectancy is estimated at about 20 years and age of sexual maturity is somewhere between 3 and 6 years of age. While an initial analysis of stranded vaquitas estimated a two-year calving interval, recent sightings data suggest that vaquitas can reproduce annually. It is thought that vaquitas have a polygynous mating system in which males compete for females. This competition is evidenced by the presence of sexual dimorphism (females are larger than males), small group sizes, and large testes (accounting for nearly 3% of body mass).
Population status
Because the vaquita was only fully described in the late 1980s, historical abundance is unknown. Since 1983, all confirmed specimens, records, and sightings of P. sinus were evaluated. There were 45 records of P. sinus that were collected by skeletal remains, photographs, and sightings in 1983. The first comprehensive vaquita survey throughout their range took place in 1997 and estimated a population of 567 individuals. By 2007 abundance was estimated to have dropped to 150. Population abundance as of 2018 was estimated at less than 19 individuals. Given the continued rate of bycatch and low reproductive output from a small population, it is estimated that there are fewer than 10 vaquitas alive as of February 2022. In 2023, it is still estimated that there are as few as 10 in the wild.
Reproduction
Vaquitas reach sexual maturity from three to six years old. Vaquitas have synchronous reproduction, suggesting that calving span is greater than a year. Their pregnancies last from 10 to 11 months, and vaquita calves are nursed by their mothers for 6-8 months until becoming independent. Vaquitas give birth about every other year to a single calf, usually between the months of February and April. Because of their low reproduction rates, long gestation periods and larger species size, vaquitas are considered a K-selected species. K-selected species are more vulnerable to extinction as they cannot repopulate at the rate of r-selected species. Vaquitas are on the brink of extinction because their numbers are few and they cannot replenish their population fast enough to exceed the number of vaquitas dying off.
Threats
Fisheries bycatch
Anthropogenic effects of a rise in commercial fishing such as accidental bycatch, illegal fishing, and entanglement have been linked to the cause of their decline. Shrimp fishing and gillnets create entanglement issues for the vaquita. Aspects of illegal fishing include open access fisheries and absent fisheries management has correlated towards poaching of the main prey source of the vaquita.
The drastic decline in vaquita abundance is the result of fisheries bycatch in commercial and illegal gillnets, including fisheries targeting the now-endangered Totoaba, shrimp, and other available fish species. Despite government regulations, including a partial gillnet ban in 2015 and establishment of a permanent gillnet exclusion zone in 2017, illegal totaoba fishing remains prevalent in vaquita habitat, and as a result the population has continued to decline. Fewer than 19 vaquitas remained in the wild in 2018. Large-mesh gillnets used in illegal fishing for totoaba caused an increase in the rate of loss of vaquitas after 2011.
In 2021, the Mexican government eliminated a "no tolerance" zone in the Upper Gulf of California and opened it up to fishing.
Other threats
Given their proximity to the coast, vaquitas are exposed to habitat alteration and pollution from runoff. Pesticides present in the water as a result of runoff from agriculture are a threat as they can be ingested by the vaquitas, causing harm and even death. Exposure to toxic compounds has also had a deleterious effect on vaquitas.
Bycatch, which is the incidental catch of non-target species in fishing gear, is not only the largest threat to the survival of the vaquita, but to all marine mammals around the world. A series of simulations in a 2022 study indicate that the species has a chance to survive and recover if all bycatch is halted, despite the presence of other threats.
However, the biggest threat still towards vaquita are fisheries. Northern fishing fleets have had an indirect positive impact mainly on marine mammals, because fishing on predators like sharks reduces its predatory negative impact on those groups. Although the predation of sharks towards vaquita do result in a decline in population and is seen as an alternate threat, northern fishing fleets also negatively impact this small marine mammal because the negative influence of incidental catch is greater than the positive influence of predation reduction by shark fisheries.
Populations that experience a sudden decline in numbers are often more vulnerable to other threats in the future due to a bottleneck of genetic diversity within the reduced population. The reduced gene pool lowers the rate of adaptation and increases the rate of inbreeding. This phenomenon is attributed to the anthropogenic Allee effect, specifically on the end where small population size leads to low species fitness because of a lack of genetic diversity and the potential for inbreeding. Because of their small population size, vaquitas are experiencing a negative Allee effect, attributing to even smaller population growth rates, driving them further into extinction. However, a 2022 study on the genetic diversity of the vaquita suggests that the marine mammal’s historically small population ensures it is unlikely to greatly suffer from inbreeding depression.
Attempts to start a population in captivity have proved to be more threatening to the population than helpful. A November 2017 effort ended up traumatizing and killing one female vaquita, as well as invoking unnecessary stress onto a juvenile. Still, creating a captive population could be used as a last attempt resort to save the species and to further education on vaquitas.
Conservation
Conservation status
The vaquita is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, which is only one level above being completely extinct in the wild. It is considered the most endangered marine mammal in the world. The vaquita has been listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species since 1996. The vaquita is at risk of extinction due to its small population size. It was approximated at one point that there were 150 individuals.
In 2019, the UNESCO World Heritage Site where the last vaquita are located was classified as a World Heritage Site in Danger.
The vaquita is also protected under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the Mexican Official Standard NOM-059 (Norma Oficial Mexicana), and Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
For a small population such as the vaquita to recover after a severe decline in population size is very difficult. This conservation status is strongly influenced in part of the species reproductive biology. The large amount of unknown surrounding the key reproductive parameters of the vaquita makes understanding its potential for recovery even harder.
Conservation efforts
The vaquita is found only in the upper Gulf of California, Mexico area. The vaquita is at risk of extinction due to its small population size. It was approximated at one point that there were 150 individuals left with a 10% annual decline within their population. Anthropogenic effects of a rise in commercial fishing such as accidental by-catch, illegal fishing, and entanglement have been linked to the cause of their decline. Shrimp fishing and gillnets create entanglement issues for the vaquita. Aspects of illegal fishing include open access fisheries and absent fisheries management have correlated towards poaching of the main prey source of the vaquita. The swim bladders of the Totoaba macdonaldi are being sold on the black market by cartels for profit.
The Mexican government, international committees, scientists, and conservation groups have recommended and implemented plans to help reduce the rate of bycatch, enforce gillnet bans, and promote population recovery.
Protection efforts throughout Mexico have taken place in order to preserve the population. In 2017, the Government of Mexico created established it as a felony to remove endangered species. Alongside this, the Government of Mexico also made a public agreement to prohibit gillnet use. Efforts are proactive in incentive applications to fisheries in a system of trade-offs that benefit fishermen and the vaquita.
Mexico launched a program in 2008 called PACE-VAQUITA in an effort to enforce the gillnet ban in the Biosphere Reserve, allow fishermen to swap their gillnets for vaquita-safe fishing gear, and provide economic support to fishermen for surrendering fishing permits and pursuing alternative livelihoods. Despite the progress made with legal fishermen, hundreds of poachers continued to fish in the exclusion zone. Poaching continues as the swim bladders of totoaba can sell for anywhere from $20,000 to upwards of $80,000, and they are often referred to as the "cocaine of the sea." A black market for totoaba swim bladders has developed fairly recently in China (including Hong Kong). In 2017, poachers received up to US$20,000 for a kilogram of totoaba swim bladders, with some making as much as $116,000 in one day.
The swim bladders of the Totoaba macdonaldi are being sold on the black market by cartel for profit. With continued illegal totoaba fishing, which is largely motivated by sales to the Chinese market where it is used in traditional medicine, and uncontrolled bycatch of vaquitas, the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA) recommended that some vaquitas be removed from the high-density fishing area and be relocated to protected sea pens. This effort, called VaquitaCPR, captured two vaquitas in 2017; one was later released and the other died shortly after capture after both suffered from shock.
Local and international conservation groups, including Museo de Ballena and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, are working with the Mexican Navy to detect fishing in the Refuge Area and remove illegal gillnets. In March 2020, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced a ban on imported Mexican shrimp and other seafood caught in vaquita habitat in the northern Gulf of California.
In response to the dire circumstances facing the vaquita as by-catch of the illegal totoaba trade, in 2017 Earth League International (ELI) commenced an investigation and intelligence gathering operation called Operation Fake Gold, during which the entire illicit totoaba maw (swim bladder) international supply chain, from Mexico to China, has been mapped and researched. Thanks to the confidential data that ELI shared with the Mexican authorities, in November 2020, a series of important arrests were made in Mexico.
To date, efforts have been unsuccessful in solving the complex socioeconomic and environmental issues that affect vaquita conservation and the greater Gulf of California ecosystem. Necessary action includes habitat protection, resource management, education, fisheries enforcement, alternative livelihoods for fishermen, and raising awareness of the vaquita and associated issues.
Jaramillo-Legorreta, et al. stated in 2007 that captive breeding programs were not a viable option for saving the species from extinction.
The Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) announced on February 27, 2021, that it may reduce the protected area for the vaquita in the Sea of Cortés as there are only ten of the porpoises left and it may never recuperate its historical range.
Beginning in July 2022, the Mexican government placed 193 concrete blocks in the Gulf of California no-tolerance zone, intended to allow the detection of nets by acoustic sonar and prevent further entrapment of vaquitas.
Protection efforts throughout Mexico have taken place in order to preserve the population. In 2017, the Government of Mexico created established it as a felony to remove endangered species. Alongside this, the Government of Mexico also made a public agreement to prohibit gillnet use. Efforts are proactive in incentive applications to fisheries in a system of trade-offs that benefit fishermen and the vaquita.
Creating protected areas is always an option for conservationists, but because the vaquita's range is so small, there would be no use in trying to establish habitat corridors. One option for conservationists could be trying to create buffer zones near the coast in which pesticides harmful to vaquitas are restricted or even unavailable in order to enhance the protection value of the vaquita's range.
In May, 2023 a wildlife survey expedition discovered that the population had stabilized since it had last been recorded in 2021.
Consumers
Roughly 80% of shrimp caught in the northern end of the Gulf of California, which has a high aquatic mammal bycatch rate, is consumed in the United States. As such, U.S. consumers of this shrimp are likely contributing to the vaquita extinction crisis. The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which forbids foreign fishers from exporting seafood with high levels of marine mammal bycatch, may allow for better efforts to preserve endangered vaquitas.
See also
Smallest organisms
References
Sources
Further reading
External links
To learn more about the vaquita and conservation efforts visit:
¡Viva Vaquita! – a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing the extinction of the vaquita
Vaquita fact sheet from NOAA Fisheries
The Vaquita and the Totoaba – web site for the Wild Lens Collective of film makers' outreach campaign about the vaquita's extinction crisis
"Souls of the Vermilion Sea", a 30-minute documentary about the local community where the vaquita is found and why its population has declined
"Sea of Shadows", a full-length 2019 documentary produced by Leonardo DiCaprio on the effort to rescue the vaquita from extinction
Voices in the Sea – sounds of the vaquita
VaquitaMarina.org , a Baja California Sur-based vaquita conservation group
Operation Milagro III , Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's operation to protect the vaquita
Porpoise Conservation Society
Society for Marine Mammalogy
Operation Fake Gold, [Earth League International]
Mammals described in 1958
EDGE species
Endemic mammals of Mexico
Marine fauna of the Gulf of California
Porpoises
Critically endangered biota of Mexico
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruppo%20Bertone
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Gruppo Bertone
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Gruppo Bertone, commonly known as Bertone, was an Italian industrial design company which specialized in car styling, coachbuilding and manufacturing. It formerly was also a car manufacturing company. Bertone styled cars for Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, BMW, Citroën, Ferrari, FIAT, Iso, Lancia, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, Opel, and Volvo, among others. In addition, the Bertone studio was responsible for two of the later designs of the Lambretta motorscooter.
The company was based in Grugliasco in northern Italy. Gruppo Bertone was founded as Carrozzeria Bertone in 1912 by Giovanni Bertone. Designer Nuccio Bertone took charge of the company after World War II and the company was divided into two units: Carrozzeria for manufacturing and Stile Bertone for styling. Until its bankruptcy in 2014, the company was headed by the widow of Nuccio Bertone, Lilli Bertone. At the time of bankruptcy, it had some 100 direct employees. In 2014 most employees lost their jobs and were not absorbed by following acquisitions. Cars from the company museum went to other museums, like Automotoclub Storico Italiano and Volandia.
After its bankruptcy, the Bertone name was acquired by an architect and retained by some of its former employees, who continued as a Milan-based small external design office, Bertone Design, much more focused on industrial design and architecture.
Bertone Design was sold to the group AKKA Technologies in the second quarter of 2016, which already had automotive design activities through Mercedes Benz Technologies, owned by the group AKKA Technologies for several years. The AKKA Technologies group thus took the opportunity to increase its positioning in engineering and services to manufacturers to deliver turnkey vehicle projects.
The AKKA Technologies group subsequently sold the Bertone brand in 2020 to Mauro and Jean-Franck Ricci, the new owners.
In 2022 Mauro and Jean-Franck Ricci revived the Bertone brand, starting a new era as a coachbuilder of limited-edition ultra high-end sports cars. Mauro and Jean-Franck Ricci, with 38 years of experience in engineering and automotive and having established a successful engineering consultancy within mobility, merge the Bertone design heritage with high performance automotive engineering. The first in a series of limited edition vehicles, the GB110, was presented in December 2022, marking the 110th anniversary and the beginning of a new chapter in the Bertone history.
History
Giovanni Bertone started a carriage manufacturing business in Turin at the age of 28. Along with three workers, he built horse-drawn vehicles.
In the first decades of the 20th century, cars were not common; road traffic was dominated by horse-drawn carriages. The coaches built by the young Bertone were particularly regarded for their accuracy, quality, and solidity. In 1914, Bertone's second son, Giuseppe, nicknamed "Nuccio", was born. The outbreak of the First World War triggered a major crisis of the young Italian industrial sector and heavily affected Giovanni Bertone, who was forced to close his company.
1920s
At the end of the First World War, Bertone's business restarted and expanded its activities and began focusing on the automotive sector. In 1920, a new plant was opened near the Monginevro 119 in Turin.
Twenty people were on the payroll. One year later, the first important contract was signed to the company. This was a torpedo styled body based on the SPA 23S chassis. Then, the FIAT "501 Sport Siluro Corsa," the first of a family of models that would characterize the brand in the years to come, was designed.
During the 1920s, Turin was represented as one of the worldwide centers of excellence of the car industry. Bertone was at its hub and formed partnerships with almost all the manufacturers of the time. Giovanni Bertone began doing bodywork on the Fast, Chiribiri, Aurea, SCAT, and Diatto chassis. The most important and long-lasting relationships were those with the two biggest Turin manufacturers: FIAT and Lancia.
Vincenzo Lancia realized straight away that Giovanni Bertone was an outstanding skilled craftsman with a great future ahead of him. Affectionately nicknaming him "Bertunot", he commissioned Bertone to create complete car bodies, especially for the "limited series" that the companies of the day were not always equipped to manufacture. This was Bertone's first opportunity to carry out limited production of special cars on standard mechanical bases.
These were exciting years for Bertone himself and for the evolution of industrial style and design. The car body shapes were slowly but continuously changing, angular shapes began to fade, and wings started to be joined together.
Giovanni Bertone produced torpedo and saloon bodies for FIAT and Lancia, and for Itala, Diatto and SPA. He also worked on commissions for private customers eager for exclusivity. Alongside sports models like the 1928 Ansaldo 6BS, Giovanni Bertone also designed luxury cars like the Fiat 505 limousine and the Itala 51S, both in 1924. He later designed the Lancia Lambda VIII Series in 1928.
1930s
Despite the fact that the depression of 1929 had been devastating on many Turin carmakers, Giovanni Bertone's shrewd management allowed the company to carry on creating cars with an appeal. In 1932, Giovanni designed the Lancia Artena, which was produced until 1936. In 1933, the following year, a cornerstone event for the Carrozzeria Bertone occurred. Nuccio Bertone, who was nineteen at the time, officially began working in his father's company. During the same period, Bertone began working on commercial vehicles, and as the business grew, new premises were needed. The company moved to Corso Peschiera 225. Gruppo Bertone now had fifty members of staff.
In 1934, Bertone created the Fiat 527S Ardita 2500, a turning point in car design, with some new details such as the front headlights with fairing along the bonnet. With the Ardita, a new kind of style was created, which was destined to take off towards the end of the decade with FIAT and Lancia models. Examples were the 'six window' FIAT 1500 Aerodinamica, the opulent Lancia Aprilia Cabriolet, and the novel Fiat 1500 Torpedo, with structural features that had never been seen before, such as the fold-away hood which stowed away entirely inside the car.
1940s
With the outbreak of the Second World War, the car market experienced a sudden, drastic downturn. Almost all the bodywork manufacturers, including Bertone, reacted to the crisis by turning to military vehicles of various kinds. The company created vehicles such as the Bertone ambulance on a Lancia Artena base. This was a hard time for Bertone; demand was scarce, raw materials and labor were lacking, and military orders were difficult to fulfil. But production did not stop in the Corso Peschiera plant, as some luxurious Lancia Aprilia were manufactured as well as the extremely elegant long chassis Fiat 2800 cabriolet, the only one of its kind, built on commission for race driver and motoring journalist Giovanni Lurani Cernuschi.
After the war, as the long slow process of reconstruction began in Europe, the big industrial companies gradually scaled up their production levels, and the bodyworks got back to work. During these difficult years, Nuccio Bertone created cars like the Lancia Aprilia Cabriolet and the Fiat 1100 Stanguellini racing car, which were precursors to some of the design trends in the following decade.
At the end of the 1940s, Nuccio Bertone turned to racing at the wheel of a number of different cars, including a Fiat 500 Barchetta, which Nuccio built for himself. At the end of the decade, the meeting with Vittorio Stanguellini led to the creation of a coupé with a Fiat 1100 chassis which got a high public appreciation.
1950s
The 1950s brought in the first orders from countries other than Italy, in particular from MG and Bristol Cars Limited in 1952. The following year, Franco Scaglione designed the prototype for the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint, which was presented at the 1954 Turin Motor Show. A production of 1,000 units was originally planned, but by the end, nearly 40,000 vehicles were made between 1954 and 1965. The car ceased production in 1965.
The relationship between Bertone and Alfa Romeo reached its creative peak with the Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica (BAT) concept cars which pushed back the boundaries of car design and aerodynamics: the BAT 5 in 1953, the BAT 7 in 1954 and the BAT 9 of 1955. Research into aerodynamics culminated in the production of the Abarth 750 Record in 1956, built on a Fiat 600 chassis and tested on the high-speed track at Monza. This Abarth set an impressive ten world records, including doing at an average of 156.36 km/h and covering 10,125.26 km in 72 hours.
In 1957, the company expanded to start the production of the NSU Sport Prinz. The factory in Corso Peschiera could not cope with the forecast production volumes. Construction work began in Grugliasco on the outskirts of Turin for a new plant that became operative in 1959, with a workforce of 550. At the end of the 1950s, Bertone came up with some sports Berlinettas which were to make history, such as the Giulietta Sprint Speciale, the Aston Martin DB2/4 and the Maserati 3500 GT.
1960s
The 1960s were the years of the Italian-style GT. Giorgetto Giugiaro came up with five variations on the theme which would always be dear to his heart. They were in the shape of five extremely racy GT models: the Alfa Romeo 2600 Sprint, in coupé and cabriolet versions, two Ferrari 250 GTs, one named 'Wax' after the commissioning client, and the others for his personal use, the Aston Martin DB4 GT 'Jet' and the Maserati 5000 GT. At the same time, two new industrial partnerships were getting underway, with the work on the Simca 1000 Coupé and the BMW 3200 CS limited series. The important, but unfortunate ASA 1000 GT, better known as the "Ferrarina", or "little Ferrari" (as the project originated with Enzo Ferrari), was a commercial failure upon its release despite the high expectations of the public.
The Iso Rivolta GT 300, the Iso Rivolta GT 340 and the Iso Grifo were also created in the 1960s. Giorgetto Giugiaro designed a prototype cabriolet of the latter and a racing version known as the A3C. The Grifo years were also the years of the Chevrolet Testudo, driven personally by Nuccio Bertone to the Geneva Motor Show in 1963. The following year saw the Alfa Romeo Canguro, followed in 1965 by the Alfa Romeo Giulia GT, the rightful heir of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint.
In 1965, Carrozzeria Bertone experienced a major turning-point, with the launch of the Fiat 850 Spider. The commercial success of this model led Nuccio Bertone to increase the company's production capacity to 120 units per day. Between 1965 and 1972 nearly 140,000 were produced, the great majority of which were sold in the United States. With the Fiat 850, the company took a giant leap forward in terms of production volumes, from the 13,000 units produced in 1966 to nearly 30,000 in 1968, an increase of 40 percent.
The end of the 1960s saw the beginning of the partnership with Ferruccio Lamborghini that was destined to make history in the car world. The first vehicle to come out of this was the Lamborghini Miura, which was presented at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show and reinvented the high-performance coupé design concept. The Miura was followed by the Marzal in 1967 and the Espada in 1968. In the same period, two other coupés appeared: the Alfa Romeo Montreal and the Fiat Dino Coupé, both out in 1967. Astounding, ground-breaking cars, they invented their own language for the design of the future: these were Marcello Gandini's trademarks. At the Paris Motor Show of 1968, Bertone presented the Carabo concept car, based on an Alfa 33 chassis.
1970s
By 1970, Bertone had a workforce of 1,500 staff, and the Grugliasco factory covered an area of . The partnership with Lamborghini led to the development of the Lamborghini Espada, by 1973 known as the world's fastest four-seater. The design was inspired by an earlier concept, the Jaguar Pirana. After his initial success with the Espada, he went on to design the Lamborghini Jarama and the Lamborghini Urraco. With the Stratos Zero prototype, which was built on a Lancia Fulvia 1.6 HF base, Bertone came to represent a new point of reference in modern art, as well as on the international car design scene. The Stratos Zero, which was presented at the 1970 Turin Motor Show, evoked a timeless blend of architecture, sculpture, and industrial design.
The following year, with some of the Zero's styling cues as a starting point, Bertone created the Lancia Stratos Stradale, a compact coupé destined mainly for the racing circuit, and which went on to win numerous victories in world rally championships.
In 1972, Giovanni Bertone died.
In that year, as a tacit tribute to the company's founder, the Maserati Khamsin and the Fiat X1/9 were released. The latter, foreshadowed by the Autobianchi A112 Runabout concept car, was the heir of the 850 Spider and went on to enjoy the same runaway commercial success. Based on the Fiat 128 chassis but with a mid-rear-engine layout, the X1/9 was in production from 1972 to 1988, with 160,000 units manufactured.
Meanwhile, Marcello Gandini's prolific drawing board saw a succession of supercars, runabouts, and provocative style concepts. These included the 1973 Series 3 version of the Lamborghini Espada, which redesigned the dashboard configuration, the Lamborghini Countach and the Ferrari 308 GT4 of 1973, the Audi 50 and Innocenti Mini 90 of 1974, the Fiat 131 Abarth Rally in 1975, and the prototype Alfa Romeo Navajo in 1976.
In the same year, the company began working for Volvo on the 264 TE. The Volvo 262C, which was presented at the 1977 Geneva Motor Show, was entirely manufactured by Bertone, from the assembly of the basic body to the fitting of the mechanical components and the road trials.
This procedural turning point had a big role in transforming the company, which was now set to become a car manufacturer in its own right.
1980s
From the start of the 1980s, the Fiat Ritmo Cabrio and the Fiat X1/9 were produced and sold directly under the Bertone brand, meaning that the company was now responsible not only for production but also for the sales network and after-sales assistance for the two models.
In 1982, Marcello Gandini turned out another important design, the Citroën BX. After entering into a joint-venture with Volvo in 1985 the company began production of the Volvo 780, a two-door saloon entirely created by Bertone, from the formal design of the model to the full production cycle.
A new commercial agreement drawn up with General Motors Europe in 1986 saw the production of the Kadett Cabrio was handed over to Bertone. The new Pontiac Fiero GT body design was also due to this relationship with the stile Bertone department of the company. The partnership with Opel continued with the first generation of the Opel Astra Cabrio, and with the Astra Coupé.
The end of the 1980s saw the Citroën XM, and the Freeclimber off-roader with mechanical components by Daihatsu and BMW engines.
1990s
Without abandoning its commitment to exploring the new languages of car design, Bertone entered the 1990s with its focus on technological innovations.
Capturing the attention of the public and experts alike at the 1992 Turin Motor Show was the aggressively futuristic Blitz Barchetta, a show car that featured an electric engine and avant-garde construction. The Barchetta had a tubular chassis in special steel integrated with sandwich-structured fiberglass panels, bodywork in composite materials, and carbon interiors.
In 1993 the Opel Astra Cabrio and the Fiat Punto Cabrio began production, with the entire production cycle for both cars at the Grugliasco factory; assembly of the bodywork, mechanical components integration, paintwork, and fittings. A complete production cycle, ending with the final testing process, was carried out according to the procedures and standards of the commissioning companies.
In 1994, continuing the company's research into low environmental impact vehicles, Bertone presented the Zero Emission Record (ZER), a futuristic reinterpretation of the Abarth 750 Record. Expressly conceived and created to yield the highest performance levels in the electric car sector, the ZER (which has a Cx of 0.11) set the world one-hour-long distance record (199.822 km), and broke the 300 km/h barrier, setting the new world speed record for electric cars (with a top speed of 303.977 km/h).
In 1994, Gruppo Bertone became the first manufacturer in Italy to be awarded the ISO 9001 quality certification. Meanwhile, Bertone did not turn its back on a past dedicated to bodywork and continued to design working prototypes; the Karisma in 1994, a four-seater Berlinetta on a Porsche base, the Kayak in 1995, a coupé on a Lancia K base, the Slalom 'coupé de chasse' on an Opel Astra Coupe/Cabrio base, and the Fiat Enduro 4x4, an SUV based on a Fiat Brava floorplan.
Bertone after Nuccio Bertone
On 26 February 1997, the evening of the Geneva Motor Show, Nuccio Bertone died, as "one of the greatest coachbuilders of the century, and international Maestro of Italian style," in the words of Fulvio Cinti, motoring journalist and car historian. His widow, Lilli Bertone, took over management of the company.
2000s
In the past, car manufacturers had paid more attention to the engineering of a car than to its design. By the 1990s they had realized the importance of design to their brand's success and were increasingly bringing more of the creative work in-house. This even applied to supercar manufacturers, who in the past had been a major client of the Italian design consultancies (carrozzeria). While Chinese and Indian manufacturers provided some work, this too decreased as once they gained confidence and they established their own in-house design studios. Despite these difficulties, Bertone obtained some specialist manufacturing projects and continued with design consulting.
However, by 2009, the worsening financial situation caused Bertone to sell its Grugliasco plant, along with its manufacturing activities to FIAT. Bertone underwent a major restructuring process and became a fully integrated service company in the automotive, transportation, and industrial design sectors. By then, the Bertone workforce had dropped to roughly 300 people, mainly engineers and designers, with a capacity of 300,000 engineering hours per year. This allowed it to manage up to four prototype projects per year, from first style drafts to effectively manufacturing prototypes.
2010s
The financial turmoil continued, leading Bertone to sell off some of its treasured collection of concept cars in 2011.
Bertone enters bankruptcy
After having ceased trading because of financial difficulties, Bertone on 18 March 2014 confirmed that it would be declared bankrupt if a suitable buyer was not found by the end of April.
Creation of Bertone Design
In May 2013, the license rights to the brand were granted by Bertone Cento to Bertone Design, a company established in Milan, led by architect Aldo Cingolani with the aim of reviving the brand in various fields, such as architecture, industrial design, and fashion. Bertone Design also operates in the railway sector. A more recent unique project was a partnership with Citroën, but since the 2013 acquisition of the name, a car prototype or series was never made.
Bertone brand
In June 2016, the Bertone brand was acquired for more than 2.6 million euros by AKKA Technologies, an engineering company active in the automotive, railway, and aerospace sectors. The rights to use the brand, however, were shared with the Bertone Design which not had the authorization to use it in the automotive field.
Starting from November 2018, AKKA Technologies sold the license to use the Bertone brand in the electric automotive sector to Flymove Holding Limited UK, which in May 2019 proceeded with the definitive purchase of the brand for all applications and sectors. They relaunched Bertone through the presentation of new models of fully electric cars designed by Carlos Arroyo Turon (former Bertone Designer) and which use the innovative battery swap system (Battery Swap System).
2020s - The Renaissance
The AKKA Technologies group subsequently sold the Bertone brand to Ideactive, a company owned by Mauro and Jean-Franck Ricci. In 2022 the two Ricci brothers, who are passionate about cars, revived the Bertone brand, starting a new era as a coachbuilder of limited-edition ultra high-end sports cars. The first in a series of limited edition vehicles, the GB110, was launched in December 2022, marking the 110th anniversary and the beginning of a new chapter in the Bertone history.
Design and production activity
Passenger car designs
Motorcycle designs
Lambretta Luna Range: Lui/Vega/Cometa (1968)
Lambretta GP/DL (1969)
Vehicles produced by Bertone, but not of Bertone design
BMW C1 (2000–2003)
Fiat Punto Cabrio (1995–1999)
Mini Cooper GP (2006)
Volvo 262C (1977–1981)
Notable designers
Mario Revelli di Beaumont
Nuccio Bertone
Franco Scaglione
Giovanni Michelotti
Giorgetto Giugiaro
Marcello Gandini
Marc Deschamps
Michael Vernon Robinson
Jason Castriota
Giuliano Biasio
Notes
References
AutoCar (UK) November 26, 2007 Bertone's on the brink
Automotive World November 27, 2007 Carrozzeria Bertone files for bankruptcy protection
AutoWeek January 2, 2008 'New white knight emerges for Bertone'
External links
Carrozzeria Bertone - the official web site
Bertone Design - the official web site
Coachbuild.com Encyclopedia: Bertone
Posters for 100 years anniversary of Bertone
Engineering companies of Italy
Coachbuilders of Italy
Italian automobile designers
Convertible top suppliers
Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1912
Turin motor companies
Italian companies established in 1912
Motorcycle manufacturers of Italy
Design companies established in 1912
Design companies disestablished in 1914
Design companies of Italy
Car manufacturers of Italy
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman%20A-6%20Intruder
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Grumman A-6 Intruder
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The Grumman A-6 Intruder is an American twinjet all-weather attack aircraft developed and manufactured by American aircraft company Grumman Aerospace and formerly operated by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.
It was designed in response to a 1957 requirement issued by the Bureau of Aeronautics for an all-weather attack aircraft for Navy long-range interdiction missions and with short takeoff and landing (STOL) capability for Marine close air support. It was to replace the piston-engined Douglas A-1 Skyraider. The requirement allowed one or two engines, either turbojet or turboprop. The winning proposal from Grumman used two Pratt & Whitney J52 turbojet engines. The Intruder was the first Navy aircraft with an integrated airframe and weapons system. Operated by a crew of two in a side-by-side seating configuration, the workload was divided between the pilot and weapons officer (bombardier/navigator (BN)). In addition to conventional munitions, it could also carry nuclear weapons, which would be delivered using toss bombing techniques. On 19 April 1960, the first prototype made its maiden flight.
The A-6 was in service with the United States Navy and Marine Corps between 1963 and 1997, during which time multiple variants were prototyped and produced. Two of the more successful variants developed were the EA-6B Prowler, a specialized electronic warfare derivative, and the KA-6D tanker version. It was deployed during various overseas conflicts, including the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. The A-6 was intended to be superseded by the McDonnell Douglas A-12 Avenger II, but this program was ultimately canceled due to cost overruns. Thus, when the A-6E was scheduled for retirement, its precision strike mission was initially taken over by the Grumman F-14 Tomcat equipped with a LANTIRN pod.
Development
Background
As a result of the fair-weather limitation of the propeller-driven Skyraider in the Korean War and the advent of turbine engines, the United States Navy issued preliminary requirements in 1955 for an all-weather carrier-based attack aircraft. The U.S. Navy published an operational requirement document for it in October 1956. It released a request for proposals (RFP) in February 1957. This request called for a 'close air support attack bomber capable of hitting the enemy at any time'. Aviation authors Bill Gunston and Peter Gilchrist observe that this specification was shaped by the service's Korean War experiences, during which air support had been frequently unavailable unless fair weather conditions were present.
In response to the RFP, a total of eleven design proposals were submitted by eight different companies, including Bell, Boeing, Douglas, Grumman, Lockheed, Martin, North American, and Vought. Grumman's submission was internally designated as the Type G-128. Following evaluation of the bids, the U.S. Navy announced the selection of Grumman on 2 January 1958. The company was awarded a contract for the development of their submission, which had been re-designated A2F-1, in February 1958.
Grumman's design team was led by Robert Nafis and Lawrence Mead, Jr. Mead later played a lead role in the design of the Lunar Excursion Module and the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. The team was spread between two sites, the company's manufacturing plant at Bethpage and the testing facilities at Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant, Calverton. During September 1959, the design was approved by the Mock-Up Review Board.
The A2F-1 design incorporated several cutting-edge features for the era. In the early 1960s, it was novel for a fighter-sized aircraft to have sophisticated avionics that used multiple computers. This design experience was taken into consideration by NASA in their November 1962 decision to choose Grumman over other companies like General Dynamics-Convair (the F-111 had computerized avionics capabilities comparable to the A-6, but did not fly until 1964) to build the Lunar Excursion Module, which was a small-sized spacecraft with two onboard computers.
Test program
The first prototype YA2F-1, lacking radar and the navigational and attack avionics, made its first flight on 19 April 1960, with the second prototype flying on 28 July 1960.
The test program required to develop the aircraft took a long time. The very advanced navigation and attack equipment required a lot of development and changes had to be made to correct aerodynamic deficiencies and remove unwanted features. Extending the air brakes, which were mounted on the rear fuselage, changed the downwash at the horizontal tailplane which overloaded its actuator so the tailplane was moved rearwards by . Later evaluation of the aircraft showed that the airbrakes were not effective enough in controlling the speed of the aircraft and they were moved to the wing-tips. Early production aircraft were fitted with both the fuselage and wingtip air brakes, although the fuselage-mounted ones were soon disabled, and were removed from later aircraft. The trailing edge of each wing-tip split to form a much more effective speed-brake which projected above and below the wing when extended.
The rudder needed a wider chord at its base to give greater exposed area to assist spin recovery.
A major difference between the first six production aircraft and subsequent aircraft were the jet nozzles; close-air support by the Marine Corps required STOL performance to operate from forward airstrips. Jet deflection using tilting tailpipes was proposed. The performance benefits from varying the angle were not worthwhile, whether operating from short strips or carriers, and they were fixed at a 7 degree downward angle.
Further development
During February 1963, the A-6 was introduced to service with the US Navy; at this point, the type was, according to Gunston and Gilchrist, "the first genuinely all-weather attack bomber in history". However, early operating experiences found the aircraft to be imposing very high maintenance demands, particularly in the Asian theatre of operations, and serviceability figures were also low. In response, the Naval Avionics Lab launched a substantial and lengthy program to improve both the reliability and performance of the A-6's avionics suite. The successful performance of the A-6 in operations following these improvements ended proposals to produce follow-on models that featured downgraded avionics.
Various specialized variants of the A-6 were developed, often in response to urgent military requirements raised during the Vietnam War. The A-6C, a dedicated interdictor, was one such model, as was the KA-6D, a buddy store-equipped aerial refueling tanker. Perhaps the most complex variant was the EA-6B Prowler, a specialized electronic warfare derivative. The last variant to be produced was the A-6E, first introduced in 1972; it features extensive avionics improvements, including the new APQ-148 multimode radar, along with minor airframe refinements. The last A-6E was delivered in 1992.
During the 1980s, a further model, designated A-6F, was being planned. Intended to feature the General Electric F404 turbofan engine, as well as various avionics and airframe improvements, this variant was cancelled under the presumption that the in-development McDonnell Douglas A-12 Avenger II would be entering production before long. Instead, a life-extension program involving the re-winging of existing A-6E aircraft was undertaken; initially a metal wing had been used before a graphite-epoxy composite wing was developed during the late 1980s. Other improvements were introduced to the fleet around this time, including GPS receivers, new computers and radar sets, more efficient J-52-409 engines, as well as increased compatibility with various additional missiles.
Design
The Grumman A-6 Intruder is a two-seat twin-engined monoplane, equipped to perform carrier-based attack missions regardless of prevailing weather or light conditions. The cockpit used an unusual double pane windscreen and side-by-side seating arrangement in which the pilot sat in the left seat, while the bombardier/navigator (BN) sat to the right and slightly below to give the pilot an adequate view on that side. In addition to a radar display for the BN, a unique instrumentation feature for the pilot was a cathode ray tube screen that was known as the Vertical Display Indicator (VDI). This display provided a synthetic representation of the world in front of the aircraft, along with steering cues provided by the BN, enabling head-down navigation and attack at night and in all weather conditions.
The A-6's wing was relatively efficient at subsonic speeds, particularly when compared to supersonic fighters such as the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, which are also limited to subsonic speeds when carrying a payload of bombs. The wing was also designed to provide a favorable level of maneuverability even while carrying a sizable bomb load. A very similar wing would be put on pivots on Grumman's later supersonic swing-wing Grumman F-14 Tomcat, as well as similar landing gear.
For its day, the Intruder had sophisticated avionics, with a high degree of integration. To aid in identifying and isolating equipment malfunctions, the aircraft was provided with automatic diagnostic systems, some of the earliest computer-based analytic equipment developed for aircraft. These were known as Basic Automated Checkout Equipment, or BACE (pronounced "base"). There were two levels, known as "Line BACE" to identify specific malfunctioning systems in the aircraft, while in the hangar or on the flight line; and "Shop BACE", to exercise and analyze individual malfunctioning systems in the maintenance shop. This equipment was manufactured by Litton Industries. Together, the BACE systems greatly reduced the Maintenance Man-Hours per Flight Hour, a key index of the cost and effort needed to keep military aircraft operating.
The Intruder was equipped to carry nuclear weapons (B43, B57, B61) which would have been delivered using semi-automated toss bombing.
Operational history
Entering service and Vietnam War
The Intruder received a new standardized US DOD designation of A-6A in the Autumn of 1962, and entered squadron service in February 1963. The A-6 became both the U.S. Navy's and U.S. Marine Corps's principal medium and all-weather/night attack aircraft from the mid-1960s through the 1990s and as an aerial tanker either in the dedicated KA-6D version or by use of a buddy store (D-704). Whereas the A-6 fulfilled the USN and USMC all-weather ground-attack/strike mission role, this mission in the USAF was served by the Republic F-105 Thunderchief and later the F-111, the latter which also saw its earlier F-111A variants converted to a radar jammer as the EF-111 Raven, analogous to the USN and USMC EA-6B Prowler.
A-6 Intruders first saw action during the Vietnam War, where the craft were used extensively against targets in Vietnam. The aircraft's long range and heavy payload () coupled with its ability to fly in all weather made it invaluable during the war. However, its typical mission profile of flying low to deliver its payload made it especially vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire, and in the eight years the Intruder was used during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps lost a total of 84 A-6 aircraft of various series. The first loss occurred on 14 July 1965 when an Intruder from VA-75 operating from , flown by LT Donald Boecker and LT Donald Eaton, commenced a dive on a target near Laos. An explosion under the starboard wing damaged the starboard engine, causing the aircraft to catch fire and the hydraulics to fail. Seconds later the port engine failed, the controls froze, and the two crewmen ejected. Both crewmen survived.
Of the 84 Intruders lost to all causes during the war, ten were shot down by surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), two were shot down by MiGs, 16 were lost to operational causes, and 56 were lost to conventional ground fire and AAA. The last Intruder to be lost during the war was from VA-35, flown by LT C. M. Graf and LT S. H. Hatfield, operating from ; they were shot down by ground fire on 24 January 1973 while providing close air support. The airmen ejected and were rescued by a Navy helicopter. Twenty U.S. Navy aircraft carriers rotated through the waters of Southeast Asia, providing air strikes, from the early 1960s through the early 1970s. Nine of those carriers lost A-6 Intruders: lost 11, lost eight, lost six, lost two, USS Independence lost four, lost 14, lost three, lost eight, and USS America lost two. Although capable of embarking aboard aircraft carriers, most U.S. Marine Corps A-6 Intruders were shore based in South Vietnam at Chu Lai and Da Nang and in Nam Phong, Thailand.
Lebanon and later action
A-6 Intruders were later used in support of other operations, such as the Multinational Force in Lebanon in 1983. On 4 December, one LTV A-7 Corsair II and one Intruder were downed by Syrian missiles. The Intruder's pilot, Lieutenant Mark Lange, and bombardier/navigator Lieutenant Robert "Bobby" Goodman ejected immediately before the crash; Lange died of his injuries while Goodman was captured and taken by the Syrians to Damascus where he was released on 3 January 1984. Later in the 1980s, two Naval Reserve A-7 Corsair II light attack squadrons, VA-205 and VA-304, were reconstituted as medium attack squadrons with the A-6E at NAS Atlanta, Georgia and NAS Alameda, California, respectively.
Intruders also saw action in April 1986 operating from the aircraft carriers USS America and Coral Sea during the bombing of Libya (Operation El Dorado Canyon). The squadrons involved were VA-34 "Blue Blasters" (from USS America) and VA-55 "Warhorses" (from USS Coral Sea).
During the Gulf War in 1991, U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps A-6s flew more than 4,700 combat sorties, providing close air support, destroying enemy air defenses, attacking Iraqi naval units, and hitting strategic targets. They were also the U.S. Navy's primary strike platform for delivering laser-guided bombs. The U.S. Navy operated them from the aircraft carriers , , USS Midway, USS Ranger, USS America and , while U.S. Marine Corps A-6s operated ashore, primarily from Shaikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain. Three A-6s were shot down in combat by SAMs and AAA.
The Intruder's large blunt nose and slender tail inspired a number of nicknames, including "Double Ugly", "The Mighty Alpha Six", "Iron Tadpole" and also "Drumstick".
Following the Gulf War, Intruders were used to patrol the no-fly zone in Iraq and provided air support for U.S. Marines during Operation Restore Hope in Somalia. The last A-6E Intruder left U.S. Marine Corps service on 28 April 1993.
Navy A-6s saw further duty over Bosnia in 1994.
On 4 June 1996, during RIMPAC a US Navy A-6E performing the unusual target towing task to train Japanese Navy air defense crews was mistakenly engaged and shot down by the Japanese destroyer JS Yūgiri with its Phalanx CIWS gun. Both pilots ejected and were recovered.
Retirement
Despite the production of new airframes in the 164XXX Bureau Number (BuNo) series just before and after the Gulf War, augmented by a rewinging program of older airframes, the A-6E and KA-6D were quickly phased out of service in the mid-1990s in a U.S. Navy cost-cutting move driven by the Office of the Secretary of Defense to reduce the number of different type/model/series (T/M/S) of aircraft in carrier air wings and U.S. Marine aircraft groups.
The A-6 was intended to be replaced by the McDonnell Douglas A-12 Avenger II, but that program was canceled due to cost overruns. The Intruder remained in service for a few more years before being retired in favor of the LANTIRN-equipped F-14D Tomcat, which was in turn replaced by the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet in the U.S. Navy and the twin-seat F/A-18D Hornet in the U.S. Marine Corps. During the 2010s, the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike program was at one point intended to produce an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) successor to the Intruder's long-distance strike role, but the initiative has since changed priorities towards the tanker mission instead. The last Intruders were retired on 28 February 1997.
Many in the US defense establishment in general, and Naval Aviation in particular, questioned the wisdom of a shift to a shorter range carrier-based strike force, as represented by the Hornet and Super Hornet, compared to the older generation aircraft such as the Intruder and Tomcat. However, the availability of USAF Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender tankers modified to accommodate USN, USMC and NATO tactical aircraft in all recent conflicts was considered by certain senior decision makers in the Department of Defense to put a lesser premium on organic aerial refueling capability in the U.S. Navy's carrier air wings and self-contained range among carrier-based strike aircraft. Although the Intruder could not match the F-14's or the F/A-18's speed or air-combat capability, the A-6's range and load-carrying ability are still unmatched by newer aircraft in the fleet.
At the time of retirement, several retired A-6 airframes were awaiting rewinging at the Northrop Grumman facility at St. Augustine Airport, Florida; these were later sunk off the coast of St. Johns County, Florida to form a fish haven named "Intruder Reef". Surviving aircraft fitted with the new wings, and later production aircraft (i.e., BuNo 164XXX series) not earmarked for museum or non-flying static display were stored at the AMARG storage center at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona.
Variants
YA-6A and A-6A
The eight prototypes and pre-production Intruder aircraft were sometimes referred to with the YA-6A designation. These were used in the development and testing of the A-6A Intruder.
The initial version of the Intruder was built around the complex and advanced DIANE (Digital Integrated Attack/Navigation Equipment) suite, intended to provide a high degree of bombing accuracy even at night and in poor weather. DIANE consisted of multiple radar systems: the Norden Systems AN/APQ-92 search radar replacing the YA-6A's AN/APQ-88, and a separate AN/APG-46 for tracking, the AN/APN-141 radar altimeter, and an AN/APN-122 Doppler navigational radar to provide position updates to the Litton AN/ASN-31 inertial navigation system. An air-data computer and the AN/ASQ-61 ballistics computer integrated the radar information for the bombardier/navigator in the right-hand seat. TACAN and ADF systems were also provided for navigation. When it worked, DIANE was perhaps the most capable navigation/attack system of its era, giving the Intruder the ability to fly and fight in even very poor conditions (particularly important over Vietnam and Thailand during the Vietnam War). It suffered numerous teething problems, and it was several years before its reliability was established.
Total A-6A production was 480, excluding the prototype and pre-production aircraft. A total of 47 A-6As were converted to other variants.
A-6B
To provide U.S. Navy squadrons with a defense suppression aircraft to attack enemy antiaircraft defense and SAM missile systems, a mission dubbed "Iron Hand" by the U.S. Navy, 19 A-6As were converted to A-6B version during 1967 to 1970. The A-6B had many of its standard attack systems removed in favor of specialized equipment to detect and track enemy radar sites and to guide AGM-45 Shrike and AGM-78 Standard anti-radiation missiles, with AN/APQ-103 radar replacing earlier AN/APQ-92 used in the A-6A, plus AN/APN-153 navigational radar replacing earlier AN/APN-122, again used in the A-6A.
Between 1968 and 1977, several Intruder squadrons operated A-6Bs alongside their regular A-6As. Five were lost to all causes, and the survivors were later converted to A-6E standard in the late 1970s.
A-6C
12 A-6As were converted in 1970 to A-6C standard for night attack missions against the Ho Chi Minh trail in Vietnam. They were fitted with a "Trails/Roads Interdiction Multi-sensor" (TRIM) pod in the fuselage for FLIR and low-light TV cameras, as well as a "Black Crow" engine ignition detection system. Radars were also upgraded, with the AN/APQ-112 replacing the earlier AN/APQ-103, and an AN/APN-186 navigational radar replacing the earlier AN/APN-153. A vastly improved Sperry Corporation AN/APQ-127 radar replaced the AN/APG-46 fire control radar. One of these aircraft was lost in combat; the others were later refitted to A-6E standard after the war.
KA-6D
To replace both the KA-3B and EA-3B Skywarrior during the early 1970s, 78 A-6As and 12 A-6Es were converted for use as tanker aircraft, providing aerial refueling support to other strike aircraft. The DIANE system was removed and an internal refueling system was added, sometimes supplemented by a D-704 refueling pod on the centerline pylon. The KA-6D theoretically could be used in the day/visual bombing role, but it apparently never was, with the standard load-out being four fuel tanks. Because it was based on a tactical aircraft platform, the KA-6D provided a capability for mission tanking, the ability to keep up with strike aircraft and refuel them in the course of a mission. A few KA-6Ds went to sea with each Intruder squadron. Their operation was integrated into the Intruder squadrons, as A-6 crew were trained to operate both aircraft and the NATOPS covered both the A6 and KA-6D. These aircraft were always in short supply, and frequently were "cross decked" from a returning carrier to an outgoing one. Many KA-6 airframes had severe G restrictions, as well as fuselage stretching due to almost continual use and high number of catapults and traps. The retirement of the aircraft left a gap in US Navy and Marine Corps refueling tanker capability. The Navy Lockheed S-3 Viking filled that gap until the new F/A-18E/F Super Hornet became operational.
A-6E
The definitive attack version of the Intruder with vastly upgraded navigation and attack systems, introduced in 1970 and first deployed on 9 December 1971. The earlier separate search and track (fire control) radars of the A-6A/B/C were replaced by a single Norden AN/APQ-148 multi-mode radar, and onboard computers with a more sophisticated (and generally more reliable) IC based system, as opposed to the A-6A's DIANE discrete transistor-based technology. A new AN/ASN-92 inertial navigation system was added, along with the CAINS (Carrier Aircraft Inertial Navigation System), for greater navigation accuracy.
Beginning in 1979, all A-6Es were fitted with the AN/AAS-33 DRS (Detecting and Ranging Set), part of the 'Target Recognition and Attack Multi-Sensor' (TRAM) system, a small, gyroscopically stabilized turret, mounted under the nose of the aircraft, containing a forward-looking infra-red (FLIR) boresighted with a laser spot-tracker/designator and IBM AN/ASQ-155 computer. TRAM was matched with a new Norden AN/APQ-156 radar. The BN could use both TRAM imagery and radar data for extremely accurate attacks, or use the TRAM sensors alone to attack without using the Intruder's radar (which might warn the target). TRAM also allowed the Intruder to autonomously designate and drop laser-guided bombs. In addition, the Intruder used an Airborne Moving Target Indicator (AMTI), which allowed the aircraft to track a moving target (such as a tank or truck) and drop ordnance on it even though the target was moving. Also, the computer system allowed the use of Offset Aim Point (OAP), giving the crew the ability to drop on a target unseen on radar by noting coordinates of a known target nearby and entering the offset range and bearing to the unseen target.
In the 1980s, the A-6E TRAM aircraft were converted to the A-6E 'Weapons Control System Improvement' (WCSI) version to extend weapons capability. This added the ability to carry and target some of the first generation precision guided weapons, like the AGM-84 Harpoon missile, and AGM-123 Skipper. WCSI equipped aircraft were eventually modified to have a limited capability to use the AGM-84E SLAM standoff land attack missile. Since the Harpoon and SLAM missiles had common communication interfaces, WCSI aircraft could carry and fire SLAM missiles, but needed a nearby A-6E SWIP to guide them to target.
In the early 1990s, some surviving A-6Es were upgraded under SWIP (Systems/Weapons Improvement Program) to enable them to use the latest precision-guided munitions, including AGM-65 Mavericks, AGM-84E SLAMs, AGM-62 Walleyes and the AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missile as well as additional capability with the AGM-84 Harpoon. A co-processor was added to the AN/ASQ-155 computer system to implement the needed MIL-STD-1553 digital interfaces to the pylons, as well as an additional control panel. After a series of wing-fatigue problems, about 85% of the fleet was fitted with new graphite/epoxy/titanium/aluminum composite wings. The new wings proved to be a mixed blessing, as a composite wing is stiffer and transmits more force to the fuselage, accelerating fatigue in the fuselage. In 1990, the decision was made to terminate production of the A-6. Through the 1970s and 1980s, the A-6 had been in low-rate production of four or five new aircraft a year, enough to replace mostly accidental losses. The final production order was for 20 aircraft of the SWIP configuration with composite wings, delivered in 1993.
A-6E models totaled 445 aircraft, about 240 of which were converted from earlier A-6A/B/C models.
A-6F and A-6G
An advanced A-6F Intruder II was proposed in the mid-1980s that would have replaced the Intruder's elderly Pratt & Whitney J52 turbojets with non-afterburning versions of the General Electric F404 turbofan used in the F/A-18 Hornet, providing substantial improvements in both power and fuel economy. The A-6F would have had totally new avionics, including a Norden AN/APQ-173 synthetic aperture radar and multi-function cockpit displays – the APQ-173 would have given the Intruder air-to-air capacity with provision for the AIM-120 AMRAAM. Two additional wing pylons were added, for a total of seven stations.
Although five development aircraft were built, the U.S. Navy ultimately chose not to authorize the A-6F, preferring to concentrate on the A-12 Avenger II. This left the service in a quandary when the A-12 was canceled in 1991.
Grumman proposed a cheaper alternative in the A-6G, which had most of the A-6F's advanced electronics, but retained the existing engines. This, too, was canceled.
Electronic warfare versions
An electronic warfare (EW)/Electronic countermeasures (ECW) version of the Intruder was developed early in the aircraft's life for the USMC, which needed a new ECM platform to replace its elderly F3D-2Q Skyknights. An EW version of the Intruder, initially designated A2F-1H (rather than A2F-1Q, as "Q" was being split to relegate it to passive electronic warfare and "H" to active) and subsequently redesignated EA-6A, first flew on 26 April 1963. It had a Bunker-Ramo AN/ALQ-86 ECM suite, with most electronics contained on the walnut-shaped pod atop the vertical fin. They were equipped with AN/APQ-129 fire control radar, and theoretically capable of firing the AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missile, although they were apparently not used in that role. The navigational radar is AN/APN-153.
Only 28 EA-6As were built (two prototypes, 15 new-build, and 11 conversions from A-6As), serving with U.S. Marine Corps squadrons in Vietnam. It was phased out of front line service in the mid-1970s, remaining in use in reserve VMCJ units with the USMC and then the United States Navy in specialized VAQ units, primarily for training purposes. The last EA-6A had been retired by 1993.
A much more highly specialized derivative of the Intruder was the EA-6B Prowler, having a "stretched" airframe with two additional systems operators, and more comprehensive systems for the electronic warfare and SEAD roles. A derivative of AN/APQ-156, AN/APS-130 was installed as the main radar for EA-6B. The navigational radar was upgraded to AN/APS-133 from the AN/APN-153 on EA-6A. In total, 170 were produced. The EA-6B took on the duties of the U.S. Air Force EF-111 Raven when the DoD decided to let the U.S. Navy handle all electronic warfare missions. The Prowler has been replaced by the EA-18G Growler in the U.S. Navy and was retired from USMC service in 2019.
Variant list
YA2F-1
Pre-production aircraft, eight built with the first four with rotating jet exhaust pipes, redesignated YA-6A in 1962.
A2F-1
First production variant with fixed tailpipe, 484 built, redesignated A-6A in 1962.
YA2F-1H
Prototype electronic warfare variant, one modified from A2F-1, redesignated YEA-6A in 1962.
A2F-1H
Electronic warfare variant of the A2F-1 redesignated EA-6A in 1962
YA-6A
Pre-production aircraft redesignated from YA2F-1 in 1962.
A-6A
First production variant redesignated from A2F-1 in 1962.
YEA-6A
One YA2F-1H electronic warfare variant prototype redesignated in 1962.
EA-6A
Electronic warfare variant redesignated from A2F-1H, had a redesigned fin and rudder and addition of an ECM radome, able to carry underwing ECM pods, three YA-6A and four A-6As converted and 21 built.
NA-6A
The redesignation of three YA-6As and three A-6As. The six aircraft were modified for special tests.
NEA-6A
One EA-6A aircraft was modified for special test purposes.
TA-6A
Proposed trainer variant with three-seat, not built.
A-6B
Variant fitted with avionics for the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD), 19 conversions from A-6A.
EA-6B Prowler
Electronic warfare variant of the A-6A with longer fuselage for four crew.
YEA-6B
The designation of two EA-6B prototypes, which were modified for special test purposes.
A-6C
A-6A conversion for low-level attack role with electro-optical sensors, twelve converted.
KA-6D
A-6A conversion for flight-refueling, 58 converted.
A-6E
A-6A with improved electronics.
A-6E TRAM
A-6E upgraded with the AN/AAS-33 Target Recognition Attack Multi-Sensor or "TRAM" pod. Capable of dropping Laser Guided Bombs without a targeting pod. Can also carry the AGM-84 Harpoon.
A-6E SWIP
A-6E TRAM upgraded with the AN/ALR-67 RWR and ability to carry the AGM-88 HARM, AGM-62 Walleye, AGM-84E SLAM and AGM-65 Maverick. Several versions had new composite wings.
A-6F Intruder II
Advanced version with updated electronics and General Electric F404 turbofans; only 5 built.
A-6G
Proposed cheaper alternative to the A-6F, with its advanced electronics, but existing J52 turbojets.
G-128-12
Unbuilt single-seat A-6 based design proposal for the VA(L) competition for A-4 Skyhawk replacement based on existing design. Contract ultimately awarded to the LTV A-7 Corsair II.
Operators
United States Navy (1963–1997)
United States Marine Corps (1963–1993)
Aircraft on display
A-6A
147867 – Alleghany Arms & Armory Museum, Smethport, Pennsylvania
151826 - Battleship Memorial Park, Mobile, Alabama; displayed as a KA-6D.
KA-6D
149482 - NAS Whidbey, Oak Harbor, Washington; displayed as an A-6E.
152910 – Oakland Aviation Museum, Oakland, California
A-6E
151782 – USS Midway Museum, San Diego, California
152599 – Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
152603 – Richmond Municipal Airport, Richmond, Indiana
152907 – NAS Whidbey, Oak Harbor, Washington
152923 – Norfolk Naval Station/Chambers Field (former NAS Norfolk), Norfolk, Virginia
152935 – Empire State Aerosciences Museum, Glenville, New York
152936 – United States Naval Museum of Armament and Technology, NCC China Lake (North), Ridgecrest, California
154131 – Walker Field Colorado Park, Grand Junction, Colorado
154162 – Palm Springs Air Museum, Palm Springs, California
154167 – Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, NASM, Washington, D.C.
154170 – Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum, MCAS Miramar, San Diego, California
154171 – Estrella Warbird Museum, Paso Robles, California
155595 – Pacific Coast Air Museum, Santa Rosa, California
155610 – National Naval Aviation Museum, NAS Pensacola, Pensacola, Florida
155627 – NAS Fallon, Fallon, Nevada
155629 – Hickory Aviation Museum, Hickory NC
155644 – Yanks Air Museum, Chino, California
155648 – Aviation Wing of the Marietta Museum of History, Dobbins ARB (formerly Atlanta NAS), Atlanta, Georgia
155661 – Camp Blanding Museum and Memorial Park, Camp Blanding, Florida
155713 – Pima Air & Space Museum (adjacent to Davis-Monthan AFB), Tucson, Arizona
156997 – Patuxent River Naval Air Museum, NAS Patuxent River, Lexington Park, Maryland
157001 – Naval Inventory Control Point, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
157024 – Defense General Supply Center, Richmond, Virginia
158532 – USS Lexington Museum, Corpus Christi, Texas
158794 – Museum of Flight, Seattle, Washington
159567 – Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Dahlgren, Virginia
159568 – Patuxent River NAS, Lexington Park, Maryland
159579 - Castle Air Museum, Atwater, California
159901 – NAF El Centro, El Centro, California
160995 – Yanks Air Museum, Chino, California
161676 – Lycoming County Veterans Memorial Park, Williamsport, Pennsylvania
162182 – Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum, Space Coast Regional Airport, Titusville, Florida
162195 – San Diego Aerospace Museum, San Diego, California
162206 – Oregon Air and Space Museum, Eugene, Oregon
164378 – Eastern Carolina Aviation Exhibit, Havelock, North Carolina
164384 – Grumman Memorial Park, Long Island, New York
A-6F
162184 – Cradle of Aviation Museum, Garden City, New York
162185 – Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, New York City, New York
Specifications (A-6E)
Notable appearances in media
See also
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Andrade, John. U.S. Military Aircraft Designations and Serials since 1909. Leicester, UK: Midland Counties Publications, 1979, .
Buttler, Tony (2010). American Secret Projects: Bombers, Attack and Anti-Submarine Aircraft 1945 to 1974. Hinckley, England: Midland Publishing.
Donald, David and Jon Lake. Encyclopedia of World Military Aircraft. London: Aerospace Publishing, Single Volume edition, 1996. .
Dorr, Robert F. Grumman A-6 Intruder. London: Osprey Publishing, 1987. .
Dorr, Robert F. "Grumman A-6 Intruder& EA-6 Prowler". World Air Power Journal, Spring 1983, Volume 12. pp. 34–95. . .
Dorr, Robert F. "Intruders and Prowlers". Air International, November 1986, Vol. 31, No. 5. pp. 227–236, 250–252. .
Gunston, Bill and Mike Spick. Modern Air Combat. New York: Crescent Books, 1983. .
Gunston, Bill and Peter Gilchrist. Jet Bombers: From the Messerschmitt Me 262 to the Stealth B-2. Osprey, 1993. .
Hildebrandt, Erik. 1996–1997. "Burial at Sea: Navy's A-6 Intruder is Retiring, and What Could be a More Fitting End?" Air and Space Smithsonian. December 1996 – January 1997, Volume 11 (5). Pages 64–70. Also: "Burial at Sea."
Hobson, Chris. Vietnam Air Losses, USAF/USN/USMC, Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973. North Branch, Minnesota: Specialty Press, 2001. .
Jenkins, Dennis R. Grumman A-6 Intruder. Warbird Tech. 33. North Branch, Minnesota: Specialty Press, 2002. .
Miska, Kurt H. "Grumman A-6A/E Intruder; EA-6A; EA-6B Prowler (Aircraft in Profile number 252)". Aircraft in Profile, Volume 14. Windsor, Berkshire, UK: Profile Publications Ltd., 1974, pp. 137–160. .
Morgan, Mark and Rick Morgan. Intruder: The Operational History of Grumman's A-6. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2004. .
Morgan, Rick. A-6 Intruder Units of the Vietnam War (Osprey Combat Aircraft #93). Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing Limited, 2012. .
Reardon, Carol. Launch the Intruders. University of Kansas Press, 2005. .
Taylor, John W.R. "Grumman A-6 Intruder". Combat Aircraft of the World from 1909 to the Present. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1969. .
Taylor, John W. R. Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1982–83. London: Jane's Yearbooks, 1982. .
Winchester, Jim, ed. "Grumman A-6 Intruder". Military Aircraft of the Cold War (The Aviation Factfile). London: Grange Books plc, 2006. .
External links
A-6E Intruder
Intruder Association
A-6 page on globalsecurity.org
Joe Baugher's website on the Grumman A-6 Intruder
A-006
1960s United States attack aircraft
Twinjets
Carrier-based aircraft
Mid-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1960
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin%20Montgomerie
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Colin Montgomerie
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Colin Stuart Montgomerie, OBE (born 23 June 1963) is a Scottish professional golfer. He has won a record eight European Tour Order of Merit titles, including a streak of seven consecutive from 1993 to 1999. He has won 31 European Tour events, the most of any British player, placing him fourth on the all-time list of golfers with most European Tour victories.
Montgomerie won three consecutive Volvo PGA Championships at Wentworth Club between 1998 and 2000. He has finished runner-up on five occasions in major championships and his career-high world ranking is second. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2013.
After turning 50 in 2013, Montgomerie has had a successful career on the PGA Tour Champions and European Senior Tour, including winning three senior major championship.
Early life
Although Scottish by birth and ancestry, he was raised in Yorkshire, England, where his father, James Montgomerie, was Managing Director of Fox's Biscuits. He spent a number of years with the Ilkley Golf Club, where he was tutored by the past professional Bill Ferguson. He was educated at both Leeds Grammar School and Strathallan School, Perthshire. During his time in Leeds, he became a supporter of Leeds United. His father later became the secretary of Royal Troon Golf Club, one of Scotland's most famous clubs.
Amateur career
Montgomerie became one of the first British golfers to go to a United States college, attending Houston Baptist University, where he played on the golf team and became its top player. He won three important Scottish amateur tournaments – the 1983 Scottish Youths Championship, the 1985 Scottish Amateur Stroke Play Championship and the 1987 Scottish Amateur Championship.
He played for Great Britain and Ireland twice in the Eisenhower Trophy (1984 and 1986) and twice in the Walker Cup (1985 and 1987). He was also part of the Scottish team, winning the 1985 European Amateur Team Championship at Halmstad Golf Club, North Course, in Sweden. Before turning pro he considered a career in sports management, utilizing his degree in business management and law; the interview process included a golf outing that convinced the firm he should become a client rather than an employee.
Professional career
Montgomerie turned professional before the 1988 season and was named the Rookie of the Year on the European Tour that year. He quickly developed into one of Europe's top pros, winning his first event at the 1989 Portuguese Open TPC by 11 shots, and his second, beating a world class field, at the 1991 Scandinavian Masters at Royal Drottningholm Golf Club in Sweden. He made his Ryder Cup debut later in 1991. He finished first on the European Tour Order of Merit every year from 1993 to 1999 (a record for most consecutive Orders of Merit), and has 31 victories on the tour, including the 1998, 1999, and 2000 Volvo PGA Championships at Wentworth, England. However, despite many near-misses, Montgomerie was unable to win on the PGA Tour.
Montgomerie first reached the top-10 in the Official World Golf Rankings in 1994, and spent 400 weeks in the top-10. His highest ranking was number two. In his prime Montgomerie was considered one of the best drivers of the golf ball in the world and became a very precise iron player, often able to judge the distance he hit the ball exactly from long range.
Montgomerie came first in the Volvo Bonus Pool every year from 1993 to 1998. The Volvo Bonus Pool was an extra tranche of prize money awarded at the end of each European Tour season from 1988 to 1998 to the regular members of the tour who had had the best performances over the season.
His form fell away gradually in the new millennium, partly due to marriage problems, and his ranking slumped to 82nd in the world, but he came back strongly in 2005, winning a record eighth European Tour Order of Merit and returning to the top ten in the World Rankings. Late in 2005 he became the first man to win 20 million Euros on the European Tour—topping the European Tour's all-time highest earners list. He won for the first time in nearly two years at the Smurfit Kappa European Open in July 2007. In 2008, Montgomerie slipped out of the top 100 players in the world ranking system. A runner-up finish at the 2008 French Open in June boosted him back up the rankings, but his good play was short-lived, and as a result Montgomerie failed to qualify for Nick Faldo's 2008 Ryder Cup team. In March 2009, Montgomerie played in his milestone 500th European Tour event at the Open de Andalucia where he made the cut, but was not in contention during the weekend. He remained the leader in career earnings on the European Tour until 2010, when he was surpassed by Ernie Els.
After nearly two years without a top-10 finish, Montgomerie posted a final round of 68 for a share of 7th place in the 2011 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. Despite the drop in form, his influence remained strong. In 2012, Montgomerie was named by the Golf Club Managers' Association's Golf Club Management magazine as the seventh most powerful person in British golf. In August 2012, Montgomerie finished tied for 6th at the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles, his highest finish in over four years.
In June 2013, after turning 50, Montgomerie joined the Champions Tour, where he made his debut in the Constellation Senior Players Championship, one of the five senior major championships. On 25 May 2014, Montgomerie won his first senior major championship at the Senior PGA Championship. He followed this up on 13 July 2014, when he claimed his second senior major at the U.S. Senior Open. On 24 May 2015, Montgomerie defended his Senior PGA Championship title to win his third senior major. However, in 2016 he narrowly missed out on making it three Senior PGA Championships in a row – finishing second and three shots behind winner Rocco Mediate. He won twice on the senior circuit in 2017, winning the inaugural Japan Airlines Championship before claiming his sixth Champions Tour win at the SAS Championship. His most recent victory came at the Invesco QQQ Championship in 2019.
Form at major championships
Montgomerie is generally considered to be one of the best golfers never to have won a major championship, after finishing in second place on five separate occasions. During what most consider to be his best years in the 1990s Montgomerie had several close shaves. A third place at the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links was the first of these. He was prematurely congratulated by Jack Nicklaus who said "Congratulations on your first U.S. Open victory" to Montgomerie after he finished the 18th hole on Sunday. Tom Kite, who was still on the golf course when Montgomerie finished, wound up winning the championship.
At the 1994 U.S. Open, played at Oakmont Country Club, Montgomerie lost in a three-man playoff to Ernie Els (a playoff which also included Loren Roberts). Montgomerie shot 78 to trail the 74s shot by Els and Roberts, with Els winning at the 20th extra hole.
At the 1995 PGA Championship, Montgomerie birdied the final three holes of the Riviera Country Club course in the final round, to tie Steve Elkington at 17 under par, which was a record low score in a major championship. On the first sudden-death playoff hole, after being in better position after two shots, Montgomerie missed his putt, while Elkington holed from 35 feet to claim the title.
Els defeated Montgomerie at the 1997 U.S. Open, played at Congressional Country Club. Montgomerie opened the tournament with a 65 but shot a 76 in the second round. A bogey on the 71st hole dropped Montgomerie one shot behind Els, who parred the last to win.
At the 2006 U.S. Open, played on the West course of the Winged Foot Golf Club, Montgomerie had yet another chance to win his first major championship. He stood in the middle of the 18th fairway in the final round having sunk a 50-foot birdie putt on the 17th green, which put him in the joint lead with Phil Mickelson. While waiting in position on the 18th fairway for the group in front to finish, Montgomerie switched his club from a 6-iron to a 7-iron, assuming adrenaline would kick in. Once the wait was over, he hit the approach shot poorly, ending up short and right of the green, in thick rough. He pitched onto the green, and then three-putted from 30 feet to lose the tournament by one stroke. After the loss, Montgomerie said, "At my age I've got to think positively. I'm 43 next week, and it's nice I can come back to this tournament and do well again, and I look forward to coming back here again next year and trying another U.S. Open disaster." Geoff Ogilvy won the championship.
Montgomerie's best finish in the Masters Tournament came in 1998 when he finished tied for 8th.
At The Open Championship in 2001 at Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club, Montgomerie started brightly with an opening 65, and still remained ahead after 36 holes, but he fell away over the weekend. He was also in contention with two rounds to play at Muirfield in 2002 and Royal Troon Golf Club in 2004, but failed to capitalise and finished midway down the field. His best finish in the Championship came in 2005 at St Andrews, where he finished second to Tiger Woods, who beat him by five shots.
In 2016, Montgomerie came through Open Qualifying at Gailes Links to qualify for his home Open at Royal Troon. He had the honour of hitting the opening tee shot at the tournament and ended up making the cut.
Following Sergio García's victory at the 2017 Masters, Montgomerie (with 75 starts) trailed only Jay Haas (87) and Lee Westwood (76) as the player with the most starts without a major title.
Ryder Cup and other golf
Despite his disappointments in the majors, Montgomerie is heralded as one of the greatest Ryder Cup players of all time. To date he has been a member of the European team on eight occasions, and has never lost in a singles match. He holds a win-lose-draw record of 20–9–7, thus giving him a total points scored tally of 23.5, only 2 points behind the all-time record held by Sergio García. He has played pivotal roles in several of the matches. He halved the last hole with Scott Hoch to obtain the half-point that won Europe the cup in 1997, and sank the winning putt, in what is considered to be his finest hour in the 2004 staging of the event.
Montgomerie was not part of Nick Faldo's 2008 Ryder Cup team, with the wildcards going to Paul Casey and Ian Poulter. Montgomerie captained the Great Britain and Ireland team in the first four stagings of the Seve Trophy, losing in 2000 but winning in 2002, 2003, and 2005.
On 28 January 2009, it was announced that Montgomerie would be the captain the European team at the 2010 Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor. On 4 October 2010, Montgomerie led the European team to victory, 14 to 13. On the same day he also announced that he would be stepping down as captain of the European Team. In December 2010, he accepted the BBC Sports Personality Coach of the Year award as captain of the victorious Ryder Cup team.
Montgomerie has been the playing captain of the European team in the Royal Trophy, played against a team from Asia. Europe was successful on both those occasions. He has the distinction having been a victorious player and captain in the Ryder Cup, Seve Trophy and Royal Trophy.
In 2011, Montgomerie was named president of the English junior golf charity, the Golf Foundation, and in 2012 the Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, named him as an ambassador for the Scottish junior golf programme, ClubGolf.
In March 2015, Montgomerie accepted the captaincy of London Scottish Golf Club in Wimbledon to mark that club's 150th anniversary.
Montgomerie was also a columnist for the Scottish golf magazine, Bunkered, between 2008 and 2010.
OBE
At the end of 2004, Montgomerie was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year's Honours. He represents the Turnberry resort in Scotland, where there is a Colin Montgomerie Golf Academy.
Personal life
Montgomerie met his first wife Eimear Wilson, from Troon, when he was a good amateur and she was a promotions assistant. She was a 17-year-old law student at Edinburgh University and a spectator at an amateur championship in Nairn, at which Montgomerie destroyed the field. The couple had three children (Olivia, Venetia, and Cameron), and lived in Oxshott, Surrey. In 2002, Eimear gave Montgomerie an ultimatum to choose between golf and marriage, resulting in Montgomerie spending 10 weeks alone before they agreed to try again.
In 2006, the couple finally broke up, with Eimear suing for divorce on grounds of unreasonable behaviour due to his obsession with golf, claiming it left her suffering from anxiety and depression. In 2006, the couple agreed to a clean break divorce settlement of £8 million, in return for Eimear giving up any claim on Colin's future earnings.
Since the divorce, he has had various relationships, including Spanish model Inés Sastre, and a divorced neighbour Jo Baldwin, whom he met on the school run. Their split, he suggested, caused his worst run in his professional career.
In 2007, Montgomerie announced his engagement to Scottish millionairess Gaynor Knowles. The couple wed on 19 April 2008 at Loch Lomond Golf Club. On 8 July 2010, Montgomerie was granted a super injunction by Mr Justice Eady, which came to light when he attended a press conference at the 2010 PGA Championship in Wisconsin. In March 2017, he and Knowles divorced. Montgomerie married for the third time in 2023 to his manager, Sarah Casey.
Montgomerie supports Rangers F.C. and since 1970 Leeds United when he was living in the area.
Amateur wins
1985 Scottish Amateur Stroke Play Championship
1987 Scottish Amateur Championship
Professional wins (54)
European Tour wins (31)
*Langer and Montgomerie agreed to share the 2002 Volvo Masters Andalucía after failing light caused play to halt after two holes of a playoff.
1Co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour
European Tour playoff record (0–7–1)
Asian Tour wins (4)
1Co-sanctioned by the European Tour
Asian Tour playoff record (1–0)
PGA Tour of Australasia wins (1)
Other wins (7)
Other playoff record (2–1)
PGA Tour Champions wins (7)
PGA Tour Champions playoff record (3–0)
European Senior Tour wins (9)
European Senior Tour playoff record (2–0)
Playoff record
PGA Tour playoff record (0–2)
Results in major championships
CUT = missed the half-way cut
WD = withdrew
DQ = disqualified
"T" = tied
Summary
Most consecutive cuts made – 9 (1998 PGA – 2000 PGA)
Longest streak of top-10s – 2 (1994 U.S. Open – 1994 Open Championship)
Results in The Players Championship
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place
Results in World Golf Championships
1Cancelled due to 9/11
WD = Withdrew
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
NT = No Tournament
Senior major championships
Wins (3)
Results timeline
Results are not in chronological order before 2022.
WD = withdrew
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place
NT = No tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
Team appearances
Amateur
European Youths' Team Championship (representing Scotland): 1982 (winners), 1984
Eisenhower Trophy (representing Great Britain & Ireland): 1984, 1986
European Amateur Team Championship (representing Scotland): 1985 (winners), 1987
Walker Cup (representing Great Britain & Ireland): 1985, 1987
St Andrews Trophy (representing Great Britain & Ireland): 1986 (winners)
Professional
Alfred Dunhill Cup (representing Scotland): 1988, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 (winners), 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000
World Cup (representing Scotland): 1988, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997 (individual winner), 1998, 1999, 2006, 2007 (winners), 2008
Four Tours World Championship (representing Europe): 1991 (winners)
Ryder Cup (representing Europe): 1991, 1993, 1995 (winners), 1997 (winners), 1999, 2002 (winners), 2004 (winners), 2006 (winners), 2010 (non-playing captain, winners)
Seve Trophy (representing Great Britain & Ireland): 2000 (playing captain), 2002 (playing captain, winners), 2003 (playing captain, winners), 2005 (playing captain, winners), 2007 (winners)
UBS Cup (representing the Rest of the World): 2003 (tie), 2004
Royal Trophy (representing Europe): 2010 (playing captain, winners), 2011 (playing captain, winners)
See also
List of golfers with most European Tour wins
List of golfers with most European Senior Tour wins
Notes and references
External links
Scottish male golfers
Houston Christian Huskies men's golfers
European Tour golfers
European Senior Tour golfers
PGA Tour Champions golfers
Winners of senior major golf championships
Ryder Cup competitors for Europe
World Golf Hall of Fame inductees
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Leeds Grammar School
People educated at Strathallan School
Golfers from Glasgow
Sportspeople from Yorkshire
People from Oxshott
1963 births
Living people
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard%20S.%20Ewell
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Richard S. Ewell
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Richard Stoddert Ewell (February 8, 1817 – January 25, 1872) was a career United States Army officer and a Confederate general during the American Civil War. He achieved fame as a senior commander under Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee and fought effectively through much of the war. Still, his legacy was clouded by controversies over his actions at the Battle of Gettysburg and the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.
Early life and career
Ewell was born in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. He was raised in Prince William County, Virginia, from the age of 3, at an estate near Manassas known as "Stony Lonesome." He was the third son of Dr. Thomas and Elizabeth Stoddert Ewell; the grandson of Benjamin Stoddert, the first United States Secretary of the Navy; the grandson of Revolutionary War Colonel Jesse Ewell; and the brother of Benjamin Stoddert Ewell. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1840, thirteenth in his class of 42 cadets. His friends called him "Old Bald Head" or "Baldy." He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Dragoons and was promoted to first lieutenant in 1845. From 1843 to 1845, he served with Philip St. George Cooke and Stephen Watts Kearny on escort duty along the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. In the Mexican–American War, serving under Winfield Scott, he was recognized and promoted to captain for his courage at the Battle of Contreras and the Battle of Churubusco. At Contreras, he conducted a nighttime reconnaissance with engineer Captain Robert E. Lee, his future commander.
Ewell served in the New Mexico Territory for some time, exploring the newly acquired Gadsden Purchase with Colonel Benjamin Bonneville. He was wounded in a skirmish with Apaches under Cochise in 1859. In 1860, while in command of Fort Buchanan, Arizona, illness compelled him to leave the West for Virginia to recuperate. He described his condition as "very ill with vertigo, nausea, etc., and now am excessively debilitated[,] having occasional attacks of the ague." Illnesses and injuries would cause difficulties for him throughout the upcoming Civil War.
Civil War
As the nation moved towards war, Ewell had generally pro-Union sentiments. Nevertheless, when his home state of Virginia declared secession, Ewell resigned from the U.S. Army on May 7, 1861, to join the Provisional Army of Virginia. He was appointed a colonel of cavalry on May 9 and was the first officer of field grade wounded in the war at a May 31 skirmish at Fairfax Court House where he was hit in the shoulder. He was promoted to brigadier general in the Confederate States Army on June 17. He commanded a brigade in the (Confederate) Army of the Potomac at the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas). Still, his brigade was guarding fords downstream and did not get into the action at all.
Hours after the battle, Ewell proposed to President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis that for the Confederacy to win the war, enslaved people must be freed and join the ranks of the army; he was also willing to lead black soldiers into battle. But Davis considered that "impossible", and that topic never came up between him and Ewell again. Nevertheless, like Patrick Cleburne, Ewell was one of those few Confederate generals who believed the Confederacy needed all the soldiers it could get, regardless of race.
In late July, Ewell was furious when he heard that his commanding officer, P. G. T. Beauregard, blamed him for not following orders at Bull Run (Manassas) when the orders did not reach him in time.
Ewell inspired his men despite, not because of, his appearance. Historian Larry Tagg using General Richard Taylor's description, described him:
With Stonewall Jackson
Ewell was promoted to major general and division command on January 24, 1862. When Joe Johnson's army pulled out of the Manassas area in March and went down to Richmond, Ewell's division was stationed around Culpeper. In May, he was ordered to the Shenandoah Valley to reinforce "Stonewall" Jackson. Ewell moved west, crossing the Blue Ridge, and managed to locate Jackson's command after some difficulty. Although the two generals worked together well and were noted for their quixotic personal behavior, they had many stylistic differences. Jackson was stern and pious, whereas Ewell was witty and extremely profane. Jackson was flexible and intuitive on the battlefield, while Ewell, although brave and effective, required precise instructions to function effectively. Ewell was initially resentful about Jackson's tendency to keep his subordinates uninformed about his tactical plans, but he eventually adjusted to Jackson's methods.
Ewell superbly commanded a division in Jackson's small army during the Valley Campaign, personally winning quite a few battles against the larger U.S. armies of Maj. Gens. Nathaniel P. Banks, John C. Frémont, and James Shields at the Battle of Front Royal and First Battle of Winchester, Battle of Cross Keys, and Battle of Port Republic, respectively. Jackson's army was then recalled to Richmond to join Robert E. Lee in protecting the city against Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac in the Peninsula Campaign. Ewell fought conspicuously at Gaines' Mill and saw relatively light action at Malvern Hill. After Lee repelled the U.S. army in the Seven Days Battles, U.S. Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia threatened to attack from the north, so Jackson was sent to intercept him. Ewell defeated Banks again at the Battle of Cedar Mountain on August 9, and, returning to the old Manassas battlefield, he led his division into action at Brawner's Farm on August 28. A Minie ball shattered Ewell's left leg, and he lay on the ground for several hours before being found and taken away. The leg was amputated above the knee, and Ewell faced a painful recovery lasting months. Although he received a wooden leg, the irregular shape of the leg stump made it difficult to fit it. Ewell slipped and fell in Richmond on Christmas Day, aggravating his injury further.
While recovering from his injury, Ewell was nursed by his first cousin, Lizinka Campbell Brown, a wealthy widow from the Nashville area. Ewell had been attracted to Lizinka since his teenage years, and they had flirted with romance in 1861 and during the Valley Campaign, but now the close contact resulted in their wedding in Richmond on May 26, 1863.
Ewell returned to Lee's Army of Northern Virginia after the Battle of Chancellorsville. After the mortal wounding of Jackson at that battle, on May 23, Ewell was promoted to lieutenant general and command of the Second Corps (now slightly smaller than Jackson's because units were detached to create a new Third Corps, under Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill, also one of Jackson's division commanders). Ewell was given a date of rank one day earlier than Hill's, so he became the third-highest-ranking general in the Army of Northern Virginia, after Lee and James Longstreet.
Gettysburg and controversy
Ewell continued to have difficulty walking and needed crutches when not mounted on horseback. In the opening days of the Gettysburg Campaign, at the Second Battle of Winchester, Ewell performed superbly, capturing the U.S. garrison of 4,000 men and 23 cannons. He escaped severe injury there when he was hit in the chest with a spent bullet (the second such incident in his career, after Gaines' Mill). His corps took the lead in the invasion of Pennsylvania and almost reached the state capital of Harrisburg before being recalled by Lee to concentrate at Gettysburg. These successes led to favorable comparisons with Jackson.
But at the Battle of Gettysburg, Ewell's military reputation started a long decline. On July 1, 1863, Ewell's corps approached Gettysburg from the north and smashed the U.S. XI Corps and part of the I Corps, driving them back through the town and forcing them to take up defensive positions on Cemetery Hill south of town. Lee had just arrived on the field and saw the importance of this position. He sent discretionary orders to Ewell that Cemetery Hill be taken "if practicable." Historian James M. McPherson wrote, "Had Jackson still lived, he undoubtedly would have found it practicable. But Ewell was not Jackson." Ewell chose not to attempt the assault.
Ewell had several possible reasons for not attacking. The orders from Lee contained an innate contradiction. He was "to carry the hill occupied by the enemy, if he found it practicable, but to avoid a general engagement until the arrival of the other divisions of the army." Lee also refused to provide assistance that Ewell requested from the corps of A. P. Hill. Ewell's men were fatigued from their lengthy marching and strenuous battle in the hot July afternoon. It would be difficult to reassemble them into battle formation and assault the hill through the narrow corridors afforded by the streets of Gettysburg. The fresh division under Maj. Gen. Edward "Allegheny" Johnson was arriving. Still, Ewell also received intelligence that heavy U.S. reinforcements were approaching from the east on the York Pike, potentially threatening his flank. Ewell's normally aggressive subordinate, Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early, concurred with his decision.
Lee's order has been criticized because it left too much discretion to Ewell. Historians such as McPherson have speculated on how the more aggressive Stonewall Jackson would have acted on this order if he had lived to command this wing of Lee's army and how differently the second day of battle would have proceeded with Confederate possession of Culp's Hill or Cemetery Hill. Discretionary orders were customary for General Lee because Jackson and James Longstreet, his other principal subordinate, usually reacted to them very well and could use their initiative to respond to conditions and achieve the desired results. Ewell's critics have noted that this failure of action on his part, whether justified or not, ultimately cost the Confederates the battle. Other historians have noted that Lee, as the overall commanding general who issued discretionary orders to Ewell and then continued the battle for another two days, bears the final responsibility for the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg.
When Ewell's corps attacked these positions on July 2 and 3, the U.S. army had had time to fully occupy the heights and build impregnable defenses, resulting in heavy Confederate losses. Postwar proponents of the Lost Cause movement, particularly Jubal Early, but also Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble, assigned to Ewell's staff during the battle, criticized him bitterly to deflect any blame for losing the battle on Robert E. Lee. Part of their argument was that the U.S. soldiers were demoralized by their defeat earlier in the day. Still, Ewell's men were also disorganized, and their decisions were far simpler to make in hindsight than in the heat of battle and fog of war.
On July 3, Ewell was again wounded, but only in his wooden leg. He led his corps on an orderly retreat back to Virginia. By late November, Ewell took a leave of absence due to fever and continued problems with his leg. Within a month, he returned to command but struggled with his health and mobility. He was bruised in a fall from his horse in January 1864.
Overland Campaign and Richmond
Ewell led his corps in the May 1864 Battle of the Wilderness and performed well, enjoying a slight numerical superiority over the U.S. corps that attacked him. In the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Lee felt compelled to lead the defense of the "Mule Shoe" on May 12 personally because of Ewell's indecision and inaction. At one point, Ewell began hysterically berating some of his fleeing soldiers and beating them over the back with his sword. Lee reined him in, saying sharply, "General Ewell, you must restrain yourself; how can you expect to control these men when you have lost control of yourself? If you cannot repress your excitement, you had better retire." Ewell's behavior on this occasion undoubtedly was the source of a statement made by Lee to his secretary, William Allan, after the war that on May 12, he "found Ewell perfectly prostrated by the misfortune of the morning, and too much overwhelmed to be efficient." In the final combat at Spotsylvania, on May 19, 1864, Ewell ordered an attack on the U.S. left flank at the Harris Farm, which had little effect beyond delaying Grant for a day, at the cost of 900 casualties, about one-sixth of his remaining force.
Lee felt that Ewell was not in any shape for field command and decided to reassign him to the Richmond defenses. In April 1865, as Ewell and his troops were retreating, many fires in Richmond were started, although it is unclear by whose orders the fires were started. Ewell blamed the plundering mobs of civilians for burning a tobacco warehouse, which was a significant source of the fire, but Nelson Lankford, the author of Richmond Burning, wrote that "Ewell convinced few people that the great fire had nothing to do with his men or their deliberate demolition of the warehouses and bridges through military orders passed down the chain of command." These fires created The Great Conflagration of Richmond, which left a third of the city destroyed, including all of the business district. Ewell and his troops were then surrounded and captured at Sailor's Creek. This was a few days before Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Ewell told his captors that he had no idea what Lee was planning to do next, but the Confederacy was clearly doomed, and he hoped he would have the sense to surrender. He was held as a prisoner of war at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor until July.
While imprisoned, Ewell organized a group of sixteen former generals also at Fort Warren, including Edward "Allegheny" Johnson and Joseph B. Kershaw, and sent a letter to Ulysses S. Grant about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, for which they said no Southern man could feel anything other than "unqualified abhorrence and indignation" and insisting that the crime should not be connected to the southern states.
Postbellum life
After his parole, Ewell retired to work as a "gentleman farmer" on his wife's farm near Spring Hill, Tennessee, which he helped to become profitable, and also leased a successful cotton plantation in Mississippi. His leg stump had largely healed by the war's end and no longer seriously bothered him, but he continued to suffer from neuralgia and other ailments. He doted on Lizinka's children and grandchildren. He was president of the Columbia Female Academy's board of trustees, a communicant at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Columbia, and president of the Maury County Agricultural Society. Ewell and his wife came down with pneumonia in January 1872 and died within a few days of each other. They were buried in Old City Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the author of The Making of a Soldier, published posthumously in 1935.
In popular media
Tim Scott portrayed Ewell in the 1993 film Gettysburg, based on Michael Shaara's novel, The Killer Angels. In that movie, Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble meets with Robert E. Lee and tells him that Ewell had refused to take Cemetery Hill, giving the U.S. army a massive advantage, and that many men would die in the coming days because of that failure.
Ewell is the main character in the 1963 gospel film Red Runs the River and is portrayed by Bob Jones Jr. The film, directed by Katherine Stenholm, details Ewell's relationship with Stonewall Jackson and Ewell's conversion to Christ following his wound at the Second Battle of Bull Run (Manassas). It is an Unusual Films production from the Cinema Department of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Red Runs the River was the film the University Film Producers Association selected to represent the United States at the International Congress of Motion-Picture and Television Schools in Budapest, Hungary.
See also
List of American Civil War generals (Confederate)
Notes
References
Coddington, Edwin B. The Gettysburg Campaign; a study in command. New York: Scribner's, 1968. .
Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. .
Frederiksen, John C. "Richard Stoddert Ewell." In Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, edited by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. .
Lankford, Nelson. Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital. New York: Viking, 2002. .
Pfanz, Donald C. Richard S. Ewell: A Soldier's Life. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. .
Rhea, Gordon C. To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13–25, 1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. .
Sears, Stephen W. Gettysburg. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. .
Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988. .
Tagg, Larry. The Generals of Gettysburg. Campbell, CA: Savas Publishing, 1998. .
Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. .
External links
Richard S. Ewell in Encyclopedia Virginia
Ewell's biography at Civil War Home
Biography at Stonewall in the Valley website
1817 births
1872 deaths
19th-century American military personnel
American Civil War prisoners of war held by the United States
American military personnel of the Mexican–American War
American amputees
Confederate States Army lieutenant generals
Deaths from pneumonia in Tennessee
Members of the Aztec Club of 1847
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People of Virginia in the American Civil War
People of Washington, D.C., in the American Civil War
United States Military Academy alumni
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic%20Kingdom
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Tragic Kingdom
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Tragic Kingdom is the third studio album by American rock band No Doubt, released on October 10, 1995, by Trauma Records and Interscope Records. It was the final album to feature original keyboardist Eric Stefani, who left the band in 1994. The album was produced by Matthew Wilder and recorded in 11 studios in the Greater Los Angeles area between March 1993 and October 1995. Between 1995 and 1998, seven singles were released from it, including "Just a Girl", which charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart; and "Don't Speak", which topped the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay and reached the top five of many international charts.
The album received mostly positive reviews from music critics and became the band's most commercially successful album, reaching number one on the Billboard 200 as well as topping the charts in Canada and New Zealand. At the 39th Annual Grammy Awards, No Doubt earned nominations for Best New Artist and Best Rock Album. It has sold over 16 million copies worldwide, and was certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the United States and Canada, platinum in the United Kingdom, and triple platinum in Australia. Tragic Kingdom helped to initiate the ska revival of the 1990s, persuading record labels to sign more ska bands and helping them to attract more mainstream attention. The album was ranked number 441 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
No Doubt embarked on a tour to promote the album. It was designed by Project X and lasted two and a half years. An early 1997 performance at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim was filmed and released as Live in the Tragic Kingdom on VHS and later DVD.
Background
No Doubt released their self-titled debut album in 1992, a year after being signed to Interscope. The album's pop-oriented sound sharply contrasted with grunge music, a genre which was very popular at the time in the United States. The album sold 30,000 copies; in the words of the program director of KROQ, a Los Angeles radio station on which it was one of the band's driving ambitions to be played, "it would take an act of God for this band to get on the radio." The band began work on their second album in 1993, but Interscope rejected most of the material, and paired the band with producer Matthew Wilder. Keyboardist Eric Stefani did not want to relinquish creative control to someone outside the band and eventually stopped recording and rehearsing. He encouraged other members of the band to write songs, but sometimes felt threatened when they did. Eric became increasingly depressed, and in September 1994, he stopped attending rehearsals, though they were usually held at his house. He soon left the band to pursue an animation career on the animated sitcom The Simpsons. Bassist Tony Kanal then ended his seven-year relationship with Gwen Stefani.
The band decided to produce their next album independently and recorded their second album, The Beacon Street Collection, in a homemade studio. No Doubt's first two singles were released for The Beacon Street Collection: "Squeal" and "Doghouse", under their own record label, Beacon Street Records. Despite limited availability, the album sold 100,000 copies in the year of its release. Their independence attracted Interscope's attention and ensured that the label would fund a third album.
Production
Tragic Kingdom was recorded in 11 studios in Los Angeles, starting in March 1993 and released in October 1995. During one of these recording sessions, the band was introduced to Paul Palmer, who had previously worked with Bush and was interested in working on No Doubt's new album. After mixing the first single with David J. Holman, "Just a Girl", Palmer and Holman went on to do the same to the rest of the record. He wanted to release the album on his own label, Trauma Records, which was already associated with Interscope, and succeeded in getting the contract.
The album is named after the nickname Dumont's seventh-grade teacher had for Disneyland, which is in Anaheim, California, where the band members grew up. The album photography and portraits were taken by photographer fine artist Daniel Arsenault. Gwen is featured in the foreground while the rest of the band members are standing in an orange grove in the background. Gwen pushed for Eric to be included on the album cover—a source of tension for the band—reasoning that although he had left the band, he had still contributed substantially to the album. Eric is seen near the back of the picture, looking away from the camera. The pictures on the cover and in the liner notes were taken on city streets in their native Orange County (namely Anaheim and City of Orange) and in orange groves. The red dress Gwen wears on the cover was loaned to the Hard Rock Cafe and was later displayed at the Fullerton Museum Center in an exhibit titled "The Orange Groove: Orange County's Rock n' Roll History". The dress, appraised as high as US$5,000, was stolen from the exhibit in January 2005.
Music and lyrics
Tragic Kingdom uses elements of a variety of musical genres. Ska, ska punk, pop, rock, and new wave are the genres most prominent on the album. The album also uses elements of punk, funk, third-wave ska and post-grunge, and dance rhythms influenced by reggae, ska, flamenco, and Tejano, among others. Apart from No Doubt's instrumentation, the album uses horn sections on several songs.
Many of the lyrics on Tragic Kingdom were written by lead vocalist Gwen Stefani, and were about her experiences in life. Those from No Doubt and The Beacon Street Collection were written mainly by Eric Stefani, who left the band after Tragic Kingdom was finished. Therefore, the style of music changed from what the band had previously produced. Guitarist Tom Dumont explained the change in sound in an interview for Backstage Online:
Singles
The first single released from Tragic Kingdom was "Just a Girl", which details Gwen Stefani's exasperation with female stereotypes and her father's concerned reaction to her driving home late from her boyfriend's house. It peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 10 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song also charted on the UK Singles Chart, where its original release peaked at number 38 and its reissue at number three. The second single was "Spiderwebs", written about an uninterested woman who is trying to avoid the constant phone calls of a persistent man. It reached number five on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, number 11 on the Billboard Top 40 Mainstream chart, and number 16 on the UK Singles Chart.
The third single was "Don't Speak", a ballad about the breakup of Stefani and Kanal's relationship. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay, and maintained that position for 16 consecutive weeks, a record at the time, although it was broken in 1998 by the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris" with 18 weeks. The song was not eligible to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 because no commercial single was released, which was a requirement at the time. The song also peaked at number two on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, at number six on the Adult Contemporary chart, at number one on the Adult Top 40 chart, and at number nine on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart. The song also appeared on several international charts, reaching number one in Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, number two in Austria and Germany, and number four in Finland and France.
"Excuse Me Mr." and "Sunday Morning" were released as the album's fourth and fifth singles, respectively. "Excuse Me Mr." reached number 17 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and number 11 in New Zealand. "Sunday Morning" peaked at number 35 on the Billboard Top 40 Mainstream chart, number 21 in Australia, number 42 in New Zealand, and number 55 in Sweden. Composing the song began when Kanal was having a fight with Stefani, then his girlfriend, through the bathroom door of his parents' house in Yorba Linda, California. Stefani later changed the lyrics to discuss dealing with her breakup with Kanal. "Happy Now?" was released as the album's sixth single on September 23, 1997, but failed to chart anywhere. "Hey You!" was released as the seventh and final single from Tragic Kingdom; it peaked at number 51 on the Dutch Single Top 100. Despite being a Dutch-only single, a Sophie Muller-directed music video was filmed to promote the single.
Release and promotion
Tragic Kingdom was first released by Trauma and Interscope on October 10, 1995. To promote the album, Trauma launched a street campaign that targeted high school students and the skateboarding community. No Doubt performed on the Warped Tour, which was sponsored by several skateboarding companies, and at several skateboarding festivals. The album remained low on the Billboard 200 and did not enter the top 100 until February 1996, when it jumped 27 positions to number 89. Palmer attributed the jump to a Channel One News program that Stefani hosted in January 1996, which was broadcast in 12,000 classrooms, and the band's subsequent performance at a Blockbuster store in Fresno, California.
In May 1996, the band worked with HMV, MuchMusic, and the Universal Music Group to put on a global in-store promotion. The band performed and answered questions in MuchMusic's studios in Toronto, Ontario. The session was broadcast live to HMV stores worldwide and on a webcast so that fans could watch and ask the band questions through MuchMusic's VJs. Sales of Tragic Kingdom doubled the week after the event. The event's sponsors lobbied Guinness World Records to create a category for the largest virtual in-store promotion to recognize the event.
No Doubt embarked on the Tragic Kingdom Tour after the release of the album. It chose Project X, headed by Luc Lafortune and Michael Keeling, to design the stage. No Doubt suggested decorating the stage as a clearing in a forest. Project X created three anthropomorphic trees with glowing oranges. The show included clear and mylar confetti designed to look like rain. Lighting design was difficult because there were only four rehearsals, so the show was arranged to be flexible to allow for what Lafortune referred to as "a very kinetic performance". The band expected to tour for two months, but the tour ended up lasting two and a half years.
An early 1997 performance at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim was filmed and was released as Live in the Tragic Kingdom on VHS on November 11, 1997. It was re-released on November 25, 2003, on DVD as part of the box set Boom Box, which also contained The Singles 1992–2003, Everything in Time, and The Videos 1992–2003; and again on June 13, 2006, as a stand-alone DVD, containing bonus material of extra songs, a photo gallery, and an alternative version of "Don't Speak".
Critical reception
The album received mostly positive reviews from critics. David Fricke of Rolling Stone magazine gave a mostly positive review, describing Tragic Kingdom as "ear candy with good beats, not just bludgeon-by-numbers guitars" and its music as "a spry, white-suburban take on ska and Blondieesque pop". Fricke however described "Don't Speak" as "irritating swill" with "high-pitched rippling" from Gwen Stefani. In 2003, the album was ranked number 441 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Entertainment Weeklys David Browne attributed the album's sales to Gwen Stefani's "leggy, bleached-blond calling card" and concluded that "sex still sells". Browne, however, described the music as "a hefty chunk of new-wave party bounce and Chili Peppers-style white-boy funk, with dashes of reggae, squealing hair-metal guitar, disco, ska-band horns" and the band as sounding like "savvy, lounge-bred pros". Individual songs were singled out and commented on: "Just a Girl" was described as "a chirpy, ska-tinged bopper", "Don't Speak" as "an old-fangled power ballad", "Sixteen" as a "song of solidarity with misunderstood teenage girls", and "Spiderwebs" and "End It on This" as "[Stefani] acknowledg[ing] obsessions with losers and tr[ying] to break free."
Calling the album a marked improvement over "the diffuse, rambling songwriting of [No Doubt's] two previous CDs", Mike Boehm of the Los Angeles Times felt that on the album, "The band is bright, hard-hitting and kinetic, as sharp production captures the core, four-man instrumental team and adjunct horn section at their best". In a favorable review for The Village Voice, critic Chuck Eddy felt that although "[the album] turns pretentious ... No Doubt resurrects the exuberance new-wave guys lost when '80s indie labels and college radio conned them into settling for slam-pit fits and wallflower wallpaper". AllMusic called it "pure fun" and described the music as something "between '90s punk, third-wave ska, and pop sensibility" and a mix of "new wave melodicism, post-grunge rock, and West Coast sunshine", indicating the songs "Spiderwebs", "Just a Girl", and "Don't Speak" as "positively [ruling] the airwaves". Yahoo! Music reviewer Bill Holdship called the album a "phenomenon" containing "hit after hit", and describing "Spiderwebs" as "a terrific opener". Reviewer Robert Christgau called Stefani "hebephrenic" and the album "hyped up" and not "as songful as its fun-besotted partisans [claim]". At the 1997 Grammy Awards, No Doubt were nominated for Best New Artist and Best Rock Album.
In 2000, it was voted number 436 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums, while in 2020, NME included it on its list of "The best new wave albums ever".
Commercial performance
After entering the Billboard 200 at number 175 in January 1996, Tragic Kingdom eventually reached number one in December 1996, with 229,000 copies sold, spending nine non-consecutive weeks atop the chart. It was listed second on the 1997 Billboard 200 year-end chart, behind the Spice Girls' Spice. On February 5, 1999, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified the album diamond, and as of July 2012, it had sold 8,167,000 copies in the United States; it sold an additional 1.32 million copies through BMG Music Club. Tragic Kingdom topped the Canadian Albums Chart in December 1996, and it was certified diamond by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) in August 1997. In Europe, the album topped the chart in Belgium, Finland, and Norway, while reaching the top five in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, and the top 20 in France. By April 2004, the album had sold 16 million copies worldwide.
The commercial success of Tragic Kingdom prompted record labels to sign ska bands, and more independent labels released ska records and compilations. Save Ferris's guitarist and vocalist Brian Mashburn stated that No Doubt helped allow bands like his receive attention from the mainstream.
Track listing
All tracks produced by Matthew Wilder.
Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Tragic Kingdom.
No Doubt
Gwen Stefani – vocals
Tom Dumont – guitar
Tony Kanal – bass
Adrian Young – drums, percussion
Eric Stefani – piano, keyboards
Additional musicians
Phil Jordan – trumpet and flugelhorn
Gabrial McNair – trombone, additional percussion
Gerard Boisse – saxophone
Stephen Perkins – steel drum
Aloke Dasgupta – sitar
Melissa Hasin – cello
Bill Bergman – saxophone
Les Lovitt – trumpet
Greg Smith – baritone saxophone
Nick Lane – trombone
Matthew Wilder – additional keyboards
Albhy Galuten – director of paradigm
Technical
Matthew Wilder – production
Phil Kaffel – recording
George Landress – recording
Matt Hyde – recording
John "Tokes" Potoker – recording
Ray Blair – recording
David J. Holman – mixing at Cactus Studios (Hollywood)
Paul Palmer – mixing at Cactus Studios (Hollywood)
Robert Vosgien – mastering at CMS Digital (Pasadena)
Artwork
Morbido / Bizarrio – creative direction, design, digital imaging
Dan Arsenault – photography
Shelly Robertson – photography
Patrick Miller – photography
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
All-time charts
Certifications and sales
See also
List of best-selling albums in the United States
List of Billboard 200 number-one albums of 1996
List of Billboard 200 number-one albums of 1997
List of number-one albums of 1996 (Canada)
List of number-one albums of 1997 (Canada)
Notes
References
1995 albums
Albums produced by Matthew Wilder
Interscope Records albums
No Doubt albums
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip%20J.%20Fry
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Philip J. Fry
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Philip J. Fry, commonly known mononymously by his surname, Fry, is a fictional character and the protagonist of the animated series Futurama. He is voiced by Billy West using a version of his own voice as he sounded when he was 25. He is a slacker delivery boy from the 20th century who becomes cryogenically frozen and reawakens in the 30th century to become a delivery boy there with an intergalactic delivery company run by his 30th great-grandnephew, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth. He is the best friend and roommate of Bender and the boyfriend and later fiancé of Turanga Leela.
Character overview
Fry was born in the 20th century in New York City. He is an immature pizza delivery boy who, during the first few seconds of 2000, falls into a cryogenic tank while delivering a pizza to Applied Cryogenics. He remains frozen until the last day of 2999. He then meets the one-eyed cryogenics counselor Leela, as well as the cigar-smoking, alcoholic, kleptomaniac robot Bender. Together, they are employed by Fry's distant nephew, the senile and demented old scientist Professor Farnsworth, as the crew of his delivery company Planet Express.
Fry's parents are Yancy Fry Sr., a strict Republican who believes in conspiracy theories, and an unnamed mother, an avid New York Mets fan. It was later revealed that Fry's family on his father's side is from New Mexico. Fry had an older brother named Yancy; a dog named Seymour; and a girlfriend named Michelle (who dumps him in the first episode, "Space Pilot 3000", just before he is frozen). Fry had a lifelong sibling rivalry with his older brother Yancy, due to Fry's perception that Yancy steals everything from him and vice versa; in "The Luck of the Fryrish", however, it is revealed his brother loved him dearly, and later named his son after him.
After dropping out of Coney Island Community College, Fry got a job as a delivery boy at Panucci's Pizza. Depictions of Fry's family in early episodes showed them as extremely dysfunctional, with an inattentive mother and borderline-abusive father. Later seasons, however, depicted them as much closer and, while still dysfunctional, more loving and attentive, with Fry's father treating him harshly to ensure he grew up tough.
Personality and abilities
Fry is characterized as lazy, gullible, and none-too-bright, but also innocent, playful and kind-hearted. Fry regards Bender as his closest friend despite the latter's mean-spirited, selfish nature and constant abuse. He also has strong feelings for Leela, although he lacks the charisma required for properly articulating his emotions. Throughout the early seasons of the show, Leela is shown to have feelings for Fry that she is reluctant to act on due to his immaturity. It isn’t until the movie Into the Wild Green Yonder that she admits to loving him back. At the end of that film, they are seen sharing a kiss as they enter a wormhole, and subsequently begin dating. Despite his below-average intelligence, Fry has a soft and tender heart, frequently going the extra mile to help his friends, even if he is oblivious to their problems; he is the only other staff member aside from Professor Farnsworth who genuinely enjoys the company of the ship's doctor, Zoidberg. Fry has a strong sense of justice and is far from afraid of standing up for himself and his friends and family. He has shown remarkable skill playing video games, (even mastering the 31st-century's version on the Internet), and in "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV" is seen successfully playing a game despite not looking at the screen. This skill carries over to using Planet Express Ship's laser gun. Owing to these elements of his personality, Fry also exhibits remarkable bravery and self-sacrifice on occasion and has even displayed flashes of intuition. He has even proved to be a competent fighter in "Law and Oracle" and "Fun on a Bun", the latter episode showing that Fry is skilled enough to hold his own against Leela in direct physical combat. He has also survived a heart attack intentionally caused by Bender.
In the episode "The Why of Fry", Leela's seemingly oblivious pet Nibbler reveals himself as the reason for Fry's freezing. Due to a time-travel incident in "Roswell That Ends Well", Fry became his own grandfather, but this genetic defect also means that Fry lacks the Delta brainwave that enables conscious thought, his mind instead consisting of an apparently random assortment of other waves that function as a working mind (Leela compared it to a dress made out of carpet remnants). As a result of this defect, Fry can withstand the intellect-draining onslaught of the evil Brainspawn and is immune to the Dark One's mind-reading in Into the Wild Green Yonder as well as the mind-controlling power of the Hypnotoad. Due to this quirk, Nibbler's race, the Nibblonians, dub him "The Mighty One". Through prediction (on the eve of 1999, as the Nibblonians lack the ability to travel through time), they guessed that Fry would be the one to save the world from the evil Brainspawn. Because his natural lifespan would not extend to the right millennium, however, Nibbler is sent to make the aforementioned delivery call to push an unsuspecting Fry into the cryogenic tube, to re-emerge December 31, 2999. When Fry learned of this, he briefly allowed the Brainspawn to send him back in time to stop Nibbler from sending him to the future, but after confirming that Nibbler hadn't come back in time and was acting only to protect the future, Fry chose to let his past self fall into the tube to preserve the timeline.
In several episodes, he feels nostalgic for the 20th century and attempts to convince his coworkers of the greatness of the century.
Love life
Leela
Leela is Fry's main love interest and later wife. His love for her provides a major plotline throughout the series. Fry first begins to show a serious interest in her from the second season onwards, although she constantly turns him down for other dates due to his immaturity. Still, she says that she loves his boyish charm. Leela initially sees Fry as a friend and nothing more, but deeper affection for him appears occasionally, such as on the numerous occasions when he risks his life for hers ("Love and Rocket", "The Sting", "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences").
Fry's feelings for Leela are openly displayed throughout the series. In "The Sting", Fry throws himself in front of a baby Queen Bee to protect Leela, resulting in the bee's stinger completely penetrating his torso. In "Love and Rocket", upon noticing that Leela's oxygen tank was running on "critical", he attaches her oxygen tube to his tank, giving her his oxygen and almost asphyxiating himself. In "Parasites Lost", Fry becomes infected with symbiotic "parasites" which enhance his muscles and intelligence, allowing him to attract Leela's romantic attention. However, fearing that Leela was attracted to him only for his worms, he rids himself of them in a failed bid to begin a genuine relationship. In "Time Keeps on Slippin'", Fry moves the stars to write a love note to Leela, but the message is blown up before she can read it. In the final episode of the initial run, "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings", Fry trades hands with the Robot Devil in order to compose an opera about Leela in which they fall in love. When Fry returns the Robot Devil's hands to prevent him from forcing Leela to marry him, the opera deteriorates, causing the audience to leave. Fry sadly walks off the stage. Leela is the only one who remains behind, asking Fry not to stop because she wants to hear how it ends. He picks up his holophonor and composes a crude ending in which the stage-Fry and stage-Leela share a single kiss.
In the film Futurama: Bender's Big Score Leela falls in love with a seemingly perfect man, Lars, and they soon become engaged. However, Lars leaves Leela on her wedding day explaining later that as a time paradox he is doomed, and that he would not marry her only to have her lose him soon after. Through this, he then reveals that he is in fact the time paradox of Fry, who had undergone physical changes due to an explosion and become more mature through 12 years of age and experience.
At the end of the film Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, Leela openly admits to loving Fry, and they commence an openly romantic relationship from the episode "Rebirth" onwards. In "The Prisoner of Benda" they have "sex", albeit in differing bodies. The on-again, off-again nature of their relationship causes Leela to leave Planet Express and Fry in "Overclockwise", however by the end of the episode, Leela returns to Planet Express and seemingly reunites with Fry. Bender reveals to both Fry and Leela their "ultimate fate" that he learned while he was overclocked. The audience is never shown the contents, but through their facial expressions, it is clear that while the journey for them may be bumpy, Fry and Leela will ultimately end up happy.
In later episodes, such as "The Butterjunk Effect" and "Fun on a Bun", Fry and Leela are shown to be in a relationship, though the events of the series precipitate frequent arguments and breakups. These issues are usually resolved within the episode, leaving Fry and Leela still together at the end.
During the season finale "Meanwhile", Fry decides that it is time for him to propose to Leela. Wanting the moment of his proposal to last longer, he steals Professor Farnsworth's time machine remote that turns back time every 10 seconds. When Leela is late, he thinks she has rejected him and attempts suicide by jumping off the building; he sees her arriving just in time, however, and presses the reset button over and over again to keep from hitting the ground. He accidentally breaks the remote and freezes time, leaving himself and Leela as the only unfrozen beings in the universe. Leela accepts Fry's proposal, and they have a long, happy unofficial "marriage". After spending decades traveling the world, they return to the spot where Fry was planning to propose. As they toast to their life together, the Professor shows up and repairs the time machine but informs them it will reset their lives to the moment before he invented the machine, leaving them with no memory of the life they spent together. Fry asks Leela if she wants to go around again with him, and she replies that she does.
The eighth season, picking up ten years after time was frozen, shows a young-again Fry and Leela continuing their relationship, and they eventually move in together in the episode "Related to Items You've Watched".
Michelle
Michelle (voiced by Kath Soucie in the first appearance, Sarah Silverman in the second appearance) is Fry's on-and-off girlfriend from the 20th century. Shortly before Fry is frozen, she dumps him for a man named Constantine (called Charles in "The Cryonic Woman"), whom she later marries. They eventually split up, and she decides to freeze herself to try again in the distant future. She wakes up in 3002, meets Fry again, and restarts her relationship with him. However, she fails to fit into the 31st-century life to which Fry has become so accustomed, and so asks him to freeze himself with her for another thousand years. This plan fails, as does the rekindled relationship, so Fry leaves her. She later is shown in a limousine with the recently unfrozen Pauly Shore. In the episode "Proposition Infinity", she is again shown with Pauly Shore, and the implication is that they are now married.
Amy Wong
During a trip on the luxury starliner Titanic, Amy Wong passes Fry off as her boyfriend to avoid being set up by her parents with an unattractive potential husband. Unfortunately, Leela was also passing Fry off as her fake fiancé to ward off the attentions of Zapp Brannigan. Potential embarrassment is averted by catastrophic damage to the ship, and Amy wins the battle of the bogus boyfriends.
In "Put Your Head on My Shoulders", Fry and Amy are trapped together in a desert on Mercury and realize they have a lot in common. While being towed to the nearest gas station to refuel, they have sex in the car. They continue the relationship back home, but Fry intends to end it the day before Valentine's Day because he feels that they are spending too much time together. An accident ends with Fry's head being temporarily attached to Amy's body, causing much tension due to Fry's decision to break up and Amy's subsequent date, forcing Leela to step in and distract Amy's date to save Fry from an awkward situation. Despite their break-up, they remain good friends.
Morgan
In "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back", while Hermes was on forced paid leave, Fry had a secret affair with his temporary replacement, Morgan Proctor, due to her fetish for messy men. She informed Fry that no one could know about them, and she'd deny any mention of it. Fry and Morgan's affair ended when Bender caught them, leading her to deprogram Bender so Fry ended their affair.
Umbriel
In "The Deep South (Futurama)" after the Planet Express crew discovers the mythical underwater city of Atlanta, Fry starts dating a mermaid named Umbriel. After she shows him the wonders of the deep sea, he decides to stay with her, but changes his mind when he learns how merpeople have sex.
Mildred
After an accident with a microwave caused the crew and the professor to be thrown back into time, Fry meets his grandparents in the year 1947 on the Roswell, New Mexico air force base. After realizing that his existence depends on his grandparents having children, Fry tries to protect his grandfather by locking him into an abandoned house in the desert. Unfortunately, the house was a test site for a nuclear bomb which killed his grandfather. After realizing he was still alive after his grandfather died, he decided that Mildred couldn't be his grandmother and slept with her after she seduces him. However, Professor then points out that he was still alive because Fry had become his own grandfather by sleeping with Mildred, who really is his grandmother. Fry was disgusted after he realized that he is now the father of his own father. In many episodes, he has a different reaction to the encounter being either proud or disturbed.
Colleen
During the events of "Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs" Fry meets police chief Colleen while observing the tear in the universe and soon begin dating. Their relationship is happy and serious, which makes Leela jealous as she finally came to return Fry's feelings. When Fry agrees to move in with Colleen, he learns that she has four other live-in boyfriends. Failing to adjust to her polyandrous marriage he breaks up with her, leaving himself heartbroken. His sadness at losing Colleen leads him to travel into the tear where he meets the alien Yivo who he introduces to the rest of the universe, and the whole universe all come to fall in love with Yivo. Eventually, Yivo later breaks up with the whole universe except Colleen as they both cannot be satisfied being in love with a single person. Before she moves in permanently with Yivo, Colleen thanks Fry for introducing her to Yivo.
Family relationships
Professor Farnsworth
Professor Hubert Farnsworth is the distant nephew of Philip J. Fry and his only living family member in the 31st century aside from Cubert and Igner. He runs a small delivery service to fund his scientific research and gives Fry, Leela, and Bender jobs. Although the professor is an accomplished scientist, he is often cruel and senile. As of the episode "A Clone of My Own," he is 160 years old.
Cubert Farnsworth
Cubert is the young clone of the professor and is often portrayed as his son. He was created as an heir to all of the professor's research, but was kept in the tube too long resulting in a pressed in nose. He often gets into trouble and makes fun of Fry for being dumb. He is also good friends with Dwight Conrad, the son of Hermes.
Igner
Igner is the son of the professor and Mom. He was raised by Mom and neither he nor the professor knew who the father was. His father wasn't revealed until Bender's Game.
Mildred
Mildred was the grandmother of Fry. During his time in the past, due to an incident with the microwave, Fry accidentally kills his grandfather with a nuclear explosion and returns to Mildred who seduces him after Fry decides that she couldn't possibly be his real grandmother because he was still alive. The professor, Leela, and Bender then find Fry in bed with Mildred and point out that because Fry was still alive after his grandfather's death, he had become his own grandfather and that he had still slept with his own grandmother.
Yancy Fry Sr.
Yancy Senior is the father of Yancy Fry Jr. and Philip J. Fry. He is a large man who is often seen in flashbacks preparing against the "commie invasion" or the Y2K apocalypse. He and his wife often express how much they miss Fry after his disappearance despite numerous flashbacks where they are seen making light of it or suggesting that they made little effort to find him. Fry later traveled back in time and impregnated his grandmother, making him the father of his own father.
Mrs. Fry
Fry's mother. Fry and his mother seemed to have had a better relationship. Although she often joins in on the jokes about his disappearance, she has expressed sadness over his loss and is able to tell him how much she loved him when Nibbler allows Fry to enter into her dreams and say goodbye.
Yancy Fry Jr. and Philip J. Fry II
Yancy Jr. is Fry's older brother. Yancy and Philip had an intense sibling rivalry over basketball, dancing, and various other activities. During this time, Fry found a lucky seven-leaf clover that seems to bring him an incredible amount of raw talent at whatever he does. Yancy and Philip are constantly fighting over the clover until Fry decides to hide it in an old record vault. After Fry's disappearance, Yancy breaks into the vault to find music he can use at his wedding reception and finds the clover. Yancy ends up giving the clover to his son Philip who he named after his uncle. Fry eventually sees a picture of his nephew, who was the first person on Mars, in the future and believes that it was Yancy Jr. who had stolen his name and his dream of going into space (which the gang points out Fry does every day now). Fry eventually finds Philip's grave and decides to rob it in an effort to take back the clover. He has a horrible realization that the grave he was robbing was that of his nephew and not his brother when he clears the headstone and it reads "Here lies Philip J. Fry. Named for his uncle to carry on his spirit." Fry then places the clover back into the grave and leaves his nephew's grave, realizing how much his brother loved and missed him.
Fry's nephew appears in person during Bender's Big Score. Bender travels back in time to the year 2012, intent on assassinating Fry. He encounters a young boy who shares Fry's name and prepares to kill him, but stops when the boy says that Fry is his uncle.
Production
Although Billy West stated in an interview that the name "Philip" was given to Fry by Matt Groening as a homage to the late Phil Hartman, for whom the role of Zapp Brannigan was created, Groening said during the 2013 Futurama panel at the San Diego Comic-Con that Fry was in fact named after Groening's father, Homer Philip Groening, who was also the namesake for Homer Simpson.
According to Groening, Fry's character developed over time while still keeping his qualities as a loser and the characteristics which writers hoped would make him appeal to the target young male audience. Fry's character is essentially a bungling, stubborn slob with a heart of gold who cannot get ahead in the world, but still has a slight glimmer of hope. Fry's trademark outfit – a red windbreaker jacket, white t-shirt and blue jeans – is based on James Dean's outfit from Rebel Without a Cause.
Fry is voiced by Billy West, who also voices Doctor Zoidberg, Hubert J. Farnsworth and various other characters in the series. Although West auditioned for the part, it was originally given to Charlie Schlatter; however, after a casting change, West was offered the job. The voice West uses for Fry has been described as that of a "generic Saturday-morning good guy". Other actors who auditioned for Fry include Ryan Stiles and Rob Paulsen. West admits that he intentionally made Fry's sound similar to his own, claiming that keeping the "cartoony" aspects out of it would make it harder for someone else to imitate the same voice. He notes that the voice is higher than his own and that he tried to duplicate the voice he had at age 25, which he describes as "this whiny, complaining voice — this plain vanilla voice". West also voices Lars Fillmore in Futurama: Bender's Big Score, who is a time travel duplicate of Fry with an injured larynx, and therefore, a slightly altered voice. The producers initially considered having a different voice actor do Lars' voice in order to keep viewers from guessing his true identity, but ultimately decided it would not make sense if anyone besides West did the voice.
References
External links
Philip J. Fry at The Infosphere: The Futurama Wiki
Futurama characters
Characters created by Matt Groening
Fictional characters displaced in time
Fictional characters from New York City
Fictional couriers
Fictional cryonically preserved characters
Fictional characters who have made pacts with devils
Fictional war veterans
Television characters introduced in 1999
Animated characters introduced in 1999
Fictional characters involved in incest
Fictional characters with intellectual disability
Fictional attempted suicides
Male characters in animated series
Fictional characters from the 20th century
Male characters in television
Time travelers
Fictional clones
Fictional first officers
Crossover characters in television
cs:Seznam hlavních postav ve Futuramě#Philip J. Fry
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector%20Guimard
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Hector Guimard
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Hector Guimard (, 10 March 1867 – 20 May 1942) was a French architect and designer, and a prominent figure of the Art Nouveau style. He achieved early fame with his design for the Castel Beranger, the first Art Nouveau apartment building in Paris, which was selected in an 1899 competition as one of the best new building facades in the city. He is best known for the glass and iron edicules or canopies, with ornamental Art Nouveau curves, which he designed to cover the entrances of the first stations of the Paris Metro.
Between 1890 and 1930, Guimard designed and built some fifty buildings, in addition to one hundred and forty-one subway entrances for Paris Metro, as well as numerous pieces of furniture and other decorative works. However, in the 1910s Art Nouveau went out of fashion and by the 1960s most of his works had been demolished, and only two of his original Metro edicules were still in place. Guimard's critical reputation revived in the 1960s, in part due to subsequent acquisitions of his work by Museum of Modern Art, and art historians have noted the originality and importance of his architectural and decorative works. Guimard was a disciple of Viollet le Duc.
Early life and education
Hector Guimard was born in Lyon on 10 March 1867. His father, Germain-René Guimard, was an orthopedist, and his mother, Marie-Françoise Bailly, was a linen maid. His parents married on 22 June 1867. His father became a gymnastics teacher at the Lycée Michelet in Vanves in 1878, and the following year Hector began to study at the Lycée. In October 1882 he enrolled at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs, or school of decorative arts. He received his diploma on 17 March 1887, and promptly enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied architecture. He received honorable mention in several architectural competitions, and also showed his paintings at the Paris Salon des Artistes in 1890, and in 1892 competed, without success, in the competition for the Prix de Rome. In October 1891 he began to teach drawing and perspective to young women at the École nationale des arts decoratifs and later a course on perspective for younger students, a post he held until July 1900.
He showed his work at the Paris Salons of April 1894 and 1895, which earned him a prize of a funded voyage first to England and Scotland, and then, in the summer of 1895, to the Netherlands and Belgium. In Brussels in the summer of 1895, he met the Belgian architect Victor Horta, one of the founders of Art Nouveau, and saw the sinuous vegetal and floral lines of the Hotel Tassel, one of the earliest Art Nouveau houses. Guimard arranged for Horta to have an exhibition of his designs at the January 1896 Paris Salon, and Guimard's own style and career began to change.
Early career (1888–1898)
Early works
The earliest constructed work of Guimard was the cafe-restaurant Au Grand Neptune (1888), located on the Quai Auteuil in Paris at the edge of the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889. It was picturesque but not strikingly innovative. It was demolished in 1910. He constructed another picturesque structure for the Exposition, the Pavilion of Electricity, a showcase for the work of electrical engineer Ferdinand de Boyéres. Between 1889 and 1895 he constructed a dozen apartment buildings, villas and houses, mostly in the Paris 16th arrondissement or suburbs, including the Hotel Roszé (1891) and the Hotel Jassedé (1893) without attracting much attention. He earned his living primarily from his teaching at the School of Decorative Arts.
The Castel Béranger (1895–1898)
Guimard's first recognized major work was the Castel Béranger in Paris, an apartment building with thirty-six units constructed between 1895 and 1898, when the architect was just thirty years old. It was at 14, rue Jean de la Fontaine, Paris, for Mme. Fournier. He persuaded his client to abandon a more restrained design and replace it with a new design in a more modern style, similar to that of Horta's Hotel Tassel, which he had visited in the summer of 1895. Guimard put together an extraordinary number of stylistic effects and theatrical elements on the facade and in the interior, using cast iron, glass and ceramics for decoration. The lobby, decorated with sinuous vine-like cast iron and colorful ceramics, resembled an undersea grotto. He designed every detail, including the wallpaper, rain spouts and door handles, and added adding highly modern new features including a telephone booth in the lobby.
A skilled publicist, Guimard very effectively used the new building to advertise his work. He had his own apartment and office in the building. He organized conferences and press articles, set up an exhibition of his drawings in the salons of Le Figaro, and wrote a monograph on the building. In 1899 he entered it into the first Paris competition for the best new building facades, and in March 1899 it was selected one of the six winners, a fact which he proudly had inscribed on the facade of the building.
Mature career (1898–1914)
Castels, villas and a short-lived concert hall
The success and publicity created by the Castel Beranger quickly brought him commissions for other residential buildings. Between 1898 and 1900, he constructed three houses simultaneously, each very different but recognizably in Guimard's style. The first, the Maison Coilliot, was built for the ceramics manufacturer Louis Coilliot on rue de Fleurs in Lille, and served as his store, reception hall and residence. The facade was covered with plaques of green enamelled volcanic rock, and decorated with soaring arches, curling wrought iron, and Guimard's characteristic asymmetric, organic doorways and windows.
The following year, 1899, while he continued to teach regularly at the school of decorative arts in Paris, and continued construction of the Maison Coilliot, he began three new houses; The Modern Castel or Villa Canivet in Garches was Guimard's reinvention of a medieval castle. La Bluette in Hermanville-sur-Mer was Guimard's update of traditional Norman architecture. and the Castel Henriette, in Sevres. The Castel Henriette was the most inventive. It was located on a small site, almost circular, and was crowned with a tall, slender watchtower. To create more open interior space, Guimard moved the stairwell to the side of the building. The interior was lit by large windows, and featured ensembles of furniture all designed by Guimard. The building had an unhappy history. The watchtower fell in 1903, apparently after being struck by lightning. Guimard was summoned back and redesigned the house, adding new balconies and terrace. However, by the 1960s, the building was considered out of fashion, and it was rarely occupied. It served as a movie set before it was finally demolished, despite appeals by preservationists. Some of the furniture is now found in museums.
In 1898, Guimard embarked upon another ambitious project, the construction of a concert hall, the Salle Humbert-de-Romans, located at 60 Rue Saint Didier (16th arrondissement). It was built as the centrepiece of a conservatory of Christian music intended for orphans, proposed by a priest of the Dominican order, Father Levy. Guimard made an ambitious and non-traditional plan using soaring levels of iron and glass, inspired by an early idea of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. An organ manufacturer, in consultation with Camille Saint-Saëns, donated a grand organ. The Salle was completed in 1901, but a scandal involving Father Levy and the orphans broke out. Father Levy was exiled by the Pope to Constantinople, the foundation was dissolved, and the concert hall was used only for meetings and conferences. It closed in 1904 and was demolished in 1905. The grand organ moved to the church of Saint-Vincent-de-Pual in Clichy, where it can be found today.
Paris Metro entrances
The highly publicized debut of the Hotel Béranger quickly brought Guimard new projects, including villas, a Paris concert hall, and, most famously, entrances for the stations of the new Paris Metro, which was planned to open in 1900 in time for the Paris Universal Exposition. A new organization, the chemin de fer métropolitan de Paris (CFP, now RATP) was created in April 1899 to build and manage the system. They organized a competition for station entrance edicules, or canopies, and balustrades, or railings. This attracted twenty-one applicants. Guimard did not apply. The twenty-one original applicants proposed edicules built of masonry, in various historic and picturesque styles. These were ridiculed in the press as resembling newspaper stands, funeral monuments, or public toilets. Time was short, and Guimard presented sketches of his own idea for entrances made of iron and glass, which would be quicker and simpler to manufacture. He was given the commission on 12 January 1900, just a few months before the opening of the system.
To simplify the manufacture, Guimard made two designs of edicules, called Type A and B. Both were made of cast iron frames, with cream-colored walls and glass roofs to protect against rain. The A type was simpler and more cubic, while the B was rounded and more dynamic in form, and is sometimes compared with a dragonfly. Only two of the original A types were made and neither still exists. Only one B type, restored, remains in its original location, at Porte Dauphine.
Guimard also designed a simpler version, without a roof, with railings or balustrades of ornamental green-painted iron escutcheons and two high pylons with lamps and a 'Métropolitain' sign. The pylons were in an abstract vegetal form he invented, not resembling any particular plant, and the lettering was in a unique which Guimard invented. These were the most common type.
From the beginning, Guimard's Metro entrances were controversial. In 1904, after complaints that the new Guimard balustrade at the Opera station was not in harmony with the architecture of the Palais Garnier opera house, the Metro authorities dismantled the entrance and replaced it with a more classical model. Garnier was sarcastic in his response in the Paris La Press of Paris on 4 October 1904. "Should we harmonise the station of Père-Lachaise with the cemetery by constructing an entrance in the form of a tomb? ... Should we have a dancer with her leg raised in front of the station at place Dame-Blanche, to harmonise with the Moulin-Rouge?"
From the beginning, Guimard was also in conflict with the Metro authorities about his payments. The dispute was ended in 1903 with an agreement by which Guimard received payment, but gave up his models and manufacturing rights. Construction of new stations continued using his design without his participation. Between 1900 and 1913, a total of 167 entrances were installed, of which sixty-six still survive, mostly in locations different from their original placement.
Late villas
In the early years of the 20th century, Guimard's popularity diminished and his earlier frenetic pace of production slowed down. His works shown at the 1903 Paris Exposition of residential architecture did not attract the attention of the Castel Beranger and other earlier work. He was supported largely by one wealthy client, Léon Nozal, and his friends. His works for this group included the La Sapiniere, a small beach house at Hermanville-sur-Mer, near his earlier La Bluette house; La Surprise, a villa at Cabourg; and the Castel Val at Auvers-sur-Oise. In Paris he constructed the Hotel Nozal on Rue Ranelagh for his friend; the Hotel Jassadé for Louis Jassadé on Avenue de Versailles; and the palatial Castel d'Orgeval, which was the centrepiece of a new residential development at Villemoisson-sur-Orge in the Paris suburbs.
The Hôtel Guimard
The most important work of this period is the Hotel Guimard, built in 1909 at 122 Avenue Mozart (XVIth arrondissement) in Paris, ten years after his first success with the Hotel Beranger. It was built following his marriage with Adeline Oppenheim, an American painter from a wealthy family. The land was purchased three months after the marriage, and in June 1910 Guimard was able to move the offices of his agency into the ground floor. The house was not occupied by the couple, however, for two more years, while the furniture he designed was manufactured. The house is located on a triangular lot, which proved particularly challenging for Guimard. He saved interior space by installing an inclined elevator rather than a stairway on the upper floors. The house was designed to show its functions on the facade; his wife could paint in one portion of the house, with large windows, while he worked in his bureau in another part of the house. It had a very large dining room and many tables, but no kitchen; it was apparently designed for working and entertaining. The house was later broken up into apartments, and the original room arrangements and furniture are gone.
Apartments, the Hôtel Mezzara and a synagogue
By the 1910s, Guimard was no longer the leader of Paris architectural fashion, but he continued to design and build residences, apartment buildings, and monuments. Between 1910 and 1911 he built Hôtel Mezzara for Paul Mezzara, experimenting with skylights. Another notable work of this period is the Agoudas Hakehilos Synagogue at 10 Rue Pavé (IV arrondissement) in the Marais district. The synagogue, Guimard's only religious building, is characterised by a narrow façade clad in white stone, whose surface curves and undulates while highlighting verticality. Like with his previous projects, Guimard designed the interiors as well, organising the spaces and creating original furnishings that matched the architectural motifs of the structure. The construction begun in 1913 with the inauguration taking place on 7 June 1914, just a few weeks before the beginning of the First World War.
Late career (1914–1942)
World War I and post-war years
By the time the First World War began in August 1914, Art Nouveau was already out of fashion. The army and war economy took almost all available workers and building materials. Most of Guimard's projects were shelved. and Guimard gave up his furniture workshop on Avenue Perrichont. He left Paris and to reside most of the war in a luxury hotel in Pau and Candes-Saint-Martin, where he wrote essays and pamphlets calling for an end to militarized society, and also, more practically, studying ideas standardized housing that could be constructed more quickly and less expensively, anticipating the need to reconstruct housing destroyed in the War. He received a dozen patents for his new inventions.
One of the rare completed buildings still standing from this period is the office building at 10 Rue de Bretagne, begun in 1914 but not completed until after the War in 1919. The Art Nouveau style was replaced by a more functional simplicity, where the reinforced concrete structure defined the exterior of the building. The postwar shortages of iron and other materials affected the style; there was little decoration of the facade, or entrance. He concentrated his attention on the parapets which gave the building a soaring, modern profile.
Just before the First World War he had created a firm, the Sociéte général de constructions modernes, with the intention of building standardized housing at a modest price. He returned to Paris and in 1921–22, and built a small house at 3 Square Jasmin (16th arrondissement) designed to be a model for a series of standard houses, but it was not duplicated. He was unable to keep up with the rapid changes in styles and methods, and his firm was finally dissolved in July 1925.
In 1925, he participated in the Paris Exposition of Decorative and Modern Arts, the Exposition which gave its name to Art Deco, with a proposed model of a town hall for a French village. He also designed and built a parking garage and several war memorials and funeral monuments. He continued to receive honors, particularly for his teaching at the École national des arts decoratifs. In February 1929 he was named a Chevalier in the French Legion d'honneur.
After the war, Art Deco emerged as the leading style of Parisian architecture. Guimard adapted to the new style and proved his originality and attention to the detail. His buildings display geometric decorative patterns, simplified columns emphasizing structural elements and rigid shapes; despite this they retain elements of his previous style: sinuous lines, vegetal-inspired ornaments and typical Art Nouveau iron railings.
The Guimard Building and final works
His next project, the Guimard Building, an apartment building at 18 Rue Henri Heine, Paris (XVI arrondissement, begun in 1926. is his last major project still standing. He made a skilful of different-colored brick and stone to create decorative designs on the facade, and added triangular sculpted windows on the roof level, and, in the interior. a very remarkable central stairway with curling iron railings and hexagonal windows of colored and clear glass bricks In 1928 he entered the building into the competition for the best Paris facades, the same competition that he had entered in 1898 with the Hôtel Beranger. He was a winner again, and was the first Paris architect to enter twice and to win twice. This building became his residence, though he was not able to move in until 1930.
Despite his success with the facade competition, his late work appeared old fashioned, particularly compared with the modernism of the Paris buildings of Robert Mallet-Stevens, August Perret, and Le Corbusier. Between 1926 and 1930 he built several residential buildings in the same neighborhood as his home in the 16th arrondissement, which still exist. These include the Hôtel Houyvet, at 2 Villa Flore and 120 Avenue Mozart, built for the industrialist Michel Antoine Paul Houyhvet. His last recorded work was La Guimardière, an apartment building on Avenue Le Nôtre, Vaucresson in the Hauts-de-Seine suburb of Paris. It was completed in about 1930, but was demolished in March–April 1969.
As early as 1918, he took steps to assure that his work would be documented and would survive. He obtained space in the former orangerie of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he deposited models of his buildings and hundreds of designs. In 1936 he donated a large collection of his designs to Alfred Barr, the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1937, he received authorisation to put thirty cases of models in the cellars of the National Museum of Antiquities in Saint-Germaine-en-Laye.
Guimard served as a member of the jury judging architectural works at the 1937 Paris Exposition, where he could hardly miss the monumental pavilion of Nazi Germany and the threat it presented. His wife was Jewish, and he was alarmed by the approaching likelihood of war. In September 1938 he and his wife settled in New York City. He died on 20 May 1942 at the Hotel Adams on Fifth Avenue. He is buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York, about 25 miles north of New York City.
Obscurity and rediscovery
After the War, in June–July 1948, his widow returned to Paris to settle his affairs. She offered the Hotel Guimard as a site for a Guimard Museum first to the French state, then to the City of Paris, but both refused. Instead, she donated three rooms of Guimard's furniture to three museums; the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, and the Museum of the Petit Palais, where they are now displayed. She also donated a collection of three hundred designs and photographs to the Museum of Decorative Arts. These disappeared into various archives in the 1960s, but were relocated in 2015. His widow died on 26 October 1965 in New York.
By the time of Guimard's death, many of his buildings had already been demolished or remodeled beyond recognition. Most of his original Metro station edicules and balustrades had also been removed. The only full covering remaining at its original location at Porte Dauphine. However, many original architectural drawings by Guimard were stored in the Dept. of Drawings & Archives at Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University in New York City, and in the archives of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris.
The re-evaluation and rehabilitation of Guimard's reputation began in the late 1960s. Portions of the Castel Beranger were declared of historic and artistic value in July 1965, and the entire building was protected in 1989. His reputation was given a major boost in 1970, when the Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted a large exhibition of his work, including drawings he had donated himself and one of his Metro Station edicules. Other museums followed. The thirty cases of models in the cellars of the National Museum of Antiquities in Saint-Germaine-en-Laye were rediscovered and some were put on display.
In 1978, all of Guimard's surviving Metro entrances (Eighty-eight of the original one hundred sixty-seven put in place) were declared of historic value. The city donated a few originals, and several copies, to Chicago and other cities which desired them. Reconstructed original edicules are found at Abbesses and Châtelet.
Many of his buildings have been substantially modified, and there are no intact Guimard interiors which are open to the public, though suites of his furniture can be found in the Museum of Decorative Arts and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
He is honoured in street names in the French towns of Châteauroux, Perpignan, Guilherand-Granges and Cournon-d'Auvergne, and by the rue Hector Guimard in Belleville, Paris.
Furniture
Like other prominent Art Nouveau architects, Guimard also designed furniture and other interior decoration to harmonize with his buildings. It took him some time to find his own style in furniture. The furniture he designed for the Hotel Delfau (1894), which he put on display at an Exposition in 1895, was picturesque and ornate, with a sort of star motif, which seemed to have little connection with the architecture of the house. His early furniture sometimes featured had long looping arms and lateral shelves and levels for displays of objects. He apparently did not produce any furniture for the Hotel Beranger, other than a desk and chairs for his own studio there. In his early years he is known to have produced only two full sets of furniture, a dining room set for the Castel Henriette and a dining room for the Villa La Bluette.He also designed furnishings without any particular room in mind, as he did with watercolor designs for the Russian Princess Maria Tenisheva in 1903.
His furniture style began to change in about 1903. He found a workshop to make his furniture, and began using finer woods, particularly pear wood, with delicate colors. He simplified he plans, and eliminated the excessive number of arms and shelves. The most notable examples of his late style are pieces made for the Hôtel Nozal (since destroyed) and now in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. Other examples of the late style are from the Hotel Guimard, now in the Petit Palais and the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.
The Guimard Style
Much of the success of Guimard came from the small details of his designs, from door handles and balcony railings to type faces, which he crafted with special imagination and care. He invented his own style of lettering which appeared on his Metro entrances and his building plans. He insisted on calling his work "Style Guimard", not Art Nouveau, and he was genius at publicizing it. He wrote numerous articles and gave interviews and lectures on his work, and printed a set of "Style Guimard" postcards with his pictures of his buildings,
Guimard rejected the dominant academic Beaux-Arts style of there 1880s, calling it "cold receptacle of various past styles in which the original spirit was no longer alive enough to dwell". His fellow students at the National School of Decorative Arts nicknamed him the "Ravachol of architecture", after Ravachol, the Paris anarchist who bombed church buildings. Nonetheless, he was recognized for his designing skills; in 1884 he was awarded three bronze and two silver medals at the school for his work. In 1885 he received awards in all of the competitions at the school, including four bronze medallions, five silver, and the school's Grande Prix d'Architecture.
Guimard's early Art Nouveau work, particularly the Castel Beranger, as Guimard himself acknowledged, was strongly influenced by the work of the Belgian architect Victor Horta, especially the Hotel Tassel, which Guimard visited before he designed the Castel Beranger. Like Horta, he created original designs and ornament, inspired by his own views of nature. If the skylights favored by Victor Horta are rare in his work (the Mezzara Hotel, 1910, and the Rue Pavée Synagogue, (1913), being notable exceptions), Guimard made noteworthy experiments in space and volume. These include the Coilliot House and its disconcerting double-frontage (1898), and the Villa La Bluette, noted for its volumetric harmony (1898), and especially the Castel Henriette (1899) and the Castel d'Orgeval (1905), demonstrations of an asymmetrical "free plan", twenty-five years before the theories of Le Corbusier. Other buildings of his, like the Hôtel Nozal (1905), employ a rational, symmetrical, square-based style inspired by Viollet-le-Duc.
Guimard employed some structural innovations, as in the concert hall Humbert-de-Romans (1901), where he created a complex frame to divide sound waves to produce enhanced acoustics (built 1898 and demolished in 1905), or as in the Hôtel Guimard (1909), where the ground was too narrow to have the exterior walls bear any weight, and thus the arrangement of interior spaces differs from one floor to another.
In addition to his architecture, furniture, and wrought iron work, Guimard also designed art objects, such as vases, some of which were produced by the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres outside Paris. A notable example is the Vase of Binelles (1902), made by crystallization on hard porcelain, which is now in the National Museum of Ceramics in Sèvres.
Guimard was a determined advocate of architectural standardization, from mass-producing Metro station edicules and balustrades to (less successfully) the mass production of cast iron pieces and other prefabricated building materials intended for the assembly rows of houses. entrances to the Paris Métro, based on the ornamented structures of Viollet-le-Duc. The idea was taken up – but with less success – in 1907 with a catalogue of cast iron elements applicable to buildings: Artistic Cast Iron, Guimard Style. Guimard's art objects have the same formal continuity as his buildings, harmoniously uniting practical function with linear design, as in the Vase des Binelles, of 1903.
His stylistic vocabulary has suggestions to plants and organic matter and has been described as a form of "abstract naturalism". Undulating and coagulating forms are found in every material from stone, wood, cast iron, glass (Mezzara hotel, 1910), fabric (Guimard hotel, 1909), paper (Castel Béranger, 1898), wrought iron (Castel Henriette, 1899), and ceramic (Coilliot House, 1898); Guimard compared it analogously to the flowing of sap running from a tree, referring to the liquid quality found in his work as the "sap of things". Guimard's structural forms remain only as abstract evocations of nature and never directly indicative of any particular plant, an approached outlined by the art critic and contemporary, Gustave Soulier who said about Guimard's work: "we do not see... clearly recognisable motifs which are only interpreted and regularised by a geometric ornamental convention. But neither is it merely withered and graceless floral or animal skeletons that Mr. Guimard draws. He is inspired by the underlying movements, by the creative process in nature that reveals to us identical formulas through its numerous manifestations. And he assimilates these principles in the formation of his ornamental contours... the floret is not an exact representation of any particular flower, Here is an art that both abbreviates and amplifies the immediate facts of Nature; it spiritualises them. We are present at the birth of the quintessence of a flower."
Chronology of notable buildings
1889
Café Au grand Neptune, quai Louis-Blériot, Paris XVI (destroyed about 1910):
Pavillion d'Electricité at the Exposition Universelle (1889), avenue Suffren, Pais (destroyed 1889):
1891
Hôtel Roszé, 34 rue Boileau, Paris, 16th arrondissement
Two pavilions for Alphonse-Marie Hannequin, 145 Avenue de Versailles, Paris XVI (destroyed 1926)
1892
Villa Toucy, Maisons jumelles Lécolle, 189 rue du Vieux-Pont-de-Sevres, Billancourt (destroyed 1912–13)
Pavillon de chasse Rose, 14 et 14ter, rue des Tilleuls, Limeil-Brévannes, Val-de-Marne (détruit vers 1960)
1893
Hôtel Jassedé, 41 rue Chardon-Lagache (protected)
1894
Hôtel Delfau, 1 rue Molitor, Paris XVI (modified)
1895
École du Sacré-Coeur, 9 Avenue de la Frilliére, Paris XVI. Several school buildings. (Modified and some demolished. Protected in 1983)
1896
Villa Berthe, 72 route de Montesson, Le Vésinet (Yvelines) (protected in 1979)
Maison de rapport Lécolle, 122, avenue des Batignolles (auj. avenue Gabriel-Péri), Saint-Ouen, Seine-Saint-Denis:
La Hublotière au Vésinet.
1898
Maison Coilliot, 14 rue de Fleurus, Lille (Protected in 1977)
Completion of Gun Shop building of Coutollau, 6 boulevard de Marechal-Foch, Angers (demolished in 1919)
Hôtel Roy, 81 Boulevard Suchet Paris XVI (destroyed)
Two pavilions in Hameau Boileau, 9 and 9 bis, Impasse Racine Paris XVI (heavily modified)
Completion of Castel Béranger, 14 rue La Fontaine, Paris XVI (protected partially in 1965 and entirely in 1992)
1899
Completion of Castel Henriette 46 rue des Binelles, Sèvres, Hauts-de-Seine (destroyed 1969)
Completion of Villa La Bluette, Rue du Pré-de-l'Isle, Hermanville-sur-Mer, Calvados (Protected)
1900
Completion of Coilliot House (14, rue Fleurus, Lille) (Protected 1977)
Edicules and balustrades of the Paris Metro from 1900 until 1903. (See Paris Métro entrances by Hector Guimard)
1901
Completion of Salle Humbert-de-Romans (Paris); Castel Henriette (rue des Binelles, Sèvres, Hauts-de-Seine).
1903
Castel Val, 4 rue des Meulières, Auvers-sur-Oise;
1904
Castel Orgeval, 2 avenue de la Mare-Tambour, Villemoisson-sur-Orge, Esonne (protected 1975)
1905
Completion of the Immeuble Jassedé, 142 avenue de Versailles, Paris XVI;
1906
Completion of Hôtel Nazal, 52 rue de Ranelagh, Paris XVI, (modified 1957, destroyed 1957)
Hôtel Deron Levet, 8 grande-avenue-de-la-villa-de-la-Reunion, Paris XVI, for Charles Levent (protected 1975)
1907
Villa La Sapinière, Rue du Pré-de-L'Isle, Hermanville-sur-Mer, Calvados (substantially remodelled)
1909
Completion of the Hôtel Guimard, 122 Rue Mozart and Villa Flore, Paris XVI (Protected 1964 and 1997)
Immeuble Trémois, rue Francois-Millet, Paris XVI,
Le Chalet Blanc, 2 rue du Lycée and 1 rue Lakanaal, Sceaux (Hauts-de-Seine). (Protected in 1975)
1910
Hôtel Mezzara 60, rue Jean de la Fontaine, Paris XVI. (Protected in 1994).
1911
Completion of a four houses at 17,19,21 rue Fonaine, 43 rue Agar, Paris XVI for the Societé immobiliere de la rue Moderne, Four other houses in the project were not built.
1913
Synagogue de la rue Pavée à Paris 10, rue Pavée, Paris IV (protected in 1989)
Villa Hemsy (3, rue Crillon, Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine. Later modified.
1914
Completion of Hotel Nicolle de Montjoye, Rue René-Bazin, Paris XVI (demolished)
1919
Completion of an office building for Maurice Franck begun in 1914 at 10 rue de Bretagne, Paris III
1920
Completion of a parking garage Rue Robert-Turquan and Rue Jasmin for his Societé générale des constructions modernes. (Demolished in 1966)
1922
Completion of a standardized model house for his Societé générale de constructions modernes, 3 Square Jasmin, Paris XVI
1923
Completion of a Château Villa (Art Nouveau) and redesign/rebuild of existing estate buildings for Emile Garnier, Quettreville-Sur-Sienne (Manche)
1926
Guimard Building, apartment building at 18 rue Henri-Heine, Paris XVI
1927
Houyet building, 2 Villa Flore and 1 Avenue Mozart, Paris XVI
1928
Completed two apartment buildings in a real estate development at 36 and 38 rue Greuze. Paris XVI, with a tubular heating system
1930
La Guimardière, Avenue Le Notre, Vaucresson, Hauts-de-Seine (Demolished March–April 1969)
See also
Art Nouveau in Paris
Paris architecture of the Belle Époque
Paris Métro entrances by Hector Guimard
Concours de façades de la ville de Paris (Guimard was a winner in 1898 and 1928)
Notes
Bibliography
External links
Hector Guimard architectural drawings and papers, circa 1903-1933, (bulk circa 1903-1929).Held by the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.
Le Cercle Guimard
lartnouveau.com - The work of Hector Guimard in Paris and in France
art-nouveau-around-the-world.org Hector Guimard
Guimard's works in the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
1867 births
1942 deaths
20th-century French architects
French decorative artists
French furniture designers
Architects from Lyon
Art Nouveau architects
Montreal Metro artists
Burials at Gate of Heaven Cemetery (Hawthorne, New York)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political%20family
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Political family
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A political family (also referred to as political dynasty) is a family in which multiple members are involved in politics — particularly electoral politics. Members may be related by blood or marriage; often several generations or multiple siblings may be involved.
A royal family or dynasty in a monarchy is generally considered to not be a "political family," although the later descendants of a royal family have played political roles in a republic (such as the Arslan family of Lebanon). A family dictatorship is a form of hereditary dictatorship that operates much like an absolute monarchy, yet occurs in a nominally republican state.
United States
In the United States, many political families (having at least two generations serving in political office) have arisen since the country's founding.
Presidential
Several presidential families produced multiple generations of members who devoted at least part of their working lives to public service.
The Adams family: John Adams, second U.S. president (1797–1801); his son, John Quincy Adams, sixth U.S. president (1825–29); John Quincy's son, Charles Francis Adams Sr., member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts (1859–1861) and U.S. envoy to the United Kingdom (1861–68); Charles Francis' son, John Quincy Adams II, Massachusetts state representative (1866–67, 1868–69, 1871–72, 1874–75); John Quincy II's son, Charles Francis Adams III, mayor of Quincy, Massachusetts (1896–97) and U.S. secretary of the Navy (1929–33).
The Harrison family: Benjamin Harrison V, governor of Virginia (1781–84) and a signer of the Declaration of Independence; his son, William Henry Harrison, ninth U.S. president (1841); William's son, John Scott Harrison, member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio (1853–57); John Scott's son, Benjamin Harrison, 23rd U.S. president (1889–1893) (the only grandson of a president to become president); Benjamin's son, Russell Benjamin Harrison, Indiana state legislator (1921–33) and diplomat (1908–27); Russell's son, William Henry Harrison III, member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming (1951–55, 1961–65, 1967–69).
The Lincoln family: Abraham Lincoln, postmaster of New Salem, Illinois (1833), Illinois state House of Representatives (1834–42), U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois (1847–49), 16th U.S. president (1861–65); his cousin-in-law, John Todd Stuart, U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois (1839–43, 1863–65), Illinois state Senate (1848–52); President Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, South Chicago Board of Supervisors (1876–77), U.S. secretary of War (1881–85), U.S. minister to Great Britain (1889–93). (Note 1: President Lincoln's great-grandmother, Abigail Harrison, was a member of the Shenandoah Valley branch of the Harrison family and was related to the James River branch that produced Presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison. Note 2: President Lincoln and Levi Lincoln were fourth cousins; their great-great-grandfathers were brothers. Levi Lincoln served as a Massachusetts state legislator 1797–98, member of the U.S. House of Representatives 1800–01, U.S. attorney general and acting secretary of State in the Jefferson administration, lieutenant governor of Massachusetts 1807–08, and governor of Massachusetts 1808–09.)
The Taft family: Alphonso Taft, U.S. secretary of War (1876) and U.S. attorney general (1876–77); his sons, Charles Phelps Taft, U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio (1895–97), and William Howard Taft, 27th U.S. president (1909–13) and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice (1921–30); Charles and William Howard's cousin, Royal C. Taft, governor of Rhode Island (1888–1889); William Howard's sons, Robert A. Taft, U.S. Senate from Ohio (1939–53), and Charles Phelps Taft II, mayor of Cincinnati (1955–57); Robert's son, Robert Taft Jr., U.S. House of Representatives (1963–65, 1967–71) and U.S. Senate (1971–76) from Ohio; Charles II's son, Seth Taft, Cuyahoga County commissioner (1971–78); Robert Jr.'s son, Bob Taft, governor of Ohio (1999–2007).
The Roosevelt family: 26th U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–09) and 32nd U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–45), fifth cousins by blood (their great-great-great-grandfathers were brothers) and uncle-in-law and nephew-in-law by marriage. TR and FDR each served as U.S. assistant secretary of the Navy and as governor of New York before serving as president. FDR's wife and Theodore's niece, Eleanor Roosevelt, served as adviser to the president (1933–45), chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (1946–52), chair of the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women (1961–62). TR's descendants: His son, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., governor of Puerto Rico (1929–32) and the Philippines (1932–33); Theodore Jr.'s son, Theodore Roosevelt III, Pennsylvania secretary of Commerce (1949–51). FDR and Eleanor's sons: Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., U.S. House of Representatives from New York (1949–55), U.S. undersecretary of Commerce (1963–65); James Roosevelt, secretary to the President (1937–38), chairman of the California Democratic Party (1946–48), U.S. House of Representatives from California (1955–65); Elliott Roosevelt, mayor of Miami Beach, Florida (1965–67); James's sons, James Roosevelt, co-chair of the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee (1995 -), and Hall Delano Roosevelt, Long Beach, California, City Council (1996–2000).
The Kennedy family: Patrick Joseph Kennedy, Massachusetts state legislator (1884–95); his son, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., chair of the U.S. Maritime Commission (1934–35) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (1937–38), and U.S. ambassador to Great Britain (1938–40. Joseph and Rose Kennedy's children included John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. president (1961–63), U.S. House of Representatives (1947–53) and U.S. Senate (1953–61) from Massachusetts; Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. attorney general (1961–64) and U.S. Senate from New York (1965–68); Ted Kennedy, U.S. Senate from Massachusetts (1962–2009); and Jean Kennedy Smith, U.S. ambassador to Ireland (1993–98). Ted Kennedy's widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, is U.S. ambassador to Austria (2022–). Joseph and Rose Kennedy's grandchildren include Joseph P. Kennedy II, U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts (1987–99); Patrick J. Kennedy, U.S. House of Representatives from Rhode Island (1995–2011); Caroline Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Japan (2013–17) and Australia (2022–); Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, lieutenant governor of Maryland (1995–2003); Mark Shriver, Maryland House of Delegates (1995–2003); Edward M. Kennedy Jr., Connecticut state senator (2015–19); and Bobby Shriver, City Council member and mayor of Santa Monica, California (2004–12). Maria Shriver was First Lady of California (2003–11) and founded the California Museum (her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was governor). Joseph and Rose Kennedy's great-grandchildren include Joe Kennedy III, U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts (2013–21) and U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland (2022 - ).
The Bush family: Prescott Bush, U.S. Senator from Connecticut (1952–63); his son, George H. W. Bush, 41st U.S. president (1989–93), U.S. vice president (1981–89), director of Central Intelligence Agency (1976–77), U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1971–73), U.S. House of Representatives from Texas (1967–71); George H.W.'s sons, George W. Bush, 43rd U.S. president (2001–09) and governor of Texas (1995–2000), and Jeb Bush, governor of Florida (1995–2007); Jeb's son, George P. Bush, Texas Land Commissioner (2015–23).
The Clinton family: Bill Clinton, 42nd U.S. president (1993–2001) and governor of Arkansas (1979–81, 1983–92); his wife, Hillary Clinton, U.S. senator from New York (2001–09), U.S. secretary of State (2009–17), and Democratic nominee for President of the United States (2016); President Clinton's uncle, Roy Clinton, Arkansas state House of Representatives (1950s).
The Trump family: Donald Trump, 45th U.S. president (2017–21); his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, senior presidential advisers (2017–21); his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, U.S. district and appeals court judge (1983–2019); his fourth cousin, John Heinz, U.S. House of Representatives (1971–77) and U.S. Senate (1977–91) from Pennsylvania (their great-grandfathers were first cousins and originated from Kallstadt, Germany).
The Biden family: Joe Biden, 46th U.S. president (2021–), 47th U.S. vice president (2009–17), U.S. senator from Delaware (1973–2009); his son, Beau Biden, state attorney general of Delaware (2007–15). President Biden's great-grandfather, Edward Francis Blewitt, served as a Pennsylvania state senator (1907–10).
Two other presidents were related by blood: James Madison and Zachary Taylor were second cousins. Other presidents were related by marriage: George Washington's nephew, George Steptoe Washington, was Madison's brother-in-law. Dwight Eisenhower's grandson, David Eisenhower, married Julie Nixon, a daughter of Richard Nixon.
Other
The following political families are in the United States. For an extensive alphabetical list, see the article List of United States political families.
The Ashcroft family: John Ashcroft, governor of Missouri (1985–93), U.S. Senate from Missouri (1995–2001), U.S. attorney general (2001–05); his son, Jay Ashcroft, secretary of state of Missouri (2017–).
The Bayh family: Birch Bayh, Indiana state House of Representatives (1954–62), U.S. Senate from Indiana (1963–81); his son, Evan Bayh, governor of Indiana (1989–97), U.S. Senate from Indiana (1999–2011).
The Beshear family: Steve Beshear, attorney general (1979–83), lieutenant governor (1983–87) and governor of Kentucky (2007–15); his son, Andy, attorney general (2016–19) and governor of Kentucky (2019–).
The Blunt family: Roy Blunt, U.S. House of Representatives (1997–2011) and U.S. Senate (2011–) from Missouri; his son, Matt Blunt, governor of Missouri (2005–09).
The Brown family: Pat Brown, governor of California (1959–67); his son, Jerry Brown, governor of California (1975–83, 2011–19), and mayor of Oakland (1999–2007); Jerry's sister, Kathleen Brown, member of the Los Angeles Board of Education, California State Treasurer (1991–95); Edmund Jr. and Kathleen's cousin, Hal Brown, Marin County Board of Supervisors.
The Brzezinski family: Zbigniew Brzezinski, U.S. National Security Advisor (1977–81); his son, Mark Brzezinski, U.S. ambassador to Sweden (2011–15), U.S. ambassador to Poland (2022–).
The Casey family: Bob Casey Sr., Pennsylvania Senate (1963–68), Auditor General of Pennsylvania (1969–77), governor of Pennsylvania (1987–95); his son, Bob Casey Jr., Auditor General of Pennsylvania (1997–2005), treasurer of Pennsylvania (2005–07), U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania (2007–)
The Celebrezze family: Frank D. Celebrezze, safety director for the City of Cleveland (1942–47), municipal court judge (1947–53); his brother, Anthony, mayor of Cleveland (1954–61), U.S. secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (1961–65), federal judge (1965–98); Frank's sons, Frank Jr., chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court (1978–86), and James, Ohio state House of Representatives (1967–74); Anthony's son, Anthony Jr., Ohio state Senate (1975–78), secretary of state (1978–83), attorney general (1983–91); Frank Jr.'s son, Frank III, appeals court judge, Ohio Supreme Court justice; James's daughter, Leslie, judge, Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas (2009 – ); James' son, Nicholas, Ohio state House of Representatives (2012–19).
The Cheney family: Dick Cheney, U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming (1979–89), U.S. secretary of Defense (1989–93), and 46th U.S. vice president (2001–09); his daughter, Liz Cheney, U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming (2017–23).
The Cuomos: Mario Cuomo, governor of New York (1983–94); his son, Andrew Cuomo, U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development (1997–2001), governor of New York (2011–21).
The D'Alesandro/Pelosi family: Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., mayor of Baltimore, Maryland (1947–59), U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland (1939–47); his daughter, Nancy Pelosi, U.S. House of Representatives from California (1987–), speaker of the House (2007–11, 2019–23); her brother, Thomas D'Alesandro III, mayor of Baltimore (1967–71); Nancy's brother-in-law, Ronald Pelosi, San Francisco Board of Supervisors (1968–80); Ronald's nephew, Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco (2004–11), lieutenant governor of California (2011–19), governor of California (2019–).
The Daley family: Richard J. Daley, mayor of Chicago (1955–76), widely considered one of the nation's most powerful mayors at the time; his sons, Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago (1989–2011); John P. Daley, Illinois state representative, state senator, and Cook County commissioner; William M. Daley, U.S. secretary of Commerce (1997–2000), White House chief of staff (2011–12).
The DeWine family: Mike DeWine, U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio (1983–91), U.S. Senate from Ohio (1995–2007), governor of Ohio (2019–); his son, Pat DeWine, justice of the Ohio Supreme Court (2017–).
The Dingell family: John Dingell Sr., U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan (1933–55); his son, John Dingell, U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan (1955–2015); John's wife, Debbie Dingell, U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan (2015–) (the same seat has been represented by a member of the Dingell family continuously since 1933); John's son, Christopher D. Dingell, Michigan state senator (1987–2003); Michigan circuit court judge.
The Ellison family: Keith Ellison, U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota (2007–19), Minnesota attorney general (2019–); his son, Jeremiah Ellison, Minneapolis City Council (2018–).
The Ford family: John Ford, Tennessee state Senate (1974–2005); his sister, Ophelia Ford, Tennessee state Senate (2005–14); brother, Emmitt Ford, Tennessee state House of Representatives (1975–81); brother, Harold Ford Sr., Tennessee state House of Representatives (1971–75), U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee (1975–97); Harold's son, Harold Ford Jr., U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee (1997–2007).
The Gaetz family: Don Gaetz. Florida state Senate (2006–2016), Florida Senate president (2014–2016); his son Matt Gaetz, U.S. House of Representatives from Florida (2015–present)
The Gilligan family: John J. Gilligan, U.S. House of Representatives (1965–67), governor of Ohio (1971–75); his daughter, Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas (2003–09), U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services (2009–14).
The Gore family: Albert Gore Sr., U.S. House of Representatives (1939–53) and U.S. Senate (1953–71) from Tennessee; his son, Al Gore, U.S. House of Representatives (1977–85) and U.S. Senate from Tennessee (1985–93), 45th U.S. vice president (1993–2001).
The Hanna family: Mark Hanna, U.S. Senate from Ohio (1896–1904), chairman of the Republican National Committee (1897–1904); his daughter Ruth Hanna McCormick, U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois (1929–31).
The Huckabee family: Mike Huckabee, lieutenant governor (1993–96) and governor (1996–2007) of Arkansas; his daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House press secretary (2017–19), governor of Arkansas (2023–).
The Jones family: Walter B. Jones Sr., Democrat, U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina (1966–1992); his son, Walter B. Jones Jr., Republican, U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina (1995–2019).
The Key family: Annie L. Key, Ohio state House of Representatives (2001–06); her daughter, Stephanie Howse, Ohio state House of Representatives (2015–22), Cleveland City Council (2022–).
The Kyl family: John Henry Kyl, U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa (1959–65, 1967–73); his son, Jon Kyl, U.S. House of Representatives (1987–95) and U.S. Senate from Arizona (1995–2013, 2018).
The Landrieu family: Moon Landrieu, Louisiana state House of Representatives (1960–66), mayor of New Orleans (1970–78), U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development (1979–81); his daughter, Mary Landrieu, Louisiana state House of Representatives (1980–88), Louisiana state treasurer (1988–96), U.S. Senate from Louisiana (1997–2015); her brother, Mitch Landrieu Louisiana state representative (1988–2004), lieutenant governor of Louisiana (2004–10), mayor of New Orleans (2010–18), senior adviser to President Biden for infrastructure coordination (2021–).
The LaTourette family: Steve LaTourette, U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio (1995–2013); his daughter, Sarah LaTourette, Ohio state House of Representatives (2015–19).
The Levin family: Sander Levin, U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan (1983–2019); his brother, Carl Levin, U.S. Senate from Michigan (1979–2015); Sander's son, Andy Levin, U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan (2019–2023).
The Lippitt/Chafee family: Henry Lippitt, governor of Rhode Island (1875–77); his sons, Charles W. Lippitt, governor of Rhode Island (1895–97), and Henry F. Lippitt, U.S. Senate from Rhode Island (1911–17); Henry F.'s son, Frederick Lippitt, Rhode Island state House of Representatives (1961–83); the elder Henry's great-grandson, John Chafee, governor of Rhode Island (1963–69), U.S. secretary of the Navy (1969–72), U.S. Senate from Rhode Island (1976–99); John's son, Lincoln Chafee, mayor of Warwick, Rhode Island (1993–99), U.S. Senate from Rhode Island (1999–2007), governor of Rhode Island (2011–15).
The Lodge family: Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. House of Representatives (1887–93) and U.S. Senate (1893–1924) from Massachusetts; his grandson, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., U.S. Senate from Massachusetts (1947–53), U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1953–60), South Vietnam (1963–64, 1965–67), West Germany (1968–69), Vatican City (1970–77); Henry Jr.'s brother, John Davis Lodge, U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut (1947–51), (governor of Connecticut (1951–55), and U.S. ambassador to Spain (1955–61), Argentina (1969–73), Switzerland (1983–85).
The Long family: Huey Long, governor of Louisiana (1928–32), U.S. Senate from Louisiana (1932–35); his widow, Rose McConnell Long, U.S. Senate from Louisiana (1936–37); his brother, Earl Long, lieutenant governor (1936–39) and governor (1939–40, 1948–52, 1956–60) of Louisiana; brother, George S. Long, U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana (1953–58); Huey Long's son, Russell B. Long, U.S. Senate from Louisiana (1948–87). See Long family.
The Lujan family: Eugene David Lujan, associate justice, New Mexico Supreme Court (1945–59); his granddaughter, Michelle Lujan Grisham, governor of New Mexico (2022–); Eugene's second cousin, Ben Luján, member (1975–2012) and speaker (2001–12), New Mexico state House of Representatives; Ben's son, Ben Ray Luján, U.S. Senate from New Mexico (2021–); Eugene's fifth cousin, Manuel Lujan Sr., mayor of Santa Fe (1942–48). Manuel's son, Manuel Lujan Jr., U.S. House of Representatives from New Mexico (1969–89), U.S. Secretary of the Interior (1989–1993).
The Mack family: Connie Mack III, U.S. House of Representatives (1983–89) and U.S. Senate (1989–2001) from Florida; his son, Connie Mack IV, Florida state House of Representatives (2001–03) and U.S. House of Representatives from Florida (2005–13); Mary Bono, Connie IV's then-wife, member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California (1998–2013).
The Mathews family: George Mathews, governor of Georgia (1787–88, 1793–96), U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia (1789–91); his brothers, Sampson and Archer, served in the Virginia General Assembly. Their descendants served as governors, judges and legislators in five states.
The Moore/Capito family: Arch A. Moore Jr., U.S. House of Representatives (1957–1969), governor of West Virginia (1969–1977; 1985–1989); his daughter Shelley Moore Capito, U.S. House of Representatives (2001–2015), U.S. Senate (2015–); her son Moore Capito, West Virginia House of Delegates (2016–); his cousin Riley Moore, West Virginia House of Delegates (2017–2019), West Virginia state treasurer (2021–)
The Murkowski family: Frank Murkowski, U.S. Senate from Alaska (1981–2002), governor of Alaska (2002–06); his daughter, Lisa Murkowski, Alaska state House of Representatives (1999–2002), U.S. Senate from Alaska (2002–).
The O'Neill family: Thomas O'Neill, Cambridge, Massachusetts City Council; his son, Tip O'Neill, Massachusetts House of Representatives (1937–53), U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts (1953–87), Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1977–87); Tip's son Thomas P. O'Neill III, lieutenant governor of Massachusetts (1975–83).
The Paul family: Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives from Texas (1976–77, 1979–85, 1997–2013); his son. Rand Paul, U.S. Senate from Kentucky (2011 -).
The Payne/Bolton family: Henry B. Payne, Ohio state Senate (1849–52), U.S. House of Representatives (1875–77) and U.S. Senate (1885–91) from Ohio; his son, Nathan P. Payne, mayor of Cleveland (1875–76); Henry's granddaughter, Frances P. Bolton, U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio (1940–69); her husband, Chester C. Bolton, U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio (1929–37); their son, Oliver P. Bolton, U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio (1953–57, 1963–65).
The Pence family: Mike Pence, 48th U.S. vice president (2017–21), governor of Indiana (2013–17), U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana (2001–13); his brother, Greg Pence, U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana (2019–).
The Rockefeller family: Nelson Rockefeller, 41st Vice President of the United States (1974–77), Governor of New York (1959–73); his brother, Winthrop Rockefeller, Governor of Arkansas (1967–71); their nephew, Jay Rockefeller, governor of West Virginia (1987–85), U.S. Senate from West Virginia (1985–2015); Winthrop's son, Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, lieutenant governor of Arkansas (1996–2006).
The Romney family: George W. Romney, governor of Michigan (1963–69), U S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development (1969–73); his son, Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts (2003–07), Republican Party nominee for U.S. president (2012), U.S. Senate from Utah (2019–); Mitt's niece, Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee (2017–), delegate to Republican National Convention (2016), chair of the Michigan Republican Party (2015–17).
The Rooney family: Dan M. Rooney (Pittsburgh Steelers owner and Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee), U.S. ambassador to Ireland (2009–12); his nephews, Tom Rooney, U.S. House of Representatives from Florida (2009–19), and Patrick Rooney Jr., Florida state House of Representatives (2010–16).
The Scalia family: Antonin Scalia, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1986–2016); his son, Eugene Scalia, U.S. Secretary of Labor (2019–21).
The Suarez family: Xavier Suarez, mayor of Miami, Florida (1985–1993); his son Francis Suarez, mayor of Miami (2017–present); his nephew Alex Mooney, Maryland state senator (1999–2011), U.S. House of Representatives (2015–present)
The Sununu family: John H. Sununu, governor of New Hampshire (1983–89), White House chief of staff (1989–91); his sons John E. Sununu, U.S. House of Representatives (1997-03) and U.S. Senate (2003–09) from New Hampshire, and Chris Sununu, New Hampshire Executive Council (2011–17), governor of New Hampshire (2017–).
The Sykes family: Vernon Sykes, Ohio state Senate (2017–), Ohio state House of Representatives (1983–2000, 2007–14), Akron City Council (1970s–83); his wife, Barbara Sykes, Ohio state House of Representatives (2001–06), Akron City Council (1990s–2001); their daughter, Emilia Sykes, Ohio state House of Representatives (2015–2022), U.S. House of Representatives (2023–).
The Udall family: David King Udall Sr., representative to the Arizona Territorial Legislature (1899). His sons: Jesse Addison Udall, Arizona state House of Representatives (1931–38), chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court (1964); John Hunt Udall, mayor of Phoenix, Arizona (1936–38); Don Taylor Udall, Arizona state House of Representatives (1941–42); Levi Stewart Udall, Arizona Supreme Court (1947–60), chief justice (1951–53, 1957–59). Levi's sons: Stewart Udall, U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona (1955–61), U.S. Secretary of the Interior (1961–69); Mo Udall, U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona (1961–91). Next generation: John Nicholas Udall, son of John, mayor of Phoenix, Arizona (1948–52); Tom Udall, son of Stewart, U.S. House of Representatives (1999–2008), U S. Senate from New Mexico (2009–21), U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa (2021–); Mark Udall, son of Mo, U.S. House of Representatives (1999–2009) and U.S. Senate from Colorado (2009–15), Colorado state House of Representatives (1997–99).
The Zone family: Michael Zone, Cleveland City Council (1960–74); his wife, Mary Zone, Cleveland City Council (1974–86); their son, Matt Zone, Cleveland City Council (2001–); their son-in-law, Lee Fisher, Ohio state House of Representatives (1981–82), Ohio state Senate (1983–90), Ohio state attorney general (1991–95), lieutenant governor of Ohio (2007–11); their nephew, Joseph Zone, Cleveland Municipal Court judge.
United Kingdom
The Pitt family: both William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham and his son William Pitt the Younger were Prime Ministers of Great Britain.
The Cavendish family: William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire was Prime Minister from 1756 to 1757. His great-great-granddaughter, Dorothy Macmillan, was married to Harold Macmillan, who served as Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963.
The Chamberlain family: Joseph Chamberlain served as President of the Board of Trade, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and (briefly in 1906) Leader of the Opposition. He had two sons by different wives, who both served in public office: the elder, Austen Chamberlain, served first as Chancellor of the Exchequer and later as Foreign Secretary; while the younger, Neville Chamberlain, was Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940.
The Churchill family: Lord Randolph Churchill served as Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1886–87. His son Winston Churchill held numerous political posts including President of the Board of Trade, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary before finally becoming Prime Minister (1940–1945 and 1951–1955). Winston's son Randolph and grandsons Winston and Nicholas were also politicians.
The Foot family: Isaac Foot was an MP from 1922 to 1935. Three of his sons also followed him into politics: the eldest son, Dingle, was Solicitor General for England and Wales under Harold Wilson; the third son, John, stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal candidate; and the fourth son, Michael, was Leader of the Opposition from 1979 to 1983,
The Hogg family: Both Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham and his son Quintin Hogg, 2nd Viscount Hailsham & Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone served as Lord Chancellor. Quintin's son Douglas Hogg, 3rd Viscount Hailsham is a politician and he is married to the political advisor Sarah Hogg, Baroness Hogg.
The Kinnock family: Current Labour MP Stephen Kinnock is the son of Neil Kinnock, Leader of the Opposition from 1983 to 1992. Stephen is also married to Helle Thorning-Schmidt, former Prime Minister of Denmark.
The Paisley family: Reverend Ian Paisley and his wife Eileen Paisley were both Democratic Unionist MPs, as is their son, Ian Paisley Jr.
The Johnson family: Stanley Johnson was a Member of the European Parliament from 1979 until 1984. Two of his sons followed him into politics: the eldest, Boris, was Mayor of London from 2008 to 2012 and Prime Minister from 2019 to 2022; while the youngest, Jo, also served as an MP.
India
In India, three members of the Nehru–Gandhi family (Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi) have served as Prime Minister of India. Rajiv's wife Sonia Gandhi and son, Rahul Gandhi served as the President of Indian National Congress.
Three members of the Abdullah Family of Kashmir have served as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
Two members of the Yadav Family (Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav) of Uttar Pradesh have served as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and many have held positions as ministers in the state government(UP) and the Indian government.
Two members of the M. Karunanidhi family have served as Chief Minister, including his son M.K. Stalin and many more, including children, grandchildren and other relatives have held various ministerial positions in both state and central government.
Other countries
In Azerbaijan, President Ilham Aliyev is the son of the late Heydar Aliyev, who also served as the president from 1993 to 2003. Ilham's wife Mehriban is also the vice president of Azerbaijan and the first person to hold the position following its creation in 2017.
In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro served as president from 2019 to 2023 and also served as federal deputy from 1991 to 2018. Flavio Bolsonaro, his firstborn son, serves as Senator since 2019, and has also served as state deputy for Rio de Janeiro from 2003 till 2018. Eduardo Bolsonaro, second son, serves as Federal Deputy since 2015. His third son, Carlos Bolsonaro serves in the Rio de Janeiro city council since 2001. His ex-wife, Ana Cristina Valle, ran for office in 2018, but was not elected.
In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the son of the late Pierre Trudeau, who also served as prime minister.
In Chile, the Alessandri and Frei families have held significant political influence from the 20th century onwards, each one with a father and son having served as president; Arturo and Jorge, and Eduardo and Eduardo, respectively.
In Estonia, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is the daughter of Siim Kallas, who also served as prime minister from 2002 to 2003.
In Gabon, President Omar Bongo was succeeded by his son Ali Bongo Ondimba. Two commanders-in-chief of the Gabonese Republican Guard, Grégoire Kouna and Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, are cousins of Ali Bongo. Brice Oligui took control after the coup d'état in 2023.
In Greece, 3 families have been predominant figures in Greek politics since the end of World War II. Current Prime Minister (since 2019) Kyriakos Mitsotakis is the son of former Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis, brother of former Minister of Foreign Affairs Dora Bakoyannis, and uncle of current Mayor of Athens Kostas Bakoyannis. The Mitsotakis family are also related to former Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos by marriage. Another important political family is the Papandreou family. Georgios Papandreou served three terms as prime minister, starting in 1944, on a political career that spanned five decades. His son, Andreas Papandreou, also served three terms as prime minister, starting in 1981. George Papandreou, Andreas' son and Georgios' grandson, served in the same role from 2009 to 2011. Another important political family is the Karamanlis family. Konstantinos Karamanlis was Greece's longest serving Prime Minister and helped the country enter the EU in 1981. His nephew Kostas Karamanlis also served as Prime Minister from 2000 to 2004 and another nephew Kostas Karamanlis served as minister of Infrastructure and Transport in 2019 to 2023.
The French Front National Party is led by Marine Le Pen, who succeeded her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in early 2011. Other members of the Le Pen family include current former MP Marion Maréchal (niece of Marine Le Pen) and Jordan Bardella (partner of the niece of Marine Le Pen).
In Indonesia, Sukarno and his daughter Megawati both served as presidents. Megawati's daughter, Puan Maharani is currently serving as the Speaker of the People's Representative Council.
In the Republic of Ireland, it is common for several members of a family to hold political office; see Families in the Oireachtas for a full list. This is particularly present in the two establishment centre-right parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
In Jamaica, Michael Manley, who served as prime minister from 1972 to 1980 and again from 1989 to 1992, is the son of Norman Manley, who served as premier from 1959 to 1962. Norman was also related to prime minister Alexander Bustamante (1962-1967) via a common grandmother.
In Japan, various families dominate the political scene, several of which have occupied the prime ministership. Such instances include Shinzo Abe, who served from 2012 to 2020 and from 2006 to 2007, and who is the grandson of Nobusuke Kishi, who served from 1957 to 1960, and the great-nephew of Eisaku Sato, who served from 1964 to 1972. Additionally, both Kishi and Sato are brothers. There are other notable examples including Yukio Hatoyama (2009–2010), grandson of Ichiro Hatoyama (1954–1956), Morihiro Hosokawa (1993–1994), grandson of Fumimaro Konoe (1937 – 1939 & 1940 – 1941), Taro Aso (2008–2009), grandson of Shigeru Yoshida and (1946 – 1947, 1948 – 1954) and son-in-law of Zenko Suzuki (1980–1982) and Yasuo Fukuda (2007–2008), son of Takeo Fukuda (1976–1978).
In Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev served as president of Kazakhstan from 1991 to 2019, while his daughter Dariga served as Chair of the Senate from 2019 to 2020 and leader of her father's political party Nur Otan in the Senate from 2014 to 2015.
Uhuru Kenyatta served as president of Kenya from 2013 to 2022. He is the son of Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of the Republic of Kenya, who left office in 1978.
In Latvia, Guntis Ulmanis, who served as president from 1993 to 1999, is the great-nephew of Kārlis Ulmanis, who also served as president.
In Lebanon, Saad Hariri, who served as prime minister of Lebanon from 2009 to 2011 and from 2016 to 2020, is the son of Rafic Hariri, who also served as prime minister from 1992 to 1994 and from 2000 to 2004. The Gemayel family also plays a prominent role in the Lebanese politics. Bachir and Amine Gemayel, both of whom were elected presidents of Lebanon, are sons of Pierre Gemayel, the founder of the Kataeb Party.
In Lithuania: Vytautas Landsbergis, leader of the State in 1990–1992, is the son of Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis, a member of the government in the 1940s. Grandson Gabrielius Landsbergis is the current leader of the Conservative Party and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Other example is Gentvilas family: Eugenijus Gentvilas served as mayor of Klaipėda, prime minister and minister of economy in 2001; his sister Virginija Baltraitienė (née Gentvilaitė) served as mayor of Kėdainiai district and minister of agriculture; his son Simonas Gentvilas is serving as minister of environment.
In Malaysia, Abdul Razak Hussein served as Prime Minister from 1970 to 1976, and his son Najib Razak, who was later convicted of corruption and sentenced to prison, served as Prime Minister from 2009 to 2018. Abdul's brother-in-law Hussein Onn also served as Prime Minister from 1976 to 1981.
In Mauritius, out of five prime ministers, two have been the sons of former office holders. Navinchandra Ramgoolam is the son of the country's first prime minister, Seewoosagur Ramgoolam while Pravind Jugnauth is the son of Anerood Jugnauth. Other prominent political dynasties include the Duvals, Boolells and the Mohammeds
In Mexico, former president Enrique Peña Nieto, who served from 2012 to 2018, is a cousin of Alfredo Del Mazo Maza, governor of the State of Mexico, who is at the same time a son of former governor Alfredo del Mazo González. President Peña Nieto is also related to former governor Salvador Sánchez Colin and former governor Arturo Montiel Rojas. Prominent Mexican politician Luis Calderón Vega, founder of the National Action Party, is father of former senator Luisa María Calderón and former president Felipe Calderón, who is married to former congresswoman and presidential candidate Margarita Zavala, who is herself cousin of congresswoman Mariana Gómez del Campo. Former presidents Miguel de la Madrid and Miguel Alemán Valdés also had sons who held prominent political positions, Enrique de la Mardrid served as Secretary of Tourism under president Enrique Peña Nieto, while Miguel Alemán Velasco served as senator and governor of Veracruz. However the most notable political family in Mexico is perhaps the Ruiz Massieu-Salinas Family. Former senator and Minister of Urban Development, Raúl Salinas Lozano is father to Carlos Salinas de Gortari who served as President of Mexico between 1988 and 1994, Raúl Salinas de Gortari, former director of CONASUPO, and Adriana Salinas de Gortari, who was herself married to former governor and PRI General Secretary, José Francisco Ruíz Massieu, killed in 1994. Ruíz Massieu's daughter, Claudia Ruíz Massieu would go on to become Mexico's Secretary of Tourism and Secretary of Forgein Affairs.
In Nigeria, members of the Ransome-Kuti family have been prominent. Olikoye Ransome-Kuti served as the health minister under President Ibrahim Babangida while his brother, Fela Kuti, founded and led the Movement of the People political party. Their mother, Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was a founding mother of Nigeria who served as a lawmaker and party leader in the country's colonial era.
In Palau, former President Thomas Remengesau Jr. is the son of the 2nd President Thomas Remengesau Sr.
In the Philippines, two members of the Aquino family (originating from Tarlac) had served as president, Corazon Aquino (who served from 1986 – 1992) and her son Benigno Aquino III (who served from 2010 – 2016). The Macapagal family also had two members who served as president, Diosdado Macapagal (who served from 1961 – 1965) and his daughter Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (who served from 2001 – 2010). Later the Marcos family, known for its kleptocratic rule, would have two presidents: Ferdinand Sr. (who served from 1965 until his removal in 1986) and his namesake son, Ferdinand Jr., widely known as "Bongbong", who has currently been serving since 2022. The family also produced a senator, Ferdinand Sr.'s daughter Imee who has been serving since 2019.
In Portugal, the minister of welfare state is married to a member of parliament involved in a scandal related with an ONG financed by the welfare state; The daughter of the same minister is the presidency minister; The interior minister is married with the sea minister; the justice minister husband was nominated for a public commission by a co-minister.
In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is the son of the first Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew.
In South Africa, the last State President, F. W. de Klerk, is the son of Jan de Klerk who served as acting State President in April 1975.
In South Korea, both Park Geun-hye and her father, Park Chung Hee, were Presidents of South Korea.
In Sri Lanka, the Rajapaksa family has had 2 presidents and 1 prime minister. Also, the family has many of their extended relatives in the parliament. Additionally, the Bandaranaike family has had 1 president and 3 prime ministers with S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Chandrika Kumaratunga all serving in the Prime Minister's capacity with Chandrika Kumaratunga serving as president.
In Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo both served as President
In Thailand, siblings Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra both served as Prime Minister
In Turkmenistan, Serdar Berdimuhamedow, who was elected as president of Turkmenistan in 2022, is the son of Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, who served as president from 2007 to 2022.
In Iran, the Davidkhanian family has been prominent in Persian politics and diplomacy, giving the country numerous cabinet ministers, advisors to the Shah, and politicians since the establishment of the Qajar dynasty. Markar Khan Davidkhanian served as the Minister of Finance (1804–1848) and advisor to Fath-Ali Shah Qajar during the Great Game. Set Khan Astvatsatourian (1780–1942) served as a political advisor to Abbas Mirza and Ambassador to Britain. Tsatur Khan (1820–1905) served as advisor to Mozaffar-ad-Din Qajar, envoy to Russia, and de facto Minister of Foreign Affairs. During the Pahlavi era, Meguertitch Khan Davidkhanian (1902–1983) served as Governor of Khorramshahr.
Hoping to prevent political dynasties, the Indonesian parliament, which represents the third largest democracy in the world, passed a law barring anyone holding a major office within five years of a relative.
See also
List of political families
Hereditary politicians
Nepotism
Oligarchy
Widow's succession
References
Oligarchy
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader-response%20criticism
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Reader-response criticism
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Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader (or "audience") and their experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the work.
Development
Although literary theory has long paid some attention to the reader's role in creating the meaning and experience of a literary work, modern reader-response criticism began in the 1960s and '70s, particularly in the US and Germany. This movement shifted the focus from the text to the reader and argues that affective response is a legitimate point for departure in criticism. Its conceptualization of critical practice is distinguished from theories that favor textual autonomy (for example, Formalism and New Criticism) as well as recent critical movements (for example, structuralism, semiotics, and deconstruction) due to its focus on the reader's interpretive activities.
Classic reader-response critics include Norman Holland, Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Hans-Robert Jauss, and Roland Barthes. Important predecessors were I. A. Richards, who in 1929 analyzed a group of Cambridge undergraduates' misreadings; and Louise Rosenblatt, who, in Literature as Exploration (1938), argued that it is important for the teacher to avoid imposing any "preconceived notions about the proper way to react to any work".
Reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts "real existence" to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation. Reader-response criticism argues that literature should be viewed as a performing art in which each reader creates their own, possibly unique, text-related performance. The approach avoids subjectivity or essentialism in descriptions produced through its recognition that reading is determined by textual and also cultural constraints. It stands in total opposition to the theories of formalism and the New Criticism, in which the reader's role in re-creating literary works is ignored. New Criticism had emphasized that only that which is within a text is part of the meaning of a text. No appeal to the authority or intention of the author, nor to the psychology of the reader, was allowed in the discussions of orthodox New Critics.
Types
There are multiple approaches within the theoretical branch of reader-response criticism, yet all are unified in their belief that the meaning of a text is derived from the reader through the reading process. Lois Tyson classified the variations into five recognized reader-response criticism approaches whilst warning that categorizing reader-response theorists explicitly invites difficulty due to their overlapping beliefs and practices. Transactional reader-response theory, led by Louise Rosenblatt and supported by Wolfgang Iser, involves a transaction between the text's inferred meaning and the individual interpretation by the reader influenced by their personal emotions and knowledge. Affective stylistics, established by Fish, believe that a text can only come into existence as it is read; therefore, a text cannot have meaning independent of the reader. Subjective reader-response theory, associated with David Bleich, looks entirely to the reader's response for literary meaning as individual written responses to a text are then compared to other individual interpretations to find continuity of meaning. Psychological reader-response theory, employed by Norman Holland, believes that a reader's motives heavily affect how they read, and subsequently use this reading to analyze the psychological response of the reader. Social reader-response theory is Stanley Fish's extension of his earlier work, stating that any individual interpretation of a text is created in an interpretive community of minds consisting of participants who share a specific reading and interpretation strategy. In all interpretive communities, readers are predisposed to a particular form of interpretation as a consequence of strategies used at the time of reading.
An alternative way of organizing reader-response theorists is to separate them into three groups. The first involves those who focus upon the individual reader's experience ("individualists"). Reader-response critics in the United States such as Holland and Bleich are characterized as individualists due to their use of psychology as starting point, focusing on the individual identity when processing a text. Then, there are the "experimenter" group, who conduct psychological experiments on a defined set of readers and those who assume a fairly uniform response by all readers called "uniformists". The classifications show reader-response theorists who see the individual reader driving the whole experience and others who think of literary experience as largely text-driven and uniform (with individual variations that can be ignored). The former theorists, who think the reader controls, derive what is common in a literary experience from shared techniques for reading and interpreting which are, however, individually applied by different readers. The latter, who put the text in control, derive commonalities of response, obviously, from the literary work itself. The most fundamental difference among reader-response critics is probably, then, between those who regard individual differences among readers' responses as important and those who try to get around them.
Individualists
In the 1960s, David Bleich's pedagogically inspired literary theory entailed that the text is the reader's interpretation of it as it exists in their mind, and that an objective reading is not possible due to the symbolization and resymbolization process. The symbolization and resymbolization process consists of how an individual's personal emotions, needs and life experiences affect how a reader engages with a text; marginally altering the meaning. Bleich supported his theory by conducting a study with his students in which they recorded their individual meaning of a text as they experienced it, then response to their own initial written response, before comparing it with other student's responses to collectively establish literary significance according to the classes "generated" knowledge of how particular persons recreate texts. He used this knowledge to theorize about the reading process and to refocus the classroom teaching of literature.
Michael Steig and Walter Slatoff have, like Bleich, shown that students' highly personal responses can provide the basis for critical analyses in the classroom. Jeffrey Berman has encouraged students responding to texts to write anonymously and share with their classmates writings in response to literary works about sensitive subjects like drugs, suicidal thoughts, death in the family, parental abuse and the like. A kind of catharsis bordering on therapy results. In general, American reader-response critics have focused on individual readers' responses. American magazines like Reading Research Quarterly and others publish articles applying reader-response theory to the teaching of literature.
In 1961, C. S. Lewis published An Experiment in Criticism, in which he analyzed readers' role in selecting literature. He analyzed their selections in light of their goals in reading. As early as 1926, however, Lewis was already describing the reader-response principle when he maintained that "a poem unread is not a poem at all". Modern reader-response critics have drawn from his idea that one cannot see the thing itself but only the image conjured in his mind as induced by stimulated sense perceptions.
In 1967, Stanley Fish published Surprised by Sin, the first study of a large literary work (Paradise Lost) that focused on its readers' experience. In an appendix, "Literature in the Reader", Fish used "the" reader to examine responses to complex sentences sequentially, word-by-word. Since 1976, however, he has turned to real differences among real readers. He explores the reading tactics endorsed by different critical schools, by the literary professoriate, and by the legal profession, introducing the idea of "interpretive communities" that share particular modes of reading.
In 1968, Norman Holland drew on psychoanalytic psychology in The Dynamics of Literary Criticism to model the literary work. Each reader introjects a fantasy "in" the text, then modifies it by defense mechanisms into an interpretation. In 1973, however, having recorded responses from real readers, Holland found variations too great to fit this model in which responses are mostly alike but show minor individual variations.
Holland then developed a second model based on his case studies: 5 Readers Reading. An individual has (in the brain) a core identity theme (behaviors then becoming understandable as a theme and variations as in music). This core gives that individual a certain style of being—and reading. Each reader uses the physical literary work plus invariable codes (such as the shapes of letters) plus variable canons (different "interpretive communities", for example) plus an individual style of reading to build a response both like and unlike other readers' responses. Holland worked with others at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Murray Schwartz, David Willbern, and Robert Rogers, to develop a particular teaching format, the "Delphi seminar," designed to get students to "know themselves".
Experimenters
The type of reader-response critics who conduct psychological experiments on a defined set of readers are called experimenters. The experiments often involve participants free associating during the study, with the experimenters collecting and interpreting reader-responses in an informal way. Reuven Tsur in Israel has developed in great detail models for the expressivity of poetic rhythms, of metaphor, and of word-sound in poetry (including different actors' readings of a single line of Shakespeare). Richard Gerrig in the U.S. has experimented with the reader's state of mind during and after a literary experience. He has shown how readers put aside ordinary knowledge and values while they read, treating, for example, criminals as heroes. He has also investigated how readers accept, while reading, improbable or fantastic things (Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief"), but discard them after they have finished.
In Canada, David Miall, usually working with Donald Kuiken, has produced a large body of work exploring emotional or "affective" responses to literature, drawing on such concepts from ordinary criticism as "defamiliarization" or "foregrounding". They have used both experiments and new developments in neuropsychology, and have developed a questionnaire for measuring different aspects of a reader's response.
There are many other experimental psychologists around the world exploring readers' responses, conducting many detailed experiments. One can research their work through their professional organizations, the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media , and International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, and through such psychological indices as PSYCINFO.
Two notable researchers are Dolf Zillmann and Peter Vorderer, both working in the field of communications and media psychology. Both have theorized and tested ideas about what produces emotions such as suspense, curiosity, surprise in readers, the necessary factors involved, and the role the reader plays. Jenefer Robinson, a philosopher, has recently blended her studies on emotion with its role in literature, music, and art.
Uniformists
Wolfgang Iser exemplifies the German tendency to theorize the reader and so posit a uniform response. For him, a literary work is not an object in itself but an effect to be explained. But he asserts this response is controlled by the text. For the "real" reader, he substitutes an implied reader, who is the reader a given literary work requires. Within various polarities created by the text, this "implied" reader makes expectations, meanings, and the unstated details of characters and settings through a "wandering viewpoint". In his model, the text controls. The reader's activities are confined within limits set by the literary work.
Two of Iser's reading assumptions have influenced reading-response criticism of the New Testament. The first is the role of the reader, who is active, not passive, in the production of textual meaning. The reader fills in the "gaps" or areas of "indeterminacy" of the text. Although the "text" is written by the author, its "realization" (Konkritisation) as a "work" is fulfilled by the reader, according to Iser. Iser uses the analogy of two people gazing into the night sky to describe the role of the reader in the production of textual meaning. "Both [may] be looking at the same collection of stars, but one will see the image of a plough, and the other will make out a dipper. The 'stars' in a literary text are fixed, the lines that join them are variable." The Iserian reader contributes to the meaning of the text, but limits are placed on this reader by the text itself.
The second assumption concerns Iser's reading strategy of anticipation of what lies ahead, frustration of those expectations, retrospection, and reconceptualization of new expectations. Iser describes the reader's maneuvers in the negotiation of a text in the following way: "We look forward, we look back, we decide, we change our decisions, we form expectations, we are shocked by their nonfulfillment, we question, we muse, we accept, we reject; this is the dynamic process of recreation."
Iser's approach to reading has been adopted by several New Testament critics, including Culpepper 1983, Scott 1989, Roth 1997, Darr 1992, 1998, Fowler 1991, 2008, Howell 1990, Kurz 1993, and Powell 2001.
Another important German reader-response critic was Hans-Robert Jauss, who defined literature as a dialectic process of production and reception (Rezeption—the term common in Germany for "response"). For Jauss, readers have a certain mental set, a "horizon" of expectations (Erwartungshorizont), from which perspective each reader, at any given time in history, reads. Reader-response criticism establishes these horizons of expectation by reading literary works of the period in question.
Both Iser and Jauss, along with the Constance School, exemplify and return reader-response criticism to a study of the text by defining readers in terms of the text. In the same way, Gerald Prince posits a "narratee", Michael Riffaterre posits a "superreader", and Stanley Fish an "informed reader." And many text-oriented critics simply speak of "the" reader who typifies all readers.
Objections
Reader-response critics hold that in order to understand a text, one must look to the processes readers use to create meaning and experience. Traditional text-oriented schools, such as formalism, often think of reader-response criticism as an anarchic subjectivism, allowing readers to interpret a text any way they want. Text-oriented critics claim that one can understand a text while remaining immune to one's own culture, status, personality, and so on, and hence "objectively."
To reader-response based theorists, however, reading is always both subjective and objective. Some reader-response critics (uniformists) assume a bi-active model of reading: the literary work controls part of the response and the reader controls part. Others, who see that position as internally contradictory, claim that the reader controls the whole transaction (individualists). In such a reader-active model, readers and audiences use amateur or professional procedures for reading (shared by many others) as well as their personal issues and values.
Another objection to reader-response criticism is that it fails to account for the text being able to expand the reader's understanding. While readers can and do put their own ideas and experiences into a work, they are at the same time gaining new understanding through the text. This is something that is generally overlooked in reader-response criticism.
Extensions
Reader-response criticism relates to psychology, both experimental psychology for those attempting to find principles of response, and psychoanalytic psychology for those studying individual responses. Post-behaviorist psychologists of reading and of perception support the idea that it is the reader who makes meaning. Increasingly, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, neuroscience, and neuropsychoanalysis have given reader-response critics powerful and detailed models for the aesthetic process. In 2011 researchers found that during listening to emotionally intense parts of a story, readers respond with changes in heart rate variability, indicative of increased activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Intense parts of a story were also accompanied by increased brain activity in a network of regions known to be involved in the processing of fear, including the amygdala.
Because it rests on psychological principles, a reader-response approach readily generalizes to other arts: cinema (David Bordwell), music, or visual art (E. H. Gombrich), and even to history (Hayden White). In stressing the activity of the reader, reader-response theory may be employed to justify upsettings of traditional interpretations like deconstruction or cultural criticism.
Since reader-response critics focus on the strategies readers are taught to use, they may address the teaching of reading and literature. Also, because reader-response criticism stresses the activity of the reader, reader-response critics may share the concerns of feminist critics, and critics of gender and queer theory and postcolonialism.
See also
Hermeneutics
Semiotic democracy
Reception theory
Encoding/decoding model of communication
Notes and references
Further reading
Tompkins, Jane P. (ed.) (1980). Reader-response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-structuralism. Johns Hopkins University Press. .
Tyson, Lois (2006). Critical theory today: a user-friendly guide, 2nd edn. Routledge, New York and London.
Literary criticism
Literary theory
Communication theory
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leela%20%28Futurama%29
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Leela (Futurama)
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Turanga Leela is a fictional character from the animated television series Futurama. Leela is spaceship captain, pilot, and head of all aviation services on board the Planet Express Ship. Throughout the series, she has an on-again, off-again relationship with Philip J. Fry, the central character in the series. The character, voiced by Katey Sagal, is named after the Turangalîla-Symphonie by Olivier Messiaen. She is one of the few characters in the cast to routinely display competence and the ability to command, and routinely saves the rest of the cast from disaster. However, she suffers extreme self-doubt because she has only one eye and grew up as a bullied orphan. She first believes herself an alien, but later finds out she is the least-mutated sewer mutant in the history of 31st-century Earth. Her family (particularly her parents' accent and "outcast" status) parodies aspects of pollution and undesirability associated with industrial New Jersey when compared with New York City.
Fictional character biography
Turanga Leela was born to Morris and Munda, two mutants who live in the sewer deep under New New York City. The mutant doctor who delivered Leela remarked that she was "the least mutated mutant ever born". When Leela was still an infant, her parents gave her up to the Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium with a note written in mysterious symbols to suggest that Leela was an alien, so that she would have a better life than a typical mutant.
For the first three seasons of the series, Leela hopes to meet another member of her race of one-eyed aliens. In the episode "A Bicyclops Built for Two", Leela meets Alcazar, a cyclops who convinces her that he and she are the last two members of their extinct race, only to discover that he is a shapeshifting impostor who just wanted to marry her so she would be his maid. Leela's parents' plan for concealing her origins works well until an industrial accident caused by environmentally irresponsible Bender brings Leela and her friends into the New New York City's sewer system where for the first time Leela meets her parents and discovers that she is not a cyclopean alien, but is actually a sewer mutant.
In the episode "The Problem with Popplers", Leela's family name, Turanga, was used for the first time. The episode "Less Than Hero" establishes that among Leela and her parents, their family name is placed before the given name.
Character development
Leela's orphan upbringing and mysterious origins are helpful to fuel the development of her character over the course of the series.
Despite her strong-willed nature, she often feels self-conscious about her distinctive appearance, and at one point elects to have surgery to give her the appearance of having two normal-sized eyes, though she later has this reversed. Leela's single eye hampers her depth perception and is sometimes exploited for comic effect, for instance, in the episode "The Problem with Popplers" it is suggested that she actually is crashing into billboards every time in the opening credits, though it typically does not interfere with her ability to pilot the Planet Express Ship (beyond crashing into the odd billboard) or her mastery of martial arts.
Originally a career placement officer for new defrostees at a cryogenics lab in the year 2999, Leela quit her job after meeting Philip J. Fry, a defrostee from 1999, and Bender, a high-tech, job-deserting, girder bending robot. Together they are employed as the crew for Planet Express, an intergalactic delivery business run by Fry's distant relative, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth. Leela serves as captain of the Planet Express Ship, proving herself to be a skilled officer and often rescuing her less-talented coworkers from peril.
Leela is an avid environmentalist. In "Love's Labour Lost in Space", Leela and crew are sent to Vergon 6, a planet that is about collapse because of mining. Her mission is to save the animal inhabitants of the planet. The mission winds up unsuccessful because of a small animal Leela finds because he ate the rest of the rescued animals. This animal, who she names Nibbler, becomes her pet for the remainder of the series. Her environmentalist beliefs resurface again in Into the Wild Green Yonder. Despite her love of animals and nature, she embarks on an Ahab-like quest to kill a space whale in the episode "Möbius Dick".
Abilities
Leela is a skilled martial artist and adept weapons expert and survivalist. In the episode "Raging Bender", a flashback revealed that she had earned a red belt in Kung Fu as a teenager, but despite her besting all the other students, she quit due to her sexist instructor, of whom she beat up years later. She is very athletic and in great physical condition, with most males (of any species) unable to match her in physical combat.
Relationships
Philip J. Fry Leela's and Fry's relationship is a major plot line that runs throughout the series. Fry frequently asks for dates, though she repeatedly turns him down despite her usual romantic mishaps. There are various moments when she does fall for him even briefly, especially whenever he would risk his life for her. She sees him as a true friend and does not want anything more of him, but it constantly appears as if she is hiding (and denying herself) deeper feelings for him, saying "I love his boyish charm, but I hate his childishness". At the end of the film Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, Leela openly admits to loving Fry, and shows greater attraction to him from the episode "Rebirth" onward, though their relationship varies. In "The Prisoner of Benda", the two share a romantic interlude, though their personalities have been switched to different bodies. In the episode "Fry Am the Egg Man", while being hit on by Angus McZongo, she says that she and Fry are strictly platonic. In "Overclockwise", Leela expresses concerns over their "on-again-off-again" relationship, but by the end of that episode, Bender reveals Fry and Leela's future to them, and while the viewer is not told its details, Leela and Fry are clearly pleased with them. The relationship continues through the seventh season, culminating in Fry proposing to Leela. Before she can accept, however, an accident with the Professor's new invention results in the universe being frozen in time, except for her and Fry. They get married anyway and have a happy life together as the only unfrozen beings in existence. Years later, the Professor appears through an interdimensional wormhole and offers them the chance to go back in time to before the universe froze. Fry asks Leela if she wants to "go around again" with him, a proposal she happily accepts. The eighth season, picking up ten years after time was frozen, shows a young-again Fry and Leela continuing their relationship, and they eventually move in together in the episode "Related to Items You've Viewed".
Lars FillmoreAfter a freak accident involving Hermes' decapitated body, Leela meets Lars at the Head Museum where Hermes' head is being kept alive. Lars later delivers Hermes' new head jar and asks Leela out for dinner and the two begin dating. During the same time Leela and Lars begin dating, the world is taken over by an alien species that overtook robots by scamming people into giving them personal information. The scammers find the secret to time travel tattooed on Fry's butt. After the scammers have stolen all-important artifacts from throughout history, they seek to destroy Fry's body so no one else can time travel. Fry escapes back to the 21st century with Bender on his tail. Bender believes he murdered Fry and heads back to the future. Fry shows up and tells his story of how he got back to the future. The Professor reveals a formula that he then explains to be why anybody that is duplicated due to time travel is doomed. Lars proposes to Leela in Futurama: Bender's Big Score. Lars saves the crew from a bomb dropped by Robot Santa and Fry becomes even more upset and jealous. Lars and Leela were to marry on Sunday, December 27, 3007 at 4 O'Clock. During the ceremony Lars leaves Leela at the altar because Hermes' body was again destroyed because of the time paradox duplicate rule, and he did not want their wedding to be riddled with sadness. Fry sees Leela's sadness and devises a plan to try to get Leela and Lars back together. During this encounter, it is revealed that Lars is actually Fry's time paradox body duplicate whose hair and voice was altered by when Bender tried to kill him and grew more mature over the years. He later dies due to being a time paradox body duplicate, but Leela's relationship with him helps make her closer to the original Fry.
Zapp BranniganDuring a visit aboard The Nimbus, Leela has pity sex with the pompous, idiotic captain Zapp Brannigan in the episode where he is first introduced, "Love's Labours Lost in Space"; according to Groening, the episode marked a turning point in the series, as it showed that the writers could degrade the main heroine without alienating viewers from the show. Throughout the series, Brannigan constantly tries to entice her into dates and romantic encounters, much to her disgust, Leela denouncing him as an incompetent lover and general idiot. The next encounter Leela has with Zapp is in "A Flight to Remember", during a cruise on the Titanic. Leela, worried Zapp might try to court her, tells Zapp she is dating Fry. Zapp suspects she is lying and invites her and Fry to dine at the captain's table with him. Zapp does his best to catch them in the lie but due to changing the ship's course earlier in the episode, which eventually leads the ship into a black hole, is called away from the table. Leela is able to make it off the ship with the rest of the crew in an escape pod and avoid an unwanted sexual encounter with Zapp. In "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela", while on a mission with him they crash-land and he tricks her into thinking they are what's left of humanity and should be the new Adam and Eve, which she agrees to. When she discovers the ruse, she reluctantly has sex with him to save the Earth from a planet-destroying satellite.
Nibbler (Non-Romantic)Leela and the rest of the Planet Express Ship's crew are sent on a mission to a planet called Vergon 6 in "Love's Labour Lost in Space". On their way to the planet, The Planet Express Ship is intercepted by The Nimbus, captained by Zapp Brannigan. Leela decides to ask Zapp for help in saving the animals from the doomed planet of Vergon 6. Zapp denies her request and imprisons the crew based on their intention of breaking Brannigan's law. According to Brannigan's law, no one is allowed to interfere with undeveloped planets. A committed environmentalist and lover of animals, Leela defies Brannigan's orders in order to save the animals of Vergon 6. During the final moments of the planet's existence Leela finds Nibbler, a lone animal of the planet, and adopts him as a pet. Later in the series Nibbler reveals himself to be a member of an ancient race of wise, sophisticated beings known as the Nibblonians. In the episode I Second That Emotion, Bender becomes frustrated with the attention that Nibbler is getting. Seeking to get rid of Nibbler and claim the attention for himself, Bender flushes Nibbler down the toilet. When Bender shows no remorse for his actions Leela becomes frustrated with his inability to see her pain. She has The Professor install a microchip onto Bender to force him to mirror her emotions. Due to Leela's sadness from losing Nibbler, Bender goes into the sewers to find him. Leela goes after Bender and Nibbler but runs into trouble when a sewer monster urban legend shows to be true. In order to save herself and Nibbler, Leela learns to be a little more selfish.
Adlai Atkins (voiced by Tom Kenny) The only other success to come from Leela's orphanage, Adlai was a remarkably average man who had become a cosmetic surgeon. He grafts a second eye onto Leela's face - which gives her a normal appearance, although she still cannot actually see through the other eye - and the two began dating, but when Adlai commented that an orphan with a third ear on her forehead could be given an operation to be 'acceptable', Leela realizes that she had been better off as she was and makes Adlai undo the surgery.
Al Alcazar Initially the first other cyclops Leela met, Alcazar claimed that their planet had been destroyed in a war and the two of them were the only survivors, prompting Leela to accept his proposal of marriage despite his boorish nature and mistreatment of her. However, Fry discovers that Alcazar was actually a shape-shifting grasshopper-like alien who sought to marry 'five alien weirdos' to clean his five castles, and the wedding was swiftly called off. Alcazar is a parody of Al Bundy, the main character of Married... With Children, the sitcom on which Katey Sagal costarred.
Chaz (voiced by Bob Odenkirk) The mayor's aide. There is only one thing that he cannot do, "fail the mayor". He dated Leela and she seemed to be in love with him because of his stature, but Leela dumped him when he wouldn't let orphans skate with them because he was too important.
Sean / Leela's uneducated ex-boyfriend The two were in a relationship prior to Fry's arrival to the future, but they broke up. Leela claims that the breakup was mutual, but Sean claims that she was crazy. Sean's first appearance in the show is in "Fry and Leela's Big Fling", where he demonstrates his musical talent before being challenged to a fight by Fry. At the end of the episode, it is revealed that Sean is now married to Darlene whom he met in the 99-cent store.
Character creation
Conception
Though the series described Turanga Leela as a one-eyed alien in its first episodes, Futurama creator Matt Groening and executive producer David X. Cohen had in mind that she would turn out to be the child of sewer-dwelling mutants before the series was pitched to executives. The mutants later revealed to be Leela's parents appear as background characters in the season 2 episode "I Second That Emotion", providing an early hint at her origin. Later in the series it is revealed that her parents had given her up to an orphanage (styled an 'orphanarium') in order to give her a chance at living a normal life on the surface, passing her off as an alien due to her relative lack of distinguishing mutant features. According to Groening, the cyclopean but otherwise comely Leela subverts the science-fiction cliché of glamorously perfect female heroines.
An early file Groening compiled on Leela lists some of her intended qualities: "strong-willed, opinionated, gentle (when not fighting), gives orders, unlucky in love, loves weapons, loves animals". Katey Sagal describes her as a "tough, strong career girl who just can't get it together in the rest of her life...she's vulnerable and hard at the same time".
Name
Her family name plays on Turangalîla, the Sanskrit title of the 1948 Turangalîla-Symphonie by French composer Olivier Messiaen. The Turangalîla-Symphonie has four cyclical themes; its title can be roughly translated as "love song". Her given name, Leela (/ˈli.laː/), is the word for lilac in many Indo-European languages (such as French, German, Italian, Dutch and Swedish). Groening also stated in the show's DVD commentary that Leela's name is also a tribute to the Doctor Who companion of the same name who served alongside the Fourth Doctor, who makes cameo appearances in episode 103 ("Möbius Dick") and episode 111 ("All the Presidents' Heads").
Design
Besides her oversized single eye, Leela's other distinctive features include her purple hair tied in a ponytail by a black hair tie and relatively small nose. The ponytail was included so that Leela, like the other main characters in Futurama and Groening's other cartoon The Simpsons, would be recognizable in silhouette. During the many stages of character design, Groening decided to give Leela a large nose just for fun, but the animators resisted the idea, believing that it was unnatural. The animators ended up drawing Leela with a small nose based on Groening's original drawing of Leela, which he references as his "idea of a sexy babe". Animator Gregg Vanzo notes that the artists also had initial difficulties drawing facial expressions and moods for Leela because of her single eye. Leela's usual clothing consists of a low-cut white tank top, leggings and boots. Groening intended Leela to be portrayed as attractive and sexy, but had to instruct the animators to de-emphasize exaggerated aspects of their original design that were too "racy". However, Leela is still considered attractive and sexy, even beautiful by several such as Fry and Zapp Brannigan. What Leela calls "this thing I wear on my wrist" (referred to in another episode as a "Wrist Lojackimator") is capable of minor plot conveniences as needed.
Casting
Katey Sagal provides the voice of Leela. Sagal immediately wanted the role when she was asked to audition for Groening. She is one of the few primarily live-action actors in the Futurama cast. In an interview, Sagal said: "This is acting, but a different type of acting. You're not using your whole tool here—your body and physicality—but it's challenging that way. The animation work is really unusual. I don't have the same experience doing it as the people I work with." Sagal notes that she found out years after accepting the part that someone else (comedian Nicole Sullivan) had previously been cast as Leela but the creators had decided to replace her. She also notes that she does not change Leela's voice much from her own natural voice but she does try to make it a little higher-pitched.
References
Female characters in animated series
Fictional space pilots
Fictional characters from New York City
Television characters introduced in 1999
Animated characters introduced in 1999
Female soldier and warrior characters in television
Fictional couriers
Fictional helmsmen
Fictional clones
Fictional female martial artists
Fictional karateka
Fictional female captains
Fictional military captains
Fictional mutants
Fictional war veterans
Futurama characters
Martial artist characters in television
Fictional cyclopes
Characters created by Matt Groening
Crossover characters in television
cs:Seznam hlavních postav ve Futuramě#Turanga Leela
he:פיוצ'רמה#הדמויות הראשיות
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy%20Queen
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Dairy Queen
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International Dairy Queen, Inc. (DQ) is an American multinational fast food chain founded in 1940. It is currently headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota, United States. The first Dairy Queen was owned and operated by Sherb Noble and first opened on June 22, 1940, in Joliet, Illinois. It serves a variety of hot and fried food, as well as original frozen dairy products that vary from location to location.
History
The soft-serve formula was first developed in 1938 by John Fremont "J.F." McCullough and his son Alex. They convinced friend and loyal customer Sherb Noble to offer the product in his ice cream store in Kankakee, Illinois. On the first day of sales, Noble sold more than 1,600 servings of the new dessert within two hours. Noble and the McCulloughs went on to open the first Dairy Queen store in 1940 in Joliet, Illinois. It closed in the 1950s, but the 501 N Chicago Street building is a city-designated landmark.
Since 1940, the chain has used a franchise system to expand its operations globally. The first ten stores in 1941 grew to 100 by 1947, 1,446 in 1950, and 2,600 in 1955. The first store in Canada opened in Melville, Saskatchewan in 1953. In the US, the state with the most Dairy Queen restaurants is Texas. Using the 2010 census, the state with the most Dairy Queen restaurants per person is Minnesota.
In the 1990s, investors bought Dairy Queen stores that were individually owned, intending to increase profitability through economies of scale. Vasari, LLC became the second-largest Dairy Queen operator in the country and operated 70 Dairy Queens across Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. When stores were not profitable, the firm closed them. On October 30, 2017, Vasari LLC filed for bankruptcy and announced it was closing 29 DQ stores, including ten in the Texas Panhandle.
International Dairy Queen, Inc. (IDQ) is the parent company of Dairy Queen. In the United States, it operates as American Dairy Queen Corporation (commonly known as Am. DQ Corp.).
At the end of fiscal year 2014, Dairy Queen reported over 6,400 stores in more than 25 countries; about 4,500 of them (approximately 70%) were in the United States.
The red Dairy Queen symbol was introduced in 1958.
The company became International Dairy Queen, Inc. (IDQ) in 1962. IDQ is the parent company of American Dairy Queen Corporation (which owns the DQ intellectual property and is often abbreviated "Am. D.Q. Corp." in the chain's legal disclaimers), Dairy Queen Canada Inc., and other entities that franchise the Dairy Queen concept.
In 1987, IDQ bought the Orange Julius chain. IDQ was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway in 1998.
Dairy Queens were a fixture of social life in small Midwestern and Southern United States towns during the 1950s and 1960s. They have often been reflected in stories and memoirs of small-town America, as in Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections at Sixty and Beyond by Larry McMurtry, Dairy Queen Days by Robert Inman, Chevrolet Summers, Dairy Queen Nights by Bob Greene, and The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton including the film adaptation by Francis Ford Coppola.
Stores
The company's stores are operated under several brands, all bearing the Dairy Queen logo and carrying the company's signature soft-serve ice cream. "Brazier" locations, with expanded food menus and second floors for storage, are recognizable by their red mansard roofs.
By the end of 2014, Dairy Queen had more than 6,400 stores in 27 countries, including more than 1,400 outside the United States and Canada.
The largest Dairy Queen in the US is in Bloomington, Illinois. The largest in the world is in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the busiest in the world is in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
Standard stores
While some stores serve a very abbreviated menu primarily featuring DQ frozen treats and may be open only during spring, summer, and fall, most DQ restaurants also serve hot food and are open all year.
So-called "Limited Brazier" locations may additionally offer hot dogs, barbecue beef (or pork) sandwiches, and in some cases french fries and chicken, but not hamburgers. Dairy Queen Full Brazier restaurants serve a typical fast-food menu featuring burgers, french fries, grilled and crispy chicken, frozen treats, and hot dogs.
In some locations built in the 1990s, the "Hot Eats, Cool Treats" slogan can be seen printed on windows or near the roof of the building. One such example was a former Dairy Queen Brazier location in Woodinville, Washington, where the slogan was printed near the tops of the windows. This location was converted into a Grill & Chill store around late 2016–2017.
Franchise background
The liquid capital required to invest in a Dairy Queen franchise is $400,000, and a minimum net worth is $750,000. The initial franchise fee is $45,000, while the total investment amount required ranges from $1.1 million to $1.8 million. There are 5,700 operating Dairy Queen units. In addition to the upfront investment costs, the royalty fee for Dairy Queen franchisees is 4%, and the advertisement royalty fee is 5-6%. The franchise term of agreement lasts for 20 years, and the contract is renewable.
Dairy Queen does not offer in-house financing options; they only provide third-party financing. This third-party financing covers the franchise fee, startup costs, equipment, inventory, accounts receivable, and payroll.
DQ / Orange Julius
They were also known as the "Treat Center" concept, an enhanced version of the original stores also serves drinks and foods from the Orange Julius menu. This was the company's preferred concept for new, small-scale locations, primarily in shopping malls food courts. Some early Treat Centers also included Karmelkorn.
Dairy Queen Brazier
The name "Brazier" originated in 1957 when one of the company's franchisees, Jim Cruikshank, set out to develop the standardized food system. When he witnessed flames rising from an open charcoal grill (a brazier) in a New York eatery, he knew he had found the Brazier concept.
The "Brazier" name has been slowly phased out of signage and advertising since 1993, although it has not been removed from all existing signage, especially in smaller towns and rural locations. Since the early 2000s, new or renovated locations which are similar to Brazier restaurants in terms of size and menu selection, but have been updated with the current logo or exterior, usually carry the name "DQ Restaurant," although the website's store locator still lists the stores that do not carry the "Grill & Chill" name as "Dairy Queen Brazier" and the smaller stores "Dairy Queen Ltd Brazier" and "Dairy Queen Store."
The company website still considers its burger and hot dog lines as "Brazier Foods," according to the history section and some FAQ listed topics on the website.
DQ Grill & Chill
DQ Grill & Chill locations feature hot food, treats, table delivery, and self-serve soft drinks. It is the new concept for new and renovated full-service restaurants. Stores are larger than older-style locations and feature a completely new store design. They usually offer an expanded menu, including breakfast, GrillBurgers, grilled sandwiches, and limited table service (customers still place orders at the counter). They also contain self-serve soft drink fountains allowing free refills. Some of the older stores have upgraded to the new format. However, older stores still have not upgraded to the new format. In December 2001, Chattanooga, Tennessee, was the site of the first two Dairy Queen Grill and Chill restaurants in the United States. The nation's largest DQ Grill & Chill is located in Bloomington, Illinois. In 2023, a Grill & Chill location in Phoenix, Arizona had a large red spoon statue stolen from the front of the restaurant. The spoon was discovered three days later and returned. The spoon had been dumped on a baseball field next to a Phoenix middle school.
Texas Country Foods
All Texas locations, including those that otherwise resemble the Brazier or DQ Grill & Chill formats, use a separate hot food menu branded as Texas Country Foods. Among other differences, "Hungr-Buster" burgers are available instead of the Brazier and GrillBurger offerings. Other food offerings not found outside Texas include the "Dude" chicken-fried steak sandwich, steak finger country baskets, T-Brand tacos, and a one-half pound double meat hamburger, the "BeltBuster."
Texas is home to the largest number of Dairy Queens in the U.S. All Texas Dairy Queen restaurants are owned and operated by franchisees. The Texas Dairy Queen Operators' Council (TDQOC) runs a separate marketing website from the national website. Bob Phillips, host of the popular Texas syndicated television series Texas Country Reporter, was for many years the DQ spokesman in Texas, as the restaurant was a co-sponsor of the program at the time.
Products
The company's products expanded to include malts and milkshakes in 1950, banana splits in 1951, Dilly Bars in 1955 (introduced to the franchise by Robert Litherland, the co-owner of a store in Moorhead, Minnesota), Mr. Misty slush treats in 1961 (later renamed Misty Slush, then again to Arctic Rush; as of 2017, DQ again calls them Misty Slush, as seen on dairyqueen.com), Jets, Curly Tops, Freezes in 1964, and a range of hamburgers and other cooked foods under the Brazier banner in 1958. In 1962, the Buster Bar, consisting of vanilla soft serve in the shape of a small cup with a layer of and covered with peanuts and chocolate, was invented by David Skjerven 1962 in Grafton, North Dakota. In 1971, the Peanut Buster Parfait, consisting of peanuts, hot fudge, and vanilla soft serve, was introduced by Forrest 'Frosty' Chapman in his St. Peter, Minnesota Franchise. In 1990, the Breeze was launched, like a Blizzard but was made with non-fat, cholesterol-free yogurt. This was pulled from stores in 2000. In 1995, the Chicken Strip Basket was introduced, consisting of chicken strips, Texas toast (only in the US), fries, and cream gravy (gravy in Canada). Other items include sundaes and the blended coffee drink, the MooLatte. Another sundae made by Dairy Queen is the peanut buster parfait, thoroughly enjoyed and invented by Patsy Franks in 1969.
In Northwest Washington State, Dairy Queen has chicken strip trays which include chicken strips, a sauce, and french fries. Small bread slices coated in butter come with the dish/box. Chocolate shakes come in cups with an open top, and they are topped with whipped cream.
Blizzard
A popular Dairy Queen item is the Blizzard, which is soft-serve mechanically blended with mix-in ingredients such as sundae toppings and/or pieces of cookies, brownies, or candy. It has been a staple on the menu since its introduction in 1985, a year in which Dairy Queen sold more than 100 million Blizzards. Popular flavors include Oreo cookies, mint Oreo, chocolate chip cookie dough, M&M's, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Heath Bar (Skor in Canada), and Butterfinger (Crispy Crunch in Canada). Seasonal flavors are also available such as October's pumpkin pie and June's cotton candy. It has been argued that Dairy Queen drew its inspiration from the concrete served by the St. Louis-based Ted Drewes. On July 26, 2010, Dairy Queen introduced a new "mini" size Blizzard, served in 6 oz. cups. During the 25th anniversary of the Blizzard, two special flavors were released: Strawberry Golden Oreo Blizzard and Buster Bar Blizzard. Salted Caramel Truffle was released in 2015 during the Blizzard's 30th anniversary and Dairy Queen's 75th anniversary, but it has since been removed from the menu.
Blizzards derive their name from being so thoroughly cold and thick that the cup can be held upside down after serving without any of the contents falling out. Employees will frequently demonstrate this to customers. There is a company policy that one Blizzard per order will be flipped upside-down by the employee. If this does not occur, the customer may request a coupon for a free Blizzard to use on their next visit, though this is at the franchise owner's discretion.
Prior to the reintroduction of the Blizzard in 1985, Dairy Queen served conventional "thick" milkshakes called "Blizzards" in the 1960s. This time period also introduced the currently-held tradition of the shake being flipped upside down when served to the customer. The original "Blizzards" sold for the premium price of 50 cents in 1962. These were served in traditional flavors such as vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, with or without added malt, on request. The Blizzard was also invented by Samuel Temperato.
In addition, Dairy Queen offers a Blizzard Cake in flavors such as Oreo and Reese's. Much like the restaurant's conventional ice cream cake, this variation is aimed toward celebrations and birthdays.
Frozen yogurt
In 1990, Dairy Queen began offering frozen yogurt as a lower-calorie alternative to its soft serve ice cream. The product was named Breeze. According to a company representative, Dairy Queen's regular soft serve has 35 calories per ounce, whereas the frozen yogurt was 25 calories per ounce. However, in 2001, the company phased out the frozen yogurt option in all its stores, citing a lack of demand.
In 2011, International Dairy Queen Inc. filed a request for a preliminary injunction to stop Yogubliz Inc, a small California-based frozen yogurt chain, from selling "Blizzberry" and "Blizz Frozen Yogurt," alleging that the names could confuse consumers due to their similarity to Dairy Queen's Blizzard. U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner denied Dairy Queen's request.
Cage-free egg commitment
In May 2016, Dairy Queen committed to requiring suppliers in the United States and Canada to purchase eggs only from approved cage-free egg suppliers by 2025. In the U.S., 67 percent of shell eggs, liquid eggs, and proprietary DQ ingredients that contain eggs have either converted to cage-free or were reformulated to remove eggs as an ingredient since Dairy Queen made their commitment. In Canada, 39 percent of shell eggs, liquid eggs, and proprietary DQ ingredients that contain eggs have either converted to cage-free or were reformulated to remove eggs as an ingredient since Dairy Queen made their commitment.
Dairy Queen's commitment includes shell and liquid eggs at restaurants that serve breakfast, as well as any eggs used as ingredients for proprietary food and treat products. The company has also committed to requiring any new egg suppliers in the future to provide cage-free eggs.
Some consider cage-free egg production to be a more humane method of production than conventional methods representing the majority of current production in the United States and Canada. There is no mention of Dairy Queen's cage-free commitment in their restaurants outside of the US and Canada.
Advertising
From 1979 until 1981, the restaurant chain used the slogan "It's a real treat!" For many years, the franchise's slogan was "We treat you right." From the early-to-mid 1990s, the slogans "Hot Eats, Cool Treats" and "Think DQ" were used and preceded the aforementioned line in the Dairy Queen jingle. Later on, it was changed to "Meet Me at DQ" and "DQ: Something Different." Another slogan, introduced in early 2011, was "So Good It's RiDQulous," with Dairy Queen's current logo infused in the word "ridiculous." In the mid-to-late 2010s, their slogan was "Fan Food, Not Fast Food." As of April 2019, Dairy Queen uses the slogan "Happy Tastes Good." The slogan This is Fan Food not Fast Food was still used on the cups, wrappers, and paper baskets for a while.
In Texas, at the end of advertisements, there is frequently a Texas flag waving, and the new DQ logo and slogan below saying, "Eat Like A Texan." Previous slogans include "That's what I like about Texas," "For Hot Eats & Cool Treats, Think DQ," "Nobody beats DQ Treats & Eats," "DQ is Value Country," and "This is DQ Country." These advertisements featured Texas Country Reporter host Bob Phillips as a spokesperson since his program was mainly sponsored by Dairy Queen.
Dennis the Menace appeared in Dairy Queen marketing from 1971 until December 2002, when he was dropped because Dairy Queen felt children could no longer relate to him. From 2006 to July 2011, the advertising focused on a large mouth with its tongue licking its large lips, which morphs into the Dairy Queen logo. The mouth was dropped in 2011 after Grey New York produced outlandish spots featuring a dapper man, played by John Behlmann, sporting a mustache, performing crazy feats for Dairy Queen replacing it. After announcing tasty menu offers, he would do something outrageous, like blow bubbles with kittens in them, water ski while boxing, or break a piñata, out of which tumbles Olympic gymnastics great Mary Lou Retton. Later, the same firm made additional commercials based around odd situation titles with the DQ logo placed somewhere in them, like "Gary DQlones Himself," "Now That's A Lunchtime DQuandary!," "After The DQonquest," and "Well, This Is A Bit DQrazy!" All were narrated by a man with an English accent.
In 2015, Dairy Queen and model railroad company of Milwaukee, Wm. K. Walthers came out with a Walthers Cornerstone HO 1:87 Scale models of a restaurant – one from the 1950s with the original logo and one from 2007 with the current logo. The models are both officially licensed replicas.
Logos
The original Dairy Queen logo was simply a stylized text sign with a soft-serve cone at one end. In the late 1950s, the widely recognized red ellipse design was adopted. The initial shape was asymmetrical, with one of the side points having a greater extension than the other, especially when matched with the Brazier sign—a similarly sized yellow ovoid, tucked diagonally below its companion. By the 1970s, both sides were more closely matched, becoming symmetrical with the 2007 update (see online images for comparison). Some of the new 1950s signs continued to display a soft-serve cone jutting from the right side.
"Little Miss Dairy Queen" began appearing in Pennsylvania signage in 1961. She had a Dutch bonnet, resembling the ellipse logo, with a pinafore apron over her dress and wooden shoes.
A yellow trapezoid Brazier sign, placed below the red Dairy Queen logo, was developed in the late 1960s. It matched the roofline of the new store design of the era.
The 1990s saw a new style of design, boxier with red strips containing the "Hot Eats, Cool Treats" slogan of the era near the roofline (some stores have removed this); straddling the center of the facade was a large blue sign that was a modernized take on the soft-serve cone design of the early 1950s, with white and red pinstripes trailing out from beneath the full Dairy Queen name, underneath the cone; the cone itself was now facing the building, to accommodate the physical ellipse logo; the sign continued further down the wall, with an angle and a "Brazier" logo strip. Additional cone signs were used to mark the entrance and exit of the store for drivers. This design was largely used on new stores but was sometimes used for remodeling older locations.
Although it had been used interchangeably with the Dairy Queen name for many decades, "DQ" became the company's official name in 2001. The font remained the same as in the original signage introduced 60 years prior. Throughout this period, the company placed the registered mark symbol immediately to the right, on the bottom side of the logo. When the company modernized its signage and logos in early 2007, it modified the font and italicized the letters, as well as adding arced lines, an orange one to represent its hot foods above and a blue one below to represent its ice cream products. In the new design, the registered mark symbol was moved to be adjacent to the letter "Q." The first overhaul of its logo in almost 70 years, the company claimed that the new logo would show brand growth and reflect the "fun and enjoyment" associated with its products. Advertising industry observers have noted that the new logo was an unneeded update of a known and trusted industry brand and that its new features were distracting.
The original signage is still in use in older locations or in locations that use a "retro" design motif in the property's design. One example is an Ottawa, Ontario outlet that used it til 2013.
Global operations
Countries currently with Dairy Queen operations:
Bahamas
Bahrain
Brunei
Cambodia
Canada
China
Guyana
Indonesia
Kuwait
Laos
Mexico
Panama
Philippines
Qatar
Thailand
Trinidad and Tobago
United States
Vietnam
Countries and regions formerly with Dairy Queen operations:
Australia
Austria
Cayman Islands
Costa Rica
Cyprus
Dominican Republic
Egypt
Gabon
Guam
Guatemala
Hungary
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Macau
Malaysia
Morocco
Oman
Poland
Puerto Rico
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
South Korea
Slovenia
Taiwan
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
See also
Fosters Freeze
List of fast food restaurant chains
List of hamburger restaurants
List of hot dog restaurants
Miracle Treat Day (Dairy Queen)
Sonic Drive-In
References
Further reading
External links
Ice cream parlors
1940 establishments in Illinois
1997 mergers and acquisitions
Berkshire Hathaway
Companies based in Edina, Minnesota
Economy of the Midwestern United States
Multinational food companies
Fast-food chains of the United States
Fast-food chains of Canada
Fast-food franchises
Fast-food hamburger restaurants
Restaurant chains in the United States
Restaurants established in 1940
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIAC
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TRIAC
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A TRIAC (triode for alternating current; also bidirectional triode thyristor or bilateral triode thyristor) is a three-terminal electronic component that conducts current in either direction when triggered. The term TRIAC is a genericised trademark.
TRIACs are a subset of thyristors (analogous to a relay in that a small voltage and current can control a much larger voltage and current) and are related to silicon controlled rectifiers (SCRs). TRIACs differ from SCRs in that they allow current flow in both directions, whereas an SCR can only conduct current in a single direction. Most TRIACs can be triggered by applying either a positive or negative voltage to the gate (an SCR requires a positive voltage). Once triggered, SCRs and TRIACs continue to conduct, even if the gate current ceases, until the main current drops below a certain level called the holding current.
Gate turn-off thyristors (GTOs) are similar to TRIACs but provide more control by turning off when the gate signal ceases.
The bidirectionality of TRIACs makes them convenient switches for alternating-current (AC). In addition, applying a trigger at a controlled phase angle of the AC in the main circuit allows control of the average current flowing into a load (phase control). This is commonly used for controlling the speed of a universal motor, dimming lamps, and controlling electric heaters. TRIACs are Bipolar devices.
Operation
To understand how TRIACs work, consider the triggering in each of the four possible combinations of gate and MT2 voltages with respect MT1. The four separate cases (quadrants) are illustrated in Figure 1. Main Terminal 1 (MT1) and Main Terminal (MT2) are also referred to as Anode 1 (A1) and Anode 2 (A2) respectively.
The relative sensitivity depends on the physical structure of a particular triac, but as a rule, quadrant I is the most sensitive (least gate current required), and quadrant 4 is the least sensitive (most gate current required).
In quadrants 1 and 2, MT2 is positive, and current flows from MT2 to MT1 through P, N, P and N layers. The N region attached to MT2 does not participate significantly. In quadrants 3 and 4, MT2 is negative, and current flows from MT1 to MT2, also through P, N, P and N layers. The N region attached to MT2 is active, but the N region attached to MT1 only participates in the initial triggering, not the bulk current flow.
In most applications, the gate current comes from MT2, so quadrants 1 and 3 are the only operating modes (both gate and MT2 positive or negative against MT1). Other applications with single polarity triggering from an IC or digital drive circuit operate in quadrants 2 and 3, where MT1 is usually connected to positive voltage (e.g. +5V) and gate is pulled down to 0V (ground).
Quadrant 1
Quadrant 1 operation occurs when the gate and MT2 are positive with respect to MT1.Figure 1
The mechanism is illustrated in Figure 3. The gate current makes an equivalent NPN transistor switch on, which in turn draws current from the base of an equivalent PNP transistor, turning it on also. Part of the gate current (dotted line) is lost through the ohmic path across the p-silicon, flowing directly into MT1 without passing through the NPN transistor base. In this case, the injection of holes in the p-silicon makes the stacked n, p and n layers beneath MT1 behave like a NPN transistor, which turns on due to the presence of a current in its base. This, in turn, causes the p, n and p layers over MT2 to behave like a PNP transistor, which turns on because its n-type base becomes forward-biased with respect to its emitter (MT2). Thus, the triggering scheme is the same as an SCR. The equivalent circuit is depicted in Figure 4.
However, the structure is different from SCRs. In particular, TRIAC always has a small current flowing directly from the gate to MT1 through the p-silicon without passing through the p-n junction between the base and the emitter of the equivalent NPN transistor. This current is indicated in Figure 3 by a dotted red line and is the reason why a TRIAC needs more gate current to turn on than a comparably rated SCR.
Generally, this quadrant is the most sensitive of the four. This is because it is the only quadrant where gate current is injected directly into the base of one of the main device transistors.
Quadrant 2
Quadrant 2 operation occurs when the gate is negative and MT2 is positive with respect to MT1.Figure 1
Figure 5 shows the triggering process. The turn-on of the device is three-fold and starts when the current from MT1 flows into the gate through the p-n junction under the gate. This switches on a structure composed by an NPN transistor and a PNP transistor, which has the gate as cathode (the turn-on of this structure is indicated by "1" in the figure). As current into the gate increases, the potential of the left side of the p-silicon under the gate rises towards MT1, since the difference in potential between the gate and MT2 tends to lower: this establishes a current between the left side and the right side of the p-silicon (indicated by "2" in the figure), which in turn switches on the NPN transistor under the MT1 terminal and as a consequence also the pnp transistor between MT2 and the right side of the upper p-silicon. So, in the end, the structure which is crossed by the major portion of the current is the same as quadrant-I operation ("3" in Figure 5).
Quadrant 3
Quadrant 3 operation occurs when the gate and MT2 are negative with respect to MT1.Figure 1
The whole process is outlined in Figure 6. The process happens in different steps here too. In the first phase, the pn junction between the MT1 terminal and the gate becomes forward-biased (step 1). As forward-biasing implies the injection of minority carriers in the two layers joining the junction, electrons are injected in the p-layer under the gate. Some of these electrons do not recombine and escape to the underlying n-region (step 2). This in turn lowers the potential of the n-region, acting as the base of a pnp transistor which switches on (turning the transistor on without directly lowering the base potential is called remote gate control). The lower p-layer works as the collector of this PNP transistor and has its voltage heightened: this p-layer also acts as the base of an NPN transistor made up by the last three layers just over the MT2 terminal, which, in turn, gets activated. Therefore, the red arrow labeled with a "3" in Figure 6 shows the final conduction path of the current.
Quadrant 4
Quadrant 4 operation occurs when the gate is positive and MT2 is negative with respect to MT1. Figure 1
Triggering in this quadrant is similar to triggering in quadrant III. The process uses a remote gate control and is illustrated in Figure 7. As current flows from the p-layer under the gate into the n-layer under MT1, minority carriers in the form of free electrons are injected into the p-region and some of them are collected by the underlying n-p junction and pass into the adjoining n-region without recombining. As in the case of a triggering in quadrant III, this lowers the potential of the n-layer and turns on the PNP transistor formed by the n-layer and the two p-layers next to it. The lower p-layer works as the collector of this PNP transistor and has its voltage heightened: this p-layer also acts as the base of an NPN transistor made up by the last three layers just over the MT2 terminal, which, in turn, gets activated. Therefore, the red arrow labeled with a "3" in Figure 6 shows the final conduction path of the current.
Generally, this quadrant is the least sensitive of the four. In addition, some models of TRIACs (logic level and snubberless types) cannot be triggered in this quadrant but only in the other three.
Issues
There are some limitations one should know when using a TRIAC in a circuit. In this section, a few are summarized.
Gate threshold current, latching current and holding current
A TRIAC starts conducting when a current flowing into or out of its gate is sufficient to turn on the relevant junctions in the quadrant of operation. The minimum current able to do this is called gate threshold current and is generally indicated by IGT. In a typical TRIAC, the gate threshold current is generally a few milliamperes, but one has to take into account also that:
IGT depends on the temperature: The higher the temperature, the higher the reverse currents in the blocked junctions. This implies the presence of more free carriers in the gate region, which lowers the gate current needed.
IGT depends on the quadrant of operation, because a different quadrant implies a different way of triggering (see here). As a rule, the first quadrant is the most sensitive (i.e. requires the least current to turn on), whereas the fourth quadrant is the least sensitive.
When turning on from the off state, IGT depends on the voltage across the two main terminals MT1 and MT2. Higher voltage between MT1 and MT2 cause greater reverse currents in the blocked junctions, thus requiring less gate current to trigger the device (similar to high temperature operation). In datasheets IGT is generally given for a specified voltage between MT1 and MT2.
When the gate current is discontinued, if the current between the two main terminals is more than what is called the latching current, the device continues to conduct. Latching current is the minimum current that keeps the device internal structure latched in the absence of gate current. The value of this parameter varies with:
gate current pulse (amplitude, shape and width)
temperature
quadrant of operation
In particular, if the pulse width of the gate current is sufficiently large (generally some tens of microseconds), the TRIAC has completed the triggering process when the gate signal is discontinued and the latching current reaches a minimum level called holding current. Holding current is the minimum required current flowing between the two main terminals that keeps the device on after it has achieved commutation in every part of its internal structure.
In datasheets, the latching current is indicated as IL, while the holding current is indicated as IH. They are typically in the order of some milliamperes.
Static dv/dt
A high between MT2 and MT1 may turn on the TRIAC when it is off. Typical values of critical static dv/dt are in the terms of volts per microsecond.
The turn-on is due to a parasitic capacitive coupling of the gate terminal with the MT2 terminal, which lets currents into the gate in response to a large rate of voltage change at MT2. One way to cope with this limitation is to design a suitable RC or RCL snubber network. In many cases this is sufficient to lower the impedance of the gate towards MT1. By putting a resistor or a small capacitor (or both in parallel) between these two terminals, the capacitive current generated during the transient flows out of the device without activating it. A careful reading of the application notes provided by the manufacturer and testing of the particular device model to design the correct network is in order. Typical values for capacitors and resistors between the gate and MT1 may be up to 100 nF and 10 Ω to 1 kΩ. Normal TRIACs, except for low-power types marketed as sensitive gate, already have such a resistor built in to safeguard against spurious dv/dt triggering. This will mask the gate's supposed diode-type behaviour when testing a TRIAC with a multimeter.
In datasheets, the static dv/dt is usually indicated as and, as mentioned before, is in relation to the tendency of a TRIAC to turn on from the off state after a large voltage rate of rise even without applying any current in the gate.
Critical di/dt
A high rate of rise of the current between MT1 and MT2 (in either direction) when the device is turning on can damage or destroy the TRIAC even if the pulse duration is very short. The reason is that during the commutation, the power dissipation is not uniformly distributed across the device. When switching on, the device starts to conduct current before the conduction finishes to spread across the entire junction. The device typically starts to conduct the current imposed by the external circuitry after some nanoseconds or microseconds but the complete switch on of the whole junction takes a much longer time, so too swift a current rise may cause local hot spots that can permanently damage the TRIAC.
In datasheets, this parameter is usually indicated as and is typically in the order of the tens of ampere per microsecond.
Commutating dv/dt and di/dt
The commutating dv/dt rating applies when a TRIAC has been conducting and attempts to turn off with a partially reactive load, such as an inductor. The current and voltage are out of phase, so when the current decreases below the holding value, the TRIAC attempts to turn off, but because of the phase shift between current and voltage, a sudden voltage step takes place between the two main terminals, which turns the device on again.
In datasheets, this parameter is usually indicated as and is generally in the order of up to some volts per microsecond.
The reason why commutating dv/dt is less than static dv/dt is that, shortly before the device tries to turn off, there is still some excess minority charge in its internal layers as a result of the previous conduction. When the TRIAC starts to turn off, these charges alter the internal potential of the region near the gate and MT1, so it is easier for the capacitive current due to dv/dt to turn on the device again.
Another important factor during a commutation from on-state to off-state is the di/dt of the current from MT1 to MT2. This is similar to the recovery in standard diodes: the higher the di/dt, the greater the reverse current. Because in the TRIAC there are parasitic resistances, a high reverse current in the p-n junctions inside it can provoke a voltage drop between the gate region and the MT1 region which may make the TRIAC stay turned on.
In a datasheet, the commutating di/dt is usually indicated as and is generally in the order of some amperes per microsecond.
The commutating dv/dt is very important when the TRIAC is used to drive a load with a phase shift between current and voltage, such as an inductive load. Suppose one wants to turn the inductor off: when the current goes to zero, if the gate is not fed, the TRIAC attempts to turn off, but this causes a step in the voltage across it due to the aforementioned phase shift. If the commutating dv/dt rating is exceeded, the device will not turn off.
Snubber circuits
When used to control reactive (inductive or capacitive) loads, care must be taken to ensure that the TRIAC turns off correctly at the end of each half-cycle of the AC in the main circuit. TRIACs can be sensitive to fast voltage changes (dv/dt) between MT1 and MT2, so a phase shift between current and voltage caused by reactive loads can lead to a voltage step that can turn the thyristor on erroneously. An electric motor is typically an inductive load and off-line power supplies—as used in most TVs and computers—are capacitive.
Unwanted turn-ons can be avoided by using a snubber circuit (usually of the resistor/capacitor or resistor/capacitor/inductor type) between MT1 and MT2. Snubber circuits are also used to prevent premature triggering, caused for example by voltage spikes in the mains supply.
Because turn-ons are caused by internal capacitive currents flowing into the gate as a consequence of a high dv/dt, (i.e., rapid voltage change) a gate resistor or capacitor (or both in parallel) may be connected between the gate and MT1 to provide a low-impedance path to MT1 and further prevent false triggering. This, however, increases the required trigger current or adds latency due to capacitor charging. On the other hand, a resistor between the gate and MT1 helps draw leakage currents out of the device, thus improving the performance of the TRIAC at high temperature, where the maximum allowed dv/dt is lower. Values of resistors less than 1kΩ and capacitors of 100nF are generally suitable for this purpose, although the fine-tuning should be done on the particular device model.
For higher-powered, more-demanding loads, two SCRs in inverse parallel may be used instead of one TRIAC. Because each SCR will have an entire half-cycle of reverse polarity voltage applied to it, turn-off of the SCRs is assured, no matter what the character of the load. However, due to the separate gates, proper triggering of the SCRs is more complex than triggering a TRIAC.
TRIACs may also fail to turn on reliably with reactive loads if the current phase shift causes the main circuit current to be below the holding current at trigger time. To overcome the problem DC or a pulse train may be used to repeatedly trigger the TRIAC until it turns on.
Application
Low-power TRIACs are used in many applications such as light dimmers, speed controls for electric fans and other electric motors, and in the modern computerized control circuits of many household small and major appliances.
When mains voltage TRIACs are triggered by microcontrollers, optoisolators are frequently used; for example optotriacs can be used to control the gate current. Alternatively, where safety allows and electrical isolation of the controller isn't necessary, one of the microcontroller's power rails may be connected to one of the mains supply. In these situations it is normal to connect the neutral terminal to the positive rail of the microcontroller's power supply, together with A1 of the triac, with A2 connected to the live. The TRIAC's gate can be connected through an opto-isolated transistor, and sometimes a resistor to the microcontroller, so that bringing the voltage down to the microcontroller's logic zero pulls enough current through the TRIAC's gate to trigger it. This ensures that the TRIAC is triggered in quadrants II and III and avoids quadrant IV where TRIACs are typically insensitive.
Example data
High commutation (two- and three-quadrant) TRIACs
Three-quadrant TRIACs only operate in quadrants 1 through 3 and cannot be triggered in quadrant 4. These devices are made specifically for improved commutation and can often control reactive loads without the use of a snubber circuit.
The first TRIACs of this type were marketed by Thomson Semiconductors (now ST Microelectronics) under the name "Alternistor". Later versions are sold under the trademark "Snubberless" and "ACS" (AC Switch, though this type also incorporates a gate buffer, which further precludes Quadrant I operation). Littelfuse also uses the name "Alternistor". Philips Semiconductors (now NXP Semiconductors) originated the trademark "Hi-Com" (High Commutation).
Often these TRIACs can operate with smaller gate-current to be directly driven by logic level components.
See also
DIAC (diode for alternating current)
Quadrac
Silicon controlled rectifier (SCR)
Triode
References
Further reading
Thyristor Theory and Design Considerations; ON Semiconductor; 240 pages; 2006; HBD855/D. (Free PDF download)
External links
Solid state switches
Power electronics
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank%20Gotch
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Frank Gotch
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Frank Alvin Gotch (April 27, 1877 – December 17, 1917) was an American professional wrestler. Gotch was the first American professional wrestler to win the world heavyweight free-style championship, and he is credited for popularizing professional wrestling in the United States. He competed back when the contests at championship level were largely legit (see catch wrestling), and his reign as World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion (from 1908 to 1913) is one of the ten longest in the history of professional wrestling. He became one of the most popular athletes in America from the 1900s to the 1910s. Pro Wrestling Illustrated described Gotch as "arguably the best North American professional wrestler of the 20th century".
Early life
The son of Frederick Rudolph and Amelia Gotch, and of German ancestry, he was born and raised on a small farm three miles south of Humboldt, Iowa. He took up wrestling in his teens, earning a reputation by beating locals. He adopted the toe hold as his signature finishing move.
Professional wrestling career
Gotch wrestled and won his first match against Marshall Green in Humboldt on April 2, 1899, but his first important match was in Lu Verne, Iowa on June 16, 1899, against a man claiming to be a furniture dealer from a neighboring town. Gotch held his own for nearly two hours, but lost the hard-fought contest. Only later when he received the impressed man's visiting card, he did learn that his opponent had actually been reigning American Heavyweight Champion Dan McLeod. On December 18, 1899, Gotch challenged another former American Heavyweight Champion, "Farmer" Martin Burns, losing in 11 minutes, but impressing Burns as well, who offered to train Gotch. Under the guidance of Burns, Gotch won a series of matches in Iowa and later Yukon. While in the Yukon, Gotch wrestled under the name Frank Kennedy and won the title of "Champion of the Klondike". During his time in the Yukon, Gotch tried his hand at boxing, but failed miserably against the heavyweight Frank "Paddy" Slavin.
Gotch returned to Iowa and instantly challenged the reigning American Heavyweight Champion Tom Jenkins. Gotch lost his first match in 1903, before defeating Jenkins in a rematch on January 27, 1904, to take the championship. After trading the title with Jenkins and Fred Beell, Gotch set his sights on the World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship, then held by the undefeated Estonian George Hackenschmidt. The opponent, called the "Russian Lion", had gained undisputed title recognition by defeating Jenkins in New York in 1905. Upon defeating Jenkins, however, Hackenschmidt ignored Gotch's challenge and sailed home to England.
In 1905 Gotch beat Jack Carkeek in a Cornish wrestling match, while Jack claimed to be world Cornish wrestling champion.
Gotch and Hackenschmidt finally met on April 3, 1908, at the Dexter Park Pavilion in Chicago. Showing his contempt for Gotch and for American wrestling in general, Hackenschmidt was not in the best condition, unlike Gotch, who used his speed, defense and rough tactics to wear Hackenschmidt down and then assume the attack. The wrestlers stood on their feet for two full hours before Gotch was able to get behind Hackenschmidt and take him down. While on their feet, Gotch made sure to lean on Hackenschmidt to wear him down. He bullied him around the ring, and his thumbing and butting left Hackenschmidt covered in blood. Hackenschmidt complained to the referee of Gotch's foul tactics and asked that Gotch be forced to take a hot shower to rid his body of an abundance of oil, but the referee ignored the complaints and told Hackenschmidt he should have noticed the oil before the match began. The match continued until the two-hour mark, when Hackenschmidt was forced against the ropes. Gotch tore him off the ropes, threw Hackenschmidt down and rode him hard for three minutes, working for his dreaded toe hold. Hackenschmidt had trained to avoid this hold, which he did, but the effort took his last remaining strength. Hackenschmidt quit the fall. "I surrender the championship of the world to Mr. Gotch", he said, and stood up and shook Gotch's hand. The wrestlers then retired to their dressing rooms before coming out for the second fall, but Hackenschmidt refused to return to the ring, telling the referee to declare Gotch the winner, thereby relinquishing his title to him.
"He is the king of the class, the greatest man by far I ever met", Hackenschmidt said. "After going nearly two hours with him, my muscles became stale. My feet also gave out. I had trained constantly against the toe hold and had strained the muscles of my legs. When I found myself weakening, I knew there was no use continuing and that I had no chance to win. That was the reason I conceded the championship to him. I have no desire to wrestle him again. A return match would not win back my title". Hackenschmidt later reversed his opinion of Gotch and Americans in general, claiming to have been fouled by Gotch and victimized in America, and calling for a rematch in Europe.
As undisputed free-style heavyweight champion of the world, Gotch spent the next three years establishing his dominance over the sport, defeating the likes of Jenkins, Dr. Ben Roller, and Stanislaus Zbyszko, who was believed to have won over 900 matches before falling to Gotch on June 1, 1910. The victory over Zbyszko was particularly spectacular, as Gotch took both falls in slightly less than half an hour, and thoroughly dominated Zbyszko. He took the first fall in just six seconds with a surprise move and quick pin, and won the second fall in only 27 minutes. Gotch outmaneuvered and outclassed Zbyszko every second of the match.
Gotch became a national sensation, and he was in demand everywhere for public appearances. He starred in a play called All About A Bout, and whenever he walked on stage he was greeted by a standing ovation. He was invited to the White House by United States President Theodore Roosevelt, and wrestled a Japanese ju-jitsu expert in the East Hall, making his opponent submit. The night before his second match with Hackenschmidt, he attended a Chicago Cubs baseball game at Wrigley Field with his wife and in-laws and took his seat down front. After the game, nearly every member of the Cubs team came to his private box and asked for his autograph. When he traveled overseas with his play, Gotch was a huge hit, as it seemed that everywhere he went, fans wanted to see him. Everywhere he went, he made wrestling "big time".
Gotch met Hackenschmidt again on September 4, 1911, at the newly opened Comiskey Park in Chicago, which drew a crowd of nearly 30,000 spectators and a record gate of $87,000. The rematch is one of the most controversial and talked about matches in professional wrestling history, as Hackenschmidt injured his knee against Roller, his chief training partner. Years later, wrestler Ad Santel told Lou Thesz that he was paid $5,000 by Gotch's backers to cripple Hackenschmidt in training, and make it look like an accident. However, according to Hackenschmidt himself, the injury was accidentally inflicted by his sparring partner, Dr. Roller, when trying to hold Hackenschmidt down onto his knees and Roller's right foot striking Hackenschmidt's right knee. According to Hackenschmidt, his sparring partners were Americus (Gus Schoenlein), Jacobus Koch, Wladek Zbyszko and Dr. Roller. Ad Santel is not mentioned in any account of Hackenschmidt's training by either Hackenschmidt or Roller, both of whom offered their insights and accounts. Whatever the case may be, if the injury was real, Dr. Roller did not consider it serious and referee Ed Smith dismissed it as inconsequential. Hackenschmidt himself ignored it completely in declaring, the day before the match, that he was "fit to wrestle for my life" and was "satisfied with my condition and confident of the outcome". If there was a knee injury, Gotch discovered it quickly and took advantage of it, so Hackenschmidt was easy prey for Gotch, losing in straight falls in only 30 minutes. Gotch clinched the match with his feared toe hold, which forced Hackenschmidt to quit.
Gotch reigned as the World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion from his first victory over Hackenschmidt in 1908 until he retired in 1913 after defeating Estonian Georg Lurich April 1, 1913, in Kansas City, Missouri. Gotch is one of the longer reigning world champions in the history of professional wrestling, with a reign that spanned nearly five years; the only other champions to have longer reigns than Gotch are Bruno Sammartino, who held the WWF World Heavyweight Championship for a record of seven years and eight months, Lou Thesz, whose fifth NWA World Heavyweight Championship lasted seven years and seven months, and Verne Gagne who held the AWA World Heavyweight Title for seven years and three months.
Wrestling style
Gotch competed in an era when a championship wrestling match was the same as a championship prize fight: i.e., it was a major event for which the wrestlers went into training and which promoters publicized for weeks. Thus, he did not have a long career in terms of the number of matches wrestled. His mentor Farmer Burns, and later champions Ed Lewis, the "Strangler", as well as Lou Thesz, each engaged in more than 6,000 matches in their careers. Gotch engaged in only 160, finishing with a record of 154 wins and only 6 losses. Of those six losses, however, two were in the first year of his career – to Dan McLeod and Farmer Burns – and three were to Tom Jenkins. His last defeat was to Fred Beell on December 1, 1906, when he had crashed head-first into an uncovered turnbuckle and been rendered nearly unconscious. He defeated Beell in seven rematches and never lost again by the time of his retirement in 1913.
Gotch was, by all accounts, a superior professional wrestler possessing tremendous strength, lightning quickness, genuine agility, cat-like reflexes, impeccable technique, superb ring generalship, a mastery of the use of leverage, and a full knowledge of professional wrestling holds, counterholds and strategy. He was always in the best of condition and possessed both enormous courage and an indomitable will to win, ever ready to match his heart, his gameness, against any man in the world. He was highly aggressive, but always kept his cool. Critics saw in him both the strength of the old school of professional wrestling and the skill of the new, "as agile as a cat in his manoeuvers" and having "the grappling sport down to such science that he had assumed a rank all by himself". Gotch's measurements for his 1911 victory over Hackenschmidt were: age – 33; weight – 204 pounds; height – 5'11"; reach – 73"; biceps – 17.5"; forearm – 14"; neck – 18"; chest – 45"; waist – 34"; thigh – 22"; calf – 18".
There is another side to this story that, when Lou Thesz was just starting out in the early 1930s, there were a good many professional wrestlers still active who had known Gotch and were not reluctant to talk about him. "The picture that emerged of Gotch from those conversations", Thesz recalled, "was of a man who succeeded at his business primarily because he was, for lack of a kinder description, a dirty wrestler. That's not to say that he wasn't competent, because everyone I ever talked with said he was one of the best. But those same people described him as someone who delighted in hurting or torturing lesser opponents, even when they were supposed to be working out, and he was always looking for an illegal edge when he was matched against worthy ones. One of the old-timers I met was a fine man named Charlie Cutler, who knew Gotch very well and succeeded him as world champion; according to Cutler, Gotch would check the oil, pull hair and even break a bone to get an advantage in a contest, and he was unusually careful to have the referee in his pocket, too, in case all else failed". Referee Ed Smith, who officiated several of Gotch's bouts, including both of the Gotch-Hackenschmidt contests, had observed after the second match that "to my mind... he wasn't just exactly through one hundred percent on the courageous side. Two or three times I saw needless acts of absolute cruelty on his part that I did not like. Always will I think that the really courageous man, no matter how ferocious and filled with the killing instinct and eager to win he may be, is willing to let up on a beaten foe and not punish needlessly or wantonly".
Marriage
For years one of America's most eligible bachelors, Gotch married Gladys Oestrich on February 11, 1911. They had one son, Robert Frederick Gotch.
Retirement and death
While in retirement, Gotch joined Sells-Floto Circus where he would pay any man $250.00 if they could last 15 minutes in a match against him without being pinned or conceding. Not once did he have to pay. He grew tired of touring and moved back to Humboldt. After a year of health troubles, Gotch died at home in 1917 of what was rumored to be syphilis, but the official cause of death was uremic poisoning. He left behind his wife Gladys and their son, Robert Friedrich. All are entombed together in the Gotch mausoleum in the Union Cemetery in Humboldt.
Legacy
"The story of American Wrestling at its greatest", Nat Fleischer wrote in 1936, "is the story of the career of its most illustrious champion—Frank Gotch... Gotch was to wrestling history in this country what John L. Sullivan was to boxing. He dominated the field. Through his extraordinary ability, he gained for wrestling many converts and brought the sport into such favor that it became as big in the promotorial field as boxing".
As Mark Palmer pointed out, "For starters, George Hackenschmidt and Frank Gotch were major sports superstars of the early 20th century. Fans of all ages collected cabinet cards and postcards with their images, read their books, and devoured articles about them in newspapers. Their epic matches were front-page news around the world—akin to today's Super Bowl or soccer's World Cup in terms of garnering global attention—and helped to launch organized amateur wrestling in the United States in the early part of the 20th century. In fact, a large number of high school and college wrestling programs can trace their roots back to the 1910s and 1920s—the era when Hackenschmidt and Gotch were still household names, and highly respected athletes".
Gotch was also a major sports superstar, often called the Hulk Hogan of his day, who lifted professional wrestling to new heights of popularity. When he became world champion, there were not many sports competing with wrestling for public attention. Horse racing remained a favorite sport and major league baseball was growing in popularity, but was not yet the national pastime. Automobile racing was in its infancy; golf was still the province of the wealthy; basketball had just been invented and was vying for attention; boxing offered a man a chance at fame and fortune, but was at this time riddled with scandals; the National Hockey League was formed the same year; and college football—the Ivy League game—was on the verge of being outlawed because it was too rough and too dangerous. Wrestling at the higher professional levels was still a legit sport with the added bonus that it was popular on every continent of the globe. A number of great professional wrestlers were competing for top honors. In India, The Great Gama was already a legendary champion, and in Europe George Hackenschmidt had reigned supreme with Stanislaus Zbyszko coming along. However, in the United States Tom Jenkins had been rather easily beaten by Hackenschmidt, so there was no American to capture the nation's fancy until Gotch; and none of the other great professional wrestlers had either the amazing physical attributes or the gift for self-promotion that Gotch possessed. Furthermore, the United States was beginning to dominate some of the world's major sports. Americans already dominated boxing and within a decade would begin to dominate golf. When Gotch defeated Hackenschmidt, the domination of professional wrestling passed to the Americans. In addition, many matches had still been conducted under Greco-Roman wrestling rules, but this match caused Greco-Roman to be forever replaced by the more exciting catch-as-catch-can style.
Because of both his superior ability and his gift for self-promotion, Gotch became one of America's greatest sports idols. He achieved a level of popularity similar to that formerly held by boxer John L. Sullivan and harness racehorse Dan Patch, and enjoyed later by such sports heroes of the Golden Age of Sports as boxing's Jack Dempsey, baseball's Babe Ruth, tennis's Bill Tilden and golf's Bobby Jones. This in turn made professional wrestling mainstream. Mac Davis wrote in 100 Greatest Sports Heroes, "As the idol of millions in the United States, Canada and Mexico, Gotch made [professional] wrestling a big-time sport in his day. He drew larger audiences than did the heavyweight champion of boxing when defending his title".
Gotch's first match against Hackenschmidt also remains perhaps the most famous professional wrestling encounter of all time.
Honors and tributes
Gotch was among the first elected to the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame (1951), and was the first inductee to both the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum (2002) in Amsterdam, New York and the George Tragos & Lou Thesz Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame (1999) in Waterloo, Iowa.
There is a 67-acre camping park named the Frank A. Gotch State Park, four miles south of Humboldt near his childhood farm, in homage to Gotch.
The Humboldt Community School District sponsors the annual Frank Gotch Wrestling Tournament. Because of Gotch's legacy, Iowa remains a wrestling stronghold at the high school and collegiate levels to this day. Gotch's success and fame is credited with playing a part in the creation of the Iowa High School Wrestling Tournament in 1921.
The 1957 musical The Music Man mentions the exciting contest between Gotch and Strangler Ed Lewis, whose nickname is mispronounced as "Strangular" by River City Mayor Shinn in one of many malapropisms throughout the show.
On July 4, 2012, an eight-foot tall bronze statue of Gotch was unveiled in Bicknell Park in Humboldt, the site of his outdoor training camp where as many as 1,000 people watched him train before his second Hackenschmidt match. In December 2011, a street running along the park was renamed Frank Gotch Boulevard.
There is an extensive Gotch collection in the Dan Gable Wrestling Museum in Waterloo, Iowa. On display are the wrestling shoes he wore into the ring in 1911 against Hackenschmidt, his Mason's sword and leather scabbard, the roll-top desk that sat in his living room in Humboldt, and many other rare items.
In addition, an independent film company acquired the rights to the book Gotch: An American Hero in 2008, a biography written by Mike Chapman published in 1999, and is listed as "in pre-production" on its official website, yet still does not appear on the film company's IMDb credits page as in production as of April 2015.
In February 2015, WHO-TV news of Des Moines aired Iowa Icon: Gotch Up There with Feller, Warner, Gable with quotes from University of Iowa wrestling coach Tom Brands, among others, with the five-minute feature's title recognizing Gotch as one of Iowa's sports icons alongside Bob Feller, Kurt Warner, and college wrestling legend Dan Gable. The video and story is archived on its website.
Karl Gotch and Simon Gotch both took their professional wrestling names as a tribute to him.
On April 2, 2016, Gotch was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a "Legacy" member.
Championships and accomplishments
Catch wrestling
American Catch-as-Catch-can Championship (1 time)
World Catch-as-Catch-Can Championship (1 time)
Professional wrestling
American Heavyweight Wrestling Championship (3 times)
Champion of the Klondike
World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship (1 time)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Class of 1999
International Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Class of 2021
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
Class of 2002
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996)
WWE
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2016)
Iowa Sports Hall of Fame
Class of 1951
See also
"Karl Gotch": a moniker taken in honour of Frank Gotch.
"Simon Gotch": a moniker taken in honour of Frank Gotch.
List of premature professional wrestling deaths
References
Specific
General
Gotch: A German-American Hero
Hickok Sports Biography: Gotch, Frank A.
External links
Frank Gotch grave in Union Cemetery Humboldt, Iowa
Frank Gotch Wrestling History on Legacy of Wrestling
Gotch: An American Hero by Mike Chapman on frankgotch.com
1877 births
1917 deaths
People from Humboldt, Iowa
American catch wrestlers
American male professional wrestlers
American people of German descent
People associated with physical culture
Professional wrestlers from Iowa
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
WWE Hall of Fame Legacy inductees
19th-century professional wrestlers
20th-century professional wrestlers
Deaths by poisoning
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture%20of%20Gibraltar
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Culture of Gibraltar
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The culture of Gibraltar reflects Gibraltarians' diverse origins. While there are Spanish and British influences, a result of the territory's status as a British overseas territory and its proximity to Spain, the ethnic origins of most Gibraltarians are a mix of Andalusian Spaniards, Genoese, Maltese, Portuguese and British. The main religion is Christianity, the majority group being the Roman Catholic Church, then the Church of England. There is a long established Sephardic Jewish community, a number of Hindu Indians and a Moroccan Muslim population. Gibraltarians of Genoese origin came to The Rock in the 18th century, with the Maltese and Portuguese following in the 19th century, coming to work and trade in the British military base. Spanish Andalusian origins are the result of generations of intermarriage with inhabitants of surrounding towns.
During the Second World War, the whole civilian population of The Rock was evacuated by the British government, which decreed that "the fortress comes first". They were moved to the United Kingdom, particularly to Fulham and Kensington in London and Ballymena in Northern Ireland, as well as Jamaica and Madeira. This served to strengthen a Gibraltarian, as opposed to simply British, identity, and after the war, there was a successful campaign for repatriation.
Cultural relationships with United Kingdom and Spain
British Gibraltarians
Gibraltarians have historically been proud of their British heritage, and unlike the inhabitants of other territories, sought to strengthen, rather than loosen their ties with the UK and the British Crown, seeing themselves as "more British than the British". This sense of being British was particularly strong when the frontier with Spain was closed in 1969, and all communications links were severed. Until 16 December 2006, the only flights from Gibraltar Airport, were those to the UK. The fact that they are largely of Mediterranean appearance and speak an Andalusian Spanish variant, known as Llanito gives Gibraltarians a strong resemblance to Andalusian Spaniards, despite the Gibraltarian's distinct cultural heritage and identity.
Religion
Most Gibraltarians are Roman Catholic, with the Diocese of Gibraltar being directly responsible to the Vatican. The Rock also forms part of the Church of England diocese covering mainland Europe, with a "Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe". There is also a Methodist Church and St Andrew's Church (part of the Church of Scotland).
There is a small (800 members) but very influential Jewish minority, active in business and politics, and five synagogues. Most Moroccans are Muslim, and there is a large mosque at Europa Point, the Ibrahim-al-Ibrahim Mosque, paid for by Saudi Arabia. Most Indians are Hindu, with their own local temple.
Additionally there are two very active congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses sharing the same Kingdom Hall; one has meetings in English and the other in Spanish.
Relations with Spain
Historically, cultural ties with Spain have been strong; a variant of Andalusian Spanish, "Llanito", being the vernacular language of the territory. Intermarriage between Gibraltarians and Spaniards resulted in many people having relatives on the other side of the frontier, known in Spanish as La Verja or 'the fence'. These people were badly affected by the closure of the frontier in 1969, which even saw telephone links severed, so that the only way that families could communicate was to shout across the border gates. Others took the more cumbersome and costly route of travelling first from Gibraltar to Tangiers by ferry and then taking another ferry to Algeciras, before taking a final coach to La Línea de la Concepción. A journey that would take half a day, when the end destination would have been within walking distance under normal circumstances.
Since the frontier with Spain was reopened, ties with the hinterland, known as the "Campo de Gibraltar", have increased, with many buying property in places like La Línea de la Concepción, where prices are considerably lower, Sotogrande and even further afield like the Costa del Sol. On the weekends, many flock across the frontier, with livelier nightclubs and bars than in Gibraltar. Younger Gibraltarians have considerable exposure to popular culture from Spain, and even vice versa, the pop group "Taxi" having found success on the Spanish charts, virtually all of its songs being in Spanish. In addition, Gibraltarians of all ages are often avid supporters of Spanish football teams like FC Barcelona and Real Madrid C.F. as well as English teams such as Manchester United F.C. and Arsenal F.C.
However, the Gibraltar Football Association's application for membership of UEFA, which would enable it to participate in the European Football Championships and the Football World Cup, has met with strong opposition from the Royal Spanish Football Federation. This is seen as yet another attempt to deny the existence of Gibraltar internationally.
While Gibraltarians have multiple identities, seeing themselves to varying degrees as Gibraltarian, British and European, they do not generally identify with the Spanish state. While some in Britain's Foreign Office would like to see this closening of ties result in an 'osmosis' between The Rock and the "Campo de Gibraltar", there is no prospect of Gibraltarians accepting absorption into Spain. A trip across the frontier, even to La Línea, is still described as "going to Spain".
Relations with Britain
British influence remains strong. Spanish may be widely spoken, but it is mainly used as a vernacular language, English being the only official language used in government, commerce, education and the media. Gibraltarians going on to higher education attend university in the UK and not in Spain. Many university graduates remain in the UK to pursue careers there. After the Second World War, most evacuees were repatriated, but some stayed on, while many also moved to the UK, thereby increasing family ties with the "mother country". While television from Spain is easily received and widely watched, the availability of British television via satellite, particularly Sky and the BBC, means that Gibraltarians are as familiar with British news and popular culture as people in the UK itself.
Surnames
Many Gibraltarians have names that reflect their mixed British and Mediterranean heritage usually with British first names like Keith, Kyle, Nigel, James, John, Marie, Natalie, Samantha, etc. with surnames originating from all over the Mediterranean and beyond. Surnames in Gibraltar include those originating from:
Genoa
E.g. Alecio, Bossano, Bottaro, Canessa, Cavilla, Culatto, Danino, Devincenzi, Felice, Ferrary, Ferro, Galliano, Imossi, Isola, Lavarello, Licudi, Massetti, Montegriffo, Olivero, Parody, Passano, Pitaluga, Pitto, Pizzarello, Povedano, Ramo, Risso, Sciacaluga, Stagnetto
E.g. Aswani, Budhrani, Karnani, Kumar, Mahtani
E.g. Agius, Attard, Azzopardi, Borg, Buhagiar, Buttigieg, Calleja, Canepa, Camilleri, Caruana, Debono, Farrugia, Mifsud, Robba, Sant, Spiteri, Teuma, Xerri, Zammit
E.g. Britto, Coelho, Correia, Gonçalves, Mascarenhas, Netto, Oliveira, Tavares
Sephardic Jewish
E.g. Abudarham, Attias, Belilo, Benady, Benamor, Benyunes, Cohen, Federico, Gabay, Hassan, Levy, Serfaty, Serruya, Wahnon
E.g. Borrell, Garcia, Gomez, Gonzalez, Lopez, Linares, Mañasco, Martinez, Ocaña, Ramirez, Reyes, Rodriguez, Sanchez, Santos, Vallejo, Vinent, Perez, Hernandez, Moreno, Sevilla, Diaz, Romero, Navarro, Torres, Fernandez, Vasquez
E.g. Corby, Crisp, Feetham, Finlayson, Francis, Hook, Holmes, Jones, Randall, Richardson, Tewkesbury, Neish, McKnight
Irish
E.g. FitzGerald, Byrne, McCarthy
'Gibraltarian' vs 'People of Gibraltar'
Gibraltarian British
While many outsiders use the terms 'Gibraltarians', 'people of Gibraltar' and 'residents of Gibraltar' interchangeably, strictly speaking, 'Gibraltarian' should be used only to describe those British citizens registered as having Gibraltarian status.
The UK originally regarded Gibraltarians as British Overseas Territories citizens (BOTC). In 1981 Gibraltarians successfully campaigned against this classification under the British Nationality Act, which would have deprived them of the right of abode in the UK, along with other colonial subjects. This was partly due to Gibraltar's status as part of the then European Community (now European Union). As a result, the Gibraltarians acquired the right to register as full British citizens.
British passports issued in Gibraltar differ from those issued in the UK, in that they feature on the cover the word "Gibraltar" underneath "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". Whereas UK-issued passports state that "Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty the Queen to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance", Gibraltar-issued passports state that it is the Governor of Gibraltar who requests and requires this.
In 2004 an electoral register taken for the purposes of elections for the European Parliament showed that there were only 95 persons with the status of BOTC. Spain opposed the enfranchisement of the Gibraltarians in EU elections on the basis of the misconception that Gibraltarians were not full British citizens, but Commonwealth citizens, despite Commonwealth citizens living in the UK having always been able to vote in European elections.
Other British
There is a sizeable British expatriate minority, classified as 'Other British' and sometimes referred to by the native Gibraltarians rather pejoratively as guiris. Historically, many came with the British military or as civil servants, with many marrying locals, and registering as Gibraltarians themselves, although any British citizen resident on The Rock for at least six months may vote. With the decline of the military presence, and the introduction of self-government, most from the UK instead come to work in the offshore finance sector. Many affluent people from the UK and elsewhere are classed as "High Net Worth Individuals", who receive tax concessions in return for buying property and residing locally for at least part of the year. More recently, many futures traders have come to the Rock, since the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE) switched to electronic trading in 1999, thereby reducing the need to be in London. Some in Gibraltar have criticised the current government's policy, on the grounds that too much is being done to develop luxury properties for 'High Net Worth Individuals', and not enough to develop property for local people, a common complaint in many other small offshore jurisdictions. However, this should not be construed as hostility to British people or expatriates.
Moroccans
Following the closure of the frontier, Gibraltar could no longer rely on Spanish workers commuting from the Campo, resulting in a labour shortage. Gibraltar instead looked to Morocco, with many workers coming over by ferry and staying in government hostels. Although they paid income tax and social insurance, they were denied the right to either permanent residence or citizenship, only having renewable work permits. This policy has prompted criticism from human rights groups in the UK, who describe living and working conditions for Moroccans in Gibraltar as degrading.
Indians
Most Indians in Gibraltar are in business, many of the shops on the Rock's Main Street being Indian-owned. Initially not able to obtain citizenship, an increasing number have done so.
Sport
The Ministry for Sport, headed by the Hon Edwin Reyes, Minister for Sport and Culture, is responsible for sports policy matters and the provision of support to educational establishments and the governing bodies of sport in Gibraltar.
Under the chairmanship of the Minister, a Gibraltar Sports Advisory Council has been set up to advise the Government of Gibraltar on all matters relating to sport.
The Government recognizes the benefits derived from participation in sports and recreational activities. Importance is given to the availability of suitable facilities for the practice of sport. There are a large number of Sports facilities in Gibraltar, of varying standards. These provide opportunities for residents and visitors alike to enjoy sport as a recreation and for the serious sports enthusiasts to improve standards and participate in local and International events.
There are, at the moment, eighteen Gibraltar Sports Associations that have gained official recognition from their respective International Governing Bodies. Others, including the Gibraltar National Olympic Committee, have submitted applications for recognition which are being considered.
In late 1999 a Sports Development Unit was set up to assist Gibraltar governing bodies of sport and Educational establishments to improve standards.
Gibraltar's resident population is active in sport and standards are, by and large, rather high, in relation to Gibraltar's population. Participation in officially recognised or other sports events, abroad or in Gibraltar, is welcomed by Gibraltar sports persons.
Gibraltar's sports facilities are also being used by foreign sports persons for 'warm-weather' training. This practice is being encouraged and more and better facilities are projected in order to improve the product for locals and visitors alike.
The Gibraltar Football Association
The GFA was formed as the Gibraltar Civilian Football Association in 1895, changing to its current name in later years. It is one of the oldest football associations in the world.
The GFA was formed as an increasing number of football clubs were coming into existence in Gibraltar, and the association was designed to bring some form of organisation to the game there. Between the association's formation and 1907 the only football competition in Gibraltar was the Merchant's Cup. However, in 1907 the GFA established a league to complement the existing cup competition.
By 1901, the GFA had established a representative "national" team, competing against military teams. This representative team continued to play down the years, their highlight probably being a draw against Real Madrid in 1949.
The GFA affiliated with The Football Association in 1909, but is currently trying to become a full member of UEFA so that its national team can compete in the European Football Championship and the Football World Cup.
Gibraltar Football League
The Gibraltar Football League was established by the Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) in 1905. It originally contained eight member clubs, but it has grown over the years.
In 1909 the league grew to two divisions, and it currently has three divisions which clubs can be promoted and relegated between at the end of each season.
The Gibraltar cricket team
Cricket has been played in Gibraltar by British servicemen since the late 18th century. A cricket ground is known to have existed north of the Rock of Gibraltar in 1800. Civilians were playing the game as well as servicemen by 1822.
The Gibraltar Cricket Club was formed in 1883, and formed the backbone of civilian cricket until well into the 20th Century.
In 1890, a ship carrying the Australian cricket team on the way to a tour of England, docked in Gibraltar Harbour after a collision with two other ships. The Australians played a game against a Gibraltar Garrison team. The local side were dismissed for just 25, and the Australians won the game, scoring 150/8.
Gibraltar first participated in the ICC Trophy in 1982, and have played every tournament since, with the exception of the 2005 tournament, for which they failed to qualify. They have also competed in the European Championship on every occasion since it began in 1996.
Rugby Union
Campo Gibraltar Rugby Union Football Club plays all its games in nearby Spain.
Music
Gibraltar has a small but thriving music scene spanning several genres, from electronic music to singer-songwriters and reggaes. Its best-known bands internationally were Melon Diesel (1995–2003), who gained considerable fame in both Spain and Latin America, and Breed 77 (1996–2018), who gained traction in the UK and Europe.
Cuisine
Gibraltarian cuisine has evolved over the past two centuries as a unique blend of various dishes, of which calentita is the most iconic.
See also
Sport in Gibraltar
References
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lope%20de%20Vega
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Lope de Vega
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Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio (25 November 156227 August 1635) was a Spanish playwright, poet, and novelist who was a key figure in the Spanish Golden Age (1492–1659) of Baroque literature. In the literature of Spain, Lope de Vega is second to Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes said that Lope de Vega was “The Phoenix of Wits” (Fénix de los ingenios) and “Monster of Nature” (Monstruo de naturaleza)
Lope de Vega renewed the literary lfe of Spanish theatre when it became mass culture, and with the playwrights Pedro Calderón de la Barca and Tirso de Molina defined the characteristics of Spanish Baroque theatre with great insight into the human condition. The literary production of Lope de Vega includes 3,000 sonnets, three novels, four novellas, nine epic poems, and approximately 500 stageplays.
Personally and professionally, Lope de Vega was friend to the writer Francisco de Quevedo and arch-enemy of the dramatist Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. The volume of literary works produced by Lope de Vega earned him the envy of his contempories, such as Cervantes and Luis de Góngora, and the admiration of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe for such a vast and colourful oeuvre. Lope de Vega was also a close friend of Sebastian Francisco de Medrano, founder and president of the Poetic Academy of Madrid. Lope de Vega would attend Medrano's Academy from 1616-1626, his relationship with Medrano is evident in his "El Laurel de Apolo" (1630) in silva VII.
Life
Youth
Lope de Vega Carpio was born in Madrid, in the Puerta de Guadalajara to a family of natives of the valley of Carriedo. His father, Félix de Vega, was an embroiderer. Little is known of his mother, Francisca Fernández Flores. He later took the distinguished surname of Carpio from his paternal grandmother, Catalina del Carpio.
After a brief stay in Valladolid, his father moved to Madrid in 1561, perhaps drawn by the possibilities of the new capital city. However, Lope de Vega would later affirm that his father arrived in Madrid through a love affair from which his future mother was to rescue him. Thus the writer became the fruit of this reconciliation and owed his existence to the same jealousies he would later analyze so much in his dramatic works.
The first indications of young Lope's genius became apparent in his earliest years. His friend and biographer Pérez de Montalbán stated that at the age of five he was already reading Spanish and Latin. While he was still unable to write, he would share his breakfast with the older boys in exchange for their help scribing his verses. By his tenth birthday, he was translating Latin verse. He wrote his first play when he was 12, allegedly El verdadero amante, as he would later affirm in his dedication of the work to his son Lope, although these statements are most probably exaggerations.
His great talent bore him to the school of poet and musician Vicente Espinel in Madrid, to whom he later always referred with veneration. In his fourteenth year he continued his studies in the Colegio Imperial, a Jesuit school in Madrid, from which he absconded to take part in a military expedition in Portugal. Following that escapade, he had the good fortune of being taken into the protection of the Bishop of Ávila, who recognized the lad's talent and saw him enrolled in the University of Alcalá. Following graduation, Lope had planned to follow in his patron's footsteps and join the priesthood, but those plans were dashed by falling in love and realizing that celibacy was not for him. Thus he failed to attain a bachelor's degree and made what living he could as a secretary to aristocrats or by writing plays.
In 1583 Lope enlisted in the Spanish Navy and saw action at the Battle of Ponta Delgada in the Azores, under the command of his future friend Álvaro de Bazán, 1st Marquis of Santa Cruz, to whose son he would later dedicate a play.
Following this, he returned to Madrid and began his career as a playwright in earnest. He also began a love affair with Elena Osorio (the "Filis" of his poems), who was separated from her husband, actor Cristóbal Calderón, and was the daughter of a leading theater director. When, after some five years of this torrid affair, Elena spurned Lope in favor of another suitor, his vitriolic attacks on her and her family landed him in jail for libel and, ultimately, earned him the punishment of eight years' banishment from the court and two years' exile from Castile.
Exile
After libelling members of his family in his writing, Lope de Vega undauntedly went into exile. He took with him 16-year-old Isabel de Alderete y Urbina, known in his poems by the anagram "Belisa," the daughter of Philip II's court painter, Diego de Urbina. The two married under pressure from her family on 10 May 1588.
Just a few weeks later, on 29 May, Lope signed up for another tour of duty with the Spanish Navy: this was the summer of 1588, and the Armada was about to sail against England. It is likely that his military enlistment was the condition required by Isabel's family, eager to be rid of such an ill presentable son-in-law, to forgive him for carrying her away.
Lope's luck again served him well, however, and his ship, the San Juan, was one of the vessels to make it home to Spanish harbors in the aftermath of that failed expedition. Back in Spain by December 1588, he settled in the city of Valencia. There he lived with Isabel de Urbina and continued perfecting his dramatic formula participating regularly in the tertulia known as the Academia de los nocturnos, in the company of such accomplished dramatists as the canon Francisco Agustín Tárrega, the secretary to the Duke of Gandía Gaspar de Aguilar, Guillén de Castro, Carlos Boyl, and Ricardo de Turia. With them he refined his approach to theatrical writing by violating the unity of action and weaving two plots together in a single play, a technique known as imbroglio.
In 1590, at the end of his two years' exile from the realm, he moved to Toledo to serve Francisco de Ribera Barroso, who later became the 2nd Marquis of Malpica, and, some time later, Antonio Álvarez de Toledo, 5th Duke of Alba. In this later appointment he became gentleman of the bedchamber to the ducal court of the House of Alba, where he lived from 1592 to 1595. Here he read the work of Juan del Encina, from whom he improved the character of the donaire, perfecting still further his dramatic formula. In the fall of 1594, Isabel de Urbina died of postpartum complications. It was around this time that Lope wrote his pastoral novel La Arcadia, which included many poems and was based on the Duke's household in Alba de Tormes.
Return to Castile
In 1595, following Isabel's death in childbirth, he left the Duke's service and – eight years having passed – returned to Madrid. There were other love affairs and other scandals: Antonia Trillo de Armenta, who earned him another lawsuit, and Micaela de Luján, an illiterate but beautiful actress, who inspired a rich series of sonnets, rewarded him with four children and was his lover until around 1608. In 1598, he married Juana de Guardo, the daughter of a wealthy butcher. Nevertheless, his trysts with others – including Micaela – continued.
In the 17th century Lope's literary output reached its peak. From 1607 he was also employed as a secretary, but not without various additional duties, by the Duke of Sessa. Once that decade was over, however, his personal situation took a turn for the worse. His favorite son, Carlos Félix (by Juana), died and, in 1612, Juana herself died in childbirth. After the heartbreaking loss of his son and lover, Lope summoned his remaining children still alive under the same roof to devote himself to Christianity. His writing in the early 1610s also assumed heavier religious influences and, in 1614, he joined the priesthood. The taking of holy orders did not, however, impede his romantic dalliances; what is more, he supplied his employer the duke with various female companions. The most notable and lasting of Lope's relationships was with Marta de Nevares, who met him in 1616 and would remain with him until her death in 1632.
Further tragedies followed in 1635 with the loss of Lope, his son by Micaela and a worthy poet in his own right, in a shipwreck off the coast of Venezuela, and the abduction and subsequent abandonment of his beloved youngest daughter Antonia. Lope de Vega took to his bed and died of scarlet fever, in Madrid, on 27 August of that year. He was buried in St Sebastian's Church, Madrid.
Priesthood
The period of life that characterizes priestly ordination of Lope de Vega was one of profound existential crisis, perhaps impelled by the death of close relatives. To this inspiration respond his Sacred Rhymes and the numerous devout works he began to compose, as well as the meditative and philosophical tone that appears in his last verses. On the night of 19 December 1611 the writer was the victim of an assassination attempt from which he could barely escape. Juana de Guardo suffered frequent illnesses and in 1612 Carlos Félix died of fevers. On 13 August the following year Juana de Guardo died while giving birth to Feliciana. So many misfortunes affected Lope emotionally, and on 24 May 1614 he finally decided to be ordained a priest.
The literary expression of this crisis and its repentances are the Sacred Rhymes, published in 1614; there it says: "If the body wants to be earth on earth / the soul wants to be heaven in heaven", unredeemed dualism that constitutes all its essence. The Sacred Rhymes constitute a book at the same time introspective in the sonnets (he uses the technique of the spiritual exercises that he learned in his studies with the Jesuits) as devotee for the poems dedicated to diverse saints or inspired in the sacred iconography, then in full deployment thanks to the recommendations emanated from the Council of Trent.
In 1627 he was admitted as a knight of the Order of Malta. This was an enormous honour for him since he had always taken an interest in orders of chivalry. In 1603 he had published the play El valor de Malta (The Valour of Malta) about the maritime battles of the Order. In his portrait by Eugenio Caxés he wears the habit of the Order of Malta.
Work
Lope's non-dramatic works were collected and published in Spain in the eighteenth century under the title Obras Sueltas (Madrid, 21 vols., 1776–79). The more important elements of this collection include the following:
La Arcadia (1598), a pastoral romance;
La Dragontea (1598), an epic poem of Sir Francis Drake's last expedition and death;
El Isidro (1599), a poetic narrative of the life of Saint Isidore, future patron saint of Madrid, composed in octosyllabic quintillas;
La Hermosura de Angélica (1602), an epic poem in three books, is a quasi sequel to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.
Lope de Vega was one of the greatest Spanish poets of his time, along with Luis de Góngora and Francisco de Quevedo. His poems of Moorish and pastoral themes were extremely popular in the 1580s and 1590s, and in these, he portrayed elements of his own love affairs (appearing as a moor called Zaide or a shepherd called Belardo). In 1602 he published two hundred sonnets in the collection La Hermosura de Angélica and in 1604 he republished them with new material in Rimas. In 1614, his religious sonnets appeared in a book entitled Rimas sacras, which was another bestseller. In 1634, in a third book with similar title, Rimas humanas y divinas del licenciado Tomé de Burguillos, which has been considered his poetic masterpiece and the most modern book of 17th-century poetry, Lope created a heteronym, he concludes the identity of Tome de Burguillos, who has a deep and intimate romantic connection with a maid named Juana. This is a direct comparison and clash with Lope's skeptical outlook on society.
Background
Lope was the playwright who established in Spanish drama the three-act comedia as the definitive form, ignoring the precepts of the prevailing school of his contemporaries. In Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo (1609), which was his artistic manifesto and the justification of his style which broke the neoclassical three unities of place, time and action, he showed that he knew the established rules of poetry but refused to follow them on the grounds that the "vulgar" Spaniard cared nothing about them: "Let us then speak to him in the language of fools, since it is he who pays us" are famous lines from his manifesto.
Lope boasted that he was a Spaniard pur sang (pure-blooded), maintaining that a writer's business is to write so as to make himself understood, and took the position of a defender of the language of ordinary life.
Lope's literary influence was chiefly Latin-Italian and, while he defended the tradition of the nation and the simplicity of the old Castilian, he emphasized his university education and the difference between those educated in the classics and the layman.
The majority of his works were written in haste and to order. Lope confessed that "more than a hundred of my comedies have taken only twenty-four hours to pass from the Muses to the boards of the theatre." His biographer Pérez de Montalbán tells how in Toledo, Lope composed fifteen acts in as many days – five comedies in two weeks.
In spite of some discrepancies in the figures, Lope's own records indicate that by 1604 he had composed 230 three-act plays (comedias). The figure had risen to 483 by 1609, to 800 by 1618, to 1000 by 1620, and to 1500 by 1632. Montalbán, in his Fama Póstuma (1636) set down the total of Lope's dramatic productions at 1800 comedias and more than 400 shorter sacramental plays. Of these, 637 plays are known by their titles, but only about 450 are extant. Many of these pieces were printed during Lope's lifetime, mostly by the playwright himself in the shape of twelve-play volumes, but also by booksellers who surreptitiously bought manuscripts from the actors who performed them.
Themes and sources
The classification of this large mass of dramatic literature is a task of great difficulty. The terms traditionally employed – comedy, tragedy, and the like – are difficult to apply to Lope's oeuvre and another approach to categorization has been suggested. Lope's work essentially belongs to the drama of intrigue, the plot determining everything else. Lope used history, especially Spanish history, as his main source of subject matter. There were few national and patriotic subjects, from the reign of King Pelayo to the history of his own age, he did not put upon the stage. Nevertheless, Lope's most celebrated plays belong to the class called capa y espada ("cloak and dagger"), where the plots are chiefly love intrigues along with affairs of honor, most commonly involving the petty nobility of medieval Spain.
Among the best known works of this class are El perro del hortelano (The Dog in the Manger), El castigo sin venganza (Punishment without Revenge), and El maestro de danzar (The Dance Teacher).
In some of these, Lope strives to set forth some moral maxim and to illustrate its abuse with a living example. On the theme that poverty is no crime, in the play Las Flores de Don Juan, he uses the history of two brothers to illustrate the triumph of virtuous poverty over opulent vice, while indirectly attacking the institution of primogeniture, which often places in the hands of an unworthy person the honor and substance of a family when younger members would be better qualified for the trust. However, such morality pieces are rare in Lope's repertory; generally, his aim is to amuse and stir with his focus being on the plot, not concerning himself with instruction.
In El villano en su rincón, described as a romantic comedy, Francis I of France ends up spending the night in a woodcutter's hut, after becoming lost during a hunt, resulting in a confrontation between peasant-philosopher and king. The peasant's refusal to even look upon the king's magnificence, grand and dramatic compared with the humble rincón, is rebuked by a gentleman of the king's court: "a king of such might/that the Scythian and fierce Turk/tremble before his golden fleurs de lis!"
Legacy
Lope encountered a poorly organized dramatic tradition; plays were sometimes composed in four acts, sometimes in three, and though they were written in verse, the structure of the versification was left to the individual writer. Because the Spanish public liked it, he adopted the style of drama which was then in vogue. He enlarged its narrow framework to a great degree, introducing a wide range of material for dramatic situations – the Bible, ancient mythology, the lives of the saints, ancient history, Spanish history, the legends of the Middle Ages, the writings of the Italian novelists, current events, and everyday Spanish life in the 17th century. Prior to Lope, playwrights sketched the conditions of persons and their characters superficially. With fuller observation and more careful description, Lope de Vega depicted real character types with language and accouterments appropriate to their position in society. The old comedy was awkward and poor in its versification. Lope introduced order into all the forms of national poetry, from the old romance couplets to the lyrical combinations borrowed from Italy. He wrote that those who should come after him had only to go on along the path which he had opened.
Lope de Vega encountered other poets who were unimpressed with his discoveries and attempted to defame his writing. The Spanish poet Pedro de Torres Rámila wrote his thoughts on Lope in his Latin satire Spongia (Paris, 1617). Torres wrote personal attacks on Lope's sacramental plays and sought to scandalize his name and reputation. This attempt backfired on Torres due to the overwhelmingly negative responses his Spongia received from the public after its release. Scholars and poets alike came to the defense of Lope de Vega and wrote many counterclaims against the Spongia directed at Torres himself, like Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca's Exposulatio Spongiae.
List of works
Plays
Listed here are some of the better-known of de Vega's plays:
El maestro de danzar (1594) (The Dancing Master)
Los locos de Valencia (Madness in Valencia)
El acero de Madrid (The Steel of Madrid)
El perro del Hortelano (The Gardener's Dog, a variation of The Dog in the Manger fable)
La viuda valenciana
Peribáñez y el comendador de Ocaña
Fuenteovejuna
El anzuelo de Fenisa (Fenisa's Hook)
El cordobés valeroso Pedro Carbonero
Mujeres y criados (Women and Servants)
El mejor alcalde, el Rey (The Best Mayor, The King)
El Nuevo Mundo descubierto por Cristóbal Colón (The New World Discovered by Christopher Columbus)
El caballero de Olmedo (The Knight from Olmedo)
La dama boba (The Stupid Lady; The Lady-Fool)
El amor enamorado
El castigo sin venganza (Punishment Without Revenge)
Las bizarrías de Belisa
El mayordomo de la duquesa de Amalfi (The Duchess of Amalfi's Steward)
Lo Fingido Verdadero (What you Pretend Has Become Real)
El niño inocente de La Guardia (The Innocent Child of La Guardia)
La fe rompida
El Honrado Hermano (The Honourable Brother, based in the Classic story of the Horatii and Curiatii)
In January 2023, an anonymous work in the collection of the National Library of Spain, La francesa Laura (The Frenchwoman Laura), was identified with the help of artificial intelligence as another comedy by Lope de Vega. The comedy was classified as a late work of Lope de Vega and dated from 1628 to 1630, as its flattering treatment of France could be attributed to the momentary good relationship between Spain and France during the Thirty Years' War, having England as a common enemy. Later investigations by literary historians confirmed the findings of artificial intelligence.
Opera
La selva sin amor (18 December 1627) (The Lovelorn Forest), the first Spanish opera, with music by Alessandro Piccinini.
Epic poems and lyrical poetry
La Dragontea (1598) ("Drake the Pirate")
El Isidro (1599) ("Isidro")
La hermosura de Angélica (1602) ("The Beauty of Angelica")
Rimas (1602) ("Rhymes")
Arte nuevo de hacer comedias (1609)
Jerusalén conquistada (1609)
Rimas sacras (1614)
La Filomena (1621)
La Circe (1624)
El laurel de Apolo (1630)
La Gatomaquia (1634)
Rimas humanas y divinas del licenciado Tomé de Burguillos (1634)
Prose fiction
Arcadia (published 1598) (The Arcadia), pastoral romance in prose, interspersed with verse
El peregrino en su patria (published 1604) (The Pilgrim in his Own Country), adaption of Byzantine novels
Pastores de Belen : prosas y versos divinos (published 1614)
Novelas a Marcia Leonarda
Las fortunas de Diana (published 1621)
La desdicha por la honra (published 1624)
La más prudente venganza (published 1624)
Guzmán el Bravo (published 1624)
La Dorotea (published 1632)
In popular culture
In Harry Turtledove's alternate history novel Ruled Britannia, in which the Spanish Armada was successful, Vega is depicted as a Spanish soldier-playwright on occupation duty in defeated England, who interacts with William Shakespeare. The novel's viewpoint narration alternates between the two playwrights.
A 2010 Spanish-language film about de Vega, entitled Lope, is available with English subtitles as The Outlaw.
Vega is played by actor Víctor Clavijo in the Spanish TV series El Ministerio del Tiempo. In his first appearance he played Vega in 1588, on the eve of the Spanish Armada, while the second episode depicted Vega in 1604.
Tribute
A municipality in Northern Samar in the Philippines was named after de Vega, created in 1980 from the 22 barangays of Catarmán.
A street in the Santa Cruz district of the City of Manila, Philippines is also named after the playwright.
On 25 November 2017 Google celebrated his 455th birthday with a Google Doodle.
Notes
Sources
Calderón, Lope de Vega and (2019). Theatre Database. Retrieved from http://www.theatredatabase.com/17th_century/calderon_and_lope_de_vega.html
Goldáraz, Luis H. (2018, November 30). Lope, el verso y la vida . Libertad Digital. Retrieved from https://www.libertaddigital.com/cultura/libros/2018-11-30/antonio-sanchez-jimenez-presenta-la-biografia-de-lope-de-vega-1276629134/
Hennigfeld, Ursula (2008). Der ruinierte Körper. Petrarkistische Sonette in transkultureller Perspektive. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
Ray Keck, author of Love's Dialectic: Mimesis and Allegory in the Romances of Lope de Vega
Lope de Vega, Félix Arturo (2019). LibriVox. Retrieved from https://librivox.org/author/229?primary_key=229&search_category=author&search_page=1&search_form=get_results
Lope de Vega, The Works of (2011). Spanish Books. Retrieved from https://www.classicspanishbooks.com/16th-cent-baroque-lope-works.html
Lope Felix de (Carpio) Vega. (2011). Hutchinson’s Biography Database, 1.
Morley, S., & Allardice, L. (2003). Double takes. New Statesman, 132(4639), 46.
Vega Carpio, Félix Lope de (2019). Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 1.
Vega Carpio, Lope Felix de (2000). Theatre History. Retrieved from http://www.theatrehistory.com/spanish/lope001.html
Vega, Lope de (2012). Britannica Biographies, 1.
In Spanish
Alonso, Dámaso, En torno a Lope, Madrid, Gredos, 1972, 212 pp.
Castro, Américo y Hugo A. Rennert, Vida de Lope de Vega: (1562-1635) ed. de Fernando Lázaro Carreter, Salamanca, 1968.
De Salvo, Mimma, «Notas sobre Lope de Vega y Jerónima de Burgos: un estado de la cuestión», pub. en Homenaje a Luis Quirante. Cuadernos de Filología, anejo L, 2 vols., tomo I, 2002, págs. 141-156. Versión en línea revisada en 2008. URL. Consulta 28-09-2010.
«Lengua y literatura, Historia de las literaturas», en Enciclopedia metódica Larousse, vol. III, Ciudad de México, Larousse, 1983, págs 99–100.
Huerta Calvo, Javier, Historia del Teatro Español, Madrid, Gredos, 2003.
Menéndez Pelayo, Marcelino, Estudios sobre el teatro de Lope de Vega, Madrid, Editorial Artes Gráficas, 1949, 6 volúmenes.
MONTESINOS, José Fernández, Estudios sobre Lope de Vega, Salamanca, Anaya, 1967.
Pedraza Jiménez, Felipe B., El universo poético de Lope de Vega, Madrid, Laberinto, 2004.
—, Perfil biográfico, Barcelona, Teide, 1990, págs. 3-23.
Rozas, Juan Manuel, Estudios sobre Lope de Vega, Madrid, Cátedra, 1990.
Pedraza Jiménez, Felipe B., Lope de Vega: pasiones, obra y fortuna del monstruo de naturaleza, EDAF, Madrid, 2009 ().
Arellano, Ignacio, Historia del teatro español del siglo XVII, Cátedra, Madrid, 1995 ().
Arellano, Ignacio; Mata, Carlos; Vida y obra de Lope de Vega, Bibliotheca homolegens, Madrid, 2011 ().
External links
Audiobooks. Read, listen along and download Lope de Vega's poetry in Spanish. Free at AlbaLearning
Lope de Vega's House Museum (Madrid)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutes%20of%20Mortmain
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Statutes of Mortmain
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The Statutes of Mortmain were two enactments, in 1279 and 1290, passed in the reign of Edward I of England, aimed at preserving the kingdom's revenues by preventing land from passing into the possession of the Church. Possession of property by a corporation, such as the Church, was known as mortmain, which literally meant "dead hand". In medieval England, feudal estates generated taxes for the King (known as feudal incidents), principally on the grant or inheritance of the estate. If an estate became owned by a religious corporation which could never die, could never attain majority, and could never be attainted for treason, these taxes never became payable. It was akin to the estates being owned by the dead, hence the term.
The Statutes of Mortmain were meant to re-establish the prohibition against donating land to the Church for the purpose of avoiding feudal services, a prohibition which had originated in Magna Carta in 1215 and was specifically defined in its 1217 issue. But King John, the original signatory of Magna Carta, died the following year, and his son, Henry III, did not enforce the proscriptions and, to the contrary, showed great deference to the Church.
Henry's son, Edward I, desired to re-establish the precedent set by the 1215 and 1217 issues of Magna Carta. The Statutes of Mortmain thus provided that no estate could be granted to a corporation without royal consent. However, these Statutes proved ineffective in practice, and the problem of Church lands persisted, due to the development of the device of the cestui que use, which side-stepped the royal courts and began – in the ecclesiastical courts – the development of the law of trusts, which separated the legal ownership from the right of occupation or use of land. The issue was only finally resolved in 1535, when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, confiscating all monastic lands for the Crown, though the bishops remained endowed with much land.
Alienation and the statute of Quia Emptores
In England in the 12th and 13th centuries, the legal ownership of land was defined through a hierarchical system of estates. The monarch was the ultimate owner of all land in the realm, and out of his estate lesser estates existed, held by individuals known as tenants in chief. Further estates could be created out of these estates in a process called subinfeudation.
Estates in land could be alienated (that is, their legal title – i.e. ownership – could be transferred to others), in two ways. Substitution meant that the transferee would take the estate with the same tenure, and hold from the same lord, as the original tenant. Subinfeudation meant that the original tenant continued to hold his estate, but there was created a new estate which was held from and through the original tenant, and which was subsidiary to the original estate.
Alienation was not always possible, and sometimes the permission of the immediate overlord was required. In the opinion of Pollock and Maitland, in the middle of the 13th century the tenant enjoyed a largely unfettered power of disposing of his tenement inter vivos, though this was subject to some restraints in favour of the overlord.
Other opinions have been expressed. Coke regarded the English tradition as one of ancient liberty dictated by custom, in which the tenant had relative freedom to alienate all or part of his estate. Blackstone was of a differing conclusion, namely that the law supported the inalienability of the fief as its starting point. Pollock and Maitland believed Coke's opinion to be the more valid one. Both views may have been true: modern scholars may have given more weight to the written law of the Normans than existed in reality after the Black Death had altered the economic conditions of the age.
A significant consequence of the ability of owners to alienate their estates was a growth in gifts of land to the Church. Estates so given were said to be held in frankalmoin tenure. The King made various attempts to prevent this practice, including in Magna Carta in 1215 and in the Statutes of Mortmain in 1279 and 1290, but these measures were largely ineffective.
Where estates were subinfeudated, the practice of mortmain was detrimental to the overlord's rights. It was difficult or impossible for an overlord to extract any services (such as knight service, rent, or homage) from the new tenant, who had no bond to the overlord. Pollock and Maitland give the following example: in a case of subinfeudation, the old tenant was liable for services to the lord. If A enfeoffed to B, to hold on a knight's service (a form of military service), and then B enfeoffed C to hold at a rent of a pound of pepper per year, if B then dies leaving an under-age heir, A is entitled to a wardship, but it will be worth very little: instead of being entitled to enjoy the land itself until the heir is of full age, the overlord will get only a few annual pounds of pepper, because C is in possession, not B. Instead of enjoying the land itself, by wardship or by escheat, he will only receive a trifling peppercorn rent.
Bracton gives the example of a tenant making a gift of frankalmoin: gifting land to the Church. A right of wardship would have no value at all, as ownership cannot henceforth pass to a minor. An escheat of the land (reclaiming the land by the overlord, for want of an heir to inherit it) would allow the overlord to re-take control of the land. But by placing the land in frankalmoin it was left in the hands of a group of lawyers or others, who allowed the use of the land by a religious organisation. The overlord would have only nominal control of this corporation, as it had never entered into a feudal homage arrangement, hence the corporation owed nothing to the overlord. Bracton was sympathetic to this arrangement. According to him, the lord was not really injured, as his rights to the land remained unscathed. It is true they had been significantly diminished, as he had suffered damnum; but there had been no injuria. Bracton was of the opinion (undoubtedly correct) that a gift of land to the Church could be voided only by the heirs of the donor, not by the feudal overlord.
The statute of Quia Emptores, enacted in 1290, confirmed the ability of tenants freely to alienate their estates by substitution, but ended the possibility of alienation by subinfeudation. It also ended the possibility for further estates in frankalmoin to be created by anyone other than the king, as any gift of land to the Church now required royal consent; but the lawyers who had created frankalmoin now nimbly side-stepped the Statutes of Mortmain, and the cumbersome and useless common law courts, with the development of a replacement device in the ecclesiastical courts, the cestui que use.
Frankalmoin and the Assize of Utrum
Gifts of land in frankalmoin were intended to be made to God. Bracton describes these as "primo et principaliter" (first and principally) to God, and only "secundario" (secondarily) to the canons or monks or parsons. A gift, for example, to Ramsey Abbey would take the form of a gift "to God and St. Benet of Ramsey and the Abbot Walter and the monks of St. Benet"; or in shorthand, "to God and the church of St. Benet of Ramsey" or briefly "to God and St. Benet".
Often the donor laid the charter of feoffment or some other symbol, such as a knife or other symbol of possession, upon the altar of the church. God was considered the primary landowner. Bracton founds several arguments upon this assertion. It suggested land given in frankalmoin was outside the sphere of mere human justice.
In later years, the feature of the tenure of frankalmoin which attracted the notice of lawyers was the absence of any service that could be enforced by the secular courts. Grants from the Crown "in free, pure and perpetual alms" would be free from all secular services. However, if a mesne (i.e. intermediate) lord was involved, then services such as socage, fee and other services might be extracted from the land, either in part or in total.
Cases became so complicated that a special assize, the Assize of Utrum, was established in the middle of the 12th century. Jurisdiction would normally lie with the ecclesiastical courts; but the Assize of Utrum, especially as defined in the Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164, gave the Crown a chance to clarify difficult questions of ownership and duty in a non-religious, secular court. Often, ownership was of less importance than in determining who had rights to grain, to knight service, to marriage penalties, and the like feudal rights. These duties were defined by the manner in which the land had been granted, and by who in the feudal chain had made the grant. Frequently, land would be donated to a religious body, which would simultaneously re-let it to the donor, in order to evade those feudal services which otherwise would be due to the immediate overlord.
Problems with mortmain in Bracton's time
Giving land to the Church had a long and contentious history in England. Prior to the Norman Conquest of 1066, the Anglo-Saxon state and the Church were often synonymous. The local bishop or priest might also sit in judgment of civil and criminal cases in the royal courts. The Normans created a strict separation of Church and state. William the Conqueror encouraged this separation, yet was enthusiastic about the role the Church played in moral matters.
As a result, a two-tier legal system developed: the ecclesiastical courts and the Royal courts (the latter being now known by us as the Common Law courts). Jurisdiction was frequently blurred. A petitioner not receiving a satisfactory result in one court could re-file the case in the other. Writs of prohibition were frequently issued by common law courts to bar the reissuing of a case in a Church court. Bracton considered it a sin for a man to pledge to live by the decision of a common law court, only to re-issue it in a Church court because the first court had ruled against him.
The practice of pledging land to the Church was governed by the laws of frankalmoin under the Normans. There were two reasons to do so: gratitude toward the Church, but also to avoid feudal services and taxes. Once land had been pledged to the Church, it was difficult or impossible for the overlord to extract his former dues from the land.
Bracton considered the outcome of this, in a case where the tenant made a gift into frankalmoin – a gift of land to the Church. A feudal right of wardship would now be of no value at all, as no minority (ownership of the land by a minor) could thereafter arise. An escheat of the land (reclaiming of the land by the overlord, for want of an heir) theoretically allowed the lord to take back control of it; but placing the land in frankalmoin left it in the hands of a group of lawyers or others who allowed the use of the land by a religious foundation: the overlord would have only nominal control of this corporation, as it had never entered into a feudal homage arrangement with him; the corporation thus owed nothing to the overlord, so did not pay him homage. Bracton was sympathetic to this arrangement. According to him, the lord was not really injured as his rights to the land remained unscathed. It is true that they had been significantly diminished, as he had suffered damnum; but there had been no injuria (damnum absque injuria). Bracton was (rightly) of the view that a gift of land to the Church could be voided only by the donor's heirs, not by the overlord.
Once land had passed into the control of the Church, it could never be relinquished. Since the Church never died, the land could never be inherited on death (so no fine could be levied for the entry of the heir), nor could it be escheated to the lord (forfeited for want of an heir). This came to be known as the "dead hand" (French: mortmain) – either the Church (a non-living corporation) represented this dead hand, or the hand was that of the dead donor, who in effect still controlled the land by his original gift of it. Thus did the actions of men who had died generations before continue to control their former lands.
The Great Charter of 1217 struck down certain practices to which the Church was privy. Collusion, in making a gift of the land to a religious body (so as to evade feudal service), in return for an immediate re-letting of it by that body to the donor, was forbidden. This law was undermined in practice by the Chief Justice of the kingdom, Coke, whose courts interpreted the provision as though its only effect was to make the gift voidable by the donor's heirs. Coke held that it could not be voided by the donor's overlord, an opinion reiterated by Bracton.
The Statute made provision in the following terms: "One is not to enfeoff a religious house and take back the land as a tenant of that house" (on the face of it, a ban on donating land to the Church on condition that it grant the donor a new tenancy thereof). The mischief aimed at by this arose because certain favoured religious bodies, such as the Knights Templar, possessed royal charters which, by general words therein, set free from any feudal burdens all the lands they possessed at the time of the granting of the charter, or thereafter acquired. Thus a man might give land to such a house, and in return be granted by it a tenancy of that same land, and as a tenant of the house he could now claim the immunity afforded by the charter. Thus did the gifting of land to a religious body free the tenant from his feudal duties to the overlord of the land.
King John's Great Charter of 1217 left no scope for granting land to the Church. But in spite of this his successor, Henry III, lavishly granted such licenses, despite that they were theoretically not allowed. The Great Charter, not being a Statute but a mere administrative proclamation by the King, was binding only on the King's subjects, not on the King himself.
In 1258 at the Parliament in Oxford, the barons sought to preclude men of religion from entering into ownership of fees held from earls, barons and other lords without their consent, whereby the overlord lost forever the rights of wardship, marriage, relief and escheat, i.e. they were trying to use the authority of Parliament to bind the King with these provisions. In 1259 the Provisions of Westminster ordained that it shall not be lawful for men of religion to enter the fee of anyone without the permission of the lord from whom the land was held. The Provisions were alternately considered to be the law, then not rigorously enforced, depending upon who had greater political sway: the barons or the king. Most of the Provisions of Westminster were subsequently enacted, hence given greater authority, in the Statute of Marlborough in 1267, but not those relating to the gifting of fees to the Church. From this it may be inferred that the clergy had been influential with the king, who was then enjoying increased power over the barons.
The Statute of Marlborough was the nominal endpoint of the Second Barons' War, and underscored the victory of the King. The omission of restrictions on the Church can be directly traced to Henry III's sympathy for the clergy, according to Plucknett. In 1279 the Statute De Viris Religiosis referred to the Provisions of Westminster as if they were settled law, whilst adding a restriction on alienations made in mortmain, discussed below.
By the Act of 1279, one of the so-called Statutes of Mortmain, no religious persons were permitted to acquire land. If they did so, the land was forfeited to the immediate overlord, and he had a brief period in which to take advantage of the forfeiture. If he failed to do so, the lord next above him in the feudal hierarchy had a similar opportunity. This right continued all the way up to the king. The Statute did not merely abolish frankalmoin: ecclesiastical houses could no longer acquire land in any manner, even if they were willing to pay a full rent for it. Nevertheless, if the overlord was willing, land could still be gifted to a religious house with his complicity, i.e. by his inaction. And licenses from the king to acquire land in mortmain were easily obtained in those years, as Henry III was sympathetic to religious bodies during his long reign.
There had been a parallel French ordinance proclaimed in 1275. Henry III had a reputation of ruling by fiat – making royal proclamations on the spur of the moment. These were troublesome to both the secular and the church courts of the day, and efforts were made to curtail and limit this practice.
Result of the Statutes of Mortmain
During the long reign of Henry III, the donation of land to the Church became increasingly common. A feudal tenant would typically practice collusion with the Church in order to defeat a claim by his overlord for feudal services, by donating the land to a religious foundation on condition of it granting him a fresh tenancy of that land. The Great Charter of 1217 contained the first direct provision against this practice:
Several cases are recorded where the King specifically forbade the tenant from alienating a church or land held in perpetuity by the Crown, and thus presumably the equivalent of mortmain. These cases are dated 1164, 1221 and 1227. After 1217, there was a forfeiture of the land to the overlord in a case of unauthorized alienation in mortmain. However, Henry III showed conspicuous favour to the Church and left the proclamations of 1215 and 1217 made by King John largely unenforced. The proscription was reintroduced, and made more forcible, by Henry III's son, Edward I, by the Statutes of Mortmain in 1279 and 1290.
However, all of these attempts at proscription were ineffective. Land could instead be left to the Church by the development of the new device of the cestui que use. Henry VII expended much energy in the courts trying to break the legal grip of "uses" by Church corporations. The Statute of Uses, passed three centuries after the Statutes of Mortmain, would attempt – with only partial success – to end the practice of the cestui que use. Henry VIII would resolve the problem of Church lands once and for all, in 1535, by dissolving the monasteries and confiscating all Church lands.
See also
Quia Emptores
Cestui que
Investiture Controversy
Concordat of Worms
Charter of Liberties
First Council of the Lateran
History of English land law
List of English statutes
References
External links
Annotated text of the statute
1270s in law
1290s in law
1279 in England
1290 in England
13th century in England
English laws
Economic history of the Holy See
Edward I of England
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-climbing%20equipment
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Rock-climbing equipment
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Rock-climbing equipment varies with the type of climbing undertaken. Bouldering needs the least equipment outside of shoes and chalk and optional crash pads. Sport climbing adds ropes, harnesses, belay devices, and quickdraws to clip into pre-drilled bolts. Traditional climbing adds the need for carrying a "rack" of temporary passive and active protection devices. Multi-pitch climbing (and big wall climbing) adds devices to assist in ascending and descending fixed ropes. And finally aid climbing uses unique equipment (e.g. aiders).
Advances in equipment are a key part of the rock climbing history, starting with the climbing rope. Modern devices enable climbers to perform tasks that were previously done manually and with greater control (in all conditions) and less effort. Examples of replacements include the harness (replaced tieing the rope around the waist), the carabiner (replaced many knots), the descender/abseil device (replaced the dülfersitz), the ascender (replaced the prusik knot), the belay device (replaced the body belay), and the nuts/hexes (replaced chockstones).
Modern equipment includes dynamic ropes, plyometric training tools, advanced spring-loaded camming devices (SLCDs) for protection, and advanced rope control devices such as self-locking devices (SLDs), progress capture devices (PCDs), and assisted braking devices (ABDs). Modern equipment uses advanced materials that are increasingly more durable, stronger, and lighter (e.g. spectra/dyneema and aluminum alloys). The equipment must meet specific standards (e.g. the UIAA standards) for strength, durability, and reliability, and must be certified and tested against such standards (with individual pieces carrying such certification marks).
Use and certification
Type of climbing
The rock-climbing equipment needed varies materially depending on the type of rock climbing being undertaken. Starting from the least equipment-intensive type of climbing, the general equipment needs are as follows:
Free solo climbing (and its deep-water soloing variant) require the least equipment as no climbing protection (and related rope equipment) is used. Equipment is limited to climbing shoes and chalk (with chalk bag).
Bouldering (and its competition bouldering variant) uses the basic equipment of free soloing but with the optional addition of bouldering mats (also called crash mats/crash pads).
Top rope climbing (and its competition speed climbing variant) adds a rope, harness, and belay device, but no general climbing protection outside of that which is used to create the anchor point at the top of the climb from which the top rope is hung (which is usually done with carabiners, slings, and/or cord).
Sport climbing (and its competition lead climbing variant) adds quickdraws that are clipped into the pre-drilled in-situ bolts while the climber is lead climbing the route. No additional climbing protection is needed.
Traditional climbing requires most of the equipment of the above disciplines but with the addition of extensive climbing protection equipment (nuts, hexes, and SCLDs), which the climber will insert while lead-climbing the route. The weight of the extra climbing protection may require a stronger harness and/or a gear sling.
Multi-pitch climbing, which can be done in sport or traditional formats, requires added rope devices like ascenders and descenders for moving up and down fixed-ropes. The big wall climbing variant requires heavy-duty rope devices for carrying more gear such as portaledges and provisions (which are carried in haul bags).
Rope solo climbing is done in many formats (sport, traditional, multi-pitch), and needs an extensive range of rope devices as every pitch needs to be solo climbed (SLDs), descended back down (descenders), and then re-ascended (ascenders). The simpler variant of top rope solo climbing, only requires the SLDs.
Aid climbing (and its clean aid climbing variant) is usually done in a traditional format and also more likely on multi-pitch (and big wall) routes. In addition to the standard equipment for such routes, aid climbing uses specialist equipment such as aiders and daisy chains, as well as hammers for pitons and coppeheads.
Certification
Rock-climbing equipment is broadly classed as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The UIAA was an important early body in setting standards (and pre-1995 it was the only body setting standards) for equipment, and the UIAA Safety Commission continues to play a central worldwide role in this area. The European CEN is also an important major regulator of PPE, and which works closely with the UIAA Safety Commission through its CEN Working Group for Mountaineering Equipment. North America has fewer specific regulations as rock-climbing equipment as it is not classed as military or professional PPE and thus does not fall under OSHA regulation; in effect, the UIAA and CEN have become the most important bodies for setting standards and regulating rock-climbing equipment worldwide, and most major manufacturers (and distributors) produce equipment certified and stamped with UIAA and CE marking. Post Brexit, the United Kingdom use "UKCA" certification in lieu CEN.
Ropes and slings
Ropes
Modern climbing ropes are in length (the longer versions are for multi-pitch climbing), and have a kernmantle construction consisting of a core (kern) of twisted nylon fibers and an outer sheath (mantle) of woven colored coarse nylon fibers. They are either dynamic ropes, which can stretch to absorb the energy of a falling climber, or are the less expensive but more hard-wearing static ropes, which are only for use in constant-load situations such as descending (e.g. abseiling) and ascending (also called fixed-roping).
Some climbers will use a single climbing rope of full-thickness (circa 9–11 mm), whereas others will use double ropes (or "half-ropes") to reduce rope drag (e.g. they are not both clipped into each anchor or protection point), which have less thickness (circa 8–9 mm) to limit the weight of the extra rope. Where two thinner ropes are used that are both clipped into each anchor or protection point (i.e. it is not to reduce rope drag, but instead to have a backup rope for long climbs), it is known as twin roping, which are (circa 7–8 mm).
Slings
Modern webbing (or "tape"), is made of strong tubular nylon and/or the even stronger spectra/dyneema material. Climbers use webbing that has been sewn (using a certified standard of reinforced stitching) into various lengths of closed loops called "slings" (or "runners") that can be used in a wide range of situations, including wrapping around sections of rock (for abseiling, or creating belay anchors, or as passive protection), or tied to other pieces of equipment (often via carabiners) to create a longer version of a quickdraw or even a makeshift lanyard.
Slings can be made into more complex pieces of equipment such as the daisy chain, which is used in aid climbing, and the Personal Anchor System, which is used in securing a climber to a fixed anchor point.
Cords
While lengths of webbing can be tied via a knot (e.g. a water knot) to create custom-length loops (instead of the pre-sewn fixed-length slings), their load-bearing capacity can be materially reduced making them less safe. Climbers instead use cord (or "accessory cord"), which is a length of thinner (circa 4–8 mm) static kernmantle rope, tied via a double fisherman's knot into closed loops of any size.
Cord loops (also known as "cordelettes") serve a wide variety of functions in rock climbing including creating friction prusik knots for ascending or gripping fixed climbing ropes (usually using thinner circa 5–6 mm cord), or for attaching to, and equalizing forces across, multiple fixed anchors points, such as when setting up abseil or belay anchors on multi-pitch climbing routes (usually using thicker circa 7–8 mm cord).
Rope connectors
A number of devices help climbers securely attach items to the rope, including themselves (e.g. via a harness) and protection devices (e.g. via carabiners and quickdraws). Before their invention, climbers used alternative techniques such as looping the rope around the body in lieu of a harness (e.g. the body belay), or around the rock in lieu of protection, as well as using various climbing knots to link ropes and anchor points together.
Carabiners
Carabiners are closed metal clips with spring-loaded gates that are used as connectors between the rope and various devices. Modern carabiners are made from a lightweight but strong aluminum alloy that can withstand the load of a fall. Carabiners come in various shapes (e.g. the asymmetric/offset D-shape is the most common), and gate styles (e.g. a straight gate or a bent gate). A particular variation is whether the gate is locking (for extra security for example when belaying, but making the carabiner heavier and slightly tricker to clip into) or non-locking (the easiest to clip into and out of for example when leading a bolted sport climbing route, but with the risk that the gate may unintentionally open).
Harnesses
Climbing harnesses are used for connecting the rope to the climber (via a "belay loop" on the harness). Harnesses are made of strong materials to specific strength guidelines that can withstand the load of a major fall. There are many types of harness designs (and materials used) depending on the type of climbing undertaken. Examples include minimal "sit" harnesses for sport climbing (e.g. they require little in the way of gear-carrying loops), lightweight and detachable leg-loop harnesses for alpine climbing (e.g. to fit around heaving winter clothing), padded harnesses for big wall climbing (to give comfort for long hanging belays and abseils), and chest/full-body harnesses for children and when carrying heavy loads.
Lanyards
Lanyards (or "teather", or "via ferrata set") are much longer versions of quickdraws that attach from a harness to a rope (or other anchor points, such as a metal cable). The difference is that lanyards are much stronger than quickdraws and are capable of withstanding fall factors of 2 as found on via ferrata or on multi-pitch climbing routes. They are often made from materials that can absorb dynamic energy and often come with additional optional fall energy absorption devices, and lanyards that have had heavy falls often have to be discarded. Lanyards are also constructed to be sufficiently flexible to resist being twisted.
Personal Anchor Systems
A sub-class of lanyards is the Personal Anchor System (PAS), which is a section of rope or interconnected chains of slings, which are used to tie the harness to an anchor point such as a belay station. Traditionally, climbers would tie their harness to anchors using part of the climbing rope; however, the PAS has become popular as a way to avoid reducing the effective length of the climbing rope, and to use a more straightforward and direct connection.
Quickdraws
Quickdraws are used by climbers to connect ropes to fixed items such as bolted anchors in sport climbing, or protection devices in traditional climbing. The quickdraw consists of two non-locking carabiners connected together by a short, pre-sewn loop of webbing. They are used to reduce the friction and drag between the rope of the fixed item (i.e. instead of just clipping into a carabiner clipped into the bolt); in competition climbing the quickdraws are already hanging from the bolts, which is called pinkpointing in sport climbing (i.e. instead of the lead climber carrying the quickdraws, they are already in-situ). The quickdraws used on advanced sport and competition climbing routes often have a "bent-gate" on the lower carabiner to make clipping-in easier.
Rope devices
A number of devices are used for controlling the rope (belay devices and self-locking devices), moving up the rope (ascender devices), or moving down the rope (rappel/abseil or descender devices). These actions were historically done by climbers with no devices (e.g. the body belay for belaying, the dülfersitz abseil for descending, and the prusik knot for ascending), and the devices help with control and safety in all conditions (e.g wet or icy ropes).
Ascenders
Ascenders (also called "jumars" or "crolls" after popular brands) are mechanical devices to enable a climber to move up a fixed rope (e.g. a static rope that is hanging from a fixed anchor). Ascenders perform the same basic function as friction or prusik knots made from cord but far less effort and concentration are needed to use them (e.g. tired climbers at high-altitude), they can handle much heavier loads (e.g. climbers with ruck-sacks), and they are more reliable in all conditions (e.g. on wet and icy ropes). The ascender uses an internal cam that allows the device to slide freely in one direction but tightly grip the rope when pulled on in the opposite direction. To prevent the ascender device from accidentally falling off the rope, a locking carabiner is also used.
Belay devices
Belay devices are mechanical friction-brake devices used to control the climbing rope(s) when belaying a climber. Their main purpose is to allow the rope to be locked-off/fully-braked with minimal effort when arresting a climber's fall. There are many kinds of belay devices, such as the original passive braking devices like "sticht plates" and the later "tubers/tubulars" (e.g. the original Black Diamond ATC, or the Petzl Reverso).
Modern belay devices include auto-block devices (e.g. the GiGi) allowing the belay device to be attached to a separate anchor point (e.g. and not to the belayer, which is useful for bringing up the second-climber on multi-pitch routes), and active assisted-braking devices (ABDs) that will self-lock with sudden rope movements (e.g. the Petzl GriGri or the Wild Country Revo). Some passive belay devices may also be used as descenders for abseiling.
Indoor climbing walls can provide in-situ fixed mechanical auto belay devices that enable the climber to top rope a route alone; more recent lead auto belay models allow the climber to also lead climb the route alone.
Descenders
Descenders (or abseil devices) enable a climber to abseil (or rappel) down a fixed rope (e.g. a static rope that is hanging from a fixed anchor). They perform the same basic function as the dülfersitz abseil but with more control and less effort. The classic passive descender, and still widely used, is the figure-eight, although it is offered in more complex variations with "ears" and "wings" to prevent the rope from locking up.
Many passive belay devices can be used as descenders, such as tubers/tubulars. Some modern descenders come with self-locking device (SLD) features that will grip the rope in the event of an uncontrolled fall (e.g. the ). Heavy-duty descenders such as abseil racks are used for greater control and friction when carrying heavy loads and/or in very wet or icy conditions (e.g. big wall climbing and caving). The modern technique is to use a descender with a Personal Anchor System.
Self-locking devices
Self-locking devices (SLDs), also called progress capture devices (PCDs), are the terms given to the broader class of rope devices that allow the climbing rope to move more freely in one direction but will lock quickly if the rope tries to move in the opposite direction. Their basic action means that several can also used as emergency ascenders or assisted-belaying devices (ABDs), but they come in a broad range for a variety of uses (e.g. as a hauling or rescue pulley, like the Petzel Traxion).
The most complex use is for rope solo climbing, for which devices such as Wren's Silent Partner, the Petzel GriGri, and the Wild Country Revo have been used (rope solo climbing requires the widest range of rope devices including ascenders and descenders), or the more straightforward top rope solo climbing, for which the Petzel Micro Traxion, and Camp Lift have been used.
Protection devices
As discussed in types of climbing, rock climbing protection devices are mainly used in traditional climbing and in sport climbing (both of which can be done in single and multi-pitch formats). In addition, clean aid climbing also uses many of the traditional climbing protection devices.
Temporary
Temporary protection devices (also known as pro, gear or the rack), provide the means to place temporary anchor points on the rock to which a lead climber can clip their rope (via a quickdraw) when traditional climbing; they also can be used for anchor points for belaying and for abseiling. The devices are categorized as being passive (i.e., they maintain a static position throughout), or active (i.e. they dynamically move or adjust in the case of a fall).
Passive
Nuts (also "stoppers", "wires" or "chocks"). The most common passive protection, are small curved blocks of strong aluminum alloy attached to a loop of wire. Nuts are used by wedging them into narrowing/tapering cracks (they do not work well in wide or parallel cracks) and then giving them a tug to set them in place. Nuts are come in many varieties (e.g. offset-shaped HB nuts, micro nuts, and brass RP nuts).
Hexes. These are hollow asymmetrical hexagonal tubes attached to a loop of cord (particularly for large hexes) or wire. Being wider than nuts, they can be used in parallel and even widening cracks. They are placed like a nut ideally into a narrowing section of the crack and any fall will cause the hex to twist in its placement, thus exerting sideways force on the wall of the crack. Modern climbers tend to use SCLDs over hexes.
Active
Spring-loaded camming devices (SLCDs, or "friends", "camalots"). These consist of two to four aluminum cams mounted on a spring-loaded axle (or two adjacent axles), in such a way that pulling on the shaft connected to the axle forces the cams to narrow so they can be inserted into small cracks. Once the SLCD is inserted into the crack, its cams will maintain a constant camming angle of 13.75 degrees against the walls of the crack. SCLDs are overwhelmingly the most popular form of active protection device.
Tricams. These are shaped aluminum blocks attached to lengths of webbing tape (like a nut). The block is shaped so that pulling on the tape makes it "cam" dynamically against the crack walls, gripping the rock tighter (like an SCLD). Tricams are not as easy to place or remove as an SLCD but they can fit into narrow cracks and are much cheaper and lighter than SCLDs. Less frequently in use today.
Big Bros (or tube chocks). These are large hollow telescopic aluminum tubes manufactured by Trango whose width can be dynamically adjusted to fit across large off-width cracks that are too wide for standard SLCDs.
Removable bolts (or RBs). These are a type of SLCD for insertion into pre-drilled bolt holes, but instead of using cams, the system uses a metal tube that once inserted expands to grip against the walls of the hole. Less frequently in use, their main application is for climbers creating bolted routes.
Fixed
Fixed protection devices are permanent in-situ anchors to which a lead climber can clip their rope (via a quickdraw) when sport climbing; they also can be used to create anchor points for belaying and for abseiling. The main types are:
Bolts. Steel 1/2-inch expansion bolts are pre-drilled into the rock with a hand drill and tightened with a torque wrench (some versions use a type of glue to anchor the bolt). Before insertion, a bolt hanger is attached into which carabiners (and quickdraws) can be clipped. Modern stainless steel (or the more expensive titanium, for even greater durability and/or harsher environments like sea cliffs) bolts last for over a decade, but have a finite life span after which they must be replaced. Some bolted crags use fixed permadraws, which are in-situ wire quickdraws that are permanently attached to the bolt-hangers.
Pitons. Before bolts, climbers (and particularly big wall aid climbers and alpine climbers) used pitons, which are steel spikes (older versions were not steel) hammered into cracks in the rock that have an eye-hole for attaching a carabiner (some came with pre-installed metal rings). Unlike bolts, pitons need a crack into which they can be hammered, and come in a wide variety of shapes and designs (e.g., angles, knifeblades, lost arrows) to fit various cracks, and even micro-cracks like RURPs). Pitons have been largely replaced by the stronger bolts as the fixed protection of choice, but are still an important part of aid climbing (but not clean aid climbing, which rules out any use of hammers).
Aid equipment
Aid climbing uses several of the above devices but in a way that gives "aid" to the aid climber in ascending (e.g. pulling up on pitons and hooks). There are also a number of other pieces of equipment that are more exclusively associated with aid climbing.
Aiders (or the French etriers). These are short 5–6 rung ladders made of lightweight webbing, which are a central part of the technique of aid climbing where they are normally used in pairs (e.g. the aid climber stands one on aider while clipping in the higher aider). Aiders can also come as "offset style" aiders (e.g. 5–6 stirrup-loops arranged on either side of a central rope) and as the light-weight "adjustable style" aiders (e.g. the climber can create customized rungs).
Daisy chains. These are 1 to 1.5 metre-long webbing slings that have multiple small loops (for carabiner attachment) which are made by stitching the sling at 8 to 15-centimetre intervals. Like aiders, daisy chains are also a central part of aid climbing where they link the harness to the aider (see above); care has to be taken not to clip into the loops incorrectly, which can cause the daisy chain to fail and rip apart (e.g. when trying to use as a Personal Anchor System).
Copperheads (or "bashie"). A type of soft-metal nut (usually made from copper), which can be hammered into very thin cracks that are too small for even the narrowest piton. Copperheads are only used in aid climbing and their low strength means that they can only handle the "static bodyweight" of an ascending aid climber, and will likely fail where the climber makes a dynamic fall. At times, climbers will "clean out" build-ups of copperheads on an aid climbing route.
Hooks. These are steel hooks of various shapes (e.g. bat hook, talon hook, grappling hook, etc.,) that are hung from cracks and flakes (e.g. the fifi hook and skyhook). Mostly used in aid climbing, but they have been used in extreme traditional climbing routes as a last resort (i.e.hook placements may not withstand a dynamic fall). A particular type of hook is a rivet hanger that can be attached to old metal rivets in the rock face.
Rock climbing hammers are mainly used by aid climbers to hammer in various types of pitons while ascending routes; note that clean aid climbing does not allow the use of hammers as all clean aid equipment must only be inserted on a temporary basis.
Clothing equipment
Rock climbers use a number of pieces of specialized clothing equipment including:
Belay glasses allow the belayer to look up at the lead climber without having to strain their neck upwards (i.e. the glasses are tilted upwards by 45 degrees), and are used when there is extensive belaying such as on long routes, or by climbing instructors.
Belay gloves are used to protect the hands when doing lots of belaying (especially on big wall climbing routes), and their construction from leather or other hard-wearing materials, generally improves grip with the rope, which lessens the risk of a failure of the belay system.
Climbing shoes are designed to increase the friction and thus grip of the foot with the climbing surface by using a sole of vulcanized rubber. Stiffer shoes are used for "edging", and softer soles for "smearing".
Climbing helmets protect the skull against falling debris such as rocks in alpine climbing or dropped pieces of equipment, as well as the impact forces on the head during a fall while climbing, particularly where the falling lead climber is flipped over.
Miscellaneous equipment
Bouldering mats are used to protect boulder climbers from the frequent falls that happen in bouldering, which while shorter than other types of climbing, can be onto uneven or hard surfaces from awkward body positions, which could cause ankle or back injuries.
Climbing chalk is used by all rock climbers to absorb moisture on their hands; the chalk is kept in a "chalk bag" that is hung around the waist area. US boulderer John Gill is largely credited with introducing "gymnastic chalk" to climbing in the 1950s (he was a gymnast himself).
Gear slings are loops of webbing (often with some padding) worn diagonally across the chest on longer traditional climbing routes (e.g. multi-pitch climbing) when the climber cannot comfortably arrange their protection equipment on the gear loops of their harnesses.
Guidebooks are hard-wearing books (i.e. they will be taken on the climb) outlining the key details of the climbing routes including diagram (or topos) of the routes and the grades of difficulty of each individual pitch.
Haul bags are large tubular bags of hardwearing construction (so they can be dragged over rock) into which supplies and climbing equipment can be carried on long multi-pitch routes; commonly used in big wall climbing where they are called "pigs" due to the effort of hauling them up on pulleys.
Medical tape ("tape" can also refer to webbing), is used by climbers to prevent and repair skin injuries. For example, tape lessens skin damage while hand jamming on rough granite surfaces; it is also used to cover skin that has been dangerously worn down on the fingers, while crack climbing.
Nut tools (or "nut key") is a metal tool used to help retrieve nuts and hexes that have become firmly wedged into cracks.
Portaledges are used in big wall climbing as a temporary overnight sleeping or even resting platform (e.g. for long belays).
Pulleys are used by big wall climbers to help bring up haul bags and other equipment.
Stick clips (or "clip sticks") are long poles with a quickdraw at the end that can be clipped into the first bolt of a sport climbing route from the ground.
Wire brushes are used to clean holds on routes, particularly at the higher graded climbing routes where the holds are very small and need to be completely dry and free of any debris or vegetation to be useable; climbers even use toothbrushes to clean the smallest holds without damaging them.
Training equipment
Various items of equipment are employed during climbing-specific training to strengthen the climber's fingers, tendons and muscles:
Bachar ladder. A narrow flexible (e.g. it can be rolled up) all-metal, or PVC/webbing, ladder that is hung horizontally between two points (but usually with one point higher to create a slope), and where the climber ascends and descends the rungs using only their arm strength (i.e. no use is made of the feet); considered an early version of a campus board but that focused on arm strength and not hand/finger strength.
Campus board. A series of horizontal rungs attached to an overhanging surface that may be climbed up and down without the aid of the feet. When used properly, campus boards improve finger strength and also dynamic or plyometric, muscle strength.
Grip saver. A small device that can help in developing the antagonist muscles to those used while gripping with the hand. Use of such a device can prevent the ligament injuries that are frequently experienced by climbers.
Hangboard (or "fingerboard"). Subsequent to the development of the campus board, the "hangboard" is focused on building static arm and finger strength; it is a popular training tool for rock climbers and comes in many forms and materials.
See also
Alpine climbing equipment
Caving equipment
Ice climbing equipment
Mixed climbing equipment
References
Further reading
External links
Traditional Climbing Checklist, REI (2023)
Sport Climbing Checklist, REI (2023)
Rock climbing equipment checklist, Mountain Equipment Co-op (2023)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredrik%20Reinfeldt
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Fredrik Reinfeldt
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John Fredrik Reinfeldt (pronounced ; born 4 August 1965) is a Swedish economist, lecturer, former Prime Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014 and chairman of the liberal conservative Moderate Party from 2003 to 2015. He was the last rotating President of the European Council in 2009. He is chairman of the Swedish Football Association since 25 March 2023.
A native of Stockholm County, Reinfeldt joined the Moderate Youth League in 1983. By 1992 he rose to the rank of chairman, a position he held until 1995. He served as Member of Parliament from 1991 to 2014, representing his home constituency. Reinfeldt was elected party leader on 25 October 2003, succeeding Bo Lundgren. Under his leadership, the Moderate Party has transformed its policies and oriented itself closer to the political centre, branding itself "the New Moderates" (). In 2010, under Reinfeldt's leadership, the Moderate Party got its highest share of the vote since the introduction of universal suffrage in 1921.
Following the 2006 general election, Reinfeldt was elected Prime Minister on 6 October. Along with the three other political parties in the centre-right Alliance for Sweden, Reinfeldt presided over a coalition government with the support of a narrow majority in parliament. At the age of 41, he was the third-youngest person to become Prime Minister of Sweden.
Reinfeldt's first term in office was marked by the late-2000s financial crisis and recession. His popularity fell until the economy of Sweden emerged as one of the strongest in Europe; this brought a resurgence of support for him, resulting in his government's re-election in 2010. Reinfeldt's second government was reduced to a minority government, owing to the rise of Sweden Democrats; he remained in power as the first centre-right Prime Minister since the Swedish-Norwegian Union to be re-elected..
His premiership was characterised by "Arbetslinjen" (English: Working line), a focus on getting more people into the workforce, and by management of the late-2000s financial crisis and recession, which resulted in one of the world's strongest public finances and top rankings in climate and health care.
He is the longest-serving non-Social Democratic Prime Minister since Erik Gustaf Boström's first spell in office between 1891 and 1900. After his defeat in the 2014 election Reinfeldt announced that he would step down from leading the party, which he did on 10 January 2015.
Early life and education
Reinfeldt was born in 1965 in Allmänna BB hospital in Stockholm, the eldest of three brothers to his parents Bruno (1938–2016) and Birgitta Reinfeldt. At the time of his birth his parents lived in an apartment in Österhaninge, in the south of Stockholm County, but a short time afterwards the family moved to London, where his father worked as a consultant for Shell. Upon returning to Sweden, the family first lived in an apartment in Handen before moving to a terraced house in Bromsten in northwestern Stockholm. The Reinfeldt family was living in Bromsten when Fredrik's younger brothers, Magnus and Henrik, were born in 1969 and 1973. In 1976, the family moved into a single-family home in Täby in northeastern Stockholm County. His mother Birgitta was a leadership and management consultant, and some of her professional skills might have inspired and impressed the young Fredrik.
At the age of 11, Reinfeldt became chairman of the student council () in his school, and became a fan of the football club Djurgårdens IF, a passion he maintains to this day. He started playing basketball for the "Tensta Tigers" while living in Bromsten (which is located adjacent to Tensta), and continued to play for them after his family moved to Täby. At his secondary school, Åva gymnasium, he studied natural science for three years. He also enjoyed setting up and performing revues and cabarets. After school, Reinfeldt completed his military service as a ranger () at Lapland Ranger Regiment and finished first in his class as a cadet in Umeå. It was during this time that he became interested in politics, as a representative for his regiment in the congress of conscripts in the Swedish military (). He graduated from Stockholm University School of Business with a degree in Business and Economics () in 1990.
Political career
Reinfeldt joined the Moderate Youth League—the youth wing of the Swedish Moderate Party—in 1983 at the age of 18. As a member of the Moderate Youth League in Täby, he challenged the leaders of the local league, who preferred to use the premises as a place to drink beer and wine rather than engage in discussions about politics. Reinfeldt, who is said to dislike hard liquor and to consume wine and beer in moderate amounts, started "Conservative Youth" () and formed a bond with the mother party, eventually taking over the youth league in 1987. In 1988 he became a secretary () in the Stockholm Municipality Council.
He was active in student politics while studying at Stockholm University, eventually becoming chairman of the student party "Borgerliga Studenter – Opposition '68" between 1988 and 1989. He became chairman of the Moderate Youth League's Stockholm branch in 1990, and the following year was elected a member of the Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament). In the Swedish general election of 1991 the Moderate Party and its allies had considerable success, leading to the formation of a centre-right coalition government under Moderate Party leader and Prime Minister Carl Bildt. The 1991 government was the first centre-right government in Sweden since 1982.
Leader of the Moderate Youth League
From 1992 to 1995 Reinfeldt was the chairman of the Moderate Youth League. He ousted the former chairman Ulf Kristersson at the controversial congress known as the Battle of Lycksele, securing 58 of the delegates' votes where Kristersson gained only 55. The congress was controversial because it was the culmination of a long ideological battle within the Moderate Youth League between the conservatives and the libertarians; Reinfeldt represented the conservatives and Kristersson the libertarians. Reinfeldt later stated that although the effects of that deep ideological division and battle in the party lingered on within the Moderate Youth League, he also felt that it was a defining moment in his life. Had he lost the battle he would most likely not be in politics today. In 1993 Reinfeldt wrote the book Det sovande folket, Transl:"The sleeping people", where he criticized the Swedish welfare state and argues for a liberal societal system. With phrases such as: "We don't want to see a society where people starve, but other than that no standard rights should be financed by taxes." The book later haunted Reinfeldt, when he faced criticism for phrases such as "The swedes are mentally handicapped and indoctrinated to believe that politicians can create and guarantee welfare."
From 1995 to 1997 he was chairman of the Democrat Youth Community of Europe.
Following the defeat of the Bildt government in the general election of 1994 he publicly criticized the Moderate Party leader Bildt, who he believed had become too dominant in the party.
In 1995 Reinfeldt co-authored the book "Nostalgitrippen" (The Nostalgic Trip), which described several persons in the Moderate Party leadership, including Gunnar Hökmark and Bo Lundgren, as "Carl Bildt-lookalikes." Bildt was described as being the perfect leader for the opposition to satirize; a nobleman living in the affluent Östermalm with a boyish expression and a better-than-you attitude. As for the other high party officials, the book stated that "If everyone appears similar to Carl it confirms peoples misconceptions about the Moderate Party. It becomes a party for Carl Bildt-copies."
This provoked swift reaction from the Moderate Party leadership, who believed that Reinfeldt's criticisms had gone too far. On 14 February 1995 Reinfeldt was called to a meeting of the Moderate Party's Riksdag group, which took place in the former second chamber () of the Swedish parliament building, a meeting where Bildt apparently scolded him for hours. After this, Reinfeldt toned down his criticism, but was ostracized within the Moderate Party and not given any important posts until after the change of leadership when Lundgren succeeded Bildt in 1999. At that time he was elected into a high party group, the förtroenderåd. From 2001 to 2002 Reinfeldt was chairman of the justice committee of the Riksdag. During this time he traveled around the country gathering impressions and support at the local level of the Moderate Party.
Leader of the Moderate Party
In the general election of 2002 the Moderate Party gained 15.3 percent of the votes—its lowest share of the vote in a general election since 1973. Following the loss, Lundgren was forced to resign his position as leader of the Moderate Party. After the 2002 election Reinfeldt was elected as leader of the Moderate Party parliamentary group, spokesman for economic policy and vice chairman of the parliament's finance committee. On 25 October 2003 he was unanimously elected as the new leader of the Moderate Party.
"The New Moderates"
Under Reinfeldt's leadership, the Moderate Party adjusted its position in the political spectrum, moving towards the centre. To reflect these changes, the party's unofficial name was altered to "The New Moderates" () in order to emphasize the break with the past. The Moderate Party started to focus more on calls for tax cuts for low- and middle-income groups, rather than on major tax cuts that would more benefit high-income earners.
As leader of the Moderate Party, Reinfeldt tended to be less forceful in his criticism of the Swedish welfare state than his predecessors. He instead proposed reforms to Sweden's welfare state, which included cutting taxes for the lowest income earners and reducing unemployment benefits, in order to encourage the jobless to return to work. He toned down calls within the party for dismantling large portions of the Swedish welfare state, stating that change must come gradually from the bottom up and not be dictated from the top down. His goal was said to be to fine-tune the welfare state, by focusing on getting people off welfare benefits and into employment. He worked to shift the conservatives toward the middle ground by convincing voters that he would fix rather than dismantle the public welfare system.
Reinfeldt even extended an invitation to the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, traditional supporter of the Social Democrats and opponent of the Moderate Party. He also changed the Moderate Party's traditional stance towards the Swedish Labour and employment laws, stating that he prefers small changes instead of any radical reform.
People both within and outside the party differ on their analysis of Reinfeldt's transformation of the Moderate Party, with some arguing that the party was mainly honing the way it describes its visions, and others suggesting that it constituted a substantial policy change towards the centre. As a consequence of Reinfeldt's shift of the Moderate Party to the centre, the differences between the Moderate Party and their traditional opponents the Social Democratic Party have become harder to discern. In a series of radio and television debates, the then-Social Democrat leader and Prime Minister Göran Persson portrayed his opponent as a classic conservative in disguise. Persson stated that, if put into power, the conservatives would tamper with Sweden's successful formula of high taxes, a large public sector and generous benefits. There was also some criticism within the party; former Moderate Youth League chairman Christofer Fjellner called Reinfeldt's political reform "leftist rhetoric" ().
Alliance for Sweden
In the run-up to the general election of 2006, Reinfeldt, as leader of the Moderate Party, participated in the creation of the Alliance for Sweden. It united the centre-right in a coalition of the Moderate Party, the Centre Party, the Liberal People's Party and the Christian Democrats. Reinfeldt is said to have been instrumental in uniting the four parties, which previously were known for being notoriously divided, in order to present a powerful alternative to the Social Democrats. The parties presented a joint election manifesto for the alliance.
2006 Swedish general election
During the run-up to the 2006 Swedish general election, Reinfeldt was subjected to a smear campaign. Mats Lindström, a staff member in the Social Democratic Party headquarters, admitted to sending e-mails accusing Reinfeldt of tax fraud, false financial declarations and only attaining his position because of his father's influence. The IP address used in the e-mails was traced to the Social Democratic Party headquarters. Social Democratic Party Secretary Marita Ulvskog apologized and said that such behavior was completely unacceptable. A short time after the e-mail campaign, images that depicted Reinfeldt and the Moderate Party in an unflattering light were spread internally within the Social Democratic Party and subsequently leaked to the media. Social Democratic Party spokeswoman Carina Persson confirmed that the material came from the Social Democratic Youth League, but denied the existence of an official smear campaign and stated that the material was not meant to be released or spread to a wider audience.
At the general election on 17 September 2006 the Alliance for Sweden won a majority of the votes after the first count, defeating the Social Democratic Party. The Moderates gained 26.1 percent of the votes, a new record for the party and over 10 percentage points higher than in 2002. The election result was also historic in being the worst result for the Social Democrats ever (34.6 percent) in a general election under universal suffrage (introduced in 1921).
Looking back at the defeat of the incumbent Social Democrats, the opinion among several members of the defeated incumbents was that the election was lost because the previous government failed to bring down unemployment, and failed to campaign on it as an issue. Ardalan Shekarabi, the former chairman for the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League, stated that "the Moderates were right strategically to focus on unemployment". Former Social Democratic minister Leif Pagrotsky stated that internal fighting, authoritarianism and perceived aggressiveness as well as a loss of appeal to the middle class and city inhabitants contributed to the election loss.
2010 Swedish general election
In the 2010 general election held on 19 September 2010 the Alliance for Sweden were reduced to a minority government, but also becoming the first centre-right government to be re-elected since before World War II. The Moderate Party gained 30.06% of the votes, which was the highest election result in over one hundred years.
The Alliance for Sweden received a plurality of votes, but not full majority in Parliament. But because of the fragmented opposition, after the entrance of the Sweden Democrats in parliament, the government could continue.
Prime Minister (2006–2014)
Reinfeldt became the Prime Minister of Sweden on 6 October 2006, serving concurrently as Leader of the Moderate Party. The 41-year old Reinfeldt became the youngest person to become Prime Minister since Rickard Sandler became Prime Minister at the age of 40 in 1925. With victories in 2006 and in 2010, Reinfeldt was the Moderate Party's longest-serving prime minister and the only person to lead the party to two consecutive general election victories. His Government compromised four parties (including his own) which prior to the election had formed a coalition named Alliance for Sweden, later turned into the Alliance.
At a press conference prior to his appointment, Reinfeldt commented that "this feels historic in many ways" partly because it was the first time in 36 years there would be a majority government in Sweden.
First term (2006–2010)
2008 Financial Crisis
A global financial crisis was triggered in 2008, beginning in the United States. The financial crisis of 2008 which continued into 2009, had a major impact on the Swedish economy. Reinfeldt's Government emphasized that a balanced budget was a priority, combined with income tax cuts to stimulate domestic production and commerce. The Cabinet received criticism for holding to hard in the public finances, with limited investments, and the support of Reinfeldt's policies dropped to one of the lowest ever seen for an incumbent Government.
From 2009, the Swedish economy emerged as one of the world's fastest recovering economies with high competitiveness. Sweden was noted for having proved to overcome the crisis better than any other developed countries, and this was highlighted by the Government as a force in the run-up to 2010 general election. As Sweden emerged as the best country on several areas after the financial crisis it brought a resurgence of support, which eventually resulted in his re-election in 2010. This was the first time ever that the Moderate Party was re-elected after completing a full first term.
President of the European Council
Reinfeldt became President of the European Council on 1 July 2009, as Sweden took over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from the Czech Republic. His slogan was "taking on the challenge". Reinfeldt immediately requested the European Union to do more to combat climate change. Days earlier, he had been interviewed by Reuters and said he spoke of his worry about increased European public debt. He spoke of his wish for Turkey to join the European Union. He also spoke of his other views, such as his hope that a second term would be possible quickly for the President of the European Commission and his desire that the European Union should not sanction Iran immediately following its election protests.
Second term (2010–2014)
In the 2010 general election, the Moderate Party increased its share of the vote to 30.06%. The Alliance got a majority of votes cast, but with 173 seats no absolute majority in parliament. With the opposition divided mainly by the Sweden Democrats, Reinfeldt could remain in government, but with a greater need to seek consensus on matters of substance with the opposition parties.
The second term compromised a slow recovery from the 2008-2009 financial crisis and consolidation of policies from the first term. The political debate came from 2013 to be highly dominated by issues where the Government came in a defense mode, in particular for the poor performance of Swedish pupils in the international study of school performance, the Programme for International Student Assessment, and profits gained in private welfare, especially after the economic collapse that had preceded the closure of school group JB Education AB and questions of how key people in the Government, including himself, acted in the N.V. Nuon Energy affair.
Reinfeldt had during his second term, in contrast to his first term, no major international engagement. Contacts with other politicians, however, remained good, which was also marked by Barack Obama's visit to Stockholm in September 2013.
Immigration policy
After the nationalist Sweden Democrats entered the Riksdag, Reinfeldt wanted to seek bipartisan consensus on immigration policy in an attempt to undercut and isolate the Sweden Democrats on their main issue. In early 2011 an agreement between the Alliance and the Green Party was reached, which would among other things, give undocumented immigrants access to universal healthcare and lessen the requirements for family reunification. During the last year of Reinfeldt's time in office Sweden faced the biggest influx of immigrants it had ever seen up until that point. During a press conference in the run-up to the 2014 election campaign Reinfeldt urged the Swedish people to "open their hearts" () to people fleeing wars, stating that he wouldn't promise much in the upcoming campaign considering the costs that the immigration would bring. The Sweden Democrats perceived the press conference as confirming their belief that asylum immigration is in conflict with the Swedish welfare state.
Economic policy
He adopted a liberal roadmap, leading in particular to a modification of the tax system (including the abandonment of inheritance tax), a tightening of the conditions of access to unemployment benefits or sick pay, and the reduction of public spending.
It privatised much of the health sector from 2006, with mixed results. While the number of specialists has increased, reducing waiting times for appointments, privatisation has also led to higher costs for the government (to make a profit, private institutions have to increase the number of consultations and interventions) and increased inequalities in access to health care, with specialists tending to leave the regions for the big cities and the suburbs for wealthier areas.
In early 2013, the liberal British magazine The Economist praised the Reinfeldt government's reforms, pointing out that the country could become "the next liberal supermodel".
Foreign policy
The Moderate Party has a pro-European Union policy stance—including support for exchanging the SEK for the Euro—and also supports Sweden joining NATO. During the 2000 United States presidential election, Reinfeldt visited the United States to support the campaign of George W. Bush. Prior to the 2004 United States presidential election, Reinfeldt again expressed his support for Bush. In an interview with the newspaper Stockholm City on 8 March 2004, Reinfeldt said that he preferred Bush over the Democratic Party contender John Kerry, and in a poll conducted by the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in April 2004, Reinfeldt like a large majority of his party favoured Bush over Kerry.
Despite this, he has compared his government's actions and policies to those of Bill Clinton's administration, and supported Barack Obama in the 2008 United States presidential election.
Reinfeldt visited Washington, D.C., on 15 May 2007, meeting with President Bush. His trip also included meetings with others, including United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is his first visit to the United States since becoming Prime Minister in 2006. Bush and Reinfeldt mostly discussed climate change and free trade, focusing on the Doha Round. He visited President Barack Obama at first the White House and then in the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 23 September 2009.
Reinfeldt was President of the European Council from 1 July to 1 December 2009. The signing of the Treaty of Lisbon was Reinfeldt's role as President of the Council, which also occurred on 13 December 2009. Reinfeldt was also responsible in this role to put EU's efforts to get into a binding agreement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009 but this did not succeed.
Post-premiership (2014–present)
After defeat in 2014, Reinfeldt announced he would step down as both Prime Minister of Sweden and as party leader of the Moderate Party. He stepped down from the office of Prime Minister on 3 October 2014, being succeeded by Stefan Löfven. He resigned from the Riksdag on 31 December 2014 and stepped down as party leader on 10 January 2015, being succeeded by Anna Kinberg Batra.
On 19 January 2015, Reinfeldt announced that he had formed his own business Fredrik Reinfeldt AB where he will serve as an advisor and lecturer. He will also continue to promote his "job line", which was a key part of his premiership, in a continued community deed. On 1 September 2015 he launched his autobiography, titled Halfway, where he reflects over his 25 years in Swedish and international politics.
On 11 December 2015, Reinfeldt was nominated to become the next chairman of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. He will be formally appointed in February 2016.
In January 2016, Reinfeldt was awarded H. M. The King's Medal, 12th size with chain, for extraordinary efforts as Prime Minister. On 15 March 2016 it was announced that Reinfeldt had been hired by Bank of America Merrill Lynch as a senior adviser for its business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
On 25 March 2023, he was elected chairman of the Swedish Football Association.
Public perception
Reinfeldt has been called a "Swedish David Cameron," insofar as he succeeded in shifting the public perception of the Moderate Party from a clear right-wing position to a more centrist one. On the other hand, he is thought to have influenced Cameron, since Reinfeldt was elected party leader in 2003—two years before Cameron took control of the British Conservative Party in 2005. Reinfeldt has also been described as a communitarian.
In a study by Sifo, a Swedish polling institute, Reinfeldt was the "most admired man in Sweden" in 2006. Reinfeldt's approval rating reached its highest measured point yet in December 2006, at 57% approval in an Aftonbladet/Sifo poll. Approval ratings for Reinfeldt as a person remained overall good but fluctuating through most of the period 2006–2010, but did not always seem to translate into support for the cabinet.
Reinfeldt has been perceived as a controlled and harmonious person. He was described, already before he became prime minister, as "gentle, pensive and a good listener" and his "cool, soft-spoken approach" is said to go down well with Swedish voters; it also fits well with the promotion of the policies of his cabinet as being not ideological, but motivated by non-political reason and common sense, in implicit contrast to the "ideological excesses" of the Social Democrats and their allies. Aware of this perception, Reinfeldt has said "I am by nature confident and calm. But that does not mean I am not passionate and wouldn't feel strongly about things." Regarding his family life, Reinfeldt has cultivated the image of a good family man who enjoys housework.
Criticism
Reinfeldt has been criticized for supposedly anti-Swedish commentary such as "The native Swedish culture is only barbaric" which referred to the positive effect the inflow of people and influences had on the development of Sweden. Reinfeldt was also criticized for his book "Det sovande folket" ("The sleeping nation"), of which he initially denied authorship, but later confessed calling it a "sin of the youth". VLT published an article stating that Reinfeldt was 28 years old, a business and economics graduate and had been in parliament for two years and that he "knew fully what he was doing". The book has also received criticism for proposing radical neoliberalism. Reinfeldt has been called "one of Sweden's most dangerous leaders" in an article by Social Democrat Daniel Suhonen. Reinfeldt has also been criticized for having sold out parts of elderly care, privatized some primary and secondary schools and pharmacies. Reinfeldt received heavy criticism for having proposed in a deputy report, authored by himself, that Swedes should work to the age of 75 and further if possible. SVT published an article of Reinfeldt's commentary on Twitter speaking of low unemployment among "ethnic swedes" for which he received severe criticism. Blekinge Läns Tidning published an article criticizing Reinfeldt for being narrow minded stating that "migration can save the pension system". Henrik Lilja of conspiracy oriented Facebook group ProjektSanning criticized Reinfeldt for having "destroyed Sweden". Breakit criticized Reinfeldt after the "Ipred-lagen" (online piracy law) was passed in Sweden, since he stated that young file-share users would not be chased by the authorities but failed to mention that private corporates could force ISPs to release data. Reinfeldt asked the Swedish public to "open their hearts" towards refugees which he was criticized for by some political opponents. He also received criticism for not having provided the financial prerequisites during his eight years in power. Leftist anarchist leaning website AktuelltFokus published an article criticizing Reinfeldt, after leaving politics, for receiving a government pension with monthly payments of 156 000 SEK from Swedish tax money while his own corporate declared a profit of 22 million SEK in 2016. Jimmie Åkesson, party leader of the nationalist Sweden Democrats, has often called Reinfeldt "swede-phobic".
Personal life
In 1992, Fredrik Reinfeldt married Filippa Holmberg, a Stockholm County municipal politician for the Moderate Party. During Fredrik's tenure as prime minister, Filippa Reinfeldt was County Councillor for healthcare issues () in Stockholm. After being elected Prime Minister in 2006, Reinfeldt moved into the prime minister's official residence, the Sager House, together with his wife and their three children, Ebba, Gustaf and Erik. On 7 March 2012 it became known that the couple had separated. On 11 July 2012 the couple signed their divorce papers with consideration of 6 months. On 20 February 2013 they signed the last papers which conducted their divorce.
His father Bruno Reinfeldt was also formerly involved in local politics for the Moderate Party in Täby, but left all his political posts in February 2009 after having been arrested and later convicted for drunk driving.
On 23 February 2015, Reinfeldt confirmed that he was now in a relationship with Roberta Alenius. Alenius served as Head of Communications (Chief of the Press Secretaries) at the Cabinet Office from 2006 to 2014, while Reinfeldt served as Prime Minister. On 2 May 2017, Alenius gave birth to Reinfeldt's fourth child and second daughter. The couple announced in 2022 that they had separated.
During the 2006 election, it was brought to attention that Reinfeldt's paternal great-great-grandfather was an African American circus director from New York, John Hood, who had a son with Emma Dorotea Reinfeld, a maid from Eckau (now Iecava in present-day Latvia). Emma Dorotea Reinfeld later married the Swede Anders Karlsson, but her illegitimate son John kept his mother's surname. The spelling was later changed to Reinfeldt. He also has Italian ancestry, via his paternal grandmother.
Personal opinions
He has revealed that his personal distaste for the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party is based on his partly African ancestry.
Reinfeldt has said that he left the Church of Sweden when he was eighteen years old, critical of the left-leaning perspectives of the church. In an interview as Prime Minister he however said that he could not state if he believed in God, discussing his belief "that something exist that is not just about the scientific explanation for how the Earth was created. But exactly what it is I don't have an answer for, I am both searching and wondering." He was however married, and had his children baptized in the Church of Sweden.
He has lately also attracted some attention as a political science fiction writer. His social dystopia "Det sovande folket" (The Sleeping People) was in 2013 featured as a play at Teater Alma in Stockholm.
Honours
National honours
Recipient of the King Carl XVI Gustaf's Jubilee Commemorative Medal II (23 August 2013)
H. M. The King's Medal, 12th size with chain (4 February 2016)
Foreign honours
: Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class (18 January 2011)
Works
Notes
Further reading
External links
Fredrik Reinfeldt at the Government Offices of Sweden
Fredrik Reinfeldt at the Parliament of Sweden
Fredrik Reinfeldt at the Moderate Party
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1965 births
Leaders of the Moderate Party
Living people
People from Haninge Municipality
Presidents of the European Council
Prime Ministers of Sweden
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class
Stockholm University alumni
Swedish people of German descent
Swedish people of Italian descent
Swedish people of Latvian descent
Members of the Riksdag 2002–2006
Swedish former Christians
Former Lutherans
Swedish agnostics
Swedish people of African-American descent
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear%20differential%20equation
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Linear differential equation
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In mathematics, a linear differential equation is a differential equation that is defined by a linear polynomial in the unknown function and its derivatives, that is an equation of the form
where and are arbitrary differentiable functions that do not need to be linear, and are the successive derivatives of an unknown function of the variable .
Such an equation is an ordinary differential equation (ODE). A linear differential equation may also be a linear partial differential equation (PDE), if the unknown function depends on several variables, and the derivatives that appear in the equation are partial derivatives.
Types of solution
A linear differential equation or a system of linear equations such that the associated homogeneous equations have constant coefficients may be solved by quadrature, which means that the solutions may be expressed in terms of integrals. This is also true for a linear equation of order one, with non-constant coefficients. An equation of order two or higher with non-constant coefficients cannot, in general, be solved by quadrature. For order two, Kovacic's algorithm allows deciding whether there are solutions in terms of integrals, and computing them if any.
The solutions of homogeneous linear differential equations with polynomial coefficients are called holonomic functions. This class of functions is stable under sums, products, differentiation, integration, and contains many usual functions and special functions such as exponential function, logarithm, sine, cosine, inverse trigonometric functions, error function, Bessel functions and hypergeometric functions. Their representation by the defining differential equation and initial conditions allows making algorithmic (on these functions) most operations of calculus, such as computation of antiderivatives, limits, asymptotic expansion, and numerical evaluation to any precision, with a certified error bound.
Basic terminology
The highest order of derivation that appears in a (linear) differential equation is the order of the equation. The term , which does not depend on the unknown function and its derivatives, is sometimes called the constant term of the equation (by analogy with algebraic equations), even when this term is a non-constant function. If the constant term is the zero function, then the differential equation is said to be homogeneous, as it is a homogeneous polynomial in the unknown function and its derivatives. The equation obtained by replacing, in a linear differential equation, the constant term by the zero function is the . A differential equation has constant coefficients if only constant functions appear as coefficients in the associated homogeneous equation.
A of a differential equation is a function that satisfies the equation.
The solutions of a homogeneous linear differential equation form a vector space. In the ordinary case, this vector space has a finite dimension, equal to the order of the equation. All solutions of a linear differential equation are found by adding to a particular solution any solution of the associated homogeneous equation.
Linear differential operator
A basic differential operator of order is a mapping that maps any differentiable function to its th derivative, or, in the case of several variables, to one of its partial derivatives of order . It is commonly denoted
in the case of univariate functions, and
in the case of functions of variables. The basic differential operators include the derivative of order 0, which is the identity mapping.
A linear differential operator (abbreviated, in this article, as linear operator or, simply, operator) is a linear combination of basic differential operators, with differentiable functions as coefficients. In the univariate case, a linear operator has thus the form
where are differentiable functions, and the nonnegative integer is the order of the operator (if is not the zero function).
Let be a linear differential operator. The application of to a function is usually denoted or , if one needs to specify the variable (this must not be confused with a multiplication). A linear differential operator is a linear operator, since it maps sums to sums and the product by a scalar to the product by the same scalar.
As the sum of two linear operators is a linear operator, as well as the product (on the left) of a linear operator by a differentiable function, the linear differential operators form a vector space over the real numbers or the complex numbers (depending on the nature of the functions that are considered). They form also a free module over the ring of differentiable functions.
The language of operators allows a compact writing for differentiable equations: if
is a linear differential operator, then the equation
may be rewritten
There may be several variants to this notation; in particular the variable of differentiation may appear explicitly or not in and the right-hand and of the equation, such as or .
The kernel of a linear differential operator is its kernel as a linear mapping, that is the vector space of the solutions of the (homogeneous) differential equation .
In the case of an ordinary differential operator of order , Carathéodory's existence theorem implies that, under very mild conditions, the kernel of is a vector space of dimension , and that the solutions of the equation have the form
where are arbitrary numbers. Typically, the hypotheses of Carathéodory's theorem are satisfied in an interval , if the functions are continuous in , and there is a positive real number such that for every in .
Homogeneous equation with constant coefficients
A homogeneous linear differential equation has constant coefficients if it has the form
where are (real or complex) numbers. In other words, it has constant coefficients if it is defined by a linear operator with constant coefficients.
The study of these differential equations with constant coefficients dates back to Leonhard Euler, who introduced the exponential function , which is the unique solution of the equation such that . It follows that the th derivative of is , and this allows solving homogeneous linear differential equations rather easily.
Let
be a homogeneous linear differential equation with constant coefficients (that is are real or complex numbers).
Searching solutions of this equation that have the form is equivalent to searching the constants such that
Factoring out (which is never zero), shows that must be a root of the characteristic polynomial
of the differential equation, which is the left-hand side of the characteristic equation
When these roots are all distinct, one has distinct solutions that are not necessarily real, even if the coefficients of the equation are real. These solutions can be shown to be linearly independent, by considering the Vandermonde determinant of the values of these solutions at . Together they form a basis of the vector space of solutions of the differential equation (that is, the kernel of the differential operator).
In the case where the characteristic polynomial has only simple roots, the preceding provides a complete basis of the solutions vector space. In the case of multiple roots, more linearly independent solutions are needed for having a basis. These have the form
where is a nonnegative integer, is a root of the characteristic polynomial of multiplicity , and . For proving that these functions are solutions, one may remark that if is a root of the characteristic polynomial of multiplicity , the characteristic polynomial may be factored as . Thus, applying the differential operator of the equation is equivalent with applying first times the operator and then the operator that has as characteristic polynomial. By the exponential shift theorem,
and thus one gets zero after application of
As, by the fundamental theorem of algebra, the sum of the multiplicities of the roots of a polynomial equals the degree of the polynomial, the number of above solutions equals the order of the differential equation, and these solutions form a base of the vector space of the solutions.
In the common case where the coefficients of the equation are real, it is generally more convenient to have a basis of the solutions consisting of real-valued functions. Such a basis may be obtained from the preceding basis by remarking that, if is a root of the characteristic polynomial, then is also a root, of the same multiplicity. Thus a real basis is obtained by using Euler's formula, and replacing and by and .
Second-order case
A homogeneous linear differential equation of the second order may be written
and its characteristic polynomial is
If and are real, there are three cases for the solutions, depending on the discriminant . In all three cases, the general solution depends on two arbitrary constants and .
If , the characteristic polynomial has two distinct real roots , and . In this case, the general solution is
If , the characteristic polynomial has a double root , and the general solution is
If , the characteristic polynomial has two complex conjugate roots , and the general solution is which may be rewritten in real terms, using Euler's formula as
Finding the solution satisfying and , one equates the values of the above general solution at and its derivative there to and , respectively. This results in a linear system of two linear equations in the two unknowns and . Solving this system gives the solution for a so-called Cauchy problem, in which the values at for the solution of the DEQ and its derivative are specified.
Non-homogeneous equation with constant coefficients
A non-homogeneous equation of order with constant coefficients may be written
where are real or complex numbers, is a given function of , and is the unknown function (for sake of simplicity, "" will be omitted in the following).
There are several methods for solving such an equation. The best method depends on the nature of the function that makes the equation non-homogeneous. If is a linear combination of exponential and sinusoidal functions, then the exponential response formula may be used. If, more generally, is a linear combination of functions of the form , , and , where is a nonnegative integer, and a constant (which need not be the same in each term), then the method of undetermined coefficients may be used. Still more general, the annihilator method applies when satisfies a homogeneous linear differential equation, typically, a holonomic function.
The most general method is the variation of constants, which is presented here.
The general solution of the associated homogeneous equation
is
where is a basis of the vector space of the solutions and are arbitrary constants. The method of variation of constants takes its name from the following idea. Instead of considering as constants, they can be considered as unknown functions that have to be determined for making a solution of the non-homogeneous equation. For this purpose, one adds the constraints
which imply (by product rule and induction)
for , and
Replacing in the original equation and its derivatives by these expressions, and using the fact that are solutions of the original homogeneous equation, one gets
This equation and the above ones with as left-hand side form a system of linear equations in whose coefficients are known functions (, the , and their derivatives). This system can be solved by any method of linear algebra. The computation of antiderivatives gives , and then .
As antiderivatives are defined up to the addition of a constant, one finds again that the general solution of the non-homogeneous equation is the sum of an arbitrary solution and the general solution of the associated homogeneous equation.
First-order equation with variable coefficients
The general form of a linear ordinary differential equation of order 1, after dividing out the coefficient of , is:
If the equation is homogeneous, i.e. , one may rewrite and integrate:
where is an arbitrary constant of integration and is any antiderivative of . Thus, the general solution of the homogeneous equation is
where is an arbitrary constant.
For the general non-homogeneous equation, one may multiply it by the reciprocal of a solution of the homogeneous equation. This gives
As the product rule allows rewriting the equation as
Thus, the general solution is
where is a constant of integration, and is any antiderivative of (changing of antiderivative amounts to change the constant of integration).
Example
Solving the equation
The associated homogeneous equation gives
that is
Dividing the original equation by one of these solutions gives
That is
and
For the initial condition
one gets the particular solution
System of linear differential equations
A system of linear differential equations consists of several linear differential equations that involve several unknown functions. In general one restricts the study to systems such that the number of unknown functions equals the number of equations.
An arbitrary linear ordinary differential equation and a system of such equations can be converted into a first order system of linear differential equations by adding variables for all but the highest order derivatives. That is, if {{tmath| y', y, \ldots, y^{(k)} }} appear in an equation, one may replace them by new unknown functions that must satisfy the equations and for .
A linear system of the first order, which has unknown functions and differential equations may normally be solved for the derivatives of the unknown functions. If it is not the case this is a differential-algebraic system, and this is a different theory. Therefore, the systems that are considered here have the form
where and the are functions of . In matrix notation, this system may be written (omitting "")
The solving method is similar to that of a single first order linear differential equations, but with complications stemming from noncommutativity of matrix multiplication.
Let
be the homogeneous equation associated to the above matrix equation.
Its solutions form a vector space of dimension , and are therefore the columns of a square matrix of functions , whose determinant is not the zero function. If , or is a matrix of constants, or, more generally, if commutes with its antiderivative , then one may choose equal the exponential of . In fact, in these cases, one has
In the general case there is no closed-form solution for the homogeneous equation, and one has to use either a numerical method, or an approximation method such as Magnus expansion.
Knowing the matrix , the general solution of the non-homogeneous equation is
where the column matrix is an arbitrary constant of integration.
If initial conditions are given as
the solution that satisfies these initial conditions is
Higher order with variable coefficients
A linear ordinary equation of order one with variable coefficients may be solved by quadrature, which means that the solutions may be expressed in terms of integrals. This is not the case for order at least two. This is the main result of Picard–Vessiot theory which was initiated by Émile Picard and Ernest Vessiot, and whose recent developments are called differential Galois theory.
The impossibility of solving by quadrature can be compared with the Abel–Ruffini theorem, which states that an algebraic equation of degree at least five cannot, in general, be solved by radicals. This analogy extends to the proof methods and motivates the denomination of differential Galois theory.
Similarly to the algebraic case, the theory allows deciding which equations may be solved by quadrature, and if possible solving them. However, for both theories, the necessary computations are extremely difficult, even with the most powerful computers.
Nevertheless, the case of order two with rational coefficients has been completely solved by Kovacic's algorithm.
Cauchy–Euler equation
Cauchy–Euler equations are examples of equations of any order, with variable coefficients, that can be solved explicitly. These are the equations of the form
where are constant coefficients.
Holonomic functions
A holonomic function, also called a D-finite function, is a function that is a solution of a homogeneous linear differential equation with polynomial coefficients.
Most functions that are commonly considered in mathematics are holonomic or quotients of holonomic functions. In fact, holonomic functions include polynomials, algebraic functions, logarithm, exponential function, sine, cosine, hyperbolic sine, hyperbolic cosine, inverse trigonometric and inverse hyperbolic functions, and many special functions such as Bessel functions and hypergeometric functions.
Holonomic functions have several closure properties; in particular, sums, products, derivative and integrals of holonomic functions are holonomic. Moreover, these closure properties are effective, in the sense that there are algorithms for computing the differential equation of the result of any of these operations, knowing the differential equations of the input.
Usefulness of the concept of holonomic functions results of Zeilberger's theorem, which follows.
A holonomic sequence is a sequence of numbers that may be generated by a recurrence relation with polynomial coefficients. The coefficients of the Taylor series at a point of a holonomic function form a holonomic sequence. Conversely, if the sequence of the coefficients of a power series is holonomic, then the series defines a holonomic function (even if the radius of convergence is zero). There are efficient algorithms for both conversions, that is for computing the recurrence relation from the differential equation, and vice versa''.
It follows that, if one represents (in a computer) holonomic functions by their defining differential equations and initial conditions, most calculus operations can be done automatically on these functions, such as derivative, indefinite and definite integral, fast computation of Taylor series (thanks of the recurrence relation on its coefficients), evaluation to a high precision with certified bound of the approximation error, limits, localization of singularities, asymptotic behavior at infinity and near singularities, proof of identities, etc.
See also
Continuous-repayment mortgage
Fourier transform
Laplace transform
Linear difference equation
Variation of parameters
References
External links
http://eqworld.ipmnet.ru/en/solutions/ode.htm
Dynamic Dictionary of Mathematical Function. Automatic and interactive study of many holonomic functions.
Differential equations
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation%20analysis
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Conversation analysis
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Conversation analysis (CA) is an approach to the study of social interaction that empirically investigates the mechanisms by which humans achieve mutual understanding. It focuses on both verbal and non-verbal conduct, especially in situations of everyday life. CA originated as a sociological method, but has since spread to other fields. CA began with a focus on casual conversation, but its methods were subsequently adapted to embrace more task- and institution-centered interactions, such as those occurring in doctors' offices, courts, law enforcement, helplines, educational settings, and the mass media, and focus on multimodal and nonverbal activity in interaction, including gaze, body movement and gesture. As a consequence, the term conversation analysis has become something of a misnomer, but it has continued as a term for a distinctive and successful approach to the analysis of interactions. CA and ethnomethodology are sometimes considered one field and referred to as EMCA.
Conversation analysis should not be confused with other methods of analyzing conversation or interaction, such as other areas of pragmatics and discourse analysis.
History
Conversation analysis was developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s principally by the sociologist Harvey Sacks and his close associates Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson. Sacks was inspired by Harold Garfinkel's ethnomethodology and Erving Goffman's conception of what came to be known as the interaction order, but also a number of minor sources of contemporary influences such as the generativism of Noam Chomsky and its focus on building an apparatus. The speech act theory of John Searle was a parallel development rather than influencing or influenced by CA. Today CA is an established method used in sociology, anthropology, linguistics, speech-communication and psychology, and has developed subfields such as interactional sociolinguistics and interactional linguistics, discourse analysis and discursive psychology.
Method
The method consists of detailed qualitative analysis of stretches of interaction between a number of people, often with accompanied by a detailed transcription. Most studies rely on a collection of cases, often from different interactions with different people, but some studies also focus on a single-case analysis. Crucially, the method uses the fact that interaction consists of multiple participants and that they make sense of each other, so the method proceeds by considering e.g. how one turn by a specific participant displays an understanding of the previous turn by another participant (or other earlier interaction). This is commonly referred to as the next-turn proof procedure even though proof is not to be taken literally. Research questions revolve around participants' orientation, that is, what features (linguistic or other) that cues people to respond in certain ways and influence the trajectory of an interaction. A key part of the method are deviant cases in collections, as they show that when a participant does not follow a norm, the interaction is affected in a way that reveals the existence of the norm in focus.
The data used in CA is in the form of video- or audio-recorded conversations, collected with or without researchers' involvement, typically from a video camera or other recording device in the space where the conversation takes place (e.g. a living room, picnic, or doctor's office). The researchers construct detailed transcriptions from the recordings, containing as much detail as is possible.
The transcription often contains additional information about nonverbal communication and the way people say things. Jeffersonian transcription is a commonly used method of transcription and nonverbal details are often transcribed according to Mondadan conventions by Lorenza Mondada.
After transcription, the researchers perform inductive data-driven analysis aiming to find recurring patterns of interaction. Based on the analysis, the researchers identify regularities, rules or models to describe these patterns, enhancing, modifying or replacing initial hypotheses. While this kind of inductive analysis based on collections of data exhibits is basic to fundamental work in CA, it has been more common in recent years to also use statistical analysis in applications of CA to solve problems in medicine and elsewhere.
While conversation analysis provides a method of analysing conversation, this method is informed by an underlying theory of what features of conversation are meaningful and the meanings that are likely implied by these features. Additionally there is a body of theory about how to interpret conversation.
Basic structures
Conversation analysis provides a model that can be used to understand interactions, and offers a number of concepts to describe them. The following section contains important concepts and phenomena identified in the conversation analytical literature, and will refer to articles that are centrally concerned with the phenomenon. A conversation is viewed as a collection of turns of speaking; errors or misunderstandings in speech are addressed with repairs, and turns may be marked by the delay between them or other linguistic features.
Turn-taking organization
The analysis of turn-taking started with the description in a model in the paper known as the Simplest Systematics, which was very programmatic for the field of Conversation analysis and one of the most cited papers published in the journal Language.
The model is designed to explain that when people talk in conversation, they do not always talk all at the same time, but generally, one person speaks at a time, and then another person can follow. Such a contribution to a conversation by one speaker is then a turn. A turn is created through certain forms or units that listeners can recognize and count on, called turn construction units (TCUs), and speakers and listeners will know that such forms can be a word or a clause, and use that knowledge to predict when a speaker is finished so that others can speak, to avoid or minimize both overlap and silence. A listener will look for the places where they can start speaking - so-called transition relevant places (TRPs) - based on how the units appear over time. Turn construction units can be created or recognized via four methods, i.e. types of unit design:
Grammatical methods, i.e. morphosyntactic structures.
Prosodic methods, e.g. pitch, speed and changes in pronunciation.
Pragmatic methods: turns perform actions, and at the point where listeners have heard enough and know enough, a turn can be pragmatically complete.
Visual methods: Gesture, gaze and body movement is also used to indicate that a turn is over. For example, a person speaking looks at the next speaker when their turn is about to end.
Each time a turn is over, speakers also have to decide who can talk next, and this is called turn allocation. The rules for turn allocation is commonly formulated in the same way as in the original Simplest Systematics paper, with 2 parts where the first consists of 3 elements:
a. If the current speaker selects a next one to speak at the end of current TCU (by name, gaze or contextual aspects of what is said), the selected speaker has the right and obligation to speak next.
b. If the current speaker does not select a next speaker, other potential speakers have the right to self-select (the first starter gets the turn)
c. If options 1a and 1b have not been implemented, current speaker may continue with another TCU.
At the end of that TCU, the option system applies again.
Based on the turn-taking system, three types of silence may be distinguished:
Pause: A period of silence within a speaker's TCU, i.e. during a speaker's turn when a sentence is not finished.
Gap: A period of silence between turns, for example after a question has been asked and not yet answered
Lapse: A period of silence when no sequence or other structured activity is in progress: the current speaker stops talking, does not select a next speaker, and no one self selects. Lapses are commonly associated with visual or other forms of disengagement between speakers, even if these periods are brief.
Some types of turns may require extra work before they can successfully take place. Speakers wanting a long turn, for example to tell a story or describe important news, must first establish that others will not intervene during the course of the telling through some form of preface and approval by the listener (a so-called go-ahead). The preface and its associated go-ahead comprise a pre-sequence. Conversations cannot be appropriately ended by 'just stopping', but require a special closing sequence.
The model also leaves puzzles to be solved, for example concerning how turn boundaries are identified and projected, and the role played by gaze and body orientation in the management of turn-taking. It also establishes some questions for other disciplines: for example, the split second timing of turn-transition sets up a cognitive 'bottle neck' in which potential speakers must attend to incoming speech while also preparing their own contribution - something which imposes a heavy load of human processing capacity, and which may impact the structure of languages.
However, the original formulation in Sacks et al.1974 is designed to model turn-taking only in ordinary and informal conversation, and not interaction in more specialized, institutional environments such as meetings, courts, news interviews, mediation hearings, which have distinctive turn-taking organizations that depart in various ways from ordinary conversation. Later studies have looked at institutional interaction and turn-taking in institutional contexts. Interruptions have also been examined and analyzed.
Sequence organization
Adjacency pairs
Talk tends to occur in responsive pairs; however, the pairs may be split over a sequence of turns. Adjacency pairs divide utterance types into first pair parts and second pair parts to form a pair type. There are many examples of adjacency pairs including Questions-Answers, Offer-Acceptance/Refusal and Compliment-Response.
Sequence expansion
Sequence expansion allows talk which is made up of more than a single adjacency pair to be constructed and understood as performing the same basic action and the various additional elements are as doing interactional work related to the basic action underway.Sequence expansion is constructed in relation to a base sequence of a first pair part (FPP) and a second pair part (SPP) in which the core action underway is achieved. It can occur prior to the base FPP, between the base FPP and SPP, and following the base SPP.
Pre-expansion: an adjacency pair that may be understood as preliminary to the main course of action. A generic pre-expansion is a summon-answer adjacency pair, as in "Mary?"/ "Yes?".It is generic in the sense that it does not contribute to any particular types of base adjacency pair, such as request or suggestion. There are other types of pre-sequence that work to prepare the interlocutors for the subsequent speech action. For example, "Guess what!"/"What?" as preliminary to an announcement of some sort, or "What are you doing?"/"Nothing" as preliminary to an invitation or a request.
Insert expansion: an adjacency pair that comes between the FPP and SPP of the base adjacency pair. Insert expansions interrupt the activity under way, but are still relevant to that action. Insert expansion allows a possibility for a second speaker, the speaker who must produce the SPP, to do interactional work relevant to the projected SPP. An example of this would be a typical conversation between a customer and a shopkeeper:
Customer: I would like a turkey sandwich, please. (FPP base)
Server: White or wholegrain? (Insert FPP)
Customer: Wholegrain. (Insert SPP)
Server: Okay. (SPP base)
Post-expansion: a turn or an adjacency pair that comes after, but is still tied to, the base adjacency pair. There are two types: minimal and non-minimal. Minimal expansion is also termed sequence closing thirds, because it is a single turn after the base SPP (hence third) that does not project any further talk beyond their turn (hence closing). Examples of sequence closing thirds include "oh", "I see", "okay", etc.
Preference organization
CA may reveal structural (i.e. practice-underwritten) preferences in conversation for some types of actions (within sequences of action) over others, as responses in certain sequential environments. For example, responsive actions which agree with, or accept, positions taken by a first action tend to be performed more straightforwardly and faster than actions that disagree with, or decline, those positions. The former is termed a preferred turn shape, meaning the turn is not preceded by silence nor is it produced with delays, mitigation and accounts. The latter is termed a dispreferred turn shape, which describes a turn with opposite characteristics. One consequence of this is that agreement and acceptance are promoted over their alternatives, and are more likely to be the outcome of the sequence. Pre-sequences are also a component of preference organization and contribute to this outcome.
Repair
Repair organization describes how parties in conversation deal with problems in speaking, hearing, or understanding, and there are various mechanisms through which certain "troubles" in interaction are dealt with. Repair segments are classified by who initiates repair (self or other), by who resolves the problem (self or other), and by how it unfolds within a turn or a sequence of turns. The organization of repair is also a self-righting mechanism in social interaction. Participants in conversation seek to correct the trouble source by initiating and preferring self repair, the speaker of the trouble source, over other repair. Self repair initiations can be placed in three locations in relation to the trouble source, in a first turn, a transition space or in a third turn.
Action formation
Turns in interaction implement actions, and a specific turn may perform one (or more) specific actions. The study of action focuses on the description of how turns at talk are composed and positioned so as to realize one or more actions. This could include questions, assessments, storytelling, and complaints. Focus is both on how those actions are formed through linguistic or other activity (the formation of action) and how they are understood (the ascription of action to turns). The study of action also concerns the ways in which the participants’ knowledge, relations, and stances towards the ongoing interactional projects are created, maintained, and negotiated, and thus the intersubjectivity of how people interact. The concept of action within CA resembles, but is different from the concept of speech act in other fields of pragmatics.
Jeffersonian transcription
Gail Jefferson developed a system of transcription while working with Harvey Sacks. In this system, speakers are introduced with a name followed by a colon, as conventionally used in scripts. It is designed to use typographical and orthographical conventions used elsewhere, rather than a strict phonetic system such as the International Phonetic Alphabet. The transcription conventions take into account overlapping speech, delays between speech, pitch, volume and speed based on research showing that these features matter for the conversation in terms of action, turn-taking and more. Transcripts are typically written in a monospaced font to ease the alignment of overlap symbols.
There are various transcription systems based on the jeffersonian conventions with slight differences. Galina Bolden has designed a system for transcribing Russian conversations while Samtalegrammatik.dk uses their own system for Danish. GAT2 (Gesprächsanalytisches Transskriptionssystem 2) was also designed originally for German and to systematize the way some of the prosodic features are handled. The TalkBank also has its own system designed for use with its CLAN (CHILDES Language Analyzer) software.
Different approaches
Interactional linguistics
Interactional linguistics (IL) is Conversation analysis when the focus is on linguistic structure. While CA has worked with language in its data since the beginning, the interest in the structure of it, and possible relations to grammatical theory, was sometimes secondary to sociological (or ethnomethodological) research questions. The field developed during the 90's and got its name with the publication of the 2001 Studies in Interactional Linguistics and is inspired by West Coast functional grammar which is sometimes considered to have effectively merged with IL since then, but has also gained inspiration from British phoneticians doing prosodic analysis. Levinson's former department on Language and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics has been important in connecting CA and IL with linguistic typology. Interactional linguistics has studied topics within syntax, phonetics and semantics as they relate to e.g. action and turn-taking. There is a journal called Interactional Linguistics.
Discursive psychology
Discursive psychology (DP) is the use of CA on psychological themes, and studies how psychological phenomena are attended to, understood and construed in interaction. The subfield formed through studies by Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell, most notably their 1987 book Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes and behaviour.
Membership categorization analysis
Membership categorization analysis (MCA) was influenced by the work of Harvey Sacks and his work on Membership Categorization Devices (MCD). Sacks argues that members' categories comprise part of the central machinery of organization and developed the notion of MCD to explain how categories can be hearably linked together by native speakers of a culture. His example that is taken from a children's storybook (The baby cried. The mommy picked it up) shows how "mommy" is interpreted as the mother of the baby by speakers of the same culture. In light of this, categories are inference rich – a great deal of knowledge that members of a society have about the society is stored in terms of these categories. Stokoe further contends that members’ practical categorizations form part of ethnomethodology's description of the ongoing production and realization of ‘facts’ about social life and including members’ gendered reality analysis, thus making CA compatible with feminist studies.
Relations to other fields
Contrasts to other theories about language
In contrast to the use of introspection in linguistics, conversation analysis studies naturally-occurring talk in a strongly empirical fashion through the use of recordings In contrast to the theory developed by John Gumperz, CA maintains it is possible to analyze talk-in-interaction by examining its recordings alone (audio for telephone, video for copresent interaction). CA researchers do not believe that the researcher needs to consult with the talk participants or members of their speech community.
It is distinct from discourse analysis in focus and method. (i) Its focus is on processes involved in social interaction and does not include written texts or larger sociocultural phenomena (for example, 'discourses' in the Foucauldian sense). (ii) Its method, following Garfinkel and Goffman's initiatives, is aimed at determining the methods and resources that the interacting participants use and rely on to produce interactional contributions and make sense of the contributions of others. Thus CA is neither designed for, nor aimed at, examining the production of interaction from a perspective that is external to the participants' own reasoning and understanding about their circumstances and communication. Rather the aim is to model the resources and methods by which those understandings are produced.
In considering methods of qualitative analysis, Braun and Clarke distinguish thematic analysis from conversation analysis and discourse analysis, viewing thematic analysis to be theory agnostic while conversation analysis and discourse analysis are considered to be based on theories.
Applied conversation analysis
Conversation analysis is used in various context leading to a number of different fields benefitting from conversation analytic findings. This includes the study of doctor-patient interactions, media interviews, second-language acquisition, and various institutional settings. For instance, Tanya Stivers studied the pressures that lead to doctors prescribing antibiotics. A focus on interaction in professional contexts was established by the 1992 book Talk at Work by Paul Drew and John Heritage.
Criticism
Conversation analysis has been criticized for not being able to address issues of power and inequality in society at large. Another point of critique is the focus on single-case analysis and the generalizability of collection-based descriptions has been questioned.
References
Bibliography
Beattie, Geoffrey (1983) Talk: An Analysis of Speech and Non-Verbal Behaviour in Conversation. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Drew, Paul and Heritage, John (1993) Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heritage, John (1984) Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Heritage, John and Steven E. Clayman (2010) Talk in Action: Interactions, Identities and Institutions. Boston: Wiley-Blackwell.
Hutchby, Ian and Wooffitt, Robin (1988) Conversation Analysis. Polity Press.
Levinson, Stephen C. (1983) Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. pp 284–370. .
Pain, Jean. (2008) Not Just Talking: Conversational Analysis and Psychotherapy. Karnac.
Psathas, George (1995) Conversation Analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Ten Have, Paul (1999) Doing Conversation Analysis. A Practical Guide, Thousand Oaks: Sage.
External links
ISCA - The International Society for Conversation Analysis
An Introduction to Conversation Analysis (by Discourse and Rhetoric Group, Loughborough University)
Online bibliography database of CA literature
Applied linguistics
Discourse analysis
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri-Georges%20Clouzot
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Henri-Georges Clouzot
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Henri-Georges Clouzot (; 20 November 1907 – 12 January 1977) was a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for his work in the thriller film genre, having directed The Wages of Fear (1953) and Les Diaboliques (1955), which are critically recognized as among the greatest films of the 1950s. He also directed documentary films, including The Mystery of Picasso (1956), which was declared a national treasure by the government of France.
Clouzot was an early fan of the cinema and, desiring a career as a writer, moved to Paris. He was later hired by producer Adolphe Osso to work in Berlin, writing French-language versions of German films. After being fired from UFA studio in Nazi Germany due to his friendship with Jewish producers, Clouzot returned to France, where he spent years bedridden after contracting tuberculosis. Upon recovering, he found work in Nazi-occupied France as a screenwriter for the German-owned company Continental Films. At Continental, Clouzot wrote and directed films that were very popular. His second film Le Corbeau drew controversy over its harsh look at provincial France, and he was fired from Continental before its release. As a result of his association with Continental, he was barred by the French government from filmmaking until 1947.
After the ban was lifted, Clouzot reestablished his reputation and popularity in France during the late 1940s with successful films including Quai des Orfèvres. After the release of his comedy film Miquette, Clouzot married Véra Gibson-Amado, who would star in his next three feature films. In the early and mid-1950s, Clouzot drew acclaim from international critics and audiences for The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques; both films would serve as source material for remakes decades later. After the release of La Vérité, his wife Véra died of a heart attack, and Clouzot's career suffered due to depression, illness and new critical views of films from the French New Wave.
Clouzot is one of three filmmakers whose films have won the Golden Bear at Berlin, the Golden Lion at Venice, and the Palme d'Or at Cannes (the other two being Robert Altman and Michelangelo Antonioni). Clouzot's career became less active in later years, limited to a few television documentaries and two feature films in the 1960s. He wrote several unused scripts in the 1970s and died in Paris in 1977.
Biography
Early years
Henri-Georges Clouzot was born in Niort, Deux-Sèvres, to mother Suzanne Clouzot and father Georges Clouzout, a bookstore owner. He was the first of three children in a middle-class family. Clouzot showed talent by writing plays and playing piano recitals. His father's bookstore went bankrupt in 1922, and the family moved to Brest where Georges Clouzout became an auctioneer. In Brest, Henri-Georges Clouzot went to Naval School, but was unable to become a Naval Cadet due to his myopia. At the age of 18, Clouzot left for Paris to study political science. Whilst living in Paris, he became friends with several magazine editors. His writing talents led him to theater and cinema as a playwright, lyricist and adaptor-screenwriter. The quality of his work led producer Adolphe Osso to hire him and send him to Germany to work in Studio Babelsberg in Berlin, translating scripts for foreign-language films shot there.
Career
Screenwriting career (1931–1942)
Throughout the 1930s Clouzot worked by writing and translating scripts, dialogue and occasionally lyrics for over twenty films. While living in Germany, he saw the films of F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang and was deeply influenced by their expressionist style. Clouzot made his first short film, La Terreur des Batignolles, from a script by Jacques de Baroncelli, in 1931. The film is a 15-minute comedy with three actors. Film historian and critic Claude Beylie reported this short was "surprisingly well made with expressive use of shadows and lighting contrasts that Clouzot would exploit on the full-length features he would make years later". Clouzot's later wife, Inès de Gonzalez, said in 2004 that La Terreur des Batignolles added nothing to Clouzot's reputation. In Berlin, Clouzot saw several parades for Adolf Hitler and was shocked at how oblivious he felt France was to what was happening in Germany. In 1934, Clouzot was fired from UFA Studios for his friendship with Jewish film producers such as Adolphe Osso and Pierre Lazareff.
In 1935, Clouzot was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was sent first to Haute-Savoie and then to Switzerland, where he was bedridden for nearly five years in all. Clouzot's time in the sanatorium would be very influential on his career. While bedridden, Clouzot read constantly and learned the mechanics of storytelling to help improve his scripts. Clouzot also studied the fragile nature of the other people in the sanatorium. Clouzot had little money during this period, and was provided with financial and moral support by his family and friends. By the time Clouzot left the sanatorium and returned to Paris, World War II had broken out. French cinema had changed because many of the producers he had known had fled France to escape Nazism.
Clouzot's health problems kept him from military service. In 1939, he met actor Pierre Fresnay, who was already an established film star in France. Clouzot wrote the script for Fresnay's only directorial feature Le Duel, as well as two plays for him: On prend les mêmes, which was performed in December 1940, and Comédie en trois actes, which was performed in 1942. Despite writing scripts for films and plays, Clouzot was so poor that he resorted to trying to sell lyrics to French singer Édith Piaf, who declined to purchase them. In World War II, after France was invaded by Germany and subsequently during the German occupation, the German-operated film production company Continental Films was established in October 1940. Alfred Greven, the director of Continental, knew Clouzot from Berlin and offered him work to adapt stories of writer Stanislas-André Steeman. Clouzot felt uncomfortable working for the Germans, but was in desperate need of money and could not refuse Greven's offer. Clouzot's first film for Continental was the adaptation of Steeman's mystery novel Six hommes morts (Six Dead Men). Clouzot retitled the film Le Dernier des six, having been influenced by actress Suzy Delair while writing the script, allowing her to choose the name of the character she would play.
Early directorial work (1942–1947)
After the success of Le Dernier de six, Clouzot was hired as the head of Continental's screenwriting division. Clouzot began work on his second Steeman adaptation, which he would also direct, titled The Murderer Lives at Number 21. It starred Fresnay and Delair playing the same roles they had performed in Le Dernier de six. Released in 1942, the film was popular with audiences and critics. Clouzot's next film was Le Corbeau based on a true story about a woman who sent poison pen letters in 1922. Grevin was against Clouzot making this film, stating that topic was "dangerous". Le Corbeau would be the last film that Fresnay and Clouzot would work together on. Clouzot had used all possible means to try to anger the actor during the filming, and after he quarreled with Fresnay's wife, Yvonne Printemps, Fresnay and Clouzot broke off their friendship. Le Corbeau was a great success in France, with nearly 250,000 people having seen it in the first months of its initial release. Le Corbeau was released in 1943 and generated controversy from the right-wing Vichy regime, the left-wing Resistance press and the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church considered the film "painful and hard, constantly morbid in its complexity". The Vichy press dubbed it the antithesis of the Révolution nationale and demanded it be banned due to its immoral values. The anti-Nazi resistance press considered it Nazi propaganda because of its negative portrayal of the French populace. Two days before the release of Le Corbeau, Continental films fired Clouzot.
After the liberation of France, Clouzot and several other directors were tried in court for collaborating with the Germans. For his sentence, Clouzot was forbidden from going on set of any film or from using a film camera for the rest of his life. Clouzot received letters of support from filmmakers and artists Jean Cocteau, René Clair, Marcel Carné and Jean-Paul Sartre, who were against the ruling. Clouzot's sentence was later shortened from life to two years. There is no official document making note of any apology or appeal. During his two-year banishment from filming, Clouzot worked with one of his supporters, Jean-Paul Sartre, who had been one of the first people to defend Le Corbeau.
Return to filmmaking and acclaim (1947–1960)
After Clouzot's ban was lifted, he reestablished his reputation and popularity during the late 1940s with films such as Quai des Orfèvres and Manon. For Quai des Orfèvres, Clouzot asked the author Stanislas-André Steeman for a copy of his novel, Légitime défense, to adapt into a film. Clouzot started writing the script before the novel arrived for him to read. Quai des Orfèvres was released in 1947 and was the fourth most popular film in France, drawing 5.5 million spectators in that year. Clouzot directed and wrote two films that were released in 1949. For Manon, he wanted to cast unknown actors. He scoured schools to find an actress for the lead role, and chose 17-year-old Cécile Aubry after viewing over 700 girls. Manon was released in 1948 and was watched by 3.4 million filmgoers in France as well as winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Clouzot directed and wrote the short film Le Retour de Jean, which was part of the anthology film Return to Life. Le Retour de Jean was influenced by the short period when Clouzot lived in Germany in the early 1930s and stars Louis Jouvet as a survivor of a concentration camp who finds a wounded Nazi war criminal whom he interrogates and tortures. Clouzot's next film was the comedy Miquette et Sa Mère, which was a financial failure. During the film's production, Clouzot met Véra Gibson-Amado, whom he married on 15 January 1950. Clouzot and Véra took a film crew with them to Véra's homeland in Brazil for their honeymoon, where Clouzot made his first attempt at directing a documentary film. The Brazilian government took issue with Clouzot filming the poverty of people in the favelas rather than the more picturesque parts of Brazil. The film was never finished because the costs became too high. Clouzot became fascinated with the region and wrote a book, Le cheval des dieux, recounting his trip.
Upon returning to France, he was offered a script written by Georges Arnaud, an expatriate living in South America who had written about his own experiences there. Clouzot found it easy to imagine the setting of the script and was very anxious to film Arnaud's story. He started writing the film, The Wages of Fear, with his brother, Jean Clouzot, who would collaborate with him on all his subsequent films under the name of Jérôme Geronimi. Production on The Wages of Fear lasted from 1951 to 1952. In order to gain as much independence as possible, Clouzot created his own production company called Véra Films, which he named after his wife. The sole female role in The Wages of Fear is played by her. Clouzot wrote the role specifically for his wife, as the character does not exist in the original novel. The Wages of Fear is about a South American town where a group of desperate men are offered money to drive trucks carrying nitroglycerin through rough terrain to put out an oil well fire. The Wages of Fear was the second most popular film in France in 1953 and was seen by nearly 7 million spectators. It won awards for Best Film and Best Actor (for Charles Vanel) at the Cannes Film Festival. Clouzot's next big hit was Les Diaboliques, whose screenplay he took away from director Alfred Hitchcock. Les Diaboliques involves the story of a cruel headmaster who brutalizes his wife and his mistress. The two women plot to murder him and dump his body in a swimming pool, but when the pool is drained, no corpse is found. In 1954, Les Diaboliques won the Louis Delluc Prize and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for best foreign film. In this early and mid-1950s period, with the films The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques, Clouzot came to be fully embraced by international critics and audiences. Both films were screened and reviewed in America as well as in France, and were rated among the best thrillers of the decade. In 1955, Clouzot directed the documentary The Mystery of Picasso, about the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso. The film follows Picasso drawing or painting 15 different works, all of which were intentionally destroyed following the film's production. Clouzot and Picasso were old acquaintances, having met when Clouzot was 14. The Mystery of Picasso won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, but was a financial failure in France, being seen by only 37,000 filmgoers during its initial run in 1956. In 1984, the film was declared a national treasure by the government of France.
Clouzot's next feature film was Les Espions, which was released in 1957. Les Espions featured actors from around the world including Véra Clouzot, Curd Jürgens, Sam Jaffe and Peter Ustinov. Les Espions would be the last acting role for Clouzot's wife Véra, who had been suffering from severe heart problems since filming Les Diaboliques (incidentally, in that film she had also portrayed a frail woman suffering from heart disease). Les Espions is set in a rundown sanitarium that is taken over by international spies. One of the spies claims to have invented a nuclear explosive device which attracts the attention of the Russian and American counterspies. Les Espions was not released in the United States and was a financial failure in France. Clouzot later admitted that he only liked the first two-thirds of Les Espions. Producer Raoul Levy suggested Clouzot's next film should feature Brigitte Bardot as the lead actress. In response, Clouzot wrote the script for La Vérité. Bardot plays Dominique Marceau, who is on trial for the murder of her former boyfriend Gilbert Tellier. As her trial progresses, the relationship between Dominique and Gilbert becomes more finely shaped. Bardot later described La Vérité as her favorite of all the films she worked on. Released in 1960, La Vérité was the second most popular film in France with 5.7 million spectators and was Bardot's highest-grossing film. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Later career and failing health (1960–1977)
Although Clouzot's reputation had grown internationally, he lost notability in French cinema due to rise of the French New Wave. The New Wave directors refused to take Clouzot's thriller films seriously, and expressed their displeasure publicly through articles and reviews in the film criticism publication, . Clouzot took their criticism to heart, saying in the magazine Lui that he didn't find his films Les Diaboliques and Miquette et Sa Mère important or interesting anymore. The next film he worked on was L'Enfer, which was never completed. The film examines the sexual jealousy of a man towards his flirtatious wife, whose psychological state deforms everything with desire. Lead actor Serge Reggiani fell ill one week after shooting began and had to be replaced. Clouzot himself also became ill during production, which led doctors and insurance agents to order the production be stopped. Between 1965 and 1967, Clouzot filmed for French television five documentaries of Herbert von Karajan conducting Verdi's Requiem, Dvořák's New World Symphony, Schumann's 4th Symphony, Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Mozart's 5th Violin Concerto. After production finished on the documentaries, Clouzot was able to finance his final picture.
Clouzot's return to work reassured the doctors and insurers, and he returned to the film studio to make his final film La Prisonnière. The film began production in September 1967 and was halted when Clouzot fell ill and was hospitalized until April 1968. He began filming La Prisonnière again in August 1968. Clouzot incorporated stylistic elements of his aborted film L'enfer into La Prisonnière. La Prisonnière is about a woman who is introduced to a photographer who takes masochistic submissive pictures of young women. The woman volunteers herself as a model for these pictures and is surprised at her own pleasure in the activity. After finishing La Prisonnière, Clouzot's health grew worse. In the 1970s, he wrote a few more scripts without ever filming them, including a feature about Indochina. He also planned to direct a pornographic film in 1974 for Francis Micheline, but the film was abandoned. Clouzot's health grew worse and he required open-heart surgery in November 1976. On 12 January 1977 Clouzot died in his apartment while listening to The Damnation of Faust. Clouzot is buried beside Véra in the Montmartre Cemetery.
Personal life
In the late-1930s, Clouzot went to a cabaret show featuring entertainers Mistinguett and Suzy Delair at the Deus Anes Cabaret. Clouzot waited for Delair at the stage door and after meeting her, the two became a romantic couple for the next 12 years. Clouzot had Delair star in two of his films, The Murderer Lives at Number 21 and Quai des Orfèvres. Delair eventually left Clouzot after working with him on Quai des Orfèvres.
Clouzot met his first wife Vera Clouzot through actor Léo Lapara, who had minor parts in Le Retour de Jean and Quai des Orfèvres. Véra met Clouzot after divorcing Lapara and while working as a continuity assistant on Clouzot's Miquette et Sa Mère. Clouzot named his production company after Véra and had her star in all three films made by the company: The Wages of Fear, Diabolique and Les Espions. Véra also contributed to the script of La Vérité. Véra Clouzot died of a heart attack shortly after the filming of La Vérité. Clouzot fell into a depression over her death. After her funeral, he moved to Tahiti, but returned to France in December 1960.
Clouzot met his second wife, Inès de Gonzalez, for the first time at a casting call for a film based on Vladimir Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark. In 1962, Clouzot met de Gonzalez again after she had returned from South America. In December 1963, Clouzot and Inès de Gonzalez married. In the 1960s, Clouzot converted to Roman Catholicism.
Style
With the exception of the comedy film Miquette et sa mère, every directorial feature of Clouzot involves deception, betrayal and violent deaths. When basing screenplays on written work, Clouzot often changed the stories dramatically, using only key points of the original story. The author Stanislas-André Steeman, whom Clouzot worked with twice, said Clouzot would only "build something after having contemptuously demolished any resemblance to the original, purely for the ambition of effect". When writing for his own features, Clouzot created characters that were usually corrupt and spineless, with the capacity for both good and evil within them.
Clouzot was very demanding with his actors, and would often quarrel with them to get them in the mood he desired. Suzy Delair recalled that Clouzot slapped her, but said of it, "So what? He slapped others as well...He was tough but I'm not about to complain". Pierre Fresnay recalled that Clouzot "worked relentlessly, which made for a juicy spectacle...That's to say nothing for his taste of violence, which he never tried with me". When Clouzot worked with Brigitte Bardot, one scene required her character to drool and sleep. He offered her powerful sleeping pills, saying they were aspirin; this led to her stomach having to be pumped. Although he was harsh on his actors, he did not treat them fiercely off set. Delair recalled that off set there was an "innocence about him" that was not seen.
Clouzot biographer Marc Godin suggested Clouzot's life provides clues to understanding his style as a filmmaker. Clouzot was viewed by many of his collaborators as a pessimist, short-tempered, and almost always angry. Brigitte Bardot described Clouzot as "a negative being, forever at odds with himself and the world around him". His outlook on life is reflected in his own films that focus on the darker side of humanity.
Legacy
Despite criticism following the arrival of the French New Wave, career retrospectives of Clouzot's work have been positive. Twenty years after his death, film critic Noël Herpe wrote in the French film journal Positif that "Les Diaboliques (just like Les Espions and La Verite) reveals a sterile and increasingly exaggerated urge to experiment with the powers of fiction". Film historian Philipe Pilard wrote, "There is no doubt that if Clouzot had worked for Hollywood and applied the formulas of U.S. studios, today he would be lauded by the very critics who choose to ignore him". Clouzot today is generally known for his thriller films The Wages of Fear and Diabolique. Clouzot's ability in the genre led to comparisons with Alfred Hitchcock. Clouzot respected Hitchcock's work, stating, "I admire him very much and am flattered when anyone compares a film of mine to his".
Several of Clouzot's films have been remade since their original releases. Director Otto Preminger adapted Le Corbeau into his 1951 film The 13th Letter. In 1977, the year of Clouzot's death, William Friedkin directed a remake of The Wages of Fear called Sorcerer. French director Claude Chabrol adapted Clouzot's script for L'Enfer in 1994 for a film likewise titled L'Enfer. In 1996, an American remake of Les Diaboliques was released under the title Diabolique, starring Sharon Stone.
Filmography
L'assassin habite... au 21 (The Murderer Lives at Number 21, 1942)
Le corbeau (The Raven, 1943)
Quai des orfèvres (Goldsmiths' Quay, 1947)
Manon (1949)
Miquette et sa mère (Miquette, 1950)
Le salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear, 1953)
Les diaboliques (Diabolique, 1955)
Le mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso, 1956)
Les espions (The Spies, 1957)
La vérité (The Truth, 1960)
La prisonnière (Woman in Chains, 1968)
References
Notes
Bibliography
Bocque, José-Louis and Marc Godin. Henri-Georges Clouzot Cinéaste. La Sirène, 1993.
Chandler, Charlotte. It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock : A Personal Biography. Hal Leonard Corporation, 2006. .
Hayward, Susan. Les diaboliques. University of Illinois Press, 2005.
Lanzoni, Rémi Fournier. French Cinema: From its Beginnings to the Present. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004. .
Lloyd, Christopher. Henri-Georges Clouzot. Manchester University Press, 2007. .
Mayne, Judith. Le corbeau: French film guides series. I.B. Tauris, 2007. .
Singer, Barnett. Brigitte Bardot: A Biography. McFarland, 2006.
External links
1907 births
1977 deaths
Burials at Montmartre Cemetery
Edgar Award winners
French Roman Catholics
French film directors
French male screenwriters
20th-century French screenwriters
People from Niort
Directors of Palme d'Or winners
Directors of Golden Bear winners
Directors of Golden Lion winners
20th-century French male writers
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerfest
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Hammerfest
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Hammerfest (; ) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. Hammerfest is the northernmost town in the world with more than 10,000 inhabitants with the administrative centre of the municipality being the town of Hammerfest. Some of the main villages in the municipality include Rypefjord, Kvalsund, Forsøl, Hønsebybotn, Akkarfjord i Kvaløya, Akkarfjord i Sørøya, and Kårhamn.
The municipality is the 19th largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Hammerfest is the 102nd most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 11,274. The municipality's population density is and its population has increased by 3% over the previous 10-year period.
The municipality encompasses parts of three large islands: Kvaløya, Sørøya, and Seiland. Other small islands such as Håja, Lille Kamøya and Kamøya are also located here. Most parts of the municipality do not have a road connection with the rest of Norway; only Kvaløya island is connected to the mainland, via the Kvalsund Bridge.
General information
A municipality called Hammerfest by og landdistrikt (Hammerfest town and district) was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law), which included the town of Hammerfest and the vast rural district surrounding it. The law at that time required that all towns should be separated from their rural districts, but because of low population and very few voters, this was impossible to carry out for Hammerfest in 1838. (This was also the case in the nearby towns of Vadsø and Vardø.) In 1839, the northern district (population: 498) was separated to become a new municipality of Maasø. This left Hammerfest by og landdistrikt with 2,024 residents. On 1 January 1852, the rural district outside of the town (population: 1,256) was separated from the town to form a new municipality of Hammerfest landdistrikt. This left the town with 1,125 residents. (The rural district was later divided into two municipalities with Sørøysund in the north and Kvalsund in the south.)
On 1 January 1992, the municipality of Sørøysund (population: 2,341) was merged with the town of Hammerfest (population: 6,909) to form a new, larger municipality called Hammerfest.
In 2017, the two neighboring municipalities of Hammerfest and Kvalsund voted to merge into one large municipality effective 1 January 2020, and that merger came into effect on the planned date. Also on the same day, the new municipality became part of the newly formed Troms og Finnmark county. Previously, it had been part of the old Finnmark county.
Name
The municipality is named after the town of Hammerfest that was established in 1789. The town was named after an old anchorage. The first element is hammer, referring to a number of large rocks, good for mooring boats, called Hamran (Old Norse: Hamarr meaning "steep mountainside"). The Hamran were covered up in land reclaiming during the early post-war years. The last element is fest, from Old Norse which means "fastening" (for boats).
On 1 January 2020 when Kvalsund and Hammerfest were merged, the new municipality had two parallel, bilingual, interchangeable names: and . Beside the official , there are also two other common variants of the Sámi name: and .
Coat of arms
The coat of arms was granted on 16 December 1938, in preparation for the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the town's establishment in 1939. The official blazon is "Gules, a polar bear statant argent" (). This means the arms have a red field (background) and the charge is a polar bear. The polar bear has a tincture of argent which means it is commonly colored white, but if it is made out of metal, then silver is used. The polar bear was chosen as a symbol for the fishing in the polar seas north of Norway. The polar bear itself is not native to mainland Norway. Because of its town status, the arms often have a mural crown above them. The arms were designed by Ole Valle and the design was updated by Arvid Steen in 2001.
Churches
The Church of Norway has three parishes () within the municipality of Hammerfest. It is part of the Hammerfest prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Nord-Hålogaland.
History
Many grave sites dating back to the Stone Age can be found here. This location was an important fishing and Arctic hunting settlement for a long time before it was given market town rights by royal decree of Christian VII of Denmark–Norway in 1789.
Napoleonic Wars
During the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark–Norway broke its neutrality after a Royal Navy fleet launched a pre-emptive attack on Copenhagen, allying with France against the Coalition. As one of the main centres of commerce and transportation in western Finnmark, Hammerfest became a target of the Royal Navy's naval blockade. Thus, upon the request of local merchants, the town received four six-pound cannons from the central armoury in Trondheim. Subsequently, a fifty-man strong coastal defence militia was formed to defend Hammerfest from a possible naval assault. A number of merchants formed the officer corps of the militia, while Sea Samis and Kvens were mobilized as gun crews and soldiers.
British attack
On 22 July 1809, the expected British attack came when the brigs HMS Snake and HMS Fancy approached the town. Before reaching Hammerfest, the two vessels had successfully attacked the village of Hasvik. The following battle between Hammerfest's two two-cannon batteries and the Royal Navy warships with a combined number of thirty-two cannon between them was unusually intense and did not end before the Norwegian cannons had run out of gunpowder after about 90 minutes of combat. Both warships had suffered a number of cannonball hits and had at least one fatal casualty; a sailor who was buried at the local cemetery. During the battle, the local populace evacuated the town, and the Snake and Fancy remained in the town for eight days after the Norwegian defenders withdrew. The crews sacked the empty town before withdrawing.
Improved fortifications
After the raid, Hammerfest became a garrison town with some regular troops and much improved and expanded fortifications. A small flotilla of cannon-armed rowing boats also operated out of Hammerfest for the remainder of the Napoleonic Wars.
Fire of 1890
Hammerfest was struck by a fire in 1890 which started in the bakery and wiped out almost half the town's houses. After the fire Hammerfest received donations and humanitarian assistance from across the world, with the biggest single donor being Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. The Kaiser had personally visited the town several times on his yacht and had great affection for the small northern settlement.
Electric street lighting
In 1891, Hammerfest became the first urban settlement in Northern Europe to get electrical street lights. The invention was brought to Hammerfest by two of the town's merchants who had seen it demonstrated at a fair in Paris.
Destruction in World War II
After their victory in the Norwegian Campaign of the Second World War, the Germans soon fortified Hammerfest and used it as a major base. The importance of Hammerfest to the Germans increased dramatically after their invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The occupiers installed three coastal batteries in and around Hammerfest, one with four guns on Melkøya island near the town, one with three 10.5 cm guns on a hill right outside the town and a final battery with casemated pieces on the Rypklubben peninsula near Rypefjord.
The main German U-boat base in Finnmark was in Hammerfest, serving as a central supply base for the vessels attacking the allied supply convoys to Russia. Luftwaffe seaplanes were based at an improvised naval air station in nearby Rypefjord. The garrison in Hammerfest was also protected by around 4,000 mines and numerous anti-aircraft guns.
During their long retreat following the Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation, the Germans no longer managed to transport troops by sea further east due to intensive Red Air Force raids. Thus Hammerfest became their main shipping port in Finnmark in the autumn of 1944.
The town of Hammerfest was bombed twice by the Soviet Air Forces. The first time, on 14 February 1944, the town was hit by explosive and incendiary devices, but little damage was done. On 29 August 1944 Soviet bombers launched a second airstrike, inflicting significantly more damage to buildings and infrastructure in downtown Hammerfest. Two ships were sunk in the harbour. The ships lost were the local transports Tanahorn and Brynilen.
The population was forcibly evacuated by the occupying German troops in the autumn of 1944 after a Soviet offensive at the northern extremity of the Eastern Front pushed into eastern Finnmark. All of Finnmark including the town was looted and burned to the ground by the Germans when they retreated in 1945, the last of the town having been destroyed by the time the Germans finally left on 10 February 1945. Only the town's small funeral chapel, built in 1937, was left standing. The Museum of Reconstruction in Hammerfest tells the story of these events and the recovery of the region. The Soviet troops in eastern Finnmark were withdrawn in September 1945.
Mines and munitions left over from the Second World War were found and destroyed as late as 2008.
Geography
The island municipality encompasses parts of the mainland as well as three large islands: Kvaløya, Sørøya, and Seiland. Other small islands such as Lille Kamøya and Kamøya are also located here. Seiland National Park is partially located in the municipality. Seilandsjøkelen is a large glacier in the park. The Nordefjorden is a fjord that is part of the park. The mountains Komagaksla and Seilandstuva are some of the largest mountains in the municipality.
Hammerfest claims to be the northernmost city in the world, although the title is disputed by the nearby Norwegian town of Honningsvåg (achieved town status 1996). The validity of the claim depends upon one's definition of a city; although Hammerfest is further south than Honningsvåg it has a population over 10,000, which is required by Norwegian law to achieve town status (law from 1997). In retrospect, Parliament ruled that a city should be located in a municipality with at least 5,000 inhabitants. But the provision has not been made retroactive. Honningsvåg is the northernmost town today, in Norway. Utqiagvik, Alaska, population c. 4,000, is further north than both the Norwegian towns, but does not lay claim to the title of northernmost town. Some foreigners may find it strange that either Hammerfest or Honningsvåg claims to be cities, given the small size of both places and it may help to know that the Norwegian language does not distinguish between city and town. The closest translation for either term is the word by, meaning the translation from Norwegian to English is ambiguous. If both Hammerfest and Honningsvåg were to be defined according to old British tradition, neither of them would be considered cities, as neither has a cathedral. Both of them may, however, be considered towns, given the status of both settlements as economic hubs of the surrounding areas and the status as municipal centres.
Hammerfest is, together with Vardø, the oldest town in Northern Norway. The town of Hammerfest is situated on the island of Kvaløya, with road connection to the mainland using the Kvalsund Bridge.
Climate
Hammerfest has a subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification Dfc). In spite of the extreme northern location, there is no permafrost, as the mean annual temperature is approximately , about the same as Anchorage, Alaska which is located at a latitude of 61° North.
Hammerfest often experiences heavy snowfall in winter, and on some occasions, avalanches or risk of avalanches have forced some inhabitants to be evacuated from their exposed homes until the danger was over.
The "midnight sun" is above the horizon from 14 May to 31 July (79 days), and the period with continuous daylight lasts a bit longer, conversely the polar night lasts from 23 November to 19 January (59 days). The weather data is from Hammerfest Airport about 80 m elevation and 2 km from the town. Hammerfest town is at sea level, thus the town itself might be slightly warmer.
Government
All municipalities in Norway, including Hammerfest, are responsible for primary education (through 10th grade), outpatient health services, senior citizen services, unemployment and other social services, zoning, economic development, and municipal roads. The municipality is governed by a municipal council of elected representatives, which in turn elect a mayor. The municipality falls under the Hammerfest District Court and the Hålogaland Court of Appeal.
Municipal council
The municipal council of Hammerfest is made up of 35 representatives that are elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the council is as follows:
Mayors
The mayors of Hammerfest:
1839–1841: Hans Cato Aall
1841–1843: Henrik Øwre
1843–1845: Hans Cato Aall
1845–1846: Anton Magnus Søeberg
1846–1851: Iver Christian Rostad
1851–1854: Gerhard Wiesener
1855-1855: Iver Christian Rostad
1856-1856: Emanuel Dohren Peters
1857–1858: Gerhard Wiesener
1859–1860: Iver Christian Rostad
1861–1862: Ole Johan Finckenhagen
1863–1866: Elias Andreas Nilsen
1867-1867: Ole Lund
1868-1868: Jakob Sverdrup Smitt
1869–1870: Ole Lund
1871–1872: Jakob Sverdrup Smitt
1873–1876: Ole Lund
1877–1878: Carl Rein
1879–1887: Marius Ørbek Berg (H)
1887–1891: Ole Lund (H)
1892-1892: Christian Finckenhagen (H)
1893-1893: Peder Johansen (V)
1894-1894: Christian Finckenhagen (H)
1895–1901: Ole Kristian Simonsen (H)
1902-1902: Peder Johansen (V)
1903–1913: Hans Alfred Hansen (V)
1914–1917: Olaf Eriksen (Ap)
1918-1918: Svein O. Øraker (Ap)
1919-1920: Olaf Eriksen (Ap)
1921–1923: Sigurd M. Eriksen (Ap)
1924–1925: Charles Robertson (H)
1926–1931: Sigurd M. Eriksen (Ap)
1932–1934: Hans Sætrum (Ap)
1935-1935: Sigurd Marius Eriksen (Ap)
1936-1936: Leif S. Olsen (Ap)
1936–1941: Thoralf Albrigtsen (Ap)
1941–1944: Peder J. Berg (NS)
1945-1945: Thoralf Albrigtsen (Ap)
1946–1951: Harald J. Olsen (Ap)
1952–1961: Ørjan Østvik (Ap)
1962–1966: Anton Eide (Ap)
1966-1966: Ragnvald Jacobsen (Ap)
1967–1971: Aksel Olsen (Ap)
1972–1975: Arnulf Olsen (Ap)
1976–1983: Erling Jensen (Ap)
1984–1987: Arnulf Olsen (Ap)
1988–1995: Kåre Rønbeck (Ap)
1995–1999: Tormod Bartholdsen (H)
1999–2006: Alf E. Jakobsen (Ap)
2006–2009: Kristine Jørstad Bock (Ap)
2009–2019: Alf E. Jakobsen (Ap)
2019–2021: Marianne Sivertsen Næss (Ap)
2021–present: Terje Wikstrøm (Ap)
Economy and tourism
The construction of the large liquefied natural gas site on Melkøya (island) just off Hammerfest, which will process natural gas from Snøhvit, is the most expensive construction project in the history of Northern Norway. This project has resulted in an economic boom and new optimism in Hammerfest in recent years, a stark contrast to the economic downhill and negative population growth most other municipalities in Finnmark are experiencing. After the opening of natural gas production on Melkøya there have been some problems with significant smoke and soot pollution in the initial production phases. Snøhvit is Europe's first export facility for liquefied natural gas.
Hammerfest offers sport and commercial fishing, both sea and freshwater, as well as scuba diving. The northernmost glacier on the Norwegian mainland is a hiking destination. The town is a starting point for northern tours. There is a daily boat to the North Cape (). One chain of the Struve Geodetic Arc, now on the World Heritage List, is located at Fuglenes in Hammerfest.
Hammerfest is also a centre of Sami culture. Hammerfest is home to the Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society (); a museum displaying the history of Arctic hunting.
The newspaper Hammerfestingen is published in Hammerfest.
American author Bill Bryson begins his European travels in 1990, documented in his book Neither Here Nor There, with a visit to Hammerfest in order to see the Northern Lights, calling it "an agreeable enough town in a thank-you-God-for-not-making-me-live-here sort of way".
Transportation
Hammerfest is connected to the main road network by Norwegian national road 94 which branches off from European route E6 at Skaidi in the neighbouring municipality of Kvalsund. The town is a port of call for the Hurtigruten ship route. Hammerfest also has Finnmark's third largest airport, Hammerfest Airport, opened 30 July 1974. Before the opening of the airport, the only air link to Hammerfest was by seaplane, the first route established in 1936.
Reindeer problems
During the summer, massive reindeer herds migrate from their winter pastures in the inner parts of Finnmark to the coast. Among the islands inhabited by reindeer during the summer months is Kvaløya, the island on which Hammerfest town is located. For years many of the 2,500 to 3,000 reindeer in the area have been coming into the town itself, wandering in the streets and among the houses. Although popular with tourists, this has been less favourably received by the town's population, with people complaining of traffic disturbances and the dung and urine left by the animals. For hygienic reasons large sums of money have to be spent every year to clean up after the animals. In response to the complaints the town authorities built a , fence encircling the town to keep the animals out. However, as of the 2008 reindeer season, the fence had proven ineffective, with reindeer managing to pass through on road crossings, despite the presence of electrified grates embedded in the ground. The problem continues – the mayor, Alf E. Jakobsen, joked during the local election in 2011 that he was contemplating a career as a reindeer herder if he lost the vote.
International relations
Twin towns – Sister cities
Hammerfest is town twinned with the following foreign settlements:
– Haparanda, Sweden
– Ikast, Denmark
– Kola, Russia
– Mokpo, South Korea
– Petersburg, Alaska, United States
– Tornio, Finland
– Trelleborg, Sweden
– Ushuaia, Argentina
Foreign consulates
Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands have honorary consulates in Hammerfest.
Notable people
Sir John Rice Crowe (1795–1877) an English businessman and diplomat, deputy vice-consul in Hammerfest and British consul in Finnmark, lived in Hammerfest
Ole Olsen (1850–1927) a Norwegian organist, composer, conductor and military musician
Adolf Lindstrøm (1866–1939) a Norwegian chef and polar explorer
Paal Berg (1873–1968) a Norwegian politician, 12th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 1929 to 1946
Charles Robertson (1875–1958), Norwegian Minister of Trade 1926–1928
Jørgen Holmboe (1902–1979) a Norwegian-American meteorologist
Per Møystad Backe (1914–1991) a Norwegian jurist, developed Scandinavian Airlines
Annemarie Lorentzen (1921–2008) teacher in Hammerfest, politician and Norwegian ambassador to Iceland 1978 to 1985
Knut Moe (1921–1989) a Norwegian resistance member in WWII and radio agent for the SIS
Kåre Berg (1932–2009) a Norwegian professor in medical genetics, discovered the Lipoprotein(a)
Sven Ullring (born 1935) a Norwegian engineer and businessperson
Turi Josefsen (born 1936) a Norwegian-American businesswoman
Kåre Kivijärvi (1938-1991) a Norwegian photographer, did photojournalistic work in Northern Norway
Bjørn Sundquist (born 1948) a Norwegian actor, famous for TV, theatre and movie roles
Annelise Josefsen (born 1949), Norwegian-Sami artist
Bodil Niska (born 1954) a Norwegian jazz musician on saxophone, grew up in Hammerfest
Samoth (born 1974) as Thomas Thormodsæter Haugen, a black metal musician and multi-instrumentalist
Gunnar Garfors (born 1975) a Norwegian traveller, author, media professional and public speaker
Máret Ánne Sara (born 1983) a Sami artist and author, lives and works in Kautokeino
Sport
Fred Børre Lundberg (born 1969) a Nordic skier, won two team silver medals and one team gold medal at the Winter Olympics and an individual gold at the 1994 Winter Olympics
Christine Bøe Jensen (born 1975) a former footballer, team gold medallist at the 2000 Summer Olympics
Bibliography
References
Notes
External links
Municipal fact sheet from Statistics Norway
Webcam Hammerfest
Information from Statoil about the Snøhvit LNG construction
Tromsø University Museum: Maritime hunter - fishers through 10,000 years at Melkøya
Hammerfest official tourist information
Finnmark University College
Arctic booms as climate change melts polar ice cap
Power station using tidal current as energy in Kvalsund
New oil field discovered only off the coast
Goliat oil field larger than previously thought
Information about the planned natural gas power plant with CO2 reduction
Municipalities of Troms og Finnmark
1838 establishments in Norway
Populated places of Arctic Norway
Populated coastal places in Norway
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina%20Loy
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Mina Loy
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Mina Loy (born Mina Gertrude Löwy; 27 December 1882 – 25 September 1966) was a British-born artist, writer, poet, playwright, novelist, painter, designer of lamps, and bohemian. She was one of the last of the first-generation modernists to achieve posthumous recognition. Her poetry was admired by T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Basil Bunting, Gertrude Stein, Francis Picabia, and Yvor Winters, among others. As stated by Nicholas Fox Weber in the New York Times, "This brave soul had the courage and wit to be original. Mina Loy may never be more than a vaguely familiar name, a passing satellite, but at least she sparkled from an orbit of her own choosing."
Early life and education
Loy was born in Hampstead, London. She was the daughter of a Hungarian Jewish tailor, Sigmund Felix Lowy, who had moved to London to evade persistent antisemitism in Budapest, and a Christian, English mother, Julia Bryan. Loy reflected on their relationship, and the production of her identity, in great detail in her mock-epic Anglo-Mongrels of the Rose (1923–1925). The marriage of Lowy and Bryan was fraught. Unknown to Loy, as biographer Carolyn Burke records, her mother married her father under the pressure of disgrace as she was already seven months pregnant with the child that would be Mina; this situation was mirrored later in Loy's life when she rushed into a marriage with Stephen Haweis after becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Lowy and Bryan had three daughters in total, with Mina being the oldest.
As recorded extensively in both her poetry and writing, from Anglo-Mongrels of the Rose to late prose pieces, Loy describes her mother as overbearingly Evangelical Victorian. As Burke records: "Like most Evangelicals, for whom the imagination was a source of sin, Julia distrusted her child's ability to invent." In reference to her mother, Loy recalled that she was troubled by the fact of "the very author of my being, being author of my fear." Loy found it hard to identify with her mother, who not only punished her continually for her "sinfulness," but also espoused fervent support of the British Empire, rampant antisemitism (which included her husband), and nationalistic jingoism.
Loy's formal art education began late in 1897 at St. John's Wood School where she remained for about two years. In retrospect, Loy called it "the worst art school in London" and "a haven of disappointment". Loy's father pushed for her to go to the art school in the hope that it would make her more marriageable. Around this time, Loy became fascinated with both Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Rossetti, and after much convincing was able to persuade her father to purchase her Dante's Complete Works and reproductions of his paintings as well as a red Moroccan leather-bound version of Christina's poems. She also became passionate about the Pre-Raphaelites, starting first with the work of William Morris before then turning to Edward Burne-Jones (her favourite work of which, at the time, was Love Among the Ruins). Loy had to be careful as to how she expressed herself due to her mother's control. For example, Loy described that when her mother found a drawing she had done of the naked Andromeda bound to a rock her mother, scandalised and disgusted, tore up the work and called her daughter "a vicious slut".
Studying in Germany and Paris
In 1900 Loy attended the Munich Künstlerinnenverein, or the Society of Female Artists' School, which was connected with the fine art school of Munich University, it was there that she claimed she learned draughtsmanship.
Upon returning to the stifling environment of her family home in London, after the relative freedom she found in Munich, Loy suffered from "headaches, respiratory problems, and generalized weakness" which was then diagnosed as neurasthenia – "a catch-all term for a variety of psychosomatic complaints suffered by artistic or intellectual women and a few sensitive men" during that time period.
Around the age of eighteen, Loy convinced her parents to allow her to continue her education in Paris with a chaperone – a woman called Mrs. Knight. After much persuasion, she was allowed to move to Montparnasse, which in 1902 had not yet been urbanised, and attend the Académie Colarossi as an art student. Unlike the segregated classes at the Munich Künstlerinnenverein, these art classes were mixed. It was here, through an English friend of a similar social standing named Madeline Boles, that Loy first came into contact with the English painter Stephen Haweis who Loy later described as enacting the "parasitic drawing-out of one's vitality to recharge, as it were, his own deficient battery of life." According to Burke's biography, Haweis was unpopular with his fellow students, being considered a "poseur," and Boles in particular took him under her wing. Haweis, whose father was the well-known Reverend H.R. Haweis and his mother Mary Eliza Haweis a writer who wrote, amongst other things, Chaucer for Children: A Golden Key, was an aesthete of sorts and "despite being very short[,] he managed to condescend to his listeners from a height." He began to exert himself over Loy, recognising her beauty and desirability, and played the role of the misunderstood eccentric which led Loy to feel guilty for disliking him and distrusting him as he borrowed more and more money from her without paying her back. Later she would reflect that Haweis loomed over her and she became, in Loy's own words, "as sullenly involved as with my mother's sadistic hysterics." One night he convinced her to stay over and, in what she would later describe as a state of hypnosis, she was seduced by him. Waking up next morning in his bed, semi-naked, Loy was horrified and repulsed.
A few months after this, she realised that she was pregnant, something which terrified her as it bound her, as she later described, even closer to "the being on earth whom she would have least chosen." Being only twenty-one, she faced a difficult situation and, fearing rejection from her family and disinheritance, which would leave her penniless, she sought her parents' approval to marry Haweis, which they agreed to due to his respectable social status as the son of a preacher. Reflecting on this in later life, and how her upbringing influenced her in the decisions she made, Loy remarked that "If anyone I disliked insisted upon my doing anything I was averse to I would automatically comply, so systematically had they obfuscated my instinct of self-preservation."
Paris, 1903–1906
Relocating to Paris, Haweis and Loy married there, in the 14th Arrondissement, on 13 December 1903 – Loy was twenty-one, and four months pregnant. Initially they agreed that it would be just a marriage of convenience, but Stephen became quickly more possessive and demanding. Instead of taking her husband's name, after their marriage she changed her last name from "Lowy" to "Loy." Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy (1996) biographer Carolyn Burke notes that "[t]he anagrammatic shifts of Lowy into Loy and later Lloyd symbolize her attempts to resolve personal crises and chooses to refer to Loy as Mina – the name that stayed fixed as her surname varied."
Starting in 1903 until 1904, after meeting the Englishman Henry Coles, Haweis began selling photographies d'art, or fine art photography pieces, influenced by Art Nouveau style. The most notable commission of this time was the photographing of the recent works of Auguste Rodin which came about after Haweis met with Rodin himself. At that time, Loy was Haweis's favourite subject to photograph; this is something which Loy never commented on. As Haweis gained more contacts and work, Loy became increasingly isolated and heavily pregnant.
Loy's first child, Oda, was born on 27 May 1903. The labour was hard, as recalled in the early poem "Parturition" (first published in The Trend 8:1, October 1914). The opening details:
I am the centre
Of a circle of pain
Exceeding its boundaries in every direction
The business of the bland sun
Has no affair with me
In my congested cosmos of agony
From which there is no escape [...]
Whilst Loy was in labour through the night, Haweis was absent with his mistress. Loy records this in "Parturition" thus:
The irresponsibility of the male
Leaves woman her superior Inferiority.
He is running upstairs
Two days after her first birthday, Oda died of meningitis and Loy was left completely bereft with grief over the loss. A day or so after Oda's death Loy reportedly painted a (now lost) tempera painting The Wooden Mother in which she depicted two mothers with their children, one being a "foolish-looking mother holding her baby, whose small fingers are raised in an impotent blessing over the other anguished mother who, on her knees, curses them both with great, upraised, clenched fists, and her own baby sprawling dead with little arms and legs outstretched lifeless."
Loy decided to enter the Salon d'Automne under the name "Mina Loy" (having dropped the "w" in Lowy) in 1905. That autumn she exhibited six watercolours and the following spring she exhibited two watercolours at the Salon des Beaux-Art of 1906. After the latter exhibition, Loy was written of favourably in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts:Mlle Mina Loy who, in her uncommon watercolours where Guys, Rops and Beardsley are combined shows us ambiguous ephebes whose nudity is caressed by ladies dressed in furbelows of 1855.After this positive reception Loy was asked to become a sociétaire of the drawing category, which meant that her work could be exhibited without having to pass through a selection committee. This was a "vote of confidence" which, as biographer Burke recognises, "was an exceptional mark of recognition for an unknown Englishwoman of twenty-three".
By 1906 Loy and Haweis had agreed to live separately. During this period of separation Loy was treated by a French doctor named Henry Joël le Savoureux for neurasthenia, which had worsened with the death of Oda and living with Haweis, and the pair embarked on an affair which would end with her becoming pregnant. This made Haweis jealous and precipitated their move to Florence, where there were fewer people who knew them.
Florence, 1906–1916
At first, Loy and Haweis moved into a villino located in Arcetri, finding themselves in a large expatriate community. In the Spring of 1907 Haweis found a studio on the Costa San Giorgio in Oltrarno.
On 20 July 1907, Loy gave birth to Joella Sinara. A few months before Joella's first birthday Loy was pregnant again, this time with the child of Haweis, and she was to give birth to a son named John Stephen Giles Musgrove Haweis on 1 February 1909.
Joella was late learning to walk, which was later diagnosed as a type of infantile paralysis which caused her muscles to atrophy. Dreading that Joella's condition might be like the meningitis that killed Oda, Loy sought medical and spiritual support. This was one of her earliest, critical encounters with Christian Science as she sought out a practitioner, who prescribed a treatment and told Loy to feed Joella beef broth and donkey's milk. After this succeeded in improving Joella's health, Loy began to attend church regularly.
Around 1909, with the financial support of Loy's father, Loy and Haweis moved into a three-storey home on the Costa San Giorgio. The family had a nurse, Giulia, who helped raise the children and would later spend years being the children's sole support, and her sister Estere, who was the family cook. Once the children were toddlers, Loy spent increasingly less time with them and they were often cared for in the cooler climate of the mountains and Forte de Marmi in the summers. Burke speculates that this may have been a reaction to the overbearing intrusion of her own mother which led her to withdraw.
Loy frequented the social gatherings held by socialite Mabel Dodge Luhan at the Villa Curonia and it was here that she met Gertrude Stein, her brother Leo Stein, and Alice B. Toklas. Loy was drawn to Gertrude and even got the opportunity to dine with her, Dodge, and Andre Gide. Gertrude would later recall that Loy, as well as Haweis, were amongst the few at that time who expressed serious interest in her work (she had not yet been widely recognised for her literary achievement). However, Gertrude recalls an incident where Haweis begged her to add two commas in exchange for a painting, which she did, but then later removed them; contrarily, Gertrude noted that "Mina Loy equally interested was able to understand without the commas. She has always been able to understand."
In daughter Joella (née Sinara) Bayer's memoir, now part of the Mina Loy Estate, she reflected on her parents, saying: My mother, tall, willowy, extraordinarily beautiful, very talented, undisciplined, a free spirit, with the beginning of too strong an ego; my father, short, dark, a mediocre painter, bad tempered, with charming social manners and endless conversation about the importance of his family.According to Gillian Hanscombe and Virginia L. Smyers:During their ten years in Florence, both Mina and Haweis took lovers and developed their separate lives. In 1913 and 1914, though she was coping with motherhood, a soured marriage, lovers, and her own artistic aspirations, Mina found time to notice and take part in the emerging Italian Futurist movement, led by Filippo Marinetti, whom Loy had a brief affair with, and to read Stein's manuscript: The Making of Americans. Loy even showed some of her own art at the first Free Futurist International Exhibition in Rome. She became, also, at this time, a lifelong convert to Christian Science.In winter 1913, at Caffe Giubbe Rosse (an informal meeting place of those involved in Giovanni Papini's Lacerba) Loy's lodger friend and fellow artist, the American Frances Simpson Stevens, met Florentine artists Carlo Carrà and Ardengo Soffici, who, with Papini, had joined forces with Marinetti's Futurists earlier that year. They soon began visiting Stevens on the Costa San Giorgio and through this connection Stevens and Loy met many other Italian artists. Soffici would later invite Loy and Stevens to exhibit their work in the First Free Futurist International Exhibition, to be held in Rome at the Sprovieri Gallery – Loy was the only artist representing Britain and Stevens the only North American.
From 1914 until her departure for America in 1916, Loy was involved in a complicated love triangle between Papini and Marinetti – which she was to write about extensively in her poetry.
Feminist Manifesto (c. 1914)
In 1914, while living in an expatriate community in Florence, Italy, Loy wrote her Feminist Manifesto. A galvanising polemic against the subordinate position of women in society, the short text remained unpublished in Loy's lifetime.
New York, 1916
Disillusioned with the macho and destructive elements in Futurism, as well as craving independence and participation in a modernist art community, Loy left her children, and moved to New York in winter 1916. Before arriving in New York Loy had already created a stir – most notably with the 1915 publication of her Love Songs in the first edition of Others. She became a key figure in the group that formed around Others magazine, which also included Man Ray, William Carlos Williams, Marcel Duchamp, and Marianne Moore. Loy soon became a well-known member of the Greenwich Village bohemian circuit. Frances Stevens, who had stayed with Loy previously in Florence, helped Loy get a small apartment on West Fifty-seventh Street. Within days of being in New York Stevens took Loy to an evening gathering at Walter and Louise Arensberg's 33 West Sixty-seventh Street duplex apartment.
As Loy's biographer Carolyn Burke describes: 'On any given evening the Arensbergs’ guests might include Duchamp’s friends from Paris: the painters Albert Gleizes; his wife, Juliette Roche; Jean and Yvonne Crotti; and Francis Picabia, as well as his wife, Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia; the composer Edgard Varèse; and the novelist and diplomat Henri-Pierre Roché. The new figures in American art and letters were also represented: at various times the salon attracted the artists Man Ray, Beatrice Wood, Charles Sheeler, Katherine Dreier, Charles Demuth, Clara Tice, and Frances Stevens, as well as poets Wallace Stevens, Alfred Kreymborg, William Carlos Williams, writers Allen and Louise Norton and Bob Brown, and art critic Henry McBride. And then there was the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven – artist’s model, poet, and ultra-eccentric.' Early in 1917, Loy starred alongside William Carlos Williams, as wife and husband, in Alfred Kreymborg's one act play Lima Beans produced by the Provincetown Players.
Loy contributed a (since lost) painting entitled Making Lampshades to the first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists (formed in December 1916) at the Grand Central Palace New York which opened on 10 April 1917. With Walter Arensberg acting as the director and Marcel Duchamp as the head of the hanging committee, the show broke new ground in America as they ran with the slogan 'No jury, no prizes' as well as flouting tradition by displaying art works alphabetically, with no regard to reputation, and allowing anyone to enter for the price of $6.
In 1917 she met the "poet-boxer" Arthur Cravan, a nephew of Oscar Wilde's wife, Constance Lloyd. Cravan fled to Mexico to avoid the draft; when Loy's divorce was final she followed him, and they married in Mexico City in 1918. Here they lived in poverty and years later, Loy would write of their destitution.
When she found out that she was pregnant, she travelled on a hospital ship to Buenos Aires, "where she intended to wait for Cravan, but Cravan never appeared, nor was he ever seen again". Reportedly, "Cravan disappeared while testing a boat he planned to escape in. He was presumed drowned, but reported sightings continued to haunt Loy for the rest of her life." Cravan was lost at sea without trace; although some mistakenly claim that his body was found later in the desert (post-mortem, his life acquired even more epic proportions and dozens of stories proliferated). The tale of Cravan's disappearance is strongly anecdotal, as recounted by Loy's biographer, Carolyn Burke. Their daughter, Fabienne, was born in April 1919 in England.
In a chapter of her largely unpublished memoir entitled Colossus, Loy writes about her relationship with Cravan, who was introduced to her as "the prizefighter who writes poetry." Irene Gammel argues that their relationship was "located at the heart of avant-garde activities [which included boxing and poetry]." Loy draws on the language of boxing throughout her memoir to define the terms of her relationship with Cravan.
Return to Europe and New York
After Cravan's death/disappearance, Loy travelled back to England, where she gave birth to her daughter, Fabienne. Loy would return to Florence and her other children. However, in 1916 she moved to New York, arriving on 15 October on the ship Duca D 'Aosta, which set sail from the port of Naples. While in New York, she worked in a lamp-shade studio, as well as acting in the Provincetown Theater. Here she returned to her old Greenwich Village life, engaging in theatre or mixing with her fellow writers. During this period, some of Loy's poems ended up in small magazines such as Little Review and Dial. She would mingle and develop friendships with the likes of Ezra Pound, Dadaist Tristan Tzara, and Jane Heap. Loy contributed writing to Marcel Duchamp's two editions of the journal The Blind Man.
Appearing to be somewhat mystified by the new kinds of poetry being produced by Loy and her ilk, Pound remarked in a March 1918 piece for Little Review, "In the verse of Marianne Moore I detect traces of emotion; in that of Mina Loy I detect no emotion whatsoever", seeing them both as demonstrating logopoeia, the writing of poetry without caring for its music or imagism. Instead, in their poetry, they performed "a dance of the intelligence among words and ideas and modification of ideas and characters." Pound concludes, "The point of my praise, for I intend this as praise...is that without any pretences and without clamours about nationality, these girls have written a distinctly national product, they have written something which would not have come out of any other country, and (while I have before now seen a great deal of rubbish by both of them) they are, as selected by Mr. Kreymborg, interesting and readable (by me...)."
Loy travelled back to Florence, then New York, then back to Florence, "provoked by the news that Haweis had moved with Giles to the Caribbean". She brought her daughters to Berlin to enrol her daughter in dance school, but left them once more because she was drawn back to Paris by the art and literature scene.
In 1923, she returned to Paris. Her first volume of poetry, Lunar Baedecker, a collection of thirty-one poems, was published this year and was mistakenly printed with the spelling error "Baedecker" rather than the intended "Baedeker".
Lamp-designing
In 1936, Loy returned to New York and lived for a time with her daughter in Manhattan. She moved to the Bowery, where she found inspiration for poems and found object assemblage art in the destitute people she encountered. On 15 April 1946, she became a naturalised citizen of the United States under the name "Gertrude Mina Lloyd", resident at 302 East 66 Street in New York City. Her second and last book, Lunar Baedeker & Time Tables, appeared in 1958. In 1953, Loy moved to Aspen, Colorado, where her daughters were already living; Joella, who had been married to the art dealer of Surrealism in New York, Julien Levy, next married the Bauhaus artist and typographer Herbert Bayer. She exhibited her found object art constructions in New York in 1951 and at the Bodley Gallery in 1959 in a show entitled 'Constructions' but she did not personally attend it.
Publishing
Loy is described as a "brilliant literary enigma" by Rachel Potter and Suzanne Hobson who outline a chronological map of her geographical and literary shifts. Loy's poetry was published in several magazines before being published in book form. The magazines that she was featured in include Camera Work, Trend, Rogue, Little Review, and Dial. Loy had two volumes of her poetry published in her lifetime: The Lunar Baedeker (1923) and The Lunar Baedeker & Time-tables (1958). The Lunar Baedeker included her most famous work, "Love Songs", in a shortened version. It also included four poems included in Others in 1915, but their sexual explicitness had provoked a violent reaction, which made it difficult to publish the rest. Posthumously, two updated volumes of her poetry were released, The Last Lunar Baedeker (Highlands, NC, Jargon Society, 1982) and The Lost Lunar Baedeker (New York, Farrar Straus Girous, 1996 and Manchester, Carcanet, 1997), both edited by Roger L. Conover. The 1997 edition unaccountably omits Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose, a sequence of 21 poems, part semi-autobiographical, part social satire, arguably Loy's most accomplished work -- which, as a result of this omission, remains out of print. Songs to Joannes is in both editions.
Her only novel, Insel, was published posthumously in 1991. It is about the relationship between a German artist, Insel, and an art dealer, Mrs. Jones. Some critics have suggested that the novel is based on Loy's relationship with Richard Oelze. However, Sandeep Parmar has said that it is actually about Loy's relationship with her creative self.
Children
Loy had four children; her children by Haweis were Oda Janet Haweis (1903–1904), Joella Synara Haweis Levy Bayer (1907–2004) and John Giles Stephen Musgrove Haweis (1909–1923). Her only child with Cravan was Jemima Fabienne Cravan Benedict (1919–1997). Both Oda and John Giles died prematurely—Oda at the age of one year and John Giles at fourteen.
Oda's birth took place on 27 May 1903, the labour of which is intimately related in the early poem "Parturition" (first published in The Trend 8:1, October 1914). One year later, two days after her first birthday, Oda died of meningitis and Loy was left completely bereft with grief over the loss.
Giles, whose father Stephen Haweis picked him up from Florence in Loy's absence and took Giles without her consent to the Caribbean, died of a rare cancerous growth at the age of fourteen having never been reunited with his mother. According to Loy biographer Burke, the loss of Giles, following as it did upon the disappearance or death of Cravan, precipitated struggles with her mental health. As a result, Loy’s daughter Joella often had to care for her and prevent her from self-harming.
Death
She continued to write and work on her assemblages until her death at the age of 83, on 25 September 1966 from pneumonia in Aspen, Colorado. Loy is buried in Aspen Grove Cemetery.
Legacy
Loy's name may have been an inspiration for the stage name of actress Myrna Loy (born Myrna Williams); the idea apparently came from screenwriter Peter Ruric, also known as crime novelist Paul Cain.
Recently in Argentina Camila Evia has translated and prepared an edition that includes the Feminist Manifesto and many poems by Mina Loy, making her legacy known in depth throughout Latin America.
List of works
Poetry books
Lunar Baedeker (Paris: Contact Publishing Co.,1923)
Lunar Baedeker and Time-Tables (Highlands, N.C.: Jonathan Williams Publisher [Jargon 23], 1958)
The Last Lunar Baedeker, Roger Conover ed. (Highlands: Jargon Society [Jargon 53], 1982)
The Lost Lunar Baedeker, Roger Conover ed. (Carcanet: Manchester, 1997)
Published prose
Insel, Elizabeth Arnold ed. (Black Sparrow Press, 1991)
Stories and Essays, Sara Crangle ed. (Dalkey Press Archive [British Literature Series], 2011)
Critical exhibitions
Salon d'Automne (Paris, 1905) – six watercolours
Salon des Beaux Arts (Paris, 1906) – two watercolours
First Free Futurist International Exhibition (Rome, 1914)
The New York Society of Independent Artists (Inaugural exhibition, 1917)
Constructions at Bodley Gallery, New York (April 14 – 25th 1959; her only solo show)
Notes
References
Burke, Carolyn. Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996.
Gammel, Irene. "Lacing up the Gloves: Women, Boxing and Modernity." Cultural and Social History 9.3 (2012): 369–390.
Kouidis, Virginia. Mina Loy: American Modernist Poet. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1980.
Kuenzli, Rudolf. Dada (Themes and Movements). Phaidon Press, 2006. [Includes poetry by Mina and her relationship to several artists.]
Loy, Mina. The Lost Lunar Baedeker. Selected and ed. Roger Conover. 1996.
–––, and Julien Levy. Constructions, 14–25 April 1959. New York: Bodley Gallery, 1959. OCLC 11251843. [Solo exhibition catalogue with commentary.]
Lusty, Natalya. "'Sexing the Manifesto: Mina Loy, Feminism and Futurism'", Women: A Cultural Review, 19:3, pp. 245–260. 2008.
Prescott, Tara. 'A Lyric Elixir': The Search for Identity in the Works of Mina Loy, Claremont Colleges, 2010.
Shreiber, Maeera, and Keith Tuma, eds. Mina Loy: Woman and Poet. National Poetry Foundation, 1998. [Collection of essays on Mina Loy's poetry, with 1965 interview and bibliography.]
Parisi, Joseph. 100 Essential Modern Poems by Women (The greatest poems written in English by women over the past 150 years, memorable masterpieces to read, reread, and enjoy). Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2008.
External links
Mina Loy at Electronic Poetry Center
Works by or about Mina Loy at HathiTrust
Works by or about Mina Loy at Internet Archive
Works by or about Mina Loy at Google Books
Vorticist Portraiture in Mina Loy's Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose in Cordite Poetry Review
Mina Loy at Modern American Poetry
Mina Loy at Modernism: American Salons (Case Western) – photographs, works, bibliography, and links
Mina Loy at the Modernist Journals Project – examples of visual art
Mina Loy and Djuna Barnes and Mina Loy: Drafts of "Nancy Cunard", Intimate Circles: American Women in the Arts, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, accessed 30 January 2008.
Mina Loy, "The Sacred Prostitute"
En breve luz: Arthur Cravan y Mina Loy (in Spanish). Función Lenguaje.
Mina Loy's 'Colossus' and the Myth of Arthur Cravan by Sandeep Parmar, Jacket 34, October 2007
Mina Loy Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Modernist women writers
1882 births
1966 deaths
Artists from London
British expatriates in Mexico
British Army personnel of World War I
British women artists
Converts to Christian Science
Writers from London
English Christian Scientists
English women poets
Collage artists
Women collage artists
Futurologists
English people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
British feminist writers
English feminists
Feminist artists
Proponents of Christian feminism
English expatriates in France
English expatriates in Germany
English expatriates in Italy
English expatriates in the United States
20th-century English poets
20th-century English women writers
Burials in Colorado
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20professional%20sports%20leagues
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List of professional sports leagues
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This is a list of professional sports leagues.
A sports league is a professional body that governs the competition of its teams. They make the rules for competition and behavior and disciplines its members as necessary. This is done through a structure that varies by league. Some are made up of a board of governors that have a commissioner or president, while others are single entity organizations where the league owns the franchises and therefore does not have a board of governors.
This list attempts to show those sports leagues for which all players and teams are paid to play. In other words, these players can be considered to play their chosen sport as their profession. Some leagues do not pay well enough to allow players to use them as their primary or only source of income, but because the players are paid, it is still considered professional, or semi-professional. As such, some leagues listed here may not be fully professional.
Auto racing
All Star Circuit of Champions
American Hot Rod Association
Arena Racing USA
Asian Le Mans Series
British Touring Car Championship
Copa Truck
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (German Touring Car Masters)
D1 Grand Prix
European Le Mans Series
Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA)
Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM)
Formula One
Formula D
Formula E
Fórmula Truck
Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup
Grand-Am Road Racing
IMSA
International Hot Rod Association (IHRA)
IndyCar
Lucas Oil Off-Road Racing
MotoGP
NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing)
National Hot Rod Association (NHRA)
Stock Car Brasil
Super DIRTcar Series
Super GT / Japan Automobile Federation
Superstar Racing Experience (SRX)
TC 2000 Championship
Top Race V6
Turismo Carretera
Supercars Championship (Australia)
FIA World Endurance Championship
World of Outlaws (WoO)
World Rally Championship (WRC)
World Touring Car Cup
Badminton
National Badminton League
Premier Badminton League
Indonesian League (badminton)
Europe Cup (badminton)
Bandy
Bandyliiga
Suomi-sarja
Russian Bandy Super League
Russian Bandy Supreme League
Elitserien
Allsvenskan
International
Bandy World Cup
Bandy World Cup Women
Baseball
Northern Hemisphere Summer
Americas
, , , , and
Major League Baseball:
American League
National League
Minor League Baseball:
Triple-A:
International League
Pacific Coast League
Double-A:
Eastern League
Southern League
Texas League
High-A:
Midwest League
Northwest League
South Atlantic League
Single-A:
California League
Carolina League
Florida State League
Rookie:
Arizona Complex League
Florida Complex League
Dominican Summer League
Off-season leagues:
Arizona Fall League
Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente
Cuban National Series
Dominican Summer League
Venezuelan Professional Baseball League
Independent baseball leagues:
MLB Partner Leagues:
American Association
Atlantic League
Frontier League
Pioneer League
Other leagues:
Empire Professional Baseball League
Pecos League
United Shore Professional Baseball League
Mexican League
Mexican Pacific League
Liga Invernal Veracruzana
Mexican Academy League
Argentine Baseball League
Asia-Pacific
Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB)
Major Leagues:
Central League
Pacific League
Minor Leagues:
Eastern League
Western League
Administered by BFJ:
Intercity baseball tournament (officially amateur but contains professional teams)
Industrial Baseball League (officially amateur but contains professional teams)
All Japan Club Baseball Championship (officially amateur but contains professional teams)
Independent:
Baseball Challenge League
Japan Women's Baseball League
Kansai Independent Baseball League - 2nd Generation
Shikoku Island League Plus
Major League:
KBO League
Minor League:
KBO Futures League
China National Baseball League
Taiwan
Major League:
Chinese Professional Baseball League
Minor League:
Chinese Professional Baseball League, Division 2
Independent League:
Taiwan Baseball Summer League/Popcorn League
Philippine Baseball League
Europe
European Champions Cup - first-tier continental cup
European Confederation Cup - second-tier continental cup
European Federation Cup - third-tier continental cup
Italian Baseball League
Irish Baseball League
Honkbal Hoofdklasse
Honkbal Overgangsklasse
Honkbal Rookie League
Czech Baseball Extraliga (officially semi-professional but contains several professional teams)
Ceskomoravská
Division Élite (officially semi-professional but contains several professional teams)
Baseball-Bundesliga (officially semi-professional but contains several professional teams)
División de Honor de Béisbol (officially semi-professional but contains several professional teams)
Elitserien (baseball)
Ekstraliga Baseball (semi-professional)
Portuguese Atlantic Baseball League (semi-professional)
Turkish Baseball League (semi-professional)
Northern Hemisphere Winter
Americas
Liga Argentina de Béisbol
Liga Colombiana de Béisbol Profesional
Liga Aqualectra
Liga de Béisbol Profesional de la República Dominicana
Liga Invernal Veracruzana
Liga Mexicana del Pacífico
La Liga Nicaragüense de Beisbol Profesional
Probeis
Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente
Arizona Fall League
Liga Venezolana de Béisbol Profesional
Liga Paralela de Béisbol en Venezuela
Asia-Pacific
, and
Australian Baseball League
Greater Brisbane League
, and
Asia Winter Baseball League
Miyazaki Phoenix League
Basketball
Bowling
Professional Bowlers Association
Boxing
Major promotions
Top Rank Boxing
Golden Boy Promotions
Don King Promotions
DiBella Entertainment
Sauerland Events
Matchroom Boxing
Major sanctioning bodies
World Boxing Association (WBA)
World Boxing Council (WBC)
International Boxing Federation (IBF)
World Boxing Organization (WBO)
The Ring magazine (unofficial sanctioning body)
Super Boxing League
STAR Boxing Panch
Chess
Professional Chess Association of the Philippines
Cricket
International
Euro T20 Slam
East Africa Premier League
World Cricket League Africa Region
Africa
Momentum One Day Cup
CSA Provincial Competitions
Mzansi Super League
Sunfoil Series
Logan Cup
Pro50 Championship
Stanbic Bank 20 Series
North America
Canada
Global T20 Canada
United States
Major League Cricket
West Indies
Caribbean Premier League
Professional Cricket League
Regional Super50
Asia
Shpageeza Cricket League
Bangladesh Premier League
National Cricket League
Bangladesh Cricket League
Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League
Indian Premier League
Ranji Trophy
Duleep Trophy
Deodhar Trophy
Irani Cup
Karnataka Premier League
Tamil Nadu Premier League
Vijay Hazare Trophy
T20 Mumbai League
Pakistan Super League
Quaid-e-Azam Trophy
Pakistan Cup
Kashmir Premier League
Pakistan Women's T20 League
Pakistan Champions Cricket League
Pakistan Junior League
Sri Lanka Premier League
Premier Limited Overs Tournament
Premier Trophy
Everest Premier League
Dhangadhi Premier League
Pokhara Premier League
Europe
County Championship
Royal London One-Day Cup
T20 Blast
Women's Cricket Super League
The Hundred (cricket)
Murgitroyd Twenty20
Regional Pro Series
Dutch Twenty20 Cup
Inter-Provincial Trophy
Oceania
Sheffield Shield
Marsh One-Day Cup
Big Bash League
Women's Big Bash League
Plunket Shield
Super Smash
State League
Curling
World Curling Tour
Cycling
National Bicycle League (BMX)
American Bicycle Association (BMX)
International Cycling League
Pro Cycle Cycling
Coppa Italia di ciclismo (the Italian Road Cycling Cup)
International
UCI World Tour
Competitive eating
Major League Eating
Gridiron football
Includes American and Canadian Football and their variants.
Americas
National Football League
XFL
United States Football League
Gridiron Developmental Football League
Rivals Professional Football League
Empire Football League (semi-professional)
New England Football League (semi-professional)
Pacific Northwest Football League (semi-professional)
Women's Football Alliance
Legends Football League
A7FL
United States Women's Football League
Indoor:
Arena Football League
Indoor Football League
Champions Indoor Football
American West Football Conference
National Arena League
American Arena League
Flag football
American Flag Football League
Superliga Nacional de Futebol Americano
Canadian Football League
Western Women's Canadian Football League
Maritime Women's Football League
Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional
Fútbol Americano de México
Europe
European League of Football
Austrian Football League
Belgian Football League
Croatian League of American Football
Czech League of American Football (semi-professional)
National Ligaen
Vaahteraliiga
Ligue Élite de Football Américain
German Football League and German Football League 2
Hungarian American Football League
American Football Ireland
Israel Football League
Italian Football League
Premier League
Polish American Football League (semi-professional)
Liga Futbolu Amerykańskiego (semi-professional)
Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Americano
Russian American Football Championship
Eastern European Super League
Slovak Football League
Slovenian Football League
Liga Nacional de Fútbol Americano
Superserien (semi-professional)
Nationalliga A
Türkiye Korumalı Futbol Ligi
BAFA National Leagues
Asia
Chinese National Football League
China Arena Football League
Elite Football League of India
X-League
Oceania
Australian Gridiron League
Football: Association football
Football: Australian rules football
Asia
Asian Australian Football Championships
Europe
Euro Cup (AFL)
AFL Europe Championship
Oceania
Australian Football League
AFL Women's
South Australian National Football League
Victorian Football League
West Australian Football League
International
Australian Football International Cup
Football: Beach Soccer
Ukrainian Beach Soccer Premier League
International
Euro Winners Cup
Women's Euro Winners Cup
Copa Libertadores de Beach Soccer
Football: Futsal
Austrian Futsal Liga
Argentine División de Honor de Futsal
Belarusian Futsal Premier League
Liga Nacional de Futsal
Premier Futsal League of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Czech Futsal First League
Chinese Futsal League
Futsal-Regionalliga Süd
Futsal-Bayernliga
Championnat de France de Futsal
Futsal Club Championship
Indonesia Pro Futsal League
Israeli Futsal League
Iranian Futsal Super League
Serie A1
Latvian Futsal Premier League
Malaysia Premier Futsal League
Malaysia Premier Futsal League (Women)
Myanmar Futsal League
Kyrgyzstan Futsal League
F.League
FK-League
Serbian Prva Futsal Liga
Ekstraklasa (futsal)
Liga Portuguesa de Futsal
Primera División de Futsal
Swedish Futsal League
Swiss Futsal Championship
Russian Futsal Super League
Russian Women's Futsal Super League
Futsal Thai League
Turkish Futsal League
Uzbekistan Futsal League
Professional Futsal League
Major League Futsal
National Futsal Series
National Futsal League
Scottish Futsal League
Vietnam Futsal League
Extra-Liga
International
UEFA Futsal Champions League
Asian Premier Futsal Championship
AFC Futsal Club Championship
Copa Libertadores de Futsal
CONCACAF Futsal Club Championship
Intercontinental Futsal Cup
Football: Indoor soccer
Major Arena Soccer League
Major Arena Soccer League 2
Premier Arena Soccer League
Western Indoor Soccer League
Arena Soccer League
Fencing
American Fencing League
Field hockey
Asia
: Hockey India League
: Malaysia Hockey League
: Pakistan Hockey League
Europe
Europe: Euro Hockey League
Europe: Women's Euro Hockey League
: Men's Hoofdklasse Hockey
: Feldhockey Bundesliga (Men's field hockey)
: Men's Belgian Hockey League
Australia
: Hockey One
Golf
Men's
Top-level tours
PGA Tour (United States)
PGA European Tour
Japan Golf Tour
Asian Tour (Asia outside Japan)
PGA Tour of Australasia (Australia and New Zealand)
Sunshine Tour (southern Africa, mainly South Africa)
OneAsia Tour (joint venture between the Japan, Australasia, China, and Korean tours)
Professional Golf Tour of India
LIV Golf
Senior tours
PGA Tour Champions (United States)
European Senior Tour
Developmental tours
Korn Ferry Tour (second-tier US tour, operated by the PGA Tour)
Challenge Tour (second-tier European tour)
Japan Challenge Tour (second-tier Japanese tour)
PGA Tour Canada (feeds to the Web.com Tour)
PGA Tour China (feeds to the Web.com Tour)
PGA Tour Latinoamérica (feeds to the Web.com Tour)
Satellite Tours, four third-level tours recognised by the European Tour:
Alps Tour (jointly sanctioned by the golf associations of Austria, France, Italy, Morocco and Switzerland)
Pro Golf Tour (based in Germany)
Nordic Golf League (operating in the Nordic countries)
Swedish Golf Tour (men's version is a Swedish tour included in the Nordic League competition)
PGA EuroPro Tour (based in the UK)
Gateway Tour (third-tier US tour)
Fuzion Minor League Golf Tour (low cost fourth-tier US tour)
Swing Thought Tour (third-tier US tour)
Women's
Top-level tours
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See also
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References
Professional leagues
Multi-national professional sports leagues
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham%20pub%20bombings
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Birmingham pub bombings
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The Birmingham pub bombings were carried out on 21 November 1974, when bombs exploded in two public houses in Birmingham, England, killing 21 people and injuring 182 others.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) never officially admitted responsibility for the Birmingham pub bombings, although a former senior officer of the organisation confessed to their involvement in 2014. In 2017, one of the alleged perpetrators, Michael Hayes, also claimed that the intention of the bombings had not been to harm civilians, and that their deaths had been caused by an unintentional delay in delivering an advance telephone warning to security services.
Six Irishmen were arrested within hours of the blasts, and in 1975 sentenced to life imprisonment for the bombings. The men—who became known as the Birmingham Six—maintained their innocence and insisted police had coerced them into signing false confessions through severe physical and psychological abuse. After 16 years in prison, and a lengthy campaign, their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory, and quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1991. The episode is seen as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
The Birmingham pub bombings were one of the deadliest acts of the Troubles, and the deadliest act of terrorism to occur in England between the Second World War and the 2005 London bombings.
Background
In 1973, the Provisional IRA extended its campaign to mainland Britain, attacking military and symbolically important targets to both increase pressure on the British government, via popular British opinion, to withdraw from Northern Ireland, and to maintain morale amongst their supporters. By 1974, mainland Britain saw an average of one attack—successful or otherwise—every three days. These attacks included five explosions which had occurred in Birmingham on 14 July, one of which had occurred at the Rotunda. Prior to any attack upon civilian targets, a code of conduct was followed in which the attacker or attackers would send an anonymous telephone warning to police, with the caller reciting a confidential code word known only to the Provisional IRA and to police, to indicate the authenticity of the threat.
On 14 November, James McDade, a 28-year-old UK-based member of the Provisional IRA, was killed in a premature explosion as he attempted to plant a bomb at a telephone exchange and postal sorting office in Coventry. Another man, Raymond McLaughlin, was arrested near the scene; he was charged with unlawfully killing McDade and causing an explosion. The republican movement in England had planned to bury McDade in Birmingham, with a paramilitary guard of honour. These plans were altered after the British Home Secretary vowed that such a funeral, and any associated sympathy marches, would be prevented. Councils in the West Midlands chose to ban any processions linked to the death of McDade under the Public Order Act 1936.
McDade's body was driven to Birmingham Airport and flown to Ireland on the afternoon of 21 November 1974. Initially, his body had been scheduled to be flown to Belfast Airport; however, upon learning that staff at the airport had refused to handle the coffin, McDade's body was instead flown to Dublin. All police leave was cancelled on this date, with an extra 1,300 officers drafted into Birmingham to quell any unrest as the hearse carrying McDade's coffin was driven to the airport. McDade's body was buried in Milltown Cemetery in Belfast on 23 November. According to a senior Provisional IRA figure, tensions within the Birmingham IRA unit were "running high" over the disrupted funeral arrangements for James McDade.
The bombings
In the early evening hours of 21 November, at least three bombs connected to timing devices were planted inside two separate public houses and outside a bank located in and around central Birmingham. It is unknown precisely when these bombs were planted; if official IRA protocol of preceding attacks upon non-military installations with a 30-minute advance warning to security services was followed, and subsequent eyewitness accounts are accurate, the bombs would have been planted at these locations after 19:30 and before 19:47.
According to testimony delivered at the 1975 trial of the six men wrongly convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings, the bomb planted inside the Mulberry Bush was concealed inside either a duffel bag or briefcase, whereas the bomb planted inside the Tavern in the Town was concealed inside a briefcase or duffel bag (possibly concealed within a large, sealed plastic bag) and Christmas cracker boxes. The remnants of two alarm clocks recovered from the site of each explosion leaves the possibility that two bombs had been planted at each public house; the explosion crater at each location indicates that if two bombs had been planted at each public house, they would each have been placed in the same location and likely the same container.
Reportedly, those who planted these bombs then walked to a preselected phone box to telephone the advance warning to security services; however, the phone box had been vandalised, forcing the caller to find an alternative phone box and thus shortening the amount of time police had to clear the locations.
At 20:11, an unknown man with a distinct Irish accent telephoned the Birmingham Post newspaper. The call was answered by operator Ian Cropper. This caller said: "There is a bomb planted in the Rotunda and there is a bomb in New Street at the tax office. This is Double X", before terminating the call. ("Double X" was an IRA code word given to authenticate any warning call.) A similar warning was also sent to the Birmingham Evening Mail newspaper, with the anonymous caller(s) again giving the code word, but again failing to name the public houses in which the bombs had been planted.
Mulberry Bush
The Rotunda is a 25-storey office block, built in the 1960s, that housed the Mulberry Bush pub on its lower two floors. Within minutes of the warning, police arrived and began checking the upper floors of the Rotunda, but they did not have sufficient time to clear the crowded pub at street level. At 20:17, six minutes after the first telephone warning had been delivered to the Birmingham Post, the bomb—which had been concealed inside either a duffel bag or briefcase located close to the rear entrance to the premises—exploded, devastating the pub. The explosion blew a 40-inch (100 cm) crater in the concrete floor, collapsing part of the roof and trapping many casualties beneath girders and concrete blocks. Many buildings near the Rotunda were also damaged, and pedestrians in the street were struck by flying glass from shattered windows. Several of the victims died at the scene, including two youths who had been walking past the premises at the moment of the explosion.
Ten people were killed in this explosion and dozens were injured, including many who lost limbs. Several casualties had been impaled by sections of wooden furniture; others had their clothes burned from their bodies. A paramedic called to the scene of this explosion later described the carnage as being reminiscent of a slaughterhouse; one fireman said that, upon seeing a writhing, "screaming torso", he had begged police to allow a television crew inside the premises to film the dead and dying at the scene, in the hope the IRA would see the consequences of their actions; however, the police refused this request, fearing the reprisals would be extreme.
One of those injured was a 21-year-old woman named Maureen Carlin, who had such extensive shrapnel wounds to her stomach and bowel she told her fiancé, Ian Lord (himself badly wounded in the explosion): "If I die, just remember I love you". Carlin was given the last rites, with surgeons initially doubtful she would live, although she recovered from her injuries.
Tavern in the Town
The Tavern in the Town was a basement pub on New Street located a short distance from the Rotunda and directly beneath the New Street Tax Office. Patrons there had heard the explosion at the Mulberry Bush, but did not believe that the sound (described by one survivor as a "muffled thump") was an explosion.
Police had begun attempting to clear the Tavern in the Town when, at 20:27, a second bomb exploded there. The blast was so powerful that several victims were blown through a brick wall. Their remains were wedged between the rubble and live underground electric cables that supplied the city centre.<ref name="fireman">The Birmingham Pub Bombings, 21 November 1974. A Personal Account by Alan Stuart Hill] </ref> One of the first police officers on the scene, Brian Yates, later testified that the scene which greeted his eyes was "absolutely dreadful", with several of the dead stacked upon one another, others strewn about the ruined pub, and several screaming survivors staggering aimlessly amongst the debris, rubble, and severed limbs. A survivor said the sound of the explosion was replaced by a "deafening silence" and the smell of burnt flesh.
Rescue efforts at the Tavern in the Town were initially hampered as the bomb had been placed at the base of a set of stairs descending from the street which had been destroyed in the explosion, and the premises had been accessible solely via this entrance. The victims whose bodies had been blown through a brick wall and wedged between the rubble and underground electric cables took up to three hours to recover, as recovery operations were delayed until the power could be isolated. A passing West Midlands bus was also destroyed in the blast.
This bomb killed nine people outright, and injured everyone in the pub—many severely; two later died of their injuries: 28-year-old barman Thomas Chaytor on 28 November, and 34-year-old James Craig on 10 December.
After the second explosion, police evacuated all pubs and businesses in Birmingham city centre and commandeered all available rooms in the nearby City Centre Hotel as an impromptu first-aid post. All bus services into the city centre were halted, and taxi drivers were encouraged to transport those lightly injured in the explosions to hospital. Prior to the arrival of ambulances, rescue workers removed critically injured casualties from each scene upon makeshift stretchers constructed from devices such as tabletops and wooden planks. These severely injured casualties would be placed on the pavement and given first aid prior to the arrival of ambulance services.
Hagley Road
At 21:15, a third bomb, concealed inside two plastic bags, was found in the doorway of a Barclays Bank on Hagley Road, approximately two miles from the site of the first two explosions. This device consisted of of Frangex connected to a timer, and was set to detonate at 23:00. The detonator to this device activated when a policeman prodded the bags with his truncheon, but the bomb did not explode. The device was destroyed in a controlled explosion early the following morning.
Fatalities
Altogether, 21 people were killed and 182 injured in the Birmingham pub bombings, making them the deadliest terrorist attack in mainland Britain during the Troubles. Residents of Birmingham have referred to the Birmingham pub bombings as the "darkest day" in their city's history.
Many of those wounded were left permanently disabled, including one young man who lost both legs, and a young woman who was blinded by shrapnel. The majority of the dead and wounded were between the ages of 17 and 30, including a young couple on their first date, a young woman whose boyfriend had intended to propose to her on the evening of her death, and two Irishmen, brothers Desmond and Eugene Reilly (aged 21 and 23 respectively). The widow of Desmond Reilly gave birth to his first child four months after his death. One of the victims, 18-year-old Maxine Hambleton, had only entered the Tavern in the Town to hand out tickets to friends for her housewarming party. She was killed seconds after entering the pub and had been standing directly beside the bomb when it exploded, killing her instantly. Her friend, 17-year-old Jane Davis, was one of two 17-year-olds killed in the bombings, and had entered the Tavern in the Town to view holiday photographs she had developed that afternoon.
Initial reaction
The bombings stoked considerable anti-Irish sentiment in Birmingham, which then had an Irish community of 100,000. Irish people were ostracised from public places and subjected to physical assaults, verbal abuse and death threats. Both in Birmingham and across England, Irish homes, pubs, businesses and community centres were attacked, in some cases with firebombs. Staff at thirty factories across the Midlands went on strike in protest at the bombings, while workers at airports across England refused to handle flights bound for Ireland. Bridget Reilly, the mother of the two Irish brothers killed in the Tavern in the Town explosion, was herself refused service in local shops.
The bombings were immediately blamed on the IRA, despite the organisation not having claimed responsibility. Due to anger against Irish people in Birmingham after the bombings, the IRA's Army Council placed the city "strictly off-limits" to IRA active service units. In Northern Ireland, loyalist paramilitaries launched a wave of revenge attacks on Irish Catholics: within two days of the bombings, five Catholic civilians had been shot dead by loyalists.
First IRA statement
Two days after the bombings, the Provisional IRA issued a statement in which they denied any responsibility. This statement stressed that a detailed internal investigation was underway to determine the possibility of any rogue members' involvement, although the Provisional IRA emphasised that the methodology of the attacks contradicted the official IRA code of conduct when attacking non-military targets, whereby adequate warnings would be sent to security services to ensure the safety of civilians.White, Robert W. Ruairí Ó Brádaigh: The Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary pp. 221; 381. Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, then-president of Sinn Féin, conducted an internal investigation which he stated confirmed the bombings had not been sanctioned by the IRA leadership.
The Provisional IRA never officially admitted responsibility for the Birmingham pub bombings.
Prevention of Terrorism Act
Within four days of the bombings, Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary, announced that the Irish Republican Army was to be proscribed within the UK. Two days later, on 27 November, Jenkins introduced the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974, which granted the police in mainland Britain the right to arrest, detain, and question people for up to seven days if they were suspected of the commission or preparation of an act of terrorism on the British mainland, and their subsequent deportation to either Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland if culpability was proven. Jenkins later described the measures of this Act as being "draconian measures unprecedented in peacetime".
In response to public pressure, a separate debate within the House of Commons as to whether those convicted of terrorist offences should face the death penalty was held on 11 December 1974. This motion drew the support of more than 200 MPs, although the majority of those in Parliament voted against the restoration of the death penalty, reportedly in part due to fear that such a move could have encouraged the IRA to use children to plant bombs.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act became law on 29 November, and remained in force until superseded by the Terrorism Act in July 2000.
Forensic analysis
An analysis of the remnants of the bombs placed at the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town revealed these devices had been constructed in a similar manner to the bomb placed at Hagley Road. Each bomb placed inside the public houses would have weighed between 25 and 30 lbs, and had contained numerous shards of metal. The forensic analyst was able to state that the construction of these devices was very similar to that of seven other bombs and incendiary devices discovered at various locations in Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton in the 16 days prior to the Birmingham pub bombings, and that the explosive material used to construct the bomb discovered at Hagley Road was of a brand solely manufactured in the Republic of Ireland which could not legally be imported into Britain. All these factors led the explosives expert to conclude that all three bombs had been manufactured by the same people, and that it was likely that whoever had constructed these bombs had also committed previous IRA attacks. This conclusion was further supported by the methodology of the attacks, and the official IRA code word given to the Birmingham Evening Mail and Birmingham Post newspapers minutes before the explosions.
The Birmingham Six
Arrest
At 19:55 on 21 November (scarcely 20 minutes before the first bomb had exploded), five men—Patrick Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker—had boarded a train at Birmingham New Street station. These men—who, alongside Hugh Callaghan, would become known as the "Birmingham Six"—were originally from Northern Ireland. Five of the Birmingham Six hailed from Belfast, whereas John Walker had lived in Derry until age 16. All six men had lived in Birmingham for between 11 and 27 years respectively and, although they had known James McDade and/or his family to varying degrees, each man was adamant they had not known of his IRA affiliations.
When the bombs exploded, the booking clerk from whom the men had purchased tickets informed police that a man with an Irish accent, dressed in a dust-covered purple suit, had purchased a ticket to travel to the coastal village of Heysham, en route to Belfast. The man had then run onto the train. A spot check on ticket sales that evening revealed that four further tickets to travel to Belfast via Heysham had also been issued. Within three hours of the bombings, each man had been detained at Heysham Port and taken to Morecambe police station to undergo forensic tests to eliminate them as suspects in the bombings. Each man expressed their willingness to assist in these inquiries, having informed the officers of a half-truth as to the reason they had been travelling to Belfast: that they intended to visit their families, although they also intended to attend McDade's funeral.
Between 03:00 and 06:10 the following morning, forensic scientist Frank Skuse conducted a series of Griess tests upon the hands, fingernails and belongings of the five men arrested at Heysham Port, to determine whether any of the men had handled the explosive nitroglycerine. He concluded with a 99% degree of certainty that both Patrick Hill and William Power had handled explosives, and remained uncertain as to the test results conducted on John Walker, whose right hand had tested positive, but whose left hand had tested negative. The test results upon Hunter and McIlkenny had been negative.
Each man was ordered to change his clothes. A search of Walker's possessions revealed several mass cards printed in reference to the upcoming funeral of James McDade. Upon discovering these mass cards, two officers led Walker into an adjacent room, where he was repeatedly punched, kicked and, later, burned with a lit cigarette by three officers as his arms were restrained by the two policemen who had escorted him into the room. Similar assaults were committed upon Power, Hunter, Hill and, to a lesser degree, McIlkenny; the officers who administered these beatings took great care to avoid marking the men's faces.
At 12:55 on the afternoon of 22 November, while detained at Morecambe police station, William Power signed a confession admitting his involvement in the Birmingham pub bombings. This confession was extracted after Power had been subjected to extreme physical and psychological abuse, which included repeated kicking in the stomach, head and legs, dragging by the hair, and the stretching of his scrotum.
False confessions
The five men were transferred to the custody of the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad on the afternoon of 22 November. At 22:45 that evening, Hugh Callaghan was arrested at his home in Birmingham and driven to Sutton Coldfield police station, where he was briefly questioned before being detained in a cell overnight, but intentionally denied sleep. The same evening Callaghan was arrested, the homes of all six men were extensively—and unsuccessfully—searched for explosives and explosive material.
Following their transfer to the custody of the West Midlands Crime Squad, three other members of the Birmingham Six (Callaghan, McIlkenny and Walker) signed false confessions on 23 November. In these three further false statements obtained by the West Midlands Crime Squad, Callaghan, McIlkenny and Walker each falsely claimed to be members of the IRA; to have conspired with McDade to cause explosions prior to his death; and to have planted the bombs at the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town public houses. As had been the case with William Power while detained at Morecambe police station, the three men later claimed that, before and during their transfer to Birmingham, officers had coerced them into signing these confessions through severe physical, psychological and emotional abuse. This mistreatment included beatings, deprivation of food and sleep, being subject to mock executions, intimidation, being burned with lit cigarettes, and being forced to stand or squat in various stress positions. In addition, each man had heard threats directed against their families. Hill and Hunter both claimed they had been subject to the same mistreatment, and although both men had refused to sign false confessions, police later claimed that both men had verbally confessed their guilt. On 24 November, each man was initially charged with the murder of 17-year-old Jane Davis, who had been killed in the Tavern in the Town explosion. All six were remanded in custody at Winson Green Prison, and they were only assigned solicitors the following day.
Inside Winson Green Prison, all six men were subject to the same mistreatment at the hands of prison officers as they had endured at the hands of police, with one of the men losing four teeth in one assault. At a further court hearing on 28 November, each man was observed to have extensive facial injuries; an examination by a prison doctor revealed each man had received extensive injuries not only to their faces, but across their bodies. (Following an independent investigation into this mistreatment, the British Director of Public Prosecutions recommended that 14 prison warders be charged with assault. These men were suspended from duty in December 1975; all 14 were found not guilty of 90 separate charges of misconduct and assault on 15 July 1976.)
Second IRA statement
Dáithí Ó Conaill, then a member of the Provisional IRA's Army Council, had four days before the Birmingham pub bombings issued a statement declaring that the "consequences of war" would incessantly be felt not only in Northern Ireland, but on the British mainland, until the British government announced their intentions to "disengage from Ireland". One week after the Birmingham Six had been charged with the murder of Jane Davis, Ó Conaill issued a further statement emphasising that none of the Birmingham Six had ever been members of the IRA. Ó Conaill further stated:
Committal hearing
At a committal hearing in May 1975, each man was formally charged with 21 counts of murder, with additional charges of conspiracy to cause explosions. Due to the wave of public outrage towards the perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings within the Midlands, Judge Bridge conceded to defence motions to move the trial away from the Midlands, and the trial was set to be heard within the Shire Hall and Crown Court of Lancaster Castle the following month. Also to stand trial with the Birmingham Six were three men: Mick Murray (a known member of the Provisional IRA who had previously been convicted of a separate charge of conspiracy to cause explosions), James Francis Gavin (a.k.a. James Kelly, who had likewise been tried alongside the Birmingham Six and convicted of the possession of explosives), who had allegedly constructed each of the bombs, and Michael Sheehan. Murray was also charged with conspiracy to cause explosions across the Midlands, with Kelly and Sheehan charged with possession of explosives.
Prior to the trial, defence lawyers for the Birmingham Six applied for their clients to be tried separately from Sheehan, Kelly and, particularly, Murray, stating that their clients' presumptions of innocence and denials of association with the IRA would be tainted if they were tried alongside an admitted member of the Provisional IRA, who had been convicted of causing explosions. This application was rejected by Judge Bridge, who was to preside over the trial.
Trial
On 9 June 1975, the Birmingham Six stood trial at Lancaster Crown Court before Judge Nigel Bridge. Each man was charged with 21 counts of murder and conspiring with the deceased James McDade to cause explosions across the Midlands between August and November 1974. Murray, Kelly and Sheehan were also charged with conspiracy to cause explosions across the Midlands, with Kelly and Sheehan facing the additional charges of possession of explosives.
All six men emphatically maintained their innocence, stating they had never been members of the IRA; that they had not known James McDade had been a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army until his death; and reiterating their earlier claims of having been subject to intense physical and psychological abuse upon their arrest. Sheehan and Kelly also denied the charges brought against them, with Murray simply refusing to acknowledge or speak throughout the entire proceedings. (No direct evidence was offered to link Murray, Sheehan or Kelly with the Birmingham pub bombings. Nonetheless, the Crown alleged they were part of the same IRA unit as the Birmingham Six, and contended the Birmingham pub bombs may have been planted "in some illogical way" to avenge or commemorate the death of James McDade.)
The primary evidence presented against the Birmingham Six linking them to the Birmingham pub bombings were their written confessions, the Griess tests conducted by Frank Skuse at Morecambe police station, and circumstantial evidence indicative of Irish republican sympathies which would be supported by character witnesses called to testify on behalf of the prosecution.
Skuse testified as to his conducting Griess tests upon the hands of the six men following their arrest, stating as to his being 99% certain that both Hill and Power had handled explosive materials, and to a possibility Walker may also have done so. Skuse conceded that he could not rule out the possibility that Walker's right hand could have been contaminated from his (Skuse's) own hands, as Walker was the last of the five men to be swabbed at Morecambe police station, and had at first tested negative to the Griess test, before a second swab had revealed faint, positive traces of ammonium and nitrates. This testimony was refuted by Dr. Hugh Kenneth Black, a former Chief Inspector of Explosives for the Home Office, who testified that a range of innocuous substances and objects one could handle on a daily basis containing nitrocellulose (such as varnishes and paints) would produce a positive result to a Griess test. Moreover, the tests conducted by Skuse had not succeeded in identifying nitroglycerine as the source of the positive results produced by the Griess tests, and the Crown had earlier conceded that an exhaustive search of the six men's homes had revealed no traces of nitroglycerine.
Several weeks into the trial, Judge Bridge overruled motions from the defence counsel that the four written confessions obtained from their clients should be omitted from evidence due to their being extorted under extreme physical and mental pressure, instead citing the statements as admissible evidence. These written confessions were presented in evidence at the trial following an eight-day hearing conducted without the presence of the jury. The judge refused to allow the jury to view the written confessions, which would have disclosed not only that each of the four written confessions contradicted details contained within the three other confessions, but that they also contradicted testimony from forensic scientists delivered earlier in the trial as to the devices used to conceal the bombs, and the locations in which they had been placed inside the public houses. For example, William Power had claimed in his written confession that he had placed the bomb which devastated the Mulberry Bush public house by a jukebox at the foot of a staircase to the premises; whereas a forensic scientist named Douglas Higgs had testified on the fourth day of the trial that the bomb which had detonated within these premises had been left by a wall located towards the rear of the premises.
Conviction
The trial lasted 45 days, and saw one hundred witnesses testify on behalf of the prosecution and defence. On 14 August 1975, the jury retired to consider their verdicts. These deliberations continued until the following day. On the afternoon of 15 August, having deliberated for over six-and-a-half hours, the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts in relation to the 21 murder charges against the Birmingham Six. Upon passing sentence, Judge Nigel Bridge informed the defendants: "You stand convicted of each of 21 counts, on the clearest and most overwhelming evidence I have ever heard, of the crime of murder." All six men were sentenced to life imprisonment. None of the Birmingham Six displayed any emotion upon hearing the verdict, although William Power saluted the judge.
At the same trial, Michael Murray and Michael Sheehan were each convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. James Kelly was found not guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions, but guilty of the possession of explosives and sentenced to one year's imprisonment; his counsel, Edwin Jowett, successfully argued that his client had already served the equivalent of a one-year sentence, and he was released from prison on 23 August.
After sentencing all nine defendants, Judge Bridge summoned the Chief Constable of Lancashire and the Assistant Chief Constable of the West Midlands to hear a final address; both were commended for their collective efforts in interrogating and obtaining the four confessions presented in evidence. In addressing the defendants' assertions as to physical and psychological abuse while in the custody of both constabularies, Judge Bridge concluded: "These investigations both at Morecambe and Birmingham were carried out with scrupulous propriety by all your officers".
Appeals and independent reviews
Following their conviction, the Birmingham Six continued to steadfastly maintain their innocence. All six men submitted an application to appeal their convictions; this motion was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in March 1976. Two years later, in November 1978, the Birmingham Six were granted legal aid to sue the Lancashire and West Midlands Police forces, and the Home Office, through the Court of Appeal in relation to the injuries they had suffered in custody. This motion to appeal their convictions on these grounds was challenged by the West Midlands Police, and was stricken by Lord Denning in January 1980, thereby thwarting the attempts of the men to find legal redress for their grievances via these grounds. The Birmingham Six were initially refused permission to further appeal against their convictions. The following year, Patrick Hill embarked on a month-long hunger strike in an unsuccessful bid to have his case reopened.
In 1982, Patrick Hill was visited by civil rights lawyer Gareth Peirce, who agreed to act on his behalf. Peirce also encouraged Hill and his co-accused to continue to compile evidence attesting to their innocence and to write to media personnel such as journalist Chris Mullin, and politicians such as Sir John Farr in an effort to garner support for a review of their case. Farr responded to this correspondence in March 1983, and later thoroughly reviewed all documents relating to the men's conviction, concluding that the forensic evidence which existed against the six men was "not worth the paper it was written on".
In 1985, the current affairs news programme World in Action presented the first of six episodes focusing upon the Birmingham pub bombings which seriously challenged the validity of the convictions of the six men. In this first episode broadcast, two distinguished forensic scientists conducted a series of Griess tests upon 35 separate common substances which the men had likely come into contact within their everyday lives.Error of Judgment pp. 238–39
Each forensic scientist confirmed that only substances containing nitrocellulose produced a positive result, and that the Griess test would only produce a positive reaction to nitrocellulose if conducted in a room at typical room temperature. When asked to comment on testimony delivered at the trial of the Birmingham Six, in which Dr. Skuse had stated that the temperature in a room in which the Griess test was conducted would need to be heated to 60 °C to produce a false positive reaction to nitrocellulose (thereby confusing the reading with nitroglycerine), one of the forensic scientists stated, "Frankly, I was amazed."
Also appearing on this first World in Action episode broadcast was a former West Midlands policeman, who confirmed that each of the Birmingham Six had been subjected to beatings and threats while in the custody of the West Midlands Crime Squad. In addition, a former IRA Chief of Staff, Joe Cahill, on the same programme, acknowledged the IRA's role in the Birmingham pub bombings.
In 1986, British Labour politician and journalist Chris Mullin published Error of Judgement: Truth About the Birmingham Bombings, which provided further evidence that the men had been wrongly convicted. The book included anonymous interviews with some of those who claimed to have been involved in the bombings, and who claimed the protocol 30-minute warning bomb warning had been delayed because the preselected telephone box had been vandalised, and that by the time another telephone box was found, the advance warning had been significantly delayed.
1987 Court of Appeal hearing
In January 1987, the Home Office referred the conviction of the Birmingham Six to the Court of Appeal. This motion resulted from the findings of forensic scientists working for the Home Office, who had expressed grave concerns as to the reliability of the Griess tests cited as forensic evidence of the defendants' guilt. In granting this motion, the Home Secretary himself emphasised that he had "little or no confidence" in the reliability of this test. This appeal was heard before three judges of the Court of Appeal in November 1987.
At this hearing, the defence counsels argued that the Birmingham Six were victims of a gross miscarriage of justice, that they had been convicted upon unreliable forensic evidence, and that the signed confessions were contradictory and had been obtained under extreme physical and mental duress. The allegations of physical mistreatment were corroborated by a former policeman named Thomas Clarke, who testified as to the defendants' mistreatment while incarcerated at Winson Green Prison.
This appeal also heard evidence from Mullin, who testified in detail as to the contradictions in the written and verbal confessions obtained from the defendants, both with regards to the events of the day, and with regards to the content of the statements made by their fellow defendants—all purported by the Crown to be solid evidence. Mullin also testified as to the fundamental flaws in the forensic tests conducted upon the men's hands for traces of nitroglycerine.
This evidence was contradicted by Igor Judge, QC, who informed the three judges of the Court of Appeal of the Crown's allegations that police had obtained false confessions by subjecting the men to severe physical and emotional abuse was "baseless", and of his belief that only film footage of the defendants planting the bombs would provide stronger evidence than that which already existed against the Birmingham Six. On 28 January 1988, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales again upheld the convictions of the Birmingham Six as safe.
Further media exposure
In March 1990, ITV broadcast the Granada Television documentary drama, Who Bombed Birmingham?; a drama which recounted the events of the arrest of the Birmingham Six, the evidence presented at the trial and Mullins' then-ongoing efforts to prove Birmingham Six had been the victims of a miscarriage of justice. This documentary drama extensively detailed both the flaws in the forensic evidence against the men, and the extensive physical and psychological abuse to which they had been subjected. The programme named four of five members of the Provisional IRA as having organised and committed the Birmingham pub bombings.
One of these men was Mick Murray, who had been tried alongside the Birmingham Six and convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions. Murray was named as having assisted in the selection of the targets, and had later placed the advance warning call to the Birmingham Post and Birmingham Evening Mail newspapers, which was delayed by a half-hour due to the fact that the pre-selected telephone had been vandalised and another needed to be located, leading to the fateful delay in the warning calls. The other three named in the documentary were Seamus McLoughlin, whom the programme asserted had also planned the atrocities; James Francis Gavin (a.k.a. James Kelly, who had likewise been tried alongside the Birmingham Six and convicted of the possession of explosives), who had allegedly constructed each of the bombs; and Michael Christopher Hayes, who had planted the bombs at the preselected locations.
The executive producer of Who Bombed Birmingham?, Ray Fitzwalter, has stated that those involved in the production of this documentary drama are 100 percent certain that those named as the perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings had committed the atrocities.
Release
On 29 August 1990, as a result of further fresh evidence uncovered following the 1988 dismissal of appeal, the Home Secretary again referred the convictions of the Birmingham Six to the Court of Appeal. This appeal was heard by Lord Justice Lloyd between 4 and 14 March 1991. At the conclusion of this second appeal, the convictions of the Birmingham Six were quashed upon the bases of police fabrication of evidence, the suppression of evidence, and the unreliability of the scientific evidence presented at their 1975 trial. The tests conducted by Skuse upon the defendants' hands for nitroglycerine were deemed by the three Court of Appeal judges as being particularly unreliable and "demonstrably wrong ... even by the state of forensic science in 1974".
The discrediting of this evidence was sufficient for the Crown to dismiss pleas from the prosecution to find the convictions "unsatisfactory but not unsafe". On the afternoon of 14 March, Lord Justice Lloyd announced his intentions to withdraw the Crown's case against the defendants. Upon announcing his intention to withdraw the convictions, Lord Justice Lloyd informed the Birmingham Six: "In the light of the fresh evidence which has been made available since the last hearing in this court, your appeals will be allowed and you are free to go."
Emerging from the Old Bailey to an ecstatic public reception, each of the men addressed the press and public with varying statements including their concern for "many more people—both Irish and English—still wrongfully behind bars".
In 2001, each of the Birmingham Six was subsequently paid between £840,000 and £1.2 million in compensation.
Renewed inquests
The West Midlands Police and then-Director of Public Prosecutions, Dame Barbara Mills, reopened their investigation into the Birmingham pub bombings following the release of the Birmingham Six. In April 1994, the Chief Constable of the West Midlands, Ron Hadfield, publicly stated: "The file, so far as we are concerned is now closed ... We have done everything we could possibly have done to bring the perpetrators to justice". Hadfield then emphasised that the Director of Public Prosecutions had found "insufficient evidence for [criminal] proceedings to be taken".
At the conclusion of the 1994 investigation, the Director of Public Prosecutions implemented a 75-year public-interest immunity certificate on documents relating to the Birmingham pub bombings—effectively preventing any release of documents relating to the reinvestigation until 2069. This court order forbids the disclosure of this evidence to the public on the grounds that any disclosure would be deemed to be damaging to the public interest.
On 1 June 2016, the senior coroner for Birmingham and Solihull, Louise Hunt, announced renewed inquests into the Birmingham pub bombings, citing two occasions where evidence clearly indicated the West Midlands Police had received a minimum of two advance warnings of the impending attacks at the two pubs—one of which had been made by known IRA members who had unequivocally stated on 10 November that Birmingham was to be "hit next week". This conversation had been reported to police; no evidence is known to exist showing that the West Midlands Police had taken any effective responsive action to this threat. A second warning had been given to police on the day of the bombings, yet no action is known to have been taken.
Although Hunt states that any claims that police were/are protecting an IRA mole are unfounded, and that the response of emergency services on the night of the blasts did not in any way contribute to the deaths, in one section of her report, she states: "I have serious concerns that advanced notice of the bombs may have been available to the police, and that they failed to take the necessary steps to protect public life."
In September 2018, the Lord Chief Justice ruled that any suspects in the bombings were not due to be named at upcoming inquests into the bombings, the judges present at the hearing having upheld an earlier coroner's decision to omit issues pertaining to responsibility for the bombings in these inquests. The renewed inquests commenced on 11 February 2019.
With permission from the current head of the IRA, an individual known only as "Witness O" testified at this inquest on 22 March, naming four men (one of whom was Mick Murray) as responsible for the bombings. He also testified as to his belief that security services had been given adequate time to evacuate both pubs. On 5 April, the jury of 11 found that a botched advance IRA telephone warning contributed to or caused the 21 deaths and that there had been no error or omission in the police response to the given warning call which might have limited the loss of life.
Independent campaign
In 2011, Brian and Julie Hambleton, who lost their 18-year-old sister Maxine in the Tavern in the Town explosion, initiated a campaign called Justice for the 21. The stated aims of this campaign are to highlight and resolve the fact that, although the inquiry is officially an open one, no efforts are being made to actively pursue the perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings unless significant new leads are to surface, and to resolve the issue that the families of the 21 victims have never seen true justice for the loss of their loved ones. Justice for the 21 wants to see the criminal investigation into the bombings reopened and the perpetrators brought to justice or, if deceased, publicly named. When asked in 2012 why she and her brother had instigated this campaign, Julie Hambleton stated: "Someone has to fight for them; someone has to speak on their behalf, because they're not here to do it themselves ... It doesn't matter how much time has passed."
Campaigners for Justice for the 21 believe they have amassed evidence indicating that a British double agent was part of an IRA unit that had committed the pub bombings.
Following a 2014 meeting held at the West Midlands Police headquarters to discuss the findings of a two-year reassessment of all available evidence connected with the original 1974 inquiry, campaigners within Justice for the 21 were informed that unless "new and significant information" was forthcoming, there would be no further inquiry into the Birmingham pub bombings. At this meeting, the Chief Constable of the West Midlands informed the campaigners that 35 pieces of evidence from the original 1974 inquiry were now missing, including the bomb which had been discovered at Hagley Road and safely destroyed in a controlled explosion.
In November 2014, the Justice for the 21 campaign implemented a fresh petition to pressure the British Government to form a new inquiry into the Birmingham pub bombings. This petition was signed by four retired West Midlands Police officers, and by Patrick Hill, who wrote of his desire that a fresh inquiry would "establish the true circumstances of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, and to order the release of all government, police, and Crown papers related to the case in order to bring truth and justice for the 21 innocent people who died, the 182 people who were injured, for the six innocent men who were wrongfully convicted, and for the families of all those affected."
Patrick Hill has publicly backed the efforts of the Justice for the 21 campaign, and would later state that, following their 1991 release from prison, the Birmingham Six had been informed of the names of the true perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings and that their identities are known among the upper echelons of both the IRA and the British government. Hill stated that, following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, he has been told that five members of the Provisional IRA have admitted to committing the Birmingham pub bombings, relying on a clause in the Good Friday Agreement offering immunity from prosecution. Two of these men have since died and a further two have been promised immunity, whereas a fifth man reportedly had not received any such assurances.
Aftermath
In the weeks and months following the Birmingham pub bombings, Birmingham's Irish community experienced ostracism, assault and abuse. As a result of these tensions, any public celebrations of Irish culture, including the annual St Patrick's Day Parade, were cancelled. Tensions created in the wake of the bombings would take more than a decade to heal.
In 1983, the Director of the Birmingham Irish Welfare and Information Centre, Rev. Joe Taaffe, reinstated Birmingham's annual St Patrick's Day Parade, with a message that the Irish community in Birmingham should again unashamedly celebrate their heritage without fear of reprisal. Birmingham's annual St Patrick's Day Parade is considered to be the world's third largest St Patrick's Day Parade, with annual attendance figures reaching or surpassing 130,000.
Following his release from prison in 1991, Patrick Hill co-founded of the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation; a group whose dual aims are to provide and improve emotional and physical support for those found to have been wrongly convicted once released from prison, and to provide advocacy for those still inside prison who proclaim their innocence. Patrick Hill and the families of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings remain united in their efforts to overturn the 75-year public interest immunity order imposed in 1994, and have publicly demanded the British Government order the release of all government, police, and crown papers related to the case. In reference to the public interest immunity order, a spokeswoman for the Justice for the 21 campaign group commented in 2014:
In 2004, civil rights campaigner and Catholic priest the Rev. Denis Faul (who had previously campaigned for the release of the Birmingham Six) officially called on the IRA to both admit their culpability in the Birmingham pub bombings, and to apologise. These calls were echoed by Sinn Féin, who stated: "What happened in Birmingham 30 years ago was wrong and should not have happened", adding "[if] issues relating to the IRA concerning the Birmingham bombings are still to be addressed, then it is very clearly the Sinn Féin position that this should happen".
In 2014, the Birmingham Mail named Michael Murray as the mastermind behind the Birmingham pub bombings. Murray was an admitted member of the Provisional IRA who held a high rank within the Birmingham IRA unit; he had been arrested just four days after the Birmingham pub bombings and had stood trial alongside the Birmingham Six, and although charged only with conspiracy to cause explosions, the prosecutor had suggested Murray may have been the mastermind behind the bombings. Prior to his 1975 trial, Murray had been convicted of separate charges of conspiracy to cause explosions and with causing an explosion.
The Birmingham Mail alleges Murray had assisted in the construction of the bombs at a house in Bordesley Green, and had then transported them to the city centre, where he had handed them to another person, who then placed them in the preselected targets, before Murray telephoned the delayed warning calls to the two Birmingham newspapers. These allegations are supported by Patrick Hill and John Walker, who remain adamant that at one stage during the 1975 trial, Murray had privately admitted being one of the bombers. Murray allegedly told the two men: "I'm very sorry to see yous in here. Nothing went right that night. The first telephone box we got to was out of order", before threatening the two men that if they ever divulged this admission, both they and their families would be attacked.
Mick Murray never admitted his alleged involvement in the Birmingham pub bombings. Following his release from prison, he remained active within the Provisional IRA, and later became a vocal opponent of the decommissioning in Northern Ireland as part of the Northern Ireland peace process. He died of a heart attack in County Tipperary in 1999.
Kieran Conway, a former senior officer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, admitted in 2014 the PIRA had committed the Birmingham pub bombings, adding that he was "appalled and ashamed" at the attack, and that other senior IRA officials shared his opinion the bombings had been immoral and detrimental to the objectives of the republican movement. Conway, however, disputed allegations that an insufficient warning had deliberately been given to security services due to ill-feeling within the IRA over the disrupted funeral arrangements for James McDade, but claimed the perpetrators had tried to use several phone boxes which were either out of order or in use to deliver the protocol 30-minute warning, before finding a free, operable phone box to deliver the warning call.
On 10 July 2017, BBC Northern Ireland radio released an interview with Michael Christopher Hayes, a self-confessed bomb maker active within the Birmingham IRA unit in the 1970s. In this interview, Hayes (who had been named as a perpetrator of the bombings in the 1990 Granada documentary drama Who Bombed Birmingham?) stated he took "collective responsibility" for the bombings, although he refused to name who had planted the bombs in each of the locations. Nonetheless, he did state: "We were horrified when we heard, because it was not intended. I personally defused the third bomb. It was not the intention of the IRA to kill innocent people ... It wouldn't have been done if that was the case."
On 18 November 2020, a 65-year-old man was arrested in Belfast under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in connection with the bombings. He was released the following day without charge.
Memorials
A memorial plaque for the victims stands in the grounds of Birmingham's Saint Philip's Cathedral. This plaque is engraved with the names of the 21 people killed in the Birmingham pub bombings, and bears the inscription: "The people of Birmingham remember them and those who suffered."
A memorial commemorating those lost and wounded in the Birmingham pub bombings was unveiled on 21 November 2018. Commissioned by the Birmingham Irish Association and designed by a local artist named Anuradha Patel, this memorial consists of three steel trees, and is located outside the city's New Street Station.
Several survivors and relatives of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings have visited the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in the Republic of Ireland in an effort to come to terms with the events of 21 November 1974. The Glencree Centre is a charitable organisation whose stated aim is to promote peace and reconciliation in Britain and Ireland as a response to the Troubles. One of those who has visited the Glencree Centre, Maureen Carlin (who survived the Mulbery Bush bombing), said in 2009 that she had spoken with two former IRA members, who referred to the Birmingham pub bombings as a mistake for which the IRA would never publicly admit responsibility.
Media
Film
The made-for-TV film Who Bombed Birmingham? was first broadcast in 1990. Directed by Mike Beckham, the film is directly inspired by the painstaking efforts of then-journalist Chris Mullin to prove the six men convicted of the bombing had been the victims of a miscarriage of justice, as detailed in his 1986 book Error of Judgement: The Truth about the Birmingham Bombings. The film casts John Hurt as Mullin and Martin Shaw as Granada Television World in Action producer and fellow researcher Ian McBride, as they investigate the convictions of the "Birmingham Six."
Books
Encyclopedia of Modern Murder 1962–1982, by Colin Wilson ()
Error of Judgement: The Truth about the Birmingham Bombings, by Chris Mullin ()
Forever Lost, Forever Gone, by Patrick Hill ()
Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles, by David McKittrick ()
The Birmingham Bombs, by Brian Gibson ()
The Birmingham Six and Other Cases: Victims of Circumstance, by Louis Blom-Cooper ()
Television
The British investigative current affairs programme World in Action has broadcast a total of six episodes focusing upon the Birmingham pub bombings between 1985 and 1991. The last of these episodes, World in Action Special: The Birmingham Six – Their Own Story, was broadcast on 18 March 1991—four days after the release of the Birmingham Six—and was later nominated for a BAFTA award.
The BBC have commissioned a 30-minute documentary focusing upon the Birmingham pub bombings. This documentary, Who Murdered Maxine?, was first broadcast in December 2013 and focuses upon the ongoing campaign by relatives of one of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings, Maxine Hambleton, to reopen the investigation into the bombings and their ongoing efforts to raise public awareness of their campaign.
See also
Chronology of Provisional Irish Republican Army actions (1970–79)
List of miscarriage of justice cases
Notes
References
Cited works and further reading
External links
1974 BBC news article describing the aftermath of the Birmingham pub bombings
News article and image galleries relating to the Birmingham pub bombings
Contemporary BBC news article detailing the arrest of the Birmingham Six
Transcripts of the false confessions given by the Birmingham Six
Contemporary BBC news article detailing the release of the Birmingham Six
Official website of the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation
Justice for the 21: A website detailing the campaign by relatives of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings for those responsible to be brought to trial
Audio interview with Julie Hambleton detailing the resolve and obstacles the Justice for the 21 campaign has endured in their efforts to seek a fresh inquiry into the Birmingham pub bombings
A personal account of the Birmingham pub bombings, written by a member of the West Midlands Fire Service
2013 Birmingham Mail'' article detailing the [http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/birmingham-pub-bombings-memorial-restored-6316734 renovation of the memorial to the victims of the Birmingham pub bombings
Pub bombings
1974 building bombings
1974 in England
1974 murders in the United Kingdom
20th-century mass murder in England
Attacks on bars in the United Kingdom
Building bombings in England
Mass murder in 1974
Massacres in England
Pub bombings
November 1974 events in the United Kingdom
Provisional IRA bombings in England
Terrorist incidents in Birmingham
Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1974
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In%20Utero
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In Utero
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In Utero is the third and final studio album by the American rock band Nirvana. It was released on September 21, 1993, by DGC Records. After breaking into the mainstream with their second album, Nevermind (1991), Nirvana hired Steve Albini to record In Utero, seeking a more complex, abrasive sound that was reminiscent of their work prior to Nevermind. Although frontman and primary songwriter Kurt Cobain claimed that the album was "very impersonal", many of its songs contain heavy allusions to his personal life and struggles, expressing feelings of angst that were common on the band's previous album.
The album was recorded over two weeks in February 1993 at Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. After recording finished, rumors circulated that DGC might not release the album due to Albini's abrasive and uncommercial sound. The album was mastered by Bob Ludwig to achieve a more desirable sound for both Nirvana and their label. The band later hired producer Scott Litt to remix the singles "All Apologies", "Heart-Shaped Box" and "Pennyroyal Tea", to Albini's dismay.
In Utero was a major commercial and critical success. Critics praised the album’s raw, unconventional sound and Cobain's lyricism. It reached number one on the US Billboard 200 and UK Albums Chart; "Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies" reached number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart. The album is certified 5x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the US and has sold 15 million copies worldwide. It was the final Nirvana album before Cobain's suicide in 1994. "Pennyroyal Tea", planned as a single prior to Cobain's death, was released in 2014 and reached number one on the now-defunct Billboard Hot 100 Singles Sales chart.
Background
Nirvana broke into the mainstream with their second album, Nevermind, in 1991. Despite modest sales estimates, Nevermind was a major commercial success, popularizing the grunge movement and alternative rock. Nirvana expressed dissatisfaction with the sound of the album, citing its production as too polished. Early in 1992, frontman Kurt Cobain told Rolling Stone that Nirvana's next album would showcase "both of the extremes" of their sound, saying: "It'll be more raw with some songs and more candy pop on some of the others. It won't be as one-dimensional." The producer of Nevermind, Butch Vig, said later that Cobain had needed to work with a different producer to "reclaim his punk ethics or cred".
Cobain wanted to start work in mid-1992, but his bandmates lived in different cities, and Cobain and his wife, Courtney Love, were expecting the birth of their daughter, Frances Bean. Nirvana's record label, DGC Records, had hoped to release a new Nirvana album for the 1992 holiday season; instead, they released the compilation album Incesticide.
In a Melody Maker interview published in July 1992, Cobain said he was interested in recording with Jack Endino, who had produced Nirvana's 1989 debut album Bleach, and Steve Albini, former frontman of the noise rock band Big Black, who had produced various independent releases. In Seattle in October 1992, Nirvana recorded several demos with Endino, mainly as instrumentals, including songs later rerecorded for In Utero. Endino recalled that the band did not ask him to produce its next record, and that they constantly debated working with Albini. Nirvana recorded another set of demos while on tour in Brazil in January 1993. "Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip" was recorded by Craig Montgomery at BMG Ariola Ltda in Rio de Janeiro, during the three-day demo session. The song was originally titled "I'll Take You Down to the Pavement", a reference to an argument between Cobain and Guns N' Roses singer Axl Rose at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.
Nirvana ultimately chose Albini to record its third album. Albini had a reputation in the American independent music scene as being critical of the mainstream music industry and had a strict preference for analog recording than digital. He sent a disclaimer to the British music press denying rumors of his involvement with Nirvana, only to receive a call from Nirvana's management a few days later. Albini dismissed Nirvana as "R.E.M. with a fuzzbox" and "an unremarkable version of the Seattle sound". However, he accepted the job because he felt sorry for them, perceiving them as "the same sort of people as all the small-fry bands I deal with", at the mercy of their record company.
Cobain said he chose Albini because he had produced two of his favorite records, Surfer Rosa (1988) by the Pixies and Pod (1990) by the Breeders. Cobain wanted to use Albini's technique of capturing the natural ambience of a room via the placement of several microphones, something previous Nirvana producers had been averse to trying. Before the recording, the band sent Albini a tape of the demos they had made in Brazil. In return, Albini sent Cobain a copy of the PJ Harvey album Rid of Me (1993) to give him an idea of the acoustics at the studio where they would record.
Recording
Nirvana and Albini set a two-week deadline for recording. At the suggestion of Albini, who was wary of interference from DGC, Nirvana paid for the sessions with their own money. Studio fees totaled US$24,000, while Albini took a flat fee of $100,000. Though he stood to earn about $500,000 from royalties, Albini refused to accept them, as he considered taking royalties immoral and "an insult to the artist".
In February 1993, Nirvana traveled to Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Albini did not meet them until the first day of recording, though he had spoken to them beforehand about the type of album they wanted to make; he observed that "they wanted to make precisely the sort of record that I'm comfortable doing". The group stayed in a house on the studio grounds. Novoselic compared the isolated conditions to a gulag; he said, "There was snow outside, we couldn't go anywhere. We just worked." For most of the sessions, only the band, Albini, and technician Bob Weston were present. Nirvana made it clear to DGC and their management company Gold Mountain that they wanted no intrusion, and did not play their work in progress for their A&R representative. Albini instituted a policy of ignoring everyone except for the band members; he said that everyone associated with Nirvana were "the biggest pieces of shit I ever met".
Nirvana arrived at Pachyderm Studio without their equipment and spent much of the first three days waiting for it to arrive by mail. Once recording began, on February 13, work moved quickly. On most days, the group began work around midday, took breaks for lunch and dinner, and worked until midnight. For most songs, Cobain, Novoselic, and Grohl recorded their basic instrumental tracks together as a band. For faster songs, such as "Very Ape" and "Tourette's", the drums were recorded separately in a kitchen for its natural reverb. Albini surrounded Grohl's drum kit with about 30 microphones. Cobain added additional guitar tracks to about half of the songs, then guitar solos, and finally vocals. The band did not discard takes and kept virtually everything they recorded.
Albini saw himself more as an engineer than a producer; despite his personal opinions, he let the band choose takes. He said, "Generally speaking, [Cobain] knows what he thinks is acceptable and what isn't acceptable [...] He can make concrete steps to improve things that he doesn't think are acceptable." Cobain reportedly recorded all his vocal tracks in six hours. Albini said that Cobain, who had struggled with drug addiction, was focused and sober in the studio.
Recording was completed in six days; Cobain had anticipated disagreements with Albini, whom he had heard "was supposedly this sexist jerk", but called the process "the easiest recording we've ever done, hands down". The only disruption occurred a week into the sessions, when Love arrived because she missed Cobain. Weston's girlfriend, the studio's chef, said that Love created tension by criticizing Cobain's work and was confrontational with everyone present.
The initial mix of In Utero took five days. This was quick by Nirvana's standards, but not for Albini, who was used to mixing albums in a day or two. When work on a mix was not producing desired results, the band and Albini took the rest of the day off to watch nature videos, set things on fire and make prank calls. The sessions were completed on February 26.
Production and mixing dispute
After the recording sessions were completed, Nirvana sent unmastered tapes of the album to several individuals, including Gold Mountain and Ed Rosenblatt, the president of DGC's parent company Geffen Records. When asked about the feedback he received, Cobain told Michael Azerrad, "The grown-ups don't like it." He said he was told his songwriting was "not up to par", the sound was "unlistenable", and that there was uncertainty that mainstream radio would accept Albini's production. Few at Geffen or Gold Mountain had wanted the band to record with Albini, and Cobain felt he was receiving an unstated message to scrap the sessions and start again.
Cobain was upset and said to Azerrad, "I should just re-record this record and do the same thing we did last year because we sold out last year—there's no reason to try and redeem ourselves as artists at this point. I can't help myself—I'm just putting out a record I would like to listen to at home." However, a number of Nirvana's friends liked the album, and by April, Nirvana was intent on releasing In Utero as it was. According to Cobain, "Of course, they want another Nevermind, but I'd rather die than do that. This is exactly the kind of record I would buy as a fan, that I would enjoy owning."
The band then began to have doubts about the record. Cobain said, "The first time I played it at home, I knew there was something wrong. The whole first week I wasn't really interested in listening to it at all, and that usually doesn't happen. I got no emotion from it, I was just numb." The group concluded that the bass and lyrics were inaudible and asked Albini to remix the album. He declined; as he recalled, "[Cobain] wanted to make a record that he could slam down on the table and say, 'Listen, I know this is good, and I know your concerns about it are meaningless, so go with it.' And I don't think he felt he had that yet ... My problem was that I feared a slippery slope." The band attempted to address their concerns during the mastering process with Bob Ludwig at his studio in Portland, Maine. Novoselic was pleased with the results, but Cobain still did not feel it was perfect.
Soon afterward, in April 1993, Albini told the Chicago Tribune that he doubted Geffen would release the album. Years later, Albini said: "I wasn't there when the band was having their discussions with the record label. All I know is ... we made a record, everybody was happy with it. A few weeks later I hear that it's unreleasable and it's all got to be redone." While Albini's remarks in the article drew no reply from Nirvana or Geffen, Newsweek ran a similar article soon afterwards that did. Nirvana wrote a letter to Newsweek denying any pressure to change the album and saying the author had "ridiculed our relationship with our label based on totally erroneous information". The band reprinted the letter in a full-page ad in Billboard. Rosenblatt insisted in a press release that Geffen would release anything Nirvana submitted, and label founder David Geffen made the unusual move of calling Newsweek to complain.
Nirvana considered working with producer Scott Litt and remixing some tracks with Andy Wallace, who had mixed Nevermind. Albini vehemently disagreed, and said the band had agreed not to modify the tracks without his involvement. He initially refused to give the master tapes to Gold Mountain, but relented after a phone call from Novoselic. The band eventually had Litt remix songs intended as singles; "Heart Shaped Box" and "All Apologies" were remixed at Seattle's Bad Animals Studio in May 1993.
"I Hate Myself and Want to Die" was omitted as Cobain felt the album already contained too many "noise" songs. The rest of the album was left unaltered aside from a remastering. Albini was critical of the final mix; he said, "The record in the stores doesn't sound all that much like the record that was made, though it's still them singing and playing their songs, and the musical quality of it still comes across." According to Albini, In Utero made him unpopular with major record labels, and he faced problems finding work in the year following its release.
Music and lyrics
Albini sought to produce a record that sounded nothing like Nevermind. He felt the sound of Nevermind was "sort of a standard hack recording that has been turned into a very, very controlled, compressed radio-friendly mix [...] That is not, in my opinion, very flattering to a rock band." Instead, he intended to capture a more natural and visceral sound. Albini refused to double-track Cobain's vocals and instead recorded him singing in a resonant room. He noted the intensity of Cobain's vocals on some tracks; he said, "There's a really dry, really loud voice at the end of 'Milk It' ... that was also done at the end of 'Rape Me', where [Cobain] wanted the sound of him screaming to just overtake the whole band." Albini achieved the sparse drum sound by placing several microphones around Grohl, picking up the natural reverberation of the room. Albini said, "If you take a good drummer and put him in front of a drum kit that sounds good acoustically and just record it, you've done your job."
Azerrad asserted in his 1993 biography Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana that In Utero showcased divergent sensibilities of abrasiveness and accessibility that reflected the upheavals Cobain experienced prior to the album's completion. He wrote, "The Beatlesque 'Dumb' happily coexists beside the all-out frenzied punk graffiti of 'Milk It,' while 'All Apologies' is worlds away from the apoplectic 'Scentless Apprentice.' It's as if [Cobain] has given up trying to meld his punk and pop instincts into one harmonious whole. Forget it. This is war." Cobain believed, however, that In Utero was not "any harsher or any more emotional" than any of Nirvana's previous records. Novoselic agreed that the album leaned more towards the band's "arty, aggressive side"; he said, "There's always been [Nirvana] songs like 'About a Girl' and there's always been songs like 'Paper Cuts'... Nevermind came out kind of 'About a Girl'-y and this [album] came out more 'Paper Cuts'". Cobain cited "Milk It" as an example of the more experimental and aggressive direction in which the band's music had been moving in the months prior to the sessions at Pachyderm Studio. Novoselic viewed the album's singles "Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies" as "gateways" to the more abrasive sound of the rest of the album, telling journalist Jim DeRogatis that once listeners played the record, they would discover "this aggressive wild sound, a true alternative record".
Several songs on In Utero were written years prior to recording; some dated to 1990. Cobain favored long song titles, such as "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle", in reaction to contemporary alternative rock bands that used single-word titles. He continued to work on the lyrics while recording. He told Darcey Steinke in Spin in 1993 that, in contrast to Bleach and Nevermind, the lyrics were "more focused, they're almost built on themes". Azerrad asserted that the lyrics were less impressionistic and more straightforward than in previous Nirvana songs. Azerrad also noted that "virtually every song contains some image of sickness and disease". In a number of songs, Cobain made reference to books; "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle" was inspired by Shadowland, a 1978 biography of actress Frances Farmer, with whom Cobain had been fascinated ever since he read the book in high school. "Scentless Apprentice" was written about Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, a historical horror novel about a perfumer's apprentice who attempts to create the ultimate perfume by killing virgin women and taking their scent.
According to psychologist Thomas Joiner, it is clear that suicide was on Cobain's mind as he worked on the album, with its lyrics illustrating "the merging of death with themes of nurturance and life, sometimes in stark and disturbing ways." Examples include the song "Milk It", with the phrase "I am my own parasite", which according to Joiner is a "succinct and even sublime way to combine urges toward death and life." The words "Her milk is my shit, My shit is her milk" demonstrate that "Cobain clearly had a penchant for disturbing imagery in which themes of nurturance are merged with themes of disease and waste." Another example is Cobain referral to an "umbilical noose" in the song "Heart Shaped Box".
Cobain described In Utero as "very impersonal". He also told Q that the infant and childbirth imagery on the album and his newfound fatherhood were coincidental. However, Azerrad argued that much of the album contains personal themes, noting that Grohl held a similar view. Grohl said, "A lot of what he has to say is related to a lot of the shit he's gone through. And it's not so much teen angst any more. It's a whole different ball game: rock star angst." Cobain downplayed recent events and told Azerrad that he did not want to write a track that explicitly expressed his anger at the media; Azerrad countered that "Rape Me" seemed to deal with that very issue. While Cobain said the song was written long before his addiction problems became public, he agreed that the song could be viewed in that light. "Serve the Servants" comments on Cobain's life. The opening lines "Teenage angst has paid off well / Now I'm bored and old" were a reference to Cobain's state of mind in the wake of Nirvana's success. Cobain dismissed the media attention given to the effect his parents' divorce had on his life with the line "That legendary divorce is such a bore" from the chorus, and directly addressed his father with the lines "I tried hard to have a father / But instead I had a dad / I just want you to know that I don't hate you any more / There is nothing I could say that I haven't thought before". Cobain said he wanted his father to know he did not hate him, but had no desire to talk to him.
According to journalist Gillian G. Gaar, "Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip" was the kind of improvisational jam Nirvana frequently performed in the studio, but had rarely recorded during earlier sessions, when the priority had been to record as quickly as possible. She wrote that it featured "Cobain alternating between seemingly disconnected singing and spoken-words sections, with Novoselic and Grohl providing a steady background accompaniment, punctuated by bursts of noisy guitar." Journalist Everett True described the song's mood as "playful", with "the instruments engaging in a game of cat and mouse, almost daring each other to explode in fury". Novoselic said it was an example of the band "just fucking around".
Title and packaging
Cobain originally wanted to name the album I Hate Myself and I Want to Die, a phrase that had originated in his journals in mid-1992. At the time, he used the phrase as a response whenever someone asked him how he was doing. Cobain intended the album title as a joke; he stated he was "tired of taking this band so seriously and everyone else taking it so seriously". Novoselic convinced Cobain to change the title due to fear that it could potentially result in a lawsuit. The band then considered using Verse Chorus Verse—a title taken from its song "Verse Chorus Verse", and a (at the time current) working title of "Sappy"—before eventually settling on In Utero. The final title was taken from a poem written by Courtney Love.
The art director for In Utero was Robert Fisher, who had designed all of Nirvana's releases on DGC. Most of the ideas for the artwork for the album and related singles came from Cobain. Fisher recalled that "[Cobain] would just give me some loose odds and ends and say 'Do something with it.'" The cover of the album is an image of a Transparent Anatomical Manikin, with angel wings superimposed. Cobain created the collage on the back cover, which he described as "Sex and woman and In Utero and vaginas and birth and death", that consists of model fetuses, a turtle shell and models of turtles, and body parts lying in a bed of orchids and lilies. The collage had been set up on the floor of Cobain's living room and was photographed by Charles Peterson after an unexpected call from Cobain. The album's track listing and re-illustrated symbols from Barbara G. Walker's The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects were then positioned around the edge of the collage.
Mannequins of the angel-winged anatomical figure were used as stage props on Nirvana's concert tour supporting In Utero. One such mannequin later featured at the Experience Music Project museum's exhibition "Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses", which ran from April 2011 through 2013 and showcased memorabilia celebrating the band's music and history.
Marketing and sales
To avoid over-hyping the album, DGC Records took a low-key approach to promoting In Utero; their head of marketing told Billboard before the album's release that they were planning a campaign similar to that of Nevermind, and the label would "set things up, duck, and get out of the way". The label aimed its promotion at alternative markets and press, and released the album on vinyl as part of this strategy. In contrast to Nevermind, DGC did not release any of In Uteros singles commercially in the United States. DGC sent promo copies of the album's first single, "Heart-Shaped Box", to American college, modern rock, and album-oriented rock radio stations in early September, but did not target Top 40 radio. The band was convinced that In Utero would not be as successful as Nevermind. Cobain told Jim DeRogatis, "We're certain that we won't sell a quarter as much, and we're totally comfortable with that because we like this record so much."
In Utero was released on September 13, 1993, on CD, vinyl record and cassette tape in the United Kingdom, and on September 14 on vinyl in the United States, with the American vinyl pressing limited to 25,000 copies."In the Works: Pearl Jam on Vinyl ". Entertainment Weekly. October 15, 1993. Retrieved August 29, 2012. It was issued on CD and in other formats on September 21 in the US. European and Australian versions of In Utero released that same month included "Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip" as a hidden bonus track, with a sticker on the cover reading "Exclusive International Bonus Track", although the booklet referred to the song as a "Devalued American Dollar Purchase Incentive Track". According to Novoselic, DGC did not want the European version to compete with the US version, and so added the extra track.
In Utero debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 180,000 copies. The retail chain stores Wal-Mart and Kmart refused to sell it; according to The New York Times, Wal-Mart said this was due to lack of consumer demand, while Kmart representatives said the album did not fit with their "merchandise mix". In truth, both chains feared that customers would be offended by the artwork on the back cover. DGC issued a new version to the stores in March 1994, with edited album artwork, "Rape Me" retitled "Waif Me", and the Scott Litt remix of "Pennyroyal Tea". A spokesperson for Nirvana explained that the band decided to edit the packaging because they wanted their music available to "kids who don't have the opportunity to go to mom-and-pop stores". In Utero also debuted at number one in the United Kingdom where according to NME, "Nirvana confirmed their status as the seminal band of the time".
In October 1993, Nirvana began their first American tour in two years to promote the album. A second single, a split release that featured "All Apologies" and "Rape Me", was issued in December in the United Kingdom. The band began a six-week European leg in February 1994, but it was canceled after Cobain suffered a drug overdose in Rome on March 6. Cobain agreed to enter drug rehabilitation, but went missing soon afterward. On April 8, he was found dead in his Seattle home, having shot himself. A third single from In Utero, "Pennyroyal Tea", was canceled in the wake of Cobain's death and the subsequent dissolution of Nirvana; limited promotional copies were released in Britain. Three days after Cobain's body was discovered, In Utero moved from number 72 to number 27 on the Billboard charts, with a 122% sales increase of 40,000 copies sold compared to 18,000 in the week before.
In Utero has been certified five times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipments of over five million units, and has sold 4,258,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. For the album's 20th anniversary, DGC reissued In Utero in several formats in September 2013, including the Live and Loud show on DVD. For the album's 30th anniversary, DGC re-issued In Utero in several formats on October 27, 2023.
Critical reception
In Utero received widespread acclaim from critics. Times Christopher John Farley stated in his review, "Despite the fears of some alternative-music fans, Nirvana hasn't gone mainstream, though this potent new album may once again force the mainstream to go Nirvana." Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke said that the album is "a lot of things – brilliant, corrosive, enraged and thoughtful, most of them all at once. But more than anything, it's a triumph of the will." Entertainment Weekly reviewer David Browne commented "Kurt Cobain hates it all", and noted that the sentiment pervades the record. Browne argued, "The music is often mesmerizing, cathartic rock & roll, but it is rock & roll without release, because the band is suspicious of the old-school rock clichés such a release would evoke."
NME writer John Mulvey had doubts about the record; he concluded, "As a document of a mind in flux – dithering, dissatisfied, unable to come to terms with sanity – Kurt should be proud of [the album]. As a follow-up to one of the best records of the past ten years it just isn't quite there." Plugged In was not enthusiastic; reviewer Bob Waliszewski wrote, "In Utero is noxious noise with no redeeming value." Ben Thompson of The Independent commented that in spite of the more abrasive songs, "In Utero is beautiful far more often than it is ugly ... Nirvana have wisely neglected to make the unlistenable punk-rock nightmare they threatened us with." Q felt that the album showcases Cobain's songwriting abilities and wrote, "If this is how Cobain is going to develop, the future is lighthouse-bright."
Several critics ranked In Utero one of the best releases of the year; it placed first and second in the album categories of the Rolling Stone and Village Voice Pazz & Jop year-end critics' polls.Christgau, Robert. "The 1993 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll ". The Village Voice. March 1, 1994. Retrieved December 13, 2008. The New York Times included it on its list of the top ten albums of the year. It was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the 1994 Grammy Awards. The guitar riff from "Very Ape" was sampled by British electronic band the Prodigy for their 1994 single "Voodoo People".
Reappraisal
In Utero has continued to perform commercially and gather critical praise. In a 2003 Guitar World article for the album's tenth anniversary, Cobain biographer Charles R. Cross argued that In Utero was "a far better record than [Nevermind] and one that only 10 years later seems to be an influential seed spreader, judging by current bands. If it is possible for an album that sold four million copies to be overlooked, or underappreciated, then In Utero is that lost pearl." That year, Pitchfork named In Utero the 13th best album of the 1990s. Rolling Stone ranked it number 435 on its list The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and 173 in its 2020 updated list. It also ranked it the seventh best album of the 90s.
In 2004, Blender named In Utero the 94th greatest American album, and in 2005, Spin named it the 51st best album of the previous 20 years. In 2005, In Utero was ranked number 358 in Rock Hard's book of The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time. In 2013, Diffuser.fm named In Utero the fourth best album of 1993, while NME ranked it at number 35 on its list "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In May 2017, Loudwire ranked it at number six on its list "The 30 Best Grunge Albums of All Time". In April 2019, Rolling Stone placed it at number eight on its 50 Greatest Grunge Albums list. In October 2023, the Official Charts Company revealed that In Utero was the fifth most streamed album from the 1990s in the United Kingdom.
Track listingNotes Original non-US CD pressings of the album include "Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip" as a hidden track. It is listed on the back cover as track 13, but is heard after approximately 20 minutes of silence on track 12 following "All Apologies", beginning at 24:00.
Personnel
Personnel adapted from In Utero liner notes Nirvana Kurt Cobain – vocals, guitars, art direction, design, photography
Krist Novoselic – bass guitar
Dave Grohl – drumsOther musicians Kera Schaley – cello on "All Apologies" and "Dumb"Technical'
Steve Albini – producer, engineer, mixing
Robert Fisher – art direction, design, photography
Alex Grey – illustrations
Michael Lavine – photography
Scott Litt – mixing on "Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies" on original release plus “Pennyroyal Tea” on deluxe edition
Adam Kasper – second engineer to Scott Litt
Bob Ludwig – audio mastering
Karen Mason – photography
Charles Peterson – photography
Neil Wallace – photography
Bob Weston – technician
Charts
Original release
20th anniversary edition
Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
Certifications
References
Further reading
External links
Live Nirvana Companion to Official Releases – In Utero
1993 albums
Albums produced by Steve Albini
DGC Records albums
Nirvana (band) albums
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In%20situ
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In situ
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In situ (; often not italicized in English) is a Latin phrase that translates literally to "on site" or "in position." It can mean "locally", "on site", "on the premises", or "in place" to describe where an event takes place and is used in many different contexts. For example, in fields such as physics, geology, chemistry, or biology, in situ may describe the way a measurement is taken, that is, in the same place the phenomenon is occurring without isolating it from other systems or altering the original conditions of the test. The opposite of in situ is ex situ.
Aerospace
In the aerospace industry, equipment on-board aircraft must be tested in situ, or in place, to confirm everything functions properly as a system. Individually, each piece may work but interference from nearby equipment may create unanticipated problems. Special test equipment is available for this in situ testing. It can also refer to repairs made to the aircraft structure or flight controls while still in place.
Archaeology
In archaeology, in situ refers to an artifact that has not been moved from its original place of deposition. In other words, it is stationary, meaning "still." An artifact being in situ is critical to the interpretation of that artifact and, consequently, of the culture which formed it. Once an artifact's 'find-site' has been recorded, the artifact can then be moved for conservation, further interpretation and display. An artifact that is not discovered in situ is considered out of context and as not providing an accurate picture of the associated culture. However, the out-of-context artifact can provide scientists with an example of types and locations of in situ artifacts yet to be discovered. When excavating a burial site or surface deposit "in situ" refers to cataloging, recording, mapping, photographing human remains in the position they are discovered.
The label in situ indicates only that the object has not been "newly" moved. Thus, an archaeological in situ find may be an object that was historically looted from another place, an item of "booty" of a past war, a traded item, or otherwise of foreign origin. Consequently, the in situ find site may still not reveal its provenance, but with further detective work may help uncover links that otherwise would remain unknown. It is also possible for archaeological layers to be reworked on purpose or by accident (by humans, natural forces or animals). For example, in a Tell mound, where layers are not typically uniform or horizontal, or in land cleared or tilled for farming.
The term in situ is often used to describe ancient sculpture that was carved in place such as the Sphinx or Petra. This distinguishes it from statues that were carved and moved like the Colossi of Memnon, which were moved in ancient times.
Art
In art, in situ refers to a work of art made specifically for a host site, or that a work of art takes into account the site in which it is installed or exhibited. For a more detailed account see: Site-specific art. The term can also refer to a work of art created at the site where it is to be displayed, rather than one created in the artist's studio and then installed elsewhere (e.g., a sculpture carved in situ). In architectural sculpture the term is frequently employed to describe sculpture that is carved on a building, frequently from scaffolds, after the building has been erected.
Also commonly used to describe the site specific dance festival "Insitu". Held in Queens, New York.
Astronomy
A fraction of the globular star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy, as well as those in other massive galaxies, might have formed in situ. The rest might have been accreted from now-defunct dwarf galaxies.
In astronomy, in situ also refers to in situ planet formation, in which planets are hypothesized to have formed at the orbital distance they are currently observed
rather than to have migrated from a different orbit (referred to as ex situ formation).
Biology and biomedical engineering
In biology and biomedical engineering, in situ means to examine the phenomenon exactly in place where it occurs (i.e., without moving it to some special medium).
In the case of observations or photographs of living animals, it means that the organism was observed (and photographed) in the wild, exactly as it was found and exactly where it was found. This means it was not taken out of the area. The organism had not been moved to another (perhaps more convenient) location such as an aquarium.
This phrase in situ when used in laboratory science such as cell science can mean something intermediate between in vivo and in vitro. For example, examining a cell within a whole organ intact and under perfusion may be in situ investigation. This would not be in vivo as the donor is sacrificed by experimentation, but it would not be the same as working with the cell alone (a common scenario for in vitro experiments). For instance, an example of biomedical engineering in situ involves the procedures to directly create an implant from a patient's own tissue within the confines of the Operating Room.
In vitro was among the first attempts to qualitatively and quantitatively analyze natural occurrences in the lab. Eventually, the limitation of in vitro experimentation was that they were not conducted in natural environments. To compensate for this problem, in vivo experimentation allowed testing to occur in the original organism or environment. To bridge the dichotomy of benefits associated with both methodologies, in situ experimentation allowed the controlled aspects of in vitro to become coalesced with the natural environmental compositions of in vivo experimentation.
In conservation of genetic resources, "in situ conservation" (also "on-site conservation") is the process of protecting an endangered plant or animal species in its natural habitat, as opposed to ex situ conservation (also "off-site conservation").
Chemistry and chemical engineering
In chemistry, in situ typically means "in the reaction mixture."
There are numerous situations in which chemical intermediates are synthesized in situ in various processes. This may be done because the species is unstable, and cannot be isolated, or simply out of convenience. Examples of the former include the Corey-Chaykovsky reagent and adrenochrome.
In biomedical engineering, protein nanogels made by the in situ polymerization method provide a versatile platform for storage and release of therapeutic proteins. It has tremendous applications for cancer treatment, vaccination, diagnosis, regenerative medicine, and therapies for loss-of-function genetic diseases.
In chemical engineering, in situ often refers to industrial plant "operations or procedures that are performed in place." For example, aged catalysts in industrial reactors may be regenerated in place (in situ) without being removed from the reactors.
Civil engineering
In architecture and building, in situ refers to construction which is carried out at the building site using raw materials. Compare that with prefabricated construction, in which building components are made in a factory and then transported to the building site for assembly. For example, concrete slabs may be in situ (also "cast-in-place") or prefabricated.
In situ techniques are often more labor-intensive, and take longer, but the materials are cheaper, and the work is versatile and adaptable. Prefabricated techniques are usually much quicker, therefore saving money on labour costs, but factory-made parts can be expensive. They are also inflexible, and must often be designed on a grid, with all details fully calculated in advance. Finished units may require special handling due to excessive dimensions.
The phrase may also refer to those assets which are present at or near a project site. In this case, it is used to designate the state of an unmodified sample taken from a given stockpile.
Site construction usually involves grading the existing soil surface so that material is "cut" out of one area and "filled" in another area creating a flat pad on an existing slope. The term "in situ" distinguishes soil still in its existing condition from soil modified (filled) during construction. The differences in the soil properties for supporting building loads, accepting underground utilities, and infiltrating water persist indefinitely.
Computer science
. For example, a file backup may be restored over a running system, without needing to take the system down to perform the restore. In the context of a database, a restore would allow the database system to continue to be available to users while a restore happened. An in situ upgrade would allow an operating system, firmware or application to be upgraded while the system was still running, perhaps without the need to reboot it, depending on the sophistication of the system.
Another use of the term in-situ that appears in Computer Science focuses primarily on the use of technology and user interfaces to provide continuous access to situationally relevant information in various locations and contexts. Examples include athletes viewing biometric data on smartwatches to improve their performance, a presenter looking at tips on a smart glass to reduce their speaking rate during a speech, or technicians receiving online and stepwise instructions for repairing an engine.
An algorithm is said to be an in situ algorithm, or in-place algorithm, if the extra amount of memory required to execute the algorithm is O(1), that is, does not exceed a constant no matter how large the input ---except for space for recursive calls on the "call stack." Typically such an algorithm operates on data objects directly in place rather than making copies of them.
For example, heapsort is an in situ sorting algorithm, which sorts the elements of an array in place. Quicksort is an in situ sorting algorithm, but in the worst case it requires linear space on the call stack (this can be reduced to log space). Merge sort is generally not written as an in situ algorithm.
In designing user interfaces, , for example, if a word processor displays an image and allows the image to be edited without launching a separate image editor, this is called in situ editing.
AJAX partial page data updates is another example of in situ in a Web UI/UX context. Web 2.0 included AJAX and the concept of asynchronous requests to servers to replace a portion of a web page with new data, without reloading
the entire page, as the early HTML model dictated. Arguably, all asynchronous data transfers or any background task is in situ as the normal state is normally unaware of background tasks, usually notified on completion
by a callback mechanism.
With big data, in situ data would mean bringing the computation to where data is located, rather than the other way like in traditional RDBMS systems where data is moved to computational space. This is also known as in-situ processing.
Design and advertising
In design and advertising the term typically means the superimposing of theoretical design elements onto photographs of real world locations. This is a pre-visualization tool to aid in illustrating a proof of concept.
Earth and atmospheric sciences
In physical geography and the Earth sciences, in situ typically describes natural material or processes prior to transport. For example, in situ is used in relation to the distinction between weathering and erosion, the difference being that erosion requires a transport medium (such as wind, ice, or water), whereas weathering occurs in situ. Geochemical processes are also often described as occurring to material in situ.
In the atmospheric sciences, in situ refers to obtained through direct contact with the respective subject, such as a radiosonde measuring a parcel of air or an anemometer measuring wind, as opposed to remote sensing such as weather radar or satellites.
Economics
In economics, in situ is used when referring to the in place storage of a product, usually a natural resource. More generally, it refers to any situation where there is no out-of-pocket cost to store the product so that the only storage cost is the opportunity cost of waiting longer to get your money when the product is eventually sold. Examples of in situ storage would be oil and gas wells, all types of mineral and gem mines, stone quarries, timber that has reached an age where it could be harvested, and agricultural products that do not need a physical storage facility such as hay.
Electrochemistry
In electrochemistry, the phrase in situ refers to performing electrochemical experiments under operating conditions of the electrochemical cell, i.e., under potential control. This is opposed to doing ex situ experiments that are performed under the absence of potential control. Potential control preserves the electrochemical environment essential to maintain the double layer structure intact and the electron transfer reactions occurring at that particular potential in the electrode/electrolyte interphasial region.
Environmental remediation
In situ can refer to where a clean up or remediation of a polluted site is performed using and stimulating the natural processes in the soil, contrary to ex situ where contaminated soil is excavated and cleaned elsewhere, off site.
Experimental physics
In experimental physics in situ typically refers to a method of data collection or manipulation of a sample without exposure to an external environment. For example, the Si(111) 7x7 surface reconstruction is visible using a scanning tunneling microscope when it is prepared and analyzed in situ.
Experimental psychology
In psychology experiments, in situ typically refers to those experiments done in a field setting as opposed to a laboratory setting.
Gastronomy
In gastronomy, "in situ" refers to the art of cooking with the different resources that are available at the site of the event. Here a person is not going to the restaurant, but the restaurant comes to the person's home.
Law
In legal contexts, in situ is often used for its literal meaning. For example, in Hong Kong, "in situ land exchange" involves the government exchanging the original or expired lease of a piece of land with a new grant or re-grant with the same piece of land or a portion of that.
In the field of recognition of governments under public international law the term in situ is used to distinguish between an exiled government and a government with effective control over the territory, i.e. the government in situ.
Linguistics
In linguistics, specifically syntax, an element may be said to be in situ if it is pronounced in the position where it is interpreted. For example, questions in languages such as Chinese have in situ wh-elements, with structures comparable to "John bought what?" with what in the same position in the sentence as the grammatical object would be in its affirmative counterpart (for example, "John bought bread"). An example of an English wh-element that is not in situ (see wh-movement): "What did John buy?"
Literature
In literature in situ is used to describe a condition. The Rosetta Stone, for example, was originally erected in a courtyard, for public viewing. Most pictures of the famous stone are not in situ pictures of it erected, as it would have been originally. The stone was uncovered as part of building material, within a wall. Its in situ condition today is that it is erected, vertically, on public display at the British Museum in London, England.
Medicine
In cancer/oncology: in situ means that malignant cells are present as a tumor but have not metastasized, or invaded beyond the layer or tissue type where it arose. This can happen anywhere in the body, such as the skin, breast tissue, or lung. For example, a cancer of epithelial origin with such features is called carcinoma in situ, and is defined as not having invaded beyond the basement membrane.
This type of tumor can often, depending on where it is located, be removed by surgery.
In anatomy: in situ refers to viewing structures as they appear in normal healthy bodies. For example, one can open up a cadaver's abdominal cavity and view the liver in situ or one can look at an isolated liver that has been removed from the cadaver's body.
In nursing, "in situ" describes any devices or appliances on the patient's body that remain in their desired and optimal position.
In medical simulation, "in situ" refers to the practice of clinical professionals using high fidelity patient simulators to train for clinical practice in patient care environments, such as wards, operating rooms, and other settings, rather than in dedicated simulation training facilities.
In biomedical, protein nanogels made by the in situ polymerization method provide a versatile platform for storage and release of therapeutic proteins. It has tremendous applications for cancer treatment, vaccination, diagnosis, regenerative medicine, and therapies for loss-of-function genetic diseases.
Mining
In situ leaching or in situ recovery refers to the mining technique of injecting lixiviant underground to dissolve ore and bringing the pregnant leach solution to surface for extraction. Commonly used in uranium mining but has also been used for copper mining.
Petroleum production
In situ refers to recovery techniques which apply heat or solvents to heavy crude oil or bitumen reservoirs beneath the Earth's crust. There are several varieties of in situ techniques, but the ones which work best in the oil sands use heat (steam).
The most common type of in situ petroleum production is referred to as SAGD (steam-assisted gravity drainage) this is becoming very popular in the Alberta Oil Sands.
RF transmission
In radio frequency (RF) transmission systems, in situ is often used to describe the location of various components while the system is in its standard transmission mode, rather than operation in a test mode. For example, if an in situ wattmeter is used in a commercial broadcast transmission system, the wattmeter can accurately measure power while the station is "on air."
Space-related
Future space exploration or terraforming may rely on obtaining supplies in situ, such as previous plans to power the Orion space vehicle with fuel minable on the Moon. The Mars Direct mission concept is based primarily on the in situ fuel production using Sabatier reaction.
In the space sciences, in situ refers to measurements of the particle and field environment that the satellite is embedded in, such as the detection of energetic particles in the solar wind, or magnetic field measurements from a magnetometer.
Urban planning
In urban planning, in-situ upgrading is an approach to and method of upgrading informal settlements.
Vacuum technology
In vacuum technology, in situ baking refers to heating parts of the vacuum system while they are under vacuum in order to drive off volatile substances that may be absorbed or adsorbed on the walls so they cannot cause outgassing.
Road assistance
The term in situ, used as "repair in situ", means to repair a vehicle at the place where it has a breakdown.
See also
carcinoma in situ
ex vivo
in silico
in utero
in vitro
in vivo
In situ conservation
Ex situ conservation
List of colossal sculpture in situ
List of Latin phrases
References
Latin words and phrases
Latin legal terminology
Latin biological phrases
Animal test conditions
Scientific terminology
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratford%2C%20Connecticut
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Stratford, Connecticut
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Stratford is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is situated on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River. The town is part of the Greater Bridgeport Planning Region, and the Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk Metropolitan Statistical Area. It was settled by Puritans in 1639.
The population was 52,355 as of the 2020 census. It is bordered on the west by Bridgeport, to the north by Trumbull and Shelton, and on the east by Milford (across the Housatonic River). Stratford has a historical legacy in aviation, the military, and theater.
History
Founding and Puritan era
Stratford was founded in 1639 by Puritan leader Reverend Adam Blakeman, William Beardsley, and either 16 families (according to legend) or approximately 35 families (suggested by later research) who had recently arrived in Connecticut from England seeking religious freedom. In 1639 the General Court in Hartford made reference to the town as the "new plantation at Pequannock". In 1640 the community was known as Cupheag, a Native American Paugussett word meaning "at the enclosed place" or "place of shelter". By April 13, 1643, the growing town was known as Stratford, changed to honor William Shakespeare's birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon in England.
Stratford is one of many towns in the northeastern American colonies founded as part of the Great Migration in the 1630s when Puritan families fled an increasingly polarized England in the decade before the civil war between Charles I and Parliament. Some of the Stratford settlers were from families who had first moved from England to the Netherlands to seek religious freedom, like their predecessors on the Mayflower, and decided to come to the New World when their children began to adopt the Dutch culture and language.
Like other Puritan or Pilgrim towns founded during this time, early Stratford was a place where church leadership and town leadership were united under the pastor of the church, in this case Reverend Blakeman. The goal of these communities was to create perfect outposts of religious idealism where the wilderness would separate them from the interference of kings, parliaments, or any other secular authority.
Blakeman ruled Stratford until his death in 1665, but as the second generation of Stratford grew up, many of the children rejected what they perceived as the exceptional austerity of the town's founders. This and later generations sought to change the religious dictums of their elders, and the utopian nature of Stratford and similar communities was gradually replaced with more standard colonial administration. By the late 17th century, the Connecticut government had assumed political control over Stratford.
Many descendants of the original founding Puritan families remain in Stratford today after over 350 years; for centuries they often intermarried within the original small group of 17th century Pilgrim families. Despite its Puritan origins, Stratford was the site of the first Anglican church in Connecticut, founded in 1707 and ministered by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson. Settlers from Stratford went on to found other American cities and towns, including Newark, New Jersey, established in 1666 by members of the Stratford founding families who believed the town's religious purity had been compromised by the changes after Blakeman's death. Other towns such as Cambria, New York (now Lockport, New York) were founded or expanded around new churches by Stratford descendants taking part in the westward migration. U.S. President Gerald Ford was a descendant of one of the Stratford founding families, that was led by William Judson.
Towns created from Stratford
Stratford was one of the two principal settlements in southwestern Connecticut, the other being Fairfield. Over time it gave rise to several new towns that broke off and incorporated separately. The following towns were created from parts of Stratford:
Shelton (originally Ripton) in 1789. In 1789 Ripton Parish separated from Stratford and became the Town of Huntington.
Monroe created from Huntington in 1823
Nichols (originally Unity in 1725, then North Stratford in 1744)
Long Hill, (merged with Unity to form North Stratford in 1744)
Trumbull, North Stratford separated from Stratford and became the town of Trumbull in 1797
Bridgeport (also partly from Fairfield) in 1821
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
A trolley was built connecting Lordship to Bridgeport in 1914, connecting the resort area to the neighboring city.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and , or 11.52%, is water. Stratford has a minimum elevation of zero feet above sea level along its coastline, with a maximum altitude of near its northern border, and an average elevation of .
Coastline and islands
The town contains five islands, all in the Housatonic River. These are Carting Island, Long Island, Peacock Island, and Pope's Flat north of Interstate 95, as well as Goose Island. None of these islands are habitable because of their low elevations. A sixth island known as Brinsmade Island washed away prior to 1964.
Beaches
Long Beach – Approximately long, the eastern end of the beach is open to the public and has parking and lifeguards. The central part of the beach is a nature preserve whose land is set aside for wildlife, particularly nesting raptors, such as American kestrels and ospreys. The western end of the beach was once the site of about 40 cottages, which were abandoned because of the town's discontinuation of the lease to the land. The cottages were demolished in fall 2010.
Russian Beach – Located between Long and Short beaches, Russian Beach has parking and the Point-No-Point walkway. Fishing is allowed, as is swimming although this beach has no lifeguards.
Short Beach – Short Beach Park is in size and sits at the mouth of the Housatonic River. It has three picnic pavilions, basketball courts, tennis courts, volleyball courts, a handicapped-accessible playground, a skateboard park, a lighted softball field, a soccer field, two baseball fields and a lacrosse field. The beach has of frontage with a concession stand, bathrooms, a deck and lifeguards. The park is also home to Short Beach Golf Course, a nine-hole par-3 course.
Great Salt Marsh
The Great Meadows Unit of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge is a key bird migration stopover. The open water area of the Great Salt Marsh is known as Lewis Gut.
Neighborhoods
Beaver Dam
Birdseye
Floral Park
Hawley Lane (shared with Trumbull)
Historic District
Hollister Heights
Lordship
Long Beach
Oronoque
Oronoque Hills
Oronoque Village
Paradise green
Peck's Mill
Putney
South End
Stony Brook Gardens
Stratford Center
Stratford Downtown
Success Village
Wooster Park
Roosevelt Forest
Located in the north end of Stratford, this site is primarily a mixed deciduous forest, with some wetlands and ponds. Named for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it was set aside in the 1930s, when much of the infrastructure was created as a Works Progress Administration project. The forest includes campsites with cooking pits, picnic tables, a playground, restrooms, and walking trails.
Superfund sites
Stratford is the location of two Superfund sites designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. These include a variety of locations related to asbestos dumping and disposal by Raymark Industries, whose manufacturing was previously headquartered in Stratford, and the former Stratford Army Engine Plant. The Raymark site is on the EPA's National Priorities List. Stratford Army Engine Plant is not on the National Priorities list, but is being cleaned up by the US Army.
From 1919 to 1989, Raymark manufactured brake pads and other friction products for the automobile industry under the name Raybestos. The company disposed of wastes containing lead, asbestos, PCBs and other hazardous substances at its Stratford manufacturing plant. Raymark dried the waste material and made it available for use as fill material for lawns, playgrounds, and schoolyards. In 1993, the EPA and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection began working together to complete the cleanup of contamination Raymark left behind in Stratford. EPA completed its cleanup of the contaminated residential properties in 1995 and the former Raymark plant property in 1997. Plans for cleanup of the Ferry Creek area and surrounding properties where additional Raymark waste was historically disposed are currently being developed by the EPA. The cost of cleaning up the Raymark Site is estimated to have exceeded $200 million.
Demographics
As of the census of 2010, there were 51,384 people, 20,095 households, and 13,614 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 21,091 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 76.4% White, 14.3% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American, 2.4% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 4.2% from other races, and 2.5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 13.8% of the population.
There were 20,095 households, out of which 28.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.1% were married couples living together, 14.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.3% were non-families. 27.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.54 and the average family size was 3.11.
In the town, the population was spread out, with 23.0% under the age of 18, 5.8% from 18 to 24, 28.5% from 25 to 44, 23.5% from 45 to 64, and 19.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42.2 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.6 males. The median income for a household in the town was $53,494, and the median income for a family was $64,364. Males had a median income of $45,552 versus $34,575 for females. The per capita income for the town was $26,501. About 3.5% of families and 5.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 5.6% of those under age 18 and 5.8% of those age 65 or over.
Industry
In 1939, one of the world's first successful commercial helicopters was developed in Stratford by Igor Sikorsky and flown at his plant. His company, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, is still the town's largest employer. Also in 1939, Lycoming produced Wright radial engines here. After World War II, the plant was converted to produce turbines.
The Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft Division in Stratford built a total of 7,829 F4U fighters from 1940 to 1952, including the prototype. These planes saw extensive combat in the Pacific Theatre of operations during World War II, and played a supporting role in the Korean War. A Corsair sits on a pedestal at the airport as a memorial to the war effort.
The Stratford Eagles Composite Squadron, Civil Air Patrol, is based in Stratford, at the Sikorsky Memorial Airport.
Athletic Brewing Company, the leading U.S. manufacturer of non-alcoholic craft beer, with a 61% market share in 2021 is based in Stratford.
Sikorsky Aircraft
Stratford is home to the headquarters of Sikorsky Aircraft, a Lockheed Martin (LMT) subsidiary founded by Igor Sikorsky, developer of the first successful American helicopter. Every Marine One (the helicopter of the President of the United States) has been manufactured in Stratford since 1957. On July 20, 2015, Lockheed Martin announced an agreement to purchase Sikorsky Aircraft from UTC for $9 billion.
Stratford Army Engine Plant
The Stratford Army Engine Plant (SAEP) was a U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command installation and manufacturing facility, located along the Housatonic River and Main Street opposite Sikorsky Airport. Because of the Base Realignment and Closure actions of the United States Department of Defense, closure of the plant was recommended in July 1995. The SAEP closed on September 30, 1998. For the next 11 years the Army was involved with "Team Stratford" to develop the property. The United States Army, which owns the site, auctioned it off on March 19, 2008, with a winning bid of $9,612,000 which also includes the facility of over fifty buildings. This bid failed to be paid off and is now being placed for rebid. Currently Robert Hartmann of Hartmann Development has a $1 billion plan to develop the former Army engine plant into a destination resort.
Transportation
Air
Although owned by the City of Bridgeport, Sikorsky Memorial Airport is located in Stratford. The facility includes two paved runways (both under 4800 feet), a helipad, and two hangars. It provides helicopter service to New York and the Downtown Manhattan Heliport and is used as a landing site for blimps and small aircraft. In 2019, 155 aircraft were based at the airport, with an average of 136 operations per day.
Rail
Stratford (Metro-North station) is a stop on the New Haven Line, east of Grand Central Terminal. Average travel time into Manhattan is about 90 minutes. The station platforms are only long enough to handle four cars and the station has limited parking for fewer than 300 vehicles. It has three ticket machines, a bus connection to neighboring Bridgeport, and handicapped access.
Roads
Stratford is served by several major highways, including Interstate 95 (Connecticut Turnpike), U.S. Route 1 (Boston Post Road) (Boston Avenue and Barnum Avenue), the Merritt Parkway (Route 15), Route 108 (Nichols Avenue and King Street), Route 110 (East Main Street and River Road), Route 113 (Lordship Boulevard and Main Street), and Route 130 (Stratford Avenue and Ferry Boulevard).
Interstate 95 toll booths
In January 1983 a truck slammed into a line of cars waiting to pay a toll on Interstate 95 in Stratford, killing seven people. This accident was one of the reasons toll booths were removed throughout the state.
Government
The Town of Stratford operated under a council-manager government from 1921 until 2005 when it changed to a mayor-council type of government. The first mayor, James Miron, was elected in November 2005 to a four-year term. The second mayor was John Harkins. The town has a ten-member town council, elected by district to two-year terms. It appoints one of its members to serve as chairman. The mayor and the council are responsible for setting policy through the enactment of ordinances and resolutions.
Current Mayor is Laura R. Hoydick (R)
Emergency services
Emergency medical services
Established in 1977, Stratford Emergency Medical Service (SEMS) is the state-licensed, third-service, advanced life support (paramedic) and basic life support, municipal EMS provider to the Town of Stratford. The department responds to approximately 8500 calls annually.[22]
Fire department
Established in 1909, the fire department operates out of four stations located throughout the town. The fire department staffs 4 engine companies, a truck company, a rescue unit, and a shift commander along with several specialized response units. The department responds to approximately 6000 calls annually.
Police department
Created in 1917, the Stratford Police Department has a force of 98 officers. The department's units include arson investigation, crime prevention, identification & forensic unit and narcotics & vice. Stratford also has a boat patrol, a K-9 unit, and an animal control unit.
Education
Public education
Public education in Stratford is managed by the Stratford Board of Education, which operates 13 schools: two high schools, two middle schools, and nine elementary schools. The district has about 6,800 students and 1,095 staff, including 577 teachers, counselors, and specialists.
High schools
Frank Scott Bunnell High School
Stratford High School
A.L.P.H.A. (formerly S.A.F.E.), an alternative high school program of 55 students hosted at the Birdseye Municipal Complex
Middle schools
Harry B. Flood Middle School
David Wooster Middle School
Elementary schools
Chapel Street Elementary School
Franklin Elementary School
Lordship Elementary School
Nichols Elementary School
Second Hill Lane Elementary School
Stratford Academy: Johnson House (elementary) (3–6)
Eli Whitney Elementary School
Victoria Soto Elementary School
Wilcoxson Elementary School
Private education
Stratford has two private (Catholic) elementary and middle schools:
St. James School (K–8)
St. Mark School (K–8)
Higher education
The Connecticut School of Broadcasting maintains a location in Stratford and certifies students in television anchoring, commercial radio performance and journalism.
Porter and Chester Institute's main campus provides training programs in automotive technology, CAD, electronics, HVAC, medical assistance, and other trades.
The Stratford School for Aviation Maintenance Technicians is located at Sikorsky Memorial Airport.
Local attractions
National Helicopter Museum
Located in the former Stratford railroad station, the National Helicopter Museum contains a photographic history of the helicopter and model helicopters. Notably, it displays the Lycoming T53 jet engine, designed by Dr. Anselm Franz and manufactured at the Stratford Army Engine Plant.
Boothe Memorial Park
The Boothe homestead in the Putney area of Stratford is a rolling parkland containing the original Boothe homestead and an eclectic assortment of buildings collected by the Boothe brothers during their lives and added to by the Friends of Boothe.
A tollbooth that was in service from 1940 to 1988 on Connecticut's Merritt Parkway is on display in Boothe Memorial Park.
Shakespeare Festival Theatre
In 1955 Stratford became home to the American Shakespeare Theatre, an 1,100-seat theatre with grounds on the Housatonic River. The theatre featured such actors as Katharine Hepburn, James Earl Jones, Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, Jane Alexander, Hal Holbrook, Roddy McDowall, Nina Foch and Will Geer. John Houseman served as its artistic director during the late 1950s.
The company operating the theater ceased operations in the mid-1980s, and the building has been vacant since then. In February 2005, the Town of Stratford received the deed for the Stratford Festival Shakespeare Theater from the state of Connecticut. In 2006 it selected a New York City development company to reopen the theater as a tourist destination, but the company's contract was terminated in July 2007 because of lack of progress. In 2019 the theatre burned to the ground.
Stratford Library Shakespeare
Since 2002, the Hudson Shakespeare Company has presented one showing of their Shakespeare in the Park in the amphitheater behind the Stratford Library.
Sites on the National Register of Historic Places
Boothe Homestead (1985)
Capt. David Judson House (1973)
Ephraim Wheeler House (1992)
Isaac Lewis House (1991)
Nathan B. Booth House (1992)
Sterling Homestead (1976)
Stratford Center Historic District (1983)
Stratford Point Lighthouse (1990)
Washington Bridge (2004)
Sterling House
Since 1932, Sterling House has served as a community center for Stratford. Housed in a donated 1886 Romanesque mansion that was previously the home of John William Sterling, it hosts recreational and leisure activities for adults and children, charity events, and volunteer activities. The grounds include a gazebo, a rose garden, and a field.
Sports
Stratford is home to the Connecticut Brakettes women's fastpitch softball team. Formed in 1947 as the Raybestos Girl All-Stars, and later called the Raybestos Brakettes, they became known as the Stratford Brakettes in 1985 after Raybestos ceased its sponsorship. The team has posted 3,242 victories in 3,607 games played, as well as three world championships and 28 national A.S.A. championships, including a record eight consecutive titles from 1971 to 1978. They also captured three consecutive titles in 2002, 2003, and 2004. Their most recent title came in 2006. Nineteen former members have made the National Softball Hall of Fame, and 11 have been Olympians. I The Brakettes play at Frank DeLuca Hall of Fame Field.
Media
Movies filmed in Stratford
Movies filmed at least partially in Stratford:
Butterfield Eight (1960)
The Battle (2001)
Carnauba: A Son's Memoir (2001)
Zero Day (2003)
Das Kraftei – Raketenjäger ME 163 Komet (2004)
Boxes (2005)
Store (2006)
Listen to Your Heart (2009)
All Good Things (2010)
Daddy for Lunch (2010)
Sketchy Future (2010)
Sicarii (2011)
Newspapers
Stratford is served by Bridgeport's daily Connecticut Post and by the weekly digital Stratford Crier. The Stratford Star cesed publication in 2012.
Sister cities
Stratford has five sister cities:
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom
Stratford, New Zealand
Stratford, Victoria, Australia
Stratford, Ontario, Canada
Stratford, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Notable people
Andrew Adams (1736–1797), jurist, Connecticut delegate to the Continental Congress, state chief justice and signer of the Articles of Confederation, born in Stratford
Raymond E. Baldwin (1893–1986), Stratford Town Court Prosecutor and Judge, United States Senator, and 72nd and 74th Governor of Connecticut
Nathan Bangs (1778–1862), Methodist minister and second president of Wesleyan University
William Beardsley (1605–1661), town founder buried in Stratford
Adam Blakeman (1596–1665), Puritan leader who was a town founder and the first church minister
Tyler Bunch, puppeteer and actor
Efrain Chacurian, member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, New York
Javier Colon, singer-songwriter, winner of season one of The Voice, grew up in Stratford and graduated from Bunnell High School
Joseph Platt Cooke (1730–1816), Continental Army colonel in the Revolutionary War, state politician, and twice a delegate to the Continental Congress, born in Stratford
Vera Curtis (1880–1962), soprano
Tony Dovolani, ballroom dancer, cast member on Dancing with the Stars, used to reside in Stratford
Anselm Franz (1900–1994), Austrian engineer, inventor of the Jumo 004 and T53 turbine engines
Bancroft Gherardi (1832–1903), US Navy rear admiral and veteran of the Mexican–American War and American Civil War
Joseph Hawley (1603–1690), town recorder, representative, shipbuilder and yeoman
William Samuel Johnson (1727–1819), signer of the United States Constitution, first Senator for Connecticut, first President of Columbia University, born and died in Stratford
Stephen King, author, briefly lived in Stratford as a child
George Ayres Leavitt (1822–1888), early New York City publisher, lived in Stratford part-time
Nancy Marchand (1928–2000), actress (Lou Grant, The Sopranos), resided in the Lordship section of Stratford
Moby, songwriter-musician-singer, lived in Stratford (1974–1976), attending Birdseye Elementary School
Kenneth H. Olsen, engineer and co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation
Tom Penders, college basketball coach and ESPN sports analyst, native of Stratford
David Plant (1783–1851), member of the United States House of Representatives for the 20th Congress, Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut 1823–1827
Igor Sikorsky, founder of Sikorsky Aircraft
Loring Smith (1890–1981), Broadway and motion picture actor born in Stratford
Victoria Leigh Soto (1985–2012), school teacher. Attended Stratford High School, resided in Stratford. Victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Currently rests at the Union Cemetery in Stratford
John William Sterling (1844–1918), philanthropist, corporate attorney, and major benefactor of Yale University
Kenneth Tigar, American actor and translator
Gideon Tomlinson (1780–1854), noted lawyer, member of the United States House of Representatives (16th through 19th Congresses), Senator for Connecticut (22nd through 24th Congresses), and 25th Governor of Connecticut, born and interned in Stratford
David Wooster, Major General in the American Revolutionary War, born in Stratford
John Zaffis, paranormal investigator on the Syfy original series Haunted Collector
Notes
Further reading
Calhoun, John D. & Lewis G. Knapp. Stratford: A Pictorial History, 1850–1970, (Images of America Series) Arcadia Publishing, 1999.
Knapp, Lewis G. In Pursuit of Paradise: History of the Town of Stratford, Connecticut. West Kennebunk, ME: Phoenix Publishing, 1989.
Orcutt, Samuel. A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut. New Haven, CT: Press of Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1886.
Smith, Claude. The Stratford Devil. New York: Walker, 1984.
Wilcoxson, William Howard. History of Stratford, 1639–1939, Stratford, CT: Stratford Tercentenary Commission, 1939.
External links
Stratford Library Association
Stratford Historical Society
Towns in Fairfield County, Connecticut
Populated places established in 1639
1639 establishments in Connecticut
Towns in the New York metropolitan area
Towns in Connecticut
Populated coastal places in Connecticut
Towns in Greater Bridgeport Planning Region, Connecticut
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380097
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic%20art
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Academic art
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Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art, usually used of work produced in the 19th century, after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. In this period the standards of the French were very influential, combining elements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism, with Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres a key figure in the formation of the style in painting. Later painters who tried to continue the synthesis included William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Thomas Couture, and Hans Makart among many others. In this context it is often called "academism", "academicism", "art pompier" (pejoratively), and "eclecticism", and sometimes linked with "historicism" and "syncretism." Academic art is closely related to Beaux-Arts architecture, which developed in the same place and holds to a similar classicizing ideal.
Although production continued into the 20th century, the style had become vacuous, and was strongly rejected by the artists of set of new art movements, of which Impressionism was one of the first. By World War I it had fallen from favour almost completely with critics and buyers, returning somewhat to favour at the end of the 20th century.
Although smaller works such as portraits, landscapes and still-lifes were often produced (and often sold more easily), the movement and the contemporary public and critics most valued large history paintings showing moments from narratives that were very often taken from old or exotic areas of history, though less often the traditional religious narratives. Orientalist art was a major branch, with many specialist painters, as had scenes from classical antiquity and the Middle Ages.
The academies in history
The first academy of art was founded in Florence in Italy by Cosimo I de' Medici, on 13 January 1563, under the influence of the architect Giorgio Vasari who called it the Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno (Academy and Company for the Arts of Drawing) as it was divided in two different operative branches. While the company was a kind of corporation which every working artist in Tuscany could join, the academy comprised only the most eminent artistic personalities of Cosimo's court, and had the task of supervising the whole artistic production of the Medicean state. In this Medicean institution students learned the "arti del disegno" (a term coined by Vasari) and heard lectures on anatomy and geometry. Another academy, the Accademia di San Luca (named after the patron saint of painters, St. Luke), was founded about a decade later in Rome. The Accademia di San Luca served an educational function and was more concerned with art theory than the Florentine one. In 1582 Annibale Carracci opened his very influential Academy of Desiderosi in Bologna without official support; in some ways this was more like a traditional artist's workshop, but that he felt the need to label it as an "academy" demonstrates the attraction of the idea at the time.
The Accademia di San Luca later served as the model for the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture founded in France in 1648, and which later became the . The Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture was founded in an effort to distinguish artists "who were gentlemen practicing a liberal art" from craftsmen, who were engaged in manual labor. This emphasis on the intellectual component of artmaking had a considerable impact on the subjects and styles of academic art.
After the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture was reorganized in 1661 by Louis XIV whose aim was to control all the artistic activity in France, a controversy occurred among the members that dominated artistic attitudes for the rest of the century. This "battle of styles" was a conflict over whether Peter Paul Rubens or Nicolas Poussin was a suitable model to follow. Followers of Poussin, called "poussinistes", argued that line (disegno) should dominate art, because of its appeal to the intellect, while followers of Rubens, called "rubenistes", argued that color (colore) should dominate art, because of its appeal to emotion.
The debate was revived in the early 19th century, under the movements of Neoclassicism typified by the art of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Romanticism typified by the artwork of Eugène Delacroix. Debates also occurred over whether it was better to learn art by looking at nature, or to learn by looking at the artistic masters of the past.
Academies using the French model formed throughout Europe, and imitated the teachings and styles of the French Académie. In England, this was the Royal Academy. The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts founded in 1754, may be taken as a successful example in a smaller country, which achieved its aim of producing a national school and reducing the reliance on imported artists. The painters of the Danish Golden Age of roughly 1800-1850 were nearly all trained there, and many returned to teach and the history of the art of Denmark is much less marked by tension between academic art and other styles than is the case in other countries.
Women artists
One effect of the move to academies was to make training more difficult for women artists, who were excluded from most academies until the last half of the 19th century (1861 for the Royal Academy). This was partly because of concerns over the perceived impropriety presented by nudity. Special arrangements were sometimes made for female students until the 20th century.
Development of the academic style
Since the onset of the Poussiniste-Rubeniste debate, many artists worked between the two styles. In the 19th century, in the revived form of the debate, the attention and the aims of the art world became to synthesize the line of Neoclassicism with the color of Romanticism. One artist after another was claimed by critics to have achieved the synthesis, among them Théodore Chassériau, Ary Scheffer, Francesco Hayez, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, and Thomas Couture. William-Adolphe Bouguereau, a later academic artist, commented that the trick to being a good painter is seeing "color and line as the same thing."
Thomas Couture promoted the same idea in a book he authored on art method—arguing that whenever one said a painting had better color or better line it was nonsense, because whenever color appeared brilliant it depended on line to convey it, and vice versa; and that color was really a way to talk about the "value" of form.
Another development during this period included adopting historical styles in order to show the era in history that the painting depicted, called historicism. This is best seen in the work of Baron Jan August Hendrik Leys, a later influence on James Tissot. It is also seen in the development of the Neo-Grec style. Historicism is also meant to refer to the belief and practice associated with academic art that one should incorporate and conciliate the innovations of different traditions of art from the past.
The art world also grew to give increasing focus on allegory in art. Theories of the importance of both line and color asserted that through these elements an artist exerts control over the medium to create psychological effects, in which themes, emotions, and ideas can be represented. As artists attempted to synthesize these theories in practice, the attention on the artwork as an allegorical or figurative vehicle was emphasized. It was held that the representations in painting and sculpture should evoke Platonic forms, or ideals, where behind ordinary depictions one would glimpse something abstract, some eternal truth. Hence, Keats' famous musing "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." The paintings were desired to be an "idée", a full and complete idea. Bouguereau is known to have said that he would not paint "a war", but would paint "War." Many paintings by academic artists are simple nature allegories with titles like Dawn, Dusk, Seeing, and Tasting, where these ideas are personified by a single nude figure, composed in such a way as to bring out the essence of the idea.
The trend in art was also towards greater idealism, which is contrary to realism, in that the figures depicted were made simpler and more abstract—idealized—in order to be able to represent the ideals they stood in for. This would involve both generalizing forms seen in nature, and subordinating them to the unity and theme of the artwork.
Because history and mythology were considered as plays or dialectics of ideas, a fertile ground for important allegory, using themes from these subjects was considered the most serious form of painting. A hierarchy of genres, originally created in the 17th century, was valued, where history painting—classical, religious, mythological, literary, and allegorical subjects—was placed at the top, next genre painting, then portraiture, still-life, and landscape. History painting was also known as the "grande genre." Paintings of Hans Makart are often larger than life historical dramas, and he combined this with a historicism in decoration to dominate the style of 19th century Vienna culture. Paul Delaroche is a typifying example of French history painting.
All of these trends were influenced by the theories of the philosopher Hegel, who held that history was a dialectic of competing ideas, which eventually resolved in synthesis.
Towards the end of the 19th century, academic art had saturated European society. Exhibitions were held often, with the most popular exhibition being the Paris Salon and beginning in 1903, the Salon d'Automne. These salons were large scale events that attracted crowds of visitors, both native and foreign. As much a social affair as an artistic one, 50,000 people might visit on a single Sunday, and as many as 500,000 could see the exhibition during its two-month run. Thousands of pictures were displayed, hung from just below eye level all the way up to the ceiling in a manner now known as "Salon style." A successful showing at the salon was a seal of approval for an artist, making his work saleable to the growing ranks of private collectors. Bouguereau, Alexandre Cabanel and Jean-Léon Gérôme were leading figures of this art world.
During the reign of academic art, the paintings of the Rococo era, previously held in low favor, were revived to popularity, and themes often used in Rococo art such as Eros and Psyche were popular again. The academic art world also admired Raphael, for the ideality of his work, in fact preferring him over Michelangelo.
Academic art in Poland flourished under Jan Matejko, who established the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts. Many of these works can be seen in the
Gallery of 19th-Century Polish Art at Sukiennice in Kraków.
Academic art not only held influence in Western Europe and the United States, but also extended its influence to other countries. The artistic environment of Greece, for instance, was dominated by techniques from Western academies from the 17th century onward: this was first evident in the activities of the Ionian School, and later became especially pronounced with the dawn of the Munich School. This was also true for Latin American nations, which, because their revolutions were modeled on the French Revolution, sought to emulate French culture. An example of a Latin American academic artist is Ángel Zárraga of Mexico.
Academic training
Young artists spent four years in rigorous training. In France, only students who passed an exam and carried a letter of reference from a noted professor of art were accepted at the academy's school, the . Drawings and paintings of the nude, called "académies", were the basic building blocks of academic art and the procedure for learning to make them was clearly defined. First, students copied prints after classical sculptures, becoming familiar with the principles of contour, light, and shade. The copy was believed crucial to the academic education; from copying works of past artists one would assimilate their methods of art making. To advance to the next step, and every successive one, students presented drawings for evaluation.
If approved, they would then draw from plaster casts of famous classical sculptures. Only after acquiring these skills were artists permitted entrance to classes in which a live model posed. Painting was not taught at the École des Beaux-Arts until after 1863. To learn to paint with a brush, the student first had to demonstrate proficiency in drawing, which was considered the foundation of academic painting. Only then could the pupil join the studio of an academician and learn how to paint. Throughout the entire process, competitions with a predetermined subject and a specific allotted period of time measured each student's progress.
The most famous art competition for students was the Prix de Rome. The winner of the Prix de Rome was awarded a fellowship to study at the Académie française's school at the Villa Medici in Rome for up to five years. To compete, an artist had to be of French nationality, male, under 30 years of age, and single. He had to have met the entrance requirements of the École and have the support of a well-known art teacher. The competition was grueling, involving several stages before the final one, in which 10 competitors were sequestered in studios for 72 days to paint their final history paintings. The winner was essentially assured a successful professional career.
As noted, a successful showing at the Salon was a seal of approval for an artist. Artists petitioned the hanging committee for optimal placement "on the line", or at eye level. After the exhibition opened, artists complained if their works were "skyed", or hung too high. The ultimate achievement for the professional artist was election to membership in the Académie française and the right to be known as an academician.
Criticism and legacy
Academic art was first criticized for its use of idealism, by Realist artists such as Gustave Courbet, as being based on idealistic clichés and representing mythical and legendary motives while contemporary social concerns were being ignored. Another criticism by Realists was the "false surface" of paintings—the objects depicted looked smooth, slick, and idealized—showing no real texture. The Realist Théodule Ribot worked against this by experimenting with rough, unfinished textures in his painting.
Stylistically, the Impressionists, who advocated quickly painting outdoors exactly what the eye sees and the hand puts down, criticized the finished and idealized painting style. Although academic painters began a painting by first making drawings and then painting oil sketches of their subject, the high polish they gave to their drawings seemed to the Impressionists tantamount to a lie. After the oil sketch, the artist would produce the final painting with the academic "fini", changing the painting to meet stylistic standards and attempting to idealize the images and add perfect detail. Similarly, perspective is constructed geometrically on a flat surface and is not really the product of sight; Impressionists disavowed the devotion to mechanical techniques.
Realists and Impressionists also defied the placement of still-life and landscape at the bottom of the hierarchy of genres. Most Realists and Impressionists and others among the early avant-garde who rebelled against academism were originally students in academic ateliers. Claude Monet, Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, and even Henri Matisse were students under academic artists.
As modern art and its avant-garde gained more power, academic art was further denigrated, and seen as sentimental, clichéd, conservative, non-innovative, bourgeois, and "styleless." The French referred derisively to the style of academic art as L'art Pompier (pompier means "fireman") alluding to the paintings of Jacques-Louis David (who was held in esteem by the academy) which often depicted soldiers wearing fireman-like helmets. The paintings were called "grandes machines" which were said to have manufactured false emotion through contrivances and tricks.
This denigration of academic art reached its peak through the writings of art critic Clement Greenberg who stated that all academic art is "kitsch." Other artists, such as the Symbolist painters and some of the Surrealists, were kinder to the tradition. As painters who sought to bring imaginary vistas to life, these artists were more willing to learn from a strongly representational tradition. Once the tradition had come to be looked on as old-fashioned, the allegorical nudes and theatrically posed figures struck some viewers as bizarre and dreamlike.
With the goals of Postmodernism in giving a fuller, more sociological and pluralistic account of history, academic art has been brought back into history books and discussion. Since the early 1990s, academic art has even experienced a limited resurgence through the Classical Realist atelier movement. Additionally, the art is gaining a broader appreciation by the public at large, and whereas academic paintings once would only fetch a few hundreds of dollars in auctions, some now fetch millions.
Major artists
Gallery
References
Further reading
Art and the Academy in the Nineteenth Century. (2000). Denis, Rafael Cardoso & Trodd, Colin (Eds). Rutgers University Press.
L'Art-Pompier (1998). Lécharny, Louis-Marie, Que sais-je? . Presses Universitaires de France.
L'Art pompier: immagini, significati, presenze dell'altro Ottocento francese (1860–1890) . (1997). Luderin, Pierpaolo, Pocket library of studies in art, Olschki.
External links
19th century in art
Art movements
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom%20Summer
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Freedom Summer
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Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. Blacks had been restricted from voting since the turn of the century due to barriers to voter registration and other laws. The project also set up dozens of Freedom Schools, Freedom Houses, and community centers such as libraries, in small towns throughout Mississippi to aid the local Black population.
The project was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of the Mississippi branches of the four major civil rights organizations (SNCC, CORE, NAACP, and SCLC). Most of the impetus, leadership, and financing for the Summer Project came from SNCC. Bob Moses, SNCC field secretary and co-director of COFO, directed the summer project.
Freedom Vote
Freedom Summer was built on the years of earlier work by thousands of African Americans, connected through their churches, who lived in Mississippi. In 1963, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized a mock "Freedom Vote" designed to demonstrate the will of Black Mississippians to vote, if not impeded by terror and intimidation. The Mississippi voting registration procedure at the time required Blacks to fill out a 21-question registration form and to answer, to the satisfaction of the white registrators, a question on the interpretation of any one of 285 sections of the state constitution. The registrars ruled subjectively on the applicant's qualifications, and decided against most blacks, not allowing them to register.
In 1963, volunteers set up polling places in Black churches and business establishments across Mississippi. After registering on a simple registration form, voters would select candidates to run in the following year's election. Candidates included Rev. Ed King of Tougaloo College and Aaron Henry, from Clarksdale, Mississippi. Local civil rights workers and volunteers, along with students from northern and western universities, organized and implemented the mock election, in which tens of thousands voted.
Planning began February 1964
By 1964, students and others had begun the process of integrating public accommodations, registering adults to vote, and above all strengthening a network of local leadership. Building on the efforts of 1963 (including the Freedom Vote and registration efforts in Greenwood), Moses prevailed over doubts among SNCC and COFO workers, and planning for Freedom Summer began in February 1964. Speakers recruited for workers on college campuses across the country, drawing standing ovations for their dedication in braving the routine violence perpetrated by police, sheriffs, and others in Mississippi. SNCC recruiters interviewed dozens of potential volunteers, weeding out those with a "John Brown complex" and informing others that their job that summer would not be to "save the Mississippi Negro" but to work with local leadership to develop the grassroots movement.
More than 1,000 out-of-state volunteers participated in Freedom Summer alongside thousands of black Mississippians. Volunteers were the brightest of their generation, who came from the best universities from the biggest states, mostly from cities in the North (e.g., Chicago, New York City, Detroit, Cleveland, etc.) and West (e.g., Berkeley, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, etc.), usually were rich, 90 percent were white. About half of them were Jewish. Though SNCC's committee agreed to recruit only one hundred white students for the project in December 1963, white civil rights leaders such as Allard Lowenstein went on and recruited a much larger number of white volunteers, to bring more attention. Two one-week orientation sessions for the volunteers were held at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio (now part of Miami University), from June 14 to June 27, after Berea College backed out of hosting the sessions due to alumni pressure against it.
Organizers focused on Mississippi because it had the lowest percentage of any state in the country of African Americans registered to vote, and they constituted more than one-third of the population. In 1962 only 6.7% of eligible black voters were registered.
Southern states had effectively disenfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites in the period from 1890 to 1910 by passing state constitutions, amendments and other laws that imposed burdens on voter registration: charging poll taxes, requiring literacy tests administered subjectively by white registrars, making residency requirements more difficult, as well as elaborate record keeping to document required items. They maintained this exclusion of blacks from politics well into the 1960s, which extended to excluding them from juries and imposing Jim Crow segregation laws for public facilities.
Most of these methods survived US Supreme Court challenges and, if overruled, states had quickly developed new ways to exclude blacks, such as use of grandfather clauses and white primaries. In some cases, would-be voters were harassed economically, as well as by physical assault. Lynchings had been high at the turn of the century and continued for years.
During the ten weeks of Freedom Summer, a number of other organizations provided support for the COFO Summer Project. More than 100 volunteer doctors, nurses, psychologists, medical students and other medical professionals from the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR) provided emergency care for volunteers and local activists, taught health education classes, and advocated improvements in Mississippi's segregated health system.
Volunteer lawyers from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Inc ("Ink Fund"), National Lawyers Guild, Lawyer's Constitutional Defense Committee (LCDC) an arm of the ACLU, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCR) provided free legal services — handling arrests, freedom of speech, voter registration and other matters.
The Commission on Religion and Race (CORR), an endeavor of the National Council of Churches (NCC), brought Christian and Jewish clergy and divinity students to Mississippi to support the work of the Summer Project. In addition to offering traditional religious support to volunteers and activists, the ministers and rabbis engaged in voting rights protests at courthouses, recruited voter applicants and accompanied them to register, taught in Freedom Schools, and performed office and other support functions.
Violence
Many of Mississippi's white residents deeply resented the outsiders and any attempt to change the residents' society. Locals routinely harassed volunteers. The volunteers' presence in local black communities drew drive-by shootings, Molotov cocktails thrown at host homes, and constant harassment. State and local governments, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (which was tax-supported and spied on citizens), police, White Citizens' Council, and Ku Klux Klan used arrests, arson, beatings, evictions, firing, murder, spying, and other forms of intimidation and harassment to oppose the project and prevent blacks from registering to vote or achieve social equality.
Over the course of the ten-week project:
1,062 people were arrested (out-of-state volunteers and locals)
80 Freedom Summer workers were beaten
37 churches were bombed or burned
30 Black homes or businesses were bombed or burned
4 civil rights workers were killed (one in a head-on collision)
4 people were critically wounded
At least 3 Mississippi blacks were murdered because of their support for the Civil Rights Movement
Volunteers were attacked almost as soon as the campaign started. On June 21, 1964, James Chaney (a black Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] activist from Mississippi), Andrew Goodman (a summer volunteer), and Michael Schwerner (a CORE organizer) - both Jews from New York City - were arrested by Cecil Price, a Neshoba County deputy sheriff and KKK member. The three were held in jail until after nightfall, then released. They drove away into an ambush on the road by Klansmen, who abducted and killed them. Goodman and Schwerner were shot at point-blank range. Chaney was chased, beaten mercilessly, and shot three times. After weeks of searching in which federal law enforcement participated, on August 4, 1964, their bodies were found to have been buried in an earthen dam. The men's disappearance the night of their release from jail was reported on TV and on newspaper front pages, shocking the nation. It drew massive media attention to Freedom Summer and to Mississippi's "closed society."
When the men went missing, SNCC and COFO workers began phoning the FBI requesting an investigation. The parents of the missing children were able to put so much pressure on Washington that meetings with President Johnson and Attorney General Robert Kennedy were arranged. Finally, after some 36 hours, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorized the FBI to get involved in the search. FBI agents began swarming around Philadelphia, Mississippi, where Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner had been arrested after they had investigated the burning of a local black church that was a center for political organizing. For the next seven weeks, FBI agents and sailors from a nearby naval airbase searched for the bodies, wading into swamps and hacking through underbrush. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover went to Mississippi on July 10 to open the first FBI branch office there.
Throughout the search, Mississippi newspapers and word-of-mouth perpetuated the common belief that the disappearance was "a hoax" designed to draw publicity. The search of rivers and swamps turned up the bodies of eight other blacks who appeared to have been murdered: a boy and seven men. Herbert Oarsby, a 14-year-old youth, was found wearing a CORE T-shirt. Charles Eddie Moore was among 600 students expelled in April 1964 from Alcorn A&M for participating in civil rights protests. After he returned home, he was abducted and killed by KKK members in Franklin County, Mississippi on May 2, 1964 with his friend Henry Hezekiah Dee. The other five men were never identified. When they disappeared, their families could not get local law enforcement to investigate.
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
With participation in the regular Mississippi Democratic Party blocked by segregationists, COFO established the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) as a non-exclusionary rival to the regular party organization. It intended to gain recognition of the MFDP by the national Democratic Party as the legitimate party organization in Mississippi. Delegates were elected to go to the Democratic national convention to be held that year.
Before the convention was held, Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson gained passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
When the forces of white supremacy continued to block black voter registration, the Summer Project switched to building the MFDP. Though the MFDP challenge had wide support among many convention delegates, Lyndon B. Johnson feared losing Southern support in the coming campaign. He did not allow the MFDP to replace the regulars, but the continuing issue of political oppression in Mississippi was covered widely by the national press.
Freedom Schools
In addition to voter registration and the MFDP, the Summer Project also established a network of 30 to 40 voluntary summer schools – called "Freedom Schools," an educational program proposed by SNCC member, Charlie Cobb – as an alternative to Mississippi's totally segregated and underfunded schools for blacks. Over the course of the summer, more than 3,500 students attended Freedom Schools, which taught subjects that the public schools avoided, such as black history and constitutional rights.
Freedom Schools were held in churches, on back porches, and under the trees of Mississippi. Students ranged from small children to elderly adults, with the average age around 15. Most of the volunteer teachers were college students. Under the direction of Spelman College professor Staughton Lynd, the goal was to teach voter literacy, and political organization skills, as well as academic skills, and to help with confidence. The curriculum was directly linked to the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As Ed King, who ran for Lieutenant Governor on the MFDP ticket, stated, "Our assumption was that the parents of the Freedom School children, when we met them at night, that the Freedom Democratic Party would be the PTA."
The Freedom Schools operated on a basis of close interaction and mutual trust between teachers and students. The core curriculum focused on basic literacy and arithmetic, black history and current status, political processes, civil rights, and the freedom movement. The content varied from place to place and day to day according to the questions and interests of the students.
The volunteer Freedom School teachers were as profoundly affected by their experience as were the students. Pam Parker, a teacher in the Holly Springs school, wrote of the experience:
The atmosphere in the class is unbelievable. It is what every teacher dreams about — real, honest enthusiasm and desire to learn anything and everything. The girls come to class of their own free will. They respond to everything that is said. They are excited about learning. They drain me of everything that I have to offer so that I go home at night completely exhausted but very happy in spirit ...
Freedom Libraries
Approximately fifty Freedom libraries were established throughout Mississippi. These libraries provided library services and literacy guidance for many African Americans, some who had never had access to libraries before. Freedom Libraries ranged in size from a few hundred volumes to more than 20,000. The Freedom Libraries operated on small budgets and were usually run by volunteers. Some libraries were housed in newly constructed facilities while others were located in abandoned buildings.
Freedom Houses
The volunteers were housed by local black families who refused to be intimidated by segregationist threats of violence. However, project organizers were unable to place all the volunteers in private homes. To accommodate the overflow, the remaining volunteers were placed either in the project office or in Freedom Houses. Volunteers believed that it was important to free themselves from their race and class backgrounds, so the Freedom Houses would become places where cultural exchange would happen, so the Freedom Houses were free from segregation.
Of course, the practice of group living was already well established among American college students, for example, and soon the houses became communal living centers. Freedom houses also played a significant role in the volunteers' sexual activities during the summer. They considered themselves free from the restraints of racism and consequently free to truly love one another. As such, for many of them, interracial sex became the ultimate expression of SNCC ideology, which emphasized the notions of freedom and equality. At the beginning of the summer the Freedom Houses were places to accommodate the overflow of volunteers, but in the eyes of volunteers by the end of summer they had become structural and symbolical expressions of the link between personal and political change. One volunteer said:
You never knew what was going to happen [in the Freedom Houses] from one minute to the next ... I slept on the cot ... on a kind of side porch ... and ... I'd drag in some nights and there'd ... be a wild party raging on the porch. So I'd drag my cot off in search of a quiet corner ... [only to find] an intense philosophical discussion going on in one corner ... people making peanut butter sandwiches-always peanut butter ... in another ... [And] some soap opera ... romantic entanglement being played out in another ... It was real three-ring circus
Aftermath
Freedom Summer did not succeed in getting many voters registered, but it had a significant effect on the course of the Civil Rights Movement. It helped break down the decades of isolation and repression that had supported the Jim Crow system. Before Freedom Summer, the national news media had paid little attention to the persecution of black voters in the Deep South and the dangers endured by black civil rights workers. The events that summer had captured national attention (as had the mass protests and demonstrations in previous years). Some black activists felt the media had reacted only because northern white students were killed and felt embittered. Many blacks also felt the white students were condescending and paternalistic to the local people and were ascending to an inappropriate dominance over the civil rights movement. Leading up to the November 1964 election, repression persisted in Mississippi, with nuisance arrests, beatings, and church burnings continuing. The discontent with the white students and the increasing need for armed defense against segregationists helped create demand for a black power direction in SNCC.
Many of the volunteers have recounted that the summer was one of the defining periods of their lives. They had trouble readjusting to life outside Mississippi. They came with a positive image of the government, but the events of the Freedom Summer upset this simplistic distinction between 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. They saw that those two ideas were linked together. They experienced such lawlessness that they became critical toward American society and federal agencies, like the FBI. Most of the volunteers became politicized in Mississippi. They left intent on carrying on the fight in the North. After that summer, many Christians faced a religious crisis. Personal transformation of volunteers led to social changes. It increased student activity in the civil rights movement. These students also played a role later in the resurgence of leftist activism in the United States.
Long-term volunteers staffed the COFO and SNCC offices throughout Mississippi. After the flood of summer workers in 1964, their leadership decided that projects should continue the following summer, but under the direction of local leadership. This was challenged by Northern establishment members of the coalition, beginning with Americans for Democratic Action, who also disapproved of the MFDP. This encouraged the NAACP to withdraw from COFO, both because they did not want to anger liberal Democrats, and because they resented the organizational competition from SNCC. After the MFDP was denied voting status at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Bob Moses was deeply disillusioned and bowed out of both MFDP and COFO. COFO collapsed in 1965, leaving organizing priorities to be set by locals.
Among many notable veterans of Freedom Summer were Heather Booth, Marshall Ganz, and Mario Savio. After the summer, Heather Booth returned to Illinois, where she became a founder of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union and later the Midwest Academy. Marshall Ganz returned to California, where he worked for many years on the staff of the United Farm Workers. He later taught organizing strategies. In 2008 he played a crucial role in organizing Barack Obama's field staff for the campaign. Mario Savio returned to the University of California, Berkeley, where he became a leader of the Free Speech Movement.
In Mississippi, controversy raged over the three murders. Mississippi state and local officials did not indict anyone. The FBI continued to investigate. Agents infiltrated the KKK and paid informers to reveal secrets of their "klaverns". In the fall of 1964, informants told the FBI about the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner. On December 4, the FBI arrested 19 men as suspects.
All were freed on a technicality, starting a three-year battle to bring them to justice. In October 1967, the men, including the Klan's Imperial Wizard Samuel Bowers, who had allegedly ordered the murders, went on trial in the federal courthouse in Meridian. Seven were ultimately convicted of federal crimes related to the murders. All were sentenced to 3–10 years, but none served more than six years. This marked the first time since Reconstruction era that white men had been convicted of civil rights violations against blacks in Mississippi.
Mississippi began to make some racial progress but white supremacy was resilient, especially in rural areas. In 1965 Congress passed the federal Voting Rights Act, which provided for federal oversight and enforcement to facilitate registration and voting in areas of historically low turnout. Mississippi's legislature passed several laws to dilute the power of black votes. Only with Supreme Court rulings and more than a decade of cooling did black voting become a reality in Mississippi. The seeds planted during Freedom Summer bore fruit in the 1980s and 1990s, when Mississippi elected more black officials than any other state. Since redistricting in 2003, Mississippi has had four congressional districts. Mississippi's 2nd congressional district, covering a concentration of black population in the western part of the state, including the Mississippi Delta, is black majority.
Renewed investigation of the 1964 murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner led to a trial by the state in 2005. As a result of investigative reporting by Jerry Mitchell (an award-winning reporter for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger), high school teacher Barry Bradford, and three of his students from Illinois (Brittany Saltiel, Sarah Siegel, and Allison Nichols), Edgar Ray Killen, one of the leaders of the killings and a former Ku Klux Klan klavern recruiter, was indicted for murder. He was convicted of three counts of manslaughter. The Killen verdict was announced on June 21, 2005, the forty-first anniversary of the crime. Killen's lawyers appealed the verdict, but his sentence of 3 times 20 years in prison was upheld on January 12, 2007, in a hearing by the Supreme Court of Mississippi.
See also
African-American–Jewish relations
Carpenters for Christmas
Summer in Mississippi
References
Bibliography
Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (Harvard University Press, 1981).
Doug McAdam, Freedom Summer (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
Bruce Watson, Freedom Summer: The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy (New York, NY: Viking, 2010).
Further reading
Hamer, Fannie Lou, [https://books.google.com/books?id=yHD3UlfZAFMC The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell it Like it is'], Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2011. .
Sally Belfrage, Freedom Summer (University of Virginia Press, 1965, reissued 1990).
Susie Erenrich, editor, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: An Anthology of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement (Montgomery, AL: Black Belt Press, 1999).
Matt Herron, Mississippi Eyes: The Story and Photography of the Southern Documentary Project, Talking Fingers Publications, 2014
Adam Hochschild, Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels (Syracuse University Press, 1997), "Summer of Violence," pp. 140–150. .
William Sturkey and Jon Hale, eds., To Write in the Light of Freedom: Newspapers of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Schools'' (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2015)
Steven M. Gillon "10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America" (Three Rivers Press, New York, 2006)
External links
SNCC Digital Gateway: Freedom Summer Digital documentary website created by the SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University, telling the story of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee & grassroots organizing from the inside-out
Mississippi Freedom Summer (Amistad Digital Resource)
Freedom Summer Digital Collection - Miami University of Ohio
Freedom Summer National Conference - 2009 - Miami University of Ohio
Freedom Summer 50th Miami University of Ohio, 2014
Mississippi Burning (LBJ tapes and documents) - University of Virginia
Freedom Summer, Mississippi 1964 ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive
Photos of Freedom Summer ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive
Freedom On My Mind a documentary distributed by California Newsreel
"We had Sneakers, They Had Guns,". Webcast and event flier essay from the Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, May 5, 2009 lecture. Illustrator and journalist Tracy Sugarman describes his experiences covering the voting registration efforts during the 1964 "Freedom Summer." The talk is related to the publication of Sugarman's book of the same title. Retrieved August 25, 2009.
Mississippi & Freedom Summer - The Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s
1964: Freedom Summer - University of Southern Mississippi
SNCC History and Geography from the Mapping American Social Movements project at the University of Washington
Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive (USM)
Oh Freedom Over Me - American RadioWorks
Mississippi Digital Library Original photographs, documents oral history, letters from the Mississippi freedom movement
Carpenters for Christmas Project to Rebuild Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, Tippah County, Mississippi, burned after a speech held there by Fannie Lou Hamer
The 1964 MS Freedom School Curriculum ~ Education and Democracy
Freedom Summer, Civil Rights Digital Library
1964 in Mississippi
1964 in the United States
1964 protests
African-American history of Mississippi
Civil rights movement
History of African-American civil rights
History of voting rights in the United States
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontoon%20bridge
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Pontoon bridge
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A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, uses floats or shallow-draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum load that they can carry.
Most pontoon bridges are temporary and used in wartime and civil emergencies. There are permanent pontoon bridges in civilian use that can carry highway traffic. Permanent floating bridges are useful for sheltered water crossings if it is not considered economically feasible to suspend a bridge from anchored piers. Such bridges can require a section that is elevated or can be raised or removed to allow waterborne traffic to pass.
Pontoon bridges have been in use since ancient times and have been used to great advantage in many battles throughout history, such as the Battle of Garigliano, the Battle of Oudenarde, the crossing of the Rhine during World War II, the Iran–Iraq War's Operation Dawn 8, and most recently, in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, after crossings over the Dnipro River had been destroyed.
Definition
A pontoon bridge is a collection of specialized, shallow draft boats or floats, connected together to cross a river or canal, with a track or deck attached on top. The water buoyancy supports the boats, limiting the maximum load to the total and point buoyancy of the pontoons or boats. The supporting boats or floats can be open or closed, temporary or permanent in installation, and made of rubber, metal, wood, or concrete. The decking may be temporary or permanent, and constructed out of wood, modular metal, or asphalt or concrete over a metal frame.
Etymology
The spelling "ponton" in English dates from at least 1870. The use continued in references found in U.S. patents during the 1890s. It continued to be spelled in that fashion through World War II, when temporary floating bridges were used extensively throughout the European theatre. U.S. combat engineers commonly pronounced the word "ponton" rather than "pontoon" and U.S. military manuals spelled it using a single 'o'. The U.S. military differentiated between the bridge itself ("ponton") and the floats used to provide buoyancy ("pontoon"). The original word was derived from Old French ponton, from Latin ponto ("ferryboat"), from pons ("bridge").
Design
When designing a pontoon bridge, the civil engineer must take into consideration the Archimedes' principle: Each pontoon can support a load equal to the mass of the water that it displaces. This load includes the mass of the bridge and the pontoon itself. If the maximum load of a bridge section is exceeded, one or more pontoons become submerged. Flexible connections have to allow for one section of the bridge to be weighted down more heavily than the other parts. The roadway across the pontoons should be relatively light, so as not to limit the carrying capacity of the pontoons.
The connection of the bridge to shore requires the design of approaches that are not too steep, protect the bank from erosion and provide for movements of the bridge during (tidal) changes of the water level.
Floating bridges were historically constructed using wood. Pontoons were formed by simply lashing several barrels together, by rafts of timbers, or by using boats. Each bridge section consisted of one or more pontoons, which were maneuvered into position and then anchored underwater or on land. The pontoons were linked together using wooden stringers called balks. The balks were covered by a series of cross planks called chesses to form the road surface, and the chesses were secured with side guard rails.
A floating bridge can be built in a series of sections, starting from an anchored point on the shore. Modern pontoon bridges usually use pre-fabricated floating structures.
Most pontoon bridges are designed for temporary use, but bridges across water bodies with a constant water level can remain in place much longer. Hobart Bridge, a long pontoon bridge built 1943 in Hobart, was only replaced after 21 years. The fourth Galata Bridge that spans the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey was built in 1912 and operated for 80 years.
Provisional and lightweight pontoon bridge are easily damaged. The bridge can be dislodged or inundated when the load limit of the bridge is exceeded. The bridge can be induced to sway or oscillate in a hazardous manner from the swell, from a storm, a flood or a fast moving load. Ice or floating objects (flotsam) can accumulate on the pontoons, increasing the drag from river current and potentially damaging the bridge. See below for floating pontoon failures and disasters.
Historic uses
Ancient China
In ancient China, the Zhou Dynasty Chinese text of the Shi Jing (Book of Odes) records that King Wen of Zhou was the first to create a pontoon bridge in the 11th century BC. However, the historian Joseph Needham has pointed out that in all likely scenarios, the temporary pontoon bridge was invented during the 9th or 8th century BC in China, as this part was perhaps a later addition to the book (considering how the book had been edited up until the Han Dynasty, 202 BC – 220 AD). Although earlier temporary pontoon bridges had been made in China, the first secure and permanent ones (and linked with iron chains) in China came first during the Qin Dynasty (221–207 BC). The later Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD) Chinese statesman Cao Cheng once wrote of early pontoon bridges in China (spelling of Chinese in Wade-Giles format):
During the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 AD), the Chinese created a very large pontoon bridge that spanned the width of the Yellow River. There was also the rebellion of Gongsun Shu in 33 AD, where a large pontoon bridge with fortified posts was constructed across the Yangtze River, eventually broken through with ramming ships by official Han troops under Commander Cen Peng. During the late Eastern Han into the Three Kingdoms period, during the Battle of Chibi in 208 AD, the Prime Minister Cao Cao once linked the majority of his fleet together with iron chains, which proved to be a fatal mistake once he was thwarted with a fire attack by Sun Quan's fleet.
The armies of Emperor Taizu of Song had a large pontoon bridge built across the Yangtze River in 974 in order to secure supply lines during the Song Dynasty's conquest of the Southern Tang.
On October 22, 1420, Ghiyasu'd-Din Naqqah, the official diarist of the embassy sent by the Timurid ruler of Persia, Mirza Shahrukh (r. 1404–1447), to the Ming Dynasty of China during the reign of the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424), recorded his sight and travel over a large floating pontoon bridge at Lanzhou (constructed earlier in 1372) as he crossed the Yellow River on this day. He wrote that it was:
Greco-Roman era
The Greek writer Herodotus in his Histories, records several pontoon bridges. Emperor Caligula built a bridge at Baiae in 37 AD. For Emperor Darius I The Great of Persia (522–485 BC), the Greek Mandrocles of Samos once engineered a pontoon bridge that stretched across the Bosporus, linking Asia to Europe, so that Darius could pursue the fleeing Scythians as well as move his army into position in the Balkans to overwhelm Macedon. Other spectacular pontoon bridges were Xerxes' Pontoon Bridges across the Hellespont by Xerxes I in 480 BC to transport his huge army into Europe:
According to John Hale's Lords of the Sea, to celebrate the onset of the Sicilian Expedition (415 - 413 B.C.), the Athenian general, Nicias, paid builders to engineer an extraordinary pontoon bridge composed of gilded and tapestried ships for a festival that drew Athenians and Ionians across the sea to the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos. On the occasion when Nicias was a sponsor, young Athenians paraded across the boats, singing as they walked, to give the armada a spectacular farewell.
The late Roman writer Vegetius, in his work De Re Militari, wrote:
The emperor Caligula is said to have ridden a horse across a pontoon bridge stretching two miles between Baiae and Puteoli while wearing the armour of Alexander the Great to mock a soothsayer who had claimed he had "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae". Caligula's construction of the bridge cost a massive sum of money and added to discontent with his rule.
Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, pontoons were used alongside regular boats to span rivers during campaigns, or to link communities which lacked resources to build permanent bridges. The Hun army of Attila built a bridge across the Nišava during the siege of Naissus in 442 to bring heavy siege towers within range of the city. Sassanid forces crossed the Euphrates on a quickly built pontoon bridge during the siege of Kallinikos in 542. The Ostrogothic Kingdom constructed a fortified bridge across the Tiber during the siege of Rome in 545 to block Byzantine general Belisarius' relief flotillas to the city. The Avar Khaganate forced Syriac-Roman engineers to construct two pontoon bridges across the Sava during the siege of Sirmium in 580 to completely surround the city with their troops and siege works.
Emperor Heraclius crossed the Bosporus on horseback on a large pontoon bridge in 638. The army of the Umayyad Caliphate built a pontoon bridge over the Bosporus in 717 during the siege of Constantinople (717–718). The Carolingian army of Charlemagne constructed a portable pontoon bridge of anchored boats bound together and used it to cross the Danube during campaigns against the Avar Khaganate in the 790s. Charlemagne's army built two fortified pontoon bridges across the Elbe in 789 during a campaign against the Slavic Veleti. The German army of Otto the Great employed three pontoon bridges, made from pre-fabricated materials, to rapidly cross the Recknitz river at the Battle on the Raxa in 955 and win decisively against the Slavic Obotrites. Tenth-Century German Ottonian capitularies demanded that royal fiscal estates maintain watertight, river-fordable wagons for purposes of war.
The Danish Army of Cnut the Great completed a pontoon bridge across the Helge River during the Battle of Helgeå in 1026. Crusader forces constructed a pontoon bridge across the Orontes to expedite resupply during the siege of Antioch in December 1097. According to the chronicles, the earliest floating bridge across the Dnieper was built in 1115. It was located near Vyshhorod, Kiev. Bohemian troops under the command of Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor crossed the Adige in 1157 on a pontoon bridge built in advance by the people of Verona on orders of the German Emperor.
The French Royal Army of King Philip II of France constructed a pontoon bridge across the Seine to seize Les Andelys from the English at the siege of Château Gaillard in 1203. During the Fifth Crusade, the Crusaders built two pontoon bridges across the Nile at the siege of Damietta (1218–1219), including one supported by 38 boats. On 27 May 1234, Crusader troops crossed the river Ochtum in Germany on a pontoon bridge during the fight against the Stedingers. Imperial Mongol troops constructed a pontoon bridge at the Battle of Mohi in 1241 to outflank the Hungarian army. The French army of King Louis IX of France crossed the Charente on multiple pontoon bridges during the Battle of Taillebourg on 21 July 1242. Louis IX had a pontoon bridge built across the Nile to provide unimpeded access to troops and supplies in early March 1250 during the Seventh Crusade.
A Florentine army erected a pontoon bridge across the Arno during the siege of Pisa in 1406. The English army of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury crossed the Oise across a pontoon bridge of portable leather vessels in 1441. Ottoman engineers built a pontoon bridge across the Golden Horn during the siege of Constantinople (1453), using over a thousand barrels. The bridge was strong enough to support carts. The Ottoman Army constructed a pontoon bridge during the siege of Rhodes (1480). Venetian pioneers built a floating bridge across the Adige at the Battle of Calliano (1487).
Early modern period
Before the Battle of Worcester, the final battle of the English Civil War, on 30 August 1651, Oliver Cromwell delayed the start of the battle to give time for two pontoon bridges to be constructed, one over the River Severn and the other over the River Teme, close to their confluence. This allowed Cromwell to move his troops West of the Severn during the action on 3 September 1651 and was crucial to the victory by his New Model Army.
The Spanish Army constructed a pontoon bridge at the Battle of Río Bueno in 1654. However, as the bridge broke apart it all ended in a sound defeat of the Spanish by local Mapuche-Huilliche forces.
French general Jean Lannes's troops built a pontoon bridge to cross the Po river prior to the Battle of Montebello (1800). Napoleon's Grande Armée made extensive use of pontoon bridges at the battles of Aspern-Essling and Wagram under the supervision of General Henri Gatien Bertrand. General Jean Baptiste Eblé's engineers erected four pontoon bridges in a single night across the Dnieper during the Battle of Smolensk (1812). Working in cold water, Eblé's Dutch engineers constructed a 100-meter-long pontoon bridge during the Battle of Berezina to allow the Grande Armée to escape to safety. During the Peninsular War the British army transported "tin pontoons" that were lightweight and could be quickly turned into a floating bridge.
Lt Col Charles Pasley of the Royal School of Military Engineering at Chatham England developed a new form of pontoon which was adopted in 1817 by the British Army. Each pontoon was split into two halves, and the two pointed ends could be connected together in locations with tidal flow. Each half was enclosed, reducing the risk of swamping, and the sections bore multiple lashing points.
The "Palsey pontoon" lasted until 1836 when it was replaced by the "Blanshard pontoon" which comprised tin cylinders 3 feet wide and 22 feet long, placed 11 feet apart, making the pontoon very buoyant. The pontoon was tested with the Palsey pontoon on the Medway.
An alternative proposed by Charles Pasley comprised two copper canoes, each 2 foot 8 inches wide and 22 foot long and coming in two sections which were fastened side by side to make a double canoe raft. Copper was used in preference to fast-corroding tin. Lashed at 10 foot centres, these were good for cavalry, infantry and light guns; lashed at 5 foot centres, heavy cannon could cross. The canoes could also be lashed together to form rafts. One cart pulled by two horse carried two half canoes and stores.
A comparison of pontoons used by each nations army shows that almost all were open boats coming in one, two or even three pieces, mainly wood, some with canvas and rubber protection. Belgium used an iron boat; the United States used cylinders split into three.
In 1862 the Union forces commanded by Major General Ambrose Burnside were stuck on the wrong side of the Rappahannock River at the Battle of Fredericksburg for lack of the arrival of the pontoon train, resulting in severe losses. The report of this disaster resulted in Britain forming and training a Pontoon Troop of Engineers.
During the American Civil War various forms of pontoon bridges were tried and discarded. Wooden pontoons and India rubber bag pontoons shaped like a torpedo proved impractical until the development of cotton-canvas covered pontoons, which required more maintenance but were lightweight and easier to work with and transport. From 1864 a lightweight design known as Cumberland Pontoons, a folding boat system, were widely used during the Atlanta Campaign to transport soldiers and artillery across rivers in the South.
In 1872 at a military review before Queen Victoria, a pontoon bridge was thrown across the River Thames at Windsor, Berkshire, where the river was wide. The bridge, comprising 15 pontoons held by 14 anchors, was completed in 22 minutes and then used to move five battalions of troops across the river. It was removed in 34 minutes the next day.
At Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, the Pile-Pontoon Railroad Bridge was constructed in 1874 over the Mississippi River to carry a railroad track connecting that city with Marquette, Iowa. Because the river level could vary by as much as 22 feet, the track was laid on an adjustable platform above the pontoons. This unique structure remained in use until the railroad was abandoned in 1961, when it was removed.
The British Blanshard Pontoon stayed in British use until the late 1870s, when it was replaced by the "Blood Pontoon". The Blood Pontoon returned to the open boat system, which enabled use as boats when not needed as pontoons. Side carrying handles helped transportation. The new pontoon proved strong enough to support loaded elephants and siege guns as well as military traction engines.
Early 20th century
The British Blood Pontoon MkII, which took the original and cut it into two halves, was still in use with the British Army in 1924.
The First World War saw developments on "trestles" to form the link between a river bank and the pontoon bridge. Some infantry bridges in WW1 used any material available, including petrol cans as flotation devices.
The Kapok Assault Bridge for infantry was developed for the British Army, using kapok fibre-filled canvas float and timber foot walks. America created their own version.
Folding Boat Equipment was developed in 1928 and went through several versions until it was used in WW2 to complement the Bailey Pontoon. It had a continuous canvas hinge and could fold flat for storage and transportation. When assembled it could carry 15 men and with two boats and some additional toppings it could transport a 3-ton truck. Further upgrades during WW2 resulted in it moving to a Class 9 bridge.
World War II
Pontoon bridges were used extensively during World War II, mainly in the European Theater of Operations. The United States was the principal user, with Britain next.
United States
In the United States, combat engineers were responsible for bridge deployment and construction. These were formed principally into Engineer Combat Battalions, which had a wide range of duties beyond bridging, and specialized units, including Light Ponton Bridge Companies, Heavy Ponton Bridge Battalions, and Engineer Treadway Bridge Companies; any of these could be organically attached to infantry units or directly at the divisional, corps, or army level.
American engineers built three types of floating bridges: M1938 infantry footbridges, M1938 ponton bridges, and M1940 treadway bridges, with numerous subvariants of each. These were designed to carry troops and vehicles of varying weight, using either an inflatable pneumatic ponton or a solid aluminum-alloy ponton bridge. Both types of bridges were supported by pontons (known today as "pontoons") fitted with a deck built of balk, which were square, hollow aluminum beams.
American Light Ponton Bridge Company
An Engineer Light Ponton Company consisted of three platoons: two bridge platoons, each equipped with one unit of M3 pneumatic bridge, and a lightly equipped platoon which had one unit of footbridge and equipment for ferrying. The bridge platoons were equipped with the M3 pneumatic bridge, which was constructed of heavy inflatable pneumatic floats and could handle up to ; this was suitable for all normal infantry division loads without reinforcement, greater with.
American Heavy Ponton Bridge Battalion
A Heavy Ponton Bridge Battalion was provided with equipage required to provide stream crossing for heavy military vehicles that could not be supported by a light ponton bridge. The Battalion had two lettered companies of two bridge platoons each. Each platoon was equipped with one unit of heavy ponton equipage. The battalion was an organic unit of army and higher echelons. The M1940 could carry up to . The M1 Treadway Bridge could support up to . The roadway, made of steel, could carry up to , while the center section made of thick plywood could carry up to . The wider, heavier tanks used the outside steel treadway while the narrower, lighter jeeps and trucks drove across the bridge with one wheel in the steel treadway and the other on the plywood.
American Engineer Treadway Bridge Company
An Engineer Treadway Bridge Company consisted of company headquarters and two bridge platoons. It was an organic unit of the armored force, and normally was attached to an Armored Engineer Battalion. Each bridge platoon transported one unit of steel treadway bridge equipage for construction of ferries and bridges in river-crossing operations of the armored division. Stream-crossing equipment included utility powerboats, pneumatic floats, and two units of steel treadway bridge equipment, each of which allowed the engineers to build a floating bridge about in length.
Materials and equipment
Pneumatic ponton
The United States Army Corps of Engineers designed a self-contained bridge transportation and erection system. The Brockway model B666 6x6 truck chassis (also built under license by Corbitt and White) was used to transport both the bridge's steel and rubber components. A single Brockway truck could carry material for of bridge, including two pontons, two steel saddles that were attached to the pontons, and four treadway sections. Each treadway was long with high guardrails on either side of the wide track.
The truck was mounted with a hydraulic crane that was used to unload the wide steel treadways. A custom designed twin boom arm was attached to rear of the truck bed and helped unroll and place the heavy inflatable rubber pontoons upon which the bridge was laid. The wheelbase chassis included a front winch and extra-large air-brake tanks that also served to inflate the rubber pontoons before they were placed in the water.
A pneumatic float was made of rubberized fabric separated by bulkheads into 12 airtight compartments and inflated with air. The pneumatic float consisted of an outer perimeter tube, a floor, and a removable center tube. The capacity float was wide, long, deep.
Solid ponton
Solid aluminum-alloy pontons were used in place of pneumatic floats to support heavier bridges and loads. They were also pressed into service for lighter loads as needed.
Treadway
A treadway bridge was a multi-section, prefabricated floating steel bridge supported by pontoons carrying two metal tracks (or "tread ways") forming a roadway. Depending on its weight class, the treadway bridge was supported either by heavy inflatable pneumatic pontons or by aluminum-alloy half-pontons. The aluminum half-pontons were long overall, wide at the gunwales, and deep except at the bow where the gunwale was raised. The gunwales were center-to-center. At freeboard, the half-ponton has a displacement of . The sides and bow of the half-ponton sloped inward, permitting two or more to be nested for transporting or storing.
A treadway bridge could be built of floating spans or fixed spans. An M2 treadway bridge was designed to carry artillery, heavy duty trucks, and medium tanks up to . This could be of any length, and was what was used over major river obstacles such as the Rhine and Moselle. Doctrine stated that it would take hours to place a 362-foot section of M2 treadway during daylight and hours at night. Pergrin says that in practise 50 ft/hour of treadway construction was expected, which is a little slower than the speed specified by doctrine.
By 1943, combat engineers faced the need for bridges to bear weights of 35 tons or more. To increase weight bearing capacity, they used bigger floats to add buoyancy. This overcame the capacity limitation, but the larger floats were both more difficult to transport to the crossing site and requiring more and larger trucks in the divisional and corps trains.
Britain
Donald Bailey invented the Bailey bridge, which was made up of modular, pre-fabricated steel trusses capable of carrying up to over spans up to . While typically constructed point-to-point over piers, they could be supported by pontoons as well.
The Bailey bridge was used for the first time in 1942. The first version put into service was a Bailey Pontoon and Raft with a single-single Bailey bay supported on two pontoons. A key feature of the Bailey Pontoon was the use of a single span from the bank to the bridge level which eliminated the need for bridge trestles.
For lighter vehicle bridges the Folding Boat Equipment could be used and the Kapok Assault Bridge was available for infantry.
An open sea type of pontoon, another British war time invention, known by their code names, the Mulberry harbours floated across the English Channel to provide harbours for the June 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy. The dock piers were code named "Whale". These piers were the floating roadways that connected the "Spud" pier heads to the land. These pier heads or landing wharves, at which ships were unloaded each consisted of a pontoon with four legs that rested on the sea bed to anchor the pontoon, yet allowed it to float up and down freely with the tide. "Beetles" were pontoons that supported the "Whale" piers. They were moored in position using wires attached to "Kite" anchors which were also designed by Allan Beckett. These anchors had a high holding power as was demonstrated in D+13 Normandy storm where the British Mulberry survived most of the storm damage whereas the American Mulberry, which only had 20% of its Kite Anchors deployed, was destroyed.
Gallery
Modern military uses
Pontoon bridges were extensively used by both armies and civilians throughout the latter half of the 20th century.
From the Post-War period into the early 1980s the U.S. Army and its NATO and other allies employed three main types of pontoon bridge/raft. The M4 bridge featured a lightweight aluminum balk deck supported by rigid aluminum hull pontoons. The M4T6 bridge used the same aluminum balk deck of the M4, but supported instead by inflatable rubber pontoons. The Class 60 bridge consisted of a more robust steel girder and grid deck supported by inflatable rubber pontoons. All three pontoon bridge types were cumbersome to transport and deploy, and slow to assemble, encouraging the development of an easier to transport, deploy and assemble floating bridge.
Amphibious float bridges
Several alternatives featured a self-propelled amphibious integrated transporter, floating pontoon, bridge deck section that could be delivered and assembled in the water under its own power, linking as many units as required to bridge a gap or form a raft ferry.
An early example was the Engin de Franchissement de l’Avant EFA (mobile bridge) amphibious forward crossing apparatus conceived by French General Jean Gillois in 1955. The system consisted of a wheeled amphibious truck equipped with inflatable outboard flotation sponsons and a rotating vehicle bridge deck section. The system was developed by the West German firm Eisenwerke-Kaiserslauter (EWK) and entered production by the French-German consortium Pontesa. The EFA system was first deployed by the French Army in 1965, and subsequently by the West German , British Army, and on a very limited basis by the U.S. Army, where it was referred to as Amphibious River Crossing Equipment (ARCE). Production ended in 1973. The EFA was used in combat by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which employed former U.S. Army equipment to cross the Suez Canal in their counterattack into Egypt during the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
EWK further developed the EFA system into the M2 "Alligator" Amphibious Bridging Vehicle equipped with fold-out aluminum flotation pontoons, which was produced from 1967 to 1970 and sold to the West German, British and Singapore militaries. The M2 was followed by the revised M3 version, entering service in 1996 with Germany, Britain, Taiwan and Singapore. The M3 was used in combat by British Forces during the Iraq War. More recently, Turkey has developed a similar system in the FNSS Samur wheeled amphibious assault bridge, while the Russian PMM-2 and Chinese GZM003 armoured amphibious assault bridge ride on tracks.
A similar amphibious system, the Mobile Floating Assault Bridge-Ferry (MFAB-F) was developed in the U.S. by Chrysler between 1959 and 1962. As with the French EFA, the MFAB-F consisted of an amphibious truck with a rotating bridge deck section, but there were no outboard flotation sponsons. The MFAB-F was first deployed by the U.S. Army in 1964 and later by Belgium. An improved version was produced by FMC from 1970 to 1976. The MFAB-F remained in service into the early 1980s before being replaced by a simpler continuous pontoon or "ribbon bridge" system.
Ribbon float bridges
In the early Cold War period the Soviet Red Army began development of a new kind of continuous pontoon bridge made up of short folding sections or bays that could be transported and deployed rapidly, automatically unfold in the water, and quickly be assembled into a floating bridge of variable length. Known as the PMP Folding Float Bridge, it was first deployed in 1962 and subsequently adopted by Warsaw Pact countries and other states employing Soviet military equipment. The PMP proved its viability in combat when it was used by Egyptian forces to cross the Suez Canal in 1973. Operation Badr, which opened the Yom Kippur War between Egypt and Israel, involved the erection of at least 10 pontoon bridges to cross the Canal.
Beginning in 1969 the U.S. Army Mobility Equipment Research and Development Command (MERADCOM) reverse-engineered the Russian PMP design to develop the improved float bridge (IFB), later known as the standard ribbon bridge (SRB). The IFB/SRB was type classified in 1972 and first deployed in service in 1976. It was very similar to the PMP but was constructed of lightweight aluminum instead of heavier steel.
In 1977 the West German decided to adopt the SRB with some modifications and improvements, entering service in 1979 as the Faltschwimmbrücke, or Foldable Floating Bridge (FSB). Work on designing an improved version of the U.S. SRB incorporating features of the German FSB began in the 1990s, with first deployment by the U.S. Army in the early 2000s as the improved ribbon bridge (IRB).
In addition to the U.S. and Germany, the IFB/SRB/FSB/IRB has been adopted by the Armed Forces of Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Korea and Sweden, among others.
Yugoslav wars
During the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, the Maslenica Bridge was destroyed and a short pontoon bridge was built by Croatian civilian and military authorities in July 1993 over a narrow sea outlet in the town of Maslenica, after the territory was retaken from Serbian Krajina. Between 1993 and 1995 the pontoon served as one of the two operational land links toward Dalmatia and Croat- and Bosnian Muslim-held areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina that did not go through Serb-held territory.
In 1995 the 502nd and 38th Engineer Companies of the U.S. Army's 130th Engineer Brigade, and the 586th Engineer Company from Ft. Benning GA, operating as part of IFOR assembled a standard ribbon bridge under adverse weather conditions across the Sava River near Županja (between Croatia and Bosnia), with a total length of . It was dismantled in 1996.
Iran–Iraq war
Numerous pontoon bridges were constructed by the Iranians and Iraqis to cross the various rivers and marshes alongside the Iraqi border. Notable instances include one constructed over the Karkheh river to ambush Iraqi Armor during Operation Nasr, and another where they crossed certain marshes during Operation Dawn 8. They were extremely prominent due to their use in allowing for tanks and transports to cross rivers.
Invasion of Iraq
The United States Army's 299th Multi-role Bridge Company, USAR deployed a standard ribbon bridge across the Euphrates river at Objective Peach near Al Musayib on the night of 3 April 2003. The 185-meter bridge was built to support retrograde operations because of the heavy-armor traffic crossing a partially destroyed adjacent highway span.
"By dawn on 4 April 2003, the 299th Engineer Company had emplaced a 185-meter long Assault Float Bridge—the first time in history that a bridge of its type was built in combat." This took place during the 2003 invasion of Iraq by American and British forces. That same night, the 299th also constructed a single-story Medium Girder Bridge to patch the damage done to the highway span. The 299th was part of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division as they crossed the border into Iraq on 20 March 2003.
Syrian civil war
In February 2018, pro-regime fighters used a pontoon bridge to cross the Euphrates river during the Battle of Khasham.
Eastern Ukraine offensive
In May 2022, Ukrainian forces repelled an attempted Russian military crossing of the Donets river, west of Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk Oblast, during the Eastern Ukraine offensive. At least one Russian battalion tactical group was reportedly destroyed, as well as the pontoon bridge deployed in the crossing.
Permanent pontoon bridges in civilian use
This design for bridges is also used for permanent bridges designed for highway traffic, pedestrian traffic and bicycles, with sections for boats to ply the waterway being crossed. Seattle in the United States and Kelowna in British Columbia, Canada are two places with permanent pontoon bridges, William R. Bennett Bridge in British Columbia and three in Seattle: Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge, Evergreen Point Floating Bridge and Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge. There are five pontoon bridges across the Suez Canal. Nordhordland Bridge is a combined cable-stayed and pontoon highway bridge in Norway.
Failures and disasters
The Saint Isaac's Bridge across the Neva River in Saint Petersburg suffered two disasters, one natural, a gale in 1733, and then a fire in 1916.
Floating bridges can be vulnerable to inclement weather, especially strong winds. The U.S. state of Washington is home to some of the longest permanent floating bridges in the world, and two of these failed in part due to strong winds.
In 1979, the longest floating bridge crossing salt water, the Hood Canal Bridge, was subjected to winds of , gusting up to . Waves of battered the sides of the bridge, and within a few hours the western of the structure had sunk. It has since been rebuilt.
In 1990, the 1940 Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge was closed for renovations. Specifically, the sidewalks were being removed to widen the traffic lanes to the standards mandated by the Interstate Highway System. Engineers realized that jackhammers could not be employed to remove the sidewalks without risking compromising the structural integrity of the entire bridge. As such, a unique process called hydrodemolition was employed, in which powerful jets of water are used to blast away concrete, bit by bit. The water used in this process was temporarily stored in the hollow chambers in the pontoons of the bridge in order to prevent it from contaminating the lake. During a week of rain and strong winds, the watertight doors were not closed and the pontoons filled with water from the storm, in addition to the water from the hydrodemolition. The inundated bridge broke apart and sank. The bridge was rebuilt in 1993.
A minor disaster occurs if anchors or connections between the pontoon bridge segments fail. This may happen because of overloading, extreme weather or flood. The bridge disintegrates and parts of it start to float away. Many cases are known. When the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge sank, it severed the anchor cables of the bridge parallel to it. A powerful tugboat pulled on that bridge against the wind during a subsequent storm, and prevented further damage.
See also
Floating dock
List of pontoon bridges
Mabey Logistic Support Bridge bailey type bridge that can be made into a multi-span bridge on pontoons
Military bridges
Medium Girder Bridge for another bridge type with mobile military application.
Mulberry Harbour – as used at D-Day
Okanagan Lake Bridge
William R. Bennett Bridge
549th Engineer Light Ponton Company
Vlotbrug, a design of retractable pontoon bridge specific to the Netherlands
Notes
References
Brook, Timothy. (1998). The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Graff, David Andrew and Robin Higham (2002). A Military History of China. Boulder: Westview Press.
Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 3, Civil Engineering and Nautics. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
External links
"Combat Engineers Take a River In Their Stride" , December 1943, Popular Mechanics detailed World War Two article with rare photos of setting up of a pontoon bridge
Chinese inventions
Bridges by structural type
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black%20Beauty
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Black Beauty
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Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she was bedridden and seriously ill. The novel became an immediate best-seller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, but having lived long enough to see her only novel become a success. With fifty million copies sold, Black Beauty is one of the best-selling books of all time.
While forthrightly teaching animal welfare, it also teaches how to treat people with kindness, sympathy, and respect. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 58 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. It is seen as a forerunner of the pony book.
Background
Anna Sewell was born in Great Yarmouth, England, and had a brother named Philip, who was an engineer in Europe. At the age of 14, Anna fell while walking home from school in the rain and injured both ankles. Through the mistreatment of the injury, she became unable to walk or stand for any length of time for the rest of her life. Disabled and unable to walk, she began learning about horses, spending many hours driving her father to and from the station from which he commuted to work. Her dependence on horse-drawn transportation fostered her respect for horses. Sewell's introduction to writing began in her youth when she helped edit the works of her mother, Mary Wright Sewell (1797–1884), a deeply religious, popular author of juvenile best-sellers.
Anna Sewell never married or had children. In visits to European spas, she met many writers, artists, and philanthropists. Her only book was Black Beauty, written between 1871 and 1877 in her house at Old Catton. During this time, her health was declining, and she could barely get out of bed. Her dearly-loved mother often had to help her with her illness. She sold the book to the local publishers, Jarrold & Sons. The book broke records for sales and is the "sixth best seller in the English language." By telling the story of a horse's life in the form of an autobiography and describing the world through the eyes of the horse, Anna Sewell broke new literary ground.
Sewell died of hepatitis or tuberculosis on 25 April 1878, only five months after the novel was published, but she lived long enough to see its initial success. She was buried on 30 April 1878 in the Quaker burial-ground at Lammas near Buxton, Norfolk, where a wall plaque marks her resting place. Her birthplace in Church Plain, Great Yarmouth, is now a museum.
Although Black Beauty is looked at as a children's novel, Sewell did not write the novel for children. She said that her purpose in writing the novel was "to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses"—an influence she attributed to an essay on animals she read earlier by Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) entitled "Essay on Animals". Her sympathetic portrayal of the plight of working animals led to a vast outpouring of concern for animal welfare and is said to have been instrumental in the abolition of the cruel practice of using the checkrein (or "bearing rein", a strap used to keep horses' heads high, fashionable in Victorian England but painful and damaging to a horse's neck). Black Beauty also mentions the use of blinkers on horses, concluding that this use is likely to cause accidents at night due to interference with "the full use of" a horse's ability to "see much better in the dark than men can."
Plot summary
The story is narrated in the first person as an autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse named Black Beauty—beginning with his carefree days as a foal on an English farm with his mother, to his difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country. Along the way, he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty and kindness. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty's life containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness, sympathy, and understanding treatment of horses, with Sewell's detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude.
The book describes conditions among London horse-drawn cab drivers, including the financial hardship caused to them by high licence fees and low, legally fixed fares. A page footnote in some editions says that soon after the book was published, the difference between 6-day cab licences (not allowed to trade on Sundays) and 7-day cab licences (allowed to trade on Sundays) was abolished and the cab licence fee was much reduced.
Genre
Black Beauty is considered to be one of the first fictional animal autobiographies. Originally meant to be informative literature read by adults on the norms of horse cruelty and preventions of these unjust acts, Black Beauty is now seen as a children's book. Narrated by the main character, Black Beauty, the novel is read by thousands of children worldwide.
Analysis
Sewell uses anthropomorphism in Black Beauty. The text advocates the fairer treatment of horses in Victorian England. The story is narrated from Black Beauty's perspective and resultantly readers arguably gained insight into how horses suffered through their use by human beings with restrictive technical objects like the "bearing rein" and "blinkers" as well as procedures like cutting off the tails of the horses. For instance, Ginger describes the physical effects of the "bearing rein" to Black Beauty, by stating, "it is dreadful... your neck aching until you don't know how to bear it... its hurt my tongue and my jaw and the blood from my tongue covered the froth that kept flying from my lips". Tess Coslett highlights that Black Beauty's story is structured in a way that makes him similar to those he serves. The horses in the text have reactions as well as emotions and characteristics, like love and loyalty, which are similar to those of human beings. Coslett emphasizes that, while Black Beauty is not the first book written in the style of an animal autobiography, it is a novel that "allows the reader to slide in and out of horse-consciousness, blurring the human/animal divide". Dwyer suggests that "by the end of the nineteenth century the concern for animal welfare was often mediated by considerations of utility", implying that these animals (horses) were seen to get the job done by any means rather than the approach that they could be demonizing the animal.
Publications
Published in 1877, in the last years of Anna Sewell's life, Black Beauty sold over 50 million copies worldwide in 50 different languages. This different viewpoint sparked people's interest to speak for horses' well-being and implement legislation. According to Sewell, providing information was her original goal of horse injustice. Although the shift of perspectives was seen as good for some, it was also an issue to others including horse owners and people who sold such equipment for horses (equipment like blinders). It has been alleged that Black Beauty was banned in some countries, e.g. South Africa, for containing the words "Black" and "Beauty" during its apartheid restrictions on African natives. However, Claire Datnow, in her memoir Behind the Walled Garden of Apartheid: Growing up White in Segregated South Africa, writes that this "fact" was a standing joke among her circle of friends, invented to make fun of the "ignorance of the censors"—the idea being that Black Beauty had been banned "because the censors thought it referred to a black woman."
Reception
Upon publication of the book, many readers related to the pain of the victimized horses, sympathized and ultimately wanted to see the introduction of reforms that would improve the well-being of horses. Two years after the release of the novel, one million copies of Black Beauty were in circulation in the United States. In addition, animal rights activists would habitually distribute copies of the novel to horse drivers and to people in stables. The depiction of the "bearing rein" in Black Beauty spurred so much outrage and empathy from readers that its use was not only abolished in Victorian England, but public interest in anti-cruelty legislation in the United States also grew significantly. The arguably detrimental social practices concerning the use of horses in Black Beauty inspired the development of legislation in various states that would condemn such abusive behaviours towards animals. The impact of the novel is still very much recognized today. Writing in the Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare, Bernard Unti calls Black Beauty "the most influential anti-cruelty novel of all time". Comparisons have also been made between Black Beauty and the most important social protest novel in the United States, Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, on account of the strong degree of outrage and protest action that both novels triggered in society.
Characters
Horses
Darkie (Black Beauty)/Black Auster/Jack/Blackie/Old Crony: The narrator of the story, a handsome black horse. He begins his career as a carriage horse for wealthy people but when he "breaks his knees" (i.e. develops scars on the fronts of his wrist (carpal) joints after a bad fall) he is no longer considered presentable enough and is put to much harder work. He passes through the hands of a series of owners, some cruel, some kind. He always tries his best to serve humans despite the circumstances.
Duchess (nicknamed "Pet"): Beauty's and Rob Roy's mother, who encourages Beauty to be good from a young age.
Rob Roy: A fellow black horse from Beauty's original farm, who is killed in a hunting incident (along with his rider, Squire Gordon's only son). It is later learned that he was Beauty's half-brother, an older son of Duchess.
Lizzie: A high-strung, nervous mare whom Lady Anne rides one day and is spooked until Black Beauty comes to her aid with his rider.
Ginger: A companion of Beauty's at Birtwick Park, she is named for her chestnut colour and her habit of biting, which is often how the spice, ginger, is described. Ginger is a more aggressive horse due to her traumatic upbringing. After being ridden by Lord George in a steeplechase her back is strained. Beauty and Ginger meet for the last time as broken-down cab horses in London, and later a cart carrying a dead horse (whom Beauty believes is Ginger), passes by Beauty.
Merrylegs: A short, dappled grey, handsome pony who is polite to humans and horses alike. He is ridden by the young daughters at Birtwick Park, then sent to live with a vicar who promises never to sell him.
Sir Oliver: An older horse whose tail was docked, to his great annoyance and discomfort.
Rory: A job horse usually paired with Black Beauty. Became a coal carting horse after getting hit in the chest by a cart driven on the wrong side of the road.
Peggy: A hired horse who cannot run very fast due to her short legs. She runs at an odd hopping pace between a trot and a canter when expected to keep pace with other horses at a fast trot. When paired with a faster horse to pull a carriage she often gets whipped for not keeping up. Sold to two ladies who wanted a safe horse.
Unnamed young horse: paired with Beauty after Peggy leaves. Often frightened by things he cannot see as he does not know whether they are dangerous or not.
Captain: A former army horse who witnessed horrific incidents in the Crimean War, although he was well treated and received no serious wounds. He lost his beloved master in the Charge of the Light Brigade. He became a cab-horse for Jerry, where he works with Black Beauty. After a penetrating shoulder injury from a carriage pole due to a collision with a carriage whose driver was drunk, Jerry has him shot rather than send him to work as a cart-horse.
Hotspur: A five-year-old horse bought to replace Captain. Jerry sells him to Grant when he leaves London.
Justice: A calm peaceful horse that Beauty meets at Birtwick Park.
Beauty's owners
Part 1
Farmer Grey: Beauty's first owner, a good kind man who trains him well.
Mr. Douglas Gordon (Squire Gordon): A very kind and loving master who was also the squire. Lives in Birtwick Park. Has to sell Beauty and Ginger when he leaves the country because of his wife's illness.
Mr. John Manly: Black Beauty's groom at Squire Gordon's.
Mr. James Howard: John Manly's assistant at Squire Gordon's. He leaves to work as a coachman for Sir Clifford Williams.
Mr. Joseph Green (Joe): A kind boy who replaces James at Squire Gordon's hall. Beauty becomes seriously ill after little Joe gives Beauty a pail of cold water to drink and then assumes Beauty does not need a blanket, all after a long, exhausting gallop.
Bill: A boy who keeps thrashing and whipping a pony to attempt to make him jump a fence.
Mrs. Bushby: Bill's mother who is worried when she hears that he fell into a bush.
Part 2
Earl of W: Purchases Beauty and Ginger from Squire Gordon. Lives in Earlshall Park.
Lady W: Wife of Lord W. Demands that Beauty and Ginger wear bearing reins to hold their heads up high. When York tries to comply with Lady W's order Ginger lashes out, kicking everything around her.
Mr. York: Earl of W's coachman. He treats the horses kindly but is scared to speak for the horses.
Reuben Smith: A first-rate driver who can treat a horse as well as a farrier, due to spending two years with a veterinary surgeon, and being an ostler at an inn. Unfortunately he occasionally drinks heavily. Though York tries to hide this problem, the Earl finds out and fires Reuben. York later convinces the Earl to rehire him. After taking Colonel Blantyre to town Reuben gets drunk in the White Lion, then rides Beauty back to Earlshall Park. Due to a loose nail in Beauty's shoe, which Reuben was too drunk to care about, Beauty's shoe comes off. Reuben then makes Beauty gallop over sharp stones injuring Beauty's hoof and causing him to stumble. Beauty falls and scrapes his knees, while Reuben is flung off Beauty and dies from a broken neck.
Master of the livery stables: Buys Beauty and hires him out to people in Bath who wish to rent a horse. Some of the people who rent Beauty are good drivers, most are not.
Mr. Barry: Buys Beauty from the livery stables after his friend rents Beauty several times, as his doctor advised him to get more horse exercise. He tries to treat horses well but hires two bad grooms (a thief and a humbug) due to his lack of knowledge on horse care. Decides to sell Beauty at a horse fair.
Part 3
Mr. Jeremiah (Jerry) Barker: A kind owner and religious man who uses Beauty and Captain as cab horses. After Captain is injured he buys Hotspur to replace him. Refuses to work on Sunday or force his horses to go beyond a 'jog-trot' through London for customers with poor timekeeping, although he will break these rules for a good cause. One New Year's Eve, Jerry is kept waiting in blizzard conditions by inconsiderate young men who stayed too long playing cards, contracts bronchitis, and nearly dies. Jerry's doctor tells him he must not return to cab work. Jerry takes a job with Mrs. Fowler as her coachman.
Mrs. Polly Barker: Wife of Jerry. Always waits up for her husband.
Mr. Harry Barker: Son of Jerry. Helps his father look after the horses.
Miss Dorothy (Dolly) Barker: Daughter of Jerry. Often brings food to her father.
Mr. (Grey / Governor) Grant: a respected and long-serving cab driver. When Jerry is ill he takes out Hotspur and gives Jerry half the money he makes.
Part 4
Corn dealer/baker Steven: Uses Beauty as a workhorse. Works him fairly but due to the poor lighting in Beauty's stable Beauty nearly goes blind.
Foreman: Has Beauty overloaded so that fewer journeys are required to deliver goods.
Mr. Jakes: A carter who works for the baker. Dislikes overloading Beauty but cannot go against the foreman. Makes Beauty work with the bearing rein up until a lady shows him that Beauty would find it easier to pull the cart without the bearing rein.
Mr. Nicholas Skinner: A ruthless cab-horse owner who charges a high fee for renting cab horses. As a result, the only way the drivers who rent his horse can make money is by overworking the horse, usually by whipping the horse to make it move even when tired. When Beauty collapses from overwork, Skinner plans to send Beauty to a knacker but a farrier convinces him to rest Beauty and sell him at a horse fair. Seedy Sam used to rent horses from him.
Willie: Grandson of Farmer Thoroughgood who wants to help Black Beauty when he comes to the market with his grandfather.
Farmer Thoroughgood: A kind owner who cares for Black Beauty when he is at his weakest.
The three ladies: Beauty's final home, where he spends the rest of his days very well treated. The ladies are Miss Blomefield, Miss Ellen, and Miss Lavinia and are most likely sisters.
Joseph (Joe) Green: Coachman for the three ladies. Recognizes Beauty as the horse that used to belong to Squire Gordon.
Film adaptations
The book has been adapted into film and television several times, including:
Your Obedient Servant (1917), directed by Edward H. Griffith
Black Beauty (1921), directed by Edward H. Griffith
Black Beauty (1946), directed by Max Nosseck
Black Beauty (1971), directed by James Hill
The Adventures of Black Beauty (1972–1974), a TV series produced by London Weekend Television and shown by ITV
Black Beauty (1978) by Hanna-Barbera
Black Beauty (1978), a TV mini-series
Black Beauty (1987) by Burbank Films Australia
Black Beauty (1994), a film starring Docs Keepin Time
Black Beauty (2020) by Constantin Film and distributed by Disney+ starring Kate Winslet
Beyond Black Beauty, a streaming series for Amazon Freevee by Amazon Studios
Additionally, in 1966 Walt Disney Productions produced an LP adaptation on its Disneyland Records label with music by Disney's musical director at the time, Tutti Camarata, complete with narration and singing by Robie Lester similar to an old-time radio program. Disney never directly made an animated or live-action version, but they did finally purchase the distribution rights to the version listed above.
Theatrical adaptations
Black Beauty Live (2011), adapted by James Stone and directed by Chris Ford
Black Beauty was adapted for the stage in 2011 by playwright James Stone. The play was performed at the Broughton Hall Estate, North Yorkshire and Epsom Racecourse, Surrey. The production was a critical success and was performed around the UK in 2012.
Influence upon other works
Beautiful Joe was a best-selling 1893 novel about a dog that was directly influenced by Black Beauty and followed a similar path to fame through awareness of cruelty to animals.
The Strike at Shane's: A Prize Story of Indiana is an anonymous American novel that won a monetary award and national publication in 1893 in a contest sponsored by the American Humane Society, and was reprinted several times commercially thereafter. Described in the introduction as a "Sequel to Black Beauty"', it tells the story of good and bad treatment of farm animals and local wildlife, especially songbirds, in the America Midwest. The novel is generally attributed as the first published work of the novelist Gene Stratton Porter, and bears a remarkable textual similarity to her other books.
One of the most popular of the interwar pony stories for children, Moorland Mousie (1929), by 'Golden Gorse' (Muriel Wace), is heavily influenced by Black Beauty.
Phyllis Briggs wrote a sequel called Son of Black Beauty, published in 1950.
The Pullein-Thompson sisters wrote several stories concerning relatives of Black Beauty. They are "Black Ebony" (1975; by Josephine), "Black Velvet" (1975; by Christine), "Black Princess" (1975; by Diana), "Black Nightshade" (1978; by Josephine), "Black Romany" (1978; by Diana), "Blossom" (1978; by Christine), "Black Piper" (1982; by Diana), "Black Raven" (1982; by Josephine) and "Black Pioneer" (1982; by Christine). The book Black Swift (1991) by Josephine is not about a Black Beauty relative. These were published in several compilations as well as some of them being available separately. Each compilation was subsequently republished, sometimes with a change of name.
Spike Milligan wrote a parody of the novel called Black Beauty According to Spike Milligan (1996).
See also
List of fictional horses
Sewell Park, Norwich
References
External links
Black Beauty at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions colour illustrated).
(plain text and HTML)
Black Beauty, Penguin Readers Fact Sheet.
Read more about the history of the pony story
1870s children's books
1877 British novels
19th-century British children's literature
Books about animal rights
British children's novels
British novels adapted into films
British novels adapted into plays
Fiction about animal cruelty
English novels
Fictional horses
British novels adapted into television shows
Novels set in England
1877 debut novels
Jarrold Publishing books
Children's novels about horses
Children's books set in England
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson%27s%20Valley%20campaign
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Jackson's Valley campaign
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Jackson's Valley campaign, also known as the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1862, was Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's spring 1862 campaign through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia during the American Civil War. Employing audacity and rapid, unpredictable movements on interior lines, Jackson's 17,000 men marched 646 miles (1,040 km) in 48 days and won several minor battles as they successfully engaged three Union armies (52,000 men), preventing them from reinforcing the Union offensive against Richmond.
Jackson suffered an initial tactical defeat (his second defeat of the war) at the First Battle of Kernstown (March 23, 1862) against Col. Nathan Kimball (part of Union Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's army), but it proved to be a strategic Confederate victory because President Abraham Lincoln reinforced the Union's Valley forces with troops that had originally been designated for the Peninsula campaign against Richmond. Following Kernstown, Jackson retreated to form a line at Stony Creek south of Woodstock, making his headquarters at Narrow Passage on Stony Creek. It was there he summoned a local cartographer, Jedediah Hotchkiss, who recommended he withdraw from the indefensible Stony Creek to Rude's Hill, a strategic small promontory but a commanding defensive position astride the Valley Turnpike south of Mt. Jackson. It was at Rude's Hill, which was Jackson's headquarters from April 2–17, that Jackson reorganized his command. Jackson had instructed Hotckiss to "make me a map of the Valley, from Harper's Ferry to Lexington, showing all the points of offence and defence [sic] in those places." The Shenandoah Valley had never been comprehensively mapped before, and Hotchkiss' maps and knowledge of the terrain proved to be a decisive tactical advantage for Jackson throughout the rest of the campaign.
On May 8, after more than a month of skirmishing with Banks, Jackson moved deceptively to the west of the Valley and drove back elements of Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont's army in the Battle of McDowell, preventing a potential combination of the two Union armies against him. Jackson then headed down the Valley once again to confront Banks. Concealing his movement in the Luray Valley, Jackson joined forces with Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell and captured the Federal garrison at Front Royal on May 23, causing Banks to retreat to the north. On May 25, in the First Battle of Winchester, Jackson defeated Banks and pursued him until the Union Army crossed the Potomac River into Maryland.
Bringing in Union reinforcements from eastern Virginia, Brig. Gen. James Shields recaptured Front Royal and planned to link up with Frémont in Strasburg. Jackson was now threatened by three small Union armies. Withdrawing up the Valley from Winchester, Jackson was pursued by Frémont and Shields. On June 8, Ewell defeated Frémont in the Battle of Cross Keys and on the following day, crossed the North River to join forces with Jackson to defeat Shields in the Battle of Port Republic, bringing the campaign to a close.
Jackson followed up his successful campaign by forced marches to join Gen. Robert E. Lee for the Seven Days Battles outside Richmond. His audacious campaign elevated him to the position of the most famous general in the Confederacy (until this reputation was later supplanted by Lee) and has been studied ever since by military organizations around the world.
Background
In the spring of 1862 "Southern morale... was at its nadir" and "prospects for the Confederacy's survival seemed bleak." Following the successful summer of 1861, particularly the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas), its prospects declined quickly. Union armies in the Western Theater, under Ulysses S. Grant and others, captured Southern territory and won significant battles at Fort Donelson and Shiloh. And in the East, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's massive Army of the Potomac was approaching Richmond from the southeast in the Peninsula campaign, Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell's large corps was poised to hit Richmond from the north, and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's army was threatening the Shenandoah Valley. However, Jackson's Confederate troops were in "excellent spirits," laying the foundation for his performance in the Valley that spring, which helped derail the Union plans and re-energize Confederate morale elsewhere.
During the Civil War, the Shenandoah Valley was one of the most strategic geographic features of Virginia. The watershed of the Shenandoah River passed between the Blue Ridge Mountains on the east and the Allegheny Mountains to the west, extending 140 miles southwest from the Potomac River at Shepherdstown and Harpers Ferry, at an average width of 25 miles. By the conventions of local residents, the "upper Valley" referred to the southwestern end, which had a generally higher elevation than the lower Valley to the northeast. Moving "up the Valley" meant traveling southwest, for instance. Between the North and South Forks of the Shenandoah River, Massanutten Mountain soared 2,900 feet and separated the Valley into two halves for about 50 miles, from Strasburg to Harrisonburg. During the 19th century, there was but a single road that crossed over the mountain, from New Market to Luray. The Valley offered two strategic advantages to the Confederates. First, a Northern army entering Virginia could be subjected to Confederate flanking attacks pouring through the many wind gaps across the Blue Ridge. Second, the Valley offered a protected avenue that allowed Confederate armies to head north into Pennsylvania unimpeded; this was the route taken by Gen. Robert E. Lee to invade the North in the Gettysburg campaign of 1863 and by Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early in the Valley campaigns of 1864. In contrast, the orientation of the Valley offered little advantage to a Northern army headed toward Richmond. But denying the Valley to the Confederacy would be a significant blow. It was an agriculturally rich area—the 2.5 million bushels of wheat produced in 1860, for example, accounted for about 19% of the crop in the entire state and the Valley was also rich in livestock—that was used to provision Virginia's armies and the Confederate capital of Richmond. If the Federals could reach Staunton in the upper Valley, they would threaten the vital Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, which ran from Richmond to the Mississippi River. Stonewall Jackson wrote to a staff member, "If this Valley is lost, Virginia is lost." In addition to Jackson's campaign in 1862, the Valley was subjected to conflict for virtually the entire war, most notably in the Valley campaigns of 1864.
Opposing forces
Confederate
Stonewall Jackson's command, the Valley District of the Department of Northern Virginia, expanded significantly during the campaign as reinforcements were added, starting with a force of a mere 5,000 effectives and reaching an eventual peak of 17,000 men. It remained, however, greatly outnumbered by the various Union armies opposing it, which together numbered 52,000 men in June 1862.
In March 1862, at the time of the Battle of Kernstown, Jackson commanded the brigades of Brig. Gen. Richard B. Garnett, Col. Jesse S. Burks, Col. Samuel V. Fulkerson, and cavalry under Col. Turner Ashby. In early May, at the Battle of McDowell, Jackson commanded two units that were putatively armies, although they were smaller than normal divisions: his own "Army of the Valley", consisting of the brigades of Brig. Gen. Charles S. Winder, Col. John A. Campbell, and Brig. Gen. William B. Taliaferro; the Army of the Northwest, commanded by Brig. Gen. Edward "Allegheny" Johnson, consisted of the brigades of Cols. Zephaniah T. Conner and W.C. Scott.
In late May and June, for the battles starting at Front Royal, Jackson commanded two infantry divisions and a cavalry command. "Jackson's Division" consisted of the brigades of Brig. Gen. Charles S. Winder, Col. John A. Campbell (wounded and replaced by Col. John M. Patton Jr.), and Col. Samuel V. Fulkerson (replaced by Brig. Gen. William B. Taliaferro). The Second Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, consisted of the brigades commanded by Col. W.C. Scott (replaced by Brig. Gen. George H. Steuart), Brig. Gen. Arnold Elzey (replaced by Col. James A. Walker), Brig. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble, Brig. Gen. Richard Taylor, and Brig. Gen. George H. Steuart (an all-Maryland brigade known as the "Maryland Line"). The cavalry was commanded during the period by Col. Thomas S. Flournoy, Brig. Gen. George H. Steuart, Brig. Gen. Turner Ashby, and Col. Thomas T. Munford.
Union
Union forces varied considerably during the campaign as armies arrived and withdrew from the Valley. The forces were generally from three independent commands, an arrangement which reduced the effectiveness of the Union response to Jackson.
Initially, the Valley was the responsibility of Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks. In March 1862, at the time of the Battle of Kernstown, he commanded the V Corps of the Army of the Potomac; and on April 4, he assumed command of the Department of the Shenandoah. His force initially consisted of two divisions under Brig. Gens. James Shields and Alpheus S. Williams, with an independent brigade under Brig. Gen. John W. Geary. At Kernstown, Shields' division was led by Col. Nathan Kimball with brigades under Kimball, Col. Jeremiah C. Sullivan, Col. Erastus B. Tyler, and cavalry under Col. Thornton F. Brodhead. At the end of April, Shields' division would be transferred from Banks to McDowell's command, leaving Banks with just one division, under Williams, consisting of the brigades of Cols. Dudley Donnelly and George H. Gordon, and a cavalry brigade under Brig. Gen. John P. Hatch.
Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont commanded the Mountain Department, west of the Valley. In early May, part of Frémont's command consisting of Brig. Gen. Robert C. Schenck's brigade and Brig. Gen. Robert H. Milroy's brigade faced Jackson at the Battle of McDowell. At the end of May, Fremont entered the Valley with a division under Brig. Gen. Louis Blenker, consisting of brigades of Brig. Gen. Julius H. Stahel, Col. John A. Koltes, and Brig. Gen. Henry Bohlen, as well as brigades under Col. Gustave P. Cluseret, Brig. Gen. Robert H. Milroy, Brig. Gen. Robert C. Schenck, and Brig. Gen. George D. Bayard.
Also at the end of May, McDowell was ordered to send troops to the Valley. Thus Shields returned to the Valley with his division consisting of the brigades of Brig. Gen. Nathan Kimball, Brig. Gen. Orris S. Ferry, Brig. Gen. Erastus B. Tyler, and Col. Samuel S. Carroll.
Initial movements
On November 4, 1861, Jackson accepted command of the Valley District, with his headquarters at Winchester. Jackson, recently a professor at Virginia Military Institute and suddenly a hero at First Manassas, was familiar with the valley terrain, having lived there for many years. His command included the Stonewall Brigade and a variety of militia units. In December, Jackson was reinforced by Brig. Gen. William W. Loring and 6,000 troops, but his combined force was insufficient for offensive operations. While Banks remained north of the Potomac River, Jackson's cavalry commander, Col. Turner Ashby, raided the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In the Romney Expedition of early January 1862, Jackson fought inconclusively with two small Union posts at Hancock, Maryland, and Bath.
In late February, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan ordered Banks, reinforced by Brig. Gen. John Sedgwick, across the Potomac to protect the canal and railroad from Ashby. Banks moved south against Winchester in conjunction with Shields's division approaching from the direction of Romney. Jackson's command was operating as the left wing of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army, and when Johnston withdrew from Manassas to Culpeper in March, Jackson's position at Winchester was isolated. He began withdrawing "up" the Valley (to the higher elevations at the southwest end of the Valley) to cover the flank of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army, withdrawing from the Centreville–Manassas area to protect Richmond. Without this protective movement, the Federal army under Banks might strike at Johnston through passes in the Blue Ridge Mountains. By March 12, 1862, Banks occupied Winchester just after Jackson had withdrawn from the town, marching at a leisurely pace 42 miles up the Valley Pike to Mount Jackson. On March 21, Jackson received word that Banks was splitting his force, with two divisions (under Brig. Gens. John Sedgwick and Alpheus S. Williams) returning to the immediate vicinity of Washington, D.C., freeing up other Union troops to participate in Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Peninsula campaign against Richmond. The remaining division, under Brig. Gen. James Shields, was stationed at Strasburg to guard the lower (northeastern) Valley, and intelligence indicated that it was withdrawing toward Winchester. Banks made preparations to leave the Valley personally on March 23.
Valley campaign
Kernstown (March 23, 1862)
Jackson's orders from Johnston were to prevent Banks's force from leaving the Valley, which it appeared they were now doing. Jackson turned his men around and, in one of the more grueling forced marches of the war, moved northeast 25 miles on March 22 and another 15 to Kernstown on the morning of March 23. Ashby's cavalry skirmished with the Federals on March 22, during which engagement Shields was wounded with a broken arm from an artillery shell fragment. Despite his injury, Shields sent part of his division south of Winchester and one brigade marching to the north, seemingly abandoning the area, but in fact halting nearby to remain in reserve. He then turned over tactical command of his division to Col. Nathan Kimball, although throughout the battle to come, he sent numerous messages and orders to Kimball. Confederate loyalists in Winchester mistakenly informed Turner Ashby that Shields had left only four regiments and a few guns (about 3,000 men) and that these remaining troops had orders to march for Harpers Ferry in the morning. Jackson marched aggressively north with his 3,000-man division, reduced from its peak as stragglers fell out of the column, unaware that he was soon to be attacking almost 9,000 men.
Jackson moved north from Woodstock and arrived before the Union position at Kernstown around 11 a.m., Sunday, March 23. He sent Turner Ashby on a feint against Kimball's position on the Valley Turnpike while his main force—the brigades of Col. Samuel Fulkerson and Brig. Gen. Richard B. Garnett (the Stonewall Brigade)—attacked the Union artillery position on Pritchard Hill. The lead brigade under Fulkerson was repulsed, so Jackson decided to move around the Union right flank, about 2 miles west on Sandy Ridge, which appeared to be unoccupied. Kimball countered the maneuver by moving his brigade under Col. Erastus B. Tyler to the west, but Fulkerson's men reached a stone wall facing a clearing on the ridge before the Union men could.
Around 4 p.m, Tyler attacked Fulkerson and Garnett on a narrow front. The Confederates were temporarily able to counter this attack with their inferior numbers by firing fierce volleys from behind the stone wall. Jackson, finally realizing the strength of the force opposing him, rushed reinforcements to his left, but by the time they arrived around 6 p.m., Garnett's Stonewall Brigade had run out of ammunition and he pulled them back, leaving Fulkerson's right flank exposed. Jackson tried in vain to rally his troops to hold, but the entire Confederate force was forced into a general retreat. Kimball organized no effective pursuit.
Union casualties were 590 (118 killed, 450 wounded, 22 captured or missing), Confederate 718 (80 killed, 375 wounded, 263 captured or missing). Despite the Union victory, President Lincoln was disturbed by Jackson's audacity and his potential threat to Washington. He sent Banks back to the Valley along with Alpheus Williams's division. He also was concerned that Jackson might move into western Virginia against Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont, so he ordered that the division of Brig. Gen. Louis Blenker be detached from McClellan's Army of the Potomac and sent to reinforce Frémont. Lincoln also took this opportunity to re-examine Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's plans for the defenses of Washington while the Peninsula campaign was underway and decided that the forces were insufficient. He eventually ordered that the corps of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell, which was moving south against Richmond in support of McClellan, remain in the vicinity of the capital. McClellan claimed that the loss of these forces prevented him from taking Richmond during his campaign. The strategic realignment of Union forces caused by Jackson's battle at Kernstown—the only battle he lost in his military career—turned out to be a strategic victory for the Confederacy.
After the battle, Jackson arrested Brig. Gen. Richard B. Garnett for retreating from the battlefield before permission was received. He was replaced by Brig. Gen. Charles S. Winder. Garnett suffered from the humiliation of his court-martial for over a year, until he was finally killed in Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Retreating from the Valley (March 24 – May 7)
At first light the day after Kernstown, Union forces pursued Jackson and drove Ashby's cavalry in a panic. However, Banks called off the pursuit while supply problems were addressed. For the next three days the Union forces advanced slowly while Jackson retreated to Mount Jackson. It was there that he directed Capt. Jedediah Hotchkiss, "I want you to make me a map of the Valley, from Harpers Ferry to Lexington, showing all the points of offense and defense." Given Hotchkiss's mapmaking skills, Jackson would have a significant advantage over his Federal opponents in the campaign to come. On April 1, Banks lunged forward, advancing to Woodstock along Stony Creek, where he once again was delayed by supply problems. Jackson took up a new position at Rude's Hill near Mount Jackson and New Market.
Banks advanced again on April 16, surprising Ashby's cavalry by fording Stony Creek at a place they had neglected to picket, capturing 60 of the horsemen, while the remainder of Ashby's command fought their way back to Jackson's position on Rude's Hill. Jackson assumed that Banks had been reinforced, so he abandoned his position and marched quickly up the Valley to Harrisonburg on April 18. On April 19, his men marched 20 miles east out of the Shenandoah valley to Swift Run Gap. Banks occupied New Market and crossed Massanutten Mountain to seize the bridges across the South Fork in the Luray Valley, once again besting Ashby's cavalry, who failed to destroy the bridges in time. Banks now controlled the valley as far south as Harrisonburg.
Though Banks was aware of Jackson's location, he misinterpreted Jackson's intent, thinking that Jackson was heading east of the Blue Ridge to aid Richmond. Without clear direction from Washington as to his next objective, Banks proposed his force also be sent east of the Blue Ridge, telling his superiors that "such [an] order would electrify our force." Instead, Lincoln decided to detach Shield's division and transfer it to Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell at Fredericksburg, leaving Banks in the Valley with only a single division. Banks was then instructed to retreat down the valley and assume a defensive position at Strasburg.
By this time, McClellan's Peninsula campaign was well underway and Joseph E. Johnston had relocated most of his army for the direct protection of Richmond, leaving Jackson's force isolated. Johnston sent new orders to Jackson, instructing him to prevent Banks from seizing Staunton and the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, reinforcing him with the 8,500-man division under Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, left behind at Brandy Station. Jackson, at a strong defensive position on Rude's Hill, corresponded with Ewell to develop a strategy for the campaign.
During this period, Jackson also faced difficulty within his own command. He arrested Garnett and had a nasty confrontation with Turner Ashby in which Jackson displayed his displeasure at Ashby's performance by stripping him of 10 of his 21 cavalry companies and reassigning them to Charles S. Winder, Garnett's replacement in command of the Stonewall Brigade. Winder mediated between the two officers and the stubborn Jackson uncharacteristically backed down, restoring Ashby's command. More importantly, Jackson received an April 21 letter from Gen. Robert E. Lee, military adviser to President Jefferson Davis, requesting that he and Ewell attack Banks to reduce the threat against Richmond that was being posed by McDowell at Fredericksburg.
Jackson's plan was to have Ewell's division move into position at Swift Run Gap to threaten Banks's flank, while Jackson's force marched toward the Allegheny Mountains to assist the detached 2,800 men under Brig. Gen. Edward "Allegheny" Johnson, who were resisting the advance toward Staunton of Brig. Gen. Robert H. Milroy, the leading element of Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont's army. If Frémont and Banks were allowed to combine, Jackson's forces could be overwhelmed, so Jackson planned to defeat them in detail. Without waiting for Lee's reply, Jackson executed his plan and on April 30, Ewell's division replaced Jackson's men at Swift Run Gap. Jackson marched south to the town of Port Republic in heavy rains and on May 2, turned his men east in the direction of Charlottesville and began marching over the Blue Ridge. To the surprise of his men and officers, whom Jackson habitually left in the dark as to his intentions, on May 4 they boarded trains that were heading west, not east toward Richmond, as they had anticipated. The movement to the east had been a clever deception. On May 5, Jackson's army camped around Staunton, about 6 miles from Johnson's command. On May 7, Milroy, whose troops were based at McDowell, with pickets east of the mountain (elements of the 32nd Ohio) as an advance picket, and more troops posted around North Mountain, received intelligence that Jackson and Johnson were combining against him and, and skirmishing intensified across the valley between union and confederate pickets. Despite wishing for battle, he began to fall back across the Alleghenies due to knowledge of the enemy's numerical superiority, and he dispatched requests to Franklin for reinforcements, which general Schenck obliged and prepared his troops to move southwards to reinforce Milroy at 11:00 AM on May 7. Milroy attempted to stifle the rebel advance over Shenandoah Mountain by posting two artillery pieces along the road, which slowed down Jackson's column. As more confederate columns continued to cross the mountains, Milroy decided to retreat northwards for McDowell and await arrival of reinforcements. On the morning of May 8, Milroy's command was surprised to see the confederate troops moving to occupy strong positions atop Bull Pasture Mountain. Milroy immediately decided that a swift attack must be done while the rebel forces had still not consolidated their position, so he ordered his artillery to bombard the rebel positions atop Bull Pasture Mountain. Soon afterwards, at 10:00 AM, Schenck's column arrived and reinforced Milroy.
McDowell (May 8)
As Milroy withdrew north of McDowell On May 8, Jackson arrived at McDowell, a village in Highland County, to find that Allegheny Johnson was deploying his infantry. The Union force of about 6,000 under Milroy and Schenck was camped in the village to the west side of the Bullpasture River. Overlooking the scene was a spur of Bullpasture Mountain known as Sitlington Hill, a mile-long plateau that could potentially dominate the Union position. However, there were two disadvantages: the single trail that reached the summit was so difficult that artillery could not be deployed there, and the rugged terrain—densely forested, steep slopes and ravines—offered opportunities for Union attackers to climb the 500 feet to the summit without being subjected to constant Confederate fire.
The Union generals realized that they were outnumbered by the 10,000 men that Jackson and Johnson commanded and that their men would be particularly vulnerable to artillery fire from Sitlington Hill. They did not realize that Jackson could not bring up his artillery. Therefore, in order to buy time for their troops to withdraw at night, Milroy recommended a preemptive assault on the hill and Schenck, his superior officer, approved. At about 4:30 p.m., 2,300 Federal troops crossed the river and assaulted Sitlington Hill. Their initial assault almost broke Johnson's right, but Jackson sent up Taliaferro's infantry and repulsed the Federals. The next attack was at the vulnerable center of the Confederate line, where the 12th Georgia Infantry occupied a salient that was subjected to fire from both sides. The Georgians, the only non-Virginians on the Confederate side, proudly and defiantly refused to withdraw to a more defensible position and took heavy casualties as they stood and fired, silhouetted against the bright sky as easy targets at the crest of the hill. One Georgia private exclaimed, "We did not come all this way to Virginia to run before Yankees." By the end of the day the 540 Georgians suffered 180 casualties, losses three times greater than any other regiment on the field. Johnson was wounded and Taliaferro assumed command of the battle while Jackson brought up additional reinforcements. The fighting continued until about 10 p.m., when the Union troops withdrew.
Milroy and Schenck marched their men north from McDowell beginning at 12:30 a.m. on May 9. Jackson attempted to pursue, but by the time his men started the Federals were already 13 miles away. On a high ridge overlooking the road to Franklin, Schenck took up a defensive position and Jackson did not attempt to attack him. Union casualties were 259 (34 killed, 220 wounded, 5 missing), Confederate 420 (116 killed, 300 wounded, 4 missing), one of the rare cases in the Civil War where the attacker lost fewer men than the defender.
Conflicting orders (May 10–22)
While Jackson was at McDowell, Ewell was fidgeting at Swift Run Gap, trying to sort out numerous orders he was receiving from Jackson and Johnston. On May 13 Jackson ordered Ewell to pursue Banks if he withdrew down the Valley from Strasburg, whereas Johnston had ordered Ewell to leave the Valley and return to the army protecting Richmond if Banks moved eastward to join McDowell at Fredericksburg. Since Shields's division was reported to have left the Valley, Ewell was in a quandary about which orders to follow. He met in person with Jackson on May 18 at Mount Solon and the two generals decided that while in the Valley, Ewell reported operationally to Jackson, and that a prime opportunity existed to attack Banks's army, now depleted to fewer than 10,000 men, with their combined forces. When subsequent peremptory orders came to Ewell from Johnston to abandon this idea and march to Richmond, Jackson was forced to telegraph for help from Robert E. Lee, who convinced President Davis that a potential victory in the Valley had more immediate importance than countering Shields. Johnston modified his orders to Ewell: "The object you have to accomplish is the prevention of the junction of General Banks's troops and those of General McDowell's."
On May 21, Jackson marched his command east from New Market over Massanutten Mountain, combining with Ewell on May 22, and proceeded down the Luray Valley. Their speed of forced marching was typical of the campaign and earned his infantrymen the nickname of "Jackson's foot cavalry". He sent Ashby's cavalry directly north to make Banks think that he was going to attack Strasburg, where Banks began to be concerned that his 4,476 infantry, 1,600 cavalry, and 16 artillery pieces might be insufficient to withstand Jackson's 16,000 men. However, Jackson's plan was first to defeat the small Federal outpost at Front Royal (about 1,000 men of the 1st Maryland Infantry under Col. John R. Kenly), a turning movement that would make the Strasburg position untenable.
Front Royal (May 23)
Early on May 23, Turner Ashby and a detachment of cavalry forded the South Fork of the Shenandoah River and rode northwest to capture a Union depot and railroad trestle at Buckton Station. Two companies of Union infantry defended the structures briefly, but the Confederates prevailed and burned the building, tore up railroad track, and cut the telegraph wires, isolating Front Royal from Banks at Strasburg. Meanwhile, Jackson led his infantry on a detour over a path named Gooney Manor Road to skirt the reach of Federal guns on his approach to Front Royal. From a ridge south of town, Jackson observed that the Federals were camped near the confluence of the South and North Forks and that they would have to cross two bridges in order to escape from his pending attack.
The center of Jackson's line of battle were the ferocious Louisiana Tigers battalion (150 men, part of Brig. Gen. Richard Taylor's brigade in Ewell's division), commanded by Col. Roberdeau Wheat, and the 1st Maryland Infantry, the latter bitter enemies of Kenly's Union 1st Maryland Infantry. The first shots were fired around 2 p.m. and the Confederates quickly pushed the small Federal detachment out of town. Kenly and his men made a stand on a hill just north of town and Jackson prepared to charge them with the Marylanders in the center and the Louisianians against their left flank. Before the attack could commence, Kenly saw Confederate cavalry approaching the bridges that he needed for his escape route and he immediately ordered his men to abandon their position. They first crossed the South Fork bridges and then the wooden Pike Bridge over the North Fork, which they set afire behind them. Taylor's Brigade raced in pursuit and Jackson ordered them to cross the burning bridge. As he saw the Federals escaping, Jackson was frustrated that he had no artillery to fire at them. His guns were delayed on the Gooney Manor Road detour route the infantry had taken and Ashby's cavalry had failed to deliver Jackson's orders for them to take the direct route after the battle started.
A detachment of 250 Confederate cavalry under Col. Thomas S. Flournoy of the 6th Virginia Cavalry arrived at that moment and Jackson set them off in pursuit of Kenly. The retreating Union troops were forced to halt and make a stand at Cedarville. Although the cavalrymen were outnumbered three to one, they charged the Union line, which broke but reformed. A second charge routed the Union detachment. The results of the battle were lopsided. Union casualties were 773, of which 691 were captured. Confederate losses were 36 killed and wounded. Jackson's men captured about $300,000 of Federal supplies; Banks soon became known as "Commissary Banks" to the Confederates because of the many provisions they won from him during the campaign. Banks initially resisted the advice of his staff to withdraw, assuming the events at Front Royal were merely a diversion. As he came to realize that his position had been turned, at about 3 a.m. he ordered his sick and wounded to be sent from Strasburg to Winchester and his infantry began to march midmorning on May 24.
The most significant after effect of Banks's minor loss at Front Royal was a decision by Abraham Lincoln to redirect 20,000 men from the corps of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell to the Valley from their intended mission to reinforce George B. McClellan on the Peninsula. At 4 p.m. on May 24, he telegraphed to McClellan, "In consequence of General Banks's critical position I have been compelled to suspend General McDowell's movements to you. The enemy are making a desperate push upon Harper's Ferry, and we are trying to throw Frémont's force and part of McDowell's in their rear."
Winchester (May 25)
On May 24, Jackson planned to intercept Banks's retreating army, but it was not clear what route Banks would take. He could either march straight for Winchester or, if the Confederates abandoned Front Royal and raced to Winchester ahead of him, he could slip behind them and escape to the east over the Blue Ridge. Jackson decided to watch the road from Cedarville to Middletown. If Banks moved directly to Winchester, Jackson could hit him in his flank by using that road, but he deemed it unwise to commit his entire force from the Front Royal area until he could rule out the Blue Ridge escape possibility. He sent scouts from Turner Ashby's cavalry on the Strasburg–Front Royal Road and two regiments of cavalry from Ewell's division, commanded by Brig. Gen. George H. Steuart, to Newtown, hoping to intercept the vanguard of Banks's column. At the same time, he ordered Ewell to take the bulk of his division on the road to Winchester, but not to get too far away in case he had to be recalled. The remainder of Jackson's army moved north to Cedarville.
Receiving word from Steuart that the Federals had indeed begun a retreat down the Valley Pike, Jackson began directing forces to Middletown. Although they had to contend with Union cavalry (five companies of the 1st Maine and two companies of the 1st Vermont) and were thus delayed en route, they reached a rise outside of Middletown at about 3 p.m. and began artillery bombardments of the Union column. The chaos that this produced was exacerbated by a charge by the Louisiana Tigers, who began looting and pillaging in the wagon train. When Union artillery and infantry arrived to challenge Jackson at around 4 p.m, Richard Taylor's infantry turned to meet the threat while Jackson sent his artillery and cavalry north to harass the Union column ahead. By the time Taylor's attack started the Union troops had withdrawn and Jackson realized that it was merely the rearguard of Banks's column. He sent word to Ewell to move quickly to Winchester and deploy for an attack south of the town. Jackson's men began a pursuit down the Valley Pike, but they were dismayed to see that Ashby's cavalrymen had paused to loot the wagon train and many of them had become drunk from Federal whiskey. The pursuit continued long after dark and after 1 a.m., Jackson reluctantly agreed to allow his exhausted men to rest for two hours.
Jackson's troops were awakened at 4 a.m. on May 25 to fight the second Sunday battle of the campaign. Jackson was pleased to find during a personal reconnaissance that Banks had not properly secured a key ridge south of the town. He ordered Charles Winder's Stonewall Brigade to occupy the hill, which they did with little opposition, but they were soon subjected to punishing artillery and small arms fire from a second ridge to the southwest—Bower's Hill, the extreme right flank of the Federal line—and their attack stalled. Jackson ordered Taylor's Brigade to deploy to the west and the Louisianians conducted a strong charge against Bower's Hill, moving up the steep slope and over a stone wall. At the same time, Ewell's men were outflanking the extreme left of the Union line. The Union lines broke and the soldiers retreated through the streets of town. Jackson later wrote that Banks's troops "preserved their organization remarkably well" through the town. They did so under unusual pressure, as numerous civilians—primarily women—fired at the men and hurled objects from doorways and windows. Jackson was overcome with enthusiasm and rode cheering after the retreating enemy. When a staff officer protested that he was in an exposed position, Jackson shouted "Go back and tell the whole army to press forward to the Potomac!"
The Confederate pursuit was ineffective because Ashby had ordered his cavalry away from the mainstream to chase a Federal detachment. Jackson lamented, "Never was there such a chance for cavalry. Oh that my cavalry was in place!" The Federals fled relatively unimpeded for 35 miles in 14 hours, crossing the Potomac River into Williamsport, Maryland. Union casualties were 2,019 (62 killed, 243 wounded, and 1,714 missing or captured), Confederate losses were 400 (68 killed, 329 wounded, and 3 missing).
Union armies pursue Jackson
Word of Banks's ejection from the Valley caused consternation in Washington because of the possibility that the audacious Jackson might continue marching north and threaten the capital. President Lincoln, who in the absence of a general in chief was exerting day to day strategic control over his armies in the field, took aggressive action in response. Not yielding to panic and drawing troops in for the immediate defense of the capital, he planned an elaborate offensive. He ordered Frémont to march from Franklin to Harrisonburg to engage Jackson and Ewell, to "operate against the enemy in such a way as to relieve Banks." He also sent orders to McDowell at Fredericksburg:
Lincoln's plan was to spring a trap on Jackson using three armies. Frémont's movement to Harrisonburg would place him on Jackson's supply line. Banks would recross the Potomac and pursue Jackson if he moved up the Valley. The detachment from McDowell's corps would move to Front Royal and be positioned to attack and pursue Jackson's column as it passed by, and then to crush Jackson's army against Frémont's position at Harrisonburg. Unfortunately for Lincoln, his plan was complex and required synchronized movements by separate commands. McDowell was unenthusiastic about his role, wishing to retain his original mission of marching against Richmond to support McClellan, but he sent the division of Brig. Gen. James Shields, recently arrived from Banks's army, marching back to the Valley, to be followed by a second division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Edward O. C. Ord. But Frémont was the real problem for Lincoln's plan. Rather than marching east to Harrisonburg as ordered, he took note of the exceptionally difficult road conditions on Lincoln's route and marched north to Moorefield. (He also was cognizant of the enormous area his department was required to defend and he was concerned about dividing his force and abandoning his subordinate, Brig. Gen. Jacob D. Cox, who had been attacked in southwestern Virginia on May 23.) But as a result, instead of a figurative hammer (Shields) striking at Jackson on an anvil (Frémont), all Lincoln could hope for would be a pincer movement catching Jackson at Strasburg, which would require intricate timing to succeed.
Jackson received word of Shields's return march on May 26, but he had been urged by Robert E. Lee to threaten the line of the Potomac. So while the bulk of his army camped near Charles Town, he ordered the Stonewall Brigade to demonstrate against Harpers Ferry on May 29–30. On May 30, Shields recaptured Front Royal and Jackson began moving his army back to Winchester. Lincoln's plan continued to unravel as Banks declared his army was too shaken to move in pursuit (and would remain north of the Potomac until June 10), Frémont moved slowly on poor roads (in contrast to Jackson, whose men had the advantage of the macadamized Valley Pike), and Shields would not leave Front Royal until Ord's division arrived. Jackson reached Strasburg before either of the Union armies and the only source of concern was that the Stonewall Brigade had been delayed at Harpers Ferry, but it caught up with the rest of Jackson's army after noon on June 1.
On June 2, Union forces pursued Jackson—McDowell up the Luray Valley and Frémont up the main Valley (west of Massanutten Mountain). Jackson's men made good time on the Valley Pike, marching more than 40 miles in one 36-hour period, but heavy rains and deep mud delayed their pursuers. For the next five days, frequent clashes occurred between Turner Ashby's cavalry (screening the rear of Jackson's march) and lead Union cavalry. Ashby also burned some bridges across the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, delaying the Union pursuit and keeping Shields's and Frémont's forces separated. When contact was reestablished on June 6, Ashby was killed on Chestnut Ridge near Harrisonburg in a skirmish with Frémont's cavalry, commanded by Brig. Gen. George D. Bayard. This was a significant loss for the Confederacy since Ashby (the "Black Knight") was one of its most promising cavalry generals (Ashby having been promoted to brigadier general on June 3). Jackson later wrote, "As a partisan officer, I never knew his superior."
As the two Union armies converged at the southwestern end of Massanutten Mountain, Jackson had the option of escaping through Brown's Gap towards Charlottesville and marching to Richmond, which was closely threatened by McClellan's army. However, he was determined to finish his work in the Valley by defeating the two opposing armies in detail. To accomplish this, he recognized that the small town of Port Republic would be crucial. If he could hold or destroy the bridges in this area at the confluence of the South River and North River with the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, he could prevent the two Union armies from combining against him. He positioned most of his army on the high ground overlooking the town from the south bank of the North River, from where his artillery could command the town and fords across the South River, preventing Shields from crossing. He deployed Ewell's division on a ridge about 7 miles north near the village of Cross Keys, ready to receive Frémont.
On June 7, Ewell maneuvered in an invitation for Frémont to attack him, but despite receiving a message from his colleague Shields, urging him to "thunder down on [Jackson's] rear," Frémont demurred in the face of Ewell's strong position. On Sunday, June 8, Jackson hoped to avoid a fight on the Sabbath, but a raid by Shields's cavalry, commanded by Col. Samuel S. Carroll, almost captured the Confederate trains in Port Republic and Jackson himself narrowly escaped by galloping over a bridge across the North River.
Cross Keys (June 8)
Frémont moved cautiously to approach Ewell's position on the morning of June 8, assuming that he was outnumbered, although he actually outnumbered the Confederates 11,500 to 5,800. (Richard Taylor's brigade was detached from Ewell's division for service with Jackson.) His men were held up by the determined skirmishers of the 15th Alabama Infantry for over an hour and he was unable to bring up his guns until 10 a.m. His opening artillery barrage was ineffective and did little more than alert Jackson at Port Republic that the battle had started. Frémont's men were arranged in a line running southwest to northeast on the Keezletown Road, facing Ewell's strong position about a mile south on a ridge behind Mill Creek, with both flanks anchored by dense woods. As they advanced, they wheeled left to become roughly parallel with the Confederate line. At about noon the Federal brigade on the left, commanded by Brig. Gen. Julius Stahel, chased a group of North Carolina skirmishers from Brig. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble's brigade across a clearing and up a hill, only to be surprised by a wave of musket fire. The 500 men of the 8th New York Infantry suffered nearly 50% casualties in the engagement.
By mid-afternoon, Frémont had sent only five of his 24 regiments into battle and Ewell expected another attack. The impatient Trimble launched his own offensive against a Union battery, which took his brigade a mile in advance of the rest of Ewell's division. He and his men sat there for the rest of the afternoon, inviting an attack that never came. As Frémont withdrew his men back to the Keezletown Road, Ewell decided against a counterattack, knowing that his force was seriously outnumbered. Trimble proposed the idea of a night attack to both Ewell and Jackson, but neither general agreed. The Confederates merely advanced to the previous Union position, ending a battle that, considering the percentage of troops engaged, was little more than a skirmish. Union casualties were 684, Confederate only 288, although two of Ewell's brigade commanders, Brig. Gens. Arnold Elzey and George H. Steuart, were badly wounded.
Stonewall Jackson's plan for June 9 was to concentrate his forces and overwhelm the outnumbered Shields at Port Republic. He rightly assumed that Frémont would be too shaken to launch a major attack and that he could be held at bay with a mere token force, so he ordered the majority of Ewell's division to withdraw under the cover of darkness. They slipped away from Frémont and crossed the North River bridge. A hastily constructed bridge across the South River allowed the Confederates to move into the foggy, flat bottomland below the south bank of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. The Stonewall Brigade led the advance on the road to Conrad's Store, the direction from which Shields would be approaching. Also that morning, Jackson ordered his trains to begin a march into Brown's Gap.
Port Republic (June 9)
Jackson learned at 7 a.m. that the Federals were approaching his column. Without proper reconnaissance or waiting for the bulk of his force to come up, he ordered Winder's Stonewall Brigade to charge through the thinning fog. The brigade was caught between artillery on its flank and rifle volleys to its front and fell back in disarray. They had run into two brigades at the vanguard of Shields's army, 3,000 men under Brig. Gen. Erastus B. Tyler. Attempting to extricate himself from a potential disaster, Jackson realized that the Union artillery fire was coming from a spur of the Blue Ridge that was known locally as the Coaling, where charcoal was made by a local family for their blacksmith shop. Jackson and Winder sent the 2nd and 4th Virginia Infantry regiments through the thick underbrush up the hill, where they encountered three Union infantry regiments supporting the artillery and were repulsed.
After his assault on the Coaling failed, Jackson ordered the rest of Ewell's division, primarily Trimble's brigade, to cross over the North River bridge and burn it behind them, keeping Frémont's men isolated to the north of the River. While he waited for these troops to arrive, Jackson reinforced his line with the 7th Louisiana Infantry of Taylor's brigade and ordered Taylor to make another attempt against the Union batteries. Winder perceived that the Federals were about to attack, so he ordered a preemptive charge, but in the face of point-blank volleys and running low on ammunition, the Stonewall Brigade was routed. At this point, Ewell arrived on the battlefield and ordered the 44th and 58th Virginia Infantry regiments to strike the left flank of the advancing Union battle line. Tyler's men fell back, but reorganized and drove Ewell's men into the forest south of the Coaling.
Taylor attacked the infantry and artillery on the Coaling three times before prevailing, but having achieved their objective, were faced by a new charge from three Ohio regiments. It was only the surprise appearance by Ewell's troops that convinced Tyler to withdraw his men. The Confederates began bombarding the Union troops on the flat lands, with Ewell himself gleefully manning one of the cannons. More Confederate reinforcements began to arrive, including the brigade of Brig. Gen. William B. Taliaferro, and the Union army reluctantly began to withdraw. Jackson remarked to Ewell, "General, he who does not see the hand of God in this is blind, sir, blind."
The Battle of Port Republic had been poorly managed by Jackson and was the most damaging to the Confederates in terms of casualties—816 against a force one half his size (about 6,000 to 3,500). Union casualties were 1,002, with a high percentage representing prisoners. Historian Peter Cozzens blames Jackson's piecemeal deployment of troops for his heavy losses and argues that it was a battle that did not need to have been fought—the Confederates could have easily burned the North River bridge and slipped into the Blue Ridge via Brown's Gap Turnpike without losses. Union soldiers were particularly upset with the performance of their commanders, Shields and Frémont, and both of their military careers faded. Frémont resigned his command just weeks later, rather than be subordinated to his rival Maj. Gen. John Pope. He resigned his commission in June 1864. Shields received no more combat assignments and resigned from the Army in March 1863.
Aftermath
After Jackson's victories at Cross Keys and Port Republic, the Union forces withdrew. Frémont marched back to Harrisonburg, where he was frustrated to find orders from Lincoln he had not received in time, telling him not to advance beyond that town against Jackson. As the weather became clear, Jackson's cavalry under Col. Thomas T. Munford harassed Frémont's withdrawal, which reached Mount Jackson on June 11, and then unencumbered to Middletown on June 14 where he joined with Banks and Brig. Gen. Franz Sigel. Shields, who complained bitterly about the exhaustion of his division, marched slowly to Front Royal and on June 21 marched across the Blue Ridge to join Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell.
Jackson sent messages to Richmond requesting that his force be augmented to 40,000 men so that he could assume the offensive down the Valley and across the Potomac. Lee sent him about 14,000 reinforcements, but then revealed his plan to call Jackson to Richmond to counterattack McClellan's Army of the Potomac and drive it away from Richmond. He needed all of the combat power he could muster and he wanted Jackson to attack the relatively unprotected right flank of McClellan's army, north of the Chickahominy River. Shortly after midnight on June 18, Jackson's men began to march toward the Virginia Peninsula. They fought with Lee in the Seven Days Battles, from June 25 to July 1. Jackson delivered an uncharacteristically lethargic performance in many of those battles, perhaps because of the physical strains of the Valley campaign and the exhausting march to Richmond.
With the success of his Valley campaign, Stonewall Jackson became the most celebrated soldier in the Confederacy (until his reputation was eventually eclipsed by Lee's), and his victories lifted the morale of the public. In a classic military campaign of surprise and maneuver, he pressed his army to travel 646 miles (1,040 km) in 48 days of marching and won five significant victories with a force of about 17,000 against a combined force of over 50,000. Jackson had accomplished his difficult mission, causing Washington to withhold over 40,000 troops from McClellan's offensive. Military historians Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones summarized a successful campaign:
On the Union side, a command shakeup resulted from the embarrassing defeat by a smaller force. McDowell's corps remained in the defense of Washington, with only one division (under Brig. Gen. George A. McCall) able to join McClellan on the Peninsula. Lincoln was disillusioned by the command difficulties of controlling multiple forces in this campaign and created a single new army, the Army of Virginia, under Maj. Gen. John Pope, incorporating the units of Banks, Frémont, McDowell, and several smaller ones from around Washington and western Virginia. This army was soundly defeated by Lee and Jackson in August at the Second Battle of Bull Run during the northern Virginia campaign.
Notes/References
Bibliography
External links
Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862 in Encyclopedia Virginia
Animated history of Jackson's Valley Campaign
1862 in Virginia
Military operations of the American Civil War in Virginia
Campaigns of the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donovan%20McNabb
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Donovan McNabb
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Donovan Jamal McNabb (born November 25, 1976) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the Philadelphia Eagles. He played college football at Syracuse University and was selected second overall in the 1999 NFL Draft by the Eagles, where he spent 11 seasons. McNabb also spent a year each with the Washington Redskins and Minnesota Vikings. He was inducted to the Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Fame in 2013.
As the Eagles' starting quarterback from 1999 to 2009, McNabb led the team to eight playoff appearances (including five consecutive from 2000 to 2004), five division titles (including four consecutive from 2001 to 2004), five NFC Championship Games (including four consecutive from 2001 to 2004), and one Super Bowl appearance in Super Bowl XXXIX. McNabb ranks eighth in quarterback rushing yards and was the fourth NFL quarterback to amass over 30,000 passing yards, 200 touchdown passes, 3,000 rushing yards, and 20 rushing touchdowns. He is also the Eagles' franchise leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns, attempts, and completions.
Early years
McNabb was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Mount Carmel High School, where as a sophomore, he was a teammate of future NFL players Simeon Rice and Matt Cushing. Together, they helped Mount Carmel win the 1991 State Championship over Wheaton Central High School. As a senior, he led the team to a Chicago Prep Bowl championship. He also excelled at track and field, and played basketball with Antoine Walker.
College career
Though McNabb was approached by recruiters from numerous colleges, only two schools, Syracuse University and the University of Nebraska, offered him scholarships to play college football as a quarterback. He initially leaned toward attending Nebraska, as he relished the idea of being coached by Tom Osborne. Eventually, however, he decided to attend Syracuse and play for the Syracuse Orange football team, principally because he wanted to prove he was a competent "pocket passer", but also for their broadcasting journalism program.
After redshirting in 1994, his first year at Syracuse, McNabb went on to start every game during his college career, compiling a 35–14 record. As a freshman, he completed the longest touchdown pass in Syracuse's history—a 96-yard throw against West Virginia University—in a game where he accounted for 354 total yards of offense; he was named the Big East Conference's rookie of the year at the end of the season. McNabb amassed 2,892 yards of total offense in his junior season to set a school record. As a senior, he led Syracuse to a berth in the Orange Bowl against Florida, as he completed 157 of 251 passes (62.5%) for 2,134 yards; he also pushed the eventual champions, the Tennessee Volunteers, to the limit in a very close game. His 22 touchdown passes tied the school's single-season record, set by former Eagle Don McPherson in 1987. McNabb also rushed 135 times for 438 yards and eight touchdowns. He ranked sixth in the nation with a 158.9 passing efficiency rating and 22nd in total offense, with 233.8 yards per game. He tied a school record with four touchdown passes against Cincinnati, and scored five touchdowns against Miami (three rushing and two passing). McNabb was also teammates with future NFL star Marvin Harrison for one season at Syracuse.
McNabb was named the Big East's offensive player of the decade for the 1990s, and Big East Offensive Player of the Year three times from 1996 to 1998, as well as the first-team all-conference vote earner in each of his four seasons. He was a finalist for the 1998 Heisman Trophy. Later, he was named to the Syracuse All-Century football team.
McNabb was also a walk-on for two seasons for the Syracuse basketball team under head coach Jim Boeheim. He spent two years as a reserve on the school's nationally ranked basketball team, including the 1996 squad that lost to Kentucky (a team led by his former high-school teammate Antoine Walker) in the National Championship game.
Statistics
Football statistics
Big East records
2nd – touchdown passes (77)
2nd – touchdowns responsible for (96) behind Pat White
5th – passing yards (8,389)
3rd – total offensive yards (9,950) behind Matt Grothe and Pat White
1st – total offensive plays (1,403)
Syracuse University records
1st – total yards per game (221.1)
1st – passing efficiency (155.1)
1st – yards per attempt (9.1)
Basketball statistics
Source:
Professional career
Philadelphia Eagles
1999: Rookie season
McNabb was drafted in the first round as the second overall pick by the Eagles, behind first pick Tim Couch, in the 1999 NFL Draft. A group of Eagles fans known as the "Dirty 30" were sent to the draft by sports radio host Angelo Cataldi and Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell. The two believed the Eagles would select running back Ricky Williams and they wanted the fans to cheer the selection. However, when the Eagles selected McNabb the "Dirty 30" ended up loudly booing McNabb when he appeared on stage. McNabb was the second of five quarterbacks selected in the first 12 picks of a quarterback-rich class that was at that point considered the best quarterback draft since the famous class of 1983. However, only McNabb and Daunte Culpepper went on to have successful careers in the NFL; Tim Couch struggled with the Cleveland Browns and officially retired in 2007 after being cut by the Jacksonville Jaguars in a failed comeback bid, while Akili Smith and Cade McNown were out of the NFL by 2002. By 2006, only McNabb was still with the team that originally drafted him.
McNabb saw his first NFL regular-season action in the second half against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a 19–5 home loss on September 19. He made his first career start at home against Washington on November 14, completing eight of 21 passes for 60 yards in a 35–28 win. He also had nine carries for 49 rushing yards and led the team to a pair of successful two-point conversions (one rush and one pass). He was the first Eagles rookie to start at quarterback since Brad Goebel, and the first Eagles rookie draft pick to start since John Reaves in 1972. With the win, McNabb became the first Eagles rookie quarterback to win his first NFL start since Mike Boryla (December 1, 1974, against Green Bay) and the first Eagle quarterback to win his first start since Ty Detmer (October 13, 1996, against the New York Giants).
McNabb threw the first touchdown pass of his career (six yards to tight end Chad Lewis) against the Indianapolis Colts in a 44–17 home loss on November 21, 1999. McNabb went on to start six of the Eagles' final seven contests (missing the December 19 home game against the New England Patriots, a 24–9 victory, due to injury).
2000–2003: NFC East championship runs
In his first full season as an NFL starter in 2000, McNabb finished second in the Associated Press MVP voting (24–11) to St. Louis Rams running back Marshall Faulk, who set the NFL record for most touchdowns scored in a season. McNabb made his primetime debut on ESPN against the Atlanta Falcons at home on October 1, with his first 300-yard passing game in a 38–10 victory and the Eagles' first 300-yard passer since Bobby Hoying against the Cincinnati Bengals at home on November 30, 1997. McNabb's 55 pass attempts at Pittsburgh in a come-from-behind 26–23 overtime victory on November 12 were then a career high and tied for the fourth-highest total in team history. He was named the NFC Offensive Player of the Week after accounting for 90.7% of the offense in a 23–20 victory at Washington on November 26. His 125 rushing yards were the most by an NFL quarterback since the Chicago Bears' Bobby Douglass rushed for 127 on December 17, 1972, and was the eighth-best rushing effort by a quarterback since 1940 when the T formation was introduced. He threw a career-high 390 passing yards and four touchdowns in a 35–24 victory at the Cleveland Browns on December 10 en route to his second NFC Offensive Player of the Week award. McNabb led the Eagles to their first playoff appearance since 1996, where they defeated the favored Tampa Bay Buccaneers 21–3 in the Wild Card Round before losing to the New York Giants 20–10 in the Divisional Round.
McNabb was selected as a first alternate to the NFC Pro Bowl squad in 2000 (behind Daunte Culpepper, Jeff Garcia, and Kurt Warner). When Warner was unable to participate due to injury, McNabb took his spot. He accounted for 74.6% of the team's total net yards in 2000, third highest in the NFL. Only Carolina's Steve Beuerlein (75.3%) and San Francisco's Garcia (75.1%) had a higher percentage. His 629 rushing yards in 2000 led the Eagles, made McNabb only the third quarterback since 1970 to lead his team in rushing, and at the time was the fourth-highest season rushing total by a quarterback (968 by Bobby Douglass in 1972, 942 by Randall Cunningham in 1990, and 674 by Steve McNair in 1997). His six rushing touchdowns in 2000 were the most by an Eagles quarterback since Randall Cunningham, who also had six in 1988. McNabb broke the club's single-season record for most attempts (569) and completions (330) in 2000, marks previously set by Cunningham (560 and 301, respectively) in 1988. He was named 2000 NFL Player of the Year by CBS Radio and the Terry (Bradshaw) Awards on Fox Sports and was named to the All-Madden team.
In 2001, McNabb led the Eagles to an 11–5 season and fourth-quarter comebacks in two wins against the defending NFC champion New York Giants. At the Meadowlands on October 22, his 18-yard pass to James Thrash with 1:52 remaining gave the Eagles a 10–9 victory, and their first win over the Giants in ten games. He also wiped out a 21–14 deficit on December 30, engineering two fourth-quarter scores as the Eagles clinched their first NFC East title in thirteen years with a 24–21 win. In NFC Divisional Round against the Chicago Bears on January 19, 2002, he was 26-of-40 for 262 yards and two touchdowns passing and adding 37 yards and a touchdown on the ground, which was also the final touchdown at the old Soldier Field. He became only the fourth quarterback in Eagles history to pass for 3,000 yards in consecutive seasons – Sonny Jurgensen (1961–62), Ron Jaworski (1980–81), and Randall Cunningham (1988–90) were the others. McNabb's Eagles advanced to the NFC Championship for the first time since 1980, losing to the heavily favored St. Louis Rams.
McNabb earned his second trip to the Pro Bowl (was originally elected as an alternate) following the 2001 season after combining for 3,715 yards of total offense and establishing career highs in touchdown passes (25) and quarterback rating (84.3). Including the playoffs, he threw touchdown passes in 15 of 18 games and two-or-more in 12 of those games. He was named by his teammates as the club's offensive MVP in 2000 and 2001. During the off-season, McNabb signed a new contract with the Eagles worth $115 million over 12 years, with a $20.5 million signing bonus.
In 2002, McNabb was named NFC Offensive Player of the Month for September, his first time receiving that award. During that month, McNabb led the Eagles to a franchise-record 140 points through four games. In that span, he accounted for 71.5 percent of the club's offensive production, and completed 92 of 150 passes for 1,050 yards and nine touchdowns with three interceptions for a 92.2 passer rating. He also rushed for 141 yards and two touchdowns. In week 11 of the 2002 season, McNabb suffered a broken fibula. On the third play of the game against the Arizona Cardinals, he was sacked by the Cardinals' Adrian Wilson and LeVar Woods. He fumbled the ball, fell to the ground, and held his right leg. He went to the locker room to have his ankle taped, but returned for the Eagles' second drive. His injury was reported to be a sprained ankle, but X-rays after the game revealed that McNabb had broken his fibula. During the game, however, he was 20-of-25 passing, with 255 yards and four touchdowns. McNabb was out for the last six weeks of the regular season. A dominant defense helped A. J. Feeley and Koy Detmer go a combined 5–1 to finish the season. McNabb returned to face the Atlanta Falcons in the Divisional Round of the playoffs, but he recovered slowly. The Eagles defeated the Falcons 20–6, but were upset at home by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 27–10 in the NFC Championship. Following the injury, McNabb's willingness to run decreased, and his rushing statistics never matched the high standards set in his first four years. However, this was not a detriment to McNabb or the Eagles, as McNabb's offensive output increased in the years after his fourth season.
In late September 2003, McNabb was the subject of very controversial comments made by Rush Limbaugh, who worked as a commentator for ESPN at the time, stating that McNabb was overrated, and that, "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well". The comments came after the Eagles began the season 0–2, losing to defending Super Bowl champion Buccaneers and eventual champion New England, both losses coming in their newly opened stadium, Lincoln Financial Field. Many responses from commentators, football players, coaches, and other public figures were sharply critical of Limbaugh. Limbaugh resigned from ESPN within days, and the long-term implications of the remarks were revisited in 2021 after Limbaugh's death from lung cancer.
Despite the slow beginning in the 2003 season, McNabb again led his team to the NFC Championship, highlighted by the Eagles' comeback overtime win against the Green Bay Packers in the Divisional Round. The NFL placed this game at #69 on its list of 100 greatest games in the first 100 years of NFL history. McNabb became the first quarterback to rush for more than 100 yards in a postseason game, surpassing the previous record which Otto Graham held for over 50 years. He also completed the critical 4th and 26 pass to Freddie Mitchell during the game-tying drive at the end of regulation. Later analysis published in 2012 by Advanced Football Analytics and the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports determined that the Eagles’ odds of tying the score under those conditions was “a whopping 1 out of 175."
Although the slow start hindered his overall statistics for 2003, McNabb had the highest quarterback rating (97.5) in the NFL for the second half of the season and also completed over 62% of his passes for over eight yards per attempt. With Philadelphia's 14–3 home loss to the underdog Carolina Panthers in the NFC Championship, McNabb joined Ken Stabler of the Oakland Raiders (1973–1975) and Danny White of the Dallas Cowboys (1980–1982) as the only quarterbacks to lead a team to defeats in conference title games for three consecutive seasons, prompting some observers to conclude that McNabb "chokes" in big games (his cumulative passer rating in the three conference championship games was 50.5 – a figure about 10 points lower than what the worst quarterback in the league earns over the course of a typical year). McNabb was knocked out of the NFC Championship after being hit on the ground by Panthers' linebacker Greg Favors after he had been tripped up on a broken play.
The Eagles’ successes from 2000 to 2003 came despite McNabb having only one receiving target who appeared in the Pro Bowl during that time, tight end Chad Lewis. The Eagles also arguably had a starting wide receiver corps among the league's worst over that period. In 2003, Philadelphia's wide receivers caught only five touchdown passes, tying the record for fewest in a 16-game season. By going the entire months of September and October without having a wide receiver catch a touchdown pass, the 2003 Eagles became the first NFL team since 1945 not to have gotten a touchdown pass from any of its wide receivers in the first two months of a season.
2004: Super Bowl XXXIX
McNabb finally amassed the kind of numbers that placed him firmly as one of the elite NFL quarterbacks statistically. He averaged 8.26 yards per attempt, completed 64.0% of his passes, threw 31 touchdown passes (he also ran for three more), and had only eight interceptions. These numbers translated to a passer rating of 104.7. Further, he became the first quarterback in league history to throw over 30 touchdowns and fewer than 10 interceptions in a single season. This dramatic improvement coincided with a massive upgrading of the Eagles' receiving corps, namely the arrival of Terrell Owens, who caught 77 passes for 1,200 yards and 14 touchdowns in only 14 games. As a result, the Eagles won their first seven games of the season for the first time in franchise history, clinched first place in their division with five weeks still to play in the regular season, and won the NFC East by a record-tying seven-game margin in posting a 13–3 record, the franchise's best 16-game season ever.
McNabb's finest moment of the season and of his career came that year in a week-13 game with fellow Super Bowl-contending Green Bay Packers. After starting the game completing his first 14 passes (an NFL record), he led the Eagles to a 47–17 blowout victory. McNabb passed for an Eagles' record 464 yards and five touchdowns, which all came in the first half.
In the playoffs, McNabb led the Eagles to their second Super Bowl appearance, with victories over the Minnesota Vikings 27–14 in the Divisional Round and Atlanta Falcons 27–10 in the NFC Championship. Owens was not in the lineup during the two playoff victories, and was recovering from a broken ankle. McNabb became only the third African-American quarterback to start in a Super Bowl after Doug Williams in 1987 and Steve McNair in 1999.
McNabb led his team against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX. McNabb struggled at times as the Patriots' defense stifled the Eagles’ running attack, limiting the team to only 45 yards rushing. Almost half of those yards were gained on a 22-yard run by Brian Westbrook as time expired at the end of the first half, and the Eagles ballcarriers averaged less than 1.5 yards per rush (23 yards on 16 carries) during the rest of the game. The Eagles' receiving corps was also depleted, as TE Chad Lewis missed the game due to injury, and WR Todd Pinkston was forced to leave the game due to dehydration after catching four passes in the first half for 82 yards. McNabb threw three crucial interceptions, two of which were thrown in New England territory, and one of those two was inside the 20-yard line. The final interception was during a last-gasp Hail Mary at the end of the game. He was also sacked four times. Controversy surrounded the end of the game, as center Hank Fraley claimed that McNabb was seriously ill. Wide receiver Freddie Mitchell claimed that he had to call a few plays due to McNabb's illness. However, in an interview with NBC, McNabb said he was not sick and did not throw up. He just said he was tired. Some reports claim that McNabb had the wind knocked out of him by an earlier hit, while others assert that he was unduly fatigued (McNabb also suffered from a bout of nausea at the conclusion of a 2002 regular-season game played at Alltel Stadium, where Super Bowl XXXIX was contested). An article written by a staff member of The Philadelphia Inquirer refuted allegations of McNabb throwing up during the Super Bowl and even labeled the alleged incident "a myth". Both head coach Andy Reid and McNabb have denied any physical problems that led to the puzzlingly slow pace of play. Despite all of the problems, McNabb finished the game with 30 completions for 357 yards, the third-highest total for both categories in Super Bowl history, and three touchdowns, the only points in the game for Philadelphia. Despite McNabb's efforts, the Eagles lost by a score of 24–21.
2005–2007: Injuries
McNabb's 2005 season began in turmoil and ended on the injured reserve list. While not speaking to his main target, Terrell Owens, and all the distractions that came with the Owens controversy, McNabb performed well in September and was named the NFC's Offensive Player of the Month for the fourth time. That month, McNabb threw 964 yards, eight touchdowns, and only two interceptions in three games, leading the Eagles to a 2–1 record. McNabb carried that momentum into October as he went 33-for-48 (68.8% completions), and threw 369 yards and three touchdowns en route to leading the Eagles to a memorable come-from-behind victory at an unfriendly Arrowhead Stadium against the Kansas City Chiefs 37–31. McNabb could not keep the momentum rolling, however, as the Eagles lost four straight games. Over that span, McNabb posted a passer rating higher than 72 only once, on November 6, at the Washington Redskins. After playing with a sports hernia and sore thumb, McNabb's season was finally over after a disastrous effort at home on November 14 on Monday night against the rival Dallas Cowboys. McNabb was intercepted by Roy Williams towards the end of the game, and tried to tackle the defender when Scott Shanle came in and tackled McNabb to the ground. McNabb had injured his groin on the play and was placed on the injured-reserve list later that week. Mike McMahon replaced him at quarterback, and went 2–5 as a starter, with the Eagles finishing the season with a 6–10 record overall. Though low for his standards, McNabb put up respectable numbers in 2005. In nine games, he threw 2,507 yards, 16 touchdowns, and nine interceptions. To go along with that, he completed 59.1% (211–357) of his passes.
McNabb and the Eagles began the 2006 season at 4–1 before stumbling to 5–4 heading into a week-11 game against the Tennessee Titans on November 19. During the game, McNabb tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and meniscus in his right knee while jumping out of bounds, ending his season, the third time in five years McNabb had gone down with six or more games remaining in the regular season. Eagles officials stated that his rehabilitation would likely last 8–12 months, which completely ended his 2006 season and even raised questions as to whether he would be ready to begin playing by the beginning of the 2007 season. In the meantime, veteran backup quarterback Jeff Garcia took McNabb's place as the Eagles' starting quarterback. Garcia had success, leading the Eagles from 5–5 after the Tennessee game to 10–6 and winners of the NFC East Division. The Eagles went on to win their home playoff game in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs against the New York Giants, 23–20, with Garcia under center. However, in the following Divisional Round, they were defeated by the New Orleans Saints in the Superdome, 27–24.
Having played nearly up to full speed in the preseason games, it was decided that McNabb would return to the field several months short of the full year-long recovery expected of an ACL injury. In the season opener against the Green Bay Packers, the Eagles and McNabb suffered a 16–13 loss. McNabb had his share of problems, completing less than half of his passes for 184 yards and one touchdown. The Eagles lost their first home game of the season to the rival Washington Redskins, 20–12, though his numbers improved. As week 3 approached, skeptics had already wondered whether McNabb still had the skill that propelled him to success in the past. The Eagles defeated the Detroit Lions in a 56–21 win in week 3. McNabb completed 21 of his 26 attempted passes for 381 yards. Four of those passes went for touchdowns (three of them went to Kevin Curtis), all in the first half. He was 14 of 15 for 332 yards in the first half. His performance against the Lions was highlighted by his first perfect (158.3) quarterback rating game. However, week 4 did not prove to be as good as the Eagles thought it would be. The Eagles endured yet another loss, this time to the New York Giants. The Giants' defense, led by defensive end Osi Umenyiora, sacked McNabb a record-tying 12 times. McNabb completed 15 of 31 attempted passes for 138 yards and no touchdowns. The Eagles split their next four games. In Week 10, in the Eagles' second divisional game against Washington, McNabb passed for four touchdowns in the 33–25 victory. In the following game, against the Miami Dolphins, McNabb injured his right ankle and missed the next two games. He finished the 2007 season with 3,324 passing yards, 19 passing touchdowns, and seven interceptions in 14 games.
During a win against the Cowboys, sideline reporter Pam Oliver reported during the game that McNabb indicated that he did not expect to be back in Philadelphia for the 2008 season. McNabb later indicated that this was not true, and stated that although he believed rookie Kevin Kolb's time would come, he would be an Eagle the next season.
2008
At the conclusion of the 2007 season, McNabb faced criticism for asking for "playmakers" on his yardbarker blog. He did, however, deny he was taking a shot at anyone in particular, saying "We were 8–8. There is room for improvement."
McNabb caused another mild stir in camp when he suggested that the Eagles should not have lost a game to any of their NFC East opponents the previous season. He felt that they were just a few plays away from being a playoff team. He even went on to say, "I still put us at the top of the NFC." In week 1 of the 2008 NFL season, McNabb threw for 361 yards (the most of any quarterback that week) and three touchdowns, which included a 90-yard toss to Hank Baskett at the end of the second quarter. This performance led to him receiving the FedEx Air Player of the Week award. In week 3 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, McNabb threw his 176th career touchdown, passing Ron Jaworski and becoming the Eagles' all-time touchdown-pass leader.
McNabb set a career high with 58 passing attempts (completing 28), and tied a career high with three interceptions in the NFL's first tie game in six years, when the Eagles faced the Cincinnati Bengals and ended up with a 13–13 tie. McNabb later admitted that he was not aware that an NFL regular-season game could end in a tie, leading to controversy because this could have affected game strategy. After the game, he stated "I never even knew that was in the rulebook. It's part of the rules, and we have to go with it. I was looking forward to the next opportunity to get out there and try to win the game. I hate to see what happens in the Super Bowl, and I hate to see what happens in the playoffs, to settle with a tie."
After the tie, McNabb struggled in a game against the Baltimore Ravens, going 8-of-18 for 54 yards with two interceptions and a fumble, and being sacked twice. In the second half, Andy Reid decided to go with Kevin Kolb, who was in his second year in the league. This was McNabb's first time being benched for something other than injury or a meaningless game. In the game, Kolb threw an interception that was returned 108 yards for a touchdown by safety Ed Reed, breaking the record he previously held for longest interception returned for a touchdown.
Despite his up-and-down season, McNabb helped the Eagles reach the playoffs for the seventh time in his nine seasons as a starter. He also set a career high with 3,916 yards passing and led the Eagles to a franchise-record 416 points.
In the Wild Card Round, McNabb threw 300 yards, including a 71-yard touchdown to Brian Westbrook, to lead Philadelphia to a 26–14 win over the Minnesota Vikings.
On January 11, 2009, McNabb led the Eagles past the defending champions, the New York Giants, in the Divisional Round of the playoffs. The Eagles won 23–11 and advanced to the NFC Championship against the Arizona Cardinals, whom they defeated earlier in the season. In the game, McNabb was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct, when after being tackled into the Giants' sideline after a lengthy run, he picked up the Giants' coaching phone in jest. The Eagles lost the game, giving McNabb a 1–4 record in conference championships, matching Ken Stabler with the lowest winning percentage in conference championships for a quarterback who has won it. This would later be matched by Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers in 2021, when he lost his fourth straight conference championship after winning his first trip to the game in 2010.
2009
In the 2009 NFL Draft, the Eagles picked Missouri Tigers star wide receiver Jeremy Maclin to add to McNabb's receiving corps, with Kevin Curtis and DeSean Jackson. While Curtis only caught 77 yards, Maclin had 773 yards and four touchdowns in a respectable rookie season, while Desean Jackson had his first 1,000-yard season. Another reliable target for McNabb was the new starting tight end Brent Celek, with whom he connected 76 times for 971 yards and eight touchdowns.
McNabb also encouraged the Eagles to sign quarterback Michael Vick to the team as a backup upon his release from prison for his part in a criminal dog fighting operation. McNabb stated that he was excited that the Eagles gave Vick an opportunity to get his life back on track, and The New York Times described McNabb's role in Vick's signing as “an act of selflessness not often seen among professional athletes.”
In the season opener, McNabb led the Eagles to a 38–10 win over the Carolina Panthers. He completed 10 of his 18 passes for a total of 79 yards and two touchdowns. However, Andy Reid said the following Monday that McNabb broke a rib while rushing for a touchdown in the third quarter. The Eagles were hopeful McNabb would start in the week-2 game against the New Orleans Saints, but he was kept on the sidelines in both weeks 2 and 3. Kevin Kolb replaced him, and the Eagles lost to the Saints, but beat the Kansas City Chiefs the next week. Following the Eagles bye week in week 4, McNabb returned in the week-5 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, completing 16 of his 21 attempts for 264 yards and three touchdowns and being responsible for 210 of the 219 yards that the Eagles offense managed in total in the first half.
McNabb reached 200 career touchdowns and 30,000 career yards passed in a win against the Washington Redskins on October 26, 2009, with a 45-yard touchdown pass to DeSean Jackson.
Philadelphia met the Dallas Cowboys in week 16 with the winner becoming the NFC East champions. Philadelphia lost in a 24–0 shutout by Dallas, setting up a rematch the following week in Dallas in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.
The Wild Card Round rematch with Dallas proved to be just as disastrous, if not worse. McNabb struggled early on and was unable to get the offense into a rhythm until too late. His lone score came in the second half from a touchdown to DeSean Jackson. Philadelphia fell 34–14 to Dallas, marking the first time McNabb had ever lost a first-round playoff game. Despite having had arguably one of his best seasons statistically in 2009, McNabb began to face criticism and speculation about his future with the Eagles. McNabb was given Pro Bowl honors for the last time in his career.
Washington Redskins
In the press conference following the Eagles' loss to Dallas, and even up to April 1, Andy Reid stated that McNabb would remain the starting quarterback in Philadelphia for the 2010 season. However, on April 4, the Eagles traded McNabb to the Washington Redskins in return for a second-round (37th overall) pick in the 2010 NFL draft and a conditional third- or fourth-round pick in the 2011 NFL draft. The conditional pick became a fourth-round pick in 2011, which was traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in exchange for a lower fourth-round pick in 2011 and a fourth-round pick in 2012. The fourth-round pick in 2012 was then traded, along with a 2012 third-round pick, to the Houston Texans for a lower 2012 third-round pick, which would be used to select quarterback Nick Foles and linebacker DeMeco Ryans.
In the first week of the 2010 season, McNabb and head coach Mike Shanahan led the Redskins to a 13–7 victory over the Dallas Cowboys. In week 2, McNabb nearly engineered a victory over the Houston Texans, passing for 426 yards (third-most of his career), but came up just short of a victory when the Texans prevailed 30–27 in overtime. In week 4, on October 3, McNabb played against the Eagles for the first time, returning with the Redskins to Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Although McNabb posted only pedestrian statistics, the Redskins won 17–12. During pregame introductions, McNabb received a standing ovation from Eagles fans, then hugged former coach Andy Reid at their postgame handshake.
In week 5, McNabb struggled for the first three quarters, but rallied the Redskins to a 16–13 overtime victory against the eventual-Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers at FedExField. He was 26–49 for 357 yards with one touchdown and one interception. In week 6, McNabb was 29 of 45 for 246 yards. He threw one touchdown and was intercepted twice, with the second interception coming on fourth down in the last minute of the fourth quarter against the visiting Indianapolis Colts. The Redskins fell to the Colts 27–24. McNabb's passer rating was 67.5.
In week 8, Shanahan stated in a press conference that McNabb would remain the Redskins' starting quarterback. On November 15, 2010, McNabb signed a five-year extension worth $78 million ($3.5 million guaranteed) with a chance to make it $88 million by completing incentives. The deal stated that if McNabb was not cut or traded at the conclusion of the 2010 season, he would receive a $10 million bonus. The same day, the Redskins suffered a 59–28 loss to his former team, the Eagles, at home on Monday Night Football. McNabb finished the game going 17 of 31 for 295 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions.
On December 17, 2010, head coach Mike Shanahan relegated McNabb to the third quarterback position for the rest of this season, stating that he wanted to evaluate backup Rex Grossman in game play.
McNabb had perhaps one of the worst years of his career since 1999, going down in touchdowns and up in interceptions. However, at the time McNabb was demoted to third string, he was on pace to total 4,156 passing yards for the season, which would have broken the Redskins' all-time franchise record, and been the first time he had exceeded the 4,000-yard mark in his career. McNabb was ranked 100th in the first ranking of NFL players by their peers on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2011.
Minnesota Vikings
On July 27, 2011, the Washington Redskins and Minnesota Vikings came to an agreement on terms for a trade. After restructuring his contract, Washington traded McNabb to Minnesota in exchange for a sixth-round draft pick in 2012 and a conditional sixth-round draft pick in 2013. McNabb was rumored to be a possible addition to the Vikings for the past three years, in part due to his relationship with then-coach Brad Childress, the former Eagles offensive coordinator. Vikings punter Chris Kluwe agreed to give McNabb his number 5 jersey, in exchange for a $5,000 donation to Kick for a Cure, McNabb to promote Kluwe's band "Tripping Icarus" during a press conference, and an ice cream cone.
After starting the 2011 season with a 1–5 record, on October 18, it was announced that McNabb would no longer be the starting quarterback for the Vikings, as the job was given to rookie Christian Ponder for the remainder of the season.
McNabb requested and was granted his release from the team on December 1, 2011, with a reported interest in joining the Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs, or his hometown Chicago Bears, all three of which lost their starting quarterbacks for the season to injury, but were still making playoff pushes. While the Texans and Chiefs signed Jake Delhomme and Kyle Orton, respectively, prior to McNabb becoming a free agent, the Bears did not sign anyone and expressed interest in adding McNabb. It was ultimately decided that it was too late to add a free-agent quarterback for the playoff hunt, as it would be tough to grasp their offense in the short period of time. The Bears subsequently signed Josh McCown.
On July 29, 2013, McNabb officially retired from professional football as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.
NFL career statistics
Totaled 3,341 yards on 587 carries and 28 touchdowns rushing in his career, along with 362 yards on 63 attempts and three touchdowns in the playoffs.
Seasons in top 5 (Bold = Led NFL):
Pass Completions: 2000, 2008
Total TDs: 2004
Total TDs Per Game: 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006
Passer Rating: 2004, 2006
Total Offense Per Game: 2002, 2005, 2006
Yards Per Attempt: 2004, 2006
Yards Per Completion: 2004, 2006, 2009
Interception %: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007
TD %: 2001, 2004, 2006
Game Winning Drives: 2003
Accomplishments
McNabb's accomplishments and career rankings include:
Led NFL in QB wins from 2000 to 2004. Ranked fourth in QB wins during his 13-year career behind Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Brett Favre.
Third quarterback since 1970 to lead his team in rushing in a season (2000).
As of the 2010 season, ranked fourth-best all-time in career interception percentage (2.20%) among NFL quarterbacks. Among quarterbacks with at least 1,500 pass attempts, only Aaron Rodgers (1.99%), Neil O'Donnell (2.11%), and Tom Brady (2.19%) have lower career interception percentages than McNabb.
As of the 2020 season:
Nine postseason wins tied for 12th-most among quarterbacks.
McNabb's regular season and postseason quarterback wins (107) and win percentage (0.607) both placed 17th among quarterbacks since 1970 (minimum 130 games started). Only ten quarterbacks placed higher in both categories.
Six Pro Bowl appearances tie for 5th-most in Eagles history, and are tied for 19th all-time among NFL quarterbacks.
Led the Eagles to five conference championship games. Tied for 6th-most in the Super Bowl era, and tied for 3rd-most in the NFC Championship Game.
Total touchdowns per game, interceptions per game, and career touchdown-to-interception ratio ranked 24th, 16th, and 10th respectively (minimum 3000 attempts).
Postseason passing touchdowns, total offensive yards, and pass completions ranked 14th (tied), 12th, and 10th respectively.
NFL records
First NFL quarterback to throw more than 30 touchdowns and less than 10 interceptions in a season (2004)
Tied with Jim Kelly for the most playoff wins by a quarterback who did not win the Super Bowl (9). John Elway holds the record for most playoff wins by a quarterback before eventually winning his first Super Bowl, with 10.
Tied with Troy Aikman for most consecutive appearances in the NFC Championship Game by a quarterback (4). Tom Brady holds the overall record, having led the New England Patriots to eight consecutive AFC Championship Game appearances.
Records formerly held by McNabb include:
Most consecutive pass attempts completed, with 24 over two games in 2004 against the New York Giants (his final 10 passes on November 28, 2004) and Green Bay Packers (his first 14 passes on December 5, 2004), until Ryan Tannehill broke this record on October 25, 2015, with 25 consecutive passes completed over two games. Mark Brunell and David Carr hold the record for most consecutive completed passes in a single game with 22. McNabb also completed 25 consecutive passes against the San Diego Chargers on October 23, 2005, but this record is not counted by the NFL as it included a spiking of the ball to stop the clock at the end of the half. The 2005 game was also noteworthy for Coach Reid calling for McNabb to have 25 pass attempts in a row, without interruption by a running play.
Most rushing yards by a quarterback in a postseason game, with 107 yards on January 11, 2004, against the Green Bay Packers. This was also the first time that an NFL quarterback surpassed 100 yards rushing in a postseason game. The previous record was 99 yards, set by Otto Graham in 1950. This record has been surpassed several times since, and is currently held by Colin Kaepernick, with 186 yards rushing against the Green Bay Packers on January 12, 2013. With this performance, McNabb also became the first quarterback to throw for 200 yards and rush for 100 yards in a postseason game.
Broadcasting career
In September 2012, McNabb joined the NFL Network as an analyst. In 2013, McNabb became an analyst on Fox Sports Live, Fox Sports 1's flagship program, and in August 2014, it was announced that McNabb would provide color commentary alongside Dick Stockton for a few games during the 2014 NFL season for Fox. He resigned from Fox in late 2015. In August 2016, McNabb became the lead analyst for beIN Sports college football coverage, and he also joined ESPN Radio as an analyst.
On December 12, 2017, McNabb was suspended by ESPN as the organization investigated allegations of sexual harassment when he worked at NFL Network. In January 2018, McNabb and fellow football analyst Eric Davis were officially fired from the network.
On September 18, 2023, McNabb joined Outkick for a new show The Five Spot With Donovan McNabb.
McNabb and his mother Wilma McNabb have done commercials for Campbell's Chunky Soup, which have been parodied on Saturday Night Live.
Personal life
McNabb married his college sweetheart, Raquel Ann Sarah "Roxie" Nurse, in June 2003. They have four children: daughter Alexis, who was born on September 23, 2004, twins Sariah and Donovan Jr., who were born in 2008, and Devin James, who was born in 2009. The family splits their time between homes in Moorestown, New Jersey and Chandler, Arizona.
In 2002, McNabb, who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in speech communication from Syracuse University, was named to the institution's board of trustees; he is one of the youngest trustees to have served there. McNabb currently is an athlete partner and serves on the advisory board for MODe Sports Nutrition.
McNabb also played basketball at Syracuse University as a reserve guard. In the 1996 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament national championship game against the University of Kentucky Wildcats, McNabb played against his former high-school teammate Antoine Walker.
McNabb is the brother-in-law of former Canadian Football League (CFL) player Richard Nurse. Through this marriage, McNabb is the uncle of Canadian ice hockey defenceman Darnell Nurse, who was the seventh overall pick by the Edmonton Oilers in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft, Kia Nurse, a professional basketball player for the Seattle Storm and the Canada women's national basketball team, and Sarah Nurse, who competed on Team Canada's national women's hockey team at the 2018 Winter Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympics.
In April 2014, McNabb served a one-day jail sentence in Maricopa County, Arizona, for a 2013 driving under the influence (DUI) conviction.
On June 28, 2015, McNabb was arrested for DUI following a traffic accident in Gilbert, Arizona. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 90 days, 18 to be served in jail and the remainder under house arrest. He was also assessed a $6,000 fine and required to do 30 hours of community service. He paid his fine and began serving his time on November 30, 2015. On December 18, McNabb was released from jail after having served an 18-day sentence, and then completed a 72-day house arrest sentence.
In 2000, McNabb started his own charity called the Donovan McNabb Fund to raise awareness about diabetes. The charity has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for diabetes awareness.
See also
List of NFL quarterbacks who have posted a perfect passer rating
References
External links
1976 births
Living people
African-American basketball players
African-American players of American football
American football quarterbacks
American men's basketball players
American philanthropists
Basketball players from Chicago
Basketball players from New Jersey
Basketball players from Philadelphia
Minnesota Vikings players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League announcers
National Football League players with retired numbers
Nurse family
Philadelphia Eagles players
Players of American football from Burlington County, New Jersey
Players of American football from Chandler, Arizona
Players of American football from Chicago
Players of American football from Philadelphia
Sportspeople from Moorestown, New Jersey
Sportspeople from the Delaware Valley
Sportspeople from the Phoenix metropolitan area
Syracuse Orange football players
Syracuse Orange men's basketball players
Washington Redskins players
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%20Gould%20Shaw
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Robert Gould Shaw
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Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863) was an American officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Born into a Boston upper class abolitionist family, he accepted command of the first all-black regiment (the 54th Massachusetts) in the Northeast. Supporting the promised equal treatment for his troops, he encouraged the men to refuse their pay until it was equal to that of white troops' wage.
He led his regiment at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner in July 1863. They attacked a beachhead near Charleston, South Carolina, and Shaw was shot and killed while leading his men to the parapet of the Confederate-held fort. Although the regiment was overwhelmed by firing from the defenses and driven back, suffering many casualties, Shaw's leadership and the regiment became legendary. They inspired hundreds of thousands more African Americans to enlist for the Union, helping to turn the tide of the war to its ultimate victory. Shaw's efforts and that of the 54th Massachusetts regiment were dramatized in the 1989 Oscar-winning film Glory.
Early life and education
Shaw was born in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, to abolitionists Francis George and Sarah Blake (Sturgis) Shaw, well-known Unitarian philanthropists and intellectuals. The Shaws had the benefit of a large inheritance left by Shaw's merchant grandfather and namesake Robert Gould Shaw (1775–1853). Shaw had four sisters: Anna, Josephine (Effie), Susanna, and Ellen (Nellie).
When Shaw was five years old, the family moved to a large estate in West Roxbury, adjacent to Brook Farm, which he visited with his father. During his teens he traveled and studied for some years in Europe. In 1847, the family moved to Staten Island, New York, and settled among a community of literati and abolitionists while Shaw attended preparatory school at the Second Division of St. John's College (now Fordham Preparatory School at Fordham University). These studies were at the behest of his uncle Joseph Coolidge Shaw, who had been ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1847. He converted to Catholicism during a trip to Rome, in which he befriended several members of the Oxford Movement, which had begun in the Anglican Church. Robert began his high school-level education at St. John's in 1850, the same year that Joseph Shaw began studying there for entrance into the Jesuits.
In 1851, while Shaw was still at St. John's, his uncle died from tuberculosis. Aged 13, Shaw had a difficult time adjusting to his surroundings and wrote several despondent letters home to his mother. In one of his letters, he claimed to be so homesick that he often cried in front of his classmates. While at St. John's, he studied Latin, Greek, French, and Spanish, and practiced playing the violin, which he had begun as a young boy.
He left St. John's in late 1851 before graduation, as the Shaw family departed for an extended tour of Europe. Shaw entered a boarding school in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, where he stayed for two years. Afterward, his father transferred him to a school with a less strict system of discipline in Hanover, Germany, hoping that it would better suit his restless temperament. While in Hanover, Shaw enjoyed the greater degree of personal freedom at his new school, on one occasion writing home to his mother, "It's almost impossible not to drink a good deal, because there is so much good wine here."
While Shaw was studying in Europe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist friend of his parents, published her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Shaw read the book multiple times and was moved by its plot and anti-slavery attitude. Around the same time, Shaw wrote that his patriotism was bolstered after encountering several instances of anti-Americanism among some Europeans. He expressed interest to his parents in attending West Point or joining the Navy. Because Shaw had a longstanding difficulty with taking orders and obeying authority figures, his parents did not view this ambition seriously.
Shaw returned to the United States in 1856. From 1856 until 1859 he attended Harvard University, joining the Porcellian Club, and the Hasty Pudding Club, but he withdrew before graduating. He had been a member of the class of 1860. Shaw found Harvard no easier to adjust to than any of his previous schools and wrote to his parents about his discontent.
After leaving Harvard in 1859, Shaw returned to Staten Island to work with one of his uncles at the mercantile firm Henry P. Sturgis and Company. He found work life at the company office as disagreeable as some of his other experiences.
American Civil War
With the outbreak of the American Civil War, Shaw volunteered to serve with the 7th New York Militia. On April 19, 1861, Private Shaw marched down Broadway in Lower Manhattan as his unit traveled south to man the defense of Washington, D.C. Lincoln's initial call-up asked volunteers to make a 90-day commitment, and after three months Shaw's new regiment was dissolved. Following this, Shaw joined a newly forming regiment from his home state, the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry.
On May 28, 1861, Shaw was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the regiment's Company H. Over the next year and a half, he fought with his fellow Massachusetts soldiers in the first Battle of Winchester, the Battle of Cedar Mountain, and at the bloody Battle of Antietam. Shaw served both as a line officer in the field and as a staff officer for General George H Gordon. Twice wounded, by the fall of 1862 he was promoted to the rank of captain.
Since the start of the war, abolitionists such as Massachusetts governor John A. Andrew urged enlistment of African Americans as soldiers to fight the Confederacy. This proposal was broadly opposed. Many men believed that African American troops would lack discipline, be difficult to train, and would break and run in battle. The general attitude in the North was that African American troops would prove to be an embarrassment and hindrance to regular army units.
Andrew traveled to Washington, D.C., in early January 1863 to meet with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and repeat his argument for the use of African American troops in the Union army. Stanton was won to his side; on January 26, 1863, Stanton issued an order to Andrew to raise further volunteer regiments to fight for the Union, adding the new recruits "may include persons of African descent, organized into special corps." Andrew immediately set about doing so, and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry began to be formed.
For the unit's officers, Andrew sought a certain type of white gentleman, Most importantly, he wanted men who understood the stakes, that the success or failure of the endeavor would elevate or depress the manner in which the character of African Americans were viewed throughout the world for many years to come. Andrew wrote to many individuals prominent in the abolitionist movement, including Morris Hallowell of Philadelphia and Francis Shaw of Boston.
To command the unit, Andrew already had Shaw's son in mind. Andrew wrote to Francis Shaw about the need to find a leader who would accept the responsibility of the command "with a full sense of its importance, with an earnest determination for its success." Included in Andrew's letter was a commission for Robert Shaw to take command of the new regiment.
Carrying the commission, Francis Shaw traveled to Virginia to speak with his son. Robert Shaw was hesitant to take the post, as he did not believe that authorities would send the unit to the front lines, and he did not want to leave his fellow soldiers. Finally he agreed to take the command. On February 6 he telegraphed his father with his decision. He was 25 years old. The command came with a colonelcy, the rank commensurate with the position of regimental commander.
Andrew had some difficulty finding enough African American volunteers in Massachusetts to form the regiment. Andrew assured recruits that they would receive the standard pay of 13 dollars a month, and that if they were captured, the government of the United States would insist they be treated as any other soldier. The Boston area provided enough recruits to form the regiment's "C" Company. The remainder of the regiment was formed with black recruits from all across the North. Few were former slaves from the South. Two sons of the prominent African-American abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass volunteered to serve with the 54th.
Captain Shaw arrived in Boston on February 15, 1863, and immediately assumed his position. He was a strict disciplinarian, determined to train the men to high standards. On March 25, 1863, Shaw wrote to his father of his fledgling regiment:
Shaw was promoted to major on March 31, 1863, and two weeks later on April 17 was made full colonel. On April 30 the regiment drew 950 Enfield rifled muskets and swords for non-commissioned officers (NCOs). By May 11 more troops had arrived in Boston than were required to man the regiment. The 55th Massachusetts was begun with the next round of new recruits.
On May 28 Shaw led the men of the 54th through the streets of Boston to the docks, where the regiment boarded a transport steamer and sailed south. The regiment was to be used in a Union campaign against Charleston, South Carolina, a major port. The 54th arrived at Port Royal Island on June 4, and was placed under the overall command of Major General David Hunter. Initially the regiment was used to provide manual labor at the loading docks, but Colonel Shaw applied for action. Four days later his regiment boarded onto transport and was sent to Hilton Head, South Carolina. From there they moved further south to St. Simons Island, Georgia, which served as their base of operations.
On June 11, 1863, the 54th was sent with the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers (who were also of African-American descent) for a raid against the town of Darien, Georgia. Overall command of the force was with the senior officer, colonel James Montgomery of the 2nd South Carolina. Upon reaching the town, Montgomery set his troops to looting it. Shaw was outraged by this behavior by Union troops.
He ordered his troops to limit their seizures to those items that would be useful for the camp, and committed only one company to the task. After the town had been emptied of all valuables and livestock, Montgomery told Shaw, "I shall burn this town." To Shaw the burning of the town appeared to serve no military purpose, and he knew it would create a great hardship to its residents. In a letter to his family he recalled, "I told him I did not want to take the responsibility of it, and he was only too happy to take all of it on his own shoulders." Montgomery had the town burned to the ground.
After the regiment's return to camp, Shaw wrote to X Corps Assistant Adjutant General Lieutenant-Colonel Charles G. Halpine, seeking clarification of what was required of him. He asked if Montgomery was acting under orders from General Hunter, stating in part "I am perfectly willing to burn any place which resists, or gives some reason for such a proceeding; but it seems to me barbarous to turn women and children adrift in that way; and if I am only assisting Colonel Montgomery in a private enterprise of his own, it is very distasteful to me." It is not clear if Shaw ever received an answer from Halpine, but Montgomery was in fact carrying out a policy supported by Hunter.
Second Battle of Fort Wagner
Colonel Shaw and the 54th Regiment were placed under the command of General Quincy Adams Gillmore and sent to Charleston, South Carolina to take part in the second attempt to take Charleston. To do so, they would have to capture Fort Wagner, which defended the southern approach to the harbor. A significant Confederate garrison had been stationed there. The fort was well armed with an assortment of heavy guns. The overall strength of the defenders was underestimated by the Union command. The Union effort was supported by two other brigades, but the approach was narrow and only one regiment could attack at a time. At the battle on July 18, 1863, the 54th approached the fort in the late afternoon and then waited out of range for a night assault. After a heavy bombardment from the sea the 54th charged forward to take the Confederate batteries. Shaw led his men into battle, shouting "Forward, Fifty-Fourth, forward!" The 54th crossed the moat and scaled the muddy hill of the outer wall. With the cessation of the naval bombardment the largely intact Confederate garrison left their bomb-proofs and resumed their positions on the walls. In the face of heavy fire the 54th hesitated. Shaw mounted a parapet and urged his men forward, but was shot through the chest three times. By witness testimony of the unit's Color Sergeant, his death occurred early in the battle, and he fell on the outside of the fort. Some Confederate reports claim his body was hit as many as seven times. The fighting continued until 10 p.m. when the Union forces withdrew, having suffered heavy losses. Among the fatalities were Gen. George Crockett Strong, mortally wounded; Col. Haldimand S. Putnam shot and killed instantly; and Col. John Lyman Chatfield, mortally wounded. Shaw's 54th Regiment suffered the heaviest losses.
Two sons of Frederick Douglass, Lewis and Charles Douglass, were with the 54th regiment at the time of the attack. Lewis was wounded shortly after Shaw fell, and retreated with the rest when the force withdrew.
Following the battle, commanding Confederate General Johnson Hagood returned the bodies of the other Union officers who had died, but left Shaw's where it was, for burial in a mass grave with the black soldiers. Hagood told a captured Union surgeon that "Had he [Shaw] been in command of white troops ..." he would have returned Shaw's body, as was customary for officers, instead of burying it with the fallen black soldiers.
Although the gesture was intended as an insult by Hagood, Shaw's friends and family believed it was an honor for him to be buried with his soldiers. Efforts had been made to recover Shaw's body (which had been stripped and robbed prior to burial). His father publicly proclaimed that he was proud to know that his son had been buried with his troops, befitting his role as a soldier and a crusader for emancipation.
In a letter to the regimental surgeon, Lincoln Stone, Frank Shaw wrote:
After the war, the Union Army disinterred and reburied all the remains—including, presumably, those of Col. Shaw—at the Beaufort National Cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina. Their gravestones were marked as "unknown."
Shaw's sword had been stolen from the first gravesite but was recovered in 1865 and returned to his parents. It disappeared after being passed down within the family. In June 2017, it was discovered in a family attic of Mary Minturn Wood and brother Robert Shaw Wood, descendants of Shaw's sister Susanna. They donated it to the Massachusetts Historical Society. (See .)
Personal life
Shaw met Anna Kneeland Haggerty in New York at an opera party given in 1861 by his sister Susanna before the war began. The two became engaged just after Christmas in 1862. Despite misgivings by both sets of parents because of the war, they were married May 2, 1863, less than a month before Shaw's regiment moved out. The ceremony was in New York City. The pair spent a brief honeymoon at the Haggertys' home of Vent Fort, in Lenox, Massachusetts.
Two and half years older than Shaw, "Annie" Shaw was widowed at the age of 28. She spent many years after the war living abroad in Europe, returning in later years when her health failed. The Haggerty property had been sold to George and Sarah Morgan, who built a large mansion there. They also kept the Haggerty home, and allowed Anna to live there when she returned from Europe. She spent the last two years of her life living at her former family house, and died in 1907, never having remarried. She is buried at the cemetery of Church-on-the Hill in Lenox.
Memorials
A cenotaph at the Mount Auburn Cemetery
In 1864, American sculptor Edmonia Lewis created a bust of Shaw.
The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial was unveiled on May 31, 1897, at its site on the Boston Common. The large sculptural monument by Augustus Saint-Gaudens has a frieze of Shaw on horseback, accompanied by members of the 54th Regiment, as they marched through Boston to depart for the war. It was featured in the ending credits of the film Glory (1989).
A patinated plaster cast of a slightly different design for the Shaw Memorial is now on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which also holds some drawings and plaster mock-ups of the sculpture.
A monument to Shaw's memory was erected by his family in the plot at Moravian Cemetery in Staten Island, New York. An annual commemoration is held there on his birthday.
Although Shaw did not graduate from Harvard College, his name is listed on the tablets of honor in the university's Memorial Transept.
Fordham University likewise celebrates Shaw as an alumnus by honoring him in the University Hall of Honor, and separately in the Fordham University Military Hall of Fame.
The Robert Gould Shaw School, West Roxbury, Massachusetts, a Boston Public School, opened in 1936 but is now closed.
Legacy and honors
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was commissioned to create the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, erected on the Boston Common in May 1897. He created a large sculptural frieze of Shaw leading the troops of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, with the individuality of each man's face and figure expressed.
The neighborhood of Shaw, Washington, D.C., which developed from encampments of freedmen, was named for him.
G.A.R. Post #146, established on December 4, 1871, was named The R. G. Shaw Post in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It was one of the first all African-American Grand Army of the Republic posts, made up of comrades from the 54th Massachusetts. The Shaw Post dissolved in 1881.
In 2017, the sword that Shaw was carrying at his death was discovered in the attic of a family home in Hamilton, Massachusetts. The owners, siblings Robert Shaw Wood and Mary Minturn Wood, donated it to the Massachusetts Historical Society. It went on public display on July 18 that year, the anniversary of Shaw's death.
Shaw wrote more than 200 letters to his family and friends during the Civil War. These are held in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Digital facsimiles of this collection are publicly available. His mother edited an early selection of his letters, and worked to preserve a positive image of him as a martyr to the abolitionist cause.
The first scholarly collection of the letters, Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (1992), was edited by Russell Duncan. The book includes most of Shaw's letters and Duncan's brief biography of the officer, described as the best of those then current about him. Reid Mitchell notes Duncan "returns the historic Shaw" to readers, complete with his bias against the Irish and African Americans, both typical of his time. He wrote more frequently about his fellow officers than either the white or black soldiers who served with him, but expressed pride in the 54th.
There is an ongoing effort to recognize Shaw's valorous actions at Fort Wagner with the Medal of Honor, which was not awarded at the time due to racial discrimination. The Fordham University Department of Military Science is actively supporting this venture.
Gallery
Representation in other media
African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem, "Robert Gould Shaw," includes the lines: "Since thou and those who with thee died for right/Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!"
African-American poet Benjamin Griffith Brawley wrote a memorial poem entitled "My Hero" in praise of Shaw.
Shaw, the 54th regiment, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens's memorial are one of the subjects of Charles Ives's composition for orchestra, Three Places in New England.
New England poet Robert Lowell referred to both Shaw and the Shaw Memorial in the poem "For the Union Dead", which Lowell published in his 1964 collection of the same name.
The film Glory (1989), directed by Edward Zwick, is about Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, and their battles. Written by Kevin Jarre, it stars Matthew Broderick as Shaw, and Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, and Morgan Freeman as soldiers of the regiment.
Colm Toibin's novel The Master (2004), principally about writer Henry James, recounts the participation of his younger brother Wilkie James as an officer in the 54th Regiment.
See also
Ventfort Hall
Bibliography of the American Civil War
References
Sources
Dhalle, Kathy, A Biography of Robert Gould Shaw
Foote, Lorien (2003). Seeking the One Great Remedy: Francis George Shaw and Nineteenth-century Reform. Ohio University Press.
Simpson, Brooks (2013), The Civil War: The Third Year, The Library of America (2013)
Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry history
Further reading
Benson, Richard, Lay This Laurel: An Album on the Saint-Gaudens memorial on Boston Common, honoring black and white men together, who served the Union cause with Robert Gould Shaw and died with him July 18, 1863, Eakins Press, 1973.
Cox, Clinton, Undying Glory: The Story of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, New York: Scholastic, 1991.
Egerton, Douglas, Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America, New York: Basic Books, 2016.
Emilio, Luis F., A Brave Black Regiment: The History of the 54th Massachusetts, 1863–1865, Da Capo Press, 1894.
External links
Robert Gould Shaw Letters to his Family and Other Papers (MS Am 1910) at Houghton Library, Harvard University
1837 births
1863 deaths
Union military personnel killed in the American Civil War
American Roman Catholics
American people of English descent
Appleton family
People from West Roxbury, Boston
People from Livingston, Staten Island
People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War
Union Army colonels
Fordham Preparatory School alumni
Harvard University alumni
Abolitionists from Boston
Burials at Beaufort National Cemetery
Deaths by firearm in South Carolina
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand%20Duchy%20of%20Lithuania
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Grand Duchy of Lithuania
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The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to the late 18th century, when the territory was partitioned in 1795 among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire of Austria. The state was founded by Lithuanians, who were at the time a polytheistic nation born from several united Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija.
The Grand Duchy expanded to include large portions of the former Kievan Rus' and other neighbouring states, including what is now Belarus, Lithuania, most of Ukraine as well as parts of Latvia, Moldova, Poland and Russia. At its greatest extent, in the 15th century, it was the largest state in Europe. It was a multi-ethnic and multiconfessional state, with great diversity in languages, religion, and cultural heritage.
The consolidation of the Lithuanian lands began in the late 13th century. Mindaugas, the first ruler of the Grand Duchy, was crowned as Catholic King of Lithuania in 1253. The pagan state was targeted in a religious crusade by the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order, but survived. Its rapid territorial expansion started late in the reign of Gediminas, and continued under the diarchy and co-leadership of his sons, Algirdas and Kęstutis. Algirdas's son Jogaila signed the Union of Krewo in 1386, bringing two major changes in the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: conversion to Christianity of Europe's last pagan state, and establishment of a dynastic union between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.
The reign of Vytautas the Great, son of Kęstutis, marked both the greatest territorial expansion of the Grand Duchy and the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410. It also marked the rise of the Lithuanian nobility. After Vytautas's death, Lithuania's relationship with the Kingdom of Poland greatly deteriorated. Lithuanian noblemen, including the Radvila family, attempted to break the personal union with Poland. However, unsuccessful wars with the Grand Duchy of Moscow forced the union to remain intact.
Eventually, the Union of Lublin of 1569 created a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the Federation, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania maintained its political distinctiveness and had separate ministries, laws, army, and treasury. The federation was terminated by the passing of the Constitution of 3 May 1791, when it was supposed to become a single country, the Commonwealth, under one monarch, one parliament and no Lithuanian autonomy. Shortly afterward, the unitary character of the state was confirmed by adopting the Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations.
However, the newly reformed Commonwealth was invaded by Russia in 1792 and partitioned between neighbouring states. A truncated state (whose principal cities were Kraków, Warsaw and Vilnius) remained that was nominally independent. After the Kościuszko Uprising, the territory was completely partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria in 1795.
Etymology
The name of Lithuania (Litua) was first mentioned in 1009 in Annals of Quedlinburg. Some older etymological theories relate the name to a small river not far from Kernavė, the core area of the early Lithuanian state and a possible first capital of the would-be Grand Duchy of Lithuania, is usually credited as the source of the name. This river's original name is Lietava. As time passed, the suffix -ava could have changed into -uva, as the two are from the same suffix branch. The river flows in the lowlands and easily spills over its banks, therefore the traditional Lithuanian form liet- could be directly translated as lietis (to spill), of the root derived from the Proto-Indo-European leyǝ-. However, the river is very small and some find it improbable that such a small and local object could have lent its name to an entire nation. On the other hand, such a fact is not unprecedented in world history. A credible modern theory of etymology of the name of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuva) is Artūras Dubonis's hypothesis, that Lietuva relates to the word leičiai (plural of leitis, a social group of warriors-knights in the early Grand Duchy of Lithuania). The title of the Grand Duchy was consistently applied to Lithuania from the 14th century onward.
In other languages, the grand duchy is referred to as:
or
Old literary Lithuanian: Didi Kunigystė Lietuvos (didi Kunigiſte Lietuwos)
Ruthenian: Велїкое кнꙗзство Лїтовское
Naming convention of both title of ruler (hospodar) and the state changed as it expanded its territory. Following the decline of the Kingdom of Ruthenia and incorporation of its lands into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Gediminas started to title himself as "King of Lithuanians and many Ruthenians", while the name of the state became the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia. Similarly the title changed to "King of Lithuanians and Ruthenians, ruler and duke of Semigallia" when Semigallia became part of the state. The 1529 edition of the Statute of Lithuania described the titles of Sigismund I the Old as "King of Poland, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Ruthenia, Prussia, Samogitia, Mazovia, and other [lands]".
The country was also called the Republic of Lithuania () since at least the mid-16th century, already before the Union of Lublin in 1569.
History
Establishment of the state
The first written reference to Lithuania is found in the Quedlinburg Chronicle, which dates from 1009. In the 12th century, Slavic chronicles refer to Lithuania as one of the areas attacked by the Rus'. Pagan Lithuanians initially paid tribute to Polotsk, but they soon grew in strength and organized their own small-scale raids. At some point between 1180 and 1183 the situation began to change, and the Lithuanians started to organize sustainable military raids on the Slavic provinces, raiding the Principality of Polotsk as well as Pskov, and even threatening Novgorod. The sudden spark of military raids marked consolidation of the Lithuanian lands in Aukštaitija. The Lithuanians are the only branch within the Baltic group that managed to create a state entity in premodern times.
The Lithuanian Crusade began after the Livonian Order and Teutonic Knights, crusading military orders, were established in Riga and in Prussia in 1202 and 1226 respectively. The Christian orders posed a significant threat to pagan Baltic tribes, and further galvanized the formation of the Lithuanian state. The peace treaty with Galicia–Volhynia of 1219 provides evidence of cooperation between Lithuanians and Samogitians. This treaty lists 21 Lithuanian dukes, including five senior Lithuanian dukes from Aukštaitija (Živinbudas, Daujotas, Vilikaila, Dausprungas and Mindaugas) and several dukes from Žemaitija. Although they had battled in the past, the Lithuanians and the Žemaičiai now faced a common enemy. Likely Živinbudas had the most authority and at least several dukes were from the same families. The formal acknowledgement of common interests and the establishment of a hierarchy among the signatories of the treaty foreshadowed the emergence of the state.
Kingdom of Lithuania
Mindaugas, the duke of southern Lithuania, was among the five senior dukes mentioned in the treaty with Galicia–Volhynia. The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, reports that by the mid-1230s, Mindaugas had acquired supreme power in the whole of Lithuania. In 1236, the Samogitians, led by Vykintas, defeated the Livonian Order in the Battle of Saule. The Order was forced to become a branch of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, making Samogitia, a strip of land that separated Livonia from Prussia, the main target of both orders. The battle provided a break in the wars with the Knights, and Lithuania exploited this situation, arranging attacks on the Ruthenian provinces and annexing Navahrudak and Hrodna.
In 1248, a civil war broke out between Mindaugas and his nephews Tautvilas and Edivydas. The powerful coalition against Mindaugas included Vykintas, the Livonian Order, Daniel of Galicia and Vasilko of Volhynia. Taking advantage of internal conflicts, Mindaugas allied with the Livonian Order. He promised to convert to Christianity and exchange some lands in western Lithuania in return for military assistance against his nephews and the royal crown. In 1251, Mindaugas was baptized and Pope Innocent IV issued a papal bull proclaiming the creation of the Kingdom of Lithuania. After the civil war ended, Mindaugas was crowned as King of Lithuania on 6 July 1253, starting a decade of relative peace. Mindaugas later renounced Christianity and converted back to paganism. Mindaugas tried to expand his influence in Polatsk, a major centre of commerce in the Daugava River basin, and Pinsk. The Teutonic Knights used this period to strengthen their position in parts of Samogitia and Livonia, but they lost the Battle of Skuodas in 1259 and the Battle of Durbe in 1260. This encouraged the conquered Semigallians and Old Prussians to rebel against the Knights.
Encouraged by Treniota, Mindaugas broke the peace with the Order, possibly reverted to pagan beliefs. He hoped to unite all Baltic tribes under the Lithuanian leadership. As military campaigns were not successful, the relationships between Mindaugas and Treniota deteriorated. Treniota, together with Daumantas of Pskov, assassinated Mindaugas and his two sons, Ruklys and Rupeikis, in 1263. The state lapsed into years of internal fighting.
Rise of the Gediminids
From 1263 to 1269, Lithuania had three grand dukes – Treniota, Vaišvilkas, and Švarnas. The state did not disintegrate, however, and Traidenis came to power in 1269. He strengthened Lithuanian control in Black Ruthenia and fought with the Livonian Order, winning the Battle of Karuse in 1270 and the Battle of Aizkraukle in 1279. There is considerable uncertainty about the identities of the grand dukes of Lithuania between his death in 1282 and the assumption of power by Vytenis in 1295. During this time the Orders finalized their conquests. In 1274, the Great Prussian Rebellion ended, and the Teutonic Knights proceeded to conquer other Baltic tribes: the Nadruvians and Skalvians in 1274–1277, and the Yotvingians in 1283; the Livonian Order completed its conquest of Semigalia, the last Baltic ally of Lithuania, in 1291. The Orders could now turn their full attention to Lithuania. The "buffer zone" composed of other Baltic tribes had disappeared, and Grand Duchy of Lithuania was left to battle the Orders on its own.
The Gediminid dynasty ruled the grand duchy for over a century, and Vytenis was the first ruler of the dynasty. During his reign Lithuania was in constant war with the Order, the Kingdom of Poland, and Ruthenia. Vytenis was involved in succession disputes in Poland, supporting Boleslaus II of Masovia, who was married to a Lithuanian duchess, Gaudemunda. In Ruthenia, Vytenis managed to recapture lands lost after the assassination of Mindaugas and to capture the principalities of and Turov. In the struggle against the Order, Vytenis allied with Riga's citizens; securing positions in Riga strengthened trade routes and provided a base for further military campaigns. Around 1307, Polotsk, an important trading centre, was annexed by military force. Vytenis also began constructing a defensive castle network along Nemunas. Gradually this network developed into the main defensive line against the Teutonic Order.
Territorial expansion
The expansion of the state reached its height under Grand Duke Gediminas, also titled by some contemporaneous German sources as Rex de Owsteiten (), who created a strong central government and established an empire that later spread from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea. In 1320, most of the principalities of western Rus' were either vassalized or annexed by Lithuania. In 1321, Gediminas captured Kiev, sending Stanislav, the last Rurikid to rule Kiev, into exile. Gediminas also re-established the permanent capital of the Grand Duchy in Vilnius, presumably moving it from Old Trakai in 1323. The state continued to expand its territory under the reign of Grand Duke Algirdas and his brother Kęstutis, who both ruled the state harmonically. During the inaugurations of Lithuanian monarchs until 1569, the Gediminas' Cap was placed on the monarch's heads by the Bishop of Vilnius in Vilnius Cathedral.
Lithuania was in a good position to conquer the western and the southern parts of the former Kievan Rus'. While almost every other state around it had been plundered or defeated by the Mongols, the hordes stopped at the modern borders of Belarus, and the core territory of the Grand Duchy was left mostly untouched. The weak control of the Mongols over the areas they had conquered allowed the expansion of Lithuania to accelerate. Rus' principalities were never incorporated directly into the Golden Horde, maintaining vassal relationships with a fair degree of independence. Lithuania annexed some of these areas as vassals through diplomacy, as they exchanged rule by the Mongols or the Grand Prince of Moscow with rule by the Grand Duchy. An example is Novgorod, which was often in the Lithuanian sphere of influence and became an occasional dependency of the Grand Duchy. Lithuanian control resulted from internal frictions within the city, which attempted to escape submission to Moscow. Such relationships could be tenuous, however, as changes in a city's internal politics could disrupt Lithuanian control, as happened on a number of occasions with Novgorod and other East-Slavic cities.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania managed to hold off Mongol incursions and eventually secured gains. In 1333 and 1339, Lithuanians defeated large Mongol forces attempting to regain Smolensk from the Lithuanian sphere of influence. By about 1355, the State of Moldavia had formed, and the Golden Horde did little to re-vassalize the area. In 1362, regiments of the Grand Duchy army defeated the Golden Horde at the Battle at Blue Waters. In 1380, a Lithuanian army allied with Russian forces to defeat the Golden Horde in the Battle of Kulikovo, and though the rule of the Mongols did not end, their influence in the region waned thereafter. In 1387, Moldavia became a vassal of Poland and, in a broader sense, of Lithuania. By this time, Lithuania had conquered the territory of the Golden Horde all the way to the Dnieper River. In a crusade against the Golden Horde in 1398 (in an alliance with Tokhtamysh), Lithuania invaded northern Crimea and won a decisive victory. In an attempt to place Tokhtamish on the Golden Horde throne in 1399, Lithuania moved against the Horde but was defeated in the Battle of the Vorskla River, losing the steppe region.
Personal Union with Poland
Lithuania was Christianized in 1387, led by Jogaila, who personally translated Christian prayers into the Lithuanian language and his cousin Vytautas the Great who founded many Catholic churches and allocated lands for parishes in Lithuania. The state reached a peak under Vytautas the Great, who reigned from 1392 to 1430. Vytautas was one of the most famous rulers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, serving as the Grand Duke from 1401 to 1430, and as the Prince of Hrodna (1370–1382) and the Prince of Lutsk (1387–1389). Vytautas was the son of Kęstutis, uncle of Jogaila, who became King of Poland in 1386, and he was the grandfather of Vasili II of Moscow.
In 1410, Vytautas commanded the forces of the Grand Duchy in the Battle of Grunwald. The battle ended in a decisive Polish-Lithuanian victory against the Teutonic Order. The war of Lithuania against military Orders, which lasted for more than 200 years, and was one of the longest wars in the history of Europe, was finally ended. Vytautas backed the economic development of the state and introduced many reforms. Under his rule, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania slowly became more centralized, as the governours loyal to Vytautas replaced local princes with dynastic ties to the throne. The governours were rich landowners who formed the basis for the nobility of the Grand Duchy. During Vytautas' rule, the Radziwiłł and Goštautas families started to gain influence.
The rapid expansion of the influence of Moscow soon put it into a comparable position to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and after the annexation of Novgorod in 1478, Muscovy was among the preeminent states in northeastern Europe. Between 1492 and 1508, Ivan III further consolidated Muscovy, winning the key Battle of Vedrosha and regaining such ancient lands of Kievan Rus' as Chernihiv and Bryansk.
On 8 September 1514, the allied forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, under the command of Hetman Konstanty Ostrogski, fought the Battle of Orsha against the army of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, under Konyushy Ivan Chelyadnin and Kniaz Mikhail Golitsin. The battle was part of a long series of Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars conducted by Russian rulers striving to gather all the former lands of Kievan Rus' under their rule. According to Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii by Sigismund von Herberstein, the primary source for the information on the battle, the much smaller army of Poland–Lithuania (under 30,000 men) defeated the 80,000 Muscovite soldiers, capturing their camp and commander. The Muscovites lost about 30,000 men, while the losses of the Poland–Lithuania army totalled only 500. While the battle is remembered as one of the greatest Lithuanian victories, Muscovy ultimately prevailed in the war. Under the 1522 peace treaty, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania made large territorial concessions.
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The wars with the Teutonic Order, the loss of land to Moscow, and the continued pressure threatened the survival of the state of Lithuania, so it was forced to ally more closely with Poland, forming a real union with the Kingdom of Poland in the Union of Lublin of 1569. The union was formally called the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, however now commonly known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the period of the Union, many of the territories formerly controlled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were transferred to the Crown of the Polish Kingdom, while the gradual process of Polonization slowly drew Lithuania itself under Polish domination.
In 1655, Lithuania unilaterally seceded from Poland and fell under the protection of the Swedish Empire. However, by 1657 Lithuania was once again a part of the Commonwealth. The Grand Duchy remained a separate state and retained many rights in the federation (including separate name, territory, coat of arms, ministries, ruling system, laws, army, courts, treasury, and seal) until the Constitution of 3 May and Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations were passed in 1791.
Partitions and the Napoleonic period
Following the partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, most of the lands of the former Grand Duchy were directly annexed by the Russian Empire, the rest by Prussia. In 1812, just prior to the French invasion of Russia, the former Grand Duchy revolted against the Russians. Soon after his arrival in Vilnius, Napoleon proclaimed the creation of a Commissary Provisional Government of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which, in turn, renewed the Polish-Lithuanian Union. The union was never formalized, however, as only half a year later Napoleon's Grande Armée was pushed out of Russia and forced to retreat further westwards. In December 1812, Vilnius was recaptured by Russian forces, bringing all plans for the recreation of the Grand Duchy to an end. Most of the lands of the former Grand Duchy were re-annexed by Russia. The Augustów Voivodeship (later Augustów Governorate), including the counties of Marijampolė and Kalvarija, was attached to the Kingdom of Poland, a rump state in personal union with Russia.
Administrative division
Administrative structure of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1413–1564).
Religion and culture
Christianity and paganism
After the baptism in 1252 and coronation of King Mindaugas in 1253, Lithuania was recognized as a Christian state until 1260, when Mindaugas supported an uprising in Courland and (according to the German order) renounced Christianity. Up until 1387, Lithuanian nobles professed their own religion, which was polytheistic. Ethnic Lithuanians were very dedicated to their faith. The pagan beliefs needed to be deeply entrenched to survive strong pressure from missionaries and foreign powers. Until the 17th century, there were relics of old faith reported by counter-reformation active Jesuit priests, like feeding žaltys with milk or bringing food to graves of ancestors. The lands of modern-day Belarus and Ukraine, as well as local dukes (princes) in these regions, were firmly Orthodox Christian (Greek Catholic after the Union of Brest), though. While pagan beliefs in Lithuania were strong enough to survive centuries of pressure from military orders and missionaries, they did eventually succumb. A separate Eastern Orthodox metropolitan eparchy was created sometime between 1315 and 1317 by the Constantinople Patriarch John XIII. Following the Galicia–Volhynia Wars which divided the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, in 1355 the Halych metropoly was liquidated and its eparchies transferred to the metropoles of Lithuania and Volhynia.
In 1387, Lithuania converted to Catholicism, while most of the Ruthenian lands stayed Orthodox, however, on 22 February 1387, Supreme Duke Jogaila banned Catholics marriages with Orthodox, and demanded those Orthodox who previously married with the Catholics to convert to Catholicism. At one point, though, Pope Alexander VI reprimanded the Grand Duke for keeping non-Catholics as advisers. Consequently, only in 1563 did Grand Duke Sigismund II Augustus issue a privilege that equalized the rights of Orthodox and Catholics in Lithuania and abolished all previous restrictions on Orthodox. There was an effort to polarise Orthodox Christians after the Union of Brest in 1596, by which some Orthodox Christians acknowledged papal authority and Catholic catechism, but preserved their liturgy. The country also became one of the major centres of the Reformation.
In the second half of the 16th century, Calvinism spread in Lithuania, supported by the families of Radziwiłł, Chodkiewicz, Sapieha, Dorohostajski and others. By the 1580s the majority of the senators from Lithuania were Calvinist or Socinian Unitarians (Jan Kiszka).
In 1579, Stephen Báthory, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, founded Vilnius University, one of the oldest universities in Northern Europe. Due to the work of the Jesuits during the Counter-Reformation the university soon developed into one of the most important scientific and cultural centres of the region and the most notable scientific centre of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The work of the Jesuits as well as conversions from among the Lithuanian senatorial families turned the tide and by the 1670s Calvinism lost its former importance though it still retained some influence among the ethnically Lithuanian peasants and some middle nobility.
Islam
Islam in Lithuania, unlike many other northern and western European countries, has a long history starting from 14th century. Small groups of Muslim Lipka Tatars migrated to ethnically Lithuanian lands, mainly under the rule of Grand Duke Vytautas (early 15th century). In Lithuania, unlike many other European societies at the time, there was religious freedom. Lithuanian Tatars were allowed to settle in certain places, such as Trakai and Kaunas. Keturiasdešimt Totorių is one of the oldest Tatar settlements in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After a successful military campaign of the Crimean Peninsula in 1397, Vytautas brought the first Crimean Tatar prisoners of war to Trakai and various places in the Duchy of Trakai, including localities near Vokė river just south of Vilnius. The first mosque in this village was mentioned for the first time in 1558. There were 42 Tatar families in the village in 1630.
Judaism
Languages
In the 13th century, the centre of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was inhabited by a majority that spoke Lithuanian, though it was not a written language until the 16th century. In the other parts of the duchy, the majority of the population, including Ruthenian nobles and ordinary people, used both spoken and written Ruthenian. Nobles who migrated from one place to another would adapt to a new locality and adopt the local religion and culture and those Lithuanian noble families that moved to Slavic areas often took up the local culture quickly over subsequent generations. Ruthenians were native to the east-central and south-eastern parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Ruthenian, also called Chancery Slavonic in its written form, was used to write laws alongside Polish, Latin and German, but its use varied between regions. From the time of Vytautas, there are fewer remaining documents written in Ruthenian than there are in Latin and German, but later Ruthenian became the main language of documentation and writings, especially in eastern and southern parts of the Duchy. In the 16th century at the time of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Lithuanian lands became partially polonized over time and started to use Polish for writing much more often than the Lithuanian and Ruthenian languages. Polish finally became the official chancellery language of the Commonwealth in 1697.
The voivodeships with a predominantly ethnic Lithuanian population, Vilnius, Trakai, and Samogitian voivodeships, remained almost wholly Lithuanian-speaking, both colloquially and by ruling nobility. Ruthenian communities were also present in the extreme southern parts of Trakai voivodeship and south-eastern parts of Vilnius Voivodeship. In addition to Lithuanians and Ruthenians, other important ethnic groups throughout the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were Jews and Tatars.
Languages for state and academic purposes
Numerous languages were used in state documents depending on which period in history and for what purpose. These languages included Lithuanian, Ruthenian, Polish and, to a lesser extent (mostly in early diplomatic communication), Latin and German.
The Court used Ruthenian to correspond with Eastern countries while Latin and German were used in foreign affairs with Western countries. During the latter part of the history of the Grand Duchy, Polish was increasingly used in State documents, especially after the Union of Lublin. By 1697, Polish had largely replaced Ruthenian as the "official" language at Court, although Ruthenian continued to be used on a few official documents until the second half of the 18th century.
It is known that Jogaila, being ethnic Lithuanian by the man's line, himself knew and spoke in the Lithuanian language with Vytautas the Great, his cousin from the Gediminids dynasty. Also, during the Christianization of Samogitia, none of the clergy, who came to Samogitia with Jogaila, were able to communicate with the natives, therefore Jogaila himself taught the Samogitians about the Catholicism, thus he was able to communicate in the Samogitian dialect of the Lithuanian language.
Use of Lithuanian still continued at the Court after the death of Vytautas and Jogaila. Since the young Grand Duke Casimir IV Jagiellon was underage, the supreme control over the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in the hands of the Lithuanian Council of Lords, presided by Jonas Goštautas, while Casimir was taught Lithuanian language and the customs of Lithuania by appointed court officials. Casimir IV Jagiellon's son Saint Casimir, who was subsequently announced as patron saint of Lithuania, was a polyglot and among other languages knew Lithuanian. Grand Duke Alexander Jagiellon also could understand and speak Lithuanian. While Grand Duke Sigismund II Augustus maintained both Polish-speaking and Lithuanian-speaking equally large royal courts.
From the beginning of the 16th century, and especially after a rebellion led by Michael Glinski in 1508, there were attempts by the Court to replace the usage of Ruthenian with Latin. The use of Ruthenian by academics in areas formerly part of Rus' and even in Lithuania proper was widespread. Court Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Lew Sapieha noted in the preface of the Third Statute of Lithuania (1588) that all state documents to be written exclusively in Ruthenian. The same was stated in part 4 of the Statute: Despite that, Polish-language editions stated the same in Polish. Statutes of the Grand Duchy were translated into Latin and Polish. One of the main reasons for translations into Latin was that Ruthenian had no well defined and codified law concepts and definitions, which caused many disputes in courts. Another reason to use Latin was a popular idea that Lithuanians were descendants of Romans – the mythical house of Palemonids. Augustinus Rotundus translated the Second Statute into Latin.
According to scientist Rita Regina Trimonienė, the Lithuanians surnames are not slavified and are written as they were pronounced by parishioners in the registers of baptism of Šiauliai Church (dated in the 17th century).
In 1552, Grand Duke Sigismund II Augustus ordered that orders of the Magistrate of Vilnius be announced in Lithuanian, Polish, and Ruthenian. The same requirement was valid for the Magistrate of Kaunas.
Mikalojus Daukša, writing in the introduction to his Postil (1599) (which was written in Lithuanian) in Polish, advocated the promotion of Lithuanian in the Grand Duchy, noting in the introduction that many people, especially szlachta, preferred to speak Polish rather than Lithuanian, but spoke Polish poorly, and gave a brief definition of the Lithuanian nation and state. Such were the linguistic trends in the Grand Duchy that, by the political reforms of 1564–1566, parliaments, local land courts, appellate courts and other State functions were recorded in Polish, and Polish became increasingly spoken across all social classes.
Lithuanian language situation
Ruthenian and Polish were used as state languages of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, besides Latin and German in diplomatic correspondence. However, Lithuanian was dominant in parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania like Samogitia, where the local nobility's reliance on Lithuanian resulted in Stanislovas Radvila remarking in a letter to his brother Mikalojus Kristupas Radvila Našlaitėlis immediately after becoming the Elder of Samogitia that: "While learning various languages, I forgot Lithuanian, and now I see, I have to go to school again, because that language, as I see, God willing, will be needed." Vilnius, Trakai and Samogitia were the core voivodeships of the state, being part of Lithuania Proper, as evidenced by the privileged position of their governors in state authorities, such as the Council of Lords. Peasants in ethnic Lithuanian territories spoke exclusively Lithuanian, except in transitional border regions, but the Statutes of Lithuania and other laws and documentation were written in Ruthenian, Latin and Polish. Following the example of the royal court, there was a tendency to replace Lithuanian with Polish in the ethnic Lithuanian areas, whereas Ruthenian was stronger in ethnic Belarusian and Ukrainian territories. A note written by Sigismund von Herberstein's states that, in an ocean of Ruthenian in this part of Europe, there were two non-Ruthenian regions: Lithuania and Samogitia.
Since the founding of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the higher strata of Lithuanian society from ethnic Lithuania spoke Lithuanian, although from the later 16th century gradually began using Polish, and those from Ruthenia – Ruthenian. Samogitia was unique because of its economic situation – it lay near sea ports and there were fewer people under corvee, instead of that, many commoners were taxpayers. As a result, the stratification of society was not as sharp as in other areas. Being more similar to a commoner population, the local szlachta spoke Lithuanian to a bigger extent than in the areas close to the capital Vilnius, which itself had become the starting point of intensive linguistic Polonization of the surrounding areas since the 18th century.
In Vilnius University, there are preserved texts written in the Lithuanian language of the Vilnius area, a dialect of Eastern Aukštaitian, which was spoken in a territory located south-eastwards from Vilnius. The sources are preserved in works of graduates from Stanislovas Rapolionis-based Lithuanian language schools, graduate Martynas Mažvydas and Rapalionis relative Abraomas Kulvietis.
One of the main sources of Lithuanian written in the Eastern Aukštaitian dialect (Vilnius dialect) was preserved by Konstantinas Sirvydas in a trilingual (Polish-Latin-Lithuanian) 17th-century dictionary, Dictionarium trium linguarum in usum studiosæ juventutis, which was the main Lithuanian dictionary used until the late 19th century.
Universitas lingvarum Litvaniæ, published in Vilnius, 1737, is the oldest surviving grammar of the Lithuanian language published in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (see also: Grammatica Litvanica, published in 1653).
In the Compendium Grammaticae Lithvanicae, published in 1673, three dialects of the Lithuanian language are distinguished: Samogitian dialect () of Samogitia, Royal Lithuania () and Ducal Lithuania (). The Ducal Lithuanian language is described as pure (), half-Samogitian () and having elements of the Curonian language (). Authors of the Compendium Grammaticae Lithvanicae singled out that the Lithuanians of the Vilnius Region () tend to speak harshly, almost like Austrians, Bavarians and others speak German in Germany.
Demographics
In 1260, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the land of Lithuania, and ethnic Lithuanians formed the majority (67.5%) of its 400,000 people. With the acquisition of new Ruthenian territories, in 1340 this portion decreased to 30%. By the time of the largest expansion towards Rus' lands, which came at the end of the 13th and during the 14th century, the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was 800 to 930 thousand km2, just 10% to 14% of which was ethnically Lithuanian.
On 6 May 1434, Grand Duke Sigismund Kęstutaitis released his privilege which tied the Orthodox and Catholic Lithuanian nobles rights in order to attract the Slavic nobles of the eastern regions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania who supported the former Grand Duke Švitrigaila.
An estimate of the population in the territory of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania together gives a population at 7.5 million for 1493, breaking them down by ethnicity at 3.75 million Ruthenians (ethnic Ukrainians, Belarusians), 3.25 million Poles and 0.5 million Lithuanians. With the Union of Lublin, 1569, Lithuanian Grand Duchy lost large part of lands to the Polish Crown.
According to an analysis of the tax registers in 1572, Lithuania proper had 850,000 residents of which 680,000 were Lithuanians.
In the mid and late 17th century, due to Russian and Swedish invasions, there was much devastation and population loss on throughout the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, including ethnic Lithuanian population in Vilnius surroundings. Besides devastation, the Ruthenian population declined proportionally after the territorial losses to Russian Empire. By 1770 there were about 4.84 million inhabitants in the territory of 320 thousand km2, the biggest part of whom were inhabitants of Ruthenia and about 1.39 million or 29% – of ethnic Lithuania. During the following decades, the population decreased in a result of partitions.
Legacy
Prussian tribes (of Baltic origin) were the subject of Polish expansion, which was largely unsuccessful, so Duke Konrad of Masovia invited the Teutonic Knights to settle near the Prussian area of settlement. The fighting between Prussians and the Teutonic Knights gave the more distant Lithuanian tribes time to unite. Because of strong enemies in the south and north, the newly formed Lithuanian state concentrated most of its military and diplomatic efforts on expansion eastward.
The rest of the former Ruthenian lands were conquered by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Some other lands in Ukraine were vassalized by Lithuania later. The subjugation of Eastern Slavs by two powers created substantial differences between them that persist to this day. While there were certainly substantial regional differences in Kievan Rus', it was the Lithuanian annexation of much of southern and western Ruthenia that led to the permanent division between Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians, and even four Grand Dukes of Lithuania are appeared on the Millennium of Russia monument.
In the 19th century, the romantic references to the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were an inspiration and a substantial part of both the Lithuanian and Belarusian national revival movements and Romanticism in Poland.
Notwithstanding the above, Lithuania was a kingdom under Mindaugas, who was crowned by the authority of Pope Innocent IV in 1253. Vytenis, Gediminas and Vytautas the Great also assumed the title of King, although uncrowned by the Pope. A failed attempt was made in 1918 to revive the Kingdom under a German Prince, Wilhelm Karl, Duke of Urach, who would have reigned as Mindaugas II of Lithuania.
In the first half of the 20th century, the memory of the multiethnic history of the Grand Duchy was revived by the Krajowcy movement, which included Ludwik Abramowicz (Liudvikas Abramovičius), Konstancja Skirmuntt, Mykolas Römeris (Michał Pius Römer), Józef Albin Herbaczewski (Juozapas Albinas Herbačiauskas), Józef Mackiewicz and Stanisław Mackiewicz. This feeling was expressed in poetry by Czesław Miłosz.
Pseudoscientific theory of litvinism was developed since the 1990s.
According to the 10th article of the Law on the State Flag and Other Flags of the Republic of Lithuania (), adopted by the Seimas, the historical Lithuanian state flag (with horseback knight on a red field, which initial design dates back to the reign of Grand Duke Vytautas the Great) must be constantly raised over the most important governmental buildings (e.g. Seimas Palace, Government of Lithuania and its ministries, Lithuanian courts, municipal council buildings) and significant historical buildings (e.g. Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Trakai Island Castle), also in Kernavė and in the site of the Senieji Trakai Castle.
Gallery
See also
References
Sources
Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Encyclopedia in Three Volumes, Volume I, 2nd edition, 2007. 688 pages, illustrated,
Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Encyclopedia in Three Volumes, Volume II, 2nd edition, 2007. 792 pages, illustrated,
Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Encyclopedia in Three Volumes, Volume III, 2010. 696 pages, illustrated,
Norman Davies. God's Playground. Columbia University Press; 2nd edition (2002), .
Robert Frost. The Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania: Volume I: The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385–1569. Oxford University Press, 2015,
Alan V. Murray. Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier 1150–1500 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series). Routledge, 2001. .
Alan V. Murray. The Clash of Cultures on the Medieval Baltic Frontier Routledge, 2016. .
Zenonas Norkus. An Unproclaimed Empire: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania: From the Viewpoint of Comparative Historical Sociology of Empires, Routledge, 2017, 426 p.
S. C. Rowell. Chartularium Lithuaniae res gestas magni ducis Gedeminne illustrans. Gedimino laiškai. Vilnius, 2003, . e-copy
S. C. Rowell. Lithuania Ascending: A Pagan Empire within East-Central Europe, 1295–1345 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series). Cambridge University Press, 2014. .
S. C. Rowell, D. Baronas. The conversion of Lithuania. From pagan barbarians to late medieval Christians. Vilnius, 2015, .
Daniel Z. Stone. The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386–1795. University of Washington Press. 2014. pp. xii, 374.
A. Dubonis, D. Antanavičius, R. Ragauskiene, R. Šmigelskytė-Štukienė. The Lithuanian Metrica : History and Research. Academic Studies Press. Brighton, United States, 2020.
Jūratė Kiaupienė. Between Rome and Byzantium: The Golden Age of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania's Political Culture. Second half of the fifteenth century to first half of the seventeenth century. Academic Studies Press. Brighton, United States, 2020.
External links
History of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Cheryl Renshaw. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania 1253–1795
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Grand Duchy of Lithuania administrative map
Lithuanian-Ruthenian state at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine
Zenonas Norkus. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Retrospective of Comparative Historical Sociology of Empires
Medieval Lithuania
Medieval Belarus
Medieval Ukraine
Medieval Poland
Medieval Russia
Early Modern history of Lithuania
Early Modern history of Belarus
Early Modern history of Ukraine
Early Modern history of Poland
Early Modern history of Russia
Lithuania
Polish–Lithuanian union
Subdivisions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
1230s establishments in Europe
1795 disestablishments in Europe
1795 disestablishments in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
States and territories established in the 13th century
States and territories disestablished in the 18th century
Former countries
Former monarchies of Europe
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football%20chant
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Football chant
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A football chant or terrace chant is form of vocalisation performed by supporters of association football, typically during football matches. Football chanting is an expression of collective identity, most often used by fans to express their pride in the team or encourage the home team, and they may be sung to celebrate a particular player or manager. Fans may also use football chants to slight the opposition, and many fans sing songs about their club rivals, even when they are not playing them. Sometimes the chants are spontaneous reactions to events on the pitch.
Football chants can be simple, consisting of a few loud shouts or spoken words, but more often they are short lines of lyrics and sometimes longer songs. They are typically performed repetitively, sometimes accompanied by handclapping, but occasionally they may be more elaborate involving musical instruments, props or choreographed routines. They are often adaptations of popular songs, using their tunes as the basis of the chants, but some are original.
Football chants are known to have been used by fans from the late 19th century onwards, but developed into the current popular forms in the 1960s. Football chants can be historic, dating back as early as the formation of the club popularly sung down the years and considered the anthems for these clubs. They may also be popular for only a relatively short time, with new chants being constantly created and discarded. The tradition of football chants vary from country to country and team to team, but some chants are common to many clubs and popular internationally. Football chants may be considered one of the last remaining sources of an oral folk song tradition.
History
Football chants may be considered modern examples of traditional storytelling and folk songs. According to folk singer Martin Carthy, football chants are "the one surviving embodiment of an organic living folk tradition." It is also a unique public expression of collective identity, and football chants may be seen as modern examples of the folk tradition blason populaire where a group vocalise their identity as well as their rivalry against another group.
Early chants
Football fans' vocalisations came in the forms of cries, chants and songs in the 19th century. War cries were known to have been used by football fans from the 1880s onwards, with the earliest recorded in Scotland after the Scottish Cup final of 1887. The first known song that references football, "The Dooley Fitba' Club" later known as "'Fitba' Crazy", was also written in the 1880s by James Curran, although it was intended for the music hall rather than the terrace. It was also recorded in the 1890s that Sheffield United fans had adopted a music hall song, the "Rowdy Dowdy Boys", while Southampton fans sang a "Yi! Yi! Yi!" chant based on a war cry. Blackburn Rovers fans were reported to have chanted "We've won the cup before – many a time" before their 1891 FA Cup Final match against Notts County. Composer Sir Edward Elgar wrote a football song in honour of the Wolverhampton Wanderers striker, Billy Malpass, after watching a match in February 1898 between Wolves and Stoke City. However, the anthem he wrote, "He Banged The Leather For Goal", never caught on among fans on the terrace.
The oldest football song in the world that is still in use today may be "On the Ball, City", a song believed to have been composed in the 1890s by Albert T Smith, who became a director of Norwich City in 1905. The song was adopted by fans of the club and it is still sung by Norwich's fans. Such club song may have its origin in the public school system, while others have links with working-class music hall. Other early football chants still sung today include "Pompey Chimes" or "Play up, Pompey" sung by Portsmouth fans since the 1920s (a form of the chant is believed to have been sung at Fratton Park in 1899, therefore it is arguably older than "On the Ball, City"), and "Blaydon Races", a Geordie folk song from 1862, which was adopted by Newcastle United fans in the 1930s. Some of the songs sung at football ground by the 1920s were modified from popular music hall songs, for example "Kick, Kick, Kick, Kick, Kick it" from "Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken" and "Keep the Forwards Scoring" from "Keep the Home Fires Burning". Chants that referenced players were also heard on the terrace; for example, "Give it to Ballie" chanted by Swansea fans in reference to a player name Billy Ball who played for the club in 1912-1920.
Football chants in the early years were club-specific and they were generally friendly or jocular in tone. Songs with sectarian overtones, however, had been sung at matches between Rangers and Celtic in the 1920s, which became more overtly confrontational in later decades, raising the possibility that sectarianism may have been the origin of oppositional chanting and singing at football matches. Fans of the early period also had a limited repertoire of chants, which become more varied as singing was encouraged by the use of brass bands before games and the community singing movement that arose in the 1920s (the tradition of singing "Abide with Me" at FA Cup finals started in this period).
1960s developments
While various elements of football chants were already present in the early period, it was in the 1960s that the nature of football chants started to change and modern football chants emerged to become an integral part of fan culture and experience. The catalyst for the change may be due to a number of factors; one suggestion is the growth and evolution of youth culture in this period which, together with popular music started being played over the public announcement system at matches instead of brass bands, encouraged fans to start their own singing based on popular tunes. Another suggestion is the mixing of fan cultures from different countries through international football matches that started to be broadcast, such as the 1959 England's tour of South America and the 1962 World Cup. The exposure to intense chanting by South American and Italian fans during the 1962 and 1966 World Cups may have encouraged British fans who were previously more reserved to do the same. They also picked up different type of chants from other countries; Liverpool fans for example, may have used a Brazilian chant "Brazil, cha-cha-cha" and turned it into the "Li-ver-pool, [clap, clap, clap]" chant.
Chants became more extensive in the 1960s, and popular songs became increasingly common as the basis of chants as fans adapted these songs to reflect situations and events relevant to them. Chanting the name of the team, chants for players and managers started to become prevalent. Liverpool supporters, particularly those on the Kop, were known for modifying songs in the early 1960s to suit their own purposes, and this practice quickly spread to fans of other clubs who created their own versions after hearing these chants. Repertoire of chants credited to Liverpool fans included the rhythmic clapping based on "Let's Go" by The Routers, the chorus from "We Shall Not Be Moved", and "When the Saints Go Marching In" used to honour Ian St John, chants which were then also adopted by fans of other clubs. Fans of many clubs now have a large and constantly evolving repertoire of chants in addition to a smaller number of songs closely associated with their club.
A more controversial aspect of this period of change was that abusive chants targeted at rival team or fans also became widespread. These may be taunts and insults aimed at the opposition teams or players to unnerve them, or obscene or slanderous chants targeted at individuals. A sampling of English football chants in the late 1970s found these types of chants to be the most numerous. Threats of violence may also be made to their rivals in chants; although such threats were rarely carried out, fights did occur which, together with increasing level of hooliganism in that period, gave these threats a real edge. Some abuses are racial in nature; for example, anti-Semitic chants directed at Tottenham Hotspur began in the 1960s, also against the Argentine club Atlanta (commonly heard in the 1960s but may have begun as early as the 1940s), and against the Dutch club Ajax in the 1970s. Racist insults directed at black players began to be heard in the 1970s and 1980s in England and Spain when black players started appearing in their leagues in increasing numbers. Concerns over the abusive nature of some of these chants later led to measures in various countries to control them, for example, the British government made racist and indecent chants an offence in the UK in 1991. In Italy, the Mancino law was used to prosecute fans for inciting racism. Despite efforts to stop them, some chants remain an issue around the world, such as the "Eh puto" chant used by Mexican fans, and racist chants in many countries.
International spread
As the sport of football spread to other countries, so did its associated fan culture of football chants. Many countries, however, have developed their own tradition of football songs and chants; for example, most Italian clubs have their own official hymns, often written specially for the club by a prominent singer or composer who is a fan of the club. Many countries also have football chants dating from the early part of the 20th century, and clubs such as Real Madrid may have an official club song as early as 1903. Football chants created in different countries may be specific to the local culture. Hand-clapping chants were popular in South American countries such as Brazil before it spread to other countries. Some chants originated from other sports; for example, the "two, four, six, eight!" chant that was used for sports in the United States from the early 20th century was adopted by football fans in the UK in the 1950s. The "Olé" chant from bullfighting is believed to be first used in Brazil for Garrincha in 1958, and one version of the "Olé, Olé, Olé" chant was first heard at a league game in Spain in 1982, while another version quickly spread around Europe in 1986 and became widely popular around the world.
As football fans travel to other countries on away international matches, and international broadcasts of football matches are common, fans from around the world often picked up chants from other clubs and countries, and some chants spread in an organic manner and become popular internationally. An example is the chant based on "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes – it was first adopted by fans of Belgian Club Brugge KV in 2003, their chant was then picked by Italian fans, and it was made an unofficial anthem for the Italy national football team in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, following which it spread to other football clubs around the world as well as beyond football into other sports and events.
Common types of chants
A wide variety of football chants exist, some of the more popular ones may be grouped into the following types:
Anthems – These are songs that are closely associated with a club, and are commonly sung by fans to express their collective identity. Unlike other types of chants that are variations of widely-used chants, these songs tend to be unique to a particular club. The best-known example may be "You'll Never Walk Alone" sung by Liverpool fans, although it has also been adopted by a few other clubs such as Celtic and Borussia Dortmund. Other notable club anthems include "Blue Moon" (Manchester City), "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" (West Ham), "No one likes us, we don't care" (Millwall), "Stern des Südens" (Bayern Munich), and "Cant del Barça" (Barcelona). Some anthems are written specially for the club, for example "Marching On Together" for Leeds United, and more recently "Hala Madrid y nada más" for Real Madrid, but many are popular songs that for whatever reason have become identified with the club.
Engagement with the team – These chants come in various forms. They may be expression of pride or loyalty in the club or team, or identity as fans of the club. At the simplest, the chants may just be repetitions of the name of the team, often with clapping (e.g. clap, clap, clap 3×, clap 4×, [name of club]), or they may identify themselves, e.g. "We are the [name for fans or home stand]". These also includes songs commonly sung at the club, such as "When the [name of team] Go Marching In". The chants may also praise the team, individual players or managers. Typically popular tunes are used for this type of chants, for example, "There's only one [name of player]" sung to the tune of "Guantanamera", "Super [name of player or team]", or the "Olé, Olé, Olé" chant. The chants may give encouragement to the team, for example, "Come on you [name of team]", "Vamos [name of team]", "Allez [name of team]". They may be expression of confidence and optimism, suggesting that their team will win a game, the league, be promoted, or win a major cup tie at venues such as Wembley.There may also be expressions of dissatisfaction, such as criticism of the team when they are performing poorly, or calling for the manager to resign, and occasionally against the owner of the club.
Insults, threats or expressions of hatred or mockery directed at the opponents – There are large variations in this type of chants. The chants may target the team (for example, "Stand up if you hate [name of team]", "You're shit"). Chants may be aimed at individual players or managers, and these can range from the amusing to the offensive or obscene. For example, "Who Ate All the Pies?" may be used against a player considered fat, or racist chants directed at black players. Chants may sometimes reflect players or managers in the news, or they may be made-up accusations directed against them that can be sung in either a humorous or offensive manner. Chants may target fans or home grounds of the opponents (e.g. "My garden shed is bigger than this" or "Is this a library"), and may also refer to events in their rivals' club history, sometimes in highly offensive manner. Fans may also use parodies of their rivals' anthems, for example, singing "sign on, sign on ... you'll never get a job" to the tune of "You'll Never Walk Alone" started at a time when there was high unemployment in Liverpool.
Reactions to events that happened on the pitch or off the pitch, these may be in celebration of a goal (e.g. "two-nil") or aiming to disrupt, or are expressions of boredom. They may also be comments about the officials such as the referees (e.g. "the referee's a wanker"), or the policing.
Atmospheric chants – Sounds aimed at creating interest or excitement in the game without any specific message, such as long drawn-out "oooooh" and "arrrrrgh", or "la la la la la ..."
Tragedy chanting
Tragedy chanting involves chanting about an opposition club's tragedies or tragic events that happen in their home cities. Instances in English football include exchanges between Manchester United and Leeds United fans, and between Manchester United and Liverpool fans. Subjects of the chants have included the Munich air disaster, the Heysel Stadium disaster, the Hillsborough disaster, the murder of two Leeds fans in Istanbul, the Bradford City stadium fire, the death of Emiliano Sala, the Grenfell Tower fire, and the 7 July 2005 London bombings. However, some tragedy chants have also spread to international competitions. During the 2016 UEFA Euro in France, English fans began chanting about ISIS, which came months after the November 2015 Paris attacks. During the 2022 World Cup, some English fans began to chant and mock the September 11 attacks during a match against the United States. Some Mexican fans have also been reported to have chanted Osama during matches against the United States in the early 2000s.
Spoken chants
Some chants are spoken, sometimes accompanied by percussion. These chants may simply consist of the name of the team and/or words of encouragement. The chants may also be in a call-and-response format. For example, Chile national football team fans will do a routine whereby one group of fans will chant "Chi-Chi-Chi", and another group will respond "Le-Le-Le". For the Indonesia national football team one group of fans will chant "In-Do-Ne-Sia" with an air horn and hand clap in response. "Garuda Di Dadaku" is sung by fans when Indonesia plays at home.
Popularised at the Sydney Olympics and used by Australian football supporters everywhere is the "Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi" chant between two groups of supporters. It is a derivation of Welsh rugby chant "Oggy Oggy Oggy", which was also adapted by Chelsea supporters in tribute to Peter Osgood. A version "Zigger Zagger Oi Oi Oi" has been suggested to be based on a German toast "Zicke zacke zicke zacke hoi hoi hoi".
In the United States, despite a lower popularity of association football, "I believe that we will win!" and "U-S-A!" are generally chanted during matches US national teams are playing on the world stage. The chant "U-S-A!" has also been used outside of sports, such as in the halls of Congress during rallies of American support.
Some chants consist simply of a loud shout or whoop with a hand clap, sometimes led by a drum beat that gets increasingly faster, such as the Viking Thunder Clap made popular by fans of Iceland. Similar chants have been performed by fans of teams such as Motherwell and Lens, and a version called "Boom Boom Clap" has been used by fans of North American clubs such as Seattle Sounders FC and Toronto FC since 2008 as well as the American national teams.
Fighting chants
"You're Gonna Get Your Fucking Head Kicked In", sometimes pluralised to "You're Gonna Get Your Fucking Heads Kicked In", is a football chant originating in England. It is also used as a case study in psychology and sociology. The chant is often used as an intimidatory chant towards the opposing fans rather than as an actual threat of violence, but there have been a number of occasions when it has led to a fight between fans. The chant is sometimes used after the opposition have scored. It is now considered to be a dated chant with little current usage in English football culture despite being in common use in the 1970s and 80s.
Chants based on hymns and classical music
Several football chants are based on hymns, with "Cwm Rhondda" (also known as "Guide me, O thou great redeemer") being one of the most popular tunes to copy. Amongst others, it has spawned the song "You're not singing anymore!", "We support our local team!", and "I will never be a Blue!".
Various teams have used the "Glory Glory" chant (used by "Tottenham Hotspur", "Leeds United", "Manchester United", etc.), to the tune of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Hibernian were the first team to use the song with the release of a record by Hector Nicol in the 1950s ("Glory Glory to the Hibees").
The Stars and Stripes Forever is often sung with the words "Here we go, here we go, here we go!".
There have been various adaptations of "When The Saints Go Marching In" (e.g. by fans of Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur), and the tune of Handel's Hallelujah chorus.
Many football crowd chants/songs are to the tune of "La donna è mobile" from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto, for example the chant by Derby County fans in honour of Fabrizio Ravanelli of "We've got Fabrizio, you've got fuck allio".
Italian tifosi employ various operatic arie, especially those by Giuseppe Verdi, for chants. For Parma's home matches at the Stadio Ennio Tardini, during the entry of the teams in the field, Aida's triumphal march resounds as Verdi is a symbol of the city.
Italian Torino fans sing their signature chant Toro alè to the tune of French anthem "La Marseillaise".
The anthem theme was first popularized as a chant by A.S. Roma's curva sud after a 3-1 match win against Juventus on 30 January 1977. The anthem has also been modified by the RC Lens fans.
French PSG fans sing a rendition of "Flower of Scotland".
Arsenal fans have been singing "Good old Arsenal" to the tune of Rule Britannia since the 1970-71 season when they won the double.
Chants based on spirituals and folk songs
Some chants are based on spirituals. "We shall not be moved" and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" are both used by fans. An example of the latter's use was "He's got a pineapple on his head" aimed at Jason Lee due to his distinctive hairstyle. The song was later popularised by the television show Fantasy Football League.
Christmas carols have also been used as chants like with the theme of "O Tannenbaum" by the likes of Manchester United or Chelsea fans.
The tune to the Shaker song "Simple Gifts" has spawned many terrace chants including "Carefree", a chant associated with Chelsea. It was also used for a Tottenham song abusing Sol Campbell after his move to Arsenal in 2001 and was sung by Manchester United fans, in honour of Park Ji-Sung. Chelsea fans also adapted the song "One Man Went To Mow" as an anthem.
"Sloop John B" has been popular amongst English football fans since the mid-2000s. It was adopted by the supporters of English non-league team F.C. United of Manchester as a club anthem in 2007.
The Geordie folk song "Blaydon Races" is associated with Newcastle United. Other folk songs to have their lyrics altered include "The John B. Sails" to "We Won it 5 Times" by Liverpool fans, "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" to "We'll Be Coming Down the Road" by the Scotland national team and Liverpool fans, "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean", "The Wild Rover" and "Camptown Races", which is used for "Two World Wars, One World Cup", whilst Birmingham City fans sing "Keep Right on to the End of the Road".
The melody of "Bella ciao" is often used as a chant by Italian ultras groups of Salernitana, Cosenza Calcio, A.S. Livorno and also outside of Italy like with Aris Thessaloniki, AEK Athens F.C. or Paris Saint-Germain F.C. fans, as well as the Timbers Army of MLS' Portland Timbers. The song was also adapted by Brazilian fans during World Cup 2018 to tease and taunt Argentina about their possible exit in the first round, which eventually did not occur, with references to Argentinian players Di María, Mascherano, and Messi (Brazil and Argentina have a well-known football rivalry).
Italian tifosi are strongly used to sing mocks based on national, and internationally famous folk tunes, like "L'uva fogarina", "Oh! Susanna" and "Alouette".
"The Fields of Athenry" is a widely used anthem by Irish sports fans, sang particularly at rugby and football matches. The song was adopted and reworked by Liverpool fans as "The Fields of Anfield Road".
Chants based on popular music
Popular music is the most common source of football chants. In the United Kingdom, music hall songs such as "My Old Man (Said Follow the Van)", "Knees Up Mother Brown", "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles", "I Came, I Saw, I Conga'd" and "Two Little Boys" have long been used as the basis of terrace chants. Popular standards such as "Winter Wonderland", Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer", and the 1958 Eurovision entry "Volare" are also widely adapted to suit players and managers. The Cuban song "Guantanamera" became popularly used as a chant in the UK as a version by The Sandpipers charted soon after the 1966 World Cup; it is commonly sung in a large variety of chants, for example in the form of "There's only one [player's name]", or "You only sing when you're winning". The tune "Tom Hark" is often played at many stadiums following a goal by the home team and for chants such as "Thursday Nights, Channel 5", whilst "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" by Doris Day is generally reserved for matches where the venue of the final is Wembley Stadium.
The rhythm, rather than the melody, of "Let's Go (Pony)" by The Routers is widely used for clapping, drumming or banging by fans worldwide.
Music of the 1960s influenced terrace chants. "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash and "That's Amore" by Dean Martin have been used by several sets of fans. "Lola" by The Kinks, and "Hi Ho Silver Lining" by Jeff Beck have been adapted by several clubs – most prolific of these include Aston Villa, Sheffield Wednesday and Wolverhampton Wanderers. "All You Need Is Love", "Hey Jude" and "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles are often used. Songs from musicals have become very popular as football chants, such as "Chim Chim Cher-ee" from the 1964 musical Mary Poppins. Some early songs became popular as football chants later, for example the Venezuelan song "Moliendo Café" popular in early 1960s first became used as a chant in Argentina in the late 1970s, which spread to Italy as "Dale Cavese" chants in 2006 and then later to clubs around the world.
The emergence of funk and disco in the 1970s also made its mark on the terraces with songs such as "Go West" by the Village People and "Oops Up Side Your Head" by The Gap Band remaining popular amongst fans. "Ain't Nobody" by Rufus and Chaka Khan has been used by Arsenal fans and others. Music popular in the 1980s and 1990s is also used widely. Chants have been based on "Just Can't Get Enough" by Depeche Mode, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division, "Pop Goes the World" by Men Without Hats, the Band Aid song "Do They Know It's Christmas?", "Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag" by Pigbag and "This Is How It Feels" by Inspiral Carpets. Other chants have used tunes from on pop songs include "Three Lions", the official England anthem for Euro '96 and Manic Street Preachers song "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next".
Fans of a number of different clubs in the United Kingdom have adopted "Rockin' All Over the World" by Status Quo as a chant. Liverpool fans sing "Scousers all over the world". Arsenal fans sing "Saka and Emile Smith Rowe". Rangers fans sing "Gerrard stopped ten in a row", in reference to the club winning the 2020-21 Scottish Premiership under manager Steven Gerrard and breaking bitter rivals Celtic's nine-year monopoly on the title.
Fans in England sing "Leeds are falling apart again" to the tune of "Love will tear us apart" by Joy Division to mock fans of Leeds United.
More recent releases to have their music appropriated include "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes, which became highly popular across nations. A number of songs became popular in the 2010s, an example being "Freed from Desire", which is used to celebrate particular players – it was first popularised as "Will Grigg's on Fire", then used for others such as "Vardy's on Fire" and "Grizi's on Fire". An Italian disco song "L'estate sta finendo" became popular among European clubs such as Napoli, Juventus, Porto, Atlético Madrid and others as "Un giorno all'improvviso", later picked up Liverpool fans, who created their own version as "Allez Allez Allez" for their 2017–18 UEFA Champions League campaign, and it then spread to other British clubs in the 2018–2019 season. In late 2017, "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire had a big impact in English stadia.
Chants based on advertising jingles, nursery rhymes and theme tunes
Football crowds also adapt tunes such as advertising jingles, nursery rhymes and theme tunes. "The Farmer in the Dell" known in some regions as 'The Farmer Wants A Wife', provides the famous chant of "Ee Aye Addio", a tune which also provides the first bars of the 1946 be-bop jazz classic "Now's The Time", by alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. The marching tune "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" is also used a basis for songs, such as "His Armband Said He Was a Red", sung by Liverpool fans in honour of Fernando Torres while he was still at the club. Chelsea fans then adapted the chant to match their own colours when Torres was transferred to the London club in 2011, with "He's now a Blue, he was a Red." Manchester United used the song to describe Torres and his looks too after he missed an open goal. United also used the song about John O'Shea after he scored a goal against Derby in the Carling Cup in 2009.
The children's song "Ten Green Bottles" became "Ten German Bombers", to the tune of "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain," both songs used by English fans to their main rivals, Germany. The nursery rhyme "This Old Man" is sung by both supporters of Manchester United and Manchester City. The theme from Z-Cars has been used in Everton's Goodison Park ground since 1962.
Theme tunes which have been used as chants include Heartbeat and The Banana Splits.
Club-specific songs
Some football teams also have songs which are traditionally sung by their fans. The song "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel is associated heavily with Liverpool. In 1963, the song was covered by Liverpool group Gerry and the Pacemakers, which prompted the song's adoption by the Kop. At this time, supporters standing on the Spion Kop terrace at Anfield began singing popular chart songs of the day. The mood was captured on camera by a BBC Panorama camera crew in 1964. One year later, when Liverpool faced Leeds in the FA Cup final, the travelling Kop sang the same song and match commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme commended the "Liverpool signature tune". Other songs sung by Liverpool fans include "Poor Scouser Tommy" based on "Red River Valley".
Fans of West Ham United were said to have adopted the song "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" at Upton Park in the mid-1920s, although no record of West Ham fans singing the song existed until 1940.
"Marching on Together" is played and sung at Elland Road by supporters of Leeds United, and is one of the few club songs specifically written for the football club in question, being an original composition by Les Reed and Barry Mason. It was first released as the B-Side to Leeds United to coincide with the 1972 FA Cup Final.
Manchester City has been strongly associated with the classic popular song "Blue Moon" since the late 1980s. The song is now an established and official part of the club's brand and culture: 'Blue Moon' is also the name of the club's leading fansite, images of a blue moon (a moon that's blue in colour, not the astronomical phenomenon) appear on licensed and fan-made clothing and merchandise, and the team's mascots are a pair of blue aliens from the Moon named 'Moonchester' and 'Moonbeam'.
"Blue Is the Colour" is the song for Chelsea. The song was released in 1972 when the club reached the 1972 League Cup Final. Chelsea fans also sing the "celery" song, waving and hurling sticks of celery while singing, starting in the early 1980s.
"Go West" by the Village People has been co-opted by fans of Arsenal F.C., using the words "1-0 to the Arsenal" as a reference to the club's defensive style of football under former manager George Graham. The same "1-0 to the Arsenal" was also often sung, in ironic spirit, by fans of opposition by way of mocking their perceived boring style of play during this time.. The tune is also used by supporters of Leyton Orient with the words "Stand Up for The Orient"
"Goodnight, Irene" is sung by fans of Bristol Rovers, while "Drink Up Thy Zider" by The Wurzels is sung by Bristol City fans.
"Sailing" (originally by the Sutherland Brothers, but most commonly associated with Rod Stewart) is adapted by a number of clubs. Chesterfield fans, sings the song usually whenever the Spireites look to be 'sailing' to victory. A much faster-tempo version of the melody is used by Millwall F.C. fans for their famous chant "No one likes us, we don't care". Tottenham fans sang the song as "We are Tottenham, from the Lane", and variations of the same chant are sung by fans of other clubs.
Birmingham City adopted "Keep Right on to the End of the Road" by Sir Harry Lauder after the team sang it on the coach before the 1956 FA Cup Final Versus Manchester City, it was heard by the fans outside Wembley Stadium . The song was a favourite of Alex Govan who introduced to his teammates, and their manager Arthur Turner used the song as a pre-match ritual in their FA Cup run. It has been the Blues Anthem ever since.
Supporters of Hibernian are known for singing "Sunshine on Leith" due to the song's composers and performers The Proclaimers being well known Hibernian supporters and the song's reference to Hibernian's home in Leith and as such the song has become an unofficial club anthem. The club has in the past also played other songs by the pair at its home ground Easter Road, such as "I'm on My Way", though none have the same association with the team that "Sunshine on Leith" does.
Fans of Tottenham Hotspur sing Barry Manilow's "Can't Smile Without You".
Brighton & Hove Albion play "Good Old Sussex by the Sea" before each home game at Falmer Stadium, a tradition continued from their time at the "Goldstone Ground."
Stoke City fans have sung "Delilah" by Tom Jones since the 1980s.
Supporters of Sheffield Wednesday regularly sing the words "Honolulu Wednesday" to the tune of "Honolulu Baby"; a song which featured in the 1933 film Sons of the Desert starring Laurel and Hardy. Across the city, Sheffield United F.C. fans celebrate the start of home games with a chorus of The Greasy Chip Butty Song.
Before every match, Nottingham Forest fans sing "Mull of Kintyre", replacing "Mull of Kintyre" with "City Ground", and "Mist rolling in from the sea" with "Mist rolling in from the Trent". "Mull of Kintyre" has also been adopted by Charlton Athletic, with Valley, Floyd Road and the Thames similarly being referenced.
"Men of Harlech" is sung in a few Welsh clubs such as Cardiff City and Wrexham but with different lyrics. Wrexham fans sing it as "Wrexham is the name".
"Can't Help Falling in Love" has been adopted originally by Sunderland as well as several other teams including Huddersfield Town, Hull City, Preston North End, Rotherham United, Swindon Town, Swansea, AFC Wimbledon, and Columbus Crew.
The Dave Clarke Five's "Glad All Over" has been sung since the 1960s by Crystal Palace and is also used by several clubs after a home goal is scored, including Swindon Town.
Gateshead supporters sing "Trail of the Lonesome Pine" from the film Way Out West.
Sydney FC supporter group "The Cove" sing "Rhythm of My Heart" by Rod Stewart in the 23rd minute of every game as tribute to supporters who have died.
Feyenoord fans sing an adaption of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" after the team scores at De Kuip.
Dundee United fans have been known to sing Daniel Boone's single "Beautiful Sunday".
Coventry City former chairman and manager Jimmy Hill, adopted the "Eton Boating song" as the club's official anthem to create Play up Sky blues in the early 1960s. The song has been sung on the terraces ever since and remains one of the most recognisable in English football.
Country-specific songs and chants
"Vamos, vamos, Argentina" is a stadium anthem sung by Argentine fans in support of their national team. At the 2014 World Cup, "Brasil Decime Qué Se Siente" ("Brazil tell me how it feels"), sung to the tune of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" and first used by San Lorenzo fans, became a popular song chanted by Argentine fans directed at Brazil.
"Cielito Lindo" is a song popularly sung by Mexican fans as an unofficial national anthem. Brazilian songs popularly sung by the country's fans include "Eu Sou Brasileiro" ("I'm Brazilian"). Similarly Spanish fans may sing "Yo soy Español" ("I'm Spanish"), which is sung to the tune of "Kalinka" after they beat Russia in Euro 2008. Other songs Spanish fans may sing include "Y Viva España".
Songs commonly sung by fans of England national team include "Here We Go" (with "England" enunciated as a three-syllable "Eng-ger-land"), "Three Lions (Football's Coming Home)", theme from The Great Escape, and others. A few songs are directed against specific teams, such as "Ten German Bombers" usually sung at their matches against Germany. During UEFA Euro 2020 they began singing "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond.
Fans of the Wales national team have adopted the song "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" by Frankie Valli as an anthem since 1993.
"Allez Les Bleus!" is used to cheer on the French national team. French fans are also known for singing "la la la la la" to the tune of Gloria Gaynor's song "I Will Survive" since the 1998 World Cup won by France.
"Contigo Perú" is a famous song that is often sung by Peruvian football fans during their National Team's matches, even in the Russia 2018 World Cup match vs France. "Vamos" is also popular chants used by a number of Latin American countries. "Soy Celeste" ("I'm sky blue") has been used by the Uruguayans in reference to their national flag.
Chant Laureate
On 11 May 2004, Jonny Hurst was chosen as England's first "Chant Laureate". Barclaycard set up the competition to choose a Chant Laureate, to be paid £10,000 to tour Premier League stadia and compose chants for the 2004–05 football season. The judging panel was chaired by the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, who said "What we felt we were tapping into was a huge reservoir of folk poetry."
Argentine fútbol chanting
Eduardo Herrera suggests that soccer chanting in Argentina allows participants to create value around and give meaning to the idea of "aguante," which is "central in the construction of an ideal masculinity." "Aguante" translates to "endurance" or "stamina" in English. In practice, aguante is part of a masculine discourse that "divides the world between 'real men' and 'not men.' Garriga Zucal and Daniel Salerno have identified three main signs of aguante. The first is "alentar siempre," which means to show support for the team throughout the entire match by jumping or chanting, even through bad weather or poor performance by the team. Secondly, to show aguante, a man must show up to all the matches, including away games that require long, uncomfortable trips. Thirdly, a fan must withstand confrontation to demonstrate aguante, either through chanting at opposing fans or through physical fights.
Participating in chanting or cantitos is a major way the barras bravas, or the most important militant groups of fans, can demonstrate aguante. The barras bravas, who are also known as the hinchada militante, stand throughout the game behind the goal and chant the entire time. These groups bring instruments to the matches in order to synchronize the chanting. The most prominent instrument is the bombo con platillo, which is a large bass drum with a diameter of 22-24 inches. The bombos con platillo are often decorated with the team's colors and name and the name of the barra group, which is distinct from the team name. Along with these drums, other types of drums include Brazilian surdo drums, redoblantes (snare drums), and repiques. The barras often have other percussion instruments, including scrappers, tambourines, cowbells, and agogo bells. In addition to percussion, most barras have at least three trumpet players, and many teams might add trombones or euphoniums. While the bombo players are always from the barras bravas itself, because of the advanced skill it takes to play the brass instruments, the barras sometimes hire outside brass players to play during a match.
In the ensemble, one bombo player serves as the leader of the group, where he leads with exaggerated arm movements that are easy for the players to follow, but the leader of the chanting is often falls to another leader of the barras. They might lead by giving verbal or visual cues to the head bombo player, or they might just independently start a chant and expect the ensemble to follow.
See also
Entrance music
Music at sporting events
List of UK hit singles by footballers
Sea shanty
Tomahawk Chop
References
Bibliography
"Dirty Northern Bastards!" And Other Tales from the Terraces: The Story of Britain's Football Chants by Tim Marshall
External links
Barclaycard Chant Laureate: A selection of the finalists
FanChants
footballchants.org
Terrace Chants
50 Best Football Chants (FourFourTwo)
USA Football Chants and Songs
World football's 25 best chants (Bleacher Report)
The 23 songs that most modern football chants are based on
The Joy of Six: Football Chants
American football culture
Australian rules football culture
Gaelic football culture
Rugby football culture
Chant
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future%20tense
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Future tense
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In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French aimera, meaning "will love", derived from the verb aimer ("love"). The "future" expressed by the future tense usually means the future relative to the moment of speaking, although in contexts where relative tense is used it may mean the future relative to some other point in time under consideration.
English does not have an inflectional future tense, though it has a variety of grammatical and lexical means for expressing future-related meanings. These include modal auxiliaries such as will and shall as well as the futurate present tense.
Expressions
The nature of the future, necessarily uncertain and at varying distances ahead, means that the speaker may refer to future events with the modality either of probability (what the speaker expects to happen) or intent (what the speaker plans to make happen). Whether future expression is realis or irrealis depends not so much on an objective ontological notion of future reality, but rather on the degree of the speaker's conviction that the event will in fact come about.
In many languages there is no grammatical (morphological or syntactic) indication of future tense. Future meaning is supplied by the context, with the use of temporal adverbs such as "later", "next year", etc. Such adverbs (in particular words meaning "tomorrow" and "then") sometimes develop into grammaticalized future tense markers. (A tense used to refer specifically to occurrences taking place on the following day is called a crastinal tense.)
In other languages, mostly of European origin, specific markers indicate futurity. These structures constitute a future tense. In many cases, an auxiliary verb is used, as in English, where futurity is often indicated by the modal auxiliary will (or shall). However, some languages combine such an auxiliary with the main verb to produce a simple (one-word, morphological) future tense. This is the origin of the future tense in Western Romance languages such as French and Italian (see below).
A given language may have more than one way to express futurity. English, for example, often refers to future events using present tense forms or other structures such as the going-to future, besides the canonical form with will/shall. In addition, the verb forms used for the future tense can also be used to express other types of meaning; English again provides examples of this (see English modal verbs for the various meanings that both will and shall can have besides simply expressing futurity).
Germanic languages
In Germanic languages, including English, a common expression of the future is using the present tense, with the futurity expressed using words that imply future action (I go to Berlin tomorrow or I am going to Berlin tomorrow). There is no simple (morphological) future tense as such. However, the future can also be expressed by employing an auxiliary construction that combines certain present tense auxiliary verbs with the simple infinitive (stem) of the main verb. These auxiliary forms vary between the languages. Other, generally more informal, expressions of futurity use an auxiliary with the compound infinitive of the main verb (as with the English is going to ...).
English
English grammar provides a number of ways to indicate the future nature of an occurrence. Some argue that English, like most Germanic languages, does not have a future tense—that is, a grammatical form that always indicates futurity—nor does it have a mandatory form for the expression of futurity. However, through gradual development from its Germanic roots, English became what is now considered a language strongly future-tense-marking. Currently, there are several generally accepted ways to indicate futurity in English, and some of them—particularly those that use will or shall as the most universal and widely used—are frequently described as future tense while some may argue these verbs serve both as present modal verbs and future tense markers.
The will/shall future consists of the modal verb will or shall together with the bare infinitive of the main verb, as in "He will win easily" or "I shall do it when time permits". (Prescriptive grammarians prefer will in the second and third persons and shall in the first person, reversing the forms to express obligation or determination, but in practice shall and will are generally used interchangeably, with will being more common. For details see shall and will.) The meaning of this construction is close to that expressed by the future tense in other languages. However the same construction with will or shall can have other meanings that do not indicate futurity, or else indicate some modality in addition to futurity (as in "He will make rude remarks", meaning he has a habit of doing so, or, "You shall act on my behalf", giving an order). For details of these meanings, see the sections on will and shall in the article on English modal verbs.
The form of the will/shall future described above is frequently called the simple future (or future simple). Other constructions provide additional auxiliaries that express particular aspects: the future progressive (or future continuous) as in "He will be working"; the future perfect as in "They will have finished"; and the future perfect progressive as in "You will have been practising." For detail on these, see the relevant sections of Uses of English verb forms. (For more on expressions of relative tense, such as the future perfect, see also the section above.)
Several other English constructions commonly refer to the future:
Present tense forms, as in "The train leaves at five," or, "My cousins arrive tomorrow." Since these grammatical forms are used more canonically to refer to present situations, they are not generally described as future tense; in sentences like those just given they may be described as "present tense with future meaning". Use of the present tense (rather than forms with will) is mandatory in some subordinate clauses referring to the future, such as "If I feel better next week, ..." and "As soon as they arrive, ...". For more details see the sections on the simple present, present progressive and dependent clauses in the article on English verb forms.
The going-to future, e.g., "John is going to leave tonight."
The construction with a finite form of the copula verb be together with the to-infinitive, e.g., "John is to leave tonight". (With the zero copula of newspaper headline style, this becomes simply "John to leave tonight".) For details see am to.
The construction with to be about to, e.g., "John is about to leave", referring to the expected immediate future. (A number of lexical expressions with similar meaning also exist, such as to be on the point of (doing something).)
Use of modal verbs with future meaning, to combine the expression of future time with certain modality: "I must do this" (also mun in Northern English dialect); "We should help him"; "I can get out of here"; "We may win"; "You might succeed". The same modal verbs are also often used with present rather than future reference. For details of their meanings and usage, see English modal verbs.
Questions and negatives are formed from all of the above constructions in the regular manner: see Questions and Negation in the English grammar article. The auxiliaries will and shall form the contracted negations won't and shan't (they can also sometimes be contracted when not negated, to 'll, such as in I'll find it).
The various ways of expressing the future carry different meanings, implying not just futurity but also aspect (the way an action or state takes place in time) and/or modality (the attitude of the speaker toward the action or state). The precise interpretation must be based on the context. In particular there is sometimes a distinction in usage between the will/shall future and the going-to future (although in some contexts they are interchangeable). For more information see the going-to future article.
Dutch
Dutch can express the future in three ways:
gaan + infinitive: Ik ga het boek lezen (I'm going to read the book). "Gaan" is a cognate of "to go".
zullen + infinitive: Ik zal het boek lezen (I will/shall read the book). "Zullen" is a cognate of "shall".
present tense + context or a temporal adverb or clause: Hoe lang blijft hij in Nederland? (How long is he staying in the Netherlands?) Its English-language equivalent uses the continuous or imperfective aspect.
Zullen + infinitive is more similar to shall than to will. It is used to:
express a promise or a proposal
emphasize that something will certainly happen
express that an event is likely going to take place (by explicitly mentioning the probability)
English will and Dutch wil, although cognates, have over the centuries shifted in meaning, such that will is almost identical to shall, whereas Dutch wil means want, as in Ik wil het doen (I want to do it).
Gaan + infinitive can be compared with the English "going to" . It is used:
to express an intended action (but not a promise, proposal, or solemn plan)
to say that an event is going to take place (without emphasizing the certainty or mentioning the probability)
Swedish
Swedish skall strongly implies intention, but with an adverb such as nog "probably" it can avoid the implication of intentionality: Det här skall nog gå bra "This will probably go well". However, the past tense of skall, skulle, can be used without such an adverb to express predictions in the past: Pelle sa, att det skulle bli varmt på eftermiddagen "Pelle said that it would be warm in the afternoon."
Pure future, regardless of intention, is usually expressed with kommer att (literally: "comes to"): Det här kommer att gå bra "This will go well", Du kommer att överleva det här "You will survive this".
Generally, future tense is sparsely used in spoken Swedish, with the verb instead being put in present tense and accompanied by a distinct time specification: Jag åker till Spanien på fredag "I travel to Spain on Friday" Då ses vi imorgon. "Then we meet tomorrow"
Latin and Romance
The future tense forms in Latin varied by conjugation. Here is a sample of the future tense for the first conjugation verb amare, "to love".
See Latin conjugation for further details. Sound changes in Vulgar Latin made future forms difficult to distinguish from other verb forms (e.g., amabit "he will love" vs. amavit "he loved"), and the Latin simple future forms were gradually replaced by periphrastic structures involving the infinitive and an auxiliary verb, such as debere, venire, velle, or especially habere. All of the modern Romance languages have grammaticalized one of these periphrastic constructions for expressing the future tense; none of them has preserved the original Latin future, with the exception of Old French preserving the original Latin future forms of estre "to be": jo (i)er, tu (i)ers, il (i)ert, nos (i)ermes, vos *(i)ertes, and il (i)erent, all of them were derived from erō, irregular future form of esse "to be", in addition to future forms in ser- (< sedēre "to sit") or estr-.
Future tense with habere
While Classical Latin used a set of suffixes to the main verb for the future tense, later Vulgar Latin adopted the use of habere ("to have") with the infinitive, as for example:
petant aut non petant venire habet ("whether they ask or do not ask, it will come")
From this construction, the major Western Romance languages have simple future tense forms that derive from the infinitive followed by a conjugated form of the verb "to have" (Latin habere). As the auxiliary verb lost its modal force (from a verb expressing obligation, desire, or intention, to a simple marker of tense), it also lost syntactic autonomy (becoming an enclitic) and phonological substance (e.g., Latin first singular habeo > ayyo > Old French ai, Modern French ).
Thus the sequence of Latin verbs amare habeo ("I have to love") gave rise to French aimerai, Spanish amaré, etc. "I will love".
Phonetic changes also affected the infinitive in the evolution of this form, so that in the modern languages the future stem is not always identical to the infinitive. Consider the following Spanish examples:
"go out": infinitive salir → 1st. sing. future saldré in lieu of *saliré
"know": infinitive saber → 2nd. sing future "sabrás" in lieu of *saberás
"do": infinitive hacer → 3rd sing. future hará in lieu of *hacerá
"want": infinitive querer → 3rd pl. future querrán in lieu of *quererán
Indo-Aryan languages
Hindi
In Hindi, verbs can be conjugated for three grammatical aspects (habitual, perfective, and progressive) and five grammatical moods (indicative, presumptive, subjunctive, contrafactual, and imperative). Out of the three aspects, the habitual mood of Hindi cannot be conjugated into the future tense. The indicative future is constructed from the subjunctive future forms. Imperatives in Hindi can also be put into future tense.
Indicative and Subjunctive future
There are two future subjunctive moods in modern Hindi, first the regular subjunctive and the second, the perfective subjunctive which superficially has the same form as the perfective aspect forms of verbs but still expresses future events, it is used with if clauses and relative clauses. In a semantic analysis, this use of the perfective aspect marker would not be considered perfective, since it is more closely related to subjunctive usage. Only the superficial form is identical to that of the perfective. This perfective subjunctive cannot be used as a coupla for aspectual participles.
The future indicative forms are constructed using the future subjunctive forms of verbs by adding the future suffix गा (-gā) which declines for number and gender of the grammatical person. The table below shows the future subjunctive and indicative forms of the verb करना karnā (to do).
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="4" |personalpronouns
! rowspan="2" |futuresubjunctive
! colspan="2" |futureindicative
! colspan="2" |subjunctiveperfective
|-
!person
!plurality
!formality
!pronoun
!♂
!♀
!♂
!♀
|-
! rowspan="2" |1st
!singular
!—
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|-
!plural
!—
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|-
! rowspan="3" |2nd
!singular
!intimate
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! rowspan="2" |plural{{efn|The pronouns तुम (tum) and आप (āp) are grammatically plural pronouns however, they are also used as singular pronouns, akin to the English pronoun "you".}}
!familiar
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!formal
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! colspan="4" |translation (only 2nd person)
|(that) you do.
| colspan="2" |you will do.
| colspan="2" |(if) you do.
|}
Prospective future
The prospective future is constructed using the prospective future participle which is constructed from the oblique infinitive by adding the suffix वाला (-vālā) which also declines for the number and the gender of the pronoun. The participle is always followed by the auxiliary verb होना (honā) in its conjugated forms. The copula होना (honā) can be put into four grammatical moods: indicative, presumptive, subjunctive, and contrafactual. The table below shows the indicative mood forms of the prospective future for the verb करना karnā (to do).
Imperative future
Imperatives in Hindi can be conjugated into two tenses, present and future tense. The conjugations are mentioned in the table below for the verb करना karnā (to do). Hindi also has imperatives forms which are constructed form the subjunctive form of the verbs for the formal 2nd person pronoun आप (āp), and also third person pronouns to give indirect commands.
Semitic languages
Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew has a distinction between past and future tenses which is similar in form to those used in other Semitic languages such as Arabic and Aramaic. Gesenius refers to the past and future verb forms as Perfect and Imperfect, respectively, separating completed action from uncompleted action. However, the usage of verbs in these forms does not always have the same temporal meaning as in Indo-European languages, mainly due to the common use of a construct of inverting the time reference with a prefix "Waw consecutive" (ו' ההיפוך). With this construct, the Perfect-consecutive refers to the future and the Imperfect-consecutive refers to the past.
Usage of the imperfect to discuss future events is somewhat uncommon in Biblical Hebrew, as the Bible mainly discusses past events. It can be found in quoted speech, such as in the words of Moses (imperfect verbs stressed):
The Perfect-consecutive is commonly found in prophetic text, describing an unspecified future, as in the Book of Isaiah:
Modern Hebrew always employs the imperfect as the future tense (and the perfect as the past tense). The usage of "Waw consecutive" has practically disappeared, except for quotes from the Bible and Poetic language.
Arabic
To form future tense in Arabic the prefix (سـ) "sa" is added to the present tense verb, or (سوف) "sawfa".
For example, consider the sentence:
To express the future we have two ways:
written as part of the verb
written as a Clitic to indicate the future but preceding the verb
In Classical Arabic the latter indicates an individual future action that usually takes place further in the future than the first mentioned form, which is usually used with verbs that relate to other actions, and mostly referring to rather near future actions.
However, in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) the distinction is minimal.
Moreover, the indication of the future tense in dialectal Arabic is quite varied from one dialect to the next.
Generally speaking, the words meaning "want to" (بدي / أريد أن), "go to" (أروح), "intend to"(ناوي /نويت), and many others are used daily to indicate future actions.
In Moroccan Arabic, the word "Ghad" (غاد) is used to indicate future, which literally means "there" (or there is to happen), that is in some way similar to the English formation "there I go.."
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin Chinese has no grammatical tense, instead indicating time of action from the context or using adverbs. However, the auxiliary verb 會 / - huì / ㄏㄨㄟˋ, a modal meaning "can", "know how", can alternatively indicate futurity. For lexical futurity, the word yào, which can serve as a verb meaning "to want", can also serve as an adverb meaning "immediately": For example, wǒ yào xǐzǎo can mean either "I want to bathe" or "I am about to bathe". 即 jí、將 jiāng serve a similar function as tense-marking adverbs.
Creoles
Creoles are languages with a vocabulary heavily based on a superstrate language but a grammar based on substrate languages and/or universal language tendencies. Some Creoles model a future tense/irrealis mood marker on "go" from the superstrate (analogous to English "am going to"). In many creoles the future can be indicated with the progressive aspect, analogous to the English "I'm seeing him tomorrow." In general creoles tend to put less emphasis on marking tense than on marking aspect. When any of tense, aspect, and modality are specified, they are typically indicated with invariant pre-verbal markers in the sequence anterior relative tense (prior to the time focused on), irrealis mode (conditional or future), imperfective aspect.
Jamaican English Creole
The future marker in Jamaican Creole is /de go/ or /a go/: /de go hapm/ "is going to happen", /mi a go ɹon/ "I am going to run".
Belizean Creole English
In Belizean Creole, the future tense is indicated by a mandatory invariant pre-verbal particle /(w)a(n)/, /gwein/, or /gouɲ/.
Gullah
In Gullah the future is indicated by the pre-verbal marker gwine: Uh gwine he'p dem "I'm going to help them".
Hawaiian Creole English
In Hawaiian Creole, the pre-verbal future marker is gon: Ai gon bai wan pikap "I'm going to buy a pickup".
Haitian Creole
Haitian Creole, based on a French superstrate, interchangeably uses pral or va (from French 3rd person singular va "goes") pre-verbally to indicate the future: Mwen va fini lit. "I go finish"; Li pral vini jodi a'' "He will come today".
References
External links
4 Future Tenses Explained
English Grammar Reference and Exercises
Future
Grammatical tenses
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian%20Soviet%20Socialist%20Republic
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Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic
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The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Latvian SSR), also known as Soviet Latvia or simply Latvia, was de facto one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union between 1940–1941 and 1944–1990.
The Soviet occupation and annexation of Latvia took place in June and August of 1939, according to the agreed terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocol. In 1939, Latvia was forced to grant military bases on its soil to the Soviet Union, and in 1940 the Red Army moved into Latvia, effectively annexing it into the Soviet Union.
The territory changed hands during World War II with Nazi Germany occupying a large portion of Latvian territory from 1941 to 1944, before the Soviet Union re-occupied it in 1944. The Soviet occupation of the Baltic states from 1939–40 and 1944–1991 is widely considered illegal by the international community and human rights organisations.
Soviet instability in the 1980s and the dissolution of the Soviet Union provided an opportunity for Latvia to restore its independence.
Creation, 1940
On 24 September 1939, the USSR entered the airspace of Estonia, flying numerous intelligence-gathering operations. On 25 September, Moscow demanded that Estonia sign a Soviet–Estonian Mutual Assistance Treaty to allow the USSR to establish military bases and station troops on its soil. Latvia was next in line, as the USSR demanded the signing of a similar treaty. The authoritarian government of Kārlis Ulmanis accepted the ultimatum, signing the Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty on 5 October 1939. On 16 June 1940, after the USSR had already invaded Lithuania, it issued an ultimatum to Latvia, followed by the Soviet occupation of Latvia on 17 June.
Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov accused Latvia and the other Baltic states of forming a military conspiracy against the Soviet Union, and so Moscow presented ultimatums, demanding new concessions, which included the replacement of governments with new ones, "determined to fulfill the treaties of friendship sincerely" and allowing an unlimited number of troops to enter the three countries. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops entered Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. These additional Soviet military forces far outnumbered the armies of each country.
The Ulmanis government decided that, in conditions of international isolation and the overwhelming Soviet force both on the borders and inside the country, it was better to avoid bloodshed and unwinnable war. The Latvian army did not fire a shot and was quickly decimated by purges and included in the Soviet Army.
Ulmanis' government resigned and was replaced by a left-wing government created under instructions from the USSR embassy. Up until the election of the People's Parliament on 14-15 July 1940, there were no public statements about governmental plans to introduce a Soviet political order or to join the Soviet Union. Soon after the occupation, the Communist Party of Latvia became the only legal Party and presented the "Latvian Working People's Bloc" for the elections. It was the only permitted participant in the election after an attempt by other politicians to include the Democratic Bloc (an alliance of all banned Latvian parties, except the Social Democratic Workers' Party) on the ballot was prevented by the government. Its office was closed, election leaflets confiscated, and its leaders arrested.
The election results were fabricated; the Soviet press released them so early that they appeared in a London newspaper 24 hours before the polls closed. All Soviet army personnel present in the country were allowed to vote.
The newly-elected People's Parliament convened on 21 July to declare the creation of the Latvian SSR and request admission to the Soviet Union on the same day. Such a change in the basic constitutional order of the state was illegal under the Constitution of Latvia because such a change could only be enacted after a plebiscite with two-thirds of the electorate's approval. On 5 August, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union completed the annexation process by accepting the Latvian petition and formally incorporated Latvia into the Soviet Union.
Some Latvian diplomats stayed in the West, and the Latvian Diplomatic Service continued to advocate the cause of Latvia's freedom for the next 50 years.
Following the Soviet pattern, the real power in the republic was in the hands of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Latvia as the titular head of the republic (Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet), and the head of the executive (the Chairman of the Soviet of the Ministers), were in subordinate positions. Therefore, the history of Soviet Latvia can broadly be divided into the periods of rule by the First Secretaries: Jānis Kalnbērziņš, Arvīds Pelše, Augusts Voss, Boris Pugo.
Era of Kalnbērziņš, 1940–1959
The Horrible Year, 1940–41
In the following months of 1940, the Soviet Constitution and criminal code (copied from Russian) were introduced. The elections of July 1940 were followed by elections to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in January 1941. The remaining Baltic Germans and anyone that could claim to be one emigrated to the German Reich.
On 7 August 1940, all print media and printing houses were nationalised. Most existing magazines and newspapers were discontinued or appeared under new Soviet names. In November 1940 banning of books began; in total, some 4,000 titles were banned and removed from circulation. Arrests and deportations of some authors, like Aleksandrs Grīns, began, while others, such as Jānis Sudrabkalns, started writing poems about Stalin.
As Latvia had implemented a sweeping land reform after the independence, most farms were too small for nationalisation. While rumours of impending collectivisation were officially denied in 1940 and 52,000 landless peasants were given small plots of up to 10 ha, in early 1941, preparations for collectivisation began. The small size of land plots and imposition of the production quotas and high taxes meant that very soon independent farmers would go bankrupt and had to establish collective farms.
Arrests and deportations to the Soviet Union began even before Latvia officially became a part of it. Initially, they were limited to the most prominent political and military leaders like President Kārlis Ulmanis, War Minister Jānis Balodis, and Army Chief Krišjānis Berķis who were arrested in July 1940. The Soviet NKVD arrested most of the White Russian émigrés, who had found refuge in Latvia. Very soon, purges reached the upper echelons of the puppet government when Minister of Welfare Jūlijs Lācis was arrested.
June 14 deportations
In early 1941 the Soviet central government began planning the mass deportation of anti-Soviet elements from the occupied Baltic states. In preparation, General Ivan Serov, Deputy People's Commissar of Public Security of the Soviet Union, signed the Serov Instructions, "Regarding the Procedure for Carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia." During the night of 13–14 June 1941, 15,424 inhabitants of Latvia – including 1,771 Jews and 742 ethnic Russians – were deported to camps and special settlements, mostly in Siberia. While among the deported were such obvious candidates as former politicians, wealthy bourgeois and farmers, police, members of Aizsargi, and NGO leaders, even philatelists and enthusiasts of Esperanto were included in the June deportation as unreliable elements. Some 600 Latvian officers were arrested in the Litene army camp, and many were executed on the spot. Many political prisoners were summarily executed in prisons across Latvia during the hasty Soviet retreat after the German attack on 22 June 1941. Latvia lost some 35,000 people during the first year of Soviet rule.
Some deportees had been warned to stay away from home and hid among friends or in forests. After the German-Soviet war began, many formed small guerrilla units, attacked the retreating Red Army soldiers and greeted Germans with the flag of independent Latvia.
World War II, 1941–1945
The Nazi invasion launched a week later, cut short immediate plans to deport several hundred thousand more from the Baltic's. Nazi troops occupied Riga on 1 July 1941.
During the short interregnum period, Latvians created two bodies that sought to restore independent Latvia: the Central Organising Committee for Liberated Latvia and the Provisional State Council.
Immediately after the instalment of Nazi German authority, a process of eliminating the Jewish and Gypsy populations began, with many killings taking place in Rumbula.
The killings were committed by the Einsatzgruppe A, the Wehrmacht, and Marines (in Liepāja), as well as by Latvian collaborators, including the 500–1,500 members of the Arajs Commando (which alone killed around 26,000 Jews) and the 2,000 or more Latvian members of the SD. By the end of 1941, almost the entire Jewish population was killed or placed in the death camps. In addition, some 25,000 Jews were brought from Germany, Austria, and the present-day Czech Republic, of whom around 20,000 were killed. The Holocaust claimed approximately 85,000 lives in Latvia, of whom the vast majority were Jews.
A large number of Latvians resisted the German occupation. The resistance movement was divided between the pro-independence politicians of the Latvian Central Council and the armed Soviet partisan units under the Latvian Partisan Movement Headquarters (латвийский штаб партизанского движения) in Moscow. Their Latvian commander was Arturs Sproģis.
The Nazis planned to Germanize the Baltic's by settling some 520,000 German settlers there 20–25 years after the war. In 1943 and 1944, two divisions of Latvian Legion were created through a forced mobilisation and made a part of the Waffen SS to help Germany against the Red Army.
Stalinism re-imposed, 1945–1953
In the middle of 1944, when the Soviet Operation Bagration reached Latvia, heavy fighting took place between German and Soviet troops, which ended with a stalemate and the creation of the Courland Pocket, which allowed some 130,000 Latvians to escape to Sweden and Germany.
During the war, both occupying forces conscripted Latvians into their armies, increasing the loss of the nation's "live resources." In Courland, Latvian Legion units fought battles against Latvians of the Red Army.
Latvia lost some 20% of its population during World War II. In 1944 part of Abrene District, about 2% of Latvia's territory, was illegally ceded to the RSFSR.
In 1944 the Soviets immediately began to reinstate the Soviet system. After re-establishing military control over the country, in February 1946, elections of the Soviet Union's Supreme Soviet were held, followed, in February 1947, by Latvian Supreme Soviet elections and only in January 1948 elections to the local Soviets.
Guerrilla movement
After the German surrender, it became clear that Soviet forces were there to stay, and Latvian national partisans began their fight against another occupier: the Soviet Union. At their peak, some 10,000–15,000 partisans in disorganised units fought local battles against Communists, NKVD troops and Soviet government representatives. Forest brothers consisted not only of the former Legionnaires or German supporters but men who were trying to avoid Soviet conscription, dispossessed farmers, and even priests and school pupils who wrote and distributed patriotic leaflets and provided shelter to partisans. Many believed that a new war between the Western powers and the Soviet Union was imminent and expected Latvia to be liberated soon. After the 1949 deportations and collectivisation, the resistance movement decreased sharply, with the last few individuals surrendering in 1956 when amnesty was offered. The last holdout was Jānis Pīnups, who hid from authorities until 1995.
Deportations of 1949
120,000 Latvian inhabitants deemed disloyal by the Soviets were imprisoned or deported to Soviet labour camps (the Gulag). Some escaped arrest and joined the Forest Brothers.
On 25 March 1949, 43,000 primarily rural residents ("kulaks") were deported to Siberia and northern Kazakhstan in Operation Priboi, which was implemented in all three Baltic States and approved in Moscow already on 29 January 1949. Whole families were arrested, and almost 30% of deported were children under 16.
Collectivisation
In the post-war period, Latvia was forced to adopt Soviet farming methods, and the economic infrastructure developed in the 1920's and 1930's was eradicated. Farms belonging to refugees were confiscated, German supporters had their farm sizes sharply reduced, and much of the farmland became state-owned. The remaining farmers' taxes and obligatory produce delivery quotas were increased until individual farming became impossible. Many farmers killed their cattle and moved to cities. In 1948 collectivisation began in earnest and was intensified after the March 1949 deportations, and by the end of the year, 93% of farms were collectivised.
Collective farming was extremely unprofitable as farmers had to plant and harvest according to the state plan and not the actual harvest conditions. Farmers were paid close to nothing for their produce. Grain production in Latvia collapsed from 1.37 million tons in 1940 to 0.73 million tons in 1950 and 0.43 million tons in 1956. Only in 1965 did Latvia reach the meat and dairy output levels of 1940.
Russian dominance
During the first post-war years, Moscow's control was enforced by the Special Bureau of CPSU Central Committee, led by Mikhail Suslov. To ensure total control over the local Communist party, Ivan Lebedev, a Russian, was elected the Second Secretary. This tradition continued until the end of the Soviet system. The lack of politically reliable local cadres meant the Soviets increasingly placed Russians in Party and government leadership positions. Many Russian Latvian Communists who had survived the so-called 1937–38 "Latvian Operation" during the Great Purge were sent back to the homeland of their parents. Most of these Soviets did not speak Latvian, and this only enforced the wall of distrust against the local population. By 1953 Latvia's Communist Party had 42,000 members, half of whom were Latvians.
Hundreds of thousands of Russians were moved to Latvia to replace the lost population (due to war casualties, refugees to the West, and deportees to the East) and to implement a heavy industrialisation program. An extensive program of Russification was initiated, limiting the use of Latvian and minority languages. In addition, the Russian people's leading and progressive role throughout Latvian history was heavily emphasised in school books, arts, and literature. The remaining poets, writers, and painters had to follow the strict canons of socialist realism and live in constant fear of being accused of some ideological mistake that could lead to banning from publication or even arrest.
National Communists, 1953–1959
During the short rule of Lavrentiy Beria in 1953, the policy of giving more power to local communists and respecting local languages was introduced. More freedoms came after the 1956 de-Stalinization. Some 30,000 survivors of Soviet deportations began returning to Latvia. Many were barred from working in certain professions or returning to their homes.
Soon after Stalin's death number of Latvians in the Communist Party began to increase, and by this time, many locally-born communists had achieved positions of power and began advocating a program that centred on ending the inflow of Russian-speaking immigrants, end to the growth of heavy industry, and creating light industries better suited for local needs, increasing the role and power of the locally born communists, enforcing the Latvian language as the state language. This group was led by Eduards Berklavs, who in 1957 became the Vice-Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Orders were issued that non-Latvian Communists should learn some Latvian or lose their jobs within two years.
They were opposed by the Russian Latvian communists who had been born to Latvian parents in Russia or the Soviet Union, had returned to Latvia only after World War II, and usually did not speak or avoided speaking Latvian in public. They were supported by the politically influential officer corps of the Baltic Military District.
In 1958 Soviet education law made learning national languages optional.
In April 1959, a fact-finding delegation from Soviet Central Committee visited Riga. During Nikita Khrushchev's visit to Riga in June 1959, hard-line elements complained about the nationalist tendencies in the Party and, with the blessing from Moscow, started purges of national communists and local communists, who had been in power since 1940. In November 1959, the long-serving First Secretary of the Party Kalnbērziņš and Prime Minister Vilis Lācis resigned from their posts and were replaced by hardliners. During the next three years, some 2000 national communists were dismissed from their positions and moved to insignificant posts in the countryside or Russia.
The first post-war census in 1959 showed that the number of Latvians since 1935 had declined by 170,000, while Russians had increased by 388,000, Belarusians by 35,000, and Ukrainians by 28,000.
Because Latvia had still maintained a well-developed infrastructure and educated specialists, it was decided in Moscow that some of the Soviet Union's most advanced manufacturing factories were to be based in Latvia. New industries were created in Latvia, including a major machinery factory RAF, and electrotechnical factories, along with some food and oil processing plants. TV broadcasts from Riga started in 1954, the first in the Baltic's.
Era of Pelše, 1959–1966
From 1959 to 1962, leading Latvian national communists were purged as Arvīds Pelše enforced his power.
In 1961, Pelše officially banned the Latvian midsummer Jāņi celebrations along with other Latvian traditions and folk customs. In November of 1959, Pelše also instigated the purge of "nascent nationalists" from the Latvian government. Almost 2,000 members of the government were removed.
Between 1959 and 1968, nearly 130,000 Russian speakers immigrated to Latvia and began working in the large industrial factories that were rapidly built. The newly arrived immigrants were the first to receive apartments in the newly built micro-districts. Large factories, employing tens of thousands of recently arrived immigrants, and entirely dependent on resources from faraway Soviet regions, produced products – most of which were sent back to other Soviet republics. Many of the new factories were under the All-Union ministry and military jurisdiction, thus operating outside the planned economy of Soviet Latvia. Latvia's VEF and Radiotehnika factories specialised in producing radios, telephones and sound systems. Most of the Soviet railway carriages were made by Rīgas Vagonbūves Rūpnīca and minibuses by Riga Autobus Factory.
In 1962, Riga began receiving Russian gas for industrial needs and domestic heating. This allowed large-scale construction of new micro-districts and high-rises to begin. In 1965, the Pļaviņas Hydroelectric Power Station began producing electricity.
Era of Voss, 1966–1984
Since there were not enough people to operate the newly built factories and expand industrial production, workers outside the Latvian SSR (mainly Russians) were transferred into the country, noticeably decreasing the proportion of ethnic Latvians. The speed of Russification was also influenced by the fact that Riga was the HQ of the Baltic Military District, with active and retired Soviet officers moving there.
Increased investments and subsidies for collective farms greatly increased the living standards of the rural population without much increase in production output. Much of the farm produce was still grown on small private plots. To improve rural living standards, a mass campaign was started to liquidate individual family farms and to move people into smaller agricultural towns where they were given apartments. Farmers became paid workers in collective farms.
While the early Voss era continued with the modernising impulse of the 1960's, a visible stagnation began by the mid-1970's. Prestige high-rise projects in Riga, such as the Hotel Latvija and the Ministry of Agriculture building, took many years to complete. A new international airport and the Vanšu Bridge over Daugava were built.
An ideological model of "live and let live" came into place. The black market, absenteeism, and alcoholism became widespread. Consumer goods shortages were a norm. Latvians turned to escapism: the music of Raimonds Pauls, the historic comedies of Riga Film Studio and even Poetry Days became hugely popular.
Era of Pugo, 1984–1988
National reawakening, 1985–1990
In the second half of the 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began the introduction of the political and economic reforms of glasnost and Perestroika. In the summer of 1987, large demonstrations were held in Riga at the Freedom Monument. In the summer of 1988, a national movement coalesced in the Popular Front of Latvia. The Latvian SSR, along with the other Baltic Republics, was allowed greater autonomy, and in 1988 the old national flag of Latvia was legalised, replacing the Soviet Latvian flag as the official flag in 1990. Pro-independence Latvian Popular Front candidates gained a two-thirds majority in the Supreme Council in the March 1990 democratic elections.
Collapse of the Soviet rule
On 4 May 1990, the Council passed the declaration "On the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia," which declared the Soviet annexation void and announced the start of a transitional period to independence. It argued that the 1940 occupation violated international law. It also argued that the 1940 resolution acceding to the Soviet Union was illegal since the 1922 Latvian constitution stipulated that any major change in the state order had to be submitted to a referendum. In any case, the declaration argued that the 1940 elections were conducted based on an illegal and unconstitutional election law, which rendered all actions of the "People's Saeima" ipso facto void. On these bases, the Supreme Council argued that the Republic of Latvia, as proclaimed in 1918, still legally existed even though its sovereignty had been de facto lost in 1940.
Latvia took the position that it did not need to follow the process of secession delineated in the Soviet constitution, arguing that since the annexation was illegal and unconstitutional, it was merely reasserting independence that still existed under international law. However, the central power in Moscow continued to regard Latvia as a Soviet republic from 1990–1991. In January 1991, Soviet political and military forces unsuccessfully tried to overthrow the Republic of Latvia authorities by occupying the central publishing house in Riga and establishing a Committee of National Salvation to usurp governmental functions. During the transitional period, Moscow maintained many central Soviet state authorities in Latvia. Despite this, seventy-three percent of all Latvian residents confirmed their strong support for independence on 3 March 1991 in a non-binding advisory referendum. A large number of ethnic Russians also voted for the proposition. The Republic of Latvia declared the end of the transitional period and restored complete independence on 21 August 1991 in the aftermath of the failed Soviet coup attempt. Latvia, as well as Lithuania and Estonia de facto ceased to be parts of the USSR four months before the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist (26 December 1991). Soon, on 6 September, the USSR recognised the independence of the three Baltic states. Today, the Republic of Latvia and other Baltic states consider themselves to be the legal continuation of the sovereign states whose first independent existence dates back to 1918–1940 and does not accept any legal connection with the former Latvian SSR, which had been occupied and annexed into USSR 1940–1941 and 1944–1991. Since independence, the Communist Party of the Latvian SSR was discontinued, and several high-ranking Latvian SSR officials faced prosecution for their role in various human rights abuses during the Latvian SSR regime. Latvia later joined NATO and the European Union in 2004.
Economy
The Soviet period saw rebuilding and increase of the industrial capacity, including the automobile (RAF) and electrotechnic (VEF) factories, food processing industry, oil pipelines, and the bulk-oil port Ventspils.
Part of the incorporation of the Latvian SSR into the Soviet Union was the introduction of the Russian language into all spheres of public life. Russian became a prerequisite for admission to higher education and better job occupations. It was also made a compulsory subject in all Latvian schools. Vast numbers of people were needed for the new factories, and they were purposefully sent there from different parts of Russia, thus creating a situation wherein bigger towns became increasingly Russified until the 1980s.
National income per capita was higher in Latvia than elsewhere in the USSR (42% above the Soviet average in 1968); however, Latvia was at the same time a relative contributor to the Federation's centre with an estimated 0.5% of the Latvian GDP going to Moscow.
After the Soviet Union's collapse, all economic branches associated with it also collapsed. While a significant Russian presence in Latgale predated the Soviet Union (~30%), the intense industrialisation and the heavy importation of labour from the Soviet Union to support it led to significant increases in the Russian minority in Riga, even forming a majority in Latvian urban centres such as Daugavpils, Rēzekne, and Ogre. Those areas were also hardest hit economically when the Soviet Union collapsed, leading to massive unemployment. Sharp disagreement with Russia over the legacy of the Soviet era has led to punitive economic measures by Russia, including the demise of transit trade as Russia cut off petroleum exports through Ventspils in 2003 (eliminating 99% of its shipments) after the government of Latvia refused to sell the oil port to the Russian state oil company, Transneft. The result is that only a fraction of Latvia's economy is connected with Russia, especially after it joined the European Union.
In 2016, a committee of historians and economists published a report, "Latvian Industry Before and After Restoration of Independence," estimating the overall cost of Soviet occupation in the years 1940–1990 at 185 billion euros, not counting the intangible costs of "deportations and imprisonment policy" of the Soviet authorities.
Soviet army presence
The Soviet army had been stationed in Latvia since October 1939, when it demanded and received military bases in Courland where it stationed at least 25,000 soldiers, with air force, tanks and artillery support. The Soviet navy received rights to use ports in Ventspils and Liepāja. In addition to soldiers, uncontrolled numbers of officers' family members and construction workers arrived.
During the first year of Soviet power, construction of the new military aerodromes was begun, often involving the local population as unpaid construction workers. The Soviet Navy took over seaports and shipping yards. Many hundreds of Soviet officers were moved into newly nationalized apartments and houses. Larger apartments were subdivided, creating communal ones.
After 1944, Latvia and Riga became heavily militarised. Demobilised soldiers and officers chose to move to Riga, creating severe housing shortages. Much of the new apartment building in the first post-war years was done only for the benefit of Soviet officers stationed in Riga.
Courland's entire Baltic Sea coast became a Soviet border area with limited freedom of movement for the local inhabitants and closed to outsiders. Beaches were illuminated by searchlights and plowed to show any footprints. The old fishing villages became closed military zones, and fishermen were moved to larger townships: Roja, Kolka. The small coastal nation of Livonians virtually ceased to exist. Secretive objects were built like the Irbene radio telescope. Liepāja port was littered with rusting submarines and beaches with unexploded phosphorus.
By the mid-1980's, in addition to 350,000 soldiers of the Baltic Military District, an unknown number of border and interior ministry troops were stationed in the Baltics. In 1994 the departing Russian troops presented a list of over 3000 military units stationed in 700 sites taking over 120,000 ha, or about 10% of Latvian land.
In addition to active military personnel, Riga was popular as a retirement town for Soviet officers, who could not retire to larger cities like Moscow or Kyiv. Many thousands of them received preferential treatment in receiving new housing. To speed up the withdrawal of the Russian army, Latvia officially agreed to allow 20,000 retired Soviet officers and their families (up to 50,000 people) to remain in Latvia without granting them citizenship and Russia continues to pay them pensions.
Military training was provided by the Riga Higher Military Political School and the Riga Higher Military Aviation Engineering School.
International status
The governments of the Baltic countries, the European Court of Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the United States, and the European Union (EU), regard Latvia as being occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The European Parliament in recognising the occupation of the Baltic states from 1940 until the fall of the Soviet Union as illegal, led to the early acceptance of the Baltic states into the NATO alliance.
Soviet sources before Perestroika
Up to the reassessment of Soviet history in the USSR that began during Perestroika, before the USSR had condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Nazi Germany and itself that had led to the invasion and occupation of the three Baltic countries, the events in 1939 were as follows: The Government of the Soviet Union suggested that the Governments of the Baltic countries conclude mutual assistance treaties between the countries. Pressure from working people forced the governments of the Baltic countries to accept this suggestion. The Pacts of Mutual Assistance were then signed which allowed the USSR to station a limited number of Red Army units in the Baltic countries. Economic difficulties and dissatisfaction of the populace with the Baltic governments' policies that had sabotaged the fulfilment of the Pact and the Baltic countries' governments' political orientation toward Nazi Germany led to a revolutionary situation in June 1940. To guarantee the Pact's fulfilment, additional military units entered Baltic countries, welcomed by the workers who demanded the resignations of the Baltic governments. In June, under the leadership of the Communist Parties, political demonstrations by workers were held. The fascist governments were overthrown, and workers' governments were formed. In July 1940, elections for the Baltic Parliaments were held. The "Working People's Unions," created by an initiative of the Communist Parties, received the majority of the votes. The Parliaments adopted the declarations of the restoration of Soviet powers in Baltic countries and proclaimed the Soviet Socialist Republics. Declaration of Estonia's, Latvia's and Lithuania's wishes to join the USSR were adopted, and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR petitioned accordingly. The Supreme Soviet of the USSR approved the requests.
Current position of the Russian government
The Russian government and officials maintain that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was legitimate and that the Soviet Union liberated the countries from the Nazis.
Timeline
See also
History of Latvia
Republics of the Soviet Union
References
External links
"Ethnic structure of Latvia" at lettia.lv, illustrating changes in the population of Latvia over the last hundred years.
Republics of the Soviet Union
Occupation of the Baltic states
Soviet military occupations
1990s in Latvia
1940 establishments in the Soviet Union
1991 disestablishments in the Soviet Union
Political history of Latvia
Former client states
Former socialist republics
20th century in Latvia
States and territories established in 1940
States and territories disestablished in 1991
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian%20Soviet%20Socialist%20Republic
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Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
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The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Armenia, or simply Armenia, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union, located in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Soviet Armenia bordered the Soviet Republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia and the independent states of Iran and Turkey. The capital of the republic was Yerevan and it contained thirty-seven districts (raions). Other major cities in the ArmSSR included Leninakan, Kirovakan, Hrazdan, Etchmiadzin, and Kapan. The republic was governed by Communist Party of Armenia, a branch of the main Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Soviet Armenia was established on 2 December 1920, with the Sovietization of the short-lived First Republic of Armenia. Consequently, historians often refer to it as the Second Republic of Armenia. It became part of the Transcaucasian SFSR, along with neighboring Georgia and Azerbaijan, which comprised one of the four founding republics of the USSR. When the TSFSR was dissolved in 1936, Armenia became a full republic of the Soviet Union.
As part of the Soviet Union, Armenia initially experienced stabilization under the administration of Alexander Miasnikian during Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP). During its seventy-one year history, the republic was transformed from a largely agricultural hinterland to an important industrial production center, while its population almost quadrupled from around 880,000 in 1926 to 3.3 million in 1989 due to natural growth and large-scale influx of Armenian genocide survivors and their descendants.
Soviet Armenia suffered during the Great Purge of Joseph Stalin, but contributed significantly to the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War of World War II. After the death of Stalin, Armenia experienced a new period of liberalization during the Khrushchev Thaw. Following the Brezhnev era, Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms of glasnost and perestroika led to the rise of the Karabakh movement. The republic declared "state sovereignty" on 23 August 1990, boycotted the March 1991 referendum on the New Union Treaty, and on 21 September 1991, held a successful independence referendum. It was recognized on 26 December 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, although the republic's 1978 Soviet constitution remained in effect with major amendments until 5 July 1995 when the new Armenian constitution was adopted via referendum.
Formal name
Following the Sovietization of Armenia, the republic became officially known as the Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia. After the dissolution of the TSFSR in 1936, the name was changed to the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was used until 1991.
In Armenian, the official name was initially "Socʼialistakan Xorhrdayin Hayastani Hanrapetutʼyun". From 1936, the official name became "Hayastani Socʼialistakan Xorhrdayin Hanrapetutʼyun". The form of "Hayastani" was replaced by "Haykakan", as well as words "Soviet" and "socialist" were swapped the position, which making the name was changed to "Haykakan Xorhrdayin Socʼialistakan Hanrapetutʼyun". In 1940, the direct borrowing translations of "Soviet" and "republic" replaced native Armenian words, adjusting the name to "Haykakan Sovetakan Socʼialistakan Respublika". In the 1960s, the native word for "republic" was restored..
History
Sovietization
Prior to Soviet rule, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, Dashnaksutiun) had governed the First Republic of Armenia. The Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia was founded in 1920. Diaspora Armenians were divided about this: supporters of the nationalist Dashnaksutiun did not support the Soviet state, while supporters of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) were more positive about the newly founded Soviet state.
From 1828, with the Treaty of Turkmenchay to the October Revolution in 1917, Eastern Armenia had been part of the Russian Empire and partly confined to the borders of the Erivan Governorate. After the October Revolution, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin's government announced that minorities in the empire could pursue a course of self-determination. Following the collapse of the empire, in May 1918, Armenia, and its neighbors Azerbaijan and Georgia, declared their independence from Russian rule and each established their respective republics. After the near-annihilation of the Armenians during the Armenian genocide and the subsequent Turkish-Armenian War, the historic Armenian area in the Ottoman Empire was overrun with despair and devastation.
A number of Armenians joined the advancing 11th Soviet Red Army. Afterwards, in the treaties of Moscow and Kars, Turkey renounced its claims to Batumi to Georgia in exchange for Kars, Ardahan, and Surmalu, including the medieval Armenian capital Ani and the cultural icon of the Armenian people, Mount Ararat. Additionally, despite opposition from Armenian Bolshevik revolutionary Alexander Miasnikian, the Soviet government granted Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan to Soviet Azerbaijan, as they did not have direct control over those areas at the time and were primarily concerned with restoring regional stability.
New Economic Policy (NEP)
From 12 March 1922 to 5 December 1936, Armenia was a part of the Transcaucasian SFSR (TSFSR) together with Soviet Georgia and Soviet Azerbaijan. The policies of the first Soviet Armenian government, the Revolutionary Committee (Revkom), headed by young, inexperienced, and militant communists such as Sarkis Kasyan and Avis Nurijanian, were implemented in a highhanded manner and did not take into consideration the poor conditions of the republic and the general weariness of the people after years of conflict and civil strife. As the Soviet Armenian historian Bagrat Borian, who was to later perish during Stalin's purges, wrote in 1929:
Such was the degree and scale of the requisitioning and terror imposed by the local Cheka that in February 1921 the Armenians, led by former leaders of the republic, rose up in revolt and briefly unseated the communists in Yerevan. The Red Army, which was campaigning in Georgia at the time, returned to suppress the revolt and drove its leaders out of Armenia.
Convinced that these heavy-handed tactics were the source of the alienation of the native population to Soviet rule, in 1921, Lenin appointed Miasnikian, an experienced administrator, to carry out a more moderate policy and one better attuned to Armenian national sensibilities. With the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP), Armenians began to enjoy a period of relative stability. Life under Soviet rule proved to be a soothing balm in contrast to the turbulent years of the First Republic. Alexander Tamanian began to realize his city plan for Yerevan and the population received medicine, food, as well as other provisions from Moscow.
Prior to his debilitating illness, Lenin encouraged the policy of korenizatsiya or "nativization" in the republics which essentially called for the different nationalities of the Soviet Union to "administer their republics", establishing native-language schools, newspapers, and theaters. In Armenia, the Soviet government ruled that all illiterate citizens up to the age of fifty to attend school and learn to read Armenian, which became the official language of the republic. Throughout the Soviet era, the number of Armenian-language newspapers (Sovetakan Hayastan), magazines (Garun), and journals (Sovetakan Grakanutyun, Patma-Banasirakan Handes) grew. A Kurdish newspaper, Riya Teze (The New Path), was established in Armenia in 1930.
An institute for culture and history was created in 1921 in Ejmiatsin, the Yerevan Opera Theater and a dramatic theater in Yerevan were built and established in the 1920s and 1930s, and popular works in the fields of art and literature were produced by Martiros Saryan, Avetik Isahakian, and Yeghishe Charents, who all adhered to the socialist dictum of creating works "national in form, socialist in content." Armenkino released the first Armenian feature film, Namus (Honor) in 1925 and the first Kurdish film, Zare, in 1926. Both were directed by Hamo Bek-Nazaryan, who would later direct the first sound film Pepo, released in 1935.
Stalinism and the Great Purge
The situation in Armenia and the USSR significantly changed after the death of Lenin and the rise of Joseph Stalin to the Soviet leadership. In the Caucasus, Stalin's ally in Georgia, Lavrentiy Beria, sought to consolidate his control over the region, resulting in a political struggle with Armenian First Secretary Aghasi Khanjian. The struggle culminated in Khanjian's assassination by Beria in Tiflis (Tbilisi) on 9 July 1936, beginning the Great Purge in Armenia. At first, Beria framed Khanjian's death as "suicide", but soon condemned him for abetting "rabid nationalist elements". After Khanjian's death, Beria promoted his loyalists in Armenia, Amatuni Amatuni as Armenian First Secretary and Khachik Mughdusi as chief of the Armenian NKVD. Under the command of Beria's allies, the campaign against "enemies" intensified. Expressions of "nationalism" were suspect and many leading Armenian writers, artists, scientists, and intellectuals were executed or imprisoned, including Charents, Axel Bakunts, Gurgen Mahari, Nersik Stepanyan, and others. According to Amatuni in a June 1937 letter to Stalin, 1,365 people were arrested in the ten months after the death of Khanjian, among them 900 "Dashnak-Trotskyists".
The arrest and death of Sahak Ter-Gabrielyan in August 1937 was a turning point in the repressions. When being interrogated by Mughdusi, Ter-Gabrielyan "either jumped or was thrown from" the window of the NKVD building in Yerevan. Stalin was angered that Mughdusi and Amatuni neglected to inform him about the incident. In response, in September 1937, he sent Georgy Malenkov, Mikhail Litvin, and later Anastas Mikoyan to oversee a purge of the Communist Party of Armenia. During his trip to Armenia, Mikoyan tried, but failed, to save one individual (Daniel "Danush" Shahverdyan) from being executed. More than a thousand people were arrested and seven of nine members of the Armenian Politburo were sacked from office. The trip also resulted in the appointment of a new Armenian Party leadership, headed by Grigory Arutinov, who was approved by Beria.
The Armenian Apostolic Church was not spared from the repressions. Soviet attacks against the Church under Stalin were known since 1929, but momentarily eased to improve the Soviet Union's relations with the Armenian diaspora. In 1932, Khoren I became Catholicos of All Armenians and assumed the leadership of the church. However, in the late 1930s, the Armenian NKVD, led by Mughdusi and his successor, Viktor Khvorostyan, renewed the attacks against the Church. These attacks culminated in the 1938 murder of Khoren and the closing of the Catholicate of Ejmiatsin, an act for which Beria is usually held responsible. However, the Church survived and was later revived when Stalin eased restrictions on religion at the end of World War II. In addition to the repression of the Church, tens of thousands of Armenians were executed or deported, as with various other ethnic minorities living in the Soviet Union under Stalin. In 1936, Beria and Stalin worked to deport Armenians to Siberia in an attempt to bring Armenia's population under 700,000 in order to justify an annexation into Georgia Thousands of Armenians were forcibly exiled to the Altai Krai in 1949. Many were repatriated Armenians who arrived from the Armenian diaspora.
World War II
Armenia was spared the devastation and destruction that wrought most of the western Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War of World War II. The Wehrmacht never reached the South Caucasus, which they intended to do in order to capture the oil fields in Azerbaijan. Still, Armenia played a valuable role in the war in providing food, manpower and war material. An estimated 300–500,000 Armenians served in the war, almost half of whom did not return. Many attained the highest honor of Hero of the Soviet Union. Over sixty Armenians were promoted to the rank of general, and with an additional four eventually achieving the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union: Ivan Bagramyan (the first non-Slavic commander to hold the position of front commander when he was assigned to be the commander of the First Baltic Front in 1943), Admiral Ivan Isakov, Hamazasp Babadzhanian, and Sergei Khudyakov. Another prominent wartime figure was Artem Mikoyan, the younger brother of Anastas and the designer and co-founder of the Soviet MiG fighter jet company.
In an effort to shore up popular support for the war effort, the Soviet government allowed for certain expressions of nationalism with the publication of Armenian novels such as Derenik Demirchian's Vardanank, the production of films like David Bek (1944), and the easing of restrictions placed against the Church. Stalin temporarily relented his attacks on religion during the war. This led to the election of bishop Gevorg in 1945 as new Catholicos Gevorg VI. He was subsequently allowed to reside in Ejmiatsin.
At the end of the war, after Germany's capitulation, the Soviet government attempted to annul the Treaty of Kars, allowing it to regain the provinces of Kars, Ardahan, Artvin, and Surmalu. On 7 June 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov informed the Turkish ambassador in Moscow that the disputed provinces should be returned to Soviet Union in the name of both the Armenian and Georgian Soviet Republics. Turkey itself was in no condition to fight a war with the Soviet Union, which had emerged as a superpower after the Second World War. The Soviet territorial claims were supported by the Armenian Catholicos and by all shades of the Armenian diaspora, including the anti-Soviet Dashnaksutiun. However, with the onset of the Cold War, especially the Truman Doctrine in 1947, Turkey strengthened its ties with the West. The Soviet Union relinquished its claims over the lost territories, and Ankara joined the anti-Soviet NATO military alliance in 1952.
Armenian immigration
With the republic suffering heavy losses after the war, Stalin allowed an open immigration policy in Armenia; the diaspora were invited to repatriate to Armenia (nergaght) and revitalize the country's population and bolster its workforce. Armenians living in countries such as Cyprus, France, Greece, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria were primarily the survivors or the descendants of the genocide. They were offered the option of having their expenses paid by the Soviet government for their trip back to their homeland. An estimated 150,000 Armenians immigrated to Soviet Armenia between 1946 and 1948 and settled in Yerevan, Leninakan, Kirovakan and other towns.
Lured by numerous incentives such as food coupons, better housing and other benefits, they were received coldly by the Armenians living in the Republic upon their arrival. The repatriates spoke the Western Armenian dialect, instead of the Eastern Armenian spoken in Soviet Armenia. They were often addressed as aghbars ("brothers") by Armenians living in the republic, due to their different pronunciation of the word. Although initially used in humor, the word went on to carry on a more pejorative connotation. Their treatment by the Soviet government was not much better. A number of Armenian immigrants in 1946 had their belongings confiscated upon arrival at Odessa's port, as they had taken with them everything they had, including clothes and jewelry. This was the first disappointment experienced by Armenians; however, as there was no possibility of return the Armenians were forced to continue their journey to Armenia. Many of the immigrants were targeted by Soviet intelligence agencies and the Ministry of Interior for real or perceived ties to Armenian nationalist organizations, and were later sent to labor camps in Siberia and elsewhere, where they would not be released until after Stalin's death. Some who were suspected of being Dashnak party members were targeted for deportation to Central Asia in 1949.
Khrushchev Thaw
Following the power struggle after Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev emerged as the country's new leader. In his "secret" speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" that he delivered before the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1956, Khrushchev sharply denounced Stalin and his crimes. During the subsequent Khrushchev Thaw, the Soviet leadership largely loosened political restrictions and put more resources into housing and consumer goods.
Almost immediately, Armenia underwent a cultural and economic rebirth. Religious freedom, to a limited degree, was granted to Armenia when Catholicos Vazgen I assumed the duties of his office in 1955. One of Khrushchev's advisers and close friends, Armenian Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan, urged Armenians to reaffirm their national identity. In March 1954, two years before Khrushchev denounced Stalin, Mikoyan gave a speech in Yerevan where he encouraged the republication of Raffi and Raphael Patkanian, the rehabilitation of Charents, and the revival of the memory of Miasnikian. Behind the scenes, he assisted Soviet Armenian leaders in the rehabilitation of former "enemies" in the republic. The massive statue of Stalin that towered over Yerevan was pulled down from its pedestal by troops literally overnight in 1962 and replaced in 1967 with that of Mother Armenia. Contacts between Armenia and the Diaspora were revived, and Armenians from abroad began to visit the republic more frequently. The Matenadaran, a facility to house ancient and medieval manuscripts was erected in 1959, and important historical studies were prepared by a new cadre of Soviet-trained scholars.
Mikoyan was not the only Armenian figure who rose to prominence during this era. Other famed Soviet Armenians included composers Aram Khachaturian, Arno Babajanian, Konstantin Orbelyan, and Tigran Mansurian; scientists Viktor Hambardzumyan and Artem Alikhanyan; actors Armen Dzhigarkhanyan and Frunzik Mkrtchyan; filmmakers Frunze Dovlatyan, Henrik Malyan, Sergei Parajanov, and Artavazd Peleshyan; artists Minas Avetisyan, Yervand Kochar, Hakob Kojoyan, and Tereza Mirzoyan; singers Georgi Minasyan, Raisa Mkrtchyan, and Ruben Matevosyan; and writers Silva Kaputikyan, Sero Khanzadyan, Hrant Matevosyan, Paruyr Sevak, and Hovhannes Shiraz, among many others.
Brezhnev era
After Leonid Brezhnev assumed power in 1964, many of Khrushchev's reforms were curtailed. However, although the Soviet state remained ever wary of the resurgence of Armenian nationalism, it did not impose the sort of restrictions as were seen during Stalin's time. On 24 April 1965, thousands of Armenians demonstrated in the streets of Yerevan during the fiftieth anniversary of the Armenian genocide. In the aftermath of these demonstrations, the memorial in honor of the victims of the genocide was completed at the Tsitsernakaberd hill above the Hrazdan gorge in Yerevan in 1967. Monuments in honor of other important events in Armenian history, such as that commemorating the Sardarapat and Bash Abaran, were also permitted to be erected, as was the sculpting of the statues of popular Armenian figures like the fifth-century military commander Vardan Mamikonian and the folk hero David of Sassoun.
The Brezhnev era also saw the rise of the shadow economy and corruption. Materials allocated for the building of new homes, such as cement and concrete, were diverted for other uses. Bribery and a lack of oversight saw the construction of shoddily built and weakly supported apartment buildings. The impact of such developments was to be demonstrated several years later in the catastrophic earthquake that hit Spitak. When the earthquake hit on the morning of 7 December 1988, the houses and apartments least able to resist collapse were those built during the Brezhnev years. Ironically, the older the dwellings, the better they withstood the quake. Armenian First Secretary Karen Demirchyan assumed office with a mandate to combat these abuses.
Glasnost and perestroika
Mikhail Gorbachev's introduction of the reforms of glasnost and perestroika in the 1980s fueled Armenian visions of a better life under Soviet rule. Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, which was promised to Armenia by the Bolsheviks but transferred to Soviet Azerbaijan, began a movement to unite the area with Armenia. The majority Armenian population expressed concern about the forced "Azerification" of the region. On February 20, 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast voted to unify with Armenia.
Demonstrations took place in Yerevan in support of the Karabakh Armenians, and grew into what became known as the Karabakh movement. By the beginning of 1988, nearly one million Armenians from several regions of the republic engaged in these demonstrations, centered on Yerevan's Theater Square (currently Freedom Square). However, in neighboring Azerbaijan, violence against Armenians erupted in the city of Sumgait. Ethnic rioting soon broke out between Armenians and Azeris, preventing any peaceful resolution from taking place. Armenians became increasingly disillusioned with the Kremlin's response toward the issue. Gorbachev, who had until then been viewed favorably in Armenia, saw his standing among Armenians deteriorate significantly.
Tension between the central government in Moscow and the local government in Yerevan heightened in the final years of the Soviet Union. The reasons largely stemmed from Moscow's perceived indecision on Karabakh, ongoing difficulties with earthquake relief, and the shortcomings of the Soviet economy. On August 23, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR adopted the Declaration of Independence of Armenia, declaring the Republic of Armenia to be a subject of international law. On 17 March 1991, Armenia, along with the Baltics, Georgia and Moldova, boycotted the union-wide referendum in which 78% of all voters voted for the retention of the Soviet Union in a reformed form. Armenia confirmed its independence in a referendum on 21 September 1991 after the unsuccessful coup attempt in Moscow by the CPSU hardliners.
The republic's independence became official with the Belovezh Accords and the formal dissolution of the Soviet state on December 26, 1991, making Armenia a sovereign independent state on the international stage. The constitution of the Armenian SSR of 1978 remained in effect until July 5, 1995 when the Constitution of Armenia was adopted.
Politics
Government
The structure of government in the Armenian SSR was identical to that of the other Soviet republics. The First Secretary was the administrative head of the republic, and the head of government was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers. The republic's legislative body was the Armenian Supreme Soviet, which included the highest judicial branch of the republic, the supreme court. Members of the Supreme Soviet served for a term of five years, whereas regional deputies served for two and a half years. All officials holding office were mandated to be members of the Communist Party and sessions were convened in the Supreme Soviet building in Yerevan.
The administrative divisions of the Armenian SSR from 1930 consisted of up 37 raions and 22 city districts. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, these were abolished in 1995 and replaced by larger marzer ("provinces").
Depending on the historical period, Soviet authorities would variously tolerate, co-opt, undermine, or sometimes even attempt to eliminate certain currents within Armenian society, such as nationalism and religion, to strengthen the cohesiveness of the Union. In the eyes of early Soviet policymakers, Armenians, along with Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Georgians, Germans, and Jews were deemed "advanced" (as opposed to "backward") peoples, and were grouped together with Western nationalities. The Caucasus and particularly Armenia were recognized by academic scholars and in Soviet textbooks as the "oldest civilisation on the territory" of the Soviet Union.
Like all the other republics of the Soviet Union, Armenia had its own flag and coat of arms. According to Nikita Khrushchev, the latter became a source of dispute between the Soviet Union and Turkey in the 1950s, when Ankara objected to the inclusion of Mount Ararat, which holds a deep symbolic importance for Armenians but is located on Turkish territory, in the coat of arms. Turkey felt that the presence of such an image implied Soviet designs on Turkish territory. Khrushchev retorted by asking, "Why do you have a moon depicted on your flag? After all, the moon doesn't belong to Turkey, not even half the moon ... Do you want to take over the whole universe?" Turkey dropped the issue after this.
Participation in international organizations
The Armenian SSR, as a Soviet republic, was internationally recognized by the United Nations as part of the Soviet Union but it had Norair Sisakian as President of the 21st session of the UNESCO General Conference in 1964. The Soviet Union was also a member of Comecon, Warsaw Pact and the International Olympic Committee.
Military forces
The military forces of the Armenian SSR were provided by the Soviet Army's 7th Guards Combined Arms Army of the Transcaucasian Military District. It was organized into the following:
HQ of the 7th Guards Combined Arms Army - Yerevan
15th Motor Rifle Division, Kirovakan
127th Motor Rifle Division, Leninakan (today the Russian 102nd Military Base)
164th Motor Rifle Division, Yerevan
7th Fortified Area, Leninakan
9th Fortified Area, Ejmiatsin
Economy
Under the Soviet system, the centralized economy of the republic banned private ownership of income-producing property. Beginning in the late 1920s, privately owned farms in Armenia were collectivized and placed under the directive of the state, although this was often met with active resistance by the peasantry. During the same time (1929–1936), the government also began the process of industrialization in Armenia.
Republic's economic foundation is the socialist system of economy and the socialist ownership of the means of production, which has two forms: state property and cooperative and collective-farm property. In addition to the socialist system of economy, which is the predominant form of economy in the Republic, the law permits small private undertakings of individual peasants and handicraftsmen based on their own labor and precluding exploitation of the labor of others. The economic life of the Republic is determined and guided by the state economic plan.
By 1935, the gross product of agriculture was 132% of that of 1928 and the gross product of industry was 650% to that of 1928. The economic revolution of the 1930s, however, came at a great cost: it broke up the traditional peasant family and village institution and forced many living in the rural countryside to settle in urban areas. Private enterprise came to a virtual end as it was effectively brought under government control.
Culture
Literature
Lazare Indjeyans Les Années volées and Armand Maloumians Les Fils du Goulag are two repatriate narratives about being incarcerated and eventual escape from gulags. Many other repatriate narratives explore family memories of the genocide and the decision to resettle in the Soviet Union. Some writers compare the 1949 Soviet deportations to Central Asia and Siberia with earlier Ottoman deportations.
Notes
References
Further reading
Aghayan, Tsatur., et al. (eds.), Հայ Ժողովրդի Պատմություն [History of the Armenian People], vols. 7 and 8. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1967, 1970.
Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1974–1987, 12 volumes.
Aslanyan, A. A. et al. Soviet Armenia. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1971.
Geghamyan, Gurgen M. Սոցիալ-տնտեսական փոփոխությունները Հայաստանում ՆԵՊ-ի տարիներին (1921-1936) [Socio-Economic Changes in the Armenia during the NEP Years, (1921-1936)]. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1978.
Matossian, Mary Kilbourne. The Impact of Soviet Policies in Armenia. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1962.
Miller, Donald E. and Lorna Touryan Miller, Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
Shaginian [Shahinyan], Marietta S. Journey through Soviet Armenia. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954.
Suny, Ronald Grigor. "Soviet Armenia", in The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times, Volume II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
Virabyan, Amatuni. Հայաստանը Ստալինից մինչև Խրուշչով: Հասարակական-քաղաքական կյանքը 1945-1957 թթ. [Armenia from Stalin to Khrushchev: Social-political life, 1945-1957] Yerevan: Gitutyun Publishing, 2001.
Walker, Christopher J. Armenia: The Survival of a Nation. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990.
Yeghenian, Aghavnie Y. The Red Flag at Ararat. New York: The Womans Press, 1932. Republished by the Gomidas Institute in London, 2013.
External links
Armenia: big strides in an ancient land by Anton Kochinyan
Former socialist republics
Republics of the Soviet Union
Communism in Armenia
States and territories established in 1920
States and territories disestablished in 1991
1920 establishments in Russia
1991 disestablishments in the Soviet Union
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star%20Wars%20sources%20and%20analogues
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Star Wars sources and analogues
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The Star Wars science fiction media franchise is acknowledged to have been inspired by many sources. These include southern and eastern Asian religions, Qigong, philosophy, classical mythology, Roman history, Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, parts of the Abrahamic religions, Confucianism, Shintō and Taoism, and countless cinematic precursors. Creator George Lucas stated "Most of the spiritual reality in the movie[s] is based on a synthesis of all religions. A synthesis through history; the way man has perceived the unknown and the great mystery and tried to deal with that or dealing with it".
Lucas has also said that chivalry, knighthood, paladinism and related institutions in feudal societies inspired some concepts in the Star Wars movies, most notably the Jedi Knights. The work of the mythologist Joseph Campbell, especially his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, directly influenced Lucas, and is what drove him to create the "modern myth" of Star Wars. The natural flow of energy known as the Force is believed to have originated from the concept of qi/chi/ki, "the all-pervading vital energy of the universe".
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, The History Channel premiered a two-hour event covering the entire Star Wars saga entitled Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed. Featuring interviews from the likes of Stephen Colbert, Newt Gingrich, Nancy Pelosi, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Peter Jackson, acclaimed scholars and others, the program delved further into the Heroic Epic concept and the influences of mythology and other motifs that were important in making Star Wars. Subjects include sins of the father and redeeming the father, coming of age, exiting the ordinary world and others.
Fictional works similarities and inspirations
Literature
Joseph Campbell's comparative mythology book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, directly influenced Lucas, and is what drove him to create the "modern myth" of Star Wars.
E.E. 'Doc' Smith's writings contain elements central to the Star Wars universe. These elements include:
Spherical, moon-sized spaceships.
Smaller, spherical, jet-less fighters with accumulators for beamed power.
Spacehounds of IPC includes light swords of slicing "blade of flame" and "planes of force" wielded by spherical ships, also attested in melee combat.
Smith's Lensmen have the telepathic powers of the Jedi derived from crystalline lenses mirroring Kyber crystals in Star Wars.
In Triplanetary, a "tractor beam" from an artificial planetoid captures another vessel and a damsel in distress adventure ensues.
Space armor with a general focus on melee combat using space axes.
Norlaminian worship of "the all-controlling Force" along with general use of "force" powers throughout.
A Golden Meteor is the emblem and insignia of the galactic protectors.
A galactic trade in drugs which are used as currency: Thionite in Smith, Spice in Star Wars.
A galactic corps of heroes with telepathic powers. (Note: Lensman was written 10 years before the Silver Age edition of Green Lantern)
Benevolent guardians seeking to fight evil. (Called Arisians in Lensman; Aquillian in the second draft script for Star Wars.)
A dark, unseen enemy seeking galactic domination. (Called Boskone in Lensman; Bogan in the second draft script for Star Wars.)
Special powers running down through family lines, with twins playing a significant role.
Epic space battles involving fleets of ships.
Large-scale weapons including a free-roaming planet-sized fortress and the sunbeam (capable of focusing the sun's rays, similar to Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens).
Jettisoning a space lifeboat with a data spool containing secrets of the enemy's ultimate weapon, the 'Grand Base'.
Training with a helmet with a blast shield, yet able to 'see' due to special powers.
Passing a ship off as a chunk of loose metal.
Numerous uses of the word coruscant, a term which had declined in use after the 19th century.
The science fiction writer Isaac Asimov stated on several occasions that George Lucas's galaxy-wide Empire bore a close resemblance to the galaxy depicted in Asimov's Foundation Series. The greatest differences are that Asimov's Galaxy contains almost no robots and no non-human aliens. Asimov addressed both issues directly in the saga's later volumes, most notably Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth. Since Asimov's death in 1992, the Star Wars cinematic universe has gained new Asimovesque elements: The Phantom Menace introduced the planet Coruscant, which bears a close resemblance to Asimov's Trantor.
The early Journal of the Whills draft of Star Wars from 1973 is based on the first chapter of the 1931 John Carter novel A Fighting Man of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Star Wars borrows significantly from Arthurian mythology; especially with respect to plot and main character development. The life and character development of Luke Skywalker resembles that of the legendary King Arthur. Both are orphans who later become heroes in their early adulthood. Both also have mentors who are much older and provide them with guidance and/or training. Arthur was mentored by Merlin; whereas Luke was mentored and trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi prior to continuing his training and mentorship with Yoda. The role of Anakin Skywalker as the father of the hero, Luke Skywalker, mirrors that of Uther Pendragon who is King Arthur's father. Qui Gon-Jinn, Master Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi's roles match that of Merlin during the era of Anakin Skywalker and Uther Pendragon respectively.
Star Wars shares many similarities with Frank Herbert's Dune, including the desert planet setting with a moisture-based economy, spice smugglers, obese interstellar antagonists, and a mystical mind control-using sect with great influence over galactic politics — Herbert himself once enumerated 37 similarities. The influence was even more distinct in early Star Wars versions, with Princess Leia guarding a shipment of "aura spice" instead of the Death Star plans. The script for Jodorowsky's Dune was circulating in Hollywood at the time of Lucas' early work on Star Wars. The director of the 2021 movie adaptation of Dune, Denis Villeneuve, said the new movie would attempt to be Star Wars for adults.
Pulp heroes and comics
Buck Rogers, another hero from pulp magazines from 1920s, and late comic strips (1929–67) and later a 1939 film serial and a 1950–51 TV series. Star Wars also influenced from its tropes.
Flash Gordon is the pulp hero whose original property which George Lucas had sought to license before making the first Star Wars film, A New Hope; the film includes many elements derived from the 1936 Universal serial Flash Gordon and its sequel, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. The basic plot involving the infiltration of a megalomaniacal outer-space Emperor's fortress by two heroes disguised in uniforms of soldiers of his army is drawn from Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, with Luke Skywalker and Han Solo filling the roles of Flash Gordon and Prince Barin, respectively, and Ming the Merciless the Emperor. The Emperor's deadly, hostile planet (the Death Star/Mongo), a sometimes scantily-clad brunette space Princess whom the hero defends (Princess Leia/Princess Aura), a big, strong, hairy, animal-like ally (Chewbacca/Prince Thun of the Lion Men), a fearsome monster found underground and/or fought in an arena by the hero (the Rancor/the Gocko or Orangopoid), a city in the sky ruled by someone who originally works with the villains but later joins the heroes (Lando Calrissian of Cloud City), ray-guns, and dogfighting spaceships were all elements retained from the first Universal Flash Gordon serial. The opening text crawl of Star Wars is in the same style as the text openings of each chapter of the Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe serial. [From the 1940 series, not 1936, and the opening crawl is from the movie Les Disparus de Saint-Agil].
DC comics and Jack Kirby. There has been a long debate among fans about the influence that comic book writer Jack Kirby had on the original Star Wars trilogy. Kirby's time at DC Comics between 1971 and 1975 was defined by his creation of the New Gods saga. This intergalactic story involved the New God, Orion of the planet New Genesis, being prophesied by the Source as the warrior to defeat Darkseid - the tyrannical ruler of the planet Apokolips, and, by doing so, bring peace to the universe and end the conflict between the two planets. Unknown to Orion was that he was the son of the evil Darkseid. Parallels can thus be drawn between the nature of the relationships between Orion and Darkseid to Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, as well as between the mythical Source and the Force. According to some accounts, Lucas met comic book writer and editor Roy Thomas at a dinner in 1972, during which Lucas described the plot of Star Wars, to which Thomas noticed the similarity between this and Kirby's New Gods, which was then already a published series. John Williams who made the iconic Star Wars soundtracks since 1977, also did the soundtrack for the first Superman movie in 1978.
Marvel Comics: Lucas original trilogy co-writer Lawrence Kasdan noted that the spin-offs were expanding the franchise into more of a shared universe. Far beyond the previously linear saga, adding that one of the strengths of the franchise was how it all fell under the same continuity in comparison to other franchises. Kasdan also contrasted Star Wars to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, noting that Star Wars features less comedy than the latter, and adding that he felt a more comedic approach like Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy would "not be Star Wars" to him.
Jon Favreau stated that he took what he learned from doing the Marvel adjacent Iron Man movies into doing The Mandalorian and Boba Fett in the Star Wars franchise, all these characters rely on metallic, high-tech armors that can fly and fire weapons.
J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 The Hobbit and 1954–55 The Lord of the Rings novels inspired George Lucas's creation of Star Wars in 1977. An early draft for the 1977 Star Wars film is said to have included an exchange of dialogue between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker taken directly from the conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo in Chapter 1 of The Hobbit, where Gandalf/Kenobi says "Good morning!" and Bilbo/Luke replies asking whether he means he's having a good morning, or is wishing him one, or that all mornings are good. Gandalf/Kenobi answers "All of them at once". The plagiarised dialogue was dropped, but the monk-like Kenobi was modelled on Gandalf; the film author Chris Taylor identifies several further elements of Star Wars that in his view could have been modelled on Middle-earth.
While doing a Star Wars animated series, Dave Filoni noted that Peter Jackson visited him and his mentor George Lucas to discuss Tolkien's works and to ask for advice. According to the Star Wars website, Darth Vader is compared by Filoni to the Balrog rather than Sauron, and the Prancing Pony bar may have inspired the Mos Eisley cantina. the introduction of Han Solo suggestively matching that of Strider (Aragorn). As for the prequel trilogy, it notes that Saruman influenced Count Dooku (both are portrayed by Christopher Lee in the respective movies), and volcanic Mordor, whether Tolkien's or Jackson's, influenced the volcanic planet Mustafar.
George R. R. Martin acknowledged Tolkien influenced his Game of Thrones TV series and novels about medieval fantasy, while speaking about a movie about Tolkien's life. Jon Favreau mentioned Game of Thrones as an influence on The Mandalorians second season. George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones (1996 – present) has been compared to Star Wars. This is most commonly through the characters of Luke Skywalker and Jaime Lannister, due to both being sword-fighters who lose their hands in duels, while being knights sworn to celibacy, and also due to their incestuous relationships to their respective sisters, Leia and Cersei (though Luke and Leia were unaware of being siblings, and the Lannisters have children). Both feature mothers who died at child-birth (A Game of Thrones was written before the release of Revenge of the Sith), and arguably evil fathers (though Luke and Leia weren't raised by him). Captain Phasma has also been compared as weaker than Briane of Tharth, due to both sharing the same actress. Many people were in both franchises. Both franchises feature important fights on throne rooms, with Emperor Palpatine's throne being compared to the Iron Throne, though Martin's works are far more violent.
Opera
Star Wars is widely considered to resemble Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen in themes, plot elements, and music.
Film and television
Lucas has specifically cited the fact that he became acquainted with the term jidaigeki ("period drama", the Japanese genre of samurai films) while in Japan, and it is widely assumed that he took inspiration for the term Jedi from this.
The costume for Darth Vader was visually inspired by the character "The Lightning" in the Republic Pictures serial The Fighting Devil Dogs. The Lightning also had an army of white-armored stormtroopers and flew through the sky in a large triangular airship (the "flying wing").
Darth Vader's need to wear his helmet to breathe recalls the oxygen helmets of the underground-dwelling Muranians in the 1935 Mascot serial The Phantom Empire, which are required by the caped Thunder Riders to be able to breathe on the surface.
The Phantom Menace features a pod racing action sequence. This entire sequence is inspired by the famous chariot race of Ben Hur. The climactic moment when Sebulba's Pod attaches itself to Anakin's Pod mimics, almost shot for shot, the climactic moment of the scene in Ben Hur when Messala accidentally locks wheels with Ben Hur. Lines, scenes and themes from Ben-Hur had already previously influenced the Star Wars films. The conflict between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire is comparable to the earlier film's depiction of the historical Roman-Jewish conflict of the time, with an ascendant Roman Empire, represented by Messala, threatening to wipe out the Jewish rebels and send them extinct. The same Chariot sequence also inspired parts of the Endor speeder chase in Return of the Jedi, which also includes a sequence where two speeders accidentally interlock. The film's famous early line "The Emperor is displeased, he wishes Judea be made into a more obedient province!" significantly influenced dialogue in all Original Trilogy Star Wars films, with the first four words, in particular, is frequently directly quoted in relation to Star Wars Emperor Palpatine character.
Lucas has also cited John Ford's The Searchers and David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia as references for the style—if not the story—used in the films. A more direct homage to Lawrence of Arabia occurs in Attack of the Clones, as Padme and Anakin talk while walking around the Theed palace on Naboo. It was filmed at the Plaza de España in Seville, Spain, which in Lawrence of Arabia was the site of the British Army headquarters in Cairo, and was shot in an exact manner as the scene in Lawrence of Arabia where Allenby (Jack Hawkins) and Dryden (Claude Rains) discuss whether to give artillery to Lawrence's Arab troops. In the same film, Padme and Anakin also retreat to an estate called Varykino – the name of the Gromeko family estate in Doctor Zhivago. (Some also have considered Tom Courtenay's Pasha/Strelnikov character from Zhivago as an inspiration for Anakin/Darth Vader, but the similarities are likely coincidental.) Similarly, the chase sequence with Zam Wesell on Coruscant likely references Blade Runner; Lucas based many of the Coruscant cityscapes on Los Angeles in 2019. A reference to The Searchers occurs in Star Wars, when Luke discovers the burning moisture farm, while the Tusken Raiders sequence in Attack of the Clones recalls the climax of The Searchers. Han's showdown with Greedo in Star Wars resembles a scene in another John Ford movie, Cheyenne Autumn.
Lucas is also a fan of Sergio Leone's film Once Upon a Time in the West, and according to Leone's biographer, Christopher Frayling, he listened to the score from Leone's film while editing The Empire Strikes Back. Many have considered Vader's first appearance in A New Hope as being an "homage" to the introduction of Henry Fonda's villainous Frank in the Leone film.
The death scene of Yoda in Return of the Jedi is taken almost shot-for-shot from the death scene of the similarly mystical High Lama in Frank Capra's Lost Horizon (Yoda and the High Lama also both share a diminutive form and odd cadence of speech).
The attack on the Death Star in the climax of the film A New Hope is similar in many respects to the strategy of Operation Chastise from the 1954 British film, The Dam Busters. Rebel pilots have to fly through a trench while evading enemy fire and drop a single special weapon at a precise distance from the target to destroy the entire base with a single explosion; if one run fails another run must be made by a different pilot. Some scenes from the A New Hope climax are similar to those in The Dam Busters and some of the dialogue is nearly identical in the two films. These scenes are also heavily influenced by the action scenes from the fictional wartime film 633 Squadron. That film's finale shows the squadron's planes flying down a deep fjord while being fired at along the way by anti-aircraft guns lining its sides. George Lucas has stated in interviews that this sequence inspired the 'trench run' sequence in Star Wars.
Francis Ford Coppola – Lucas based the friendship between Luke Skywalker and Han Solo on his own friendship with Francis Ford Coppola. In Revenge of the Sith, during Anakin's massacre on Mustafar, the slaughter of the Separatist Council and the declaration of the Galactic Empire are reminiscent of the montage of massacres during the christening scene of The Godfather, a film directed by Coppola. They are similar in that the christening of one (the baby and the Empire) with the death of a group of others (the other dons and the Separatists). Post-Lucas director Rian Johnson inspired one of the final shots of The Last Jedi where the Millennium Falcon door closes, on the final scene of The Godfather where a door closes on Michael Carleone. While, Lucas wanted the sequel trilogy Luke Skywalker inspired on the cynic Colonel Kurtz from Coppolla's "Apocalypse Now".
The Maschinenmensch – the robot in Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis – inspired the look of C-3PO, although the Maschinenmensch is a gynoid whereas C-3PO has masculine programming.
Ray Harryhausen used stop motion animation to create a mechanical owl, Bubo, in Clash of the Titans (1981). Despite Bubo's similarities (Bubo is metallic and expresses by whistling and rotating its head) to the droid R2-D2 of the 1977 film Star Wars, Harryhausen claimed Bubo was created before Star Wars was released.
Lucas used the term the Force to "echo" its use by cinematographer Roman Kroitor in 21-87 (1963), in which Kroitor says, "Many people feel that in the contemplation of nature and in communication with other living things, they become aware of some kind of force, or something, behind this apparent mask which we see in front of us, and they call it God". Although Lucas had Kroitor's line in mind specifically, Lucas said the underlying sentiment is universal and that "similar phrases have been used extensively by many different people for the last 13,000 years".
Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa films:
The Hidden Fortress (1958) A New Hope features the exploits of C-3PO and R2-D2, whereas the plot of The Hidden Fortress is told from the point of view of two bickering peasants. The two peasants, Tahei and Matashichi, are first shown escaping a battle, while C-3PO and R2-D2 are first shown fleeing an attack in A New Hope. Additionally, both films feature a battle-tested General – Rokurota Makabe in The Hidden Fortress and Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope – who assist a rebellion led by a princess and engage in a duel with a former rival whom they fought years earlier. Lucas also features many horizontal wipe scene transitions in Star Wars, a technique used thoroughly by Kurosawa in his films. Similarly, the Princess trades places with a slave girl in The Hidden Fortress, with the slave girl acting as a decoy for the real Princess. In The Phantom Menace, Queen Amidala trades places with one of her handmaidens who acts as a decoy.
Yojimbo (1961) inspired the brawl scene in the Cantina. Its sequel Sanjuro (1962) inspired the hiding-under-the-floor trick.
"A Fistful of Dollars" which is Sergio Leone's first film in Dollars trilogy, is an unofficial remake of the Kurosawa film "Yojimbo", that also inspired George Lucas. Clint Eastwood's cowboy character without a name, also inspired the post-Lucas created main character of The Mandalorian, and also the Lucas created character Cad Bane from The Clone Wars animated series. (Though the episode "Hostage Crisis" that introduced Cad Bane, has the character also inspired on Hans Gruber, the villain of Die Hard, with its plot also being a loose remake of the Bruce Willis film).
Django another unofficial western remake of Yojimbo, inspired Lucas on the name of his character Jango Fett.
Dersu Uzala (1975), just two years before the first Star Wars movie, there are two scenes that bear a striking resemblance to scenes in Star Wars. The first is the Captain and Dersu looking out over the horizon, seeing both the setting sun and the rising moon at the same time. This is much like when Luke Skywalker stares out on the sky with binary suns in A New Hope. The other scene is when Dersu and the Captain are suddenly caught in a blizzard, and they have to quickly build a shelter to spend the night, to survive the cold. The Captain collapses from the cold and Dersu has to drag and stuff him into the shelter. This is similar to the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Han Solo cuts a tauntaun open with Luke's lightsaber and stuffs the unconscious Luke into it, when they get caught in a blizzard on the snow planet Hoth. A similar moment using a horse, happens in The Revenant (2015 film), than won an Oscar to Leonardo DiCaprio for playing 1700s frontier man Hugh Glass.
Rashomon (1950): On The Last Jedi (2017), from post-George Lucas director Rian Johnson. The Rashomon effect, is described on the part where Rey is told by Luke, a description of how he considered murdering his nephew Ben Solo in his sleep, due to feeling his inevitable fall to the dark side of The Force. Then Solo, who by that point had renamed himself as Kylo Ren, tells his perspective, which causes Luke to tell a third perspective of the event. All whom cause a reinterpretation of a similar even in Return of the Jedi.
Seven Samurai also inspired an episode of The Clone Wars animated series, and the first Star Wars comic with an original plot, that wasn't adapted from the film. The Mandalorian released its Chapter 4: Sanctuary has also been compared to Seven Samurai.
Star Trek
George Lucas claims he became a fan of Star Trek when the original series broadcast in the late 1960s which played an influence on the development of Star Wars in 1977. Lucas claimed he also visited Star Trek conventions.
The original films' influence on the franchise after Disney buys Lucasfilm
Following the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney, and the release of the 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a Whatculture.com writer noticed the film bore many parallels and similar plot beats to A New Hope. McGill University computer science professor Derek Ruths ran an algorithm that found that, while it was not a one to one translation (for instance, Rey and Kylo Ren did not mirror Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader), the script mirrored A New Hope a lot in the way that each film's characters were grouped.
Real world history
Ancient and medieval history
Ancient and medieval history play amongst the strongest and significant influences on Star Wars which reflects ancient Earth history in its settings, including architectural, social and hierarchical structures (i.e. the existence of monarchies and empires) as well as story lines which reflect ancient and medieval history. The transformation of the Old Republic into the Galactic Empire parallels that of the Roman Republic which transformed into the Roman Empire in the same manner of conspiracy and manipulation. Lucas was quoted as saying: "I love history, so while the psychological basis of Star Wars is mythological, the political and social bases are historical".
Author Nick Jamilla explains that unlike mainstream futuristic stories, with Star Wars, George Lucas ties in science fiction with ancient history, comparing the Jedi to the Samurai and historical European swordsmanship. He also parallels the spiritual aspects of the Jedi to eastern monks and philosophy.
Star Wars reflects ancient history in its planetary settings. For example, the planet Coruscant imitates Ancient Rome as the capital of the Old Republic and later the Galactic Empire; whereas Tatooine (referring to Tataouine - a province south of Tunis in Tunisia, roughly where Lucas filmed for the planet) imitates the ancient Middle East (specifically the Arabian Peninsula) and North Africa in ancient times as being barren desert and sparsely populated (which it still is today to a certain degree). Coruscant and Naboo are also two of many planets in the Star Wars galaxy which exhibit architecture inspired by those of ancient Greece, Rome, and other ancient Mediterranean and southern/southeastern European societies.
In his book The Medieval Hero on Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy, author Tom Henthorne argues that 1970s science fiction movies such as the Star Wars films and E.T. bring back neo-medieval themes at young boys with a masculine tone in his view. He argues the knighthood-type plots give a sense of encouragement to young boys and give girls the image of being their prizes or captives waiting to be rescued.
The Samurai warriors of Japan are somewhat parallel to the concept of the Jedi as an elite warrior class specialized in combat and swordsmanship techniques charged with protecting their respective societies.
Modern and early modern history
The stormtroopers from the movies share a name with the Imperial German stormtroopers and the Nazi German Sturmabteilung (lit. Stormtrooper). Imperial officers' uniforms also resemble some historical German Army uniforms and the political and security officers of the Empire resemble the black clad SS down to the imitation silver death's head insignia on their officer's caps (although the uniforms technically had more basis with the German Uhlans within the Prussian Empire). World War II terms were used for names in Star Wars; examples include the planets Kessel (a term that refers to a group of encircled forces) and Hoth (Hermann Hoth was a German general who served on the snow-laden Eastern Front). Lucas himself has drawn parallels between Palpatine and his rise to power to historical dictators such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler, saying the films exist as an examination of how democracies allow themselves to become dictatorships. The space battles in A New Hope were based on filmed World War I and World War II dogfights.
Continuing the use of Nazi inspiration for the Empire, J. J. Abrams, the director of The Force Awakens, has said that the First Order, an Imperial offshoot which serves as the main antagonist of the sequel trilogy, is also inspired by another aspect of the Nazi regime. Abrams spoke of how several Nazis fled to Argentina after the war and he claims that the concept for the First Order came from conversations between the scriptwriters about what would have happened if they had started working together again (The Boys from Brazil).
In a 2005 interview, George Lucas was asked the origins of the name "Darth Vader", and replied: "Darth is a variation of dark. And Vader is a variation of father. So it's basically Dark Father." (Rolling Stone, June 2, 2005). Vader is the Dutch word for "father" (the Dutch word is instead pronounced "fah-der"), and the German word for "father" (Vater) is similar. However, in the earliest scripts for Star Wars, the name "Darth Vader" was given to a human Imperial general with no apparent relationships.
Commentators have noted the strong political analogies in the Star Wars universe to contemporary American politics. Major analogies include Lucas's opposition to the Vietnam War being seen in the original trilogy. Lucas even said in 2005 that Star Wars "was really about the Vietnam War, and that was the period where Richard Nixon was trying to run for a [second] term, which got me to thinking historically about how do democracies get turned into dictatorships. Because the democracies aren't overthrown; they're given away." This claim was likewise backed up by the 1973 draft for the first movie, then-called The Star Wars, where Lucas specifically mentioned that the theme involved an independent planet named Aquillae that was compared to North Vietnam, and that the Empire was "America 10 years from now", and by Walter Murch, who claimed Lucas, after his failure with Apocalypse Now, decided to do Star Wars as a way to channel the anti-war and pro-Vietcong ideology in a disguised form. Ian McDiarmid, when recalling something Lucas told him during filming of Return of the Jedi, also implied that the Oval Office, and in particular, Nixon's presidency, played a role in the design of the Emperor's throne room. Political themes in Rogue One have also been noted.
The political and military conflict of the prequel films, especially Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, bears a strong similarity to elements of the American Civil War (1861–1865): the Galactic Republic's Clone army (officially called the "Grand Army of the Republic") represents the Union Army (whose veteran organization was named Grand Army of the Republic), while the Confederacy of Independent Systems mimics the Confederate States of America (also abbreviated as "the Confederacy"). The character of Count Dooku is directly based on Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
See also
George Lucas in Love, a parody short film linking several Star Wars elements to the experiences of Lucas as a film student.
References
Sources and analogues, Star Wars
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Fitzrovia
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Fitzrovia () is a district of central London, England, near the West End. The eastern part of area is in the London Borough of Camden, and the western in the City of Westminster. It has its roots in the Manor of Tottenham Court, and was urbanised in the 18th century. Its name was coined in the late 1930s by Tom Driberg.
It is characterised by its mixed-use of residential, business, retail, education and healthcare, with no single activity dominating. The once bohemian area was home to writers such as Virginia Woolf, George Bernard Shaw and Arthur Rimbaud. In 2016, The Sunday Times named it the best place to live in London.
Geography
For a list of street name etymologies in Fitzrovia see: Street names of Fitzrovia.
Fitzrovia has never been an administrative unit, so has never had formal boundaries applied, but the somewhat grid-like pattern of local streets has lent itself to informal quadrangular definitions, with Euston Road to the north, Oxford Street to the south and Great Portland Street to the west. Some interpretations take Tottenham Court Road as the eastern boundary, but others prefer a wider interpretation, extending to the more easterly Gower Street. By these definitions, the area overlaps the long established and once formally defined districts of Marylebone in the City of Westminster (Western Fitzrovia overlaps almost completely with the officially designated East Marylebone Conservation Area within the modern borough of Westminster ), with the core area forming the south-west part of St Pancras in the London Borough of Camden. If the eastern boundary is taken to extend beyond Tottenham Court Road (i.e., to Gower Street) and to also extend south of Torrington Place, then the area also overlaps the historic boundaries of Bloomsbury (including St Giles with which it was long joined as a combined parish).
In 2014 Camden Council and Westminster City Council designated east and west areas as planning policy areas. Together these relate fairly closely to the wider interpretations, described above.
Etymology
Fitzrovia is named after either Fitzroy Square or the Fitzroy Tavern, a public house situated on the corner of Charlotte Street and Windmill Street (both the square and the tavern are in the east of the area). Until the end of the 19th century the area was an estate of the Dukes of Grafton, descended from Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton, a son of Charles II and Barbara Villiers who bore the royal bastard surname FitzRoy, Norman-French for "son of the king".)
The name Fitzrovia came into use in the late 1930s among an artistic, bohemian circle that were among the pub's customers. The name was recorded in print for the first time by Tom Driberg MP in the William Hickey gossip column of the Daily Express in 1940. The writer and dandy Julian MacLaren-Ross recalled in his Memoirs of the Forties that Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu aka "Tambi", editor of Poetry London, had used the name Fitzrovia. Tambi had apparently claimed to have coined the name Fitzrovia. By the time Julian Maclaren-Ross met Tambimuttu and Dylan Thomas in the early 1940s this literary group had moved away from the Fitzroy Tavern, which had become a victim of its own success, and were hanging out in the lesser-known Wheatsheaf and others in Rathbone Place and Gresse Street. Maclaren-Ross recalls Tambimuttu saying: "Now we go to the Black Horse, the Burglar's Rest, the Marquess of Granby, The Wheatsheaf... in Fitzrovia." Maclaren-Ross replied: "I know the Fitzroy" to which Tambimuttu said: "Ah, that was in the Thirties, now they go to other places. Wait and see." Tambimuttu then took him on a pub crawl. The name was largely forgotten as the avant-garde set moved out in the late-1940's, but was revived in the 1970s, with the prevalence of use having waxed and waned since that time.
History
The core area of Fitzrovia has its roots in the ancient manor (estate) of Tottenham Court – first recorded as Þottanheale, from a charter from around AD 1000 (though the initial 'Þ', pronounced 'th', may have been a mistake by the scribe, all subsequent records using an initial 'T'). The manor was subsequently described as Totehele in the Domesday Book of 1086, Totenhale in 1184 and Totenhale Court by 1487. Tottenham Court formed the south-western part of the parish and later borough of St Pancras.
The Fitzroy Tavern was named after Charles FitzRoy (later Baron Southampton), who purchased the Manor of Tottenham Court and built Fitzroy Square, to which he gave his name; nearby Fitzroy Street also bears his name. The square is the most distinguished of the original architectural features of the district, having been designed in part by Robert Adam. The south-western area was first developed by the Duke of Newcastle who established Oxford Market, now the area around Market Place. By the beginning of the 19th century, this part of London was heavily built upon, severing one of the main routes through it, Marylebone Passage, into the tiny remnant that remains today on Wells Street, opposite what would have been the Tiger public house — now a rubber clothing emporium.
In addition to Fitzroy Square and nearby Fitzroy Street, there are numerous locations named for the FitzRoy family and Devonshire/Portland family, both significant local landowners. Charles FitzRoy was the grandson of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, hence Grafton Way and Grafton Mews. William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland and his wife Margaret Harley lend their names to Portland Place, Great Portland Street and Harley Street. Margaret Harley was daughter of Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, for whom Oxford Street (the southern boundary of Fitzrovia) and Mortimer Street are named. The Marquessate of Titchfield is a subsidiary title to the Dukedom of Portland, hence Great Titchfield Street. William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (Prime Minister) married Dorothy Cavendish, daughter of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire (also Prime Minister), and they lend their names to New Cavendish Street, Cavendish Square and Devonshire Street. The name of the Grafton family's country estate is Euston Hall, in Euston, Suffolk, and this is the origin of the name for Euston Station and Euston Road.
Much of Fitzrovia was developed by minor landowners (for example, William Berners started to develop an area measuring 655 ft long by 100 ft deep fronting on to Oxford Street in 1738, creating Newman, Berners and Wells Streets), and this led to a predominance of small and irregular streets – in comparison with neighbouring districts like Marylebone and Bloomsbury, which were dominated by one or two landowners, and were thus developed more schematically, with stronger grid patterns and a greater number of squares.
Two of London's oldest surviving residential walkways can be found in Fitzrovia. Colville Place and the pre-Victorian Middleton Buildings (built 1759) are in the old London style of a way. When the parishes of St Pancras and Marylebone became boroughs in 1900, the decision was taken to make minor modifications to the ancient boundaries, whose pre-urban origin meant it cut awkwardly across the built environment in some places.
The western half of Charlotte Place the western part of part of Charlotte Street and the eastern half of Rathbone Street were transferred to Marylebone, despite these streets long history within St Pancras and their being more closely integrated with the urban grain of the St Pancras streets to the east.
The most prominent feature of the area is the BT Tower, Cleveland Street, which is one of London's tallest buildings and was open to the public until an IRA bomb exploded in the revolving restaurant in 1971. Another notable modern building is the YMCA Indian Student Hostel on Fitzroy Square, one of the few surviving buildings by Ralph Tubbs.
21st century
The site of the Middlesex Hospital, a large part of Fitzrovia, had been acquired by the property developer Candy and Candy which demolished the hospital to make way for a housing and retail development called Fitzroy Place. The Candy brothers' scheme, which was unpopular with local people, failed during the 2008 credit crunch.
Stanhope took over the project and proposed a short-term project which would allow residents to create temporary allotments on the site until a new development was started. However, the Icelandic bank Kaupthing, which had a controlling interest in the site, announced in March 2010 its intention to sell the site on the open market and cancelled the allotments project. In July 2010, the site passed into the ownership of Aviva Investments and Exemplar Properties. A planning application for the new Middlesex Hospital project was submitted in August 2011 and it is understood that Exemplar would commence the redevelopment works in January 2012. The new Middlesex Hospital development was completed in 2014.
Separately, Derwent London plc acquired of property in the area to add to its existing Fitzrovia portfolio after a merger with London Merchant Securities. The company then held about of property over more than 30 sites in Fitzrovia. In November 2009 the company announced plans to transform part of Fitzrovia into a new retail destination with cafes and restaurants.
Derwent London created the Fitzrovia Partnership, a then-business partnership with Arup, Make Architects and City of London Corporation, with the support of the London Borough of Camden. In July 2010 Derwent London showcased plans for the redevelopment of the Saatchi & Saatchi building in Charlotte Street. Plans produced by Make Architects proposed increasing the density of the site by 50 per cent and adding shops, cafes and a small open space.
Today, over 128,000 people work within 0.5 miles of Fitzrovia, according to the Fitzrovia Partnership's 2014 Economic Report.
Georgian workhouse
Objection was raised by the local community over plans announced in July 2010 to demolish and redevelop the site of an 18th-century building in Cleveland Street, originally a poorhouse for the parish of St Paul's, Covent Garden, and later the Cleveland Street Workhouse.
Arts
Fitzrovia was a notable artistic and bohemian centre from roughly from the mid-1920s to the present day. Amongst those known to have lived locally and frequented public houses in the area such as the Fitzroy Tavern and the Wheatsheaf are Augustus John, Quentin Crisp, Dylan Thomas, Aleister Crowley, the racing tipster Prince Monolulu, Nina Hamnett and George Orwell. The Newman Arms on Rathbone Street, features in Orwell's novels Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), as well as the Michael Powell film Peeping Tom (1960).
Thomas Paine's Rights of Man (1791) was published during his residence at 154 New Cavendish Street, in reply to Edmund Burke (author of Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790), who lived at 18 Charlotte Street. Artists Richard Wilson and John Constable lived at 76 Charlotte Street at various times. During the 19th century, painters Walter Sickert, Ford Madox Brown, Thomas Musgrave Joy and Whistler lived in Fitzroy Square. George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf also resided at different times on the square, at number 29. French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine lived for a time in Howland Street in a house on a site now occupied by offices. Modernist painter Wyndham Lewis lived on Percy Street. The house of Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester on Tottenham Street now shows a commemorative blue plaque. 97 Mortimer Street, where H. H. Munro (Saki) lived, now has a blue plaque commemorating his time there. Colin MacInnes author of Absolute Beginners (1959) also resided on Tottenham Street, at number 28, with his publisher Martin Green and his wife Fiona Green.
X. Trapnel, the dissolute novelist (based on the real Julian MacLaren-Ross) in Anthony Powell's Books Do Furnish a Room (1971), spends much of his time holding forth in Fitzrovia pubs. In Saul Bellow's The Dean's December (1982), the eponym, Corde dines at the Étoile, Charlotte Street, on his trips to London, and thinks he "could live happily ever after on Charlotte Street"; Ian McEwan quotes this in Saturday (2005). McEwan lived in Fitzroy Square, and his novel takes place in the area.
Chartist meetings were hosted in the area, some attended by Karl Marx, who is known to have been to venues at Charlotte Street, Tottenham Street and Rathbone Place. The area became a focus of Chartist activities after the Reform Act 1832 and was host to a number of working men's clubs including The Communist Club at 49 Tottenham Street.
The UFO Club, home to Pink Floyd during their spell as the house band of psychedelic London, was held in the basement of 31 Tottenham Court Road. Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix also played at the Speakeasy on Margaret Street and Bob Dylan made his London debut at the King & Queen pub on Foley Street. Oxford Street's 100 Club is a major hot-bed for music from the 1960s to the present day, and has roots in 1970s Britain's burgeoning Punk rock movement. The band Coldplay formed in Ramsay Hall, a University College London accommodation on Maple Street. Boy George lived in a squat in Carburton Street in 1981 prior to his success and Neil Howson of Age of Chance lived in Cleveland Street around the same time.
Fitzrovia is also the location of Pollock's Toy Museum, home to erstwhile Toy Theatre, at 1 Scala Street.
At the back of Pollocks and in the next block was the site in 1772 of the Scala Theatre, Tottenham Street – then known as the Cognoscenti Theatre – but it had many names over history: the King's Concert Rooms, the New Theatre, the Regency Theatre, the West London Theatre, the Queen's Theatre, the Fitzroy Theatre, the Prince of Wales and the Royal Theatre until its demolition in 1903 when the Scala Theatre was built on the site for Frank Verity and modelled on La Scala in Milan. It was home to music hall, ballet and pantomime. Before its demolition in 1969, to make way for the office block and hotel that exists now, it was used inside for the filming in 1964 of the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night, the Mr Universe World competitions, and Sotheby's Auction in 1968 of the Diaghilev costumes and curtains. It was also briefly in the 1970s, in the basement of the office block, the site of the Scala Cinema and later still of Channel 4 Television. The branch of Bertorelli's Italian Restaurant on Charlotte Street was prominently featured in the film Sliding Doors. Guy Ritchie more recently made RocknRolla using Charlotte Mews.
The Fitzrovia Chapel, in Pearson Square, is a Grade II* listed building which hosts exhibitions throughout the year. Stephen Friedman Gallery, Erskine, Hall and Coe and the photographer Richard Ansett have shown at the chapel. The chapel is also used for weddings and fashion shows.
Books
Books about Fitzrovia include: London's Old Latin Quarter, by E. Beresford Chancellor, published by Jonathan Cape, 1930; Fitzrovia, by Nick Bailey, published by Historical Publications, 1981, ; and Characters of Fitzrovia by Mike Pentelow and Marsha Rowe, published by Chatto & Windus (2001) and Pimlico (2002), .
Film
Parts of the film Peeping Tom (1960) were shot in and around Newman Passage and Rathbone Street. Parts of Sapphire (1959) were filmed around Charlotte Street. Parts of Phantom Thread (2017) were filmed on Fitzroy Square and Grafton Mews.
Music
British singer-songwriter Donovan's second album Fairytale features the evocative song Sunny Goodge Street about scoring hashish in the neighborhood. This is the first mention of hash in that era's music. Donovan was the first of his ilk to be busted for it, by no coincidence he points out. The song is a Fitzrovia source for its mention of the Goodge Street platform, perhaps the dollhouses, the song's then-new jazzy feel, and overall lyrics, that foreshadowed life in urban London.
Business
In its early days, Fitzrovia was largely an area of well-to-do tradesmen and craft workshops, with Edwardian mansion blocks built by the Quakers to allow theatre employees to be close to work. Modern property uses are diverse, but Fitzrovia is still well known for its fashion industry, now mainly comprising wholesalers and HQs of the likes of Arcadia Group. New media outfits have replaced the photographic studios of the 1970s–90s, often housed in warehouses built to store the changing clothes of their original industry — fashion. Dewar Studios, leading fashion and modelling photographers based in Great Titchfield Street continue the traditional link to studios. Charlotte Street was for many years the home of the British advertising industry and is now known for its many and diverse restaurants. Today the district still houses several major advertising agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi and TBWA as well as CHI & Partners, Fallon, Dare Digital and Target Media Group. However, the modular ex-BT building occupied by McCann-Erickson was demolished in 2006 after the firm moved to an art deco home in nearby Bloomsbury.
A number of television production and post-production companies are based in the area, MTV Networks Europe, Nickelodeon, rogue and CNN Europe being headquartered here. ITN used to be based at 48 Wells Street during the 1980s, with its Factual Department still housed on Mortimer Street, and Channel 4 was, until 1994, situated on Charlotte Street, and talkbackTHAMES is currently based on Newman Street, with additional offices at 1 Stephen Street. Dennis Publishing is based close by, on Cleveland Street, and London's Time Out magazine and City Guide is created and edited on Tottenham Court Road on the eastern border of Fitzrovia. Many other media companies are based within the area, including Informa, Arqiva and Digital UK.
Reflecting Fitzrovia's connections with the avant-garde the area has a concentration of commercial art galleries and dealers.
Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum, an international firm of architects, interior designers, landscape architects, urban planners and advanced strategists are based in the Qube on Whitfield Street, along with Make Architects. Derwent London also have a showroom in Whitfield Street. Derwent London own about one million square feet of property in Fitzrovia: about one fifth of their total portfolio The Langham Estate have a similarly sized land holding in West Fitzrovia. A number of structural engineering consultants are based in offices on Newman Street and the world headquarters of Arup is on Fitzroy Street although they own many of the surrounding buildings (which are in the process of being redeveloped into modern offices). There were once many hospitals (including Middlesex Hospital, which closed in 2006, and St Luke's Hospital for the Clergy, now re-opened after refurbishment). A handful of embassies (El Salvador, Mozambique, Turkmenistan and Croatia) nestle amongst the many and varied public houses. Retail use spills into parts of Fitzrovia from Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road, which are two of the principal shopping streets in central London.
The Fitzrovia Partnership was formed in 2009 as "a business-led initiative bringing together local businesses to add value and make a tangible difference to the management of Fitzrovia." Since August 2012, the Fitzrovia Partnership has been a formal Business Improvement District (BID). Activities have included installation of Christmas lighting in Tottenham Court Road, Charlotte Street and Fitzroy Street, an annual Christmas market, Feast at Fitzrovia summer festival, and a commitment to local job creation, support for small businesses and a focus on sustainability and improving air quality. In 2011, the BID came in for criticism, with damage to trees in Charlotte Street by Christmas lighting described by the Fitzrovia News as vandalism. The BID also operates a separate "consumer" facing brand – Enjoy Fitzrovia – to promote the area as a destination for shopping, eating, and art within London's West End. In October 2014, The Fitzrovia Partnership teamed up with local resident Griff Rhys Jones to create the Dylan Thomas in Fitzrovia festival, a week of poetry, art and comedy across the area, celebrating the life and times of Dylan Thomas in the area.
Education and research
The University of Westminster has buildings on New Cavendish Street, Wells Street and Great Portland Street. University College London has buildings on Torrington Place, Huntley Street and New Cavendish Street. There are University of London halls of residences on Charlotte Street and Fitzroy Street. The Institute for Fiscal Studies is based at Ridgmount Street and the Royal Anthropological Institute Main office is at 50 Fitzroy Street.
All Souls' Church of England Primary School is at Foley Street. The building is Grade II listed. Southbank International School has two of its campuses located within the area, one on Portland Place and another on the northern end of Conway street (just off Warren Street). The Conway campus houses students from grade 11 and 12 where they study the IB Diploma Programme. Fashion Retail Academy is at Gresse Street.
Social conditions
Although often described as upmarket and home to some celebrities, like much of inner London, Fitzrovia residents have a wide disparity of wealth and the area contains a mix of affluent property owners as well as many private, council and housing association tenants. The neighbourhood is classified as above-averagely deprived, and parts of it have the worst living environment in the country according to a government report that ranked sub-wards by quality of housing, air quality and the number of road traffic accidents.
Housing and community action
The area lost much of its housing stock to other land uses during the 1960s, leading to the creation of resident's groups seeking to preserve the residential character of the district.
The Charlotte Street Association was formed in 1970, and the Whitfield Study Group began issuing The Tower (later renamed Fitzrovia News) newspaper from 1973. At this time the Newspaper was distributed in an area between Euston Road and Oxford Street, Great Portland Street and Tottenham Court Road. The newspaper called the area Towerland, after the then new BT Tower.
The name Fitzrovia was revived when the first Fitzrovia Festival was held in 1973. The festival had the theme "The people live here!". The organisers sought a name for the festival and an elderly resident named Eric Singer suggested using the name Fitzrovia, a name he remembered hearing in the 1940s, but which had fallen out of use. The purpose of the festival, still held on a regular basis, was to demonstrate that among the offices, restaurants and cafes there was a residential community that wanted its voice heard. The adoption of the name by the campaign groups, covering self-defined areas, meant the name Fitzrovia became applied to a fairly well defined area, one larger than that to which it was once loosely applied. The Newspaper continued to use the names Towerland, Fitzrovia and East Marylebone (for the area in the City of Westminster) in parallel.
The following year, the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association was formed and raised money to create a neighbourhood centre in a Grade II listed disused glass shop on the corner of Tottenham Street and Goodge Place. The Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Centre was opened in 1975.
The Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Centre continues to be a place of community action and a venue for voluntary groups to meet, and is the office of the Fitzrovia News which is produced four times a year by volunteers drawn from the residential community. An advice and information service and community projects, including the annual Fitzrovia Festival, are also delivered from the Neighbourhood Centre. The Fitzrovia News and Fitzrovia Festival are both supported by the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association.
The new Fitzrovia Community Centre is located at 2 Foley Street in the City of Westminster, just across from the Camden borough boundary. The Centre arose from a town planning (section 106) agreement between University College London Hospital (UCLH) and the London Borough of Camden. This agreement provided funding to provide the new community centre. The building has undergone a major refurbishment and designed to be a modern and welcoming multi-purpose building, with a range of rooms available for large and small groups and individuals.
Two new neighbourhood planning groups are currently in the process of formation. The Fitzrovia West and Fitzrovia East Neighbourhood Areas have been established by Westminster City Council and London Borough of Camden respectively.
In addition FitzWest, as it has become known has made further application to become a Neighbourhood Forum.
Transport links
Nearest railway station
Euston to the north east
Paddington, Marylebone, Kings Cross and St Pancras railway stations are all relatively close to Fitzrovia although none (including Euston) is within the boundary of the area.
Nearest London Underground stations
Goodge Street
Oxford Circus
Warren Street
Great Portland Street
Regent's Park
Euston Square
Tottenham Court Road
References
Works cited
Further reading
Basu, Ann, Fitzrovia: A Social History 1900-1950. The History Press, 2019.
Camden History Society, Streets of Fitzrovia: A Survey of Streets, Buildings and Former Residents in a Part of Camden. CHS, 2017.
David, Hugh, The Fitzrovians: A Portrait of Bohemian Society 1900-55. Michael Joseph, 1988.
Girling, Brian, Bloomsbury & Fitzrovia Through Time. Amberley, 2012.
Homer, Johnny, A-Z of Soho and Fitzrovia: People - Places - History. Amberley, 2022.
Hudson, Roger & Blundell, Joe Whitlock, Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia and Soho ("The London Guides"). Haggerston Press, 1996.
Pentelow, Mike & Rowe, Marsha, Characters of Fitzrovia. Chatto & Windus, 2001.
External links
The Fitzrovia Partnership
Areas of London
Districts of the London Borough of Camden
Districts of the City of Westminster
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative%20psychology
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Comparative psychology
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Comparative psychology refers to the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of non-human animals, especially as these relate to the phylogenetic history, adaptive significance, and development of behavior. The phrase comparative psychology may be employed in a narrow and a broad meaning. In its narrow meaning, it refers to the study of the
similarities and differences in the psychology and behavior of different species. In a broader meaning, comparative psychology includes comparisons between different biological and socio-cultural groups, such as species, sexes, developmental stages, ages, and ethnicities. Research in this area addresses many different issues, uses many different methods and explores the behavior of many different species from insects to primates.
Comparative psychology is sometimes assumed to emphasize cross-species comparisons, including those between humans and animals. However, some researchers feel that direct comparisons should not be the sole focus of comparative psychology and that intense focus on a single organism to understand its behavior is just as desirable; if not more so. Donald Dewsbury reviewed the works of several psychologists and their definitions and concluded that the object of comparative psychology is to establish principles of generality focusing on both proximate and ultimate causation.
Using a comparative approach to behavior allows one to evaluate the target behavior from four different, complementary perspectives, developed by Niko Tinbergen. First, one may ask how pervasive the behavior is across species (i.e. how common is the behavior between animal species?). Second, one may ask how the behavior contributes to the lifetime reproductive success of the individuals demonstrating the behavior (i.e. does the behavior result in animals producing more offspring than animals not displaying the behavior)? Theories addressing the ultimate causes of behavior are based on the answers to these two questions.
Third, what mechanisms are involved in the behavior (i.e. what physiological, behavioral, and environmental components are necessary and sufficient for the generation of the behavior)? Fourth, a researcher may ask about the development of the behavior within an individual (i.e. what maturational, learning, social experiences must an individual undergo in order to demonstrate a behavior)? Theories addressing the proximate causes of behavior are based on answers to these two questions. For more details see Tinbergen's four questions.
History
The 9th century scholar al-Jahiz wrote works on the social organization and communication methods of animals like ants. The 11th century Arabic writer Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) wrote the Treatise on the Influence of Melodies on the Souls of Animals, an early treatise dealing with the effects of music on animals. In the treatise, he demonstrates how a camel's pace could be hastened or slowed with the use of music, and shows other examples of how music can affect animal behavior, experimenting with horses, birds and reptiles. Through to the 19th century, a majority of scholars in the Western world continued to believe that music was a distinctly human phenomenon, but experiments since then have vindicated Ibn al-Haytham's view that music does indeed have an effect on animals.
Charles Darwin was central in the development of comparative psychology; it is thought that psychology should be spoken in terms of "pre-" and "post-Darwin" because his contributions were so influential. Darwin's theory led to several hypotheses, one being that the factors that set humans apart, such as higher mental, moral and spiritual faculties, could be accounted for by evolutionary principles. In response to the vehement opposition to Darwinism was the "anecdotal movement" led by George Romanes who set out to demonstrate that animals possessed a "rudimentary human mind". Romanes is most famous for two major flaws in his work: his focus on anecdotal observations and entrenched anthropomorphism.
Near the end of the 19th century, several scientists existed whose work was also very influential. Douglas Alexander Spalding was called the "first experimental biologist", and worked mostly with birds; studying instinct, imprinting, and visual and auditory development. Jacques Loeb emphasized the importance of objectively studying behavior, Sir John Lubbock is credited with first using mazes and puzzle devices to study learning and Conwy Lloyd Morgan is thought to be "the first ethologist in the sense in which we presently use the word".
Although the field initially attempted to include a variety of species, by the early 1950s it had focused primarily on the white lab rat and the pigeon, and the topic of study was restricted to learning, usually in mazes. This stunted state of affairs was pointed out by Beach (1950) and although it was generally agreed with, no real change took place. He repeated the charges a decade later, again with no results. In the meantime, in Europe, ethology was making strides in studying a multitude of species and a plethora of behaviors. There was friction between the two disciplines where there should have been cooperation, but comparative psychologists refused, for the most part, to broaden their horizons. This state of affairs ended with the triumph of ethology over comparative psychology, culminating in the Nobel Prize being given to ethologists, combined with a flood of informative books and television programs on ethological studies that came to be widely seen and read in the United States. At present, comparative psychology in the United States is moribund.
Throughout the long history of comparative psychology, repeated attempts have been made to enforce a more disciplined approach, in which similar studies are carried out on animals of different species, and the results interpreted in terms of their different phylogenetic or ecological backgrounds. Behavioral ecology in the 1970s gave a more solid base of knowledge against which a true comparative psychology could develop. However, the broader use of the term "comparative psychology" is enshrined in the names of learned societies and academic journals, not to mention in the minds of psychologists of other specialisms, so the label of the field is never likely to disappear completely.
A persistent question with which comparative psychologists have been faced is the relative intelligence of different species of animal. Indeed, some early attempts at a genuinely comparative psychology involved evaluating how well animals of different species could learn different tasks. These attempts floundered; in retrospect it can be seen that they were not sufficiently sophisticated, either in their analysis of the demands of different tasks, or in their choice of species to compare. However, the definition of "intelligence" in comparative psychology is deeply affected by anthropomorphism; experiments focused on simple tasks, complex problems, reversal learning, learning sets, and delayed alternation were plagued with practical and theoretical problems. In the literature, "intelligence" is defined as whatever is closest to human performance and neglects behaviors that humans are usually incapable of (e.g. echolocation). Specifically, comparative researchers encounter problems associated with individual differences, differences in motivation, differences in reinforcement, differences in sensory function, differences in motor capacities, and species-typical preparedness (i.e. some species have evolved to acquire some behaviors quicker than other behaviors).
Species studied
A wide variety of species have been studied by comparative psychologists. However, a small number have dominated the scene. Ivan Pavlov's early work used dogs; although they have been the subject of occasional studies, since then they have not figured prominently. Increasing interest in the study of abnormal animal behavior has led to a return to the study of most kinds of domestic animal. Thorndike began his studies with cats, but American comparative psychologists quickly shifted to the more economical rat, which remained the almost invariable subject for the first half of the 20th century and continues to be used.
Skinner introduced the use of pigeons, and they continue to be important in some fields. There has always been interest in studying various species of primate; important contributions to social and developmental psychology were made by Harry F. Harlow's studies of maternal deprivation in rhesus monkeys. Cross-fostering studies have shown similarities between human infants and infant chimpanzees. Kellogg and Kellogg (1933) aimed to look at heredity and environmental effects of young primates. They found that a cross-fostered chimpanzee named Gua was better at recognizing human smells and clothing and that the Kelloggs' infant (Donald) recognised humans better by their faces. The study ended nine months after it had begun, after the infant began to imitate the noises of Gua.
Nonhuman primates have also been used to show the development of language in comparison with human development. For example, Gardner (1967) successfully taught the female chimpanzee Washoe 350 words in American Sign Language. Washoe subsequently passed on some of this teaching to her adopted offspring, Loulis. A criticism of Washoe's acquisition of sign language focused on the extent to which she actually understood what she was signing. Her signs may have just been based on an association to get a reward, such as food or a toy. Other studies concluded that apes do not understand linguistic input, but may form an intended meaning of what is being communicated. All great apes have been reported to have the capacity of allospecific symbolic production.
Interest in primate studies has increased with the rise in studies of animal cognition. Other animals thought to be intelligent have also been increasingly studied. Examples include various species of corvid, parrots—especially the grey parrot—and dolphins. Alex (Avian Learning EXperiment) is a well known case study (1976–2007) which was developed by Pepperberg, who found that the African gray parrot Alex did not only mimic vocalisations but understood the concepts of same and different between objects. The study of non-human mammals has also included the study of dogs. Due to their domestic nature and personalities, dogs have lived closely with humans, and parallels in communication and cognitive behaviours have therefore been recognised and further researched. Joly-Mascheroni and colleagues (2008) demonstrated that dogs may be able to catch human yawns and suggested a level of empathy in dogs, a point that is strongly debated. Pilley and Reid found that a Border Collie named Chaser was able to successfully identify and retrieve 1022 distinct objects/toys.
Animal cognition
Researchers who study animal cognition are interested in understanding the mental processes that control complex behavior, and much of their work parallels that of cognitive psychologists working with humans. For example, there is extensive research with animals on attention, categorization, concept formation, memory, spatial cognition, and time estimation. Much research in these and other areas is related directly or indirectly to behaviors important to survival in natural settings, such as navigation, tool use, and numerical competence. Thus, comparative psychology and animal cognition are heavily overlapping research categories.
Disorders of animal behavior
Veterinary surgeons recognize that the psychological state of a captive or domesticated animal must be taken into account if its behavior and health are to be understood and optimized.
Common causes of disordered behavior in captive or pet animals are lack of stimulation, inappropriate stimulation, or overstimulation. These conditions can lead to disorders, unpredictable and unwanted behavior, and sometimes even physical symptoms and diseases. For example, rats who are exposed to loud music for a long period will ultimately develop unwanted behaviors that have been compared with human psychosis, like biting their owners.
The way dogs behave when understimulated is widely believed to depend on the breed as well as on the individual animal's character. For example, huskies have been known to ruin gardens and houses if they are not allowed enough activity. Dogs are also prone to psychological damage if they are subjected to violence. If they are treated very badly, they may become dangerous.
The systematic study of disordered animal behavior draws on research in comparative psychology, including the early work on conditioning and instrumental learning, but also on ethological studies of natural behavior. However, at least in the case of familiar domestic animals, it also draws on the accumulated experience of those who have worked closely with the animals.
Human-animal relationships
The relationship between humans and animals has long been of interest to anthropologists as one pathway to an understanding the evolution of human behavior. Similarities between the behavior of humans and animals have sometimes been used in an attempt to understand the evolutionary significance of particular behaviors. Differences in the treatment of animals have been said to reflect a society's understanding of human nature and the place of humans and animals in the scheme of things. Domestication has been of particular interest. For example, it has been argued that, as animals became domesticated, humans treated them as property and began to see them as inferior or fundamentally different from humans.
Ingold remarks that in all societies children have to learn to differentiate and separate themselves from others. In this process, strangers may be seen as "not people", and like animals. Ingold quoted Sigmund Freud: "Children show no trace of arrogance which urges adult civilized men to draw a hard-and-fast line between their own nature and that of all other animals. Children have no scruples over allowing animals to rank as their full equals." With maturity however, humans find it hard to accept that they themselves are animals, so they categorize, separating humans from animals, and animals into wild animals and tame animals, and tame animals into house pets and livestock. Such divisions can be seen as similar to categories of humans: who is part of a human community and someone who is not—that is, the outsider.
The New York Times ran an article that showed the psychological benefits of animals, more specifically of children with their pets. It has been proven that having a pet does in fact improve kids' social skills. In the article, Dr. Sue Doescher, a psychologist involved in the study, stated, "It made the children more cooperative and sharing." It was also shown that these kids were more confident with themselves and able to be more empathic with other children.
Furthermore, in an edition of Social Science and Medicine it was stated, "A random survey of 339 residents from Perth, Western Australia were selected from three suburbs and interviewed by telephone. Pet ownership was found to be positively associated with some forms of social contact and interaction, and with perceptions of neighborhood friendliness. After adjustment for demographic variables, pet owners scored higher on social capital and civic engagement scales." Results like these let us know that owning a pet provides opportunities for neighborly interaction, among many other chances for socialization among people.
Topics of study
Individual behavior
General descriptions
Orientation (interaction with environment)
Locomotion
Ingestive behavior
Hoarding
Nest building
Exploration
Play
Tonic immobility (playing dead)
Other miscellaneous behaviors (personal grooming, hibernation, etc.)
Reproductive behavior
General descriptions
Developmental psychology
Control (nervous system and endocrine system)
Imprinting
Evolution of sexual characteristics/behaviors
Social behavior
Imitation
Behavior genetics
Instincts
Sensory-perceptual processes
Neural and endocrine correlates of behavior
Motivation
Evolution
Learning
Qualitative and functional comparisons
Consciousness and mind
Notable comparative psychologists
Noted comparative psychologists, in this broad sense, include:
Aristotle
Frank Beach
F.J.J. Buytendijk
Charles Darwin
James Mark Baldwin
Allen and Beatrix Gardner
Harry F. Harlow
Donald Hebb
Richard Herrnstein
L.T. Hobhouse
Clark L. Hull
Linus Kline
Wolfgang Köhler
Konrad Lorenz
Emil Wolfgang Menzel Jr.
Neal E. Miller
C. Lloyd Morgan
O. Hobart Mowrer
Robert Lockhard
Ivan Pavlov
Irene Pepperberg
George Romanes
Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe
Sara Shettleworth
B.F. Skinner
Willard Small
Edward C. Tolman
Edward L. Thorndike
Margaret Floy Washburn
John B. Watson
Wilhelm Wundt
Many of these were active in fields other than animal psychology; this is characteristic of comparative psychologists.
Related fields
Fields of psychology and other disciplines that draw upon, or overlap with, comparative psychology include:
Animal cognition
Behavioral ecology
Operant conditioning
Ethology
Evolutionary neuroscience
Experimental analysis of behavior
Neuroethology
Physiological psychology
Psychopharmacology
Trans-species psychology
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Animal Psychology
Behavioural sciences
Comparisons
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittagong
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Chittagong
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Chittagong ( ), officially Chattogram (; ), is the second-largest city in Bangladesh after Dhaka and third largest city in Bengal region. It is the administrative seat of the eponymous division and district. It hosts the busiest seaport on the Bay of Bengal. The city is located on the banks of the Karnaphuli River between the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Bay of Bengal. The Greater Chittagong Area had a population of more than 5.2 million in 2022. In 2020, the city area had a population of more than 3.9 million. Even amidst heightened global uncertainty, Bangladesh has consistently demonstrated a robust history of growth and advancement.
One of the world's oldest ports with a functional natural harbour for centuries, Chittagong appeared on ancient Greek and Roman maps, including on Ptolemy's world map. It was located on the southern branch of the Silk Road. In the 9th century, merchants from the Abbasid Caliphate established a trading post in Chittagong. The port fell to the Muslim conquest of Bengal during the 14th century. It was the site of a royal mint under the Delhi Sultanate, Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Empire. Between the 15th and 17th centuries, Chittagong was also a center of administrative, literary, commercial and maritime activities in Arakan, a narrow strip of land along the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal which was under strong Bengali influence for 350 years. During the 16th century, the port became a Portuguese trading post and João de Barros described it as "the most famous and wealthy city of the Kingdom of Bengal". The Mughal Empire expelled the Portuguese and Arakanese in 1666.
Like the rest of Bengal British East India Company took control of the city in 1793. The Port of Chittagong was re-organized in 1887 and its busiest shipping links were with British Burma. In 1928, Chittagong was declared a "Major Port" of British India. During World War II, Chittagong was a base for Allied Forces engaged in the Burma Campaign. The port city began to expand and industrialize during the 1940s, particularly after the Partition of British India. The city was the historic terminus of the Assam Bengal Railway and Pakistan Eastern Railway. During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, Chittagong was the site of the Bangladeshi declaration of independence. The port city has benefited from the growth of heavy industry, logistics, and manufacturing in Bangladesh. Trade unionism was strong during the 1990s.
Chittagong accounts for 12% of Bangladesh's GDP, including 40% of industrial output, 80% of international trade, and 50% of tax revenue. The port city is home to many of the oldest and largest companies in the country. The Port of Chittagong is one of the busiest ports in South Asia. The largest base of the Bangladesh Navy is located in Chittagong, along with an air base of the Bangladesh Air Force, garrisons of the Bangladesh Army and the main base of the Bangladesh Coast Guard. The eastern zone of the Bangladesh Railway is based in Chittagong. The Chittagong Stock Exchange is one of the twin stock markets of Bangladesh with over 700 listed companies. The Chittagong Tea Auction is a commodity exchange dealing with Bangladeshi tea. The CEPZ and KEPZ are key industrial zones with foreign direct investments. The city is served by Shah Amanat International Airport for domestic and external flights. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Tunnel, the first and only underwater tunnel of South Asia, is located in Chittagong. Chittagong has a high degree of religious and ethnic diversity among Bangladeshi cities, despite having a great Bengali Muslim majority. Minorities include Bengali Hindus, Bengali Christians, Bengali Buddhists, Chakmas, Marmas, Tripuris, Garos and others.
Etymology
The etymology of Chittagong is uncertain. One explanation credits the first Arab traders for shatt ghangh () where shatt means "delta" and ghangh stood for the Ganges. The Arakanese chronicle that a king named Tsu-la-taing Tsandaya (Sula Taing Chandra), after conquering Bengal, set up a stone pillar as a trophy/memorial at the place since called Tst-ta-gaung as the limit of conquest. This Arakanese king ascended the throne in Arakan year 311 ME, corresponding to 952 A.D. He conquered this place two years later. This stone pillar with the inscription Tset-ta-gaung, meaning 'to make war is improper, cannot be a myth. However, the local name of the city (in Bengali or Chittagonian) Chatga (), which is a corruption of Chatgao () or Chatigao (), and officially Chottogram () bears the meaning of "village or town of Chatta (possibly a caste or tribe)." Therefore, Bengali name Chattagrama, the Chinese Tsa-ti-kiang, Cheh-ti.gan and the European Chittagong are but the deformed versions of the Arakanese name Tset-ta-gaung.
The port city has been known by various names in history, including Chatigaon, Chatigam, Chattagrama, Islamabad, Chattala, Chaityabhumi and Porto Grande De Bengala.
Name
The Bengali word for Chittagong, Chattogram (চট্টগ্রাম), has the suffix "-gram" (গ্রাম) meaning village in Standard Bengali. A legend dates the name to the spread of Islam when a Muslim lit a chati (lamp) at the top of a hill in the city and called out Azaan for people. The city was renamed Islamabad (City of Islam) and continues to be used in the old city during the Mughal era. In April 2018, the Cabinet Division of Government of Bangladesh decided to change the city's name to Chattogram, based on its Bengali spelling and pronunciation.
Chittagong used to be a small fishing village of Manikya King. "Chati" means "Lamp" and "Gam" means "Good". Portuguese arrived here for business purposes and they asked for some land from the King of Tripura. And King of Tripura granted some lands to the Portuguese for business purposes.
Chittagong is popularly known as Baro Auliyar Desh (Land of twelve Sufi saints).
History
Stone Age fossils and tools unearthed in the region indicate that Chittagong has been inhabited since Neolithic times. It is an ancient port city, with a recorded history dating back to the 4th century BC. Its harbour was mentioned in Ptolemy's world map in the 2nd century as one of the most impressive ports in the East. The region was part of the ancient Bengali Samatata and Harikela kingdoms. The Chandra dynasty once dominated the area and was followed by the Varman dynasty and Deva dynasty.
Chinese traveller Xuanzang described the area as "a sleeping beauty rising from mist and water" in the 7th century.
Arab Muslim traders frequented Chittagong from the 9th century. In 1154, Al-Idrisi wrote of a busy shipping route between Basra and Chittagong, connecting it with the Abbasid capital of Baghdad.
Many Sufi missionaries settled in Chittagong and played an instrumental role in the spread of Islam.
Sultan Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah of Sonargaon conquered Chittagong in 1340, making it a part of Sultanate of Bengal. It was the principal maritime gateway to the kingdom, which was reputed as one of the wealthiest states in the Indian subcontinent. Medieval Chittagong was a hub for maritime trade with China, Sumatra, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, and East Africa. It was notable for its medieval trades in pearls, silk, muslin, rice, bullion, horses, and gunpowder. The port was also a major shipbuilding hub.
Ibn Battuta visited the port city in 1345. Niccolò de' Conti, from Venice, also visited around the same time as Battuta. Chinese admiral Zheng He's treasure fleet anchored in Chittagong during imperial missions to the Sultanate of Bengal.
Dhaniya Manikya conquered Chittagong in 1513. Hossain Shah sent his noble commander Gorai Mallik to attack Tripura. Gorai Mallik recaptured the territories lost. But the following year Dhaniya Manikya again conquered Chittagong.
Chittagong featured prominently in the military history of the Bengal Sultanate, including during the Reconquest of Arakan and the Bengal Sultanate–Kingdom of Mrauk U War of 1512–1516.
During the 13th and 16th centuries, Arabs and Persians heavily colonized the port city of Chittagong, initially arriving for trade and to spread Islam. Most Arab settlers arrived from the trade route between Iraq and Chittagong and were perhaps the prime reason for the spread of Islam to Bangladesh. The first Persian settlers also arrived for trade and religious purposes, with the possible goal of Persianisation as well. Persians and other Iranic peoples have deeply affected the history of the Bengal Sultanate, with Persian being one of the main languages of the Muslim state, as well as also influencing the Chittagonian language and writing scripts. It has been affirmed that much of the Muslim population in Chittagong are descendants of the Arab and Persian settlers.
Two decades after Vasco Da Gama's landing in Calicut, the Bengal Sultanate permitted the Portuguese settlement in Chittagong to be established in 1528. It became the first European colonial enclave in Bengal. The Bengal Sultanate lost control of Chittagong in 1531 after Arakan declared independence and the established Kingdom of Mrauk U. This altered geopolitical landscape allowed the Portuguese unhindered control of Chittagong for over a century.
Portuguese ships from Goa and Malacca began frequenting the port city in the 16th century. The cartaz system was introduced and required all ships in the area to purchase naval trading licenses from the Portuguese settlement. Slave trade and piracy flourished. The nearby island of Sandwip was conquered in 1602. In 1615, the Portuguese Navy defeated a joint Dutch East India Company and Arakanese fleet near the coast of Chittagong.
In 1666, the Mughal government of Bengal led by viceroy Shaista Khan moved to retake Chittagong from Portuguese and Arakanese control by launching the Mughal conquest of Chittagong. The Mughals attacked the Arakanese from the jungle with a 6,500-strong army, which was further supported by 288 Mughal naval ships blockading the Chittagong harbor. After three days of battle, the Arakanese surrendered. The Mughals expelled the Portuguese from Chittagong. Mughal rule ushered a new era in the history of Chittagong territory to the southern bank of Kashyapnadi (Kaladan River). The port city was renamed Islamabad. The Grand Trunk Road connected it with North India and Central Asia. Economic growth increased due to an efficient system of land grants for clearing hinterlands for cultivation. The Mughals also contributed to the architecture of the area, including the building of Fort Ander and many mosques. Chittagong was integrated into the prosperous Bengali economy, which also included Orissa and Bihar. Shipbuilding increased dramatically under the Mughal rule, and the Ottoman Sultans had many Ottoman warships built in Chittagong during this period.
In 1685, the British East India Company sent out an expedition under Admiral Nicholson with the instructions to seize and fortify Chittagong on behalf of the English; however, the expedition proved abortive. Two years later, the company's Court of Directors decided to make Chittagong the headquarters of their Bengal trade and sent out a fleet of ten or eleven ships to seize it under Captain Heath. However, after reaching Chittagong in early 1689, the fleet found the city too strongly held and abandoned their attempt at capturing it. The city was possessed by the Nawab of Bengal until 1793 when East India Company took complete control of the former Mughal province of Bengal.
The First Anglo-Burmese War in 1823 threatened the British hold on Chittagong. There were several rebellions against British rule, notably during the Indian rebellion of 1857, when the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th companies of the 34th Bengal Infantry Regiment revolted and released all prisoners from the city's jail. In a backlash, the rebels were suppressed by the Sylhet Light Infantry.
Railways were introduced in 1865, beginning with the Eastern Bengal Railway connecting Chittagong to Dacca and Calcutta. The Assam Bengal Railway connected the port city to its interior economic hinterland, which included the world's largest tea and jute producing regions, as well as one of the world's earliest petroleum industries. Chittagong was a major center of trade with British Burma. It hosted many prominent companies of the British Empire, including James Finlay, Duncan Brothers, Burmah Oil, the Indo-Burma Petroleum Company, Lloyd's, Mckenzie and Mckenzie, the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, Turner Morrison, James Warren, the Raleigh Brothers, Lever Brothers, and the Shell Oil Company.
The Chittagong armoury raid by Bengali revolutionaries in 1930 was a major event in British India's anti-colonial history.
During World War II, Chittagong became a frontline city in the Southeast Asian Theater. It was a critical air, naval and military base for Allied Forces during the Burma Campaign against Japan. The Imperial Japanese Army Air Force carried out air raids on Chittagong in April and May 1942, in the run-up to the aborted Japanese invasion of Bengal. British forces were forced to temporarily withdraw to Comilla and the city was evacuated. After the Battle of Imphal, the tide turned in favor of the Allied Forces. Units of the United States Army Air Forces' 4th Combat Cargo Group were stationed in Chittagong Airfield in 1945. Commonwealth forces included troops from Britain, India, Australia, and New Zealand. The war had major negative impacts on the city, including the growth of refugees and the Great Famine of 1943.
Many wealthy Chittagonians profited from wartime commerce. The Partition of British India in 1947 made Chittagong the chief port of East Pakistan. In the 1950s, Chittagong witnessed increased industrial development. Among pioneering industrial establishments included those of Chittagong Jute Mills, the Burmah Eastern Refinery, the Karnaphuli Paper Mills, and Pakistan National Oil. However, East Pakistanis complained of a lack of investment in Chittagong in comparison to Karachi in West Pakistan, even though East Pakistan generated more exports and had a larger population. The Awami League demanded that the country's naval headquarters be shifted from Karachi to Chittagong.
During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, which was waged under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Chittagong witnessed heavy fighting between rebel Bengali military regiments and the Pakistan Army. It covered Sector 1 in the Mukti Bahini chain of command. Major Ziaur Rahman was the sector commander. The Bangladeshi Declaration of Independence was broadcast from Kalurghat Radio Station and transmitted internationally through foreign ships in Chittagong Port. Ziaur Rahman and M A Hannan announced the independence declaration from Chittagong. It began the journey of Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra and contributed heavily towards the Liberation. The Pakistani military, and supporting Razakar militias, carried out widespread atrocities against civilians in the city. Mukti Bahini naval commandos drowned several Pakistani warships during Operation Jackpot in August 1971. In December 1971, the Bangladesh Air Force and the Indian Air Force carried out the heavy bombing of facilities occupied by the Pakistani military. A naval blockade was also enforced.
After the war, the Soviet Navy was tasked with clearing mines in Chittagong Port and restoring its operational capability. 22 vessels of the Soviet Pacific Fleet sailed from Vladivostok to Chittagong in May 1972. The process of clearing mines in the dense water harbor took nearly a year and claimed the life of one Soviet marine. Chittagong soon regained its status as a major port, with cargo tonnage surpassing pre-war levels in 1973. In free market reforms launched by President Ziaur Rahman in the late 1970s, the city became home to the first export processing zones in Bangladesh. Zia was assassinated during an attempted military coup in Chittagong in 1981. The 1991 Bangladesh cyclone inflicted heavy damage on the city. The Japanese government financed the construction of several heavy industries and an international airport in the 1980s and 90s. Bangladeshi private sector investments increased since 1991, especially with the formation of the Chittagong Stock Exchange in 1995. The port city has been the pivot of Bangladesh's emerging economy in recent years, with the country's rising GDP growth rate.
Geography
Topography
Chittagong lies at . It straddles the coastal foothills of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh. The Karnaphuli River runs along the southern banks of the city, including its central business district. The river enters the Bay of Bengal in an estuary located west of downtown Chittagong. Mount Sitakunda is the highest peak in Chittagong District, with an elevation of . Within the city itself, the highest peak is Batali Hill at . Chittagong has many lakes that were created under the Mughal rule. In 1924, an engineering team of the Assam Bengal Railway established the Foy's Lake.
Major sediment outflows from the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers form tidal flats around the city.
Ecological hinterland
The Chittagong Division is known for its rich biodiversity. Over 2000 of Bangladesh's 6000 flowering plants grow in the region. Its hills and jungles are laden with waterfalls, fast flowing river streams and elephant reserves. St. Martin's Island, within the Chittagong Division, is the only coral island in the country. The fishing port of Cox's Bazar is home to one of the world's longest natural beaches. In the east, there are the three hill districts of Bandarban, Rangamati, and Khagrachari, home to the highest mountains in Bangladesh. The region has numerous protected areas, including the Teknaf Game Reserve and the Sitakunda Botanical Garden and Eco Park.
Patenga beach in the main seafront of Chittagong, located west of the city.
Climate
Under the Köppen climate classification, Chittagong has a tropical monsoon climate (Am).
Chittagong is vulnerable to North Indian Ocean tropical cyclones. The deadliest tropical cyclone to strike Chittagong was the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone, which killed 138,000 people and left as many as 10 million homeless.
Language & Culture
Although the official language of Chittagong district is Bengali, the district has its own language, which is known as Chittagonian language. This language has its own characteristics, grammar and vocabulary. Most people of Chittagong district speak this language.
Chittagong district is rich in various folk cultures. It is a tradition of the district to host the Muslim community. Apart from this, different religions observe their respective religious ceremonies with due dignity and formality. Apart from this, on the occasion of the tribal community's new year, Baisakhi festival, marriage, Chaitra Sankranti and Varshvaran, Halkhata, Punyah, Nabanna, Paush Parvan, Anna Prashan are held by the people of this district.
Government
The Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) is responsible for governing municipal areas in the Chittagong Metropolitan Area. It is headed by the mayor of Chittagong. The mayor and ward councillors are elected every five years. The mayor is Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, as of August 2023. The city corporation's mandate is limited to basic civic services, however, the CCC is credited for keeping Chittagong one of the cleaner and most eco-friendly cities in Bangladesh. Its principal sources of revenue are municipal taxes and conservancy charges. The Chittagong Development Authority is responsible for implementing the city's urban planning.
The deputy commissioner and district magistrate are the chiefs of local administration as part of the Government of Bangladesh. Law enforcement is provided by the Chittagong Metropolitan Police and the Rapid Action Battalion-7. The district and sessions judge is the head of the local judiciary on behalf of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. The Divisional Special Judge's Court is located in the colonial-era Chittagong Court Building.
Military
Chittagong is a strategically important military port on the Bay of Bengal. The Chittagong Naval Area is the principal base of the Bangladesh Navy and the home port of most Bangladeshi warships. The Bangladesh Naval Academy and the navy's elite special force- Special Warfare Diving and Salvage (SWADS) are also based in the city. The Bangladesh Army's 24th Infantry Division is based in Chittagong Cantonment, and the Bangladesh Air Force maintains the BAF Zahurul Haq Air Base in Chittagong. The city is also home to the Bangladesh Military Academy, the premier training institute for the country's armed forces.
Diplomatic representation
In the 1860s, the American consulate-general in the Bengal Presidency included a consular agency in Chittagong. Today, Chittagong hosts an assistant high commission of India and a consulate general of Russia. The city also has honorary consulates of Turkey, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Malaysia, Italy, and the Philippines.
Economy
A substantial share of Bangladesh's national GDP is attributed to Chittagong. The port city contributes 12% of the nation's economy. Chittagong generates for 40% of Bangladesh's industrial output, 80% of its international trade and 50% of its governmental revenue. The Chittagong Stock Exchange has more than 700 listed companies, with a market capitalisation of US$32 billion in June 2015. The city is home to many of the country's oldest and largest corporations. The Port of Chittagong handled US$60 billion in annual trade in 2011, ranking 3rd in South Asia after the Port of Mumbai and the Port of Colombo. The port is part of the Maritime Silk Road that runs from the Chinese coast via the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean and on to the Upper Adriatic region of Trieste with rail connections to Central and Eastern Europe.
The Agrabad area is the main central business district of the city. Major Bangladeshi conglomerates headquartered in Chittagong include M. M. Ispahani Limited, BSRM, A K Khan & Company, PHP Group, James Finlay Bangladesh, the Habib Group, the S. Alam Group of Industries, Seamark Group, KDS Group and the T. K. Group of Industries. Major state-owned firms headquartered there include Pragati Industries, the Jamuna Oil Company, the Bangladesh Shipping Corporation, and the Padma Oil Company. The Chittagong Export Processing Zone was ranked by the UK-based magazine, Foreign Direct Investment, as one of the leading special economic zones in the world, in 2010. Other SEZs include the Karnaphuli Export Processing Zone and Korean EPZ. The city's key industrial sectors include petroleum, steel, shipbuilding, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, textiles, jute, leather goods, vegetable oil refineries, glass manufacturing, electronics and motor vehicles. The Chittagong Tea Auction sets the price of Bangladesh Tea. The Eastern Refinery is Bangladesh's largest oil refinery. GlaxoSmithKline has had operations in Chittagong since 1967. Western Marine Shipyard is a leading Bangladeshi shipbuilder and exporter of medium-sized ocean-going vessels. In 2011–12, Chittagong exported approximately US$4.5 billion in ready-made garments. The Karnaphuli Paper Mills were established in 1953.
International banks operating in Chittagong include HSBC, Standard Chartered and Citibank NA.
Chittagong is often called Bangladesh's commercial capital due to its diversified industrial base and seaport. The port city has ambitions to develop as a global financial center and regional transshipment hub, given its proximity to North East India, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan and Southwest China.
CBDs
Agrabad
O R Nizam Road
Strand Road, Chittagong
Khatungonj
Asadgonj
Financial and commodity markets
Chittagong Stock Exchange
Chittagong Tea Auction
Trade associations
Chittagong Chamber of Commerce & Industry
Industrial areas
Chittagong Export Processing Zone
Karnaphuli Export Processing Zone
Mirasorai Export processing zone
Korean export processing zone
China Economic Zone
Matarbari Economic zone
Culture
An inhabitant of Chittagong is called Chittagonian in English. For centuries, the port city has been a melting pot for people from all over the world. Its historic trade networks have left a lasting impact on its language, culture, and cuisine. The Chittagonian language has many Arabic, Persian, English and Portuguese loanwords. The popular traditional feast of Mezban features the serving of hot beef dish with white rice. Another dish named kala-bhuna of Chittagong, made with traditional spices, mustard oil, and beef through a special cooking style, is also renowned all over Bangladesh. The cultivation of pink pearls is a historic activity in Chittagong. Its Mughal-era name, Islamabad (City of Islam), continues to be used in the old city. The name was given due to the port city's history as a gateway for early Islamic missionaries in Bengal. Notable Islamic architecture in Chittagong can be seen in the historic Bengal Sultanate-era Hammadyar Mosque and the Mughal Fort of Anderkilla. Chittagong is known as the Land of the Twelve Saints due to the prevalence of major Sufi Muslim shrines in the district. Historically, Sufism played an important role in the spread of Islam in the region. Prominent dargahs include the mausoleum of Shah Amanat and the shrine of Bayazid Bastami. The Bastami shrine hosts a pond of black softshell turtles.
During the medieval period, many poets thrived in the region when it was part of the Bengal Sultanate and the Kingdom of Mrauk U. Under the patronage of Sultan Alauddin Husain Shah's governor in Chittagong, Kabindra Parameshvar wrote his Pandabbijay, a Bengali adaptation of the Mahabharata. Daulat Qazi lived in the region during the 17th-century reign of the Kingdom of Mrauk U. Chittagong is home to several important Hindu temples, including the Chandranath Temple on the outskirts of the city, which is dedicated to the Hindu goddess Sita. The city also hosts the country's largest Buddhist monastery and council of monks. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Chittagong is the oldest catholic mission in Bengal.
Major cultural organizations in the city include the Theatre Institute Chittagong and the Chittagong Performing Arts Academy. The city has a vibrant contemporary art scene.
Being home to the pioneering rock bands in the country like Souls and LRB, Chittagong is regarded as the "birthplace of Bangladeshi rock music".
Demographics
At the 2011 Census, Chittagong had a population of more than 2.5 million, and its Metropolitan Area had a population of 4,009,423. By gender, the population was 54.36% male and 45.64% female, and the literacy rate in the city was approximately 72 percent, in 2020.
Muslims, numbering approximately 3.44 million, form the overwhelming majority of the city's population, with the rest being predominantly Hindus, numbering approximately 480,000, and the remaining 2% belonging to other religions, such as Buddhism and Christianity.
Chittagong was a melting pot of ethnicities during the Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal periods. Muslim immigration started as early as the seventh century, and significant Muslim settlements occurred during the medieval period. Muslim traders, rulers, and preachers from Persia and Arabia were the early Muslim settlers, and their descendants are the majority of the current Muslim population of the city. The city has a relatively wealthy and economically influential Shia Muslim community, including Ismailis and Twelver Shias. The city also has many ethnic minorities, especially members of indigenous groups from the frontier hills of Chittagong Division, including Chakmas, Rakhines and Tripuris; as well as Rohingya refugees. The Bengali-speaking Theravada Buddhists of the area, known as Baruas, are one of the oldest communities in Chittagong and one of the last remnants of Buddhism in Bangladesh. Descendants of Portuguese settlers, often known as Firingis, also live in Chittagong, as well as Catholics, who largely live in the old Portuguese enclave of Paterghatta. There is also a small Urdu-speaking Bihari community living in the ethnic enclave known as Bihari Colony.
Like other major urban centres in South Asia, Chittagong has experienced steady growth in its informal settlements as a result of the increasing economic activities in the city and emigration from rural areas. According to a poverty reduction publication of the International Monetary Fund, there were 1,814 slums within the city corporation area, inhabited by about 1.8 million slum dwellers, the second highest in the country after the capital, Dhaka. The slum dwellers often face eviction by the local authorities, charging them with illegal abode on government lands. In the early 1990s, Chittagong had a population of just over 1.5 million, of which there were an estimated 66,676 squatters living in 69 areas.
Media and communications
Various newspapers, including daily, opposition, and business newspapers, are based in Chittagong. Daily newspapers include Dainik Azadi, Peoples View, The Daily Suprobhat Bangladesh, Daily Purbokone, Life, Karnafuli, Jyoti, Rashtrobarta and Azan. Furthermore, there are several weekly and monthly newspapers. These include weeklies such as Chattala, Jyoti, Sultan, Chattagram Darpan, and the monthlies such as Sanshodhani, Purobi, Mukulika, and Simanto. The only press council in Chittagong is the Chittagong Press Club. Government-owned Bangladesh Television, with its Chittagong station, and Bangladesh Betar have transmission centres in the city. A local online news & media Channel based on the Chittagonian language was launched in 2016 called CplusTv, gained vast popularity. The channel is YouTube- and social network-based, and it reached the 1 million followers milestone on Facebook.
Chittagong has been featured in all aspects of Bangladeshi popular culture, including television, movies, journals, music, and books. Nearly all televisions and radios in Bangladesh have coverage in Chittagong. Renowned Bollywood film director Ashutosh Gowariker directed a movie based on the 1930s Chittagong Uprising, Movie's name is Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey in which Abhishek Bachchan played the lead role.
Utilities
The southern zone of the Bangladesh Power Development Board is responsible for supplying electricity to city dwellers. The fire services are provided by the Bangladesh Fire Service & Civil Defence department, under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Total Electricity Consumption is approximately 1000 megawatts in the city proper.
But in the whole Chittagong urban and city proper, it will be 1300 megawatts plus-minus.
Ss power plant will be in production next year and its production power is 1320 megawatts
And it creates Chittagong City as the energy production hub of Bangladesh
The water supply and sewage systems are managed by the Chittagong Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Chittagong WASA). Water is primarily drawn from Karnaphuli River and then purified in the Mohra Purification Plant.
Chittagong has extensive GSM and CDMA coverage, served by all the major mobile operators of the country, including Grameenphone, Banglalink, Citycell, Robi, TeleTalk and Airtel Bangladesh. However, landline telephone services are provided through the state-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB), as well as some private operators. BTTB also provides broadband Internet services, along with some private ISPs, including the 4G service providers Banglalion and Qubee.
Education and research
The education system of Chittagong is similar to that of rest of Bangladesh, with four main forms of schooling. The general education system, conveyed in both Bangla and English versions, follows the curriculum prepared by the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, part of the Ministry of Education. Students are required to take two major board examinations:the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and the Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSC) before moving onto higher education. The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Chittagong is responsible for administering SSC and HSC examinations within the city. The Madrasah education system is primarily based on Islamic studies, though other subjects are also taught. Students are prepared according to the Dakhil and Alim examinations, which are controlled by the Bangladesh Madrasah Education Board and are equivalent to SSC and HSC examinations of the general education system respectively. There are also several private schools in the city, usually referred to as English medium schools, which follow the General Certificate of Education.
The British Council supervises the O Levels and A levels examinations, conducted twice a year, through the Cambridge International and Edexcel examination boards. The Technical and Vocational education system is governed by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) and follow the curriculum prepared by Bangladesh Technical Education Board (BTEB). Chittagong College, established in 1869, is the earliest modern institution for higher education in the city. Chittagong Veterinary and Animal Sciences University is the only public university located in Chittagong city. Chittagong Medical College is the only government medical college in Chittagong.
University of Chittagong is located north and Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology is located north of the Chittagong city. The University of Chittagong, established in 1966 is one of the largest universities in Bangladesh. Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology, established in 1968, is one of the five public engineering universities in Bangladesh and the only engineering university in the Chittagong Division.
The city also hosts several other private universities and medical colleges. The BGC Trust University Bangladesh, Chittagong Independent University (CIU), Asian University for Women, Port City International University, East Delta University, International Islamic University, Premier University, Southern University, University of Information Technology and Sciences and the University of Science & Technology Chittagong are among them. Chittagong has public, denominational, and independent schools. Public schools, including pre-schools, primary and secondary schools, and special schools are administered by the Ministry of Education and Chittagong Education Board. Chittagong has governmental and non-governmental primary and higher secondary schools, international schools, and English medium schools, such as CDA Public School and College.Southeast Public School & College Jamia Ahmadiyya Sunnia Kamil Madrasa is also a famous Islamic University which situated in Chittagong.
Research institutes
Bangladesh Forest Research Institute
Bangladesh Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases
Bangladesh Tea Board
Health
The Chittagong Medical College Hospital is the largest state-owned hospital in Chittagong. The Chittagong General Hospital, established in 1901, is the oldest hospital in the city. The Bangladesh Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases (BITID) is based the city. Other government-run medical centers in the city include the Family Welfare Centre, TB Hospital, Infectious Disease Hospital, Diabetic Hospital, Mother and Children Hospital, and the Police Hospital. Among the city's private hospitals are the Bangabandhu Memorial Hospital (BBMH), Chittagong Metropolitan Hospital, Chevron Clinic, Surgiscope Hospital, CSCR, Centre Point Hospital, Park View Hospital, Max Hospital & diagnosis, Imperial Hospital LTD., Evercare Hospital Ltd., National Hospital and Mount Hospital Ltd.
Private Medical Colleges:
University of Science & Technology Chittagong
BGC TRUST Medical College Chittagong
Chittagong Ma o Shishu Hospital
Southern Medical College
Marine City Medical College
Army Medical College
Poly Clinic
CSCR Hospital
Transport
Transport in Chittagong is similar to that of the capital, Dhaka. large avenues and roads are present throughout the metropolis. There are various bus systems and taxi services, as well as smaller 'baby' or 'CNG' taxis, which are tricycle-structured motor vehicles. Foreign and local ridesharing companies like Uber and Pathao are operating in the city. There are also traditional manual rickshaws, which are very common.
Road
As the population has risen extensively, the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) has undertaken some transportation initiatives aimed at easing the traffic congestion in Chittagong. Under this plan, the CDA, along with the Chittagong City Corporation, has constructed some flyovers and expanded the existing roads within the city. There are also some other major expressways and flyovers under construction, most notably the Chittagong City Outer Ring Road, which runs along the coast of Chittagong City. This ring road includes a marine drive along with five feeder roads and is also meant to strengthen the embankment of the coast. The authority has also began the construction of a underwater expressway tunnel through the Karnaphuli river to ensure better connectivity between the northern and southern parts of Chittagong. This tunnel will be the first of its kind in South Asia.
The N1 (Dhaka-Chittagong Highway), a major arterial national highway, is the only way to access the city by motor vehicle from most other parts of the country. It is considered a crowded and dangerous highway. This highway is also part of AH41 route of the Asian Highway Network. It has been upgraded to 4 lanes. The N106 (Chittagong-Rangamati Highway) is another major national highway that connects the Chittagong Hill Tracts with the Oxygen Square.
Rail
Chittagong can also be accessed by rail. It has a station on the metre gauge, the eastern section of the Bangladesh Railway, whose headquarters are also located within the city. There are two main railway stations, on Station Road and in the Pahartali Thana. Trains to Dhaka, Sylhet, Comilla, and Bhairab are available from Chittagong. The Chittagong Circular Railway was introduced in 2013 to ease traffic congestion and to ensure better public transport service for commuters within the city. The railway includes high-speed DEMU trains with a carrying capacity of 300 passengers. These DEMU trains also travel on the Chittagong-Laksham route which connects the city with Comilla.
Air
The Shah Amanat International Airport , located at South Patenga, serves as Chittagong's only airport. It is the second busiest airport in Bangladesh. The airport is capable of annually handling 1.5 million passengers and 6,000 tonnes of cargo. Known as Chittagong Airfield during World War II, the airport was used as a supply point by the United States Army Air Forces' Tenth Air Force during the Burma Campaign 1944–45. It officially became a Bangladeshi airport in 1972 after Bangladesh's liberation war. International services fly to major cities of the Arabian Peninsula as well as to Indian city of Kolkata. At present, Middle Eastern airlines like Air Arabia, Flydubai, Jazeera Airways, Oman Air and SalamAir operate flights from the city to these destinations along with airlines of Bangladesh. All Bangladeshi airlines operate regular domestic flights to Dhaka. The airport was formerly known as MA Hannan International Airport but was renamed after a famous Sufi saint Shah Amanat on 2 April 2005 by the Government.
Regional Communication with The Chittagong City:
Oman Air
Air Arabia
Bangladesh Biman
US-Bangla Airlines
Jazeera Airways
SalamAir
flydubai
Novoair
Sports
Chittagong has produced numerous cricketers, footballers, and athletes, who have performed at the national level. Tamim Iqbal, Akram Khan, Minhajul Abedin, Aftab Ahmed, Nafees Iqbal, Nazimuddin, Faisal Hossain, Tareq Aziz, Mominul Haque, Irfan Sukkur, Yasir Ali Chowdhury, Nayeem Hasan, Minhajul Abedin Afridi are some of the most prominent figures among them. Cricket is the most popular sport in Chittagong, while football, tennis and kabaddi are also popular. Several stadiums are located in Chittagong with the main one being the multipurpose MA Aziz Stadium, which has a seating capacity of 20,000 and hosts football matches in addition to cricket. MA Aziz Stadium was the stadium where Bangladesh achieved its first-ever Test cricket victory, against Zimbabwe in 2005. The stadium now focuses only on football, and is currently the main football venue of the city. Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, is currently the main cricket venue of the city, which was awarded Test status in 2006, hosting both domestic and international cricket matches. The city hosted two group matches of the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, both taking place in Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium. It also co-hosted 2014 ICC World Twenty20 along with Dhaka and Sylhet, Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium hosted 15 group stage matches. Other stadiums in Chittagong include the Women's Complex Ground. Major sporting clubs such as, Mohammedan Sporting Club and Abahani Chittagong are also located in the city. Chittagong is also home to the Bangladesh Premier League franchise, the Chattogram Challengers.
Teams
Chattogram Challengers - BPL (Cricket)
Chittagong Abahani Limited - BPL (Football)
Acme Chattogram - HCT (Field hockey)
Twin towns – sister cities
Goiânia, Brazil
Kunming, China
See also
Jamboree Park
Conquest of Chittagong
Notes
Explanatory notes
Citations
External links
Official Web Portal of Chittagong
Chittagong City Corporation
Chittagong Development Authority
Chittagong Metropolitan Police
Bay of Bengal
Chittagong District
Former colonies in Asia
Former Portuguese colonies
Populated coastal places in Bangladesh
Populated places in Chittagong Division
Port cities in Asia
Portuguese colonisation in Asia
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj%20Kapoor
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Raj Kapoor
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Raj Kapoor (; born Shrishti Nath Kapoor; 14 December 1924 2 June 1988), also known as Ranbir Raj Kapoor, was an Indian actor, film director and producer, who worked in Hindi cinema. He is considered one of the greatest and most influential actors and filmmakers in history of Indian cinema, and has been referred to as The Greatest Showman of Indian Cinema and as the Charlie Chaplin of Indian Cinema.
Born in Peshawar as the son of Prithviraj Kapoor of the Kapoor family, Raj Kapoor starred in and produced many films for which he received multiple accolades, including three National Film Awards and 11 Filmfare Awards in India. He was inspired by Charlie Chaplin and played characters based on The Tramp in films such as Awaara (1951) and Shree 420 (1955). His performance in Awaara was ranked as one of the "Top-Ten Greatest Performances of All Time in World Cinema" by Time magazine in 2005; both that and his other produced films Awara (1951) Boot Polish (1954) competed for the Palme d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1951 and 1955's editions respectively.
His films were global commercial successes in parts of Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Africa and the Soviet bloc. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Bhushan in 1971 for his contributions to the arts. India's highest award in cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, was bestowed to him in 1987 by the Government of India.
Early life and background
Raj Kapoor was born as Shrishti Nath Kapoor on 14 December 1924 at Kapoor Haveli, a large house then owned by his grandfather in the Qissa Khwani Bazaar neighborhood of Peshawar, British India into a Punjabi Hindu family of the Kapoor clan, who belonged to the Dhai Ghar Khatri community. His parents were Prithviraj Kapoor and Ramsarni Devi Kapoor (née Mehra). The Kapoor family hailed originally from Samundri, Samundri Tehsil, Lyallpur District, Punjab Province, British India. He was the eldest sibling of six children in the family. He was the grandson of Dewan Basheshwarnath Kapoor, great-grandson of Dewan Keshavmal Kapoor, and great-great-grandson of Dewan Murli Mal Kapoor, and was part of the famous Kapoor family. His brothers were the late actors Shammi Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor. He also had a sister named Urmila Sial. Two other siblings died in infancy. Kapoor's family later on moved from Peshawar, North-West Frontier Province to Bombay, Bombay Presidency for residence and for education.
He is the nephew of actor Trilok Kapoor, who is the younger brother of his father Prithviraj Kapoor. His first cousin was actor Subbiraj who was his father's sister's son.
His father's cousin was film producer Surinder Kapoor, whose children are producer Boney Kapoor and actors Anil Kapoor and Sanjay Kapoor. His father's maternal first cousins were actors Kamal Kapoor, Ravindra Kapoor, and Nandkishore Kapoor. Kamal Kapoor's grandson is filmmaker Goldie Behl. His maternal first cousin, Juggal Kishore Mehra, was a singer, whose step-granddaughter, Salma Agha, later became an actress and singer.
As Prithviraj moved from city to city early in his career during the 1930s, the family had to move too. Raj Kapoor attended several different schools like Colonel Brown Cambridge School in Dehradun, St Xavier's Collegiate School in Calcutta and Campion School in Bombay.
Career
At the age of ten, he appeared in a Hindi film for the first time, in 1935's Inquilab. Raj Kapoor's big break came with the lead role in Neel Kamal (1947) opposite Madhubala in her first role as a leading lady. In 1948, at the age of twenty-four, he established his own studio, R. K. Films, and became the youngest film director of his time making his directorial debut with Aag starring himself, Nargis, Kamini Kaushal and Premnath. In 1949, he co-starred alongside Dilip Kumar and Nargis in Mehboob Khan's Andaz which was his first big hit as an actor. He had his first success as producer, director and actor in another major blockbuster Barsaat which released later that year.
He went on to produce and star in several hit films made under his R. K. Banner including Awaara (1951), Shree 420 (1955) and Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai (1960), the last was directed by Radhu Karmakar, his longtime cinematographer, and which won Filmfare Award for Best Film. These films established his screen image modeled on Charlie Chaplin's most famous screen persona of The Tramp. Outside of his home productions, his other notable films as a leading actor included Sargam (1950), Dastan (1950), Anhonee (1952), Chori Chori (1956), Phir Subah Hogi (1958), Parvarish (1958), Anari (1959) and Chhalia (1960). He also produced the hit social films Boot Polish (1954) and Ab Dilli Door Nahin (1957).
In 1964, he produced, directed and starred in the romantic musical Sangam alongside Rajendra Kumar and Vyjayanthimala which was his first film in colour. This was his last major success as a leading actor as his later films like Around the World (1966) and Sapnon Ka Saudagar (1968) with younger starlets Rajshree and Hema Malini were box office flops. In 1965 he was a member of the jury at the 4th Moscow International Film Festival.
In 1970 he produced, directed and starred in his ambitious film Mera Naam Joker which took more than six years to complete. His son Rishi Kapoor made his debut in this film playing the younger version of his character. When released in 1970, it was a box office disaster and put Kapoor and his family into a financial crisis. In later years it was acknowledged as a cult classic. In 1971, he launched his eldest son Randhir Kapoor in the family drama Kal Aaj Aur Kal starring himself, his son Randhir, his father Prithviraj Kapoor as well as Randhir's to-be wife Babita. He launched his second son Rishi Kapoor's career in 1973 when he produced and directed Bobby which was a huge box office success and introduced actress Dimple Kapadia, later a very popular actress; it was the first of a new generation of teen romances. Dimple wore bikinis which was quite unique for Indian films then. In 1975 he acted alongside his son Randhir again in Dharam Karam, which Randhir also directed.
In the latter half of the 1970s and early 1980s he produced and directed films that focused on the female protagonists: Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978) with Zeenat Aman, Prem Rog (1982) with Padmini Kolhapure and Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985) which introduced Mandakini. He acted in fewer films by the late 1970s and early 1980s but played a notable supporting role alongside Rajesh Khanna in Naukri (1978) and as the titular character alongside Sanjay Khan in Abdullah (1980). He played a detective in two comedy films: Do Jasoos (1975) and Gopichand Jasoos (1982), both directed by Naresh Kumar (brother of Rajendra Kumar). In 1979 he was a member of the jury at the 11th Moscow International Film Festival. Raj Kapoor's last major film appearance was in Vakil Babu (1982) where he appeared with his younger brother Shashi. A film he had shot and completed in 1982 titled Chor Mandali in which he appeared opposite fellow veteran actor Ashok Kumar remained unreleased due to a legal dispute. His last acting role was a cameo appearance in a 1984 released British made-for-television film titled Kim.
He was set to direct Henna starring his son Rishi and Pakistani actress Zeba Bakhtiar before his death in 1988. His son Randhir directed the film and it released in 1991.
Personal life
On 12 May 1946, Raj Kapoor married Krishna Malhotra. Krishna was one of nine siblings, and following her marriage, many of them joined the Hindi film industry. Her brothers, Rajendra Nath, Prem Nath and Narendra Nath, later became actors, and her sister Uma is married to actor Prem Chopra.
Raj and Krishna Kapoor had five children: three sons, actors Randhir Kapoor (1947–), Rishi Kapoor (1952–2020) and Rajiv Kapoor (1962–2021), and two daughters, Ritu Nanda (1949–2020) and Rima Jain (1955–). Randhir is married to former actress Babita and is the father of actresses Karishma Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor. Rishi was married to former actress Neetu Singh until his death and is father of two children, a daughter Riddhima Kapoor, and a son, actor Ranbir Kapoor. Raj Kapoor's elder daughter, Ritu Nanda, was married until their deaths to industrialist Rajan Nanda (scion of the family which promoted and controls the Escorts group), and she was the mother of two children :Her daughter Nitasha Nanda and her son, Nikhil Nanda, is married to Shweta, daughter of actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan. Raj Kapoor's younger daughter, Rima Jain, is married to investment banker Manoj Jain and is the mother of Armaan Jain and Aadar Jain.
Both of Kapoor's brothers, all three of Kapoor's sons, two of Kapoor's daughters-in-law and three of Kapoor's grandchildren have been active at various times in the film industry. His granddaughters Karisma Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor (daughters of Kapoor's eldest son Randhir), and grandson Ranbir Kapoor (son of Kapoor's second son Rishi) are the latest Bollywood superstars from the Kapoor family, while another of his grandsons, Nikhil Nanda (Kapoor's daughter Ritu's son), is a noted industrialist.
Kapoor had a longtime romantic relationship with renowned actress Nargis Dutt during the 1940s and 1950s, despite being a married man, although neither ever publicly admitted to this. The couple starred in several films together, including Awaara and Shree 420. As Raj would not leave his wife and children, Nargis ended their relationship after Chori Chori and married Sunil Dutt with whom she fell in love on the set of Mother India (1957). In 2017, his second son Rishi confirmed his father's affair in his autobiography Khullam Khulla.
Krishna Raj Kapoor died on 1 October 2018. Rajan Nanda, husband of Ritu Nanda died on 5 August 2018. In January 2020, Ritu Nanda herself died. She was followed three months later by her brother Rishi, Kapoor's second son, who died in April 2020. Kapoor's third and youngest son, Rajiv, died in February 2021.
Dilip Kumar, Mukesh, Shailendra, Hasrat Jaipuri, Dev Anand, Pran, Rajendra Kumar, Manna Dey, Shankar Jaikishan, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and Rajesh Khanna were among Kapoor's closest friends from the movie industry.
Filmography
Death
Cause
Raj Kapoor suffered from asthma in his later years; he died of complications related to the disease in 1988 at the age of 63. He collapsed at the event where he was to receive the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in New Delhi, and was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi for treatment. He was hospitalised for about a month before he succumbed to complications arising from his asthma. At the time of his death, he was working on the movie Henna (an Indo-Pakistan based love story). The film was later completed by his sons Randhir Kapoor and Rishi Kapoor and was released in 1991.
Memorial at family farm in Pune
His and his parents' Samadhi (memorial) is at their family farm "Rajbaugh", which means the "gardens of king". Located inside the MIT Art Design and Technology University (MIT ADTU), Rajbaugh lies on the banks of Mula-Mutha River in Loni Kalbhor village 30 km east of Pune in Maharashtra. Kapoor family sold part of 125 acres Rajbaugh to MIT ADTU which built a memorial for the Kapoor family on its campus. Memorial was unveiled in 2014 in the presence of Lata Mangeshkar and Kapoor clan. Kapoor family memorial has 7 pagodas showing elements of Raj Kapoor's movies, a museum or viewing gallery which showcases family photographs and moments from his movie making from 1945 to 1990. Raj Kapoor shot many of his films at this farm, including Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Mera Naam Joker, Bobby, and Prem Rog. The family Banglow inside the farm has been preserved; the popular song "Hum Tum Ek Kamre Mein Band Ho" was shot inside this banglow.
Legacy
Raj Kapoor is often referred as The Greatest Showman of Indian Cinema in the Indian media. Film historians and movie buffs speak of him as the "Charlie Chaplin of Indian cinema", since he often portrayed a tramp-like figure, who, despite adversity, was still cheerful and honest. His movies were popular in large parts of South/Central/Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union/Bloc, China, the Middle East, and Africa; his movies were global commercial successes.
Siddharth Kak made, Raj Kapoor, a feature film documentary on the actor in 1987 which was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
A postage stamp, bearing his face, was released by India Post to honour him on 14 December 2001. To honour him, a brass statue of his was unveiled at Walk of the Stars at Bandra Bandstand in Mumbai in March 2012.
Many of Raj Kapoor's movies had a patriotic theme. His films Aag, Shree 420 and Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai (In the country where the Ganges flows) celebrated the newly independent India, and encouraged film-goers to be patriots. Raj Kapoor commissioned these famous lyrics for Mera Joota Hai Japani, a song from the movie Shree 420:
Mera joota hai Japani (My shoes are Japanese)
Ye patloon Inglistani (These trousers are English)
Sar pe lal topi Roosi (The red cap on my head is Russian)
Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani (But still, however, my heart is Indian)
The song is still extremely popular and has been featured in a number of movies since Shree 420 was released. Indian author Mahasweta Devi stopped the show with her inaugural speech at the 2006 Frankfurt Book Fair when she used these lyrics to express her own heartfelt patriotism and debt to her country.
Kapoor appeared in Box Office Indias "Top Actors" list twelve times, (1949-1960).
In 2014, Google commemorated his 90th birthday.
Raj Kapoor was a canny judge of filmi music and lyrics. Many of the songs he commissioned are evergreen hits. He introduced the music directors Shankar–Jaikishan and the lyricists Hasrat Jaipuri and Shailendra. He is also remembered for his strong sense of visual style. He used striking visual compositions, elaborate sets, and dramatic lighting to complete the mood set by the music. He introduced the actresses Nimmi, Dimple Kapadia, and Mandakini, as well as launching and reviving the careers of his sons Rishi, Randhir and Rajiv. Famous for making his actresses reveal the body, not very common then in Indian cinema, it was said his 'show-womanship' matched his showmanship.
Raj Kapoor's Shree 420 (1955) movie's Hindi song Mera Joota Hai Japani ("My Shoes are Japanese") was used in opening sequence of 20th Century Studios 2016 movie Deadpool, starring Ryan Reynolds.
The 1967 "Song about Yogis" () by Vladimir Vysotsky mentions Raj Kapoor as one of the three best-known symbols of Indian culture in the Soviet Union, along with Shiva and yoga.
He was called "the Clark Gable of the Indian film industry".
Awards and honors
Kapoor had received many awards throughout his career, including 3 National Film Awards, 11 Filmfare Awards and 21 nominations. His films Awaara (1951) and Boot Polish (1954) were nominated for the at the Cannes Film Festival. His acting in the former was rated as one of the "Top Ten Performances of All Time in World Cinema" by Time magazine. His film Jagte Raho (1956) also won the Crystal Globe award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Bhushan in 1971 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1987 – the highest award for cinematic excellence in India. In 2001, he was honoured with "Best Director of the Millennium" by Stardust Awards. He was named "Showman of the Millennium" by Star Screen Awards in 2002.
In June 2011, Noah Cowan, artistic director of TIFF Bell Lightbox, and Sabbas Joseph, Director, Wizcraft along with members of the Kapoor family came together to pay tribute to the life and work of Indian actor, director, mogul and legend Raj Kapoor, as presented in partnership by TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA), and the Government of Ontario. In 2011, it was announced that Kapoor will be inducted into the Brampton Walk of Fame in Ontario, Canada.
Association with other artists
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas was a screenwriter and director for a number of Raj Kapoor's best films.
Awaara (1951)
Anhonee (1952)
Shree 420 (1955)
Jagte Raho (1956)
Char Dil Char Rahen (1959)
Mera Naam Joker (1970)
Bobby (1973)
Henna (1991)
Shankar–Jaikishan
Shankar–Jaikishan were Raj Kapoor's music directors of choice. He worked with them in 20 films in all including 10 of his own films from Barsaat until Kal Aaj Aur Kal. (Jagte Raho with Salil Chowdhury and Ab Dilli Dur Nahin being two exceptions in this period). Only after Jaikishan died, did he turn to a different music director – Laxmikant–Pyarelal for Bobby, Satyam Shivam Sundaram and Prem Rog (later on, his children used Laxmikant-Pyarelal for Prem Granth as well), Rahul Dev Burman for Dharam Karam, and Ravindra Jain for (Ram Teri Ganga Maili and Henna). Raj Kapoor acted in a movie with music by Madan Mohan only once (twice), i.e. Dhoon (1953) & Ashiana (1952), which featured duet Hum Pyaar Karenge by Hemant Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar, the only instance of Hemant Kumar giving playback to Raj Kapoor, and did only one movie with O. P. Nayyar (Do Ustad).
List of films with Shankar–Jaikishan: (18 Films)
Barsaat (1949)
Aah (1953)
Awaara (1951)
Boot Polish (1954)
Shree 420 (1955)
Chori Chori (1956)
Kanhaiya (1959)
Main Nashe Men Hoon (1959)
Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai (1960)
Aashiq (1962)
Ek Dil Sao Afsane (1963)
Sangam (1964)
Teesri Kasam (1966)
Around the World (1967)
Diwana (1967)
Sapnon Ka Saudagar (1968)
Mera Naam Joker (1970)
Kal Aaj Aur Kal (1971)
Nargis
Raj Kapoor and Nargis worked together in 16 films including 6 of his own productions.
Aag (1948)
Andaz (1949)
Barsaat (1949)
Pyaar (1950)
Jan Pahechan (1950)
Awaara (1951)
Amber (1952)
Anhonee (1952)
Ashiana (1952)
Bewafa (1952)
Aah (1953)
Paapi (1953)
Dhoon (1953)
Shree 420 (1955)
Chori Chori (1956)
Jagte Raho (1956) (cameo)
Mukesh and Manna Dey
Mukesh was Raj Kapoor's almost exclusive singing voice in almost all of his films. Also, when Mukesh died, Raj had said, Main ne apni aawaaz ko kho diya... (I have lost my voice...). However Manna Dey has also sung many notable and super-hit songs for Raj Kapoor, for instance in Shree 420 and Chori Chori. Examples of such Manna songs are best illustrated by the following list:
"Laga Chunri Mein Daag" (Dil Hi To Hai)
"Ae Bhai Zara Dekh Ke Chalo" (Mera Naam Joker)
"Dil Ka Haal Sune Dil Wala" (Shree 420)
"Aaja Sanam Madhur Chandni Mein Hum" (Chori Chori)
"Jahan Mein Jati Hoon Wahin Chale Aate Ho" (Chori Chori)
"Yeh Raat Bhigi Bhigi, Yeh Mast Fizayen" (Chori Chori)
"Masti Bhara Hai Samaan" (Parvarish)
"Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh" (Shree 420)
"Pyar hua Iqrar hua hai" (Shree 420)
"Chalat Musafir" (Teesri Kasam)
"Belia Belia Belia" (Parvarish)
"Lallah Allah Tera Nigehbaan" (Abdullah)
"Mama O Mama" (Parvarish)
Explanatory notes
References
Bibliography
Rajadhyaksha, Ashish; Willemen, Paul (1994). Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema. London: British Film Institute; New Delhi: Oxford University Press. .
External links
Punjabi people
Indian Hindus
Punjabi Hindus
1924 births
1988 deaths
Indian male film actors
20th-century Indian film directors
Hindi-language film directors
Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipients
Male actors in Hindi cinema
Film producers from Mumbai
Film directors from Mumbai
20th-century Indian male actors
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts
Raj
Male actors from Mumbai
Hindkowan people
Filmfare Awards winners
Deaths from asthma
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20historians%20by%20area%20of%20study
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List of historians by area of study
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This is a list of historians categorized by their area of study. See also List of historians.
By time period
Ancient history
Sedat Alp (1913, Veroia, The Ottoman Empire - 2006, Ankara, Türkiye) Hittitolog- Historian, Ancient Anatolian
Ekrem Akurgal (1911, Haifa, The Ottoman Empire- 2002, İzmir, Türkiye) Archaeologist- Historian, Ancient Anatolian
Leonie Archer (born 1955) – Graeco-Roman Palestine
Mary Beard (born 1955)
Anatoly Bokschanin (1903–1979) – Roman history
Fernand Braudel (1902, Luméville-en-Ornois- 1985, Cluses- France ) Roman history
Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton (1900-1903) – Roman history and prosopography
Halet Çambel (1916, Berlin, Germany- 2014, İstanbul, Türkiye) Archaeologist- Historian, Ancient Anatolian
Michael Crawford (born 1939)
Roland Étienne (born 1944, French) – Ancient Greece and Hellenistic period
Moses Finley (1912–1986)
Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) – The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Adrian Goldsworthy (born 1969, British) – Roman history
Peter Green (born 1924) – Ancient Greece and Macedon
Herodotus
Keith Hopkins (1934–2004) - Roman history
Muazzez İlmiye Çığ (born 1914, Bursa-Türkiye) Sumerologist, Sumerian history
Josephus
Yuliya Kolosovskaya (1920–2002) – Roman history and Roman provinces of the Danube
Sergey Kovalev (1886–1960) – Hellenistic and Roman period
Mikhail Kublanov (1914–1998)
Barbara Levick (born 1931) – Roman emperors
Livy
Ramsay MacMullen (1928–2022) – History of Rome
Nikolai Mashkin (1900–1950) – Roman history
Fergus Millar (1935–2019)
Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) History of Rome
Barthold Georg Niebuhr (1776–1831) – Roman history
Orosius
Tahsin Özgüç (1916, Kardzhali, The Ottoman Empire- 2005, Ankara, Türkiye) Archaeologist- Historian, Ancient Anatolian
Edward Togo Salmon (1905–1988) - Roman history
Howard Hayes Scullard (1903–1983) – Roman civilization
Mariya Sergeyenko (1891–1987) – Roman agriculture and daily life
Ram Sharan Sharma (1919–2011) – Ancient India
Elena Shtaerman (1914–1991) – Roman history
Suetonius
Ronald Syme (1903–1989) – Classical period
Tacitus
Joseph Tainter (born 1949)
Lily Ross Taylor (1886-1969) - Roman history
Thucydides
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (born 1951)
Max Weber (1864–1920)
Xenophon
Polybius
Medieval history
John Van Antwerp Fine Jr. (born 1939) - American medievalist specialized in the history of Central and Southeastern Europe, and Balkans
Ram Sharan Sharma (1919–2011) – early medieval History of India
Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman (born 1940) – historian of medieval medicine
Placido Puccinelli (1609–1685, Italian) – Northern Italy in the 10th century and the Florentine church
Marc Bloch (1886–1944, French) – Medieval France
John Boswell (1947–1994, American) – Homosexuality in the Middle Ages
Norman Cantor (1930–2004)
Georges Duby (1924–1996, French) – Specialized in the history of France between the Capets and the Valois
François-Louis Ganshof (1895–1980), Belgian – wrote on early medieval institutional history and feudalism
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Giraldus Cambrensis
Johan Huizinga (1872–1945, Dutch) – cultural history, wrote Waning of the Middle Ages
Jacques Le Goff (1924–2014, French) – Middle Ages, particularly the 12th and 13th centuries
Rev. F. X. Martin (1922–2000, Irish) – Mediævalist and campaigner
Rosamond McKitterick (born 1949) – Frankish and Carolingian history
Henri Pirenne (1862–1935) – the "Pirenne Thesis" of early Medieval development
Eileen Power (1889–1940) – Middle Ages
Miri Rubin (born 1956) – social and religious history, 1100–1500
Steven Runciman (1903–2000) – the Crusades
Richard Southern (1912–2001)
Sidney Painter (1902–1960)
John Julius Norwich (1929–2018)
John V. Tolan (born 1959)
Chris Wickham (born 1950)
Retha Warnicke (born 1939)
Aaron Gurevich (1924–2006)
Jerome Lee Shneidman (1929–2008) – psychohistory
Michael Prestwich (born 1943)
Alessandro Barbero (born 1959)
Dick Harrison (born 1966)
Satish Chandra (1922–2017)
Irfan Habib (born 1931)
Michel Kaplan (born 1946, French) – Byzantinist
Gina Fasoli (1905–1992) – medieval cities, feudal society, and Lombardy
By nation or geographical area
North America
History of Canada
Donald Creighton (1902–1979) – Developed the Laurentian thesis
William J. Eccles (1917–1998) – History of New France
Lionel Groulx (1878–1967) – The history of Quebec in particular and French North America in general
Harold Innis (1894–1952) – Economic historian of Canada
Jack Granatstein (born 1939) – Political and Military historian of Canada
W.L. Morton (1908–1980) – Expert on western Canada
See also List of Canadian historians.
History of the Caribbean
Kamau Brathwaite (1930–2020)
Aviva Chomsky (born 1957)
C. L. R. James (1901–1989)
Lucille M. Mair (1924–2009)
Walter Rodney (1942–1980)
Eric Williams (1911–1981) – Focused on slavery and the slave trade, condemned imperialism
Betty Wood (1945–2021)
History of the United States
Henry Adams (1838–1918) – history of the United States in the presidential administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison
Stephen Ambrose (1936–2002) – biographer of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon
Edward L. Ayers (born 1953) – U.S. South, founder of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) and Digital Scholarship Lab
George Bancroft (1800–1891) – wrote first large-scale history of the US
Charles A. Beard (1874–1948) – revisionist history of Founding Fathers suggesting monetary motivations
Samuel Flagg Bemis (1891–1973) – U.S. foreign policy; won two Pulitzer Prizes
Ira Berlin (1941–2018) - Slavery
William Brandon (1914–2002) – historian of the American West and Native Americans.
Holly Brewer (born 1964) – early American History
Alan Brinkley (1949–2019) – historian of the Great Depression
David H. Burton - U.S. historian and biographer of presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft as well as Clara Barton and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Bruce Catton (1899–1978) – American Civil War
William Cronon (born 1954) – American environmental history, the frontier in New England, and the American West
J. Frank Dobie (1888–1964) – historian of Texas and the Southwestern United States
David Herbert Donald (1920–2009)
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) – historian of the Reconstruction
Drew Gilpin Faust (born 1947) – Civil War, culture of death, and the Confederacy
Robert H. Ferrell (1921–2018) – Harry S. Truman, the 20th-century U.S. presidency, World War I
Eric Foner (born 1943) – Civil War and Reconstruction
John Hope Franklin (1915–2009) – historian of African Americans
John A. Garraty (1920–2007) – biography
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (1941–2007) – Southern slavery, women's history
Doris Kearns Goodwin (born 1943) - U.S. presidents, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) – Progressivism and U.S. political history
Daniel Walker Howe - political and intellectual history of the early republic and antebellum period
Peter Iverson – 20th century U.S. West/Native American history (emphasis in Navajo history)
Paul Johnson (born 1928) – author of A History of the American People and a biographer of George Washington
Winthrop Jordan (1931–2007) – African-American history
David Lavender (1910–2003) – Western U.S.
David McCullough (1933-2022) – general study, most notable work is recent biography of John Adams
James M. McPherson (born 1936) – American Civil War
Pauline Maier (1938–2013) – late Colonial, Revolution, Constitution
D. W. Meinig (1924-2020) – geographic history of America
Philip D. Morgan (born 1949) – slavery
David Nasaw (born 1945) – biography and U.S. cultural history
Francis Parkman (1823–1893) – historian of the French and Indian War
William B. Pickett (born 1940)
David Pietrusza (born 1949) - 20th century presidential elections; biography
Dominic Sandbrook (born 1974) – political history of the 1960s and 1970s
Arthur Schlesinger Sr. (1888–1965)
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (1917–2007)
Cornelius Cole Smith, Jr. (1913–2004) – historian of Arizona, California and the Southwestern United States
Jean Edward Smith (1932–2019) – biography, foreign policy, political economy, constitutional law, legal history, and politics
Irma Tam Soong (1912–2001) – history of Chinese immigration in Hawaii
Frederick Jackson Turner (1861–1932) – developed the Frontier Thesis
Frank Vandiver (1925–2005)
Alexander Scott Withers (1792–1865) – primary accounts of colonial western Virginia conflicts
Sean Wilentz (born 1951) - political, social, and cultural history
Betty Wood (1945–2021) – early American history
Gordon S. Wood (born 1933) - American Revolution
C. Vann Woodward (1908–1999) – Southern United States
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) – political scientist and historian of the United States, often critical of common policies
Latin America
History of Latin America
See also :Category:Historians of Latin America
Jeremy Adelman (born 1960)
Marc Becker
David Brading (born 1936)
Aviva Chomsky (born 1957)
James Dunkerley (born 1953)
Mark Falcoff (born 1941)
Ann Farnsworth-Alvear
Charles Gibson (born 1943)
Mike Gonzalez (born 1943)
Clarence H. Haring (1885–1960)
Daniel James (born 1948)
Kenneth Maxwell (born 1941)
William H. Prescott (1796–1859)
Peter Winn
John Wirth (1936–2002)
John Womack (born 1937)
Leslie Bethell (born 1937)
Brazil
Boris Fausto (born 1930)
Lilia Moritz Schwarcz (born 1957)
Chile
Alonso de Góngora Marmolejo (1523–1575)
Pedro Mariño de Lobera (1528–1594)
Vicente Carvallo y Goyeneche (1742–1816)
Peru
Jorge Basadre (1903–1980)
Raúl Porras Barrenechea (1897–1960)
María Rostworowski (1915–2016)
Europe
History of Europe
Patricia Clavin (born 1964) – international relations and transnational relations
Norman Davies (born 1939) – Europe as a whole
Tony Judt (1948–2010) – post 1945
Elizabeth Eisenstein (1923–2016) – early printing and transitions in media
Julia P. Gelardi – royal history of 19th and 20th centuries
John Lukacs (1924–2019) – Cold War
Henri-Jean Martin (1924–2007) – early printing and writing
Effie Pedaliu – history of Italian war crimes and Cold war
Henri Pirenne (1862–1935) – Belgium
Walter Alison Phillips (1864–1950)
Andrew Roberts (born 1963) – Second World War
John Roberts (1928–2003) – Europe
J. Salwyn Schapiro (1879–1973)
Norman Stone (1941–2019)
Charlotte Zeepvat – royal history of 19th and 20th centuries
History of Albania
Stavro Skëndi (1905-1989)
History of Belgium
Henri Pirenne (1862–1935) – Middle Ages
Sophie de Schaepdrijver (born 1961) – World War I
Herman Van der Wee (born 1928) – social and economic history
History of Bosnia and Herzegovina
İbrahim Peçevi (1572–1650)
Antun Knežević (1834–1889)
Bono Benić (1708–1785)
Hamdija Kreševljaković (1888–1959)
Smail Balić (1920–2002)
Enver Redžić (1915–2009)
Marko Vego (1907–1985) – medievalist & archaeologists
Mustafa Imamović (1941–2017)
Salmedin Mesihović (born 1975) – medievalist & archaeologists
History of England and Britain
Donald Adamson (born 1939) – British
Robert C. Allen (born 1947) – British economic
Perry Anderson (born 1938) – British; European history
Leonie Archer (born 1955) – British
Karen Armstrong (born 1944) – religious
Gerald Aylmer (1926–2000) – British; administrative history
Bernard Bailyn (1922–2020) – Atlantic migration
Onyeka – Black Britons
The Venerable Bede (672–735) – Britain from 55 BC to 731 AD
Brian Bond (born 1936) – military
Asa Briggs (1921–2016) – British social.
Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979) – historiography
Angus Calder (1942–2008) – Second World War
David Cannadine (born 1950) – Modern Britain, British business and philanthropy
J.C.D. Clark (born 1951) – 18th century
Linda Colley (born 1949) – 18th century
Patrick Collinson (1929–2011) – Elizabethan England & Puritanism
Maurice Cowling (1926-2005) – 19th and 20th century politics
John Darwin (born 1948) – British Empire
John Davies (1938–2015) - Wales
Susan Doran – Elizabethan
Eamon Duffy (born 1947) – religious history of the 15th–17th centuries
Harold James Dyos (1921–1978) – urban
Geoffrey Rudolph Elton (1921–1994) – Tudor period
Charles Harding Firth (1857–1936) – political history of the 17th century
Antonia Fraser (born 1932) – 17th century
William Gibson (born 1959) – ecclesiastical history
Samuel Rawson Gardiner (1829–1902) – political history of the 17th century
Ruth Goodman (born 1963) – early modern
Andrew Gordon (born 1951) – naval
Geoffrey of Monmouth (died c. 1154) – England
Élie Halévy (1870-1937) - British 19th century
Edward Hasted (1732–1812) – Kent
Max Hastings (born 1945) – military, Second World War
J. H. Hexter (1910–1996) – England in the 17th century
Christopher Hill (1912–2003) – England in the 17th century
Gertrude Himmelfarb (1922–2019) – social and cultural history of the Victorian period
Eric Hobsbawn (1917–2012) – Marxist British history
David Hume (1711–1776) – Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and author of the six volume History of England (originally History of Britain)
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (1609–1674) – English Civil Wars
John Edward Lloyd (1861–1947) – early Welsh history
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) – English writer and historian whose most famous work was The History of England from the Accession of James the Second
John Morrill (born 1946) Seventeenth-century political and military history
Lewis Bernstein Namier (1888–1960) – political history of the 18th century
Kenneth Morgan (born 1934) – modern Wales
Steven Pincus – 17th and 18th century England
Andrew Roberts (born 1963) – Political biographies, 19th and 20th centuries
A. L. Rowse (1903–1997) – Cornish history and Elizabethan England
Dominic Sandbrook (born 1974) – Britain in the 1960s and after
John Robert Seeley (1834–1895) – British political history of the modern period
Jack Simmons (1915–2000) – railways, topography
Paul Slack (born 1943) – Early Modern British Social history
David Spring (1918-2004) - British 19th century
David Starkey (born 1945) – Tudor historian and TV presenter
Lawrence Stone (1919–1999) – English society and the history of the family
Keith Thomas (born 1933) – Early Modern English Society
E. P. Thompson (1924–1993) – British working class
George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876–1962) – English history (many different periods)
Hugh Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton (1914-2003) – Britain in the 17th century
Retha Warnicke (born 1939) – Tudor history and gender issues
Andy Wood (born 1967) – British social historian, 1500 to present
Daniel Woolf (born 1958) – Early Modern England and History of Historical Writing
Cicely Veronica Wedgwood (1910–1997) – British
G. M. Young (1882-1959) - Victorian England
Perez Zagorin (1920–2009) – 16th and 17th centuries
History of the British Empire
Antoinette Burton
Robert Bickers (born 1964)
Richard Drayton (born 1964)
Gerald S. Graham (1903–1988)
Vincent T. Harlow (1898–1961)
Wm. Roger Louis (born 1936)
P. J. Marshall (born 1933)
David Quinn (1909–2002)
D. M. Schurman (1924–2013)
Archibald Paton Thornton (1921–2004)
Glyndwr Williams (born 1932)
History of Croatia
Johannes Lucius (1604–1679)
Pavao Ritter Vitezović (1652–1713)
Franjo Rački (1828–1894)
Tadija Smičiklas (1843–1914)
Vjekoslav Klaić (1849–1928)
Ferdo Šišić (1869–1940)
Nada Klaić (1920–1988)
Mirjana Gross (1922–2012)
Trpimir Macan (born 1935)
Ivo Banac (1947–2020)
Radoslav Katičić (1930–2019)
History of Finland
Kesar Ordin (1835–1892)
Mikhail Borodkin (1852–1919)
History of France
Marc Bloch (1886–1944) – medieval France
Jean-Jacques Becker (born 1928) - French historian of contemporary history
Vincent Cronin (1924–2011) – Louis XIV, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, and Paris
Natalie Zemon Davis (born 1928) – early modern France
Georges Duby (1924–1996) – medieval France
Lucien Febvre (1878–1956) – French historian
Alistair Horne (1925–2017) – modern French military history
Julian T. Jackson (born 1954) – French historian
Douglas Johnson (1925–2005) – historian of modern France
Simon Kitson (born c. 1967) – historian of Vichy France
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (born 1929) – history of the French peasantry
Michael Marrus (born 1941) – Vichy France
John M. Merriman (born 1946) - French Historian
Jules Michelet (1798–1874) – French historian
Roland Mousnier (1907–1993) – early modern France
Robert Roswell Palmer (1909–2002) – French revolution
Robert Paxton (born 1932) – Vichy France
Pierre Renouvin (1893–1974) – French diplomatic history
Andrew Roberts (born 1963) – Napoleon
John C. Rule (1929–2013) – 17th and 18th century France
Zeev Sternhell (1935–2020) – French fascism
Eugen Weber (1925–2007) – modern French history
John B. Wolf (1907–1996) – French history
Isser Woloch (born 1937) – 18th century France
Gordon Wright (1912–2000)
Robert J. Young (born 1942) – the Third Republic
See also List of historians of the French Revolution.
History of Germany
Celia Applegate – music history and nationalism
David Blackbourn (born 1949)
Gisela Bock (born 1942)
Horst Boog (1928–2016) – military history
Karl Dietrich Bracher (1922–2016)
Martin Broszat (1926–1989)
Alan Bullock (1914–2004)
Robert Citino (born 1958) – military history
Gordon A. Craig (1913–2005)
Richard J. Evans (born 1947)
Joachim Fest (1926–2006)
Fritz Fischer (1908–1999)
Luise Gerbing (1855–1927), history of Thuringia
Deborah Hertz (born 1949)
Klaus Hildebrand (born 1941)
Andreas Hillgruber (1925–1989)
Jonathan House (born 1950)
Christian Hartmann (born 1959) – military history
Gerhard Hirschfeld (born 1946) – 20th century German social, World War I & II
Eberhard Jäckel (1929–2017)
Ian Kershaw (born 1943)
Klemens von Klemperer (1916–2012)
Ernst Klink (1923–1993) – military history
Claudia Koonz (born 1940)
Dieter Langewiesche (born 1943)
Timothy Mason (1940–1990)
Frank McDonough (born 1957)
Wendy Lower (born 1965) – history of National Socialism
Geoffrey P. Megargee (born 1959) – military history
Friedrich Meinecke (1862–1954)
Hans Mommsen (1930–2015)
Wolfgang Mommsen (1930–2004)
George Mosse (1918–1999)
Ernst Nolte (1923–2016)
Steven Ozment (1939–2019)
Detlev Peukert (1950–1990)
Koppel Pinson (1904–1961)
Gerhard Ritter (1888–1967)
Hans Rothfels (1891–1976)
David Schoenbaum (born 1935)
Jean Edward Smith (1932–2019)
Ronald Smelser (born 1942)
Louis Leo Snyder (1907–1993)
Fritz Stern (1926–2016)
David Stahel (born 1975)
Michael Stürmer (born 1938)
Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896)
A.J.P. Taylor (1906–1990)
Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914–2003) – British historian and peer who specialized on Nazi leadership and incorrectly verified the authenticity of The Hitler Diaries
Henry Ashby Turner (1932–2008)
Gerd R. Ueberschär (born 1943) – military history
Bernd Wegner (born 1949) – military history and history of National Socialism
Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1931–2014)
Wolfram Wette (born 1940) – military history and history of National Socialism
John Wheeler-Bennett (1902–1975)
Jay Winter (born 1945)
Michael Wolffsohn (born 1947)
Gordon Wright (1912–2000) – Germany – 19th and 20th centuries
David T. Zabecki (born 1947) – military history
Alfred-Maurice de Zayas (born 1947)
Rainer Zitelmann (born 1957)
History of the Habsburg monarchy
John Komlos (born 1944) – economic
History of Ireland
Mary Bonaventure Browne (after 1610–after 1670), Poor Clare and historian
Ann Buckley
Francis John Byrne (1934–2017)
John Clyn (fl. 1333–1349)
James Donnelly (born 1943) – Irish social history
Brian Farrell (1929–2014)
Roy Foster (born 1949)
Kathleen Hughes (1926–1977)
Geoffrey Keating
J.J. Lee (born 1942) – 20th century Ireland
James Francis Lydon (1928–2013)
F.S.L. Lyons (1923–1983) – modern Ireland
Oliver MacDonagh (1924–2002) – modern Ireland
Dermot MacDermot (1906–1989)
Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh (fl. 1643–1671)
Gilla Isa Mor mac Donnchadh MacFhirbhisigh (fl. 1390–1418)
Muirchu moccu Machtheni (fl. late 7th century)
Flann Mainistrech (died 1056)
F.X. Martin (1922–2000)
Kenneth Nicholls
Adhamh Ó Cianáin (died 1373)
Mícheál Ó Cléirigh (c. 1590–1643)
Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (born 1954)
Eugene O'Curry (1794–1862)
John O'Donovan (1806–1861)
Seán Mór Ó Dubhagáin (died 1372)
Pilip Ballach Ó Duibhgeannáin (fl. 1579–1590)
Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh (1629–1718)
Nollaig Ó Muraíle
Tírechán (fl. late 7th century)
Father Paul Walsh (1885–1941)
Sir James Ware (1594–1666)
History of Italy
Lorenzo Arnone Sipari (born 1973) – social and environmental Italian history
R.J.B. Bosworth (born 1943) – Fascism, Mussolini
Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) – philosophy of history, modern Italian history
Vincent Cronin (1924–2011) – Renaissance art and Sicily
Renzo De Felice (1929–1996) – Fascism, biographer of Mussolini
John Foot (born 1964) – modern Italy history, The City
Emilio Gentile (born 1946) – Fascism
Carlo Ginzburg (born 1939) – witchcraft and agrarian cults, microhistory
Alessandra Kersevan (born 1950) – Italian concentration camps
Claudio Pavone (1920–2016) – Italian fascism, World War II, anti-fascism
Effie Pedaliu – Italian war crimes
John Pollard (born 1944) – The church and Fascism
Paul Ginsborg (born 1945) – The Risorgimento, Italian modern and contemporary history
Lucy Riall (born 1962) – The Risorgimento, Garibaldi, Sicily
Gaetano Salvemini (1873–1957) – Fascism, French Revolution
Denis Mack Smith (1920–2017) – Italian modern history
Arrigo Petacco (1929–2018) – Fascism
History of Moldova/Bessarabia
Nicolae Iorga (1871–1940)
Ion Nistor (1876–1962)
Petre Cazacu (1873–1956)
Charles King (born 1967)
Igor Casu (born 1973)
Gh. Cojocaru (born 1963)
History of the Netherlands
Jaap R. Bruijn (born 1938)
Femme Gaastra (born 1945)
Pieter Geyl (1887–1966)
John Lothrop Motley (1814–1877)
Jonathan Israel (born 1946)
G. J. Renier (1892–1962)
Herbert H. Rowen (1916–1999)
Simon Schama (born 1945)
History of Norway
History of Poland
Norman Davies (born 1939) – modern Polish history
Robert I. Frost (born 1958) — modern Polish history
Pawel Jasienica (1909–1970) – Polish amateur historian
Wickham Steed (1871–1956)
History of Portugal
José Hermano Saraiva (1919–2012)
A. H. de Oliveira Marques (1933–2007) – early modern period
José Mattoso (born 1933) – medieval history
Fernando Rosas (born 1946) – contemporary history
History of Romania
Lucian Boia (born 1944)
Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu (1838–1907)
Nicolae Iorga (1871–1940)
Mihail Kogalniceanu (1817–1891)
Irina Livezeanu (born 1952)
David Mitrany (1888–1975)
Vladimir Tismaneanu (born 1951)
Alexandru D. Xenopol (1847–1920)
Alexandru Zub (born 1934)
History of Russia
Nicholas Bethell (1938–2007)
Robert Conquest (1917–2015) – Soviet Union
Vincent Cronin (1924–2011) – Catherine the Great
Orlando Figes (born 1959)
Patricia Kennedy Grimsted (born 1935) – post-Soviet archives
Geoffrey Hosking (born 1942)
Lindsey Hughes (1949–2007) - C17th and C18th
Leopold Labedz (1920–1993)
Roy Medvedev (born 1925)
Robin Milner-Gulland (born 1936) - cultural history
Richard Pipes (1923–2018) – Soviet Union
William Taubman (born 1941) – Nikita Khrushchev
Peter Kenez (born 1937) – Soviet Union and Soviet cinema
Robert Service (born 1947)
Adam Ulam (1922–2000)
Anne Applebaum (born 1964) – Gulag history
Sheila Fitzpatrick (born 1941) – everyday life under Stalinism
Nicolas Werth (born 1950) – political repressions
Nikita Petrov (born 1957) – political repressions
Viktor Danilov (1927–2016) – history of collectivization
Oleg Khlevniuk (born 1959) – Stalin and Politburo
Moshe Lewin (1921–2010) – collectivization
David Shearer (born 1957) – Stalinist repressions
History of Serbia
Vladimir Ćorović (1885–1941)
Sima Ćirković (1929–2009)
Rade Mihaljčić (1937–2020)
Stojan Novaković (1842–1915)
Stanoje Stanojević (1874–1937)
Jovan I. Deretić (1939–2021)
History of Scotland
G. W. S. Barrow (1924–2013)
Steve Boardman
Hector Boece (1465–1536)
George Buchanan (1506–1582)
Gilbert Burnet (1643–1715)
Tom Devine
John of Fordun
Christopher Harvie (born 1944)
Colin Kidd (born 1964)
Michael Lynch (born 1946)
Norman Macdougall
Rosalind Mitchison (1919–2002)
Richard Oram
T.C. Smout (born 1933) - Scottish social history
Nigel Tranter (1909–2000)
Christopher Whatley
Jenny Wormald (1942–2015)
Historiographer Royal of Scotland
James Fall, 1682
William Robertson (1721–1793), 1763–1793
John Gillies (1747–1836), 1793–1836
George Brodie (1786–1967), 1836–1867
John Hill Burton (1809–1881), 1867–1881
William Forbes Skene (1809–1892), 1881–1893
David Masson (1822–1907), 1893–1908
Peter Hume Brown (1849–1918), 1908–1919
Robert Rait (1874–1936), 1919–1930
Robert Kerr Hannay(1867–1940), FRSE, 1930–1940
J. D. Mackie (1887–1978), OBE, 1958–1978
Gordon Donaldson (1913–1993), CBE, 1979–1993
Christopher Smout (born 1933), CBE, since 1993
History of Slovakia
Vojtech Čelko (born 1946) – political and cultural history of Central Europe in the 20th century; history of Czechoslovak exile after 1948
Ladislav Deák (1931–2011) – foreign policy of Central European states and Yugoslavia in the interwar period; history of Hungarian-Slovak foreign relationships
Gabriela Dudeková (born 1968) – social policy of Austria-Hungary; situation of POWs and civilians in World War I; history of feminism and gender studies
Ivan Kamenec (born 1938) – Holocaust in Slovakia; diplomacy in Central Europe in the interwar period and during World War II
Adam František Kollár (1718–1783) – influential jurist, historian and ethnologist, who coined the term ethnology
Peter Kopecký – history of diplomacy and foreign policy of Slovakia
Juraj Marusiak (born 1970) – history of Slovak-Polish relationships; modern history of Central and Eastern Europe
Thomas Spira (1923–2005) – study of nationalism and ethnicity (born and raised in Slovakia)
Pavel Jozef Šafárik (1795–1861) – philologist, poet, Slavist, literary historian and ethnographer
Štefan Šutaj (born 1954) – history of Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia; Slovak civic (non-communist) political parties after 1945
Zora Mintalová – Zubercová (born 1950) – food history and material culture of Central Europe
History of Slovenia
Bogo Grafenauer (1916–1995)
Alessandra Kersevan (born 1950) – Italian concentration camps
Vasilij Melik (1921–2009) – Slovene Lands in the 19th century.
Jože Pirjevec (born 1940) – Foibe massacres
Milica Kacin Wohinz (born 1930) – Italianization of Slovenes between 1918 and 1943
Marta Verginella (born 1960) – history of the Slovene minority in Italy (1920–1947)
History of Spain
Ida Altman (born 1950) – Early modern Spain, colonial Latin America
Roger Collins (born 1949) – medieval history, Spain, Visigothic Spain, history of Muslim Spain
Rafael Núñez Florencio (born 1956)
Julian Ribera y Tarragó (1858–1934) – Spain, history of the Book, medieval history, history of Muslim Spain
Julia Pavón (born 1968) – medieval history of Navarra
Joseph Pérez (1931-2020) - history of the Spanish Empire.
History of Sweden
Peter Englund (born 1957)
Anders Fryxell (1795–1881)
Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783–1847)
Jan Glete (1947–2009)
Carl Grimberg (1875–1941)
Dick Harrison (born 1966)
Ragnhild Hatton (1913–1995) – biographer of King Charles XII
Sten Lindroth (1914–1980)
Erik Lönnroth (1910–2002)
Olaus Magnus (1490–1557)
Samuel von Pufendorf (1632–1694)
Erik Ringmar (born 1960)
Michael Roberts (1908–1996)
John Robinson (1650–1723)
Curt Weibull (1886–1991)
Lauritz Weibull (1873–1960)
History of Yugoslavia
Ivo Banac (1947–2020)
Misha Glenny (born 1958)
Barbara Jelavich (1923–1995) – wrote extensively on Balkan history, along with her husband Charles Jelavich
John R. Lampe – author of Yugoslavia As History: Twice There Was a Country
Stevan K. Pavlowitch (born 1933)
Catherine Samary – author of Yugoslavia Dismembered
Stephen Schwartz (born 1948)
Jozo Tomasevich (1908–1994)
Europe and Asia
History of The Republic of Turkey and Turkish Empires
Halil İnalcık (1916–2016), İstanbul, Türkiye), history of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey
İlber Ortaylı (born 1947, Bregen, Österreich), history of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey
Heath W. Lowry (born 1942, America), history of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey
Mehmet Fuat Köprülü (1890–1966, İstanbul, Türkiye), Turcologist and historian, history of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey
Yusuf Halaçoğlu (born 1949, Adana, Türkiye), history of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey
Reşat Ekrem Koçu (1905–1975, İstanbul, Türkiye), writer and historian, history of the Ottoman Empire
Ahmed Cevad Pasha (Kabaağaçlızade Ahmet Cevat Paşa) (1851–1900, İstanbul, Türkiye), Ottoman statesman (Grand Vizier), history of the Ottoman Empire
Aşıkpaşazade (Âşıkpasazâde Derviş Ahmet Âşıkî) (yak. 1400, Amasya–yak. 1484), Ottoman Empire/ Türkiye) history of the Ottoman Empire
Ibn Kemal (Kemal Paşazade (ibn-i Kemâl)) (1468–1534, The Ottoman Empire/Türkiye), Ottoman statesman, history of the Ottoman Empire
Koçi Bey (Mustafa Koçi Bey) (?–1650, The Ottoman Empire/Türkiye), Ottoman statesman, history of the Ottoman Empire
Katip Çelebi (Haci Halife Kalfa) (1609–1657, İstanbul, The Ottoman Empire/Türkiye), history of the Ottoman Empire
Asia
Middle East
George Antonius (1891–1941) – historian of Arab nationalism
Vincent Cronin (1924–2011) – study of the Faiqani tribe of South Persia
Neilson Debevoise (1903–1992) – history of the Parthian Empire
Caroline Finkel
Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb (1895–1971) – Editor, The Encyclopaedia of Islam
Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) – history of Islam and the Middle East
Albert Hourani (1915–1993)
‘Ala’ al-Din ‘Ata Malik Juvayni (1226–1283) – Ta’rīkh-I-Jahān Gushā (A History of the World-Conqueror Chingis Khān)
Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406)
Walid Khalidi (born 1925) – Palestinian historian
D. S. Margoliouth (1858–1940)
Michael Oren (born 1955)
Rashid-al-Din Hamadani (circa 1247–1318) – Jāmi‛ al-Tawārīkh (Compendium of Chronicles), Ta’rīkh–i-Ghāzānī (a history of the Mongols and Turks)
Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg (1944–2000) – Achaemenid history
Ibn al-Tiqtaqa (born c. 1262) – Shi'i historian, wrote Al-Fakhīr
Central Asia
Denis Sinor (1916–2011), Hungarian-American historian of Central Asia
Edward A. Allworth (1920–2016), American historian specializing in Central Asia
Étienne de la Vaissière (born 1969), French specialist of Sogdian culture and early medieval Central Asia
Geoffrey Wheeler (1897–1990), British soldier and historian of Central Asia
Lola Dodkhudoeva (born 1951), Tajikistani historian specialising in medieval Central Asian affairs
Svetlana Gorshenina (born 1969), Uzbek specialist on Pre-Islamic Central Asia
South Asia
History of the Indian Subcontinent
Muzaffar Alam (born 1947)
A. L. Basham (1914–1986)
Chris Bayly (1945–2015)
Dipesh Chakrabarty (born 1948)
Bernard Cohn (1928–2003)
Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958)
R. C. Majumdar (1884–1980)
Niharranjan Ray (1903–1981)
Datto Vaman Potdar (1890–1979)
Tryambak Shankar Shejwalkar (1895–1963)
Ram Sharan Sharma (1919–2011)
Nicholas Dirks
Ranajit Guha (1923–2023)
Ayesha Jalal (born 1956)
John Keay (born 1941)
Sumit Sarkar (born 1939)
Romila Thapar (born 1931)
Thomas Metcalf (born 1934)
Barbara Metcalf (born 1941)
Percival Spear (1901–1982)
Bipan Chandra (1928–2014)
Gyan Prakash (born 1952)
Tanika Sarkar
Barbara Ramusack (born 1937)
Thomas Trautmann (born 1940)
K. K. Aziz (1927–2009)
Mubarak Ali (born 1941)
Mohammad Ishaq Khan (1946–2013)
NS Rajaram (1943–2019)
Sukumar Sen (linguist)
Suniti Kumar Chatterji
History of India
Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman (born 1940) – Unani historian
History of Pakistan
K. K. Aziz (1927–2009)
Imran Khan (born 1952)
Far East
History of Japan
William George Aston (1841–1911)
Gail Lee Bernstein (born 1939)
Harold Bolitho (1939–2010)
Hugh Borton (1903–1995)
Albert M. Craig (born 1927)
Sheldon Garon (born 1951)
Carol Gluck (born 1941)
Andrew Gordon (born 1952)
William Elliot Griffis (1843–1928)
John Whitney Hall (1916–1997)
Susan Hanley (born 1939)
Marius Jansen (1922–2000)
Donald Keene (1922–2019)
Joyce Lebra (1925-2021)
Jeffrey Mass (1940–2001)
Richard Ponsonby-Fane (1878–1937)
Tetsuo Najita (1936–2021)
Ian Nish (1926–2022)
Edwin O. Reischauer (1910–1990)
Donald Richie (1924–2013)
George Bailey Sansom (1883–1965)
Ernest Mason Satow (1843–1929)
Amy Stanley (born 1978)
Conrad Totman (born 1934)
Stephen Turnbull (born 1948)
Barak Kushner (born 1968)
History of Korea
Bruce Cumings (born 1943) – modern Korea
Carter J. Eckert
James Palais (1934–2006)
Il-yeon (1206–1289)
Kim Bu-sik (1075–1151) – early annalist
Kim Dae-mun
Lee Ki-baek (1924–2004)
James Hoare (born 1943)
Shin Chaeho (1880–1936) – ancient Korean history
Andre Schmid (born 1963)
Yu Deuk-gong (1749–1807) – Balhae
Odd Arne Westad (born 1960) – professor at the London School of Economics
History of China
Robert Bickers (born 1964) - modern China
Immanuel C.Y. Hsu (1923-2005) - modern China
John Herman (1889–1950)
Ann Paludan (1928–2014) – ancient China
Sima Qian – compiled Records of the Grand Historian
Chen Shou (233–297) – author of the Records of Three Kingdoms.
Jonathan Spence (born 1936)
Denis Twitchett (1925–2006) – Cambridge scholar, and editor of The Cambridge History of China
Hans van de Ven (born 1958)
Frederic Wakeman, Jr. (1937–2006)
Odd Arne Westad (born 1960) – professor at the London School of Economics and author of many books on China
History of Hong Kong
Steve Tsang (born 1959)
Africa
David Cohen (born 1943)
A. G. Hopkins (born 1938) – European colonialism and globalisation
William Miller Macmillan (1885–1974)
Jocelyne Dakhlia (born 1959) – political and cultural history of Islam in the Maghreb
Jan Vansina (1929–2017)
History of the Serers
Alioune Sarr (1908–2001), Senegalese specialist on Serer medieval history
Henry Gravrand (1921–2003), French specialist on Serer ancient history, Serer medieval history and Serer religion
Issa Laye Thiaw (1943–2017), Senegalese specialist on Serer general history and Serer religion
Alhaji Alieu Ebrima Cham Joof (1924–2011), Gambian specialist on Serer general history and history of Senegambia (Senegal and Gambia)
Marguerite Dupire (1920–2015), French scholar of Serer religion and history
Louis Diène Faye (born 1936), Senegalese scholar of Serer religion and history
Oceania
History of Australia
Manning Clark (1915–1991)
Keith Windschuttle (born 1942)
Geoffrey Blainey (born 1930)
Stuart Macintyre (1947–2021)
Henry Reynolds (born 1938)
Frank Welsh (born 1931)
Andrew Moore
History of Fiji
Brij Lal
History of New Zealand
James Belich (born 1956)
Michael King (1945–2004)
W. H. Oliver (1925–2015)
William Pember Reeves (1857–1932)
J. G. A. Pocock (born 1924)
Keith Sinclair (1922–1993)
History of Tonga
Sione Lātūkefu
History of Papua New Guinea
John Waiko (born 1945)
By historical viewpoint
Abolitionist
George Washington Williams (1849–1891) – Early African-American historian
Counterfactual
Niall Ferguson (born 1964) – Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (1997)
Marxist
Eric Foner (born 1943) – Marxist historian of the American Civil War and Reconstruction
Eugene D. Genovese (1930–2012) – Marxist historian of southern US history and slavery
Ranajit Guha (born 1923) – Indian Marxist historian
Christopher Hill (1912–2003) – 17th century England
Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) – Marxist historian of the modern world
Gerald Horne (born 1949) – African American Marxist historian
Timothy Wright Mason (1940–1990) – Marxist historian who worked on the history of National Socialism and the German working-class
Maxime Rodinson (1915–2004) – French Marxist historian on the history of Islam
Sumit Sarkar (born 1939) – Indian Marxist historian
Edward Palmer Thompson (1924–1993) – British Marxist historian, author of The Making of the English Working Class
Walter Rodney (1942–1980) – Marxist historian of Africa
Nazi
Walter Frank (1905–1945) – Nazi historian and anti-Semitic writer
David Hoggan (1923–1988)
Anarchist
Paul Avrich (1931–2006) – USA, oral history of the U.S. and Russia
Murray Bookchin (1921–2006) – USA, writer; founder of "social ecology"
Sam Dolgoff (1902–1990) – USA, writer, activist, co-founder of Anarcho-Syndicalist Review
Sébastien Faure (1858–1942) – France, Encyclopedie Anarchiste, 4 volumes (1932–1934)
David Goodway – UK, writer, editor
Daniel Guérin (1904–1988) – France, writer, editor Libertarian Communist
Robert Graham (born 1958) – USA, writer, editor
Andrej Grubacic – Bulgarian history and anarchism, lecturer at University of San Francisco
Peter Marshall (born 1946) – England, historian, philosopher, writer (of Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, 1992)
Chuck W. Morse (born 1969) – USA, writer, founder of "Institute for Anarchist Studies/IAS
Max Nettlau (1865–1944) – Austria, writer of Geschichte der Anarchie, seven volumes
Abel Paz (1921–2009) – Spain, Civil war, Durruti, CNT/FAI
José Peirats (1908–1989) – Spain, historian of the CNT/FAI
Alexandre Skirda (1942–2020)
Antonio Tellez (1921–2005)
Dana Ward – founder of "Anarchist Archives", Online Research on the History and Theory of Anarchism, (USA)
George Woodcock (1912–1995)
Howard Zinn (1922–2010)
Pacifist
Ludwig Quidde (1858–1941) – Prescient German pacifist and student of history who combined his specialties in his condemnation of Kaiser Wilhelm II
By general category
Architectural history
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (c. 80/70 BC?–c. 25 BC) – Roman architect and engineer, author of De architectura
Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) – Italian polymath, active in many fields, author of De Re Aedificatoria among others
Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941)
Joseph Rykwert (born 1926)
Manfredo Tafuri (1935–1994)
David Watkin (historian) (1941–2018)
Alberto Pérez-Gómez (born 1949)
Doğan Kuban (1926–2021) – architect, history of architecture and art history
Art history
Nurhan Atasoy (born 1934, Tokat, Türkiye) – Turkish and Islamic Art History
Vincent Cronin (1924–2011) – French and Italian art and architectural history
Oleg Grabar (1929–2011) – Islamic Art History
Catherine Mason – British computer and digital art history
Nicholas Pevsner (1903–1983) – History of art and English architecture
Alena Potůčková (1953–2018) – Czech art history
Simon Schama (born 1945) – Art history
Ichimatsu Tanaka (1895–1983) – Japanese art history
Renáta Tyršová (1854–1937) – Czech ethnography and art history
Yukio Yashiro (1890–1975) – Japanese art history; Botticelli and the Florentine Renaissance
Christianity
Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 275–339) – "Father of Church history"
Alexander Campbell Cheyne (1924–2006) – Scottish ecclesiastical historian
John Gilmary Shea (1824–1892) – father of American Catholic History
Bengt Hägglund (1920–2015) – historian of Christian theology
Barbara Thiering (1930–2015) – rediscovered the "Pesher technique"
Classical Antiquity
Werner Eck (born 1939)
Robert Malcolm Errington (born 1939)
Erich S. Gruen (born 1935)
Ronald Syme (1903–1989)
Robert Garland (born 1947)
Economic history
Robert C. Allen (born 1947)
Leah Boustan
Eli Heckscher (1879–1952)
Barry Eichengreen (born 1952)
Niall Ferguson (born 1964)
Robert Fogel (1926–2013)
Alexander Gerschenkron (1904–1978)
Claudia Goldin (born 1946)
Susan Howson (born 1945)
Harold James (born 1956)
John Komlos (born 1944)
Naomi Lamoreaux (born 1950)
David S. Landes (1924–2013)
Joel Mokyr (born 1946)
Thomas Piketty (born 1971)
W. W. Rostow (1916–2003)
Tirthankar Roy (born 1960)
Ram Sharan Sharma (1919–2011) – economic history of ancient India
Robert Skidelsky (born 1939)
R. H. Tawney (1880–1962)
Egyptology
Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert (born 1954)
Ludwig David Morenz (born 1965)
Richard B. Parkinson (born 1963)
William Kelly Simpson (1928–2017)
John W. Tait (born 1945)
Edward F. Wente (born 1930)
Penelope Wilson
Environmental history
Christopher Smout (born 1933)
William Cronon (born 1954) – Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
Espionage
Christopher Andrew (born 1941)
John Barron (1930–2005)
John Earl Haynes (born 1944)
David Kahn (born 1930)
Victor Suvorov (born 1947)
Nigel West (born 1951)
Food history
Sidney Mintz (1922–2015)
Massimo Montanari (born 1949)
Zora Mintalová – Zubercová (born 1950)
Gender history
John Boswell (1947–1994, American) – homosexuality in medieval times
Francisca de Haan (fl. 1998-) – Central, Eastern and South Eastern European Women's and Gender History
Nahema Hanafi (born 1983) - gender studies
George Mosse (1918–1999)
Marysa Navarro (born 1934) - feminism
Retha Warnicke (born 1939) – gender issues
Historiography
Ram Sharan Sharma (1919–2011)
Alphonse Balleydier (1810–1859)
Marc Bloch (1886–1944)
Fernand Braudel (1902–1985)
Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979)
E. H. Carr (1892–1982)
R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943)
Geoffrey Elton (1921–1994)
Richard J. Evans (born 1947)
Pieter Geyl (1887–1966)
J. H. Hexter (1910–1996)
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (born 1929)
Peter Novick (1934–2012)
Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886)
Hayden White (1928–2018)
Frank Ankersmit (born 1945)
Academic protagonists in Australia's "history wars"
Geoffrey Blainey (born 1930)
Stuart Macintyre (1947–2021)
Robert Manne (born 1947)
Henry Reynolds (born 1938)
Lyndall Ryan (born 1943)
Keith Windschuttle (born 1942)
History of business
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. (1918–2007)
Jan Glete (1947–2009) – Swedish business history
Allan Nevins (1890–1971)
History of ideas, culture, literature, and philosophy
Ram Sharan Sharma (1919–2011) – material culture in Ancient India
Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) – history of ideas
J.C.D. Clark (born 1951) – British historian of 18th century ideas
Jovan Deretić (1934–2002), Serbian literary history
Michel Foucault (1926–1984) – history of ideas
Peter Gay (1923–2015) – history of ideas
A.O. Lovejoy (1873-1962) - history of ideas
Lewis Mumford (1895–1988) – history of technology
Hüseyin Nihâl Atsız (1905–1975, İstanbul, Türkiye) – Turkology, Turkish Literature
Pertev Naili Boratav (Mustafa Pertev) (1907–1998) – Turkish folklorist, Ottoman and Turkish culture
Sedat Alp (1913–2006) – Hittitolo, historian, ancient Anatolian languages
History of international relations
Harry Elmer Barnes (1889–1968)
Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979)
E.H. Carr (1892–1982)
Gordon A. Craig (1913–2005)
John Lewis Gaddis (born 1941) – historian of the Cold War
Ragnhild Hatton (1913–1995) – historian of 17th- and 18th-century international relations
Klaus Hildebrand (born 1941)
Andreas Hillgruber (1925–1989)
Paul Kennedy (born 1945) – British historian, author of influential The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
William L. Langer (1896–1977)
Arno J. Mayer (born 1926)
Lewis Bernstein Namier (1888–1960)
Paul W. Schroeder (1927–2020) – U.S. historian, 19th-century European international relations
Jean Edward Smith (1932–2019)
A.J.P. Taylor (1906–1990) – historian of European international relations
Harold Temperley, (1879–1939) – British historian, Cambridge, 19th- and early 20th-century diplomatic history, British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914 (ed.)
Ernest Llewellyn Woodward, (1890–1971)
History of science and technology
Michael Adas (born 1943) – colonialism and imperialism, global history
Jim Bennett (born 1947) – mathematics, scientific instruments and astronomy
Stephen G. Brush (born 1935)
Vincent Cronin (1924–2011)
Allen G. Debus (1926–2009) – chemistry and medicine
A. Hunter Dupree (1921–2019) – botany; U.S. government policy on science and technology
Peter Galison (born 1955) – physics, philosophy, objectivity
John L. Heilbron (born 1934) – physics, quantification, astronomy, religion and science
Richard L. Hills (1936–2019) – technology, steam power
Thomas P. Hughes (1923–2014) – technology
Evelyn Fox Keller (born 1936) – science and gender, biology
Melvin Kranzberg (1917–1995) – technology
Daniel J. Kevles (born 1939) – science and politics, physics, biology, eugenics
Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) – physics, "paradigm shifts"
James Mosley (born 1935) – printing
David F. Noble (1945–2010) – science and technology-based industrial development
Abraham Pais (1918–2000) – physics
Giuliano Pancaldi (born 1946) – Italian science
Theodore M. Porter (born 1953)
A. I. Sabra (1924–2013) – optics, Islamic science
George Sarton (1884–1956)
Jack Simmons (1915–2000) – railway history
Nathan Sivin (born 1931) – history of science in China
Kim H. Veltman (1948–2020) – science and art
M. Norton Wise (born 1940)
History of the papacy
Ludwig von Pastor (1854–1928) – wrote 40 volume history of the popes making extensive use of the Vatican Secret Archives
Holocaust
Götz Aly (born 1947)
Jean Ancel (1940–2008)
Yitzhak Arad (1926–2021)
David Bankier (1947–2010)
Omer Bartov (born 1954)
Paul R. Bartrop (born 1955)
Yehuda Bauer (born 1926)
Georges Bensoussan (born 1952)
Wolfgang Benz (born 1941)
Michael Berenbaum (born 1945)
Ruth Bettina Birn (born 1952)
Donald Bloxham
Randolph L. Braham (1922–2018)
Richard Breitman (born 1947)
Martin Broszat (1926–1989)
Christopher Browning (born 1944)
Michael Burleigh (born 1955)
David Cesarani (1956–2015)
Catherine Chatterley
Richard I. Cohen (born 1946)
John S. Conway (1929–2017)
David M. Crowe
Danuta Czech (1922–2004)
Szymon Datner (1902–1989)
Lucy Dawidowicz (1915–1990)
Terrence Des Pres (1939–1987)
Deborah Dwork
Leo Eitinger (1912–1996)
David Engel (born 1951)
Barbara Engelking (born 1962)
Richard J. Evans (born 1947)
Andrew Ezergailis (born 1930)
Esther Farbstein (born 1946)
Norman Finkelstein (born 1953)
Jack Fischel (born 1937)
Michael Fleming
Joseph Friedenson (1922–2013)
Henry Friedlander (1930–2012)
Saul Friedländer (born 1932)
Tuvia Friling (born 1953)
Christian Gerlach (born 1963)
Martin Gilbert (1936–2015)
Daniel Goldhagen (born 1959)
Jan Grabowski (born 1962)
Gideon Greif (born 1951)
Jan T. Gross (born 1947)
Israel Gutman (1923–2013)
Peter Hayes
Susanne Heim (born 1955)
Raul Hilberg (1926–2007)
Klaus Hildebrand (born 1941)
Eberhard Jäckel (1929–2017)
Miroslav Kárný (1919–2001)
Steven T. Katz (born 1944)
Ian Kershaw (born 1943)
Ernst Klee (1942–2013)
David Kranzler (1930–2007)
Shmuel Krakowski (1926–2018)
Erich Kulka (1911–1995)
Otto Dov Kulka (1933–2021)
Konrad Kwiet (born 1941)
Lawrence Langer (born 1929)
Jacek Leociak (born 1957)
Dariusz Libionka (born 1963)
Deborah Lipstadt (born 1947)
Peter Longerich (born 1955)
Richard C. Lukas (born 1937)
Eugen Kogon (1903–1987)
Michael Marrus (born 1941)
Jürgen Matthäus (born 1959)
Hans Mommsen (1930–2015)
Kurt Pätzold (1930–2016)
Franciszek Piper (born 1941)
Detlev Peukert (1950–1990)
Léon Poliakov (1910–1997)
Antony Polonsky (born 1940)
Dina Porat (born 1943)
Laurence Rees (born 1957)
Alvin H. Rosenfeld (born 1938)
Mark Roseman (born 1958)
John K. Roth
Livia Rothkirchen (1922–2013)
R. J. Rummel (1932–2014)
Tom Segev (born 1945)
Timothy D. Snyder (born 1969)
Nicholas Stargardt (born 1962)
Sybille Steinbacher (born 1966)
Alan E. Steinweis (born 1957)
Dan Stone (born 1971)
Robert Jan van Pelt (born 1955)
Nikolaus Wachsmann (born 1971)
Kenneth Waltzer (born 1942)
Rebecca Wittmann (born 1970)
David Wyman (1929–2018)
Hanna Yablonka (born 1950)
Leni Yahil (1912–2007)
Lutheranism
Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1694–1755) – Lutheran historian of Christianity from its inception through the 18th century
Maritime history
Robert G. Albion (1896–1983)
William A. Baker (1911–1981)
Jaap R. Bruijn (born 1938)
Howard I. Chapelle (1901–1975)
Grahame Farr (1912–1983)
Femme Gaastra (born 1945)
John Hattendorf (born 1941)
John de Courcy Ireland (1911–2006)
Benjamin Woods Labaree (1927–2021)
Samuel Eliot Morison (1887–1976)
J. H. Parry (1914–1982)
Glyndwr Williams (born 1932)
Media history
History of newspapers and magazines,
History of radio, History of television, and
History of the Internet
Asa Briggs (1921–2016)
Military history
C.T. Atkinson (1874-1964), historian of the British Army and Marlborough's Army
Correlli Barnett (born 1927) – British military historian
Antony Beevor (born 1946) – British military historian
Brian Bond (born 1936) – First World War
Caleb Carr (born 1955) – American military historian
Michael Carver (1915–2001) – British soldier and historian
Alan Clark (1928–1999) – British M.P. and historian
Martin van Creveld (born 1946) – Israeli military historian
Saul David (born 1966) – Military history
N.H. Gibbs (1910–1990) – Interwar period
Adrian Goldsworthy (born 1969) – British military historian
Jack Granatstein (born 1939) – Canadian military historian
Bruce Barrymore Halpenny (born 1937) – writer and military historian
Victor Davis Hanson (born 1953) – American classicist and military historian
Andreas Hillgruber (1925–1989) – German military historian
Richard Holmes (1946–2011) – British military history
Alistair Horne (1925–2017) – British historian of French military history
Michael Howard (1922–2019) – modern military history
John Keegan (1934–2012, English) – specialised in 20th-century wars
Anthony Kemp (1939–2018) – English historian of history of World War II
Frederic Kidder (1804–1885) - American historian of New England including military operations
B. H. Liddell Hart (1895–1970) – military history
Edward Luttwak (born 1942) – military strategy
Piers Mackesy (1924–2014) – 18th century
S. L. A. Marshall (1900–1977) – American military historian
Jürgen Möller (born 1959) – German military historian
Peter Paret (1924–2020) – military history
Gordon Prange (1910–1980)
Gerhard Ritter (1888–1967) – German military historian
Cornelius Ryan (1920–1974) – World War II
Digby Smith (born 1935) Napoleonic Wars
Jean Edward Smith (1932–2019) – U.S. and German military historian
Hew Strachan (born 1949) – British military historian
Gerhard Weinberg (born 1928) – U.S. military historian
Spenser Wilkinson (1853–1937)
Mormonism
Leonard J. Arrington (1917–1999) – LDS Church historian 1975–1982
B.H. Roberts (1857–1933)
Fawn M. Brodie (1915–1981)
Richard Bushman (born 1931)
Naval history
Robert G. Albion (1896–1983) – maritime history
Daniel A. Baugh (born 1931)
Ulane Bonnel (1918–2006)
Josiah Burchett (1666–1746)
Montagu Burrows (1819–1905)
Geoffrey Callender (1875–1946)
Howard I. Chapelle (1901–1975) – maritime history
William Bell Clark (1889–1968)
Julian Corbett (1854–1922)
William S. Dudley (born 1936)
Michael Duffy
Jan Glete (1947–2009)
James Goldrick (born 1958)
Andrew Gordon (born 1951) – Battle of Jutland
Barry M. Gough (born 1938)
Kenneth J. Hagan (born 1936)
Paul G. Halpern (born 1937)
John Hattendorf (born 1941)
John Daniel Hayes (1902–1991)
J. Richard Hill (1929–2017)
William James (1780–1827)
Paul Kennedy (born 1945)
R.J.B. Knight (born 1944)
Dudley W. Knox (1877–1960)
Andrew Lambert (born 1956)
Harold D. Langley (1925–2020)
John Knox Laughton (1830–1915)
Michael Lewis (1890–1970)
Christopher Lloyd (1906–1986)
Alfred Mahan (1840–1914)
Arthur Marder (1910–1980)
Tyrone G. Martin (born 1930) – historian of the USS Constitution and of the history of ironclads
William J. Morgan (1917–2003)
Samuel Eliot Morison (1887–1976) – wrote History of United States Naval Operations in World War II and numerous works about the maritime exploration of the Americas
Henry Newbolt (1862–1938) – wrote The Naval History of the Great War
Michael Oppenheim (1853–1927)
Charles O. Paullin (1869–1944)
Werner Rahn (born 1939)
Bryan Ranft (1917–2001)
Clark G. Reynolds (1939–2005)
Herbert Richmond (1871–1946)
N.A.M. Rodger (born 1949)
Stephen Roskill (1903–1982)
John Darrell Sherwood (born 1966)
D.M. Schurman (1924–2013)
William N. Still, Jr. (born 1932)
Craig Symonds (born 1946)
David Syrett (1939–2004)
Geoffrey Till (born 1945)
Johan Carel Marinus Warnsinck (1882–1943)
Colin White (1951–2008)
Presbyterianism
D.G. Hart (born 1956)
Social history
David Rothman (1937-2020) — Father of American social history and the role of institutions in shaping history and society.
Ram Sharan Sharma (1919–2011) – social history of ancient India
Lloyd deMause (born 1931) – psychohistory
Gabriela Dudeková (born 1968)
Ruth Goodman (born 1963) – early modern, British social history
World history
Felipe Fernández-Armesto (born 1950)
Christopher Bayly (1945–2015) – British Empire and India
Ferdinand Braudel (1902–1985) – social and economic history
Will Durant (1885–1981) – author of The Story of Civilization
Francis Fukuyama (born 1955) – "End of history" thesis
Hendrik Willem van Loon (1882–1944) – world history and geography for younger readers
William McNeill (1917–2016) – author of The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community
Jürgen Osterhammel (born 1952)
John Roberts (1928–2003) – author of History of the World
Ram Sharan Sharma (1919–2011)) – author of Vishwa Itihaas ki Bhumika in Hindi.
Jackson J. Spielvogel (born 1939) – Pennsylvania State University, author of several major world history textbooks
Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) – wrote landmark text A Study of History
Immanuel Wallerstein (1930–2019)
Biography
Peter Ackroyd (born 1949) - Dickens, Blake, Thomas More, Eliot, Newton
James Boswell (1740–1795) - Samuel Johnson
Alan Bullock (1914–2004) – historian best known for his influential biography of Hitler
Robert Caro (born 1935) – biographer of Lyndon Johnson
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) – Friedrich der Grosse (the Great)
Vincent Cronin (1924–2011) – Louis XIV, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great, and Napoleon
Leon Edel (1907–1997) - Henry James
Richard Ellmann (1918–1987) – James Joyce
Erik Erikson (1902–1994) - psychoanalytic biographies of Luther and Gandhi
Roy Foster (born 1949) - W.B. Yeats
Joseph Frank (1918–2013) - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865) - Charlotte Brontë
Stephen Greenblatt (born 1943) - Shakespeare
Ragnhild Hatton (1913–1995) – biographer of King Charles XII of Sweden and King George I of Great Britain
Walter Isaacson (born 1952) - Einstein
Ian Kershaw (born 1943) – historian well known for his influential study of Hitler
Ralph G. Martin (1920–2013) – biographer of Hubert H. Humphrey, Harry S. Truman, Edward VIII, Golda Meir and John F. Kennedy
Roi Medvedev (born 1925) – Stalin biographer
Susan Quinn (born 1940) - Marie Curie
Ron Rosenbaum (born 1946) – author of Explaining Hitler
Norman Sherry (1925–2016) - Graham Greene
Jean Edward Smith (1932–2019) – author of biographies on Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, John Marshall, and Lucius D. Clay
Suetonius - lives of the Caesars
Lytton Strachey (1880–1932) - Eminent Victorians
A.N. Wilson (born 1950) - Tolstoy
References
Historiography
Historians by area
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maverick%20%28TV%20series%29
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Maverick (TV series)
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Maverick is an American Western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins and originally starring James Garner as an adroitly articulate poker player plying his trade on riverboats and in saloons while traveling incessantly through the 19th-century American frontier. The show ran for five seasons from September 22, 1957, to July 8, 1962 on ABC.
Overview
Maverick initially starred James Garner as poker player Bret Maverick. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother Bart Maverick, and for the remainder of the first three seasons, Garner and Kelly alternated leads from week to week, sometimes teaming up for the occasional two-brother episode. The Maverick brothers were both poker players from Texas who traveled the American Old West by horseback and stagecoach, and on Mississippi riverboats, constantly getting into and out of life-threatening trouble of one sort or another, usually involving money, women, or both. Though the Mavericks were quick to claim they were motivated by money, and made a point of humorously emphasizing their supposed belief in cowardice and avoiding hard work, in many episodes they would find themselves weighing a financial windfall against a moral dilemma. Their consciences always trumped their wallets since both Mavericks were intrinsically ethical, although they were not above trying to fleece someone who had clearly proven themselves to be fundamentally dishonest or corrupt.
When Garner left the series after the third season due to a legal dispute, after which he enjoyed a successful film career, Roger Moore was added to the cast as cousin Beau Maverick. As before, the two starring Mavericks would generally alternate as series leads, with an occasional "team-up" episode. Partway through the fourth season, Garner look-alike Robert Colbert replaced Moore and played a third Maverick brother, Brent. No more than two series leads (of the four total for the run of the series) ever appeared together in the same episode, and most episodes featured only one. All two-Maverick episodes included Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick. For the fifth and final season, the show returned to a "single Maverick" format as it had been originally in the first seven episodes, with all the remaining new episodes starring Kelly as Bart. The new episodes, however, alternated with reruns from earlier seasons starring Garner as Bret.
Budd Boetticher directed the first three episodes of the first season until sharply disagreeing with Huggins about Maverick's philosophy, which resulted in Boetticher assigning Bret Maverick's scripted lines to supporting characters and filming the result, thereby attempting to change the whole series by making Maverick into a more conventional Western hero as found in the earlier Boetticher-directed series of classic Western theatrical films starring Randolph Scott.
Robert Altman wrote and directed the fourth season episode titled "Bolt from the Blue" starring Roger Moore as Beau Maverick.
The show was part of the Warner Bros. array of TV Westerns, which included Cheyenne with Clint Walker, Colt .45 with Wayde Preston, Lawman with John Russell, Bronco with Ty Hardin, The Alaskans with Roger Moore, and Sugarfoot with Will Hutchins.
Cast
James Garner as Bret Maverick
James Garner starred as Bret Maverick, the epitome of a poker-playing rounder, always seeking out high-stakes games and rarely remaining in one place for long. The show is generally cited as Garner's career breakout; his most prominent prior part was a major supporting role in Sayonara (1957) starring Marlon Brando. Maverick shocked the industry by quickly besting the powerful The Ed Sullivan Show and The Steve Allen Show in the television ratings.
Huggins inverted the usual cowboy hero characteristics familiar to television and film viewers of the time. Bret Maverick was vocally reluctant to risk his life, though he typically ended up being courageous in spite of himself. He frequently flimflammed adversaries, but only those who deserved it. Otherwise he was honest almost to a fault, in at least one case insisting on repaying a questionable large debt (in "According to Hoyle").
None of the Mavericks were particularly fast draws with a pistol. Bart Maverick once commented to a lady friend, "My brother Bret can outdraw me any day of the week, and he's known as the Second Slowest Gun in the West." However, it was almost impossible for anyone to beat either of them in any sort of a fistfight, perhaps the one cowboy cliché that Huggins left intact.
Garner appeared in three seasons and a single held-back episode broadcast in the middle of the fourth season. Leaving aside the short introductions of Jack Kelly episodes in the first season meant to acclimate viewers to Kelly, Garner appeared in 52 episodes altogether.
Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick
Though James Garner was originally supposed to be the only Maverick, the studio eventually hired Jack Kelly to play brother Bart, starting with the eighth episode. The producers had realized that it took over a week to shoot a single episode, meaning that at some point the studio would run out of finished episodes to televise during the season, so Kelly was hired to rotate with Garner as the series lead, using two separate crews (while occasionally appearing together). In Bart's first episode, "Hostage," to engender audience empathy for the new character, the script called for him to be tied up and beaten by an evil police officer.
According to series creator Roy Huggins in an interview with the Archive of American Television, the two brothers were purposely written to be virtual clones, with no apparent differences inherent in the scripts whatsoever. This included being traveling poker players, loving money, professing to be cowards (despite voluminous evidence to the contrary), spouting enigmatic words of advice their "Pappy" passed down to them, and carrying a $1,000 bill pinned to the inside of a coat for emergency purposes. There was, however, one distinct—but accidental—difference between the two. Garner's episodes tended to be more comedic due to his obvious talent in that area, while Kelly's were inclined to be more dramatic. Huggins noted in the interview that Kelly, while funnier than Garner off-camera, dropped a funny line while shooting a scene "like a load of coal". To get viewers used to the idea of a second Maverick, Garner filmed a series of brief vignettes that aired at the beginning of the Kelly-only episodes during much of the first season where he would introduce the evening's story. To foster as much parity as possible, Kelly did the same in a Garner-only episode, "Black Fire", by appearing in the opening vignette to introduce the story and narrating the episode itself.
Huggins observed that the ratings for Kelly's episodes were always slightly higher during the first two seasons than Garner's. Huggins stated that he believed that this was a reflection of how well the audience liked Garner's episodes and the consequent word of mouth, so that viewers would be at their sets for the following episode, which would usually feature Kelly instead. The rating jumps for Kelly's episodes were tiny enough that they fell within the margin of error, according to Huggins in this interview, but he maintains that they were remarkable in that they were consistent.
The episodes featuring both Garner and Kelly were audience favorites. Bret and Bart often found themselves competing for women or money, or working together in some elaborate scheme to swindle someone who had just robbed one of them. Bret and Bart technically appeared together in sixteen episodes over the course of the series, but only shared a large amount of screen time in eleven of them ("Hostage," "The Wrecker," "Trail West to Fury," "Seed of Deception," "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres," "Game of Chance," "Two Beggars on Horseback," "Pappy," "Maverick Springs," "Maverick and Juliet," and "The Maverick Line"). All but one of the other two-brother episodes are actually Garner-starring episodes with cameo appearances by Kelly, the exception being "The Jeweled Gun", in which their roles were switched at the last minute due to a schedule conflict and Garner wound up making his single cameo appearance in a Kelly episode.
Though it was never said explicitly, Bret appears to be older, stating once in response to someone mentioning lightning striking twice in the same place, "That's just what my Pappy said when he looked in my brother Bart's crib." (Episode #22 — "A Flock of Trouble") In real life, Kelly was seven months older than Garner. Kelly wound up being the only Maverick to appear in all five seasons of the series in the wake of Garner's contentious departure after the third season.
Roger Moore as Beau Maverick
When Garner quit over a contract dispute with the studio after the series' third year, he was replaced by Roger Moore as cousin Beau, namesake nephew of Beau "Pappy" Maverick. Sean Connery was originally offered the role but turned it down. (Famously, the following decade, Moore would replace Connery as James Bond in the 007-film series.) Moore had earlier played a completely different role in season 2, episode 18, "The Rivals" (loosely based on the 1775 play, "The Rivals"), a drawing room comedy episode with Garner in which Moore's character switched identities with Bret.
Beau's first appearance was in the season four opener, "The Bundle from Britain", in which he returns from an extended stay in England to meet cousin Bart, used to explain Moore's obvious English accent. Moore was almost exactly the same age as Kelly and brought a flair for light comedy fitting the show. Moore noted in his autobiography that the producers told him he was not being brought in to replace Garner. However, when he got to wardrobe, all of his costumes had the name "Jim Garner" scratched out on the tags. Moore also mentioned in the book that he, Garner, Kelly, and their wives would regularly gather at the Kelly home for what they called "poker school".
There was also a dispute between the cast and producers during this time over the long hours they were putting in each day. The producers placed a time clock in the makeup department and required the actors to punch in. Moore brought his own makeup, and refused to punch the clock. Moore wrote in his book that Kelly was "similarly minded, and one day took the time clock and used it as a football."
Moore had already performed Maverick dialogue written for Garner in his earlier series, The Alaskans. The studio had a policy of recycling scripts through their various television series to save money on writers, changing as little dialogue as possible, usually only names and locations. Recycled scripts were often credited to "W. Hermanos" (Spanish for "W. Brothers").
Moore quit after only fourteen episodes due to what he felt was a declining script quality (without having to resort to legal measures as Garner had). Moore stated that if he had gotten the level of writing Garner had enjoyed during the first two years of the show's run, he would have stayed.
Robert Colbert as Brent Maverick
As ratings continued to slide following the departure of Roy Huggins and James Garner and the addition of Roger Moore, Garner lookalike Robert Colbert (whose name is pronounced phonetically, rather than in the French style like Claudette Colbert or Stephen Colbert) was cast as Bart and Bret's brother, Brent Maverick. Colbert, who was already under contract to Warner Bros., had appeared on the show previously in the season four episode "Hadley's Hunters". Aware of his resemblance to Garner and wary of the comparisons that would inevitably result, Colbert pleaded with Warner Bros. not to cast him, saying "Put me in a dress and call me Brenda, but don't do this to me!" Colbert was introduced as Brent in the season four episode titled "The Forbidden City"; Kelly made what amounted to an extended cameo appearance in the episode. Colbert would appear again by himself in "Benefit of Doubt", briefly featuring Slim Pickens as a stagecoach driver. Those were his only appearances as Brent. For the fifth season (1961–1962), the studio simply did not call him back.
Guest cast
Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as James Aloysius "Dandy Jim" Buckley, a dapper and sophisticated con artist, who at various times was both friend and foe to Bret but maintained a markedly warmer friendship with Bart.
Diane Brewster as Samantha Crawford, a charming and flirtatious con woman with a beguiling fake Southern accent who managed to dupe Bret and Bart out of large sums in different episodes—but not without having a little romance with each brother first. Brewster originated the role of con-artist Crawford on Cheyenne the year before Maverick went on the air (introducing herself to Cheyenne with her full name "Samantha Crawford" before proceeding to double-cross and rob everyone in sight including Cheyenne himself). "Samantha Crawford" was the maiden name of series creator Roy Huggins' mother.
Richard Long as John "Gentleman Jack" Darby. Gentleman Jack was intended to be the quasi-friendly rival opposing Bart that Dandy Jim's character was for Bret, and was created after Zimbalist had been cast in 77 Sunset Strip and was no longer available for lengthy appearances; Long later joined the cast of 77 Sunset Strip himself. All four (Bret, Bart, Dandy Jim, and Gentleman Jack) appear in the episode "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" but throughout the series, Gentleman Jack only had scenes with Bart among the principals.
Leo Gordon as Big Mike McComb, Bret and Bart's Irish friend who aided them on several adventures. Gordon, also a screenwriter, would later script some episodes of the series but none of those in which he appeared.
Kathleen Crowley as Modesty Blaine, Melanie Blake, and Marla, leading ladies with repeated appearances in various seasons. Mona Freeman played Modesty Blaine twice while Crowley played the role once. Crowley played leading ladies in eight different episodes, a series record.
Arlene Howell as Cindy Lou Brown, another beautiful con woman whom Bart and Gentleman Jack fought over. Cindy Lou appeared in three episodes, "Alias Bart Maverick", "Passage to Fort Doom", and eye-blinkingly briefly in "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres".
Gerald Mohr and Peter Breck as Doc Holliday. Mohr originally played the role in season one as a vengeful but charismatic killer in "The Quick and the Dead". However, in seasons four and five, Breck portrayed Holliday starkly differently as an unsettlingly unpleasant crooked rogue who was always getting Bart in trouble with his scams.
John Dehner and Andrew Duggan each played gangster Big Ed Murphy once, among other roles in the series.
Mike Road played gambler Pearly Gates twice during the final season. In both his appearances, he was accompanied by Kathleen Crowley's character named Marla.
Some performers, such as Kathleen Crowley, Tol Avery and Gage Clarke appeared seven or eight times over the course of the series in various roles. For example, character actor Chubby Johnson's eight episodes were "Stage West" as a wily stagecoach depot manager, "The Strange Journey of Jenny Hill" as a drunken messenger in an alley, "Pappy" as a whiskey-serving storekeeper, "The Sheriff of Duck 'n' Shoot" as a comically loquacious deputy, "The Misfortune Teller" as a different deputy, "The Maverick Line" as an obstreperous stagecoach driver, "Destination Devil's Flat" as another deputy, and "The Cactus Switch" as a different stagecoach driver.
Eventual Oscar-winner Joel Grey played Billy the Kid in "Full House," an unusual third-season episode that featured a bravura pistol-twirling exhibition by Garner as part of the plot.
Robert Redford, in his first professional appearance on film, joined Kelly as a major supporting player on a desperate cattle drive in "The Iron Hand."
Stacy Keach Sr. played a sheriff and two different marshals in three episodes, including "Ghost Rider." Edgar Buchanan portrayed extremely widely varying roles in five episodes. Ben Gage lampooned Marshal Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke in four different episodes, most obviously as "Marshal Mort Dooley" in the spoof "Gun-Shy" with James Garner, which sent up Gunsmoke'''s entire regular cast, and more subtly in "A Tale of Three Cities" with Jack Kelly, "The Misfortune Teller" with Garner, and "A Technical Error" with Kelly.
Gerald Mohr appeared in seven different episodes: "The Quick and the Dead" with Bret, "Seed of Deception" (in a brief cameo) with Bret and Bart, "The Burning Sky" with Bart, "Escape to Tampico" with Bret, "You Can't Beat the Percentage" with Bart, "Mano Nera" with Bart, and "The Deadly Image" with Bart and Bart's evil twin.
Clint Eastwood, Slim Pickens, Lee Van Cleef, John Carradine, Buddy Ebsen, Hans Conried, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Claude Akins, subsequent Oscar-winner George Kennedy, John Gavin, Mike Connors, Chad Everett, Patric Knowles, and Adam West appeared at least once during the run of the series.
Glamorously beautiful young actresses included subsequent Oscar-winner Louise Fletcher as well as Mala Powers, Coleen Gray, Paula Raymond, Ruta Lee, Marie Windsor, Abby Dalton, Karen Steele, Dawn Wells, Connie Stevens, Merry Anders, Kaye Elhardt, Sherry Jackson, Pippa Scott, Saundra Edwards, Peggy McCay, Patricia "Pat" Crowley, Roxane Berard and Adele Mara, some of whom appeared several times.
The show's stentorian-voiced announcer ("Maverick! Starring Jack Kelly and Robert Colbert!") was character actor Ed Reimers. Reimers was best known as spokesman for the Allstate Corporation in their long-running series of television commercials in the United States, advising viewers that they were "in good hands with Allstate."
Writers
Writers for Maverick included creator/producer Roy Huggins ("Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" and "Passage to Fort Doom"), Russell S. Hughes ("According to Hoyle", "The Seventh Hand", "The Burning Sky", and Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Wrecker"), Gerald Drayson Adams ("Stampede"), director Montgomery Pittman (wrote the original story for "The Saga of Waco Williams" which became a teleplay by Gene L. Coon), director Douglas Heyes ("The Quick and the Dead", "The Day They Hanged Bret Maverick", "Escape to Tampico", "Two Beggars on Horseback" and "Two Tickets to Ten Strike"), Marion Hargrove ("The Jail at Junction Flats"), Howard Browne ("Duel at Sundown"), Leo Townsend ("The Misfortune Teller"), Gene Levitt ("The Comstock Conspiracy"), William Driskill ("The Sheriff of Duck 'n' Shoot"), Leo Gordon (who also acted on the series although never in an episode that he had written; apparently the studio didn't want to foster a custom of actors writing their own scripts for television series), director Robert Altman ("Bolt from the Blue") and director George Waggner ("You Can't Beat the Percentage"), among many others.
Theme song
The memorable theme song was penned by prolific composers David Buttolph (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics). Buttolph's theme first appeared as incidental music in the Warner Bros. film of The Lone Ranger. The theme song was only heard briefly at the show's opening (after a teaser clip), and in an instrumental version. For the closing credits, a full-length (30-second) version was used. The prolific Buttolph's other most remembered musical contribution was the arrangement of Alfred Newman's stirring theme from 1940's The Mark of Zorro starring Tyrone Power.
The closing theme song was entirely instrumental during season one. A vocal version with lyrics debuted partway through season two, being used intermittently in place of the instrumental version. The vocal theme finally saw regular use by the end of season two and for all seasons thereafter. The vocal theme, performed by an all-male chorus, described the lead character of Maverick ("Who is the tall dark stranger there? / Maverick is the name...") – even though it debuted well after the two-Maverick format was firmly established.
Episodes
Episode list
Notable episodes
The first episode of Maverick, "War of the Silver Kings," was based on C. B. Glasscock's "The War of the Copper Kings," which relates the real-life adventures of copper mine speculator F. Augustus Heinze who ultimately became a speculator in the New York financial district at 42 Broadway. Roy Huggins recalls in his Archive of American Television interview that this Warners-owned property was selected by the studio to replace "Point Blank" as the first episode to cheat him out of creator residuals. James Garner maintained in his in-depth Archive of American Television interview that he and Leo Gordon were hitting each other for real in the fight sequences, visible in the shot where Garner is hit in the stomach, slamming him backward against a door.
"Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" features Bret Maverick (James Garner) spending most of the episode relaxing in a rocking chair, calmly whittling and offhandedly assuring the inquisitive and derisively amused townspeople that he's "working on it," while his brother Bart Maverick (Jack Kelly) runs a complex sting operation involving all five of the series' occasionally recurring characters (Dandy Jim Buckley, Samantha Crawford, Gentleman Jack Darby, Big Mike McComb and Cindy Lou Brown) to swindle a crooked banker who had stolen Bret's deposit of $15,000. Garner notes in his memoir, The Garner Files, that he was given the choice of which role to play, and chose the one where he spent the episode sitting down because he'd been feeling tired and overworked. It was his favorite episode. In his Archive of American Television interview, Roy Huggins contends that the first half of the later theatrical film The Sting with Paul Newman and Robert Redford was an uncredited restaging of "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres."
"Duel at Sundown" stars Clint Eastwood as a gun-slinging villain in an epic showdown with Bret, also featuring Edgar Buchanan and Abby Dalton in large supporting roles.
The episode "Escape to Tampico" incorporated parts of the actual set of "Rick's Café Américain" from Casablanca for "La Cantina Americana," and contains many allusions to the film. At 19:19 on the DVD release there is even a short clip from the movie where actors are dressed in French Army and Heer uniforms, and Leonid Kinskey is recognizable tending the bar. The episode's plot hinges on Gerald Mohr as a white-jacketed saloon owner, similar to Humphrey Bogart's Casablanca character, whom Bret is sent to bring back to America because of a murder during a robbery.
Efrem Zimbalist Jr.'s dangerously eccentric but wittily amusing character Dandy Jim Buckley appears in "Stampede" and "The Jail at Junction Flats." Zimbalist went on to play the lead in his own series, 77 Sunset Strip, after five appearances on Maverick as Buckley. Huggins recruited Richard Long to fill the void as a similar character named "Gentleman Jack Darby," and both Buckley and Darby appear in "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres," although not in the same scenes. Zimbalist and Long eventually did appear together as regular series leads in 77 Sunset Strip, however, albeit playing characters utterly different from their Maverick roles.
"The Saga of Waco Williams" with Wayde Preston and Louise Fletcher (who later won an Oscar for playing the original "Nurse Ratched" in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) drew the highest viewership of the entire series. Preston portrayed an ultra-heroic and utterly fearless character that had Bret Maverick breaking the fourth wall to marvel in amazement at the conclusion of the episode. Writer/producer Stephen J. Cannell noted in his Archive of American Television interview that, two decades later, he used Waco Williams as the prototype for "Lance White," Tom Selleck's recurring role on Roy Huggins' and James Garner's subsequent series The Rockford Files.
"According to Hoyle" was the first Maverick appearance of Diane Brewster as roguish Samantha Crawford, a role she'd played earlier in an episode of the Western TV series Cheyenne titled "The Dark Rider" that was subsequently recycled with a completely different cast as the second season Maverick episode "Yellow River". She later appeared as the Samantha Crawford character on Maverick with Garner in "The Seventh Hand" and Kelly in "The Savage Hills" and "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres."
"The Quick and the Dead" stars Gerald Mohr as Doc Holliday and film noir icon Marie Windsor as a saloon owner in a tense drama with Bret Maverick gingerly attempting to manipulate the terrifying gunslinger. Mohr portrayed Doc Holliday again the following year in an episode of the television series Tombstone Territory titled "Doc Holliday in Durango," reprising his colorfully sardonic performance as the legendary gunfighter.
During the first two seasons, with writer/producer Roy Huggins at the helm, writers were instructed to write every script while visualizing James Garner playing the part; two-Maverick scripts denoted the brothers as "Maverick 1" and "Maverick 2," with Garner choosing which role he would play due to his senior status on the series. The one exception to this was "Passage to Fort Doom," a meditation on courage written by Huggins expressly for Jack Kelly, directed by Paul Henreid and featuring Arlene Howell, John Alderson and Diane McBain.
"The Rivals" is based on a sophisticated comedy of manners play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan and first mounted in 1775. Roger Moore appears in "The Rivals" as a wealthy playboy who switches identities with Bret to facilitate landing a comely lass (Patricia "Pat" Crowley) with whom he's become infatuated. Two seasons later, Roger Moore would replace James Garner's Bret Maverick with his own Beau Maverick when Garner left the series to successfully accelerate his movie career. This is the only episode with both James Garner and Roger Moore.
"Two Tickets to Ten Strike" with Connie Stevens is a hybrid of comedy, mystery and action drama spotlighting Adam West spouting amazing dialogue as an amusingly verbose villain insistently threatening Bret.
In the chilling "Ghost Rider" with Stacy Keach Sr., Bret learns that a weeping woman to whom he'd given a ride in a buckboard had been dead for more than a week when he met her.
A gunshot criminal confesses to Bret with his dying breath that an innocent man was locked up in jail for a murder that he didn't commit, spurring the epic odyssey "The Long Hunt."
Other examples of the numerous notable episodes include a spoof of Gunsmoke titled "Gun-Shy"; Bret is framed for a robbery and waiting to be hung in the mistaken identity thriller "The Day They Hanged Bret Maverick"; the courtroom drama "Rope of Cards" created a run on decks of cards throughout the United States the day after its initial broadcast in the wake of Bret using a seemingly impossible card trick that actually exists; "Relic of Fort Tejon" features an affectionate camel who adores Bret; the corpse of a man whom Bret has just killed in self defense vanishes in "The Comstock Conspiracy"; one of Jean Renoir's favorite actors, Marcel Dalio (La Grande Illusion and The Rules of the Game), portrays a swindler who separately cheats Bret and Bart in "Game of Chance"; and Robert Louis Stevenson's ocean-going adventure "The Wrecker" features Errol Flynn look-alike Patric Knowles in an episode with both Bret and Bart.
"Pappy" presents Garner portraying Bret and Bart's colorful father, Beau Maverick, a previously unseen character. Bret and Bart would frequently announce, "As my Pappy used to say..." followed by aphorisms like, "Work is fine for killing time but it's a shaky way to make a living." Bret disguises himself as Pappy in the same episode, which features trick photography sequences with Garner playing both roles in the same shot. Kelly also plays a dual role, briefly portraying Beau's brother Bentley ("Uncle Bent", as Bret calls him). Garner's Beau Maverick is not the same character as the Beau Maverick played by Roger Moore later in the series; Moore's Beau is the nephew of Garner's Beau, and Bret and Bart's cousin. The younger Beau Maverick always referred to the elder as "Uncle Beau" or "Uncle Beauregard" instead of "Pappy." Troy Donahue plays the son of a long-time lover of Pappy in the episode, and Adam West portrays a villain.
"Bolt from the Blue" starring Roger Moore as Beau Maverick was written and directed by Robert Altman. Other memorable solo episodes with Moore include "Red Dog" with Lee Van Cleef and John Carradine, and "Kiz" with Kathleen Crowley and Peggy McCay.
Jack Kelly's favorite episode was "Two Beggars On Horseback," a sweeping adventure that depicted a frenzied race between Bret and Bart to cash a check, the only time in the series that Kelly also wore a black hat, albeit briefly. Notable solo episodes with Kelly as Bart Maverick include "The Jeweled Gun" with Kathleen Crowley; "The Third Rider" with Dick Foran; the aforementioned "The Savage Hills" with Diane Brewster as Samantha Crawford; "Iron Hand" with Robert Redford in a major supporting role, his first screen acting appearance; the ominously suspenseful "Last Stop: Oblivion" with Buddy Ebsen; "Betrayal" with Patricia "Pat" Crowley and Ruta Lee; and "Substitute Gun" with Coleen Gray and Joan Marshall. "The Maverick Line," a post-Huggins episode, features the most screen time with Bret and Bart together as well as Buddy Ebsen as a comical stagecoach robber. The episode was shot in the third season but held back and not telecast until the middle of the following season, originally intended to be the first episode of the fourth season until Garner won his lawsuit against the studio and left the series.
Many episodes are humorous while others are deadly serious, and in addition to purely original scripts, producer Roy Huggins drew upon works by writers as disparate as Louis L'Amour ("Stage West") and Robert Louis Stevenson ("The Wrecker") to give the series breadth and scope. The various Mavericks never stopped traveling, and the show was as likely to be set on a riverboat or in New Orleans as in a Western desert or frontier saloon. Roy Huggins quit the series at the end of the second season due to a life-threatening bout with pneumonia, and was succeeded by writer/producer Coles Trapnell, ushering in a gradual but sharp permanent decline in ratings. The series had finished at No. 6 in the Nielsen ratings in the 1958–1959 second season (a coup since it was scheduled directly against and topped a roster of extremely popular series such as The Ed Sullivan Show, The Steve Allen Show and The Jack Benny Program on the other networks), then fell to No. 19 in the 1959–1960 third season and out of the top 30 during its last two seasons, after Garner had left the show.
Home media
Warner Home Video released all five seasons on DVD in Region 1.
Seasons One and Two were standard DVD releases. Seasons Three, Four, and Five were released via their Warner Archive Collection. This is a manufacture-on-demand release on DVD-R discs and is available through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.
A Television Favorites DVD of the show released, featuring three episodes. It was released in Standard format.
On February 28, 2023, Warner Bros released Maverick: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.
Spin-offs and crossovers
In the decades following the cancellation of Maverick, the characters and situations have been revived several times.
The New Maverick (1978)The New Maverick is a 1978 TV movie with James Garner and Jack Kelly reprising their roles, and Charles Frank playing young Ben Maverick, the son of their cousin Beau (Roger Moore, although Moore did not appear in The New Maverick). Garner shot the film while on hiatus from The Rockford Files. Kelly only appears in a couple of scenes near the end, a frequent practice during Garner episodes in the original series.
Young Maverick (1979)The New Maverick was the pilot for a new series, Young Maverick, which ran for a short time in 1979. Charles Frank's character, Ben Maverick, was the focal point of the show, while James Garner only appeared as Bret for a few moments at the beginning of the first episode. It is apparent Bret does not much care for Ben, and the two part at the nearest crossroads; some critics later noted the audience couldn't help but think the camera was following the wrong Maverick. The series ended so quickly that some episodes that had already been filmed were never broadcast in the United States. Despite the title, Charles Frank was three years older than James Garner, Jack Kelly, Roger Moore or Robert Colbert had been when they started in the original series.
Bret Maverick (1981)
Two years later, Garner left The Rockford Files and began looking at possibilities for another series. Bret Maverick (1981–82) stars the 53-year-old as an older-but-no-wiser Bret, originally seen in the earlier series at age 29. Jack Kelly appears as Bret's brother Bart in only one episode but was slated to return as a series regular for the following season, for which several scripts were already written and presented to Kelly during the filming of the season finale. NBC unexpectedly canceled the show after one season despite respectable ratings, and Kelly would never officially join the cast. The new series involves Bret Maverick settling down in a small town in Arizona after winning a saloon in a poker game; a large new supporting cast was introduced to take some of the burden off Garner, who had been in almost every scene of most of his original Maverick episodes as well as The Rockford Files. The two-hour pilot episode was reedited as the TV movie Bret Maverick: The Lazy Ace and the series' only two-part episode was later marketed as a TV movie titled Bret Maverick: Faith, Hope and Clarity. Bret Maverick ends on a sentimental note, with Bret and Bart embracing during an unexpected encounter, with the theme from the original series playing in the background.
The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1991)
The TV movie The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1991) includes a cameo by Kelly as Bart Maverick along with other actors from various earlier Western television series, including Gene Barry as Bat Masterson, Hugh O'Brian as Wyatt Earp, Chuck Connors as the Rifleman, Johnny Crawford as his son Mark, David Carradine as Caine from Kung Fu, Brian Keith from The Westerner, James Drury and Doug McClure as a thinly disguised Virginian and Trampas, and Clint Walker as Cheyenne Bodie. As each hero appears onscreen, a few bars of the theme song from his original series plays in the background. The cameo was Jack Kelly's last acting appearance: he died of a stroke at age 65 the following year.
In other media
Cinema
A lavish theatrical film version was released in 1994 entitled Maverick starring Mel Gibson as Bret Maverick, Jodie Foster as a faux-Southern accented gambler reminiscent of Samantha Crawford, and James Garner as Marshal Zane Cooper, who is later revealed to be Bret's father. The film was directed by Richard Donner (who had previously directed many TV series prior to working in feature films) from a screenplay by Oscar-winning writer William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).
Garner maintained in later interviews that he was playing exactly the same character as in the television series, with Gibson as his son (which is consistent with the script's and Gibson's notably different interpretation of the character), but the screenplay itself leaves this open to conjecture; some assume that he was actually portraying Bret's father Beau "Pappy" Maverick, whom he had originally played in the Maverick television series in a single episode.
A "Making of" mini-documentary was broadcast on cable stations prior to the film's release that included no footage of Garner from the original series despite both the movie and television series having been produced by the same studio.
Comic books
During the height of the TV show's popularity and beyond, the various Mavericks appeared in Maverick comic books drawn by Dan Spiegle. Spiegle met James Garner at the studio before the first Maverick comic was drawn because no publicity photographs were available yet; only Garner as Bret was featured in the first comic books because he was the only Maverick for the first seven television episodes. The encounter left a favorable impression and Spiegle thereafter put extra effort into his drawings of Garner to capture the likeness of the actor while his subsequent depictions of the other Mavericks (Jack Kelly as Bart, Roger Moore as Beau, and Robert Colbert as Brent—inaccurately referred to as "Bret" in the comic book version) bore comparatively little resemblance to the actual actors. Spiegle explained to an interviewer:
Bret Maverick statue
On April 21, 2006, a bronze statue of James Garner as Bret Maverick was unveiled in Garner's hometown of Norman, Oklahoma, with Garner present. He noted in his memoir The Garner Files that it was one of the most enjoyable days of his life.
Sources
Two different books on the Maverick TV series were published in 1994, one by Burl Barer and the other by Ed Robertson, and serve as the main sources for the background information in this article, together with various magazine pieces from TV Guide, Life Magazine, and numerous others, along with viewings of the original series episodes, many of which remain available to the public at the Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles. The entire series was released on DVD one season at a time in 2012, 2013, and 2014, with the short thirteen-episode fifth season starring Jack Kelly in solo episodes available only upon demand (MOD: Manufacture On Demand); the fifth season was initially presented on air alternating with James Garner reruns from earlier seasons but the reruns are omitted from the DVD. Amazon Prime Video also offers the entire series on their online platform.
References
Further reading
Ed Robertson. Maverick: Legend of the West''. Revised third edition. Black Pawn Press, 2019.
External links
Museum of Broadcast Communications: Maverick
TV Guide Maverick Episode List
Maverick Episode Guide at epguides.com
Roy Huggins' Archive of American Television Interview
Stephen J. Cannell's Archive of American Television explanation of Huggins' approach
James Garner's Archive of American Television Interview
The Paley Center for Media
Maverick
1950s American comedy television series
1950s Western (genre) television series
1960s American comedy television series
1960s Western (genre) television series
1957 American television series debuts
1962 American television series endings
American Broadcasting Company original programming
Black-and-white American television shows
Fictional gamblers
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series winners
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal%20muscle
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Skeletal muscle
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Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of muscle tissue, and are often known as muscle fibers. The muscle tissue of a skeletal muscle is striated – having a striped appearance due to the arrangement of the sarcomeres.
Skeletal muscles are voluntary muscles under the control of the somatic nervous system. The other types of muscle are cardiac muscle which is also striated and smooth muscle which is non-striated; both of these types of muscle tissue are classified as involuntary, or, under the control of the autonomic nervous system.
A skeletal muscle contains multiple fascicles – bundles of muscle fibers. Each individual fiber, and each muscle is surrounded by a type of connective tissue layer of fascia. Muscle fibers are formed from the fusion of developmental myoblasts in a process known as myogenesis resulting in long multinucleated cells. In these cells the nuclei, termed myonuclei, are located along the inside of the cell membrane. Muscle fibers also have multiple mitochondria to meet energy needs.
Muscle fibers are in turn composed of myofibrils. The myofibrils are composed of actin and myosin filaments called myofilaments, repeated in units called sarcomeres, which are the basic functional, contractile units of the muscle fiber necessary for muscle contraction. Muscles are predominantly powered by the oxidation of fats and carbohydrates, but anaerobic chemical reactions are also used, particularly by fast twitch fibers. These chemical reactions produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP) molecules that are used to power the movement of the myosin heads.
Skeletal muscle comprises about 35% of the body of humans by weight. The functions of skeletal muscle include producing movement, maintaining body posture, controlling body temperature, and stabilizing joints. Skeletal muscle is also an endocrine organ. Under different physiological conditions, subsets of 654 different proteins as well as lipids, amino acids, metabolites and small RNAs are found in the secretome of skeletal muscles.
Skeletal muscles are substantially composed of multinucleated contractile muscle fibers (myocytes). However, considerable numbers of resident and infiltrating mononuclear cells are also present in skeletal muscles. In terms of volume, myocytes make up the great majority of skeletal muscle. Skeletal muscle myocytes are usually very large, being about 2–3 cm long and 100 μm in diameter. By comparison, the mononuclear cells in muscles are much smaller. Some of the mononuclear cells in muscles are endothelial cells (which are about 50–70 μm long, 10–30 μm wide and 0.1–10 μm thick), macrophages (21 μm in diameter) and neutrophils (12-15 μm in diameter). However, in terms of nuclei present in skeletal muscle, myocyte nuclei may be only half of the nuclei present, while nuclei from resident and infiltrating mononuclear cells make up the other half.
Considerable research on skeletal muscle is focused on the muscle fiber cells, the myocytes, as discussed in detail in the first sections, below. However, recently, interest has also focused on the different types of mononuclear cells of skeletal muscle, as well as on the endocrine functions of muscle, described subsequently, below.
Structure
Gross anatomy
There are more than 600 skeletal muscles in the human body, making up around 40% of body weight in healthy young adults. In Western populations, men have on average around 61% more skeletal muscle than women. Most muscles occur in bilaterally-placed pairs to serve both sides of the body. Muscles are often classed as groups of muscles that work together to carry out an action. In the torso there are several major muscle groups including the pectoral, and abdominal muscles; intrinsic and extrinsic muscles are subdivisions of muscle groups in the hand, foot, tongue, and extraocular muscles of the eye. Muscles are also grouped into compartments including four groups in the arm,
and the four groups in the leg.
Apart from the contractile part of a muscle consisting of its fibers, a muscle contains a non-contractile part of dense fibrous connective tissue that makes up the tendon at each end. The tendons attach the muscles to bones to give skeletal movement. The length of a muscle includes the tendons. Connective tissue is present in all muscles as deep fascia. Deep fascia specialises within muscles to enclose each muscle fiber as endomysium; each muscle fascicle as perimysium, and each individual muscle as epimysium. Together these layers are called mysia. Deep fascia also separates the groups of muscles into muscle compartments.
Two types of sensory receptors found in muscles are muscle spindles, and Golgi tendon organs. Muscle spindles are stretch receptors located in the muscle belly. Golgi tendon organs are proprioceptors located at the myotendinous junction that inform of a muscle's tension.
Skeletal muscle cells
Skeletal muscle cells are the individual contractile cells within a muscle, and are often termed as muscle fibers. A single muscle such as the biceps in a young adult male contains around 253,000 muscle fibers.
Skeletal muscle fibers are the only muscle cells that are multinucleated with the nuclei often referred to as myonuclei. This occurs during myogenesis with the fusion of myoblasts each contributing a nucleus. Fusion depends on muscle-specific proteins known as fusogens called myomaker and myomerger.
Many nuclei are needed by the skeletal muscle cell for the large amounts of proteins and enzymes needed to be produced for the cell's normal functioning. A single muscle fiber can contain from hundreds to thousands of nuclei. A muscle fiber for example in the human biceps with a length of 10 cm can have as many as 3000 nuclei. Unlike in a non-muscle cell where the nucleus is centrally positioned, the myonucleus is elongated and located close to the sarcolemma. The myonuclei are quite uniformly arranged along the fiber with each nucleus having its own myonuclear domain where it is responsible for supporting the volume of cytoplasm in that particular section of the myofiber.
A group of muscle stem cells known as myosatellite cells, also satellite cells are found between the basement membrane and the sarcolemma of muscle fibers. These cells are normally quiescent but can be activated by exercise or pathology to provide additional myonuclei for muscle growth or repair.
Attachment to tendons
Muscles attach to tendons in a complex interface region known as the musculotendinous junction also known as the myotendinous junction, an area specialised for the primary transmission of force. At the muscle-tendon interface, force is transmitted from the sarcomeres in the muscle cells to the tendon. Muscles and tendons develop in close association, and after their joining at the myotendinous junction they constitute a dynamic unit for the transmission of force from muscle contraction to the skeletal system.
Arrangement of muscle fibers
Muscle architecture refers to the arrangement of muscle fibers relative to the axis of force generation, which runs from a muscle's origin to its insertion.
The usual arrangements are types of parallel, and types of pennate muscle. In parallel muscles the fascicles run parallel to the axis of force generation, but the fascicles can vary in their relationship to one another, and to their tendons. These variations are seen in fusiform, strap, and convergent muscles. A convergent muscle has a triangular or fan-shape as the fibers converge at its insertion and are fanned out broadly at the origin. A less common example of a parallel muscle is a circular muscle such as the orbicularis oculi, in which the fibers are longitudinally arranged, but create a circle from origin to insertion. These different architectures, can cause variations in the tension that a muscle can create between its tendons.
The fibers in pennate muscles run at an angle to the axis of force generation. This pennation angle reduces the effective force of any individual fiber, as it is effectively pulling off-axis. However, because of this angle, more fibers can be packed into the same muscle volume, increasing the physiological cross-sectional area (PCSA). This effect is known as fiber packing, and in terms of force generation, it more than overcomes the efficiency-loss of the off-axis orientation. The trade-off comes in overall speed of muscle shortening and in the total excursion. Overall muscle shortening speed is reduced compared to fiber shortening speed, as is the total distance of shortening. All of these effects scale with pennation angle; greater angles lead to greater force due to increased fiber packing and PCSA, but with greater losses in shortening speed and excursion. Types of pennate muscle are unipennate, bipennate, and multipennate. A unipennate muscle has similarly angled fibers that are on one side of a tendon. A bipennate muscle has fibers on two sides of a tendon. Multipennate muscles have fibers that are oriented at multiple angles along the force-generating axis, and this is the most general and most common architecture.
Muscle fiber growth
Muscle fibers grow when exercised and shrink when not in use. This is due to the fact that exercise stimulates the increase in myofibrils which increase the overall size of muscle cells. Well exercised muscles can not only add more size but can also develop more mitochondria, myoglobin, glycogen and a higher density of capillaries. However muscle cells cannot divide to produce new cells, and as a result there are fewer muscle cells in an adult than in a newborn.
Muscle naming
There are a number of terms used in the naming of muscles including those relating to size, shape, action, location, their orientation, and their number of heads.
By size brevis means short; longus means long; longissimus means longest; magnus means large; major means larger; maximus means largest; minor means smaller, and minimus smallest; latissimus means widest, and vastus means huge. These terms are often used after the particular muscle such as gluteus maximus, and gluteus minimus.
By relative shape deltoid means triangular; quadratus means having four sides; rhomboideus means having a rhomboid shape; teres means round or cylindrical, and trapezius means having a trapezoid shape; serratus means saw-toothed; orbicularis means circular; pectinate means comblike; piriformis means pear-shaped; platys means flat and gracilis means slender. Examples are the pronator teres, and the pronator quadratus.
By action abductor moving away from the midline; adductor moving towards the midline; depressor moving downwards; elevator moving upwards; flexor moving that decreases an angle; extensor moving that increase an angle or straightens; pronator moving to face down; supinator moving to face upwards; internal rotator rotating towards the body; external rotator rotating away from the body; sphincter decreases the size, and tensor gives tension to; fixator muscles serve to fix a joint in a given position by stabilizing the prime mover whilst other joints are moving.
By number of headsbiceps two; triceps three and quadriceps four.
By location named after the near main structure such as the temporal muscle (temporalis) near to the temporal bone. Also supra- above; infra- below, and sub- under.
By fascicle orientation Relative to the midline, rectus means parallel to the midline; transverse means perpendicular to the midline, and oblique means diagonal to the midline. Relative to the axis of the generation of force – types of parallel, and types of pennate muscles.
Fiber types
Broadly there are two types of muscle fiber: Type I, which is slow, and Type II which are fast. Type II has two divisions of type IIA (oxidative), and type IIX (glycolytic), giving three main fiber types. These fibers have relatively distinct metabolic, contractile, and motor unit properties. The table below differentiates these types of properties. These types of properties—while they are partly dependent on the properties of individual fibers—tend to be relevant and measured at the level of the motor unit, rather than individual fiber.
Slow oxidative (type I) fibers contract relatively slowly and use aerobic respiration to produce ATP. Fast oxidative (type IIA) fibers have fast contractions and primarily use aerobic respiration, but because they may switch to anaerobic respiration (glycolysis), can fatigue more quickly than slow oxidative fibers. Fast glycolytic (type IIX) fibers have fast contractions and primarily use anaerobic glycolysis. The FG fibers fatigue more quickly than the others. Most skeletal muscles in a human contain(s) all three types, although in varying proportions.
Fiber color
Traditionally, fibers were categorized depending on their varying color, which is a reflection of myoglobin content. Type I fibers appear red due to the high levels of myoglobin. Red muscle fibers tend to have more mitochondria and greater local capillary density. These fibers are more suited for endurance and are slow to fatigue because they use oxidative metabolism to generate ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Less oxidative Type II fibers are white due to relatively low myoglobin and a reliance on glycolytic enzymes.
Twitch speed
Fibers can also be classified on their twitch capabilities, into fast and slow twitch. These traits largely, but not completely, overlap the classifications based on color, ATPase, or MHC.
Some authors define a fast twitch fiber as one in which the myosin can split ATP very quickly. These mainly include the ATPase type II and MHC type II fibers. However, fast twitch fibers also demonstrate a higher capability for electrochemical transmission of action potentials and a rapid level of calcium release and uptake by the sarcoplasmic reticulum. The fast twitch fibers rely on a well-developed, anaerobic, short term, glycolytic system for energy transfer and can contract and develop tension at 2–3 times the rate of slow twitch fibers. Fast twitch muscles are much better at generating short bursts of strength or speed than slow muscles, and so fatigue more quickly.
The slow twitch fibers generate energy for ATP re-synthesis by means of a long term system of aerobic energy transfer. These mainly include the ATPase type I and MHC type I fibers. They tend to have a low activity level of ATPase, a slower speed of contraction with a less well developed glycolytic capacity. Fibers that become slow-twitch develop greater numbers of mitochondria and capillaries making them better for prolonged work.
Type distribution
Individual muscles tend to be a mixture of various fiber types, but their proportions vary depending on the actions of that muscle. For instance, in humans, the quadriceps muscles contain ~52% type I fibers, while the soleus is ~80% type I. The orbicularis oculi muscle of the eye is only ~15% type I. Motor units within the muscle, however, have minimal variation between the fibers of that unit. It is this fact that makes the size principal of motor unit recruitment viable.
The total number of skeletal muscle fibers has traditionally been thought not to change.
It is believed there are no sex or age differences in fiber distribution; however, proportions of fiber types vary considerably from muscle to muscle and person to person. Among different species there is much variation in the proportions of muscle fiber types.
Sedentary men and women (as well as young children) have 45% type II and 55% type I fibers.
People at the higher end of any sport tend to demonstrate patterns of fiber distribution e.g. endurance athletes show a higher level of type I fibers.
Sprint athletes, on the other hand, require large numbers of type IIX fibers.
Middle-distance event athletes show approximately equal distribution of the two types. This is also often the case for power athletes such as throwers and jumpers.
It has been suggested that various types of exercise can induce changes in the fibers of a skeletal muscle.
It is thought that if you perform endurance type events for a sustained period of time, some of the type IIX fibers transform into type IIA fibers. However, there is no consensus on the subject.
It may well be that the type IIX fibers show enhancements of the oxidative capacity after high intensity endurance training which brings them to a level at which they are able to perform oxidative metabolism as effectively as slow twitch fibers of untrained subjects. This would be brought about by an increase in mitochondrial size and number and the associated related changes, not a change in fiber type.
Fiber typing methods
There are numerous methods employed for fiber-typing, and confusion between the methods is common among non-experts. Two commonly confused methods are histochemical staining for myosin ATPase activity and immunohistochemical staining for myosin heavy chain (MHC) type. Myosin ATPase activity is commonly—and correctly—referred to as simply "fiber type", and results from the direct assaying of ATPase activity under various conditions (e.g. pH). Myosin heavy chain staining is most accurately referred to as "MHC fiber type", e.g. "MHC IIa fibers", and results from determination of different MHC isoforms. These methods are closely related physiologically, as the MHC type is the primary determinant of ATPase activity. However, neither of these typing methods is directly metabolic in nature; they do not directly address oxidative or glycolytic capacity of the fiber.
When "type I" or "type II" fibers are referred to generically, this most accurately refers to the sum of numerical fiber types (I vs. II) as assessed by myosin ATPase activity staining (e.g. "type II" fibers refers to type IIA + type IIAX + type IIXA ... etc.).
Below is a table showing the relationship between these two methods, limited to fiber types found in humans. Subtype capitalization is used in fiber typing vs. MHC typing, and some ATPase types actually contain multiple MHC types. Also, a subtype B or b is not expressed in humans by either method. Early researchers believed humans to express a MHC IIb, which led to the ATPase classification of IIB. However, later research showed that the human MHC IIb was in fact IIx, indicating that the IIB is better named IIX. IIb is expressed in other mammals, so is still accurately seen (along with IIB) in the literature. Non human fiber types include true IIb fibers, IIc, IId, etc.
Further fiber typing methods are less formally delineated, and exist on more of a spectrum. They tend to be focused more on metabolic and functional capacities (i.e., oxidative vs. glycolytic, fast vs. slow contraction time). As noted above, fiber typing by ATPase or MHC does not directly measure or dictate these parameters. However, many of the various methods are mechanistically linked, while others are correlated in vivo. For instance, ATPase fiber type is related to contraction speed, because high ATPase activity allows faster crossbridge cycling. While ATPase activity is only one component of contraction speed, Type I fibers are "slow", in part, because they have low speeds of ATPase activity in comparison to Type II fibers. However, measuring contraction speed is not the same as ATPase fiber typing.
Muscle fiber type evolution
Almost all multicellular animals depend on muscles to move. Generally, muscular systems of most multicellular animals comprise both slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers, though the proportions of each fiber type can vary across organisms and environments. The ability to shift their phenotypic fiber type proportions through training and responding to the environment has served organisms well when placed in changing environments either requiring short explosive movements (higher fast twitch proportion) or long duration of movement (higher slow twitch proportion) to survive. Bodybuilding has shown that changes in muscle mass and force production can change in a matter of months. Some examples of this variation are described below.
Examples of muscle fiber variation in different animals
Invertebrates
American lobster, Homarus americanus, has three fiber types including fast twitch fibers, slow-twitch and slow-tonic fibers. Slow-tonic is a slow twitch-fiber that can sustain longer contractions (tonic). In lobsters, muscles in different body parts vary in the muscle fiber type proportions based on the purpose of the muscle group.
Vertebrates
In the early development of vertebrate embryos, growth and formation of muscle happens in successive waves or phases of myogenesis. The myosin heavy chain isotype is a major determinant of the specific fiber type. In zebrafish embryos, the first muscle fibers to form are the slow twitch fibers. These cells will undergo migration from their original location to form a monolayer of slow twitch muscle fibers. These muscle fibers undergo further differentiation as the embryo matures.
Reptiles
In larger animals, different muscle groups will increasingly require different fiber type proportions within muscle for different purposes. Turtles, such as Trachemys scripta elegans, have complementary muscles within the neck that show a potential inverse trend of fiber type percentages (one muscle has high percentage of fast twitch, while the complementary muscle will have a higher percentage of slow twitch fibers). The complementary muscles of turtles had similar percentages of fiber types.
Mammals
Chimpanzee muscles are composed of 67% fast-twitch fibers and have a maximum dynamic force and power output 1.35 times higher than human muscles of similar size. Among mammals, there is a predominance of type II fibers utilizing glycolytic metabolism. Because of the discrepancy in fast twitch fibers compared to humans, chimpanzees outperform humans in power related tests. Humans, however, will do better at exercise in aerobic range requiring large metabolic costs such as walking (bipedalism).
Genetic conservation versus functional conservation
Across species, certain gene sequences have been preserved, but do not always have the same functional purpose. Within the zebrafish embryo, the Prdm1 gene down-regulates the formation of new slow twitch fibers through direct and indirect mechanisms such as Sox6 (indirect). In mice, the Prdm1 gene is present but does not control slow muscle genes in mice through Sox6.
Plasticity
In addition to having a genetic basis, the composition of muscle fiber types is flexible and can vary with a number of different environmental factors. This plasticity can, arguably, be the strongest evolutionary advantage among organisms with muscle.
In fish, different fiber types are expressed at different water temperatures. Cold temperatures require more efficient metabolism within muscle and fatigue resistance is important. While in more tropical environments, fast powerful movements (from higher fast-twitch proportions) may prove more beneficial in the long run.
In rodents such as rats, the transitory nature of their muscle is highly prevalent. They have high percentage of hybrid muscle fibers and have up to 60% in fast-to-slow transforming muscle.
Environmental influences such as diet, exercise and lifestyle types have a pivotal role in proportions of fiber type in humans. Aerobic exercise will shift the proportions towards slow twitch fibers, while explosive powerlifting and sprinting will transition fibers towards fast twitch. In animals, "exercise training" will look more like the need for long durations of movement or short explosive movements to escape predators or catch prey.
Microanatomy
Skeletal muscle exhibits a distinctive banding pattern when viewed under the microscope due to the arrangement of two contractile proteins myosin, and actin – that are two of the myofilaments in the myofibrils. The myosin forms the thick filaments, and actin forms the thin filaments, and are arranged in repeating units called sarcomeres. The interaction of both proteins results in muscle contraction.
The sarcomere is attached to other organelles such as the mitochondria by intermediate filaments in the cytoskeleton. The costamere attaches the sarcomere to the sarcolemma.
Every single organelle and macromolecule of a muscle fiber is arranged to ensure that it meets desired functions. The cell membrane is called the sarcolemma with the cytoplasm known as the sarcoplasm. In the sarcoplasm are the myofibrils. The myofibrils are long protein bundles about one micrometer in diameter. Pressed against the inside of the sarcolemma are the unusual flattened myonuclei. Between the myofibrils are the mitochondria.
While the muscle fiber does not have smooth endoplasmic cisternae, it contains sarcoplasmic reticulum. The sarcoplasmic reticulum surrounds the myofibrils and holds a reserve of the calcium ions needed to cause a muscle contraction. Periodically, it has dilated end sacs known as terminal cisternae. These cross the muscle fiber from one side to the other. In between two terminal cisternae is a tubular infolding called a transverse tubule (T tubule). T tubules are the pathways for action potentials to signal the sarcoplasmic reticulum to release calcium, causing a muscle contraction. Together, two terminal cisternae and a transverse tubule form a triad.
Development
All muscles are derived from paraxial mesoderm. During embryonic development in the process of somitogenesis the paraxial mesoderm is divided along the embryo's length to form somites, corresponding to the segmentation of the body most obviously seen in the vertebral column. Each somite has three divisions, sclerotome (which forms vertebrae), dermatome (which forms skin), and myotome (which forms muscle). The myotome is divided into two sections, the epimere and hypomere, which form epaxial and hypaxial muscles, respectively. The only epaxial muscles in humans are the erector spinae and small vertebral muscles, and are innervated by the dorsal rami of the spinal nerves. All other muscles, including those of the limbs are hypaxial, and innervated by the ventral rami of the spinal nerves.
During development, myoblasts (muscle progenitor cells) either remain in the somite to form muscles associated with the vertebral column or migrate out into the body to form all other muscles. Myoblast migration is preceded by the formation of connective tissue frameworks, usually formed from the somatic lateral plate mesoderm. Myoblasts follow chemical signals to the appropriate locations, where they fuse into elongated multinucleated skeletal muscle cells.
Between the tenth and the eighteenth weeks of gestation, all muscle cells have fast myosin heavy chains; two myotube types become distinguished in the developing fetus – both expressing fast chains but one expressing fast and slow chains. Between 10 and 40 per cent of the fibers express the slow myosin chain.
Fiber types are established during embryonic development and are remodelled later in the adult by neural and hormonal influences. The population of satellite cells present underneath the basal lamina is necessary for the postnatal development of muscle cells.
Function
The primary function of muscle is contraction. Following contraction, skeletal muscle functions as an endocrine organ by secreting myokines – a wide range of cytokines and other peptides that act as signalling molecules. Myokines in turn are believed to mediate the health benefits of exercise. Myokines are secreted into the bloodstream after muscle contraction. Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is the most studied myokine, other muscle contraction-induced myokines include BDNF, FGF21, and SPARC.
Muscle also functions to produce body heat. Muscle contraction is responsible for producing 85% of the body's heat. This heat produced is as a by-product of muscular activity, and is mostly wasted. As a homeostatic response to extreme cold, muscles are signaled to trigger contractions of shivering in order to generate heat.
Contraction
Contraction is achieved by the muscle's structural unit, the muscle fiber, and by its functional unit, the motor unit. Muscle fibers are excitable cells stimulated by motor neurons. The motor unit consists of a motor neuron and the many fibers that it makes contact with. A single muscle is stimulated by many motor units. Muscle fibers are
subject to depolarization by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, released by the motor neurons at the neuromuscular junctions.
In addition to the actin and myosin myofilaments in the myofibrils that make up the contractile sarcomeres, there are two other important regulatory proteins – troponin and tropomyosin, that make muscle contraction possible. These proteins are associated with actin and cooperate to prevent its interaction with myosin. Once a cell is sufficiently stimulated, the cell's sarcoplasmic reticulum releases ionic calcium (Ca2+), which then interacts with the regulatory protein troponin. Calcium-bound troponin undergoes a conformational change that leads to the movement of tropomyosin, subsequently exposing the myosin-binding sites on actin. This allows for myosin and actin ATP-dependent cross-bridge cycling and shortening of the muscle.
Excitation-contraction coupling
Excitation contraction coupling is the process by which a muscular action potential in the muscle fiber causes the myofibrils to contract. This process relies on a direct coupling between the sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium release channel RYR1 (ryanodine receptor 1), and voltage-gated L-type calcium channels (identified as dihydropyridine receptors, DHPRs). DHPRs are located on the sarcolemma (which includes the surface sarcolemma and the transverse tubules), while the RyRs reside across the SR membrane. The close apposition of a transverse tubule and two SR regions containing RyRs is described as a triad and is predominantly where excitation–contraction coupling takes place. Excitation–contraction coupling occurs when depolarization of skeletal muscle cell results in a muscle action potential, which spreads across the cell surface and into the muscle fiber's network of T-tubules, thereby depolarizing the inner portion of the muscle fiber. Depolarization of the inner portions activates dihydropyridine receptors in the terminal cisternae, which are close to ryanodine receptors in the adjacent sarcoplasmic reticulum. The activated dihydropyridine receptors physically interact with ryanodine receptors to activate them via foot processes (involving conformational changes that allosterically activates the ryanodine receptors). As the ryanodine receptors open, is released from the sarcoplasmic reticulum into the local junctional space and diffuses into the bulk cytoplasm to cause a calcium spark. The sarcoplasmic reticulum has a large calcium buffering capacity partially due to a calcium-binding protein called calsequestrin. The near synchronous activation of thousands of calcium sparks by the action potential causes a cell-wide increase in calcium giving rise to the upstroke of the calcium transient. The released into the cytosol binds to Troponin C by the actin filaments, to allow crossbridge cycling, producing force and, in some situations, motion. The sarco/endoplasmic reticulum calcium-ATPase (SERCA) actively pumps back into the sarcoplasmic reticulum. As declines back to resting levels, the force declines and relaxation occurs.
Muscle movement
The efferent leg of the peripheral nervous system is responsible for conveying commands to the muscles and glands, and is ultimately responsible for voluntary movement. Nerves move muscles in response to voluntary and autonomic (involuntary) signals from the brain. Deep muscles, superficial muscles, muscles of the face and internal muscles all correspond with dedicated regions in the primary motor cortex of the brain, directly anterior to the central sulcus that divides the frontal and parietal lobes.
In addition, muscles react to reflexive nerve stimuli that do not always send signals all the way to the brain. In this case, the signal from the afferent fiber does not reach the brain, but produces the reflexive movement by direct connections with the efferent nerves in the spine. However, the majority of muscle activity is volitional, and the result of complex interactions between various areas of the brain.
Nerves that control skeletal muscles in mammals correspond with neuron groups along the primary motor cortex of the brain's cerebral cortex. Commands are routed through the basal ganglia and are modified by input from the cerebellum before being relayed through the pyramidal tract to the spinal cord and from there to the motor end plate at the muscles. Along the way, feedback, such as that of the extrapyramidal system contribute signals to influence muscle tone and response.
Deeper muscles such as those involved in posture often are controlled from nuclei in the brain stem and basal ganglia.
Proprioception
In skeletal muscles, muscle spindles convey information about the degree of muscle length and stretch to the central nervous system to assist in maintaining posture and joint position. The sense of where our bodies are in space is called proprioception, the perception of body awareness, the "unconscious" awareness of where the various regions of the body are located at any one time. Several areas in the brain coordinate movement and position with the feedback information gained from proprioception. The cerebellum and red nucleus in particular continuously sample position against movement and make minor corrections to assure smooth motion.
Energy consumption
Muscular activity accounts for much of the body's energy consumption. All muscle cells produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP) molecules which are used to power the movement of the myosin heads. Muscles have a short-term store of energy in the form of creatine phosphate which is generated from ATP and can regenerate ATP when needed with creatine kinase. Muscles also keep a storage form of glucose in the form of glycogen. Glycogen can be rapidly converted to glucose when energy is required for sustained, powerful contractions. Within the voluntary skeletal muscles, the glucose molecule can be metabolized anaerobically in a process called glycolysis which produces two ATP and two lactic acid molecules in the process (in aerobic conditions, lactate is not formed; instead pyruvate is formed and transmitted through the citric acid cycle). Muscle cells also contain globules of fat, which are used for energy during aerobic exercise. The aerobic energy systems take longer to produce the ATP and reach peak efficiency, and requires many more biochemical steps, but produces significantly more ATP than anaerobic glycolysis. Cardiac muscle on the other hand, can readily consume any of the three macronutrients (protein, glucose and fat) aerobically without a 'warm up' period and always extracts the maximum ATP yield from any molecule involved. The heart, liver and red blood cells will also consume lactic acid produced and excreted by skeletal muscles during exercise.
Skeletal muscle uses more calories than other organs.
At rest it consumes 54.4 kJ/kg (13.0 kcal/kg) per day. This is larger than adipose tissue (fat) at 18.8 kJ/kg (4.5 kcal/kg), and bone at 9.6 kJ/kg (2.3 kcal/kg).
Efficiency
The efficiency of human muscle has been measured (in the context of rowing and cycling) at 18% to 26%. The efficiency is defined as the ratio of mechanical work output to the total metabolic cost, as can be calculated from oxygen consumption. This low efficiency is the result of about 40% efficiency of generating ATP from food energy, losses in converting energy from ATP into mechanical work inside the muscle, and mechanical losses inside the body. The latter two losses are dependent on the type of exercise and the type of muscle fibers being used (fast-twitch or slow-twitch). For an overall efficiency of 20 percent, one watt of mechanical power is equivalent to 4.3 kcal per hour. For example, one manufacturer of rowing equipment calibrates its rowing ergometer to count burned calories as equal to four times the actual mechanical work, plus 300 kcal per hour, this amounts to about 20 percent efficiency at 250 watts of mechanical output. The mechanical energy output of a cyclic contraction can depend upon many factors, including activation timing, muscle strain trajectory, and rates of force rise & decay. These can be synthesized experimentally using work loop analysis.
Muscle strength
Muscle strength is a result of three overlapping factors: physiological strength (muscle size, cross sectional area, available crossbridging, responses to training), neurological strength (how strong or weak is the signal that tells the muscle to contract), and mechanical strength (muscle's force angle on the lever, moment arm length, joint capabilities).
Vertebrate muscle typically produces approximately of force per square centimeter of muscle cross-sectional area when isometric and at optimal length. Some invertebrate muscles, such as in crab claws, have much longer sarcomeres than vertebrates, resulting in many more sites for actin and myosin to bind and thus much greater force per square centimeter at the cost of much slower speed. The force generated by a contraction can be measured non-invasively using either mechanomyography or phonomyography, be measured in vivo using tendon strain (if a prominent tendon is present), or be measured directly using more invasive methods.
The strength of any given muscle, in terms of force exerted on the skeleton, depends upon length, shortening speed, cross sectional area, pennation, sarcomere length, myosin isoforms, and neural activation of motor units. Significant reductions in muscle strength can indicate underlying pathology, with the chart at right used as a guide.
The maximum holding time for a contracted muscle depends on its supply of energy and is stated by Rohmert's law to exponentially decay from the beginning of exertion.
The "strongest" human muscle
Since three factors affect muscular strength simultaneously and muscles never work individually, it is misleading to compare strength in individual muscles, and state that one is the "strongest". But below are several muscles whose strength is noteworthy for different reasons.
In ordinary parlance, muscular "strength" usually refers to the ability to exert a force on an external object—for example, lifting a weight. By this definition, the masseter or jaw muscle is the strongest. The 1992 Guinness Book of Records records the achievement of a bite strength of for 2 seconds. What distinguishes the masseter is not anything special about the muscle itself, but its advantage in working against a much shorter lever arm than other muscles.
If "strength" refers to the force exerted by the muscle itself, e.g., on the place where it inserts into a bone, then the strongest muscles are those with the largest cross-sectional area. This is because the tension exerted by an individual skeletal muscle fiber does not vary much. Each fiber can exert a force on the order of 0.3 micronewton. By this definition, the strongest muscle of the body is usually said to be the quadriceps femoris or the gluteus maximus.
Because muscle strength is determined by cross-sectional area, a shorter muscle will be stronger "pound for pound" (i.e., by weight) than a longer muscle of the same cross-sectional area. The myometrial layer of the uterus may be the strongest muscle by weight in the female body. At the time when an infant is delivered, the entire uterus weighs about 1.1 kg (40 oz). During childbirth, the uterus exerts 100 to 400 N (25 to 100 lbf) of downward force with each contraction.
The external muscles of the eye are conspicuously large and strong in relation to the small size and weight of the eyeball. It is frequently said that they are "the strongest muscles for the job they have to do" and are sometimes claimed to be "100 times stronger than they need to be." However, eye movements (particularly saccades used on facial scanning and reading) do require high speed movements, and eye muscles are exercised nightly during rapid eye movement sleep.
The statement that "the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body" appears frequently in lists of surprising facts, but it is difficult to find any definition of "strength" that would make this statement true. The tongue consists of eight muscles, not one.
Force generation
Muscle force is proportional to physiological cross-sectional area (PCSA), and muscle velocity is proportional to muscle fiber length. The torque around a joint, however, is determined by a number of biomechanical parameters, including the distance between muscle insertions and pivot points, muscle size and architectural gear ratio. Muscles are normally arranged in opposition so that when one group of muscles contracts, another group relaxes or lengthens. Antagonism in the transmission of nerve impulses to the muscles means that it is impossible to fully stimulate the contraction of two antagonistic muscles at any one time. During ballistic motions such as throwing, the antagonist muscles act to 'brake' the agonist muscles throughout the contraction, particularly at the end of the motion. In the example of throwing, the chest and front of the shoulder (anterior deltoid) contract to pull the arm forward, while the muscles in the back and rear of the shoulder (posterior deltoid) also contract and undergo eccentric contraction to slow the motion down to avoid injury. Part of the training process is learning to relax the antagonist muscles to increase the force input of the chest and anterior shoulder.
Contracting muscles produce vibration and sound. Slow twitch fibers produce 10 to 30 contractions per second (10 to 30 Hz). Fast twitch fibers produce 30 to 70 contractions per second (30 to 70 Hz). The vibration can be witnessed and felt by highly tensing one's muscles, as when making a firm fist. The sound can be heard by pressing a highly tensed muscle against the ear, again a firm fist is a good example. The sound is usually described as a rumbling sound. Some individuals can voluntarily produce this rumbling sound by contracting the tensor tympani muscle of the middle ear. The rumbling sound can also be heard when the neck or jaw muscles are highly tensed.
Signal transduction pathways
Skeletal muscle fiber-type phenotype in adult animals is regulated by several independent signaling pathways. These include pathways involved with the Ras/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway, calcineurin, calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IV, and the peroxisome proliferator γ coactivator 1 (PGC-1). The Ras/MAPK signaling pathway links the motor neurons and signaling systems, coupling excitation and transcription regulation to promote the nerve-dependent induction of the slow program in regenerating muscle. Calcineurin, a Ca2+/calmodulin-activated phosphatase implicated in nerve activity-dependent fiber-type specification in skeletal muscle, directly controls the phosphorylation state of the transcription factor NFAT, allowing for its translocation to the nucleus and leading to the activation of slow-type muscle proteins in cooperation with myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2) proteins and other regulatory proteins. Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase activity is also upregulated by slow motor neuron activity, possibly because it amplifies the slow-type calcineurin-generated responses by promoting MEF2 transactivator functions and enhancing oxidative capacity through stimulation of mitochondrial biogenesis.
Contraction-induced changes in intracellular calcium or reactive oxygen species provide signals to diverse pathways that include the MAPKs, calcineurin and calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IV to activate transcription factors that regulate gene expression and enzyme activity in skeletal muscle.
PGC1-α (PPARGC1A), a transcriptional coactivator of nuclear receptors important to the regulation of a number of mitochondrial genes involved in oxidative metabolism, directly interacts with MEF2 to synergistically activate selective slow twitch (ST) muscle genes and also serves as a target for calcineurin signaling. A peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor δ (PPARδ)-mediated transcriptional pathway is involved in the regulation of the skeletal muscle fiber phenotype. Mice that harbor an activated form of PPARδ display an "endurance" phenotype, with a coordinated increase in oxidative enzymes and mitochondrial biogenesis and an increased proportion of ST fibers. Thus—through functional genomics—calcineurin, calmodulin-dependent kinase, PGC-1α, and activated PPARδ form the basis of a signaling network that controls skeletal muscle fiber-type transformation and metabolic profiles that protect against insulin resistance and obesity.
The transition from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism during intense work requires that several systems are rapidly activated to ensure a constant supply of ATP for the working muscles. These include a switch from fat-based to carbohydrate-based fuels, a redistribution of blood flow from nonworking to exercising muscles, and the removal of several of the by-products of anaerobic metabolism, such as carbon dioxide and lactic acid. Some of these responses are governed by transcriptional control of the fast twitch (FT) glycolytic phenotype. For example, skeletal muscle reprogramming from an ST glycolytic phenotype to an FT glycolytic phenotype involves the Six1/Eya1 complex, composed of members of the Six protein family. Moreover, the hypoxia-inducible factor 1-α (HIF1A) has been identified as a master regulator for the expression of genes involved in essential hypoxic responses that maintain ATP levels in cells. Ablation of HIF-1α in skeletal muscle was associated with an increase in the activity of rate-limiting enzymes of the mitochondria, indicating that the citric acid cycle and increased fatty acid oxidation may be compensating for decreased flow through the glycolytic pathway in these animals. However, hypoxia-mediated HIF-1α responses are also linked to the regulation of mitochondrial dysfunction through the formation of excessive reactive oxygen species in mitochondria.
Other pathways also influence adult muscle character. For example, physical force inside a muscle fiber may release the transcription factor serum response factor from the structural protein titin, leading to altered muscle growth.
Exercise
Physical exercise is often recommended as a means of improving motor skills, fitness, muscle and bone strength, and joint function. Exercise has several effects upon muscles, connective tissue, bone, and the nerves that stimulate the muscles. One such effect is muscle hypertrophy, an increase in size of muscle due to an increase in the number of muscle fibers or cross-sectional area of myofibrils. Muscle changes depend on the type of exercise used.
Generally, there are two types of exercise regimes, aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic exercise (e.g. marathons) involves activities of low intensity but long duration, during which the muscles used are below their maximal contraction strength. Aerobic activities rely on aerobic respiration (i.e. citric acid cycle and electron transport chain) for metabolic energy by consuming fat, protein, carbohydrates, and oxygen. Muscles involved in aerobic exercises contain a higher percentage of Type I (or slow-twitch) muscle fibers, which primarily contain mitochondrial and oxidation enzymes associated with aerobic respiration. On the contrary, anaerobic exercise is associated with activities of high intensity but short duration, such as sprinting or weight lifting. The anaerobic activities predominately use Type II, fast-twitch, muscle fibers. Type II muscle fibers rely on glucogenesis for energy during anaerobic exercise. During anaerobic exercise, type II fibers consume little oxygen, protein and fat, produce large amounts of lactic acid and are fatigable. Many exercises are partially aerobic and anaerobic; for example, soccer and rock climbing.
The presence of lactic acid has an inhibitory effect on ATP generation within the muscle. It can even stop ATP production if the intracellular concentration becomes too high. However, endurance training mitigates the buildup of lactic acid through increased capillarization and myoglobin. This increases the ability to remove waste products, like lactic acid, out of the muscles in order to not impair muscle function. Once moved out of muscles, lactic acid can be used by other muscles or body tissues as a source of energy, or transported to the liver where it is converted back to pyruvate. In addition to increasing the level of lactic acid, strenuous exercise results in the loss of potassium ions in muscle. This may facilitate the recovery of muscle function by protecting against fatigue.
Delayed onset muscle soreness is pain or discomfort that may be felt one to three days after exercising and generally subsides two to three days later. Once thought to be caused by lactic acid build-up, a more recent theory is that it is caused by tiny tears in the muscle fibers caused by eccentric contraction, or unaccustomed training levels. Since lactic acid disperses fairly rapidly, it could not explain pain experienced days after exercise.
Clinical significance
Muscle disease
Diseases of skeletal muscle are termed myopathies, while diseases of nerves are called neuropathies. Both can affect muscle function or cause muscle pain, and fall under the umbrella of neuromuscular disease. The cause of many myopathies is attributed to mutations in the various associated muscle proteins. Some inflammatory myopathies include polymyositis and inclusion body myositis
Neuromuscular diseases affect the muscles and their nervous control. In general, problems with nervous control can cause spasticity or paralysis, depending on the location and nature of the problem. A number of movement disorders are caused by neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease where there is central nervous system dysfunction.
Symptoms of muscle diseases may include weakness, spasticity, myoclonus and myalgia. Diagnostic procedures that may reveal muscular disorders include testing creatine kinase levels in the blood and electromyography (measuring electrical activity in muscles). In some cases, muscle biopsy may be done to identify a myopathy, as well as genetic testing to identify DNA abnormalities associated with specific myopathies and dystrophies.
A non-invasive elastography technique that measures muscle noise is undergoing experimentation to provide a way of monitoring neuromuscular disease. The sound produced by a muscle comes from the shortening of actomyosin filaments along the axis of the muscle. During contraction, the muscle shortens along its length and expands across its width, producing vibrations at the surface.
Hypertrophy
Independent of strength and performance measures, muscles can be induced to grow larger by a number of factors, including hormone signaling, developmental factors, strength training, and disease. Contrary to popular belief, the number of muscle fibres cannot be increased through exercise. Instead, muscles grow larger through a combination of muscle cell growth as new protein filaments are added along with additional mass provided by undifferentiated satellite cells alongside the existing muscle cells.
Biological factors such as age and hormone levels can affect muscle hypertrophy. During puberty in males, hypertrophy occurs at an accelerated rate as the levels of growth-stimulating hormones produced by the body increase. Natural hypertrophy normally stops at full growth in the late teens. As testosterone is one of the body's major growth hormones, on average, men find hypertrophy much easier to achieve than women. Taking additional testosterone or other anabolic steroids will increase muscular hypertrophy.
Muscular, spinal and neural factors all affect muscle building. Sometimes a person may notice an increase in strength in a given muscle even though only its opposite has been subject to exercise, such as when a bodybuilder finds her left biceps stronger after completing a regimen focusing only on the right biceps. This phenomenon is called cross education.
Atrophy
Every day between one and two percent of muscle is broken down and rebuilt. Inactivity, malnutrition, disease, and aging can increase the breakdown leading to muscle atrophy or sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is commonly an age-related process that can cause frailty and its consequences. A decrease in muscle mass may be accompanied by a smaller number and size of the muscle cells as well as lower protein content.
Human spaceflight, involving prolonged periods of immobilization and weightlessness is known to result in muscle weakening and atrophy resulting in a loss of as much as 30% of mass in some muscles. Such consequences are also noted in some mammals following hibernation.
Many diseases and conditions including cancer, AIDS, and heart failure can cause muscle loss known as cachexia.
Research
Myopathies have been modeled with cell culture systems of muscle from healthy or diseased tissue biopsies. Another source of skeletal muscle and progenitors is provided by the directed differentiation of pluripotent stem cells.
Research on skeletal muscle properties uses many techniques. Electrical muscle stimulation is used to determine force and contraction speed at different frequencies related to fiber-type composition and mix within an individual muscle group. In vitro muscle testing is used for more complete characterization of muscle properties.
The electrical activity associated with muscle contraction is measured via electromyography (EMG). Skeletal muscle has two physiological responses: relaxation and contraction. The mechanisms for which these responses occur generate electrical activity measured by EMG. Specifically, EMG can measure the action potential of a skeletal muscle, which occurs from the hyperpolarization of the motor axons from nerve impulses sent to the muscle. EMG is used in research for determining if the skeletal muscle of interest is being activated, the amount of force generated, and an indicator of muscle fatigue. The two types of EMG are intra-muscular EMG and the most common, surface EMG. The EMG signals are much greater when a skeletal muscle is contracting verses relaxing. However, for smaller and deeper skeletal muscles the EMG signals are reduced and therefore are viewed as a less valued technique for measuring the activation. In research using EMG, a maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) is commonly performed on the skeletal muscle of interest, to have reference data for the rest of the EMG recordings during the main experimental testing for that same skeletal muscle.
Research into the development of artificial muscles includes the use of electroactive polymers.
Mononuclear cells of skeletal muscle
Nuclei present in skeletal muscle are about 50% myocyte nuclei and 50% mononuclear cell nuclei. Mononuclear cells found in skeletal muscle tissue samples from mice and humans can be identified by messenger RNA transcription of cell type markers. Cameron et al. identified nine cell types. They include endothelial cells that line capillaries (45% of cells), fibro-adipogenic progenitors (FAPs)(20%), pericytes (14%) and endothelial-like pericytes (4%). Another 9% of mononuclear cells are muscle stem cells, adjacent to muscle fiber cells. Types of lymphoid cells (such as B-cells and T-cells) (3%) and myeloid cells such as macrophages (2%) made up most of the remaining mononuclear cells of skeletal muscle. In addition, Cameron et al. also identified two types of myocyte cells, Type I and Type II. Each of the different types of cells in skeletal muscle was found to express different sets of genes. The median number of genes expressed in each of the nine different cell types was 1,331 genes. When a biopsy is taken from a thigh muscle, however, the biopsy contains all the different cell types. Mixed together, in a biopsy of human thigh skeletal muscle, there are 13,026 to 13,108 genes with detected expression.
Endocrine functions of skeletal muscle
As pointed out in the Introduction to this article, under different physiological conditions, subsets of 654 different proteins as well as lipids, amino acids, metabolites and small RNAs occur in the secretome of skeletal muscles. As described in the Wikipedia article "List of human endocrine organs and actions", skeletal muscle is identified as an endocrine organ due to its secretion of cytokines and other peptides produced by skeletal muscle as signaling molecules. Iizuka et al., indicated that skeletal muscle is an endocrine organ because it "synthesizes and secretes multiple factors, and these muscle derived-factors exert beneficial effects on peripheral and remote organs." The altered secretomes after endurance training or resistance training as well as the secretome of sedentary muscle appear to have many effects on distant tissues.
Sedentary skeletal muscle mass affects executive mental function
A study in Canada tested the effect of muscle mass on mental functions during aging. An expectation of the study was that the endocrine components of the secretome specific to skeletal muscle could protect cognitive functions. The skeletal muscle mass of arms and legs of 8,279 Canadians over the age of 65 and in average health was measured at baseline and after three years. Of these individuals, 1,605 participants (19.4%) were considered to have a low skeletal muscle mass at baseline, with less than 7.30 kg/m2 for males, and less than 5.42 kg/m2 for females (levels defined as sarcopenia in Canada).
Executive mental function, memory and psychomotor speed were each measured at baseline and after three years. Executive mental function was measured with standard tests, including the ability to say the sequence 1-A, 2-B, 3-C…, to name a number of animals in one minute, and with the Stroop test. The study found that those individuals with lower skeletal muscle mass at the start of the study declined in their executive mental function considerably more sharply than those with higher muscle mass. Memory, as well as psychomotor speed, on the other hand, did not correlate with skeletal muscle mass. Thus, larger muscle mass, with a concomitantly larger secretome, appeared to have the endocrine function of protecting the executive mental function of individuals over the age of 65.
Walking, using skeletal muscles, affects mortality
Paluch et al. compared the average number of steps walked per day to the risk of mortality, both for adults over 60 years old and for adults under 60 years old. The study was a meta-analysis of 15 studies, which, combined, evaluated 47,471 adults over a period of 7 years. Individuals were divided into approximately equal quartiles. The lowest quartile averaged 3,553 steps/day, the second quartile 5,801 steps/day, the third quartile 7,842 steps/day and the fourth quartile 10,901 steps/day. The briskness of walking, adjusted for the volume of walking, did not affect mortality. However, the number of steps/day was clearly related to mortality. When risk of mortality for those over 60 years old was set at 1.0 for the lowest quartile of steps/day, the relative risk of mortality for the second, third and fourth quartiles were 0.56, 0.45, and 0.35, respectively. For those under 60 years of age, the results were less pronounced. For those under 60 years of age, with the first quartile risk of mortality set at 1.0, the second, third and fourth quartile relative risks of mortality were 0.57, 0.42 and 0.53, respectively. Thus, use of skeletal muscles in walking has a large effect, especially among older individuals, on mortality.
Skeletal muscle secretome alters with exercise
Williams et al. obtained biopsies of a thigh skeletal muscle (vastus lateralis muscle) of eight 23-year old, originally sedentary, Caucasian males. Biopsies were taken both before and after a six-week long endurance exercise training program. The exercise consisted of riding a stationary bicycle for one hour, five days a week for six weeks.
Of the 13,108 genes with detected expression in the muscle biopsies, 641 genes were upregulated after endurance training and 176 genes were downregulated. Of the 817 total altered genes, 531 were identified as being in the secretome by either or both of Uniprot or Exocarta, or else by studies investigating the secretome of muscle cells. Because many of the exercise-regulated genes are identified as secreted, this indicates that much of the effect of exercise has an endocrine rather than metabolic function. The main pathways found to be affected by secreted exercise-regulated proteins were related to cardiac, cognitive, kidney and platelet functions.
Exercise-trained effects are mediated by epigenetic mechanisms
Between 2012 and 2019 at least 25 reports indicated a major role of epigenetic mechanisms in skeletal muscle responses to exercise. Epigenetic alterations often occur by adding methyl groups to cytosines in the DNA or removing methyl groups from the cytosines of DNA, especially at CpG sites. Methylations of cytosines can cause the DNA to be compacted into heterochromatin, thus inhibiting access of other molecules to the DNA. Epigenetic alterations also often occur through acetylations or deacetylations of the histone tails within chromatin. DNA in the nucleus generally consists of segments of 146 base pairs of DNA wrapped around eight tightly connected histones (and each histone also has a loose tail) in a structure called a nucleosome and one segment of DNA is connected to an adjacent DNA segment on a nucleosome by linker DNA. When histone tails are acetylated they usually cause loosening of the DNA around the nucleosome, leading to increased accessibility of the DNA/
Exercise-induced regulation of genes in muscles
Gene expression in muscle is largely regulated, as in tissues generally, by regulatory DNA sequences, especially enhancers. Enhancers are non-coding sequences in the genome that activate the expression of distant target genes, by looping around and interacting with the promoters of their target genes (see Figure "Regulation of transcription in mammals"). As reported by Williams et al., the average distance in the loop between the connected enhancers and promoters of genes is 239,000 nucleotide bases.
Exercise-induced alteration to gene expression by DNA methylation or demethylation
Endurance muscle training alters muscle gene expression by epigenetic DNA methylation or de-methylation of CpG sites within enhancers.
In a study by Lindholm et al., twenty-three individuals who were about 27 years old and sedentary volunteered to have endurance training on only one leg during 3 months. The other leg was used as an untrained control leg. The training consisted of one-legged knee extension training for 3 month (45 min, 4 sessions per week). Skeletal muscle biopsies from the vastus lateralis (a thigh muscle) were taken both before training began and 24 hours after the last training session from each of the legs. The endurance-trained leg, compared to the untrained leg, had significant DNA methylation changes at 4,919 sites across the genome. The sites of altered DNA methylation were predominantly in enhancers. Transcriptional analysis, using RNA sequencing, identified 4,076 differentially expressed genes.
The transcriptionally upregulated genes were associated with enhancers that had a significant decrease in DNA methylation, while transcriptionally downregulated genes were associated with enhancers that had increased DNA methylation. Increased methylation was mainly associated with genes involved in structural remodeling of the muscle and glucose metabolism. Enhancers with decreased methylation were associated with genes functioning in inflammatory or immunological processes and in transcriptional regulation.
Exercise-induced long-term alteration of gene expression by histone acetylation or deacetylation
As indicated above, after exercise, epigenetic alterations to enhancers alter long-term expression of hundreds of muscle genes. This includes genes producing proteins secreted into the systemic circulation, many of which may act as endocrine messengers. Six sedentary, about 23 years old, Caucasian males provided vastus lateralis (a thigh muscle) biopsies before entering an exercise program (six weeks of 60-minute sessions of riding a stationary cycle, five days per week). Four days after this exercise program was completed, the expression of many genes was persistently epigentically altered. The alterations altered acetylations and deacetylations of the histone tails located in the enhancers controlling the genes with altered expression.
Up-regulated genes were associated with epigenetic acetylations added at histone 3 lysine 27 (H3K27ac) of nucleosomes located at their enhancers. Down-regulated genes were associated with the removal of epigenetic acetylations at H3K27 in nucleosomes located at their enhancers (see Figure "A nucleosome with histone tails set for transcriptional activation"). Biopsies of the vastus lateralis muscle showed expression of 13,108 genes at baseline before the exercise training program. Four days after the exercise program was completed, biopsies of the same muscles showed altered gene expression, with 641 genes up-regulated and 176 genes down-regulated. Williams et al. identified 599 enhancer-gene interactions, covering 491 enhancers and 268 genes (multiple enhancers were found connected to some genes), where both the enhancer and the connected target gene were coordinately either upregulated or downregulated after exercise training.
See also
Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy
Hill's muscle model
In vitro muscle testing
Musculoskeletal injury
Muscle relaxant
Microtrauma
Muscle memory
Myomere
Myotomy
Preflexes
References
Muscular system
Somatic motor system
Muscle tissue
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopkinton%2C%20Massachusetts
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Hopkinton, Massachusetts
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Hopkinton is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, west of Boston. The town is best known as the starting point of the Boston Marathon, held annually on Patriots' Day each April, and as the headquarters for the Dell EMC corporation.
At the 2020 census, the town had a population of 18,758. The U.S. Census recognizes the central village within the town as a census-designated place, with a population of 2,651 at the 2020 census. Hopkinton also includes the village of Woodville, which was established as a historic district in 2005.
History
The Town of Hopkinton was incorporated on December 13, 1715. Hopkinton was named for an early colonist of Connecticut, Edward Hopkins, who left a large sum of money to be invested in land in New England, the proceeds of which were to be used for the benefit of Harvard University. The trustees of Harvard purchased 12 500 acres of land from the Native American residents with money from the fund and incorporated the area, naming it in honor of its benefactor.
Grain was the first production crop grown in the area, while fruit and dairy industries were developed later. Agriculture predominated until 1840 when the boot and shoe industries were introduced into the town. By 1850 eleven boot and shoe factories were established in Hopkinton. Fires in 1882 and the migration of those industries to other parts of the country eliminated these industries from Hopkinton.
There are 215 Hopkinton properties listed in the State Register of Historic Places. The majority, 187, are located within the Cedar Swamp Archaeological District in Hopkinton and Westborough. The properties are also listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Twenty-three properties are included within the Hopkinton Center Historic District, a local historic district which comprises properties around the Town Common, on East Main St. and the south side of Main St. The district was expanded in 2000 to include the Town Hall and in 2001 to include Center School. The Hopkinton Supply Company Building on Main St., located slightly west of the district, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Former factory worker housing in the center of town, contrasted against the more rural areas surrounding it, are visual reminders of Hopkinton's past.
In 2005, the town established a second historic district in the village of Woodville. The Woodville Historic District Commission was formed the same year. Ninety-seven properties are included within this district. The village of Woodville has retained its distinctive village atmosphere and strong architectural connection to Hopkinton's industrial development and growth from the mid-to-late 19th century. The area was an early cotton clothmaking center and the site of a major shoe factory. When Boston seized Lake Whitehall for its water supply in 1894, the factories along its shores were closed or moved to other sites, as they were considered sources of pollution. Remaining factories and other buildings were destroyed in a fire in 1909. In the 18th century, it was an agricultural area with a few farms scattered north of the much smaller Lake Whitehall and its accompanying cedar swamp, and was the site of a grist mill on Whitehall Brook as early as 1714.
Within or near the Miscoe-Warren-Whitehall Watersheds ACEC (Area of Critical Environmental Concern), remains of large pits have been found. The pits were lined with bark by the Native Americans and used to store corn over the winter months.
At one time, it was believed that the waters flowing from the large swamp south of Pond St., under Pond St. and into Lake Whitehall contained magical healing powers. As a result, the area quickly was built up as a resort area. Visitors came by stagecoach to the Hopkinton Hotel, which was located between Pond St. and the lake. The mineral baths and their powers lured the visitors to the area. The baths can still be viewed by the edge of the stream that drains from the swamp. Within the ACEC area are also two beehive shaped stone structures, about tall. Their origin and use are unknown.
Hopkinton gains national attention once a year in April as it hosts the start of the Boston Marathon, a role the town has enjoyed since 1924. The town takes pride in its hospitality as runners from all over the world gather in Hopkinton to begin the run to Boston. It is also a sister city of Marathon, Greece.
Geography
Hopkinton is in the southwest corner of Middlesex County in eastern Massachusetts, east of Worcester, west of Boston, and from New York City. It is bordered by six towns:
All but Ashland and Holliston are in neighboring Worcester County.
Hopkinton village is in the center of town, at the intersection of Main Street (Massachusetts Route 135) with Cedar Street/Grove Street (Massachusetts Route 85). The neighborhood of Woodville is in the western part of the town, along Route 135 at the north end of Whitehall Reservoir. Hopkinton State Park is in the northern part of the town, extending northeast into Ashland.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which are land and , or 5.85%, are water. Besides Whitehall Reservoir, notable water bodies include Hopkinton Reservoir in the north, in Hopkinton State Park, and North Pond and Echo Lake in the south. Whitehall Reservoir and Hopkinton Reservoir drain north to the Sudbury River, part of the Concord River watershed leading to the Merrimack River. North Pond, in the southwest part of town, forms the headwaters of the Mill River, which flows south to join the Blackstone River in Rhode Island. Echo Lake, in the southeast part of town, is at the headwaters of the Charles River, which flows east to Boston Harbor.
Climate
The climate in Hopkinton tends to be hot and humid during the summer, with daily high temperatures averaging in the 80s. Temperatures in the 90s are also known to occur between June and August as high-pressure air masses push in from the south. Winters are typical of areas inland and west of Boston. Snowfall averages around 45" but can vary tremendously from season to season.
The warmest month of the year is July with an average minimum and maximum temperature of and respectively. The coldest month of the year is January with an average minimum and maximum temperature of respectively.
Temperature variations between night and day tend to be fairly limited during summer with a difference that can reach , and fairly limited during winter with an average difference of .
The annual average precipitation at Hopkinton is . Rainfall is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year. The wettest month of the year is November with an average rainfall of .
Demographics
Between the 2010 census and 2020 census, Hopkinton was the fastest-growing community in Greater Boston.
As of the census of 2010, there were 14,925 people, 4,957 households, and 3,978 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 5,128 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 93.1% White, 0.8% Black or African American, 0.1% Native American, 4.4% Asian, 0.4% from other races, and 1.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.8% of the population.
There were 4,957 households, out of which 48.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 70.5% were married couples living together, 6.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 19.7% were non-families. 16.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 5.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.99 and the average family size was 3.38.
Population was well-distributed by age, with 33.6% under the age of 20, 3.4% from 20 to 24, 22.0% from 25 to 44, 33.0% from 45 to 64, and 7.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40.3 years. For every 100 females, there were 96.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.4 males.
As of 2000, the median income for a household in the town was $89,281, and the median income for a family was $102,550. Males had a median income of $71,207 versus $42,360 for females. The per capita income for the town was $41,469. About 1.3% of families and 1.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 1.4% of those under age 18 and 3.4% of those age 65 or over.
Government
Since its incorporation in 1715, Hopkinton has retained its original Open Town Meeting form of government. The town's day-to-day affairs had been directly overseen by an elected Board of Selectmen until 2007, when the Town's Charter Commission created a Town Manager position with more discretion, although the Town Manager still reports to the Select Board.
Annual Town Meeting
Hopkinton's Annual Town Meeting begins on the first Monday in May, hosted at the Hopkinton Middle School or High School. The meeting only begins when a quorum is formed, with 128 registered Hopkinton voters in attendance. It continues on consecutive evenings, usually three nights in total, until all articles in the Town Meeting Warrant have been voted upon.
Warrant
The Town Meeting Warrant is a document composed of the articles to be voted upon. Any elected or appointed board, committee, or town officer, or ten petitioning voters, may request that an article be included on the warrant. Each article to be voted upon is directed by the Select Board to an appropriate board or committee to hear and provide the original motion at Town Meeting. All articles which require expending of funds are directed to the Finance Committee; articles dealing with planning and zoning to the Planning Board; articles relating to by-laws to the By-Law Committee, and so forth.
Annual Town Election
Hopkinton Annual Town Election is held on the third Monday in May. Polls are open 7:00am–8:00pm. All Hopkinton precincts vote at the Hopkinton Middle School.
County government
Massachusetts has 14 counties which were regional administrative districts before the Revolutionary War. In 1997, the county governments of Middlesex, Berkshire, Essex, Hampden and Worcester were abolished. Many of their functions were turned over to state agencies.
Its county seats are Cambridge and Lowell.
Library
The Hopkinton Public Library was founded in 1867. It has been located in the heart of downtown, just steps away from the Town Common, since 1895. Until 1955, bequests were the only source of funding for the library. Since that time, the town government has been appropriating public funds for employee salaries, cost of cleaning the Library, utilities and assistance with the purchase of books. The library is now funded through various sources that include the Town Government, The McGovern Trust Fund, Annual State Aid and Friends of the Library.
The town library was established by the Young Men's Christian Association in 1867. Seven members served as the Trustees, incorporated the Library and adopted by-laws for the government of the Library in 1890. The current building was built in 1895 with contributions from local and former residents of Hopkinton. The second floor was used as a lecture hall and was remodeled later as a children's room. A gallery was built to connect the Library building with the adjacent Episcopal Church after extensive renovation in 1967. This new section was named after the head librarian at the time, Mrs. Betty Strong. A special feature of the reading room is a stained glass window with a motif of water fountain bubbling water flowing over an open book and the inscription on the page reads "The fountain of wisdom flows through books." The large hall clock that still stands near the circulation desk was presented to the Library by Mrs. F.V. Thompson and Mr. Abram Crooks.
The library was transferred to the town government in May 2010. Five members were appointed as the Library Trustees. Starting from May 2011, elections have been held annually for the members of the Library Board according to the new town charter.
In January 2016, the library announced they would make renovations to the building and moved to a temporary location at 65 South Street while the historic building on Main Street undergoes a major renovation and expansion.
In October 2017, the renovated and expanded library reopened in its downtown location at 13 Main Street.
Education
Public schools
The Town of Hopkinton has a public school system which serves students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. Kindergarten students and first-graders attend Marathon Elementary School. Grades 2 and 3 attend Elmwood School. Grades 4 and 5 attend Hopkins School. Grades 6 through 8 attend Hopkinton Middle School. Grades 9 through 12 attend Hopkinton High School. The town also has an integrated preschool currently located in the Marathon Elementary School building.
Hopkinton offered a fee-based full-day kindergarten option for the first time during the 2010–2011 school year via a lottery system. Free full-day Kindergarten was made available to all Kindergarten students starting in the 2014–2015 school year. Hopkinton Public Schools does not offer any foreign language education before Grade 7.
Since residents approved the Center School Feasibility Study in May 2008, Hopkinton had been involved in an Elementary School Building Project with the Massachusetts School Building Authority. The solution approved unanimously by the Hopkinton Elementary School Building Committee and the MSBA was to build a new K–5 Elementary School on the town-owned Fruit Street property and then decommission the aging Center School. Residents voted down the new school at the March 21, 2011 Special Town Meeting and again at a Special Town Election on March 28, 2011.
In May 2013 voters approved funding a new Center School Feasibility Study. The solution proposed by the new Elementary School Building Committee was to build a new Preschool, Kindergarten and Grade 1 School at 135 Hayden Rowe Street (Route 85), on property newly purchased by the town for this purpose. This proposal was approved by voters at a November 2015 Special Town Meeting. The new Marathon Elementary School, named after a public town survey, is located on Route 85 in Hopkinton, and opened for the fall 2018 school year.
Hopkinton High's school mascot is the Hiller "H", as the sports teams are known as the Hopkinton Hillers. Previously the teams were known as the Hopkinton Stonethrowers. The school primary colors are green and white, with orange as a secondary color.
Economy and business
Hopkinton is the corporate headquarters of Dell EMC, a global manufacturer of software and systems for information management and storage. Dell EMC, in addition to providing $1 million in annual real estate tax revenues, is a major contributor to the town's schools and recreational services.
On September 7, 2016, Dell and EMC merged, creating Dell EMC.
Transportation
Hopkinton is situated west of Boston in the MetroWest region of Massachusetts. Interstate Route 495 divides the town into east and west zones, which are connected by numerous spokes providing direct access to the airport and other communities in the Greater Boston Metropolitan Area.
Major highways
Hopkinton is served by two interstate highways and two state highways. Interstates 90 (the Massachusetts Turnpike) and 495, form an interchange on the northern border of Hopkinton and neighboring Westborough. Proximity to Route 9 (The Boston/Worcester Turnpike) and Route 30 in Westborough, gives additional access to east/west destinations.
Principal highways are:
Interstate 90 (Massachusetts Turnpike) (east/west) (the longest interstate highway in the United States)
Interstate 495 (north/south)
State Route 135 (east/west)
State Route 85 (north/south)
Nearby major intersections
Interstate 495 in Westborough, Massachusetts
Interstate 95 in Weston, Massachusetts
Mass transit
Rail
There is no passenger or freight rail service in Hopkinton.
Hopkinton is served by the Southborough MBTA Station, located on the border of Hopkinton and Southborough on Route 85 at Southville Road. MBTA commuter rail service is available to South Station and Back Bay Station, Boston, via the MBTA Framingham-Worcester Commuter Rail Line which connects South Station in Boston and Union Station in Worcester. Travel time to Back Bay is about 50 minutes.
Originally called the Framingham Commuter Rail Line, Framingham was the end of the line until rail traffic was expanded to Worcester in 1996. The line also serves the communities of Newton, Wellesley, Natick, Ashland, Southborough, Westborough and Grafton.
Direct rail service to Boston, to New York, and to many other points on the Amtrak network (National Railroad Passenger Corporation) is available through nearby Framingham.
CSX Transportation provides freight rail service and operates an auto transloading facility in nearby Framingham.
Bus
Hopkinton is a Member Community of the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority, which provides local bus service to several towns in the MetroWest area, with service to the MBTA commuter rail station at Framingham.
Peter Pan Bus Lines provides service to Worcester and Boston from Framingham.
Air
Boston's Logan International Airport is easily accessible from nearby Framingham. MassPort provides public transportation to all airport terminals from Framingham via the Logan Express bus service seven days per week. The bus terminal and paid parking facility are located on the Shoppers' World Mall property, off the Massachusetts Turnpike Exit 13, between Route 9 and Route 30, at the intersections of East Road and the Burr Street connector.
Worcester Regional Airport, a Primary Commercial (PR) facility with scheduled passenger service, is easily accessible. It has two asphalt runways long. Instrument approaches available include precision and non-precision. The airport is served by JetBlue, American Eagle, and Delta.
Commuter services
Park and ride services:
MassDOT operates a free park and ride facility at the parking lot at the intersection of Flutie Pass and East Road on the south side of Shoppers' World Mall.
MassDOT also operates a free park and ride facility at a parking lot adjacent to exit 12 of the Massachusetts Turnpike, across from California Avenue on the west side of Framingham.
Media
Newspapers
Hopkinton has two local newspapers: The Hopkinton Independent and The Hopkinton Crier, and three online news outlets, HCAM, Hopkinton Patch and HopNews. The town is also served by The Boston Globe, The MetroWest Daily News, and the Telegram & Gazette.
Television
Hopkinton has a PEG television network known as HCAM, which controls two channels. Many HCAM shows can be viewed directly on their website.
HCAM-TV
HCAM-TV is the most-received of HCAM's channels, available in every household with cable television in the area. It can be found on Comcast channel 8 and Verizon channel 30. The channel's daily schedule consists mostly of programming aimed at a family audience. Along with series and informative programming, HCAM-TV broadcasts the filming of one-time events (such as performances on the Hopkinton Common and films by the Hopkinton Center for the Arts).
HCAM-ED
HCAM-ED, sister channel to HCAM-TV, is received by fewer households and has lower programming standards than HCAM-TV. It is found on Comcast channel 96 and Verizon channel 31. The HCAM website also includes news articles and photos, updated daily.
Points of interest
Hopkinton State Park, located on Route 85 (Cordaville Road), is a Massachusetts state park managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, that was created after the Hopkinton Reservoir was removed from service as a water source for the Greater Boston area.
Whitehall State Park, located on Route 135 (Wood Street), is a Massachusetts state park managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation. It was created in 1947, when the Whitehall Reservoir was removed from service as a water source for the Greater Boston area.
Accolades
2020 – Hopkinton Public Schools was ranked #15 of all 412 public school districts in Massachusetts
2014 – Hopkinton made the 'SafeWise 50 Safest Cities in Massachusetts'
2013 – National Citizen Survey results conducted by the National Research Center
2012 – Hopkinton ranked 4th in the Central MA's Best Communities 2012 round-up
2009 – Money magazine ranks Hopkinton 19th best place to live
Culture
Beginning in 1924, when the Boston Athletic Association chose to move the start line from Ashland, MA, Hopkinton has garnered worldwide attention as the starting point of the annual Boston Marathon.
Sister cities
Marathon, Greece
Places of worship
Community Covenant Church
Faith Community Church of Hopkinton
Islamic Masumeen Center
Korean Presbyterian Church
The Sanctuary at Woodville (formerly Woodville Baptist Church)
St John the Evangelist
St Paul's Episcopal Church
Vineyard Church of Hopkinton
Notable people
Military
Michael Joseph Lenihan (1865–1958), United States Army general during World War I
Frank Merrill (1903–1955), United States Army general during World War II
Daniel Shays (1747–1825), soldier, revolutionary and farmer—leader of Shays' Rebellion
Daniel Shays Road, a street in Hopkinton off of Saddle Hill Road, is named after him
Charles F. Walcott (1836–1888), Union Army officer during the American Civil War
Politics
Joseph Bowker (1725–1784), first Speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives
William Chamberlain (1755–1828), United States Representative from Vermont (1803–1805; 1809–1811)
William Claflin (1818–1905), industrialist, philanthropist, 27th Governor of Massachusetts, United States Representative (1877–1881)
Paul Danahy (1928–2022), politician and judge in Florida
John Locke (1764–1855), United States Representative (1804–1805, 1813, 1823)
Charles Morris (1731–1802), surveyor, judge and political figure in Nova Scotia
Abbott Barnes Rice (1862–1926), Boston merchant and politician
William H. Ryan (1860–1939), United States Representative from New York (1899–1909)
Joseph H. Walker (1829–1907), United States Representative (1889–1899)
Religion
Edward L. Hearn (1865–1945), fifth Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus
Levi Richards (1799–1876), religious leader in the Latter Day Saint movement
Willard Richards (1804–1854), religious leader in the Latter Day Saint movement
Joseph Young (1797–1881), missionary in the Latter Day Saint movement, brother of Brigham Young
Sports
Keegan Bradley (born 1986), professional golfer
George V. Brown (1880–1937), sports organizer in United States, 30-year starter of Boston marathon, and hockey hall of fame inductee
Walter A. Brown (1905–1964), founding owner of the Boston Celtics and inductee into the basketball and hockey halls of fame
Jon Curran (born 1987), professional golfer
Sean Farrell (born 2001), ice hockey player
Justin Harney (born 1977), ice hockey player
Toss Kelly (1862–1924), professional baseball umpire
Jane Welzel (1955-2014), pioneering long-distance runner
Other
Susannah Valentine Aldrich (1828–1905), author and hymnwriter
Richard Egan (1936–2009), founder of EMC Corporation, 19th United States Ambassador to Ireland
Agnes Surriage Frankland (1726–1783), wife of Sir Charles Henry Frankland, a British baronet
M. Laurance Morse (1921–2003), microbiologist
Richard Potter (1783–1835), magician, hypnotist and ventriloquist
Grace Vollmer (1884–1977), painter
Historic homes
Historical commission
The Town of Hopkinton established a historical commission which manages "the preservation, protection and development of the historical or archeological assets of such city or town". Projects include conducting research for places of historic or archeological value, assisting cooperatively with others engaged in such research, and carrying out other initiatives for the purpose of protecting and preserving such places.
National Register of Historic Places
Hopkinton has two properties in the register.
Cedar Swamp Archeological District, Address Restricted. Listed 1988-05-23
Hopkinton Supply Company Building, 26-28 Main Street. Listed 1983-03-10
See also
Greater Boston
MetroWest
Boston Marathon
Dell EMC
Open town meeting format
References
Further reading
Hopkinton Community Profile in The Boston Globe, 2003
Hopkinton Listing in MetroWest Chamber of Commerce
The story of Violet and Iris Carey – killed in a natural gas explosion in downtown Hopkinton, 2002
1871 Atlas of Massachusetts. by Wall & Gray. Map of Massachusetts. Map of Middlesex County.
History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Volume 1 (A-H), (L-W) compiled by Samuel Adams Drake, published 1879–1880. 572 and 505 pages. Hopkinton article by Rev. Elias Nason in volume 1, pages 483–495
External links
Town of Hopkinton official website
Hopkinton Public Schools
Hopkinton State Park
MetroWest
Towns in Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Towns in Massachusetts
Populated places established in 1715
1715 establishments in the Province of Massachusetts Bay
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20F.%20Kennedy%20Center%20for%20the%20Performing%20Arts
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John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. It was named in 1964 as a memorial to assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Opened on September 8, 1971, the center hosts many different genres of performance art, such as theater, dance, orchestras, jazz, pop, psychedelic, and folk music.
Authorized by the 1958 National Cultural Center Act of Congress, which requires that its programming be sustained through private funds, the center represents a public–private partnership. Its activities include educational and outreach initiatives, almost entirely funded through ticket sales and gifts from individuals, corporations, and private foundations.
The original building, designed by architect was constructed by Philadelphia contractor John McShain, and is administered as a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution. An earlier design proposal called for a more curvy, spaceship-inspired building similar to how the Watergate complex appears today. An extension to the Durell Stone Building was designed by Steven Holl and opened in 2019. The center receives annual federal funding to pay for building maintenance and operation.
History
The idea for a national cultural center dates to 1933 when First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt discussed ideas for the Emergency Relief and Civil Works Administration to create employment for unemployed actors during the Great Depression. Congress held hearings in 1935 on plans to establish a Cabinet level Department of Science, Art and Literature, and to build a monumental theater and arts building on Capitol Hill near the Supreme Court building. A 1938 congressional resolution called for construction of a "public building which shall be known as the National Cultural Center" near Judiciary Square, but nothing materialized.
The idea for a national theater resurfaced in 1950, when U.S. Representative Arthur George Klein of New York introduced a bill to authorize funds to plan and build a cultural center. The bill included provisions that the center would prohibit any discrimination of cast or audience. In 1955, the Stanford Research Institute was commissioned to select a site and provide design suggestions for the center. From 1955 to 1958, Congress debated the idea amid much controversy. A bill was finally passed in Congress in the summer of 1958 and on September 4, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the National Cultural Center Act which provided momentum for the project.
This was the first time that the federal government helped finance a structure dedicated to the performing arts. The legislation required a portion of the costs, estimated at $10–25 million, to be raised within five years of the bill's passage. Edward Durell Stone was selected as architect for the project in June 1959. He presented preliminary designs to the President's Music Committee in October 1959, along with estimated costs of $50 million, double the original estimates of $25–30 million. By November 1959, estimated costs had escalated to $61 million. Despite this, Stone's design was well received in editorials in The Washington Post, Washington Star, and quickly approved by the United States Commission of Fine Arts, National Capital Planning Commission, and the National Park Service.
The National Cultural Center was renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1964, following the assassination of President Kennedy.
Fundraising
The National Cultural Center Board of Trustees, a group President Eisenhower established on January 29, 1959, led fundraising. Fundraising efforts were not successful, with only $13,425 raised in the first three years. President John F. Kennedy was interested in bringing culture to the nation's capital, and provided leadership and support for the project. In 1961, President Kennedy asked Roger L. Stevens to help develop the National Cultural Center, and serve as chairman of the Board of Trustees. Stevens recruited First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as honorary chairman of the center, and former First Lady Mamie Eisenhower as co-chairman. In January 1961, Jarold A. Kieffer became the first Executive Director of the National Cultural Center, overseeing numerous fundraising efforts and assisting with the architectural plan.
The total cost of construction was $70 million. Congress allocated $43 million for construction costs, including $23 million as an outright grant and the other $20 million in bonds. Donations also comprised a significant portion of funding, including $5 million from the Ford Foundation, and approximately $500,000 from the Kennedy family. Other major donors included J. Willard Marriott, Marjorie Merriweather Post, John D. Rockefeller III, and Robert W. Woodruff, as well as many corporate donors. Foreign countries provided gifts to the Kennedy Center, including a gift of 3,700 tons of Carrara marble from Italy (worth $1.5 million) from the Italian government, which was used in the building's construction.
Construction
President Lyndon B. Johnson dug the ceremonial first-shovel of earth at the groundbreaking for the Kennedy Center December 2, 1964. However, debate continued for another year over the Foggy Bottom site, with some advocating for another location on Pennsylvania Avenue. Excavation of the site got underway on December 11, 1965, and the site was cleared by January 1967.
The first performance was September 5, 1971, with 2,200 members of the general public in attendance to see a premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass in the Opera House, while the center's official opening took place September 8, 1971, with a formal gala and premiere performance of the Bernstein Mass. The Concert Hall was inaugurated September 9, 1971, with a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antal Doráti. Alberto Ginastera's opera, Beatrix Cenci premiered at the Kennedy Center Opera House September 10, 1971. The Eisenhower Theater was inaugurated October 18, 1971, with a performance of A Doll's House starring Claire Bloom.
Architecture
Architect Edward Durell Stone designed the Kennedy Center. Overall, the building is high, long, and wide. The Kennedy Center features a , grand foyer, with 16 hand-blown Orrefors crystal chandeliers (a gift from Sweden) and red carpeting. The Hall of States and the Hall of Nations are both , corridors. The building has drawn criticism about its location (far away from Washington Metro stops), and for its scale and form, although it has also drawn praise for its acoustics, and its terrace overlooking the Potomac River. In her book On Architecture, Ada Louise Huxtable called it "gemütlich Speer."
Cyril M. Harris designed the Kennedy Center's auditoriums and their acoustics. A key consideration is that many aircraft fly along the Potomac River and over the Kennedy Center, as they take off and land at the nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Helicopter traffic over the Kennedy Center is also fairly high. To keep out this noise, the Kennedy Center was designed as a box within a box, giving each auditorium an extra outer shell.
After the original structure was marked for expansion, a competition in 2013 selected Steven Holl Architects to undertake the design. The extension, called The REACH, opened in 2019.
Artwork
The plaza entrance of the Kennedy Center features two tableaus by German sculptor Jürgen Weber; created between 1965 and 1971, which were a gift to the Kennedy Center from the West German government. Near the north end of the plaza is a display of nude figures in scenes representing war and peace, called War or Peace. The piece, , depicts five scenes showing the symbolism of war and peace: a war scene, murder, family, and creativity. At the south end is America which represents Weber's image of America (8 × 50 × 1.5 ft.). Four scenes are depicted representing threats to liberty, technology, foreign aid and survival, and free speech. It took the artist four years to sculpt the two reliefs in plaster, creating 200 castings, and another two years for the foundry in Berlin to cast the pieces. In 1994, the Smithsonian Institution's Save Outdoor Sculpture! program surveyed War or Peace and America and described them as being well maintained. Another sculpture Don Quixote by Aurelio Teno occupies a site near the northeast corner of the building. King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia of Spain gave the sculpture to the United States for its Bicentennial, June 3, 1976.
Venues
The Kennedy Center has three main theaters: the Concert Hall, the Opera House, and the Eisenhower Theater.
Concert Hall
The Concert Hall, located at the south end of the center, seats 2,465 including chorister seats and stage boxes, and has a seating arrangement similar to that used in many European halls such as Musikverein in Vienna. The Concert Hall is the largest performance space in the Kennedy Center and is the home of the National Symphony Orchestra. A 1997 renovation brought a high-tech acoustical canopy, handicap-accessible locations on every level, and new seating sections (onstage boxes, chorister seats, and parterre seats). The Hadeland crystal chandeliers, given by the Norwegian government, were repositioned to provide a clearer view. Canadian organbuilder Casavant Frères constructed and installed a new pipe organ in 2012.
Opera House
The Opera House, in the middle, has approximately 2,347 seats. Its interior features include walls covered in red velvet, a distinctive red and gold silk curtain, given by the Japanese government, and Lobmeyr crystal chandelier with matching pendants, a gift from the government of Austria. It is the major opera, ballet, and large-scale musical venue of the center, and closed during the 2003/2004 season for extensive renovations which provided a revised seating arrangement and redesigned entrances at the orchestra level. It is the home of the Washington National Opera and the annual Kennedy Center Honors.
Eisenhower Theater
The Eisenhower Theater, on the north side, seats about 1,161 and is named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who signed the National Cultural Center Act into law on September 2, 1958. It primarily hosts plays and musicals, smaller-scale operas, ballet, and contemporary dance. The theater contains an orchestra pit for up to 35 musicians that is convertible to a forestage or additional seating space. The venue reopened in October 2008, following a 16-month renovation which altered the color scheme and seating arrangements.
Other performance venues
Other performance venues in the center include:
Justice Forum is a 144 seat lecture hall located at The Reach. Intended for film screenings, presentations, and ensembles this space is equipped with projection screens and the seats have a table arm for note-taking,
Millennium Stage. with 235 seats. Part of the concept of "Performing Arts for Everyone" launched by Chairman James Johnson in the winter of 1997, the Millennium Stage provides free performances every evening at 6:00 pm on two specially created stages at either end of the Grand Foyer. A broad range of art forms are featured on the Millennium Stage. These include performing artists and groups from all 50 states and an Artist-in-Residence program featuring artists performing several evenings in a month. Every show on the Millennium Stage is available as a simulcast of the live show at 6:00 pm, and is archived for later viewing via the Kennedy Center's website.
River Pavilion is a 268 capacity flexible interior space located at The Reach. Complete with a cafe this space offers brilliant views of the Potomac River. A wall of windows allows for natural sunlight and views of the reflecting pools and the Presidential Grove of Ginkgo trees.
Room PT-109 is a meeting space at The Reach with a capacity for 85. Great for meetings, dinners and conference breakout sessions. This space overlooks the reflecting pool.
Skylight Pavilion Located at The Reach and with capacity for 425 this vaulted ceiling space offers expansive views of the river and hosts events, receptions and dinners under the multiple glass skylights.
Studio F is large multipurpose rehearsal room located at The Reach. This space is larger than Studio J with a capacity of 164. Equipped with ballet barres and mirrors this space can be a green room, rehearsal space, breakout room or used for a reception or dinner.
Studio J is a multipurpose rehearsal room located at The Reach. This space is complete with ballet barres mirrors. Suitable for a green room, meeting space, reception, or dinner. This space has a capacity of 50.
Studio K is the largest multipurpose room at The Reach. With a capacity of 350 this space contains a viewing balcony and can be used for a variety of events, performances, theater, or break-out sessions.
The Family Theater, with 320 seats, opened December 9, 2005. It replaced the former American Film Institute Theater located adjacent to the Hall of States. Designed by the architectural firm Richter Cornbrooks Gribble, Inc. of Baltimore, the new theater incorporates a computerized rigging system; and a digital video projection system.
The Terrace Gallery. On March 12, 2003, the space formerly known as the Education Resource Center was officially designated the Terrace Gallery. It is now home to the Kennedy Center Jazz Club.
The Terrace Theater, with 490 seats, was constructed on the roof terrace level in the late 1970s as a Bicentennial gift from the people of Japan to the United States. It is used for chamber music, ballet and contemporary dance, and theater. The theater was renovated between 2015 and 2019 to update finishes, systems and make the venue ADA compliant.
The Theater Lab, with 399 seats, currently houses the whodunit Shear Madness which has been playing continuously since August 1987.
River and rooftop terraces
The Kennedy Center offers one of the few open-air rooftop terraces in Washington, D.C.; it is free of charge to the public from 10:00 a.m. until midnight each day, except when closed for private events. The wide terrace provides views in all four directions overlooking the Rosslyn skyline in Arlington County, Virginia, to the west; the Potomac River and National Airport to the south; the Washington Harbor and the Watergate complex to the north; and the Lincoln Memorial, Department of State buildings, George Washington University and the Saudi embassy to the east.
Productions
Dance
World premiere performances of Kennedy Center-commissioned works have been offered through a commissioning program for new ballet and dance works. These works have been created by America's foremost choreographers—Paul Taylor, Lar Lubovitch, and Merce Cunningham—for leading American dance companies including American Ballet Theatre, Ballet West, Houston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet. The Kennedy Center formerly supported and produced the Suzanne Farrell Ballet in performances at the center and on extended tours.
The center sponsors two annual dance residency programs for young people; Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell and the Dance Theatre of Harlem Residency Program, both now in their second decade. The Kennedy Center's Contemporary Dance series offers a wide range of artistic perspectives, from the foremost masters of the genre to the art form's newest and most exciting artists. In the 2008/2009 series, the Kennedy Center recognized Modern Masters of American Dance, bringing Martha Graham Dance Company, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Limón Dance Company, Mark Morris Dance Group, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Paul Taylor Dance Company.
The Center is known for its annual production of the ballet “The Nutcracker.” Over the years, it has been performed by various different companies throughout the United States. The Kansas City Ballet performed “The Nutcracker” at the Kennedy Center in November 2022.
Education
In recent years the Kennedy Center has dramatically expanded its education programs to reach young people, teachers, and families throughout the nation. The 2005 opening of the Family Theater has helped achieve this.
Performances for Young Audiences
Theater for Young Audiences (TYA)
The 2008–2009 season programming for Performances for Young Audiences reached more than 100 performances for young people and their families and over 110 performances for school audiences. The season included four Kennedy Center-commissioned world premieres: The Trumpet of the Swan, a musical adapted by Pulitzer Prize winner Marsha Norman from the book by E.B. White with music by Jason Robert Brown; Mermaids, Monsters, and the World Painted Purple, a new play by Marco Ramirez; Unleashed! The Secret Lives of White House Pets, a new play by Allyson Currin in collaboration with the White House Historical Association; and OMAN...O man!, a new dance production conceived and directed by Debbie Allen and is part of the center's Arab festival, Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World. Theater for Young Audiences on Tour toured with two nationally touring productions of The Phantom Tollbooth and Blues Journey.
On June 8, 2016 it was announced that the Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences-commissioned musical Elephant & Piggie's We are in a Play!, with book and lyrics by Mo Willems and music by Deborah Wicks La Puma, transferred to the Off-Broadway New Victory Theater in January 2017.
National Symphony Orchestra Performances for Young Audiences
Members of the National Symphony Orchestra will continue to present Teddy Bear Concerts throughout its seasons. During these concerts, children aged three to five bring their favorite stuffed animal to interactive musical programs featuring members of the NSO. Members of the NSO present NSO Ensemble Concerts, connecting music with various school subjects such as science and math, Kinderkonzerts, introducing kids to orchestral instruments and classical composers, as well as NSO Family Concerts.
Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF)
Started in 1969 by Roger L. Stevens, the Kennedy Center's founding chairman, the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) is a national theater program involving 18,000 students from colleges and universities nationwide which has served as a catalyst in improving the quality of college theater in the United States. The KCACTF has grown into a network of more than 600 academic institutions throughout the country, where theater departments and student artists showcase their work and receive outside assessment by KCACTF respondents. Since its establishment in 1969, KCACTF has reached more than 17.5 million theatergoing students and teachers nationwide.
Changing Education Through the Arts (CETA)
The Kennedy Center's CETA program's mission is make the arts a critical component in every child's education. CETA, which stands for Changing Education Through the Arts, creates professional development opportunities for teachers and school administrators. Each year over 700 teachers participate in approximately 60 courses that focus on ways to integrate the arts into their teaching. The Kennedy Center's CETA program also partners with sixteen schools in the Washington DC Metro area to develop long-range plan for arts integration at their school. Two of these schools, Kensington Parkwood Elementary School in Kensington, MD and Woodburn Elementary School for the Fine and Communicative Arts in Falls Church, Virginia serve as Research and Development schools for CETA.
Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell (EBSF)
Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell is a three-week summer ballet intensive for international pre-professional ballerinas ages 14–18. Suzanne Farrell, one of the most revered ballerinas of the 20th century, has been hosting this Balanchine-inspired intensive at the Kennedy Center since 1993. During their three weeks in Washington, D.C., Farrell's students practice technique and choreography during twice daily classes, six days per week. Outside of the classroom, excursions, activities and performance events are planned for EBSF students to fully immerse themselves in the culture of the nation's capital.
Festivals
The Kennedy Center presents festivals celebrating cities, countries, and regions of the world. The festivals are filled with a wide range of performing arts, visual arts, cuisine, and multi-media. In 2008, the center presented an exploration of the culture of Japan entitled Japan! culture + hyperculture. The 2009 Arab festival was an unprecedented exploration of the culture of the 22 Arab countries in the League of Arab States, titled Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World. In 2011, the Kennedy Center presented maximum INDIA, a three-week-long celebration of the arts and culture of the sub-continent.
Jazz
Since its establishment in September 1971, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has showcased jazz in solo, various ensembles, and big band settings. In 1994, the Kennedy Center appointed Dr. Billy Taylor as Artistic Advisor for Jazz, and his first installation was his own radio show Billy Taylor's Jazz at the Kennedy Center. Featuring his trio and guest artists in performance and discussion, the series ran for seven seasons on NPR. Since Taylor's appointment in 1994, the center has initiated numerous performance programs to promote jazz on a national stage, featuring leading international artists and rising stars, including: the Art Tatum Piano Panorama, named after Dr. Taylor's mentor; the Louis Armstrong Legacy, highlighting vocalists; the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival, the first festival by a major institution promoting outstanding female jazz artists; Beyond Category, featuring artists whose work transcends genre; the Platinum Series, with internationally acclaimed headliners; Jazz Ambassadors with the United States Department of State, sending musicians on worldwide goodwill tours (1998–2004); the KC Jazz Club, a highly praised intimate setting; and Discovery Artists in the KC Jazz Club, highlighting up-and-coming talent. Kennedy Center and NPR annually collaborated on the beloved holiday broadcast 'NPR's Piano Jazz Christmas', until the retirement of host Marian McPartland, and hence the show, in 2011. Since 2003, the center's jazz programs have been regularly broadcast on NPR's JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater. Recent highlights, produced by the center, have included Great Vibes, A Salute to Lionel Hampton (1995); Billy Taylor's 80th Birthday Celebration (2002); Nancy Wilson, A Career Celebration (2003); Michel Legrand with Patti Austin, part of the center's Festival of France (2004); A Tribute to Shirley Horn (2004); James Moody's 80th Birthday (2005); and Benny Golson at 80 (2009). In March 2007, the center hosted a once-in-a-lifetime celebration, Jazz in Our Time, which bestowed the center's Living Jazz Legend Award to over 30 revered artists. During Dr. Taylor's tenure, the center has created recognized educational initiatives, including national jazz satellite distance-learning programs; adult lecture series; master classes and workshops with national artists and local metropolitan Washington, D.C. students; and Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead—continuing the singer's legacy of identifying outstanding young talent. In 2015, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett performed there as part of their Cheek to Cheek Tour.
National Symphony Orchestra (NSO)
The National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center's artistic affiliate since 1987, has commissioned dozens of new works, among them Stephen Albert's RiverRun, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music; Morton Gould's Stringmusic, also a Pulitzer Prize-winner; William Bolcom's Sixth Symphony, Roger Reynolds's george WASHINGTON, and Michael Daugherty's UFO, a concerto for solo percussion and orchestra.
In addition to its regular season concerts, the National Symphony Orchestra presents outreach, education, and pops programs, as well as concerts at Wolf Trap each year. The annual American Residencies for the Kennedy Center is a program unique to the National Symphony Orchestra and the center. The center sends the Orchestra to a different state each year for an intensive period of performances and teaching encompassing full orchestral, chamber, and solo concerts, master classes and other teaching sessions. The Orchestra has given these residencies in 20 states so far: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North and South Carolina, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Nevada, and Wyoming/Montana.
The NSO recording of John Corigliano's Of Rage and Remembrance won a Grammy Award in 1996.
Performing Arts for Everyone (PAFE)
The Kennedy Center is the only U.S. institution that presents a free performance 365 days a year, daily at 6pm (12 noon on December 24). The Millennium Stage, created as part of the center's Performing Arts for Everyone initiative in 1997 and underwritten by James A. Johnson and Maxine Isaacs, features a broad spectrum of performing arts, from dance and jazz, to chamber music and folk, comedy, storytelling and theater. In the past twelve years, over three million people have attended Millennium Stage performances. The Millennium Stage has presented more than 42,000 artists, which includes over 4,000 international artists from more than 70 countries; performers representing all 50 states; and 20,000 Washington-area ensembles and solo artists. The Charlie Byrd Trio and the Billy Taylor Trio were the first artists to delight audiences with a free performance on March 1, 1997. In 1999, the center began web-casting each night's live performance, and continues to archive and maintain each event in a database of over 3,000 performances which may be accessed via the center's website. Performing Arts for Everyone initiatives also include low- and no-cost tickets available to performances on every stage of the Kennedy Center, and several outreach programs designed to increase access to Kennedy Center tickets and performances.
The Conservatory Project
An initiative of the Millennium Stage, the Conservatory Project is a semi-annual event occurring in February and May that is designed to present the best young musical artists in classical, jazz, musical theater, and opera from leading undergraduate and graduate conservatories, colleges and universities.
Artist Residencies
The Kennedy Center hosts residencies for artists to collaborate with the center's performing ensembles, programmers, and community initiatives. The center holds positions for Composer-in-Residence, Education Artist-in-Residence, and Culture Artist-in-Residence. The current artists-in-residence are The Roots, author Jacqueline Woodson, composer Carlos Simon, and pianist Robert Glasper.
Theater
The center has co-produced more than 300 new works of theater over the past 43 years, including Tony-winning shows ranging from Annie in 1977 to A Few Good Men, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The King and I, Titanic, and the American premiere of Les Misérables. The center also produced the Sondheim Celebration (six Stephen Sondheim musicals) in 2002, Tennessee Williams Explored (three of Tennessee Williams' classic plays) in 2004, Mame starring Christine Baranski in 2006, Carnival! in 2007, August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle (Wilson's complete ten-play cycle performed as fully staged readings) and Broadway: Three Generations both in 2008, and a new production of Ragtime in 2009. The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays has provided critical support in the development of 135 new theatrical works. In 2011, a new production of Follies starring Bernadette Peters opened at the Eisenhower Theater, and transferred to Broadway that fall.
Kennedy Center Honors
Since 1978, the Kennedy Center Honors have been awarded annually by the center's Board of Trustees. Each year, five artists or groups are honored for their lifetime contributions to American culture and the performing arts, including dance, music, theater, opera, film, and television.
Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
The Kennedy Center has awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor annually since 1998. Named after the 19th-century humorist Mark Twain, it is presented to individuals who have "had an impact on American society in ways similar to" Twain.
Local performing arts organizations
Many local arts organizations present (or have presented) their work at the Kennedy Center. Some of these include:
American Film Institute
The Washington Chorus
The Cathedral Choral Society of Washington
Choral Arts Society of Washington
Opera Lafayette
VSA arts
The Washington Ballet
Washington Concert Opera
Washington National Opera
Washington Performing Arts Society
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
Young Concert Artists of Washington
Other events
The Kennedy Center regularly hosts special Inauguration Day events and galas during the start of each presidential term.
During the United States Bicentennial, the Kennedy Center hosted numerous special events throughout 1976, including six commissioned plays. The center hosted free performances by groups from each state. In December 1976, Mikhail Baryshnikov's version of The Nutcracker ballet played for two weeks.
In 1977, the Opera House hosted George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra with Rex Harrison and Elizabeth Ashley. The American Ballet Theatre has also frequently performed at the Kennedy Center. The troupe's 2004 production of Swan Lake, choreographed by Kevin McKenzie, was taped there, shown on PBS in June 2005, and released on DVD shortly after. Productions of The Lion King and Trevor Nunn's production of My Fair Lady (choreographed by Matthew Bourne) were presented in the 2007–2008 season, to name a few.
The Kennedy Center at 50, a concert to celebrate the center's 50th anniversary, was held on September 14, 2021, and aired on PBS on October 1, 2021. Audra McDonald hosted, and First lady Jill Biden gave opening remarks.
Millennium Stage Archives
The Kennedy Center stages free daily performances on its Millennium Stage in the Grand Foyer. Featured on the Millennium Stage are a range of art forms, including performing artists and groups.
The two theaters of The Millennium Stage are equipped with lights, sound systems, and cameras. Every free event performed at this stage is recorded and archived on the Kennedy Center's website. These archives have been available to the public for free since 2009.
VSA
VSA (formerly VSA arts) is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1974 by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to create a society where people with disabilities learn through, participate in, and enjoy the arts. VSA provides educators, parents, and artists with resources and the tools to support arts programming in schools and communities. VSA showcases the accomplishments of artists with disabilities and promotes increased access to the arts for people with disabilities. Each year 7 million people participate in VSA programs through a nationwide network of affiliates and in 54 countries around the world. Affiliated with the Kennedy Center since 2005, VSA was officially merged into the organization in 2011 to become part of the center's Department of VSA and Accessibility.
Renovations and expansion
On June 16, 1971, Congress authorized appropriations for one year to the Board of Trustees for operating and maintenance expenses. In following years, the appropriations were provided to the National Park Service for operations, maintenance, security, safety and other functions not directly related to the performing arts activities. The National Park Service and the Kennedy Center signed a cooperative agreement requiring each party to pay a portion of the operating and maintenance costs based on what proportion of time the building was to be used for performing arts functions. The agreement did not specify who was responsible for long-term capital improvement projects at the Kennedy Center, along with only periodic funding by Congress for one-time projects.
1990–2005
In fiscal years 1991 and 1992, Congress recommended that $27.7 million be allocated for capital improvement projects at the center, including $12 million for structural repairs to the garage and $15.7 million for structural and mechanical repairs, as well as projects for improving handicapped access. In 1994, Congress gave full responsibility to the Kennedy Center for capital improvement projects and facility management. From 1995 to 2005, over $200 million of federal funds were allocated to the Kennedy Center for long-term capital projects, repairs, and to bring the center into compliance with modern fire safety and accessibility codes. Improvements included renovation of the Concert Hall, Opera House, plaza-level public spaces, and a new fire alarm system. The renovations projects were completed 13 to 50 percent over budget, due to modifications of plans during the renovations resulting in overtime and other penalties. Renovations to the Eisenhower Theater were completed in 2008.
2013–present
Beginning in 2013, the center commenced with an expansion project on four acres in the center's South Plaza. The expansion adds classroom, rehearsal, and performance space and includes three pavilions (the Welcome Pavilion, the Skylight Pavilion, and the River Pavilion), reflecting pool, a tree grove, a sloping lawn to be used for outdoor performances, and a pedestrian bridge over Rock Creek Parkway. The architect is Steven Holl, with assistance from architectural firm BNIM. Edmund Hollander Landscape Architects is the landscape architect.
Plans for the project began after David M. Rubenstein donated $50 million to the center. A groundbreaking ceremony took place in December 2014. Originally estimated to cost $100 million, the cost of the project grew to $175 million, and design changes and a major D.C. sewer project significantly delayed construction. The expansion, entitled the REACH, opened on September 7, 2019 with an opening arts festival. The fundraising goal for the new REACH expansion grew to $250 million as the project progressed, and the target was achieved just two days before opening. Since its opening, the REACH has received several design awards, such as The Architect's Newspapers Best of the Year Award in the Cultural category and an Honor Award in the 2020 AIA New York Design Awards.
Management
Prior to 1980, daily operations of the Kennedy Center were overseen by the chairman of the board of directors, and by the board itself. Aspects of the center's programming and operations were overseen by various other people. George London was the Kennedy Center's first executive director (often called "artistic director" by the press, although that was not the formal title), serving from 1968 to 1970, while William McCormick Blair, Jr. was its first administrative director. Julius Rudel took over as music director in 1971. In 1972, Martin Feinstein replaced London and held the position of artistic director until 1980. Marta Casals Istomin was named the first female artistic director in 1980, a position she held until 1990; she was also the first person to be formally invested with that title.
In 1991, the board created the position of chief operating officer to remove the day-to-day operations of the Kennedy Center from the chairman and board. Lawrence Wilker was hired to fill the position, which later was retitled president. The artistic director continued to oversee artistic programming, under the president's direction.
Michael Kaiser became president of the Kennedy Center in 2001. He left the organization when his contract expired in September 2014.
In September 2014, Deborah F. Rutter became its third president; she is the first woman to hold that post. Rutter had previously been president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, a position she held from 2003. In 2015 Rutter tapped renowned arts organizations executive Robert Van Leer to assist with leadership and expansions.
Board of Trustees
The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, formally known as the Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, maintains and administers the center and its site. David M. Rubenstein is the chairman of the board.
The honorary chair members of the board are the First Lady and her living predecessors. Members of the board are specified by 20 USC 76h and include ex officio members such as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Librarian of Congress, the Secretary of State (substituting for the director of the United States Information Agency after that agency was abolished), the chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts, the Mayor of the District of Columbia, the Superintendent of schools of the District of Columbia, the Director of the National Park Service, the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, as well as 36 general trustees appointed by the president of the United States for six-year terms.
See also
List of memorials to John F. Kennedy
List of theaters in Washington, D.C.
Architecture of Washington, D.C.
ReferencesNotes'
External links
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts at Google Cultural Institute
Performing arts centers in Washington, D.C.
Concert halls in the United States
Opera houses in Washington, D.C.
Theatres in Washington, D.C.
Foggy Bottom
Center for the Performing Arts
Members of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington
Monuments and memorials in Washington, D.C.
Event venues established in 1971
Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway
Edward Durell Stone buildings
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada%20%28mythology%29
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Lada (mythology)
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Lada and Lado are alleged Slavic deities. Lada was first mentioned around 1405-1412 in the sermons of Lucas of Wielki Koźmin, which warned against worshipping Lada and other gods during spring ceremonies and folk performances. They owe their popularity to Długosz, who in one of his sources recognized Lada as a goddess and in another as a god of war, the Polish equivalent of the Roman god Mars, to Aleksandr Faminstyn, who recognized the word Lada in Russian songs as the goddess of marriage, and to scholar Boris Rybakov, who insisted on recognizing her historicity. However, the vast majority of religious scholars and Slavists reject the historicity of these deities, believing that they owe their divine status to a misunderstanding of the song refrains by medieval scribes.
By some scholars of Baltic mythology, Lada was also worshipped by the Balts, but this view is also considered controversial.
Planetoid (2832) Lada was named after her.
Sources
Polish
The first source mentioning the theonym Lada is the Gniezno Sermons, which were written by Lucas of Wielki Koźmin around 1405-1412, without giving any description:
Similar cautions, also without any description, are also found in: Statua provincialia breviter (1420-1422), Sermones per circulum anni Cunradi (1423), Postilla Husitae anonymi, and in glosses of Life of Adalbert of Prague.
The theonyms contained in the Gniezno Sermons were also repeated by Jan Długosz, who made an interpretatio romana and compared Lada to the Roman war god Mars:
After Długosz the information about Lada was repeated by Maciej Miechowita, Marcin Kromer, Alexander Guagnini, Maciej Stryjkowski, Marcin and Joachim Bielski, and the priest Jakub Wujek. Maciej Miechowita, who copied information from Długosz, did not agree with him, however, on the function of Lada and corrected Długosz' information, comparing her to the Greek Leda and recognising her as the mother of Lel and Polel:
Outside the Annals, in Insignia seu clenodia Regis et Regni Poloniae, Długosz also mentions the female deity Lada, worshipped in the village of Łada near the river Łada, from which the Łada family took its name: "Łada took its name from the name of a Polish goddess who was worshipped in Mazovia in the town and village of Łada". She is also mentioned in the : "there was a church of three idols, which were called Lada, Boda, Leli, to which the ordinary people went on the first of May to make prayers to them and to offer them.".
East Slavic
God Lado appears twice in Eastern sources. The first is the Hustyn Chronicle, written in Church Slavonic from the 17th century, with an uncertain exact date of composition and an uncertain author. This source recognizes Lado as the god of marriage and joy, and compares him to the Greek god Bacchus-Dionysus:
Similar informations are found in the Kievan Synopsis of 1674 by Innocent Gizel, which mentions Lado as a deity of happynest, to whom offerings were made during wedding preparations. Leli and Poleli, and their mother, were also supposed to be worshipped by singing "lado, lado, lado".
Historicity
Sources
The only "independent" source mentioning the deity of Lada/Lado are the Gniezno Sermons, and other sources are dependent on them. The theonyms contained therein were then used and popularized by Jan Długosz in his Annals, where he did interpretatio romana and compared Lada to the Roman god of war Mars. Długosz's description was then copied by subsequent Polish authors, such as Maciej Miechowita. Długosz and Miechowita together became sources for Marcin Kromer. Długosz, Miechowita and Kromer together became sources for Maciej Stryjkowski, Marcin and Joachim Bielski. Alexander Guagnini took his information from Stryjkowski and was even accused of plagiarism by him. He differs, however, as to the function of the gods. The information contained in was copied from Maciej Miechowita. Additionally, there is no information about such a cult on Łysa Góra in other sources and it is contradicted by archaeology.
East Slavic sources cannot be considered independent sources either. Although the Hustyn Chronicle contains original content, it is also a compilation of various earlier East Slavic as well as Polish sources. The fragment of Chronicle mentioning the god Lado copies information from Kromer, Marcin Bielski, and Guagnini. The same problem applies to the Synopsis, which copied information from Kromer and Stryjkowski, as well as from the Chronicle.
Genesis
Originally, the authenticity of the deity/deities was not denied and they appeared in the Slavic Romantics. Their authenticity was also assumed by early 18th and 19th century authors, such as Mikhail Popov, Mikhail Chulkov and Andrey Kaisarov, who assumed the authenticity of the Synopsis. The value of the Chronicle was also recognized by the Russian musicologist and composer Aleksandr Faminstyn in his 1884 work Bozhestva drevnikh slavyan. There he writes of a 17th century song from Croatia which notes "the holy god Lado" sung by girls dancing around a bonfire:
Additionally, he analyzed songs from all over the Slavdom, the existence of which was to prove the existence of the goddess Lada, wife of Lado.
Faminstyn believed that the theonyms should be translated as "consent", and connected them with the Roman goddess of concord and harmony Concordia, whose name also translates as "consent", and further with the goddess Bona Dea.
Starting in the 19th century, critical voices began to appear in the scientific community about the authenticity of the deities. One of the first and most influential was ethnographer and linguist Alexander Potebnja. After analyzing the source material, mainly song fragments, he came to the conclusion that lada appears in spring, summer and wedding songs, and that there are no grounds to consider this word as a remnant of the old goddess. This position was later upheld by linguists Gregor Kreka and Aleksander Brückner, as well as Max Vasmer and Oleg Trubachyov. Contemporary scholars overwhelmingly reject the authenticity of the deities Lada and Lado, believing, as in the case of Jesza, that the word lada, incomprehensible to the scribe, found in folk songs, was mistakenly considered a theonym, and then its attributes were added. This view is shared by scholars who consider at least part of Długosz's mythological account to be valuable, such as Aleksander Gieysztor, Andrzej Szyjewski, or Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov.
The last influential scholar to insist on recognizing the historicity of Lada was Boris Rybakov. In his work, Yazychestvo drevnikh slavyan (1981), he hypothesized an Indo-European origin for the goddess Lada and compared her to the Greek Leda and Demeter. In addition, he considered another alleged goddess, , to be her daughter, and considered them both to be identical with the Rozhanitse, and to be important deities in the Slavic pantheon before the rise of the "Vladimir's pantheon". According to him, Lada and ruled over spring nature and agricultural work, fertility, love and marriage. However, he negatively referred to the male god Lado claiming that lado is a vocative case from lada.
The word lada means "wife, female lover, consort", and "husband, male lover, consort" – it is a two-gender noun and was used for women as well as men; in this respect Brückner compares it to the Polish word sługa. The word occurs, for example, in Old East Slavic as лада, lada "husband" (e.g. in The Tale of Igor's Campaign, the longing wife calls out: "bring my husband (lada) to me"), Czech lada "beloved" or "maiden, girl" (e.g. in : "Oh, what a wonder has happened, Jesus Christ, over your beloved (lada)"), Ukrainian ла́до, lado "husband", ла́да, lada "wife", Serbo-Croatian ла̏да lada "wife", or Bulgarian ла́да, lada "the second daughter in the family who goes for water during the laduvane (ладу́ване – wedding tradition)". knows the Polish word łada only from sermons speaking about deity, so probably the word was no longer functioning in living language in the 15th century. The form Alado appearing in Postilla Husitae anonymi is probably the result of an attempt to adapt the word to Italian phonology. The form lado is not a separate word, but a vocative case from the word lada. From Slavic languages the word was borrowed into Baltic languages e.g. as lado, laduto etc.
Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak tried to read the Długosz's theonym Lyada differently from other researchers. According to him, the Latin Lyada corresponds to the Old Polish form *Lęda because the consonant ⟨l⟩ in medieval Latin in Poland was written as ly or li, and he considers that the reading *Łada is unjustified and represents a folk etymology. He believed that *Lęda was supposed to be a pagan theonym that had been demonized, and he refers here to the Russian dialectical words ляд, lyad, and ляда, lyada meaning "unclean spirit, devil". However, as Michał Łuczyński notes, the assumption that the ly notation corresponds to the vowel ⟨l⟩ justifies the reading of the Latin name as *Lada rather than *Lęda. In addition, an analysis of Długosz's personal spelling features shows that the ly notation also served him for the consonant ⟨ł⟩, e.g: Lyassza Gora "Łysa Góra", or Lyeba "Łeba". Therefore, it should be assumed that Długosz's Lyada corresponds to the old Polish form *Łada, as it is interpreted traditionally.
Further etymology
The Proto-Slavic form of lada is reconstructed as *lada. Further etymology is unclear; it is generally believed that *lada is etymologically related to the Proto-Slavic noun and root *ladъ (, ) meaning "harmony, order". According to Brückner, the word derives from the verb ładzić "to concur, agree" (Proto-Slavic *laditi) → "concurring, agreeing couple" → "husband, wife" or "lovers". The etymology of the word *ladъ is also unclear, and an kinship with Gothic 𐌻𐌴𐍄𐌰𐌽 (letan "to let") has been suggested, or some relation to the word *lagoda "gentleness" – according to Brückner and Nikolay Shanskiy lad contains the decayed root la- "over" found in lagoda expanded with the suffix -d (cf. зад zad, под pod). According to Shanskiy lad originally meant "top, peak", as opposed to pod "bottom, pit". He also points to the word сладить, sladit''' "to win (over) someone" and suggests the following shift in meaning: "to win" → "to bring order" → *laditi "to live in harmony" → *ladъ "harmony, order".
Dida and Dido
Based on the Did-Lada refrain, uncritical and romantic old researchers, in addition to inventing Lada, also invented the god Dido and the goddess Dida.
Faminstyn considered these words as borrowed from the Baltic languages and pointed to the Lithuanian didis "big, great". However, the attested fragment from the Slovak songs Didi-Jane, Didi-Jene "o St. John" sung on Saint John day may indicate to the native origins of these words (Proto-Slavic *did- "big, great"). The Proto-Slavic form may be continued by the Polish *dzidzi, which is most likely found in another theonym mentioned by Długosz: Dzidzilela.
Lada as Baltic goddess
There is also a view among Baltic Romantics and some scholars that Lada was also worshipped by the Balts.
The word lada, and its various derivatives, appear in the refrains of sutartinės, Lithuanian polyphony songs, in various combinations, such as Lado tatato / Laduto, laduto / Loduta, loduta / Liadeli, liadeli / Ladutela, laduta, and others. Zenonas Slaviūnas grouped these songs as follows: workers' songs, wedding songs, military songs, family songs, dance songs, and songs about nature. Similarly, but more precisely, Vanda Misevičienė classified them, moving the songs about crane to the groups of rye-gathering songs and the songs about fir tree to the groups of family songs.
According to Norbertas Vėlius, although the songs belong to different groups, they all have much in common. For example, in the sutartinės about the conifer, the image about the maturation of young people is poetically represented by a conifer tree that outgrows all the trees in the forest. In another song, a crane is called upon to fly into the garden, pick flowers and make a wreath – this motif evokes the idea that a bride-to-be should start making a wreath to join the ranks of adults. In another sutartinės the shooter kills a crane, which is supposed to mean a girl taken by a boy, and in yet another song the crane is asked to feed "his children". The songs Kad mes buvom and Selagij viteli rikavo are openly wedding songs and tell of courtship. Also, the song Išjos brolis, which has a military character, is sung on behalf of a sister who talks about her feelings. Finally, the song Laduto, laduto tells about the bad relationship between daughter-in-law and father-in-law. According to Vėlius, all songs with these refrains refer to young people, especially girls who have reached adulthood. Thus, it should be considered that if the word Lado occurring in these refrains had any meaning, it should be associated primarily with young people.
In his search for the origin of these words, Vėlius points to Stryjowski's Chronicle, where he describes the custom of dancing and singing Lado, lado ir mano lado in honor of "Liada or Ladona – the mother of Castor and Pollux". In another place of his Chronicle dedicated to Lithuania and Samogitia, he writes that Lithuanians worshipped the god Dzidzis Lado, in whose honor they sang Lado, lado, lado didis mūsų dieve. He also mentions Kromer's Chronicle and the Kievan Synopsis. He notes, however, that the reliability of these sources is low and cites the opinions of Lithuanian researchers, such as Simonas Stanevičius, who believed that the god Lado was invented by Stryjkowski on the basis of a folk songs, Simonas Daukantas, who regarded the god Dzidzis Lado as a distorted form of Titis leido referring to Perkūnas, Mikalojus Akelaitis, according to whom Lado is a distorted form from laide or leide, and Brückner, according to whom Lado was borrowed into Lithuanian songs along with the Kupala night, and several other Lithuanian scholars who rejected the deity's authenticity. He also recalls that the Slavic deity Lada/Lado is regarded with distrust by Slavic scholars. He also mentions several Lithuanian and Slavic researchers who accepted the deity's authenticity, but notes that many of them were not mythologists but ethnographers who did not study the deity's authenticity.
However, according to him, an argument for the existence of the goddess could be the Bulgarian custom of laduvane, during which the second girl in the family who goes to fetch water is called "lada". The Greek dragon Ladon may also be an argument, assuming that the coincidence of the similarity of words is not accidental, and the Lithuanian words ladėti, laduti meaning "to reprimand, abuse", "to curse, damn", as well as the Latvian lādēt, and words from the semantic field "to curse", also often have a mythological meaning.
Bronislava Kerbelytė argues against the existence of the goddess Lada among the Balts. She states that the Slavic chant lada generally appears in wedding songs, and she reads the word did as "dziad, grandfather", which sometimes appears in the names of Slavic ritual objects around the winter solstice, such as dednik (or badnjak) or didukh, which are associated with the cult of fertility. In Russian, the wedding is sometimes called rukobitije ("crossing of arms"), from which the clapping while singing the refrains of the lada during children's songs may derive. She further points out the analogy between East Slavic songs with the refrain lada and songs during Līgo noted by Eduards Volters. Latvian līgt meaning "to employ," "to make peace," and līgums "to agree," along with Lithuanian lygti, sulygti "to consult, negotiate, agree," correspond to the Slavic word lad. She gives the example of a story about a Gypsy who forced a peasant to exchange horses by jokingly suggesting to the villager that they should go to an inn, shake hands, and shout liko. When they did so, the gypsy took the peasant's horse, taking advantage of the fact that the peasant had forgotten the meaning of shaking hands and the shouting. The symbol of crossed hands was also used during Lithuanian summer solstice celebrations, e.g. a couple would jump over the fire holding hands: if they let go while jumping, they would not get married.
Jan Łasicki (16-17th century) mentions god Tavalas in one of his works. Scholars have compared this name to a song written by Simonas Daukantas sung by boys dragging a log on Christmas Eve, which was supposed to prove the existence of the god Tabalas:
However, an analysis of the song and language shows that tabalai is derived from the verb tabaluoti "to dangle". The authenticity of other deities mentioned by Łasicki is also rejected, e.g.: alleged theonym Šluotražis is derived from the word šluotražis "broom" and was a magical and symbolic (related to healing) ritual object, to which it has already been explained by many scholars. Thus, according to Kerbelytė, there are no grounds to consider Tabalas or Lada as Lithuanian deities – these words were only magic words or objects used in rituals and ceremonies. The lado refrain is also considered a ritual vocabulary by Lithuanian ethnologist Rimantas Balsys, who blames the misunderstanding in the Baltic context on the uncritical use of 16th century sources and the activity of the Romantics, who considered the ritual ledų dienos'' ("day of ice") as proof of the existence of the winter goddess Lada. In the case of the historicity of the Slavic deity, he takes a neutral position.
References
Notes
References
Bibliography
Slavic pseudo-deities
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%20G.%20Birney
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James G. Birney
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James Gillespie Birney (February 4, 1792November 18, 1857) was an American abolitionist, politician, and attorney born in Danville, Kentucky. He changed from being a planter and slave owner to abolitionism, publishing the abolitionist weekly The Philanthropist. He twice served as the presidential nominee for the anti-slavery Liberty Party.
Birney pursued a legal career in Danville after graduating from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) and studying under Alexander J. Dallas. He volunteered for the campaigns of Henry Clay, served on the town council, and became a Freemason. In 1816, he won election to the Kentucky House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. In 1818, he established a cotton plantation in Madison County, Alabama, and he won election to the Alabama House of Representatives the following year. Birney eventually sold the plantation and established a legal practice in Huntsville, Alabama, becoming one of the most successful lawyers in the region.
During the 1820s, Birney became increasingly troubled by the issue of slavery. He became a member of the American Colonization Society, which advocated for the migration of African Americans to the continent of Africa. After serving in various roles for the organization, Birney began calling for the immediate abolition of slavery. In 1835, he moved to Cincinnati, founding The Philanthropist the following year. He also became a member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, but resigned from that group due to his opposition to equal rights for women. Birney accepted the Liberty Party's nomination in 1840 and received 0.3% of the popular vote. He accepted the Liberty Party nomination again in 1844 and received 2.3% of the popular vote, finishing behind James K. Polk and Clay. Birney moved to Michigan in 1841 and helped establish the town of Bay City, Michigan.
Youth
Born to an affluent Irish Episcopalian slaveholder of the same name in Danville, Kentucky, James G. Birney lost his mother, Martha Reed, aged three. He and his sister were raised by their widowed aunt, who had come over from Ireland at the request of his father to look after the two. He was influenced by his aunt's opposition to slavery; she refused to own slaves. By 1795, his father's two sisters and their families had migrated from Ireland, settling on farms near his home. Most of his mother's relatives had also migrated nearby, settling in other areas of Mercer County, Kentucky. Growing up, he saw the issue of slavery from a variety of perspectives. Though his father fought to prevent their state of Kentucky from joining the Union as a slave state, when the effort failed, he decided that until the legislature abolished slavery from the state as a whole, a person could own slaves as long as he treated them humanely. Other members of Birney's family felt a personal moral responsibility and refused to own slaves. For his own part, Birney agreed with his father and received his first slave, Michael, a boy his own age, at age six. However, for much of his youth and education, he was under the influence of teachers and friends with strong anti-slavery views. For example, he attended several sermons given by a Baptist abolitionist by the name of David Barrow in his youth, which he later recalled with fondness.
Schooling
When Birney turned eleven he was sent to Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where "one of Birney’s teachers, Robert Hamilton Bishop, was one of the state's earliest outspoken opponents of slavery." He returned home two years later to enter a school run by a Presbyterian man that had just opened in Danville, where he excelled in his studies, mostly based in the sciences. In 1808, at age sixteen, he entered the College of New Jersey (later, Princeton University). He studied political philosophy, logic, and moral philosophy, and became known as a proficient debater. Among his classmates, he became particularly good friends with George M. Dallas. He studied under the president of the school (Samuel Stanhope Smith), both a logician and an author who was somewhat anti-slavery. He was also exposed to the anti-slavery thinking of John McLean. Birney graduated from Princeton on September 26, 1810.
When he returned to Danville following graduation, he worked for the campaign of Henry Clay for one month. After this, he began to study law in Philadelphia, at the office of Alexander J. Dallas, the father of his Princeton friend and classmate. Enjoying considerable financial means, he had a horse carriage for transportation and was always well-dressed. He also made friends with members of the local Quaker community. He remained in Philadelphia with Dallas for the next three years, until he passed the Philadelphia bar examination and was admitted to the bar association, giving him the right to practice law.
Law practice
In May 1814 Birney returned to his hometown and took up the practice of law there, becoming the acting attorney for the local bank. He handled both civil and criminal lawsuits in Danville and other outlying cities of Kentucky. The economy of Kentucky was rather poor at this time, as the War of 1812 had caused a schism in trade within the state. Having trouble making ends meet, Birney made his living at this time primarily as a claims adjuster.
Following in the footsteps of his father, Birney became a Freemason upon his return to Danville and a member of Danville's town council, making him a member of the town's social elite. He also fell in love with Agatha McDowell and married her on February 1, 1816, at a Presbyterian church; they had 11 children, of whom 6 survived to adulthood. Among the wedding gifts the young couple received were slaves from his father and father-in-law. As Birney had yet to fully develop his abolitionist views, he accepted them kindly. It should be said that later in life Birney was known to say on many occasions that he does not recall ever believing that slavery was right.
Kentucky politics
In 1815, he again worked for the successful campaign of Henry Clay, who was running for U.S. Congress. He also campaigned for George Madison, who was running for Kentucky Governor and won (Madison died months later). George Madison was also the maternal uncle of his wife, Agatha McDowell. His political sentiments at the time were with the Democratic-Republican Party. In 1816, Birney won a seat in the Kentucky Legislature representing Mercer County, becoming a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives at age twenty-four. In 1817, the Kentucky Senate drafted a resolution that proposed opening a dialogue between the newly installed governor of Kentucky, Gabriel Slaughter, and the governors of Ohio and Indiana for the purpose of passing laws in those states calling for the capture and return of runaway slaves from Kentucky.
Birney staunchly opposed this resolution and it was defeated, though a new resolution was soon after drafted and passed, despite Birney's opposition yet again. As he saw very little future for himself in Kentucky politics, Birney decided to move to Alabama with the hope of starting a political career.
Alabama
In February 1818, he moved his family to Madison County, Alabama, where he purchased a cotton plantation and slaves, most of whom came with him from Kentucky. In 1819, Birney became a member of the Alabama House of Representatives representing Madison County. While there, he helped draft an act that would afford slaves tried by jury paid legal counsel, barring the master and prosecutorial witness or their relatives from being members of the jury. This, along with his opposition to the nomination of Andrew Jackson for U.S. president, hampered many of his future political ambitions in Alabama. He opposed Jackson primarily on the grounds that he was foul-tempered, having executed two men personally.
In 1823, after experiencing many troubles with his cotton plantation, Birney moved to Huntsville, Alabama, to practice law again. His financial troubles were due in part to his habit of horse race gambling, which he gave up eventually after many losses. Most of his slaves stayed on at the plantation, though he did bring with him to Huntsville his servant Michael, as well as Michael's wife and three children.
At this time there were a number of other practicing lawyers in that area, including one John McKinley. His name preceded him, and he was admitted to the Alabama bar association. McKinley, along with several other prominent members of society, successfully campaigned for Birney to become the solicitor of Alabama's Fifth District in 1823. By the end of the year he decided to close his plantation, and sold the slaves at the plantation to a friend of his that was known for his good temperament and kind treatment of slaves. Following the sale of the plantation and slaves, he achieved financial stability, bought a generous plot of land and constructed a large brick house in Huntsville. As was true upon his first return to Danville years back, he once again became a member of the social elite in this new town. In addition to his duties as a public prosecutor, his private law office proved quite lucrative.
By 1825, he was the wealthiest lawyer in northern Alabama, partnering up with Arthur F. Hopkins. The next year, he resigned as solicitor general to pursue his own career with more tenacity. Over the next several years, he worked, often defending blacks, was appointed a trustee of a private school and joined the Presbyterian Church. In 1828, he became an elector on the John Quincy Adams and Richard Rush ticket. He strongly supported Adams for his conservatism, viewing the politics of Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun as a threat to the Union. To Birney's great disappointment, Jackson won. However, he found other ways to champion his beliefs. In 1829, his fellow citizens elected him mayor of Huntsville, Alabama, allowing him to act on his newfound faith and work for reforms in public education and temperance.
American Colonization Society
Birney's religious fervor also encouraged him to reevaluate his views on slavery. Increasingly alienated by the politics of the Jackson administration, he discovered the American Colonization Society in 1826. In 1829, he was introduced to Josiah Polk of the ACS by Henry Clay and became an early supporter of the society. He was intrigued by the possibility of solving the supposed problem constituted by free blacks by starting a colony for them in Liberia, Africa. In January 1830 he helped begin a chapter in Huntsville, Alabama, and subscribed to its literature.
He was then sent on a trip to the East Coast for the University of Alabama in search of professors for the college, following the receipt of a generous endowment for the school. From August through October 1830 he visited Philadelphia, New Brunswick, New York, New Haven, Boston, Ohio, and Kentucky. He returned home with numerous recommendations, and was thanked for his services. While in these areas, with the exception of Kentucky, he was greatly encouraged by the presence of free states in the Union. This same year, he had some sort of falling out with Henry Clay and also ceased further campaigning for the Democratic-Republican Party.
In 1831, Birney began considering moving to Illinois, as he was troubled with the idea of his children growing up in a slave state. He mentioned a move to Illinois frequently, stating he would free his remaining slave Michael, Michael's wife, and three children there. However, this never came to pass. In 1832, the American Colonization Society offered him a position as an agent to travel around the South promoting their cause and he accepted. He met with some success, including organizing the departure of settlers to Liberia and writing essays in defense of colonization. However, in failing to convert his audience to colonization, he began to doubt its effectiveness and the acceptability of slavery. By 1832, he had decided to return to Danville, Kentucky.
Gradual emancipation
A year before returning to Danville, Birney wrote letters to slaveholders in Kentucky who had previously expressed their support for emancipation, suggesting they soon hold a convention on the matter. On December 6, 1832, the gathering was held, with only nine slave owners in attendance. Most of these pledged not to emancipate their current slaves, but to emancipate their slave's offspring at age twenty-one. This small group also aimed to bring in non-slaveholders to promote this idea of "gradual emancipation".
Abolitionist
Birney's repudiation of the American Colonization Society and its projects was enormously influential; Gerrit Smith called it "celebrated".
He was the society's employee, one of its agents. "No man has a better knowledge of colonization and its practical effects at the South."
In 1833, he read a paper signed by several Christian organizations that repudiated the tenets of the American Colonization Society and, instead, called for the immediate abolition of slavery. Almost the entirety of the following number of the society's magazine, African Repository, was devoted to an answer or "review" of him. This, along with life experience and education, brought Birney to the realization that slavery must be abolished once and for all. Inspired by correspondence and discussions with Theodore Weld, the organizer of the Lane Seminary debates, he freed his remaining slaves and declared himself an abolitionist in 1834.
Birney's abolitionist writings
Abolitionist newspaper
Birney decided to make Cincinnati his base, and made contacts with friends and fellow members of the abolitionist movement there. He worked to gain support in publishing an anti-slavery newspaper. At this time, there were four newspapers in the city, and all but the Cincinnati Daily Gazette released "roundabout" editorials the next day that assailed the faults of abolitionism in general. One paper, The Daily Post (not to be confused with the Cincinnati Post), even called for lynching those who set out to author anti-slavery literature in their city.
The Gazette, which was owned by editor Charles Hammond, came to be an ally of sorts to Birney and his paper. While Hammond himself did not support equal rights for negroes, he did support the idea of a free press and freedom of speech. He also strongly resented the attempts of the South to legalize slaveholding in the North.
Birney's original plan was to publish his abolitionist newspaper in Danville. In August 1835, a meeting of "4 or 500 persons, has met at Danville, K., to warn James G. Birney against publication of his Abolition paper. A Committee of 5 was selected to wait on [meet with] Birney, and serve him with a copy of their Resolutions. He must be a daft man to persevere! It will be at his own peril. He will rue the consequences, as sure as he persists." In September we find that he "has abandoned the project of publishing an Abolition paper in Danville, Ky., and has removed to Cincinnati. A very good idea."
When Birney began publication of his abolitionist weekly, The Philanthropist in Cincinnati, he and the paper were from the first the subject of controversy, with the majority of local newspapers and others doing everything they could to make him feel unwelcome. The Louisville Journal wrote a scathing editorial that all but directly threatened his paper.
On July 14, 1836, a mob destroyed Birney's press. On July 30 the press was attacked again; the printing press was broken into pieces and the largest piece dragged through the streets and dumped in the river. The mob attempted to tar and feather Birney but could not find him. They went on to destroy houses of Blacks; the whole constitutes the Cincinnati Riots of 1836.
However, writing for his newspaper helped him develop ideas for fighting slavery legislatively. He used them as he worked with Salmon P. Chase to protect slaves who escaped to Ohio. In 1837, he was fined $50 () for harboring a slave. That same year, the American Anti-Slavery Society recruited him as an officer and corresponding secretary, and he moved his family to New York.
Liberty Party
With the American Anti-Slavery Society's schism in 1840, he resigned his position as he opposed equal rights for women. Also in that year, the Liberty Party, a newly formed political party whose only aim was abolition, nominated Birney for president. Accurately predicting he would not win, he instead went as a delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. The convention named him a vice-president and spread his writings throughout the United Kingdom. When he came back, the Liberty Party made use of his legal expertise in their efforts to defend blacks and fugitive slaves. They chose him as their candidate again in the 1844 presidential election with a campaign designed to draw votes away from the Whig Party candidate Henry Clay. In the New York election, Birney achieved 15,812 votes after Clay lost to the Democrat James K. Polk by only 5,106 votes; if Clay had won this state he would have achieved a majority in the Electoral College and won the election.
Michigan
In 1841, Birney moved to Saginaw, Michigan, with his new wife and family. He lived at the Webster House in Saginaw for a few months until his home in Bay City, Michigan, was ready. Birney was in the land development business in Bay City. He was a trustee of the reorganized Saginaw Bay Company and was deeply involved in the planning of Bay City, Michigan, where Birney Park is named after him. Birney and the other developers supported churches in their community and set aside money for their construction. In addition to running for the presidency in 1840 and 1844, Birney received 3023 votes for Governor of Michigan in 1845. Birney remained in Michigan until 1855, when his health drove him to move to the East Coast.
While in Bay City, Birney led a life of farming and agricultural pursuits in addition to his legal work, land development, and national anti-slavery involvement. He commented on the lack of help available in the city and was found working on his own fence.
His son, James Birney, came to Bay City, then called Lower Saginaw, to take care of his father's business interests in the city. James remained in Bay City and followed his father's tradition of public service. He is buried in Pine Ridge Cemetery on the East side of town.
Paralysis
In August 1845, Birney suffered from bouts of paralysis following a horseback riding accident, which recurred intermittently for the remainder of his life. His speech became affected as his condition worsened, until he was eventually left to communication through gestures and writing (the latter made difficult by severe tremors). He ended his public career and his direct involvement in the abolitionist movement as a result, though he kept himself informed of new developments. He died in New Jersey in 1857 in the Raritan Bay Union, a communal settlement, surrounded by abolitionist friends Theodore Weld, his wife Angelina Grimké Weld, and her sister Sarah Grimké, convinced that war would be necessary to end slavery. He was buried at the Williamsburg Cemetery in Groveland, New York, the home of his second wife's family.
Honors
In 1889, an all-black school in the Hillsdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C., was named the Birney School in his honor. It later became an elementary school and in 1962 it was renamed Nichols Avenue Elementary School.
Family
Birney married Agatha McDowell in 1816. Agatha was the daughter of U.S. district judge for Kentucky William McDowell and Margaret Madison, a distant relatative of James Madison. James and Agatha's marriage produced eleven children, only six of whom survived early childhood: James, William, Dion, David Bell, George, and Florence. Agatha died in October 1838.
On 25 March 1841, Birney married Elizabeth Potts Fitzhugh (sister of Henry Fitzhugh and of Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, wife of Gerrit Smith). Their two children were Ann Hughes Birney (1844–1846) and Fitzhugh Birney (1842–1864).
Birney's oldest son James served as the 13th Lieutenant Governor of Michigan under Governor Austin Blair and as the U.S. Minister to the Netherlands.
Four of Birney's sons fought in the American Civil War. David was a Union Army major-general who died of disease in October 1864. William was a U.S. inspector-general of U.S. Colored Troops who later became a U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Dion was a U.S. lieutenant who died during the Peninsula campaign in 1862. Fitzhugh was a U.S. major at the time of his death by pneumonia in June 1864.
Archival material
Birney's archive is at the Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
References
Further reading
External links
James G. Birney papers, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.
American Abolitionists and Antislavery Activists, comprehensive list of abolitionist and anti-slavery activists and organizations in the United States, including historic biographies and anti-slavery timelines, bibliographies, etc.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekron
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Ekron
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Ekron (Philistine: 𐤏𐤒𐤓𐤍 *ʿAqārān, , ), in the Hellenistic period known as Accaron () was a Philistine city, one of the five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis, located in present-day Israel.
In 1957, Ekron was first identified with the mound of Tel Miqne (Hebrew) or Khirbet el-Muqanna (Arabic), near the depopulated Arab village of 'Aqir, on the basis of the large size of the Iron Age archaeological remains; the judgement was strengthened by the discovery in 1996 of the Ekron inscription. The tell lies west of Jerusalem, and north of Tel es-Safi, the almost certain site of the Philistine city of Gath, on the grounds of Kibbutz Revadim on the eastern edge of the Israeli coastal plain.
In the Bible
In the Hebrew Bible, Ekron is mentioned initially in :
This is the land that still remains: all the regions of the Philistines and all those of the Geshurites from Shihor, which is east of Egypt, northward to the boundary of Ekron.
counts it the border city of the Philistines and seat of one of the five Philistine city lords, and mentions Ekron's satellite towns and villages. The city was reassigned afterwards to the tribe of Dan (), but came again into the full possession of the Philistines. It was the last place to which the Philistines carried the Ark of the Covenant before they sent it back to Israel ( and ), and the city lords returned here once they had seen that the Ark reached the Israelites in Beth Shemesh ().
There was a noted sanctuary of Baal at Ekron. The Baal who was worshipped was called Baal Zebub, which some scholars connect with Beelzebub, known from :
[King] Ahaziah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber at Samaria and was injured. So he sent messengers whom he instructed: "Go inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury." (JPS translation)
The prophet Elijah repeatedly condemned Ahaziah for turning to Baal-zebub for assurance:
Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.
Ekron's destruction is prophesied in :
Ekron shall be rooted up.
Location
Jerome wrote that Ekron was to the east of Azotus and Iamnia (consistent with the modern interpretation), however he also mentioned that some equated the city with Straton's Tower at Caesarea Maritima. This may be a reference to Rabbi Abbahu's identification of Ekron with Caesarea in Megillah.
Robinson first identified the Arab village of Aqir as the site of Ekron in 1838, and this was accepted until it was contested by Macalister in 1913, who suggested Khirbet Dikerin, and Albright in 1922, who suggested Qatra.
The identification of Ekron as Tel Miqneh was suggested by Naveh and Kallai in 1957–1958, a theory now widely accepted in light of the Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription found during the 1996 excavations.
History
The site of Tel Miqne was lightly occupied beginning in the Chalcolithic period and up to the Early Bronze Age.
Middle Bronze IIB
After a 400-year gap when only the upper tel was occupied, the city underwent a major expansion c.1600 BCE, under the Canaanites.
In Stratum XI (MB IIB) both the Upper City and Lower City was occupied. Later, the occupation would retreat to the Upper City.
Late Bronze-Iron Age I
The Canaanite city had shrunk in the years before its main public building burned in the 13th century BCE, during the Bronze Age collapse, a period of general devastation associated with the Sea Peoples. It was re-established by Philistines at the beginning of the Iron Age, c.12th century BCE. During the Iron Age, Ekron was a border city on the frontier contested between Philistia and the kingdom of Judah.
Iron Age IIC
Records of the Neo-Assyrian Empire also refer to Ekron, as Amqarrūna. The siege of Ekron in 712 BCE is depicted on one of Sargon II's wall reliefs in his palace at Khorsabad, which names the city. Ekron revolted against Sennacherib and expelled Padi, his governor, who was sent to Hezekiah, King of Judah, for safe-keeping in Jerusalem. Sennacherib marched against Ekron and the Ekronites called upon the aid of the king of Mutsri from northwest Arabia. Sennacherib turned aside to defeat this army, which he did at Eltekeh, and then returned and took the city by storm, put to death the leaders of the revolt and carried their adherents into captivity. This campaign led to the famous attack of Sennacherib on Hezekiah and Jerusalem, in which Sennacherib compelled Hezekiah to restore Padi, who was reinstated as governor at Ekron. The Philistine city of Ekron is specifically named in the Aramaic stele (Oriental Institute Prism) detailing Sennacherib's exploits in the land of Judah:
The cities of his (i.e. Hezekiah's), which I had despoiled, I cut off from his land and to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, [and to] Padi, king of Ekron, [and to] Silli-bel, king of Gaza, I gave. And (thus) I diminished his land.
Ashdod and Ekron survived to become powerful city-states dominated by the Assyrians in the 7th century BCE. The city was later destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II in 604 BCE, and although it is mentioned, as "Accaron", as late as 1 Maccabees 10:89 (2nd century BCE), it was never resettled on a large scale.
An olive oil production center dating from the seventh century BCE discovered at Ekron has over one hundred large olive oil presses, and is the most complete olive oil production center from ancient times to be discovered. The discovery indicates that olive oil production was highly developed in the Levant and that it was a major producer of olive oil for its residents as well as for other parts of the Ancient Near East, such as Egypt and especially Mesopotamia.
Archaeology
The Tel Miqne excavations were conducted for 14 seasons between 1981 and 1996, sponsored by the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, under the direction of Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin. The primary research focus was an interdisciplinary investigation of the interactions between the Philistines, Israelites, Phoenicians, Assyrians, and Egyptians during the Late Bronze Age II, Iron Age I and II.
Chronological development
The ceramic evidence indicates a presence at the site in the Chalcolithic period and Early Bronze Age. A continuous stratigraphic profile, however, was found only in the upper city on the Northeast Acropolis (Field I), beginning in Stratum XI of the MB IIB and extending through the end of Stratum I of the Iron IIC. In the lower city (Fields II, III, IV, V, X), a 400-year occupational gap followed
Stratum XI of the 17th–first half of the 16th century BCE until its resettlement in Stratum VII at the beginning of the Iron I, ca. 1175 BCE. Another occupational gap of ca. 270 years followed the end of Iron I Stratum IV, ca. 975 BCE, in the lower city (Fields II, III, IV, V, X), until it was again resettled in Stratum I of the 7th century BCE. The cities at Ekron were well planned in both the Iron I and Iron II, with four distinct zones of occupation: fortifications, industrial, domestic, and elite. The final Iron II occupation in the 7th/6th centuries BCE was represented by a single architectural unit in Field III in the lower city. A presence in the Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods was attested in Fields IV Upper and V.
Chronological chart
Middle Bronze Age
The tel was apparently shaped by fortifications that encompassed both the upper and lower cities in the Middle Bronze Age. Monumental platforms, part of the fortification ramparts, were excavated in Fields III and X. MB II ceramic evidence was found throughout the tel, as were fragmentary architectural remains and three infant jar burials excavated in Field IV Lower.
Late Bronze Age
The unfortified Strata X–VIII settlement was found only in the upper city in Field I on the Northeast Acropolis. It yielded Cypriot and Mycenaean imported pottery and Anatolian Grey burnished ware, attesting to international maritime trade. Egyptian influences are also evident, inter alia, in the burial containing a 19th Dynasty seal and scarab and in the 14th century BCE scarab bearing the name of the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III and dedicated to the "Lady of the Sycamore Tree," usually associated with the foundations of Egyptian shrines, an heirloom found in a later Iron I phase. The last Canaanite city of Stratum VIII was destroyed in a violent conflagration, dramatically illustrated on the Summit by a severely-burnt storeroom complex that yielded jars containing carbonized grains, lentils, and figs.
Iron Age I
Stratum VII is characterized by a new material culture with Aegean and Cypriot affinities introduced by the Philistines, one of the Sea Peoples featuring the locally-made Philistine 1 (previously designated Mycenaean IIIC:1) pottery. Such pottery is known as Cypriot Bichrome ware, and Philistine Bichrome ware.
In the Strata VI–V Philistine 2 (Bichrome) pottery with red and black decoration on white slip is a major part of the ceramic assemblage. The material culture of Stratum IV is characterized by Philistine 3 (debased) pottery and the influence of a ceramic tradition of predominantly red-slipped and burnished ware.
In the upper city features in Stratum VII, include a mudbrick city wall, megaron-type buildings, hearths, a limestone bathtub, and an industrial kiln area. In Strata VI–V, a major feature was the mudbrick glacis, a cultic room with an incised scapula similar to those found in the 12th and 11th century BCE shrines at Enkomi and Kition on Cyprus.
In the lower city, along the ridge of the southern slope of the tel, behind the Iron I mudbrick city wall of Stratum VI, were a number of architectural units and finds, which included a bull-shaped zoomorphic vessel, an incised ivory tube, and a bronze pin and needle. Stratum V monumental building was constructed on a similar scale as the one in the elite zone. The artifacts, many representing a continuation of Aegean traditions, include a rectangular bone plaque painted in blue and incised with the depiction of the rear of a horse, a Mycenaean-type female figurine, a gold spiral hair-ring, a conical stamp seal depicting two prancing gazelles, an iron knife with an ivory handle, two small pebbled hearths, and two goat skulls.
The domestic buildings continued in use in Stratum IV with no substantial change, and special finds included an incised scapula, similar to those found in the upper city.
Also in the lower city, in the elite zone, Stratum VII was represented by a number of installations, including rectangular hearths. In Stratum VI circular hearths were found in a large public structure, which also produced a round ivory pyxis lid decorated with scenes of animals in battle. In Stratum V, a megaron-type building contained superimposed pebbled hearths, three rooms with benches and bamot, and a monumental entrance hall with two mushroom-shaped stone pillar bases.
One room yielded 20 spherical loom weights in the Aegean tradition. This building also produced three miniature bronze wheels from a cultic stand of a type known from Cyprus and reminiscent of the biblical description of the mechonot (laver stands) and a bronze Janus-faced linchpin from a chariot wheel. Another special find was an iron knife with a pierced spool-shaped ivory handle attached with three bronze nails. In Strata VI and V, the building complex contained a large stone bath, a monolith, two stone pillar bases, and several hearths. In Stratum IV the plan of the building complex was reused and its cultic function continued, as attested by the finds, including a cache of ivory, faience, and stone objects, among them decorated earplugs and a ring depicting the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet. The destruction and abandonment of the Stratum IV lower city during the first quarter of the 10th century marked the end of both the early Philistine city and of the Iron I in general at Ekron.
Iron Age II
Following the destruction of the Iron I Stratum IV city during the first quarter of the 10th century, the lower city was abandoned. Only the upper city was occupied in Strata III–II fortified with a mudbrick city wall and a 7 m wide mudbrick tower faced with Phoenician –type ashlar masonry in header-and-stretcher construction. Stratum III was continued in the monumental architecture of Stratum IIA–B, with the addition of a series of rooms, probably shops or market stalls, that opened onto the re-paved street, to which a stone-lined central drainage system was added in Stratum IIB.
Both the lower city and the upper city were reoccupied. In the lower city, new fortifications included a city wall and a three-entryway gate protected by a gatehouse, similar to those excavated at Timnah (Tel Batash), Gezer, Lachish, and Ashdod. To the east of the gate, an 80 m long row of stables or storehouses associated with a large public building was built between the city wall and an outer screening wall. The outstanding feature was the olive oil industrial zone, laid out in a belt extending throughout the lower city along the inner face of the city wall. Special finds include a cache of seven well-preserved large iron agricultural tools and nine four-horned limestone altars.
The 115 oil presses found at Ekron have a production capacity of 500–1,000 tons, making it the largest ancient industrial center for the production of olive oil thus far excavated. In Stratum IB of the last third of the 7th century, the diminution in olive oil production is associated with the end of Assyrian domination in Stratum IC and the expansion of the Egyptian sphere of influence to Philistia ca. 630 BCE.
In the elite zone of the lower city, in Stratum I, the Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription, one of the most important finds of the 20th century in Israel, was found in the holy of holies, or cella, a room in the sanctuary of the Temple Complex 650. The inscription mentions Ekron, thus confirming the identification of the site, as well as five of its rulers, including Ikausu (Achish), son of Padi, who built the sanctuary.
The sanctuary reflects a Phoenician design, paralleled in Astarte Temple 1 at Kition on Cyprus. The Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription incised on a rectangular-shaped limestone block has five-lines and mentions Ekron, thus confirming the identification of the site, as well as five of its rulers, including Ikausu (Achish), son of Padi, who built the sanctuary to Ptgyh, his lady. Padi and Ikausu are known as kings of Ekron from the 7th century Neo-Assyrian Royal Annals. The language and form of writing of the Ekron inscription show a significant Phoenician influence, and the name Ikausu is understood as "the Achaean" or "the Greek" and Ptgyh has been interpreted as a Greek goddess.
Other special finds come from the side-rooms of the sanctuary, which yielded a treasure trove of gold, silver, and bronze objects, including a gold cobra (a uraeus), and a unique assemblage of ivories with cultic connotations. The ivories include a depiction of a woman, perhaps a royal personage; a knob bearing the cartouche of the 12th century Pharaoh Ramses VIII; a large head, probably from the top of a harp; and a large object with a male figure on the front, the image of a royal female personage on the side, and a cartouche of the 13th century Pharaoh Merneptah on the back.
The buildings of the elite zone also produced 16 short inscriptions including kdš l’šrt ("dedicated to [the goddess] Asherat"), lmqm ("for the shrine"), and the letter tet with three horizontal lines below it (probably indicating 30 units of produce set aside for tithing), and silver hoards.
The entire Iron II city was destroyed in a violent conflagration during the 604 BCE campaign of the Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II, after which the site was only partially and briefly resettled in the first quarter of the 6th century. A well-preserved Assyrian courtyard-type building was the only remaining architectural evidence for Stratum IA. Thereafter, Ekron was abandoned until the Roman period.
Roman to Islamic periods
There is but fragmentary evidence from the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods found only in Fields IV Upper and V.
See also
Cities of the ancient Near East
Achish
Lachish
Archaeology of Israel
Akron, Ohio
References
21. Eitam, D. 1996. The Olive Oil Industry at Tel Miqne–Ekron in the Late Iron Age. In: Eitam, D. and Heltzer, M. (eds.) Olive Oil in Antiquity, Israel and Neighboring Countries, from the Neolithic to the Early Arab Period. Studies VII, Sargon srl: 166-196.
Further reading
Demsky, Aaron. "The Name of the Goddess of Ekron: A New Reading," Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society vol. 25 (1997) pp. 1–5
Susan Heuck Allen, Trojan Grey Ware at Tel Miqne-Ekron, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 293, pp. 39–51, 1994
Baruch Brandl, Two Engraved Tridacna Shells from Tel Miqne-Ekron, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 323, pp. 49–62, 2001
Jan Gunneweg et al., On the Origin of Pottery from Tel Miqne-Ekron, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 264, pp. 3–16, 1986
Brian Hesse, Animal Use at Tel Miqne-Ekron in the Bronze Age and Iron Age, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 264, pp. 17–27, 1986
Eitam D. 1990. Textile and Olive Oil Production in Ancient Israel during the Iron Age', Pigments and Colorants Colloque Colloque International du CNRS: 283-290.
M.W. Meehl, T. Dothan and S. Gitin, Tel Miqne-Ekron Excavations, 1995–1996, Field INE, East Slope: Iron Age I (Early Philistine Period), Final Field Reports 8, 2006
S.M. Ortiz, S. Gitin and T. Dothan, Tel Miqne-Ekron Excavations, 1994–1996, Fields IVNE/NW (Upper) and VSE/SW: The Iron Age /I Late Philistine Temple Complex 650, Final Field Reports 9, 2006
Robinson, Edward, Eli Smith (1841): Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the Year 1838a, Published by Crocker & Brewster, Item notes: v. 3 (see p. 22)
External links
History of Ekron through archaeology of the Tel Mikne site.
The Ekron inscription
Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin, Ekron of the Philistines BAR 16:01, Jan/Feb 1990
Tel Miqne-Ekron Excavation and Publication Project
Populated places established in the 2nd millennium BC
Populated places disestablished in the 7th century BC
1957 archaeological discoveries
Hebrew Bible cities
Philistine cities
Former populated places in Southwest Asia
Bronze Age sites in Israel
Iron Age sites in Israel
Razed cities
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment%20%28Mormonism%29
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Endowment (Mormonism)
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In Mormonism, the endowment is a two-part ordinance designed for participants to become kings, queens, priests, and priestesses in the afterlife. As part of the first ceremony, participants take part in a scripted reenactment of the Biblical creation and fall of Adam and Eve. The ceremony includes a symbolic washing and anointing, and receipt of a "new name" which they are not to reveal to others except at a certain part in the ceremony, and the receipt of the temple garment, which Mormons then are expected to wear under their clothing day and night throughout their life. Participants are taught symbolic gestures and passwords considered necessary to pass by angels guarding the way to heaven, and are instructed not to reveal them to others. As practiced today in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the endowment also consists of a series of covenants (promises to God) that participants make, such as a covenant of consecration to the LDS Church. All LDS Church members who choose to serve as missionaries or participate in a celestial marriage in a temple must first complete the first endowment ceremony.
The second part, or second anointing is the pinnacle ordinance of the temple, jointly given to a husband and wife couple, where their exaltation is guaranteed. Participants are anointed kings, queens, priests, and priestesses, whereas they are only anointed to become such in the first part. The second part of the endowment is given to a select group, and its existence is not widely known among the general membership.
The endowment as practiced today was instituted by founder Joseph Smith in the 1840s with further contributions by Brigham Young and his successors. The ceremony is performed in Latter Day Saint temples, which are dedicated specifically for the endowment and certain other ordinances sacred to Mormons, and are open only to Mormons who meet certain requirements. There was a brief period during the construction of the Salt Lake Temple where a small building referred to as the Endowment House was used to administer the endowment ordinance. The endowment is currently practiced by the LDS Church, several denominations of Mormon fundamentalism, and a few other Mormon denominations. The LDS Church has simplified its ceremony from its 19th century form.
A distinct endowment ceremony was also performed in the 1830s in the Kirtland Temple, the first temple of the broader Latter Day Saint movement, which includes other smaller churches such as the Community of Christ. The term "endowment" thus has various meanings historically, and within the other branches of the Latter Day Saint movement.
The prevalence of LDS Church members who participate in the endowment ceremony is difficult to determine. However, estimates show that fewer than half of converts to the LDS Church ultimately undergo the first endowment ceremony, and young people preparing for missions account for about one-third of "live" endowments (as contrasted with proxy endowments for the deceased). The second endowment ceremony had been given 15,000 times by 1941, but has become less common today.
Previous Latter Day Saint endowments
The meaning and scope of the term endowment evolved during the early Latter Day Saint movement, of which Mormonism is a part. The term derives from the Authorized King James Version, referring to the spiritual gifts given the disciples of Jesus on the day of Pentecost, in which they were "endowed with power from on high," Christians generally understand this endowment to refer to the gift of the Holy Spirit, which the Latter Day Saints believe is given at the Confirmation ceremony. In 1831, however, Smith began teaching that the elders of the church needed to be further "endowed with power from on high" in order to be effective proselytizers. He therefore gathered the elders together at a general conference in June 1831 and "endowed" them with this power by ordaining them to the High Priesthood.
By the mid-1830s, Smith was teaching that a further endowment was necessary, this time requiring the completion of the Kirtland Temple as a house of God where God could pour out his Holy Spirit. Upon the completion of the Kirtland Temple after three years of construction (1833–1836), the elders of the church gathered for this second promised endowment in early 1836. The Kirtland endowment included a ritual ceremony involving preparatory washings and anointings with oil, followed by a gathering in the temple in which many reported spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues and visions.
The Nauvoo endowment
Overview
The Nauvoo endowment consists of two phases: (1) an initiation, and (2) an instructional and testing phase. The initiation consists of a washing and anointing, culminating in the clothing of the patron in a "Garment of the Holy Priesthood", which is thereafter worn as an undergarment.
The instructional and testing phase of the endowment consists of a scripted reenactment of Adam and Eve's experience in the Garden of Eden (performed by live actors—called officiators; in the mid-20th century certain portions were adapted to a film presentation). The instruction is punctuated with oaths, symbolic gestures, and a prayer around an altar, and at the end of instruction, the initiate's knowledge of symbolic gestures and key-words is tested at a "veil."
Introduction
On May 3, 1842, Joseph Smith prepared the second floor of his Red Brick Store, in Nauvoo, Illinois, to represent "the interior of a temple as circumstances would permit". The next day, May 4, he introduced the Nauvoo endowment ceremony to nine associates: Associate President and Patriarch to the Church Hyrum (Joseph Smith's brother); first counselor in the First Presidency, William Law; three of the twelve apostles, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards; Nauvoo stake president, William Marks; two bishops, Newel K. Whitney and George Miller; and a close friend, Judge James Adams of Springfield, Illinois.
Concerning the day's activities, Smith recorded:
Throughout 1843 and 1844 Smith continued to initiate other men, as well as women, into the endowment ceremony. By the time of his death on June 27, 1844, more than 50 persons had been admitted into the Anointed Quorum, the name by which this group called themselves.
The Nauvoo endowment and Freemasonry
There are many similarities between Smith's endowment ceremony and certain rituals of Freemasonry, particularly the Royal Arch degree. These specific similarities included instruction in various signs, tokens, and passwords, and the imposition of various forms of the penalties for revealing them. The original wording of the penalties, for example, closely followed the graphic wording of the Masonic penalties.
According to the predominant view by historians, Smith used and adapted material from the Masonic rituals in creating the endowment ceremony. All of those first initiated by Smith on May 4, 1842, were longstanding or recent Masons: Adams was the Deputy Grand Master of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Illinois; Whitney, Miller and Kimball had previously been Lodge Masters; Smith's brother, Hyrum, had been a Mason since 1827; and the remaining five participants (Law, Marks, Young, Richards, and Smith himself) had been initiated as Freemasons just weeks before the meeting. However, none of these Masons ever charged Smith with breaking any of Masonry's oaths or revealing its secrets. In contrast to those that believe Smith simply copied these rituals to advance his own religion, one Mormon historian has noted that these Masonic parallels confirmed to these men "the breath of the restoration impulse and was evidence of Smith's divine calling".
The LDS Church has never commented officially on these similarities, although certain features of the two rituals have been called "analogous" by one official Church Historian and the apostle Jeffrey R. Holland stated in a BBC interview that endowment ordinance vows to secrecy are "similar to a Masonic relationship." The LDS Church apostle John A. Widtsoe downplayed the similarities, arguing that they "do not deal with the basic matters [the endowment] but rather with the mechanism of the ritual." One LDS Church educator, however, was censured in the 1970s by the Church Educational System for arguing that the endowment ceremony had a dependent relationship with the rituals of freemasonry.
Some within the LDS Church, particularly Smith's contemporaries, have expressed the view that the endowment was given anciently by God in its original form at the Temple of Solomon, but that the form of the ritual degenerated into the form used by Freemasons. Heber C. Kimball clearly supported this position: "We have the true Masonry. The Masonry of today is received from the apostasy which took place in the days of Solomon and David. They have now and then a thing that is correct, but we have the real thing."
Later modifications by the LDS Church
After Smith officiated in Brigham Young's endowment in 1842 Smith told him, "Brother Brigham, this is not arranged perfectly; however we have done the best we could under the circumstances in which we are placed. I wish you to take this matter in hand: organize and systematize all these ceremonies". Young did as Smith directed, and under Young's direction the Nauvoo endowment ceremony was introduced to the church at large in the Nauvoo Temple during the winter of 1845–1846. A spacious hall in the temple's attic was arranged into appropriate ordinance "rooms" using canvas partitions. Potted plants were used in areas representing the Garden of Eden, and other areas were furnished appropriately, including a room representing the celestial kingdom. Over 5,500 persons received their endowments in this temple.
Young introduced the same ceremony in the Utah Territory in the 1850s, first in the Endowment House and then in the St. George Temple. During this period the ceremony had never been written down, but was passed orally from temple worker to worker. Shortly after the dedication of the St. George Temple, and before his death in 1877, Young became concerned about the possibility of variations in the ceremony within the church's temples and so directed the majority of the text of the endowment to be written down. This document became the standard for the ceremony thereafter. Also in 1877, the first endowments for the dead were performed in the St. George Temple.
In 1893, minor alterations in the text were made in an attempt to bring uniformity to the ceremony as administered in the temples. Between 1904 and 1906, the temple ceremony received very public scrutiny during the 1904 Senate investigation of LDS Apostle and U.S. Senator, Reed Smoot. Of particular concern to senators was the ceremony's "law of vengeance", in which, during the hearings, it was revealed that participants took an oath of vengeance to pray that God would "avenge the blood of the prophets on this nation". The "prophets" were Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and "this nation" was the United States.
Beginning in 1919, church president Heber J. Grant appointed a committee charged with revising the ceremony, which was done under the direction of Apostle George F. Richards from 1921 to 1927. Richards received permission to write down the previously unwritten portions of the ceremony. Among his revisions was the elimination of the "law of vengeance". Previous versions of the ceremony into the 1880s also had the representative of the Lord cut the symbols in the garments with a knife through the veil, with one source suggesting an early version cut into the knee of the participant to create a scar. The committee also removed the violent language from the "penalty" portions of the ceremony. Prior to 1927, participants made an oath that if they ever revealed the secret gestures of the ceremony, they would be subject to the following:
Each temple president received a "President's Book" with the revised ceremony ensuring uniformity throughout the church's temples.
The first filmed versions of the endowment were introduced in the 1950s, by a committee headed by Gordon B. Hinckley. That change was initiated by church president David O. McKay as a way of providing the instruction simultaneously in different languages, an innovation made necessary by the construction of the Bern Switzerland Temple, the church's first temple in Europe. , ceremonies in all but two (Salt Lake Temple and Manti Temple) of the church's 128 operating temples are presented using the filmed version.
In 1990, further changes included the elimination of all blood oaths and penalties. These penalties, representing what the member would rather suffer than reveal the sacred signs given them in the ceremony, were symbolized by gestures for having the throat cut, the breast cut open, and the bowels torn out. Changes also included the elimination of the five points of fellowship, the role of the preacher, and all reference to Lucifer's "popes and priests" were dropped.
The ceremony was also changed to lessen the differences in treatment between men and women. Women no longer are required to covenant to obey their husbands, but instead must covenant only to follow their husbands as their husbands follow God. Also, Eve is no longer explicitly blamed for the Fall, and several references to Adam were replaced with references to Adam and Eve. The lecture at the veil was also cut, and some repetition was eliminated.
In the temple endowment, women were previously urged to be a priestess "unto her husband," while men were promised they will be priests to God. In January 2019, that topic was removed from the endowment process, in accordance with other changes that included more lines for Eve in their ritual performance of the Book of Genesis. Also in 2019, a letter from the church's First Presidency stated that "Veiling an endowed woman's face prior to burial is optional." It had previously been required. The letter went on to say that such veiling, "may be done if the sister expressed such a desire while she was living. In cases where the wishes of the deceased sister on this matter are not known, her family should be consulted."
A 1996 estimate by Richard Cowan states that around 150million endowments have been performed, most of which were in behalf of deceased persons.
Modern endowment as practiced by the LDS Church
The most well-known Mormon endowment ceremony is that performed by the LDS Church in its temples. This ceremony is open only to members of the church deemed worthy and given a "temple recommend" by their priesthood leaders after one or more personal interviews. It comprises four parts:
An initiatory composed of the preparatory ordinances of washing and anointing
An instructional portion with lectures and representations
The making of covenants (i.e. oaths)
A testing of knowledge
The initiatory
The "initiatory" is a prelude to the endowment proper, similar to Chrismation, and consists of (1) instruction, (2) multiple symbolic washing and anointing ordinances, (3) being clothed in the temple garment, and (4) receiving a "new name" in preparation for the endowment.
Washing and anointing are perhaps the earliest practiced temple ordinances for the living since the organization of the LDS Church. There is evidence that these ordinances have been performed since 1832. They were first practiced in the Whitney Store as part of the School of the Prophets and were part of the Kirtland endowment.
As part of the endowment ceremony, the ordinance of washing and anointing symbolizes the ritual cleansing of priests that took place at Israel's Tabernacle, Solomon's Temple, and the Second Temple, later known as Herod's Temple. The washing symbolizes being "cleansed from the blood of this generation," and being anointed to become "clean from the blood and sins of this generation."
After the washing and anointing, the patron is given the temple garment, formally called the "Garment of the Holy Priesthood". This garment represents the "coats of skins" given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Similar ordinances are performed for the living and the dead in LDS temples, where men are:
Ordained to the priesthood (for the dead only, since a man coming to the temple for his own endowment would have previously received his Melchizedek priesthood ordination)
Washed with water (which only involves a cursory sprinkling of water)
Blessed to have the washing sealed
Anointed with oil
Blessed to have the anointing sealed
Clothed in holy garments
Women receive the same ordinances, except for the ordination.
As the final part of the initiatory, the patron is given a new name, which is a key word used during the ceremony. In general, this name is only known to the person to whom it is given; however, an endowed LDS woman reveals her name to her endowed husband (but not vice versa). In support of this practice, the LDS church cites Book of Revelation 2:17 and 3:12, referring to a "white stone" with "a new name written" thereon.
The instructional portion
The endowment focuses heavily on LDS belief in a plan of salvation and centered around the atonement of Jesus Christ on behalf of humanity's sins. Parts of the doctrine of the plan of salvation explained include:
The eternal Nature of God, of Jesus Christ, and their divinity
The pre-mortal existence and eternal nature of man (mankind lived with God before mortal life)
The reality of Satan, who is Jesus' and Adam's rebellious spirit brother
The fall of Adam and the reasons for mortality, trials, and blessings
The Atonement of Jesus Christ, and the need for the Atonement
The relationship of grace, faith, and works
Death, the literal resurrection, and qualifying for one of the three kingdoms of glory (or Outer Darkness)
The need for personal righteousness, covenant keeping, and love of God and fellow man
That Heavenly Father loves humanity as his children and wants people to become like he is, to receive joy
The sanctity and eternal nature of the family
The endowment is often thought of as a series of lectures where Latter-day Saints are taught about the creation of the world, the events in the Garden of Eden, what happened after Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden into the "telestial world", and the progression of righteous individuals through "terrestrial" laws to one of the kingdoms of glory and exaltation.
During the ceremony, Latter-day Saints are dressed in temple clothes or temple robes, are taught in ordinance rooms about various gospel laws (including obedience, chastity, sacrifice and consecration) and make covenants to obey these laws. The early Mormon leader Brigham Young taught that participants are given "signs and tokens" that "enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels" and gain eternal exaltation. At the end of the ceremony, the participant is "tested" on their knowledge of what they were taught and covenanted to do and then admitted into the celestial room, where they may meditate and pray.
Covenant portion
The LDS Church defines a covenant as:
The temple ceremony involves entering into five covenants:
Law of Obedience, which includes striving to keep God's commandments.
Law of Sacrifice, which means doing all that is possible to support the Lord's work and repenting with a broken heart and contrite spirit.
Law of the Gospel, which refers to the higher law that Jesus Christ taught, including baptism, repentance, and being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.
Law of Chastity, which means having sexual relations only with the person to whom an individual is legally and lawfully married, according to God's law.
Law of Consecration, which means dedicating time, talents, and everything the Lord has blessed an individual with to build up the church.
The promise given in the ceremony is that those who remain faithful will be endowed "with power from on high."
Testing portion
At the end of the endowment ceremony the participant is tested at a physical veil by a man representing the Lord on the signs and tokens just learned. Before 1990 at the veil the participant also put their arm around and pressed their cheek, shoulders, knees and feet against the person through the veil in what was called "the five points of fellowship."
Requirements for participation
The endowment is open only to Mormons who have a valid "temple recommend." To be eligible to receive a temple recommend, one must be deemed worthy by church leadership and have been a member of the LDS Church for at least one year. A male member of the church must hold the Melchizedek priesthood to participate in the endowment. A temple recommend is signed by the person receiving the recommend, a member of the person's bishopric and a member of the stake presidency, who each perform a personal, one-on-one "worthiness interview." Persons seeking a recommend to attend the temple for the first time and receive their endowment will generally meet with their bishop and stake president.
These interviews cover what the church believes to be the most important factors of personal morality and worthiness, including whether the person has a basic belief in key church doctrines such as the divinity of Jesus and the restoration; whether the person attends church meetings and supports the leadership of the LDS Church; whether the person affiliates with Mormon fundamentalists or other people considered by the church to be apostate; whether the person is honest and lives the law of chastity and the Word of Wisdom; whether the person abuses family members; whether the person pays tithing and any applicable spousal or child support; and whether the person has confessed to serious past sins.
Prior to participating in the endowment, members of the LDS Church frequently participate in a six-part temple preparation class which discusses temple-related topics but does not directly discuss the details of the ceremony.
Ineligible groups of members
Some members of the church were historically or are currently ineligible for the temple endowment. For about 130 years (between 1847 and 1978) all LDS endowment-related temple ordinances were denied to all Black women and men in a controversial temple racial restriction. As of 2023, all temple ordinances including the endowment continue to be denied for any lesbian, gay, or bisexual person in a same-sex marriage or homosexual sexual relationship, and transgender individuals continue to be ineligible for all temple ordinances. These restrictions have also garnered criticism from both outside, and inside the LDS church.
Secrecy
Official church publications state that temple ceremonies are confidential and not to be discussed outside the temple. B. H. Roberts declared that certain aspects of the endowment ceremony were intended to be "secret from the world". In this regard, facsimile no. 2 in the Book of Abraham (part of the LDS Church standard works) clarifies that there are things that "cannot be revealed unto the world; but is to be had in the Holy Temple of God." This information includes, in the initiation and instructional/testing phases of the endowment ceremony, certain names and symbolic gestures called tokens and signs. Prior to revisions in 1990, the LDS Church's version of the endowment also included a gesture called a "penalty." The ceremony stated that the "representation of the execution of the penalties indicates different ways in which life may be taken". However, the LDS Church has removed the "penalty" portions of the ceremony, protecting the "names", "tokens," and "signs" by a simple "covenant and promise." Still, such information has been published in various sources, unauthorized by the LDS Church.
Other than the ceremony's signs and tokens (and formerly penalties), which remain a central part of the ceremonies, the remainder of the ceremony carries with it no covenants of secrecy. However, most Latter-day Saints are generally unwilling to discuss the specific details of the ceremony. Latter-day Saints commonly state that the rituals are "sacred" but not "secret," and Latter-day Saint apostle Boyd K. Packer has encouraged members not to "discuss the temple ordinances outside the temples" as well as top leaders in 2019.
In practice, Mormons keep silent about the ceremony for numerous reasons. Most Mormons hold the making of these covenants to be highly sacred. Most LDS Church members also believe that details of the ceremony should be kept from those who are not properly prepared. Many Mormons believe that Jesus often taught in parables for the same reason. Other Latter-day Saints remain silent about the ceremony because they believe that its meaning cannot be properly conveyed without the experience in the temple. Brigham Young stated:
In addition, church members are instructed by top church leaders that the only place where the temple ceremonies should be discussed, even amongst faithful members, is within the temple.
Some Mormons have suggested that the reluctance to discuss the endowment encourages attacks and unauthorized exposés by evangelical Christians and others, and therefore advocate a more transparent attitude toward the ceremony. Transparency has increased a little bit since such criticisms were levied. In the online versions of the General Handbook the specific covenants made during the endowment have been enumerated. This is the only new item that was not publicly discussed about the endowment that was added.
Biblical references
Latter Day Saints cite multiple Old Testament passages detailing ancient Israelite temple practices that parallel the modern endowment ceremony. The initiatory ordinances are the most well-attested to in the Bible, with parallel ceremonies being described in several passages, such as those found in Exodus 29:4–9 and Exodus 28:2–43 and Leviticus 8:6–13. Exodus 40:12–15 is also a commonly cited reference to the initiatory ordinances: 12. And thou shalt bring Aaron and his sons unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and wash them with water.
13. And thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy garments, and anoint him, and sanctify him; that he may minister unto me in the priest's office.
14. And thou shalt bring his sons, and clothe them with coats:
15. And thou shalt anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office: for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations.
In the New Testament, passages such as 1 John 2:20 speak of an anointing from the "Holy One" which leads the anointed to "know all things," and 1 John 2:27 reiterates this, stating that the anointed were taught by this anointing "all things." Revelation 1:6 describes the Saints as having been made priests and kings unto God, which is an essential theme in the Latter Day Saint temple endowment. Revelation 2:17 is often cited in relation to the endowment because of its references to "hidden manna" and the receipt of a "new name." In addition, Latter Day Saints interpret Luke 24:49 as instructing the apostles to wait for both the pouring out of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost and the endowment ceremony before going out to evangelize. The words "HOLINESS TO THE LORD" can be found on Latter-day Saint temples as referenced in Exodus 28:36.
Latter Day Saint scholarship
The Latter Day Saint viewpoint is that the endowment is of ancient origin, revealed from the earliest time to the biblical Adam. Much research has been done by Latter Day Saints finding parallels between the endowment and ancient traditions. The LDS Church temple is referred to as a "house of learning" since it is a "kind of educational environment teaching by action and educating through ritual." The endowment ordinance, as presented in Latter-day Saint temples, has been referred to as a "ritual drama" that commemorates episodes of sacred history due to its "theatrical setting." When viewed as a restoration of ancient rites, the ritual drama and aesthetic environment in which the endowment is presented are both rich in Judeo-Christian symbolism. Comparative studies of the art, architecture, and rituals found in Mormonism, such as the endowment, reveal parallels to early Catholic and Jewish traditions.
Washing, anointing, and investiture in holy garments are described throughout the Hebrew Bible in the form of priestly and royal initiations. Exodus 28, Exodus 29, Exodus 40, and Leviticus 8 all detail this ancient practice. Many medieval and ancient apocryphal, pseudepigraphical, and other religious writings also provide further information about and references to ancient initiation ceremonies.
The apocryphal book of 2 Enoch reads:
The text is also important for its description of the ascension of Enoch through multiple heavens.
In addition, the Testament of Levi 8:2-10 reads:
Some scholars have suggested that Jewish temple initiation was later merged with early Christian baptismal initiation sometime after the destruction of the Second Temple. By the fourth century CE, Christian baptism had adopted a much more dramatic and complex set of rituals accompanying it, including washing ceremonies, physical anointing with oil, being signed with a cross on the forehead, and receiving white garments and a new name, all which paralleled the Jewish initiation for priests and kings. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Catechetical Lectures, related the anointing with oil at baptism with the anointing of a priest and king in the Old Testament, suggesting that the initiate actually became a priest and king in Christ.
The general theme of ascension through multiple gates or veils of heaven is found all throughout early Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and other Near Eastern religious writings, as well as in the Bible. Early works often describe angels and other sentinels which are set at these points, and several of these state that the ascending individual would be required to give specific signs and names to the sentinels in order to pass through the veil. The descriptions of key words, signs, and tokens being presented to the sentinels of the veils of heaven are particularly prevalent in old Gnostic Christian and Mandaean writings, and in Jewish lore. In one of the Nag Hammadi texts, Jesus promises that those who accept him would pass by each of the gates of heaven without fear and would be perfected in the third heaven. The Coptic Book of 1 Jeu describes Jesus instructing the apostles in the hand-signs, names, and seals that they must use before the guardians of heaven would remove the veils of heaven to allow them passage. In Hekhalot Rabbati 17:1–20:3, an old Jewish esoteric text, the faithful pass through seven doors in order to enter the presence of God, passing by angels whose names they must give, while presenting a seal. 3 Enoch also describes the names and seals given to the angels.
Similar concepts were found anciently all over the Near East. The ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead detailed various spells and names meant to assist the deceased in their ascension through the gates of the afterlife so they could eventually enter into the presence of the gods. Fragments of the Book of the Dead are, in fact, known to have been part of Joseph Smith's collection of Egyptian papyri, but, at the time, the Egyptian language was untranslatable by any scholarly means.
The Latter Day Saint temple garment is usually identified by Mormon scholars with the sacred "linen breeches" (michnasayim/mikhnesei bahd) and the "coat of linen" (kuttoneth) that ancient Israelite priests were commanded to wear, as referenced in Exodus 28:39–43. The michnasayim were undergarments that reached from the hips to the thighs and served the purpose of hiding the wearer's "nakedness" and maintaining modesty. These garments symbolized the abolition of the distinction between the heavenly and mortal part of man, and, like the LDS temple garment, were worn by the Israelite priest even when he was not actually officiating in the temple. The kuttoneth was probably a white, tight-fitting, shirt-like undergarment worn in conjunction with the michnasayim. According to the Talmud, worn-out undergarments and priestly sashes were burned, being used as torch wicks in the temple.
Additionally, the temple garment has been compared to the modern tallit katan, a sacred undershirt of Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Both the Latter Day Saint temple garment and the tallit katan are meant to be worn all day under regular clothing as a constant reminder of the covenants, promises, and obligations the wearer is under.
See also
Second anointing
Notes
References
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Ehat, Andrew (1982). "Joseph Smith's Introduction of Temple Ordinances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Crisis", Thesis, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
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LDS Church (2002). Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple. LDS Church, Salt Lake City, Utah. † Note: This pamphlet is adapted from Packer's The Holy Temple.
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Packer, Boyd K. (1980). The Holy Temple. Bookcraft Publishers, Salt Lake City, Utah. .
. See also: Book of Commandments
Prince, Gregory A. (1995). Power From On High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood, Signature Books, Salt Lake City. . excerpt
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Smith, Joseph, et al. (February 1, 1832 - November 1, 1834) Kirtland Revelation Book, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah. Digital reprint by the Joseph Smith Papers Project
, copied to .
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Widstoe, John (1954). Discourses of Brigham Young, Deseret Book, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Widstoe, John (1960). Evidences and Reconciliations, Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, Utah.
† The materials published by the LDS Church directly may only be available from the church's distribution center.
Further reading
An article by FARMS that critiques in detail the accuracy and reliability of David John Buerger's The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship.
External links
The LDS Endowment, at ldsendowment.org – a detailed source of information about the endowment.
. Comprehensive list of articles and books on LDS temples; site also includes an LDS Temple Preparation FAQ.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leshy
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Leshy
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Leshy (also Leshi; ; literally, "[he] from the forest", ) is a tutelary deity of the forests in pagan Slavic mythology. As Leshy rules over the forest and hunting, he may be related to the Slavic god Porewit.
There is also a deity, named Svyatibor (Svyatobor, Svyatibog), who is revered by both the Eastern and Western Slavs, heralded as the divine arbiter of woodland realms and the sovereign ruler over other Leshies. His functions were identical to those of the god Veles.
Leshy, a masculine entity of humanoid form, possesses the remarkable ability to adopt the guise of any appearance and can change in size and height.<ref>Maksimov, S. V. (1912) Нечистая сила. Неведомая сила // Собрание сочинений [The Unclean Force, The Unknown Force, Collected Works]. pp. 79-80.</ref> In some accounts, Leshy is described as having a wife (Leshachikha, Leszachka, Lesovikha and also, sometimes, the Kikimora of the swamp) and children (leshonki, leszonky). Leshy is reputed for his inclination to misguide wanderers and abduct young ones, a trait he shares with the notorious Chort, "Black One" known as Devil, thus leading certain individuals to perceive him as a malevolent entity. Leshy's attitude towards humans can vary, depending on how they interact with the forest and their overall behavior. Leshy possessed the power to whisk away children afflicted by the malevolent maledictions of their own kin, especially their parents, to the ethereal realm of the forest-dwelling folk. Leshy can be considered as a rather temperamental creature, similar to that of a fairy.
Names and etymology
Leshy is known by a variety of names and spellings including the following:Afanasyev, Alexander Nikolayevich. (1983) Древо жизни и лесные духи [The Tree of Life and Forest Spirits]. Sovremennik. Moscow.Krinichnaya, Neonila Artyomovna. (2004) Русская мифология: Мир образов фольклора [Russian Mythology: The World of Folklore Images]. Akademicheskii Proyekt. Moscow. ch. 3, "Leshy: Totemic origins and the polysemy of images".
Main name variations:
Borovoi (, ) "[he] of the pine barrens"
Gayevoi (, ) "[he] of the grove"
Leshak (, )
Leshy (Russian: Леший, , , ) [he] of the deciduous forests
Lesnik (, , , )
Lesovik (, , , )
Lesovoi (, )
Lesun (, )
Mežainis, (Latvian: "forester")
Miškinis (Lithuanian: "forest-man")
Miško velnias (Lithuanian: "Forest devil")
Vir'ava () "forest mother"
Lauma (Latvian: Lauma; Lithuanian: Laumė; Yotvingian: Łauma), a fairy-like woodland spirit, and guardian spirit of orphans in Eastern Baltic mythology, or Yotvingian mythology
Euphemistic titles:
He () also used for the devil, based on superstition prohibiting invocation of evil
He himself () like "he"
Les chestnoi () "honorable one of the forest"
Les pravedniy () "righteous one of the forest"
Lesnoi dedushka/ded or Dedushka-lesovoi (, , ) "forest grandfather"
Lesnoi dukh (, ) "forest spirit"
Lesnoi dyadya () "forest uncle"
Lesnoi khozyain () "forest master"
Lesnoi zhitel' () "forest dweller" or "woodsman"
Lesny muzhik , "forest man"
Appearance
Leshy's appearance in mythological tales serves as a testament to his supernatural essence and deep connection to the forest. As a representation of the forest itself, Leshy can assume various forms that are closely associated with it. This enigmatic creature possesses multiple identities, embodying elements of animals, plants, humans, whirlwinds, and even ethereal spirits. The external appearance of Leshy, much like other mythical beings, is often left undefined in the stories, perhaps to maintain its elusive nature. Additionally, the narrator might intentionally refrain from vividly describing this impure force, perceiving it as potentially dangerous.
In ancient tales, Leshy possesses a captivating hybrid form, displaying an intriguing asymmetry in each manifestation. It is often embodied as a majestic flora entity - a revered tree, be it a pine, spruce, birch, oak, or aspen, or even as a humble bush, stump, leaf, or mushroom. Gradually, it assumes human-like characteristics, with its shape resembling that of a person and its branches resembling flowing locks of hair. Conversely, the influence of vegetation can be prominently observed, with its long, untamed green hair mimicking branches of trees or bushes, a beard adorned with lichen, and attire adorned with moss that imitates the color and texture of wood. Its countenance may even bear a resemblance to moss-covered face, its skin as resilient as bark. Yet, at times, these vegetal traits are reduced to mere adornments - a club or batoge held in its hand, a verdant beard, and eyes and garments tinted with the hue of foliage. The association with the forest is further enhanced by Leshy's ability to discipline humans with twigs, creating uproar, and resonating with the harmonic melodies of trees. Occasionally, Leshy personifies the entire forest, encompassing its vast expanse.
In the realm of folklore, Leshy assumes a myriad of forms, some of which mirror zooanthropomorphic creatures. These manifestations encompass both untamed beasts that inspire reverence, such as the bear, wolf, owl, demonic hare, frog, crow, and magpie, as well as domesticated animals like the dog, black cat, horse, and black goat. Furthermore, Leshy frequently takes on the visage of a being that is half-human and half-goat, akin to a diabolical figure. This embodiment is characterized by a dense covering of black wool, diminutive and curved horns, hooves, luxuriant hair upon the head, and an extensive beard. Alternatively, Leshy may adopt the form of a person adorned with animal attributes, such as excessive hairiness, garments crafted from animal skins, claws adorning the hands and feet, hooves, a tail, wings, and even horse bridles. It is not uncommon for Leshy to be accompanied by a creature of its own, such as a black dog or a diminutive black goat.
The prevailing depiction of Leshy, a mythical creature with human-like characteristics, is a relatively recent creation. However, even when portrayed as a man, Leshy still possesses fantastical qualities. It can appear as either a towering figure or an unassuming individual. With long, unkempt or neatly groomed hair in shades of gray, green, or occasionally red, and a similarly colored beard, Leshy's appearance can vary. Sometimes, it is imagined that Leshy's face is as pale as the bark of a birch tree. Its eyes come in various shades, from green to unnaturally pale, even white, or lead-blue, or dazzling, or lifeless. They may protrude, or the right eye may be fixed and larger than the left, or both eyes may be larger than those of a human, or perpetually unblinking. Leshy may lack eyebrows, eyelashes (though occasionally sporting bushy brows), or even have missing nostrils, a right ear, or one eye, and can even have a limp. Some accounts suggest that Leshy possesses an upward-pointed head.
In certain depictions, Leshy is said to possess blue blood, leading to a complexion of the same color. Within various narratives, Leshy exhibits a distinct inclination to conceal their countenance, avoiding direct eye contact with others or presenting an enigmatic face that remains unseen. When seated, Leshy typically crosses their left leg over the right. According to certain Belarusian beliefs, Leshy possesses a peculiar visage characterized by a flattened, jutting rib-like structure, an elongated triangular beard, a solitary eye, and a solitary leg with the heel positioned forward. The portrayal of Leshy as a weathered old man with a gray beard is widely prevalent. Frequently, Leshy manifests in the guise of a familiar figure, be it a relative, neighbor, or acquaintance, and the deceit is often only unveiled upon returning home, when it becomes apparent that the encountered individual was actually in an entirely different location. Furthermore, Leshy has the ability to assume the appearance of a deceased person.
The interpretations of the growth of Leshy vary: he is described as either a giant, capable of striding over rivers, or a tiny humanoid, or of average height. According to some beliefs, Leshy's height changes depending on the surrounding vegetation: in the forest, he reaches the height of the tallest trees, but on a clearing, he is level with the grass. Other perspectives suggest that Leshy appears as a giant from afar, but up close, he has an ordinary or even small stature. Nevertheless, Leshy can increase or decrease his size at will. In the Russian North, there was a notion Leshy creatures are divided by size into forest dwellers, meadow dwellers, and moss dwellers. Leshy possesses immense strength. He can be incredibly heavy, to the point where a horse is unable to pull the cart on which he is sitting; his hand is also heavy.
It is widely believed that Leshy is dressed like an ordinary person. He may wear leather or fur clothing, an armyak, a woolen homemade caftan, a siberka, clothing similar to a balaklava or a cassock with wide sleeves. The headwear is diverse: a wide-brimmed hat, a pointed cap, sometimes made from various patches, a cap, and more. According to other beliefs, Leshy always has an uncovered head. Some versions state that Leshy is always belted, while others claim he is always without a belt. The typical footwear for Leshy is bast shoes, sometimes enormous. He is often caught weaving or digging in them, sitting on a stump under the moonlight. He also wears boots, and sometimes walks barefoot. The left side of Leshy's clothing is fastened on the right (contrary to men's customary practice), with the right side sometimes "tucked in," and his shoes are occasionally worn on the wrong feet. Leshy is often depicted as a forester or a soldier, usually with shiny buttons. In later folk tales, Leshy is dressed in modern clothing: a cap, boots or shoes, etc. Sometimes he wears attire atypical for the forest, such as a black suit. Overall, the color of Leshy's clothing varies: the colors of the forest are green and tawny, the colors of the otherworldly realm are white and black, and their blend is gray, demonic red associated with the color of blood, and blue. In his hands, Leshy usually carries a whip, a lash, a cudgel, or a basket, indicating his connection to the forest and his patronage over animals. Leshy is often seen naked.
It was believed that a strong wind accompanies Leshy from both the front and the back, indicating the direction in which it is heading. This wind sweeps away the tracks of Leshy, hence, according to one version, nobody ever saw them (although in other stories, Leshy does leave traces). Leshy itself can take the form of a powerful wind, whirlwind, as well as storms, rain, and fog. In this form, it raises dust on the road, tears off roofs of houses, and topples trees. In some regions, the image of Leshy as a whirlwind was the most common, and in certain places, any kind of bad weather was identified with it.
There is a belief that Leshy lacks a shadow. This enigmatic creature can be invisible to humans, disappearing suddenly or gradually. It is said that to catch a glimpse of the true form or the invisible nature of Leshy, one must peer through the right ear of a horse or through a bridle, while sitting between three harrows. Northern Russian folklore claims that Leshy wears an invisible cap, but it can be revealed by using the plant known as Ivan's (or Adam's) Head and stealing the cap from him. In certain tales, the only manifestation of Leshy is an inexplicable and sometimes collective fear that arises unexpectedly in the forest.
According to mythological tales, the auditory manifestations of Leshy are both clamorous (often resonating throughout the entire woodland, deafening humans) and diverse (encompassing all sounds that can be heard or imagined in the forest): whistling, laughter, clapping, bellowing cries, singing, the voices of various animals, the howling of the wind, humming, crackling, and rustling. In this way, Leshy asserts its superiority over humans, expressing dissatisfaction, striving to scare, jest, and lead astray with false sounds. In numerous stories, Leshy speaks in human-like manner. Often, it mimics people, much like an echo, which was considered its response in the forest. However, at times it is deliberately silent, and in some places it was even believed that it could not speak. Humans could hear the sounds of Leshy's wedding procession: the hoofbeats of horses, tinkling bells, harmonicas, and songs.
Lifestyle
In the tales and folklore, encounters with Leshy are described in any part of the forest, as well as in fields and even villages, at any time of the day. According to beliefs, Leshy dwells in old dry trees (such as fir and willow), in hollows, in stumps, in upturned roots, in fallen logs, in woodland huts, in secret caves, and even underground. It is said that a person will inevitably get lost near Leshy's dwelling. According to other beliefs, Leshy resides deep within the forest, protected by dense, impassable thickets and fallen trees, which remain unfrozen even during winter marshes. Animals of the forest and birds live alongside the "master". There are superstitions that forest creatures gather there before their death. Often, Leshy is depicted as a solitary being, with only one Leshy inhabiting each forest (large forests may be divided into sections, each with its own leshy). However, in some mythological tales, leshy creatures can gather together, living in families (Leshy's wife is called a leshachikha or a kidnapped maiden, and their children are either their own offspring or also kidnapped children), and even in villages: Leshy's homes are covered in animal hides, guarded by dogs, and they keep livestock; there are stories of leshy leaders and kings; the head of Leshy is referred to as the forest chief, the woodland king, the forest dweller, Musail-les, the honorable woodsman. Leshy can move along human roads, but in the forest, they have their own invisible paths that do not coincide with those of humans, and it is dangerous for a person to wander onto them - one can easily get lost. There was a belief that not all Leshy creatures are active throughout the day, but only during certain transitional hours: at night (especially at midnight), at dawn, at noon, or at an undefined "evil hour".
The perceptions of the nature of Leshy are also contradictory. On one hand, Leshy is often depicted as having a majestic demeanor, yet on the other hand, they enjoy jesting, revelry, drinking, and playing cards. Leshy is attributed to all the phenomena caused by gusts of wind in the forest: howling, the crackling of trees, and the rustling of leaves. The fallen trees and roofs torn off by hurricane winds in some regions are associated with the noisy weddings of Leshy, which they celebrate during the summer. Leshy enjoys hanging and swaying on tree branches, which is why in certain places it has been called the "swinger". It often sits on a tree or stump, weaving bast shoes or crafting wooden trinkets. Leshy can engage in feuds among themselves (tales speak of battles between spirits, using trees and boulders as weapons), as well as with demons, water spirits, field spirits, and house spirits.
It was believed that as the master, Leshy takes care of the forest and protects it. Leshy acts as the shepherd of all woodland creatures, depicted as an old man with a staff in his hand. He herds the animals, ensures their nourishment, defends them from hunters, and saves them from fires. Leshy governs the animals under his dominion as his own property, for instance, he may gamble them away in a game of cards to another forest spirit - this served as a mystical explanation for mass animal migrations such as squirrels, hares, and others. However, Leshy is often portrayed as the patron of only one or a few species of wild animals, most commonly bears and particularly wolves (Leshy can manifest as a white wolf - the pack leader).
A series of dates in the folk calendar are associated with Leshy. The presence of Leshy was particularly common before Great Lent, Palm Sunday, and on the night of Ivan Kupala on June 24th (July 7th). It is believed that Leshy, like other spirits, celebrates the arrival of spring and Easter (the best gift for Leshy on this day being an Easter egg). On George's Day in Spring, April 23rd (May 6th), or around St. Nicholas' Day, May 9th (May 22nd), shepherds could make agreements with Leshy. Hunters most often made agreements with Leshy on Easter and on the night of Ivan Kupala. On the night of Agafon the Monk, August 22nd (September 4th), Leshy would leave the forest and run through the villages, scattering sheaves in the threshing floors and causing mischief in general. Peasants would guard the sheaves from Leshy at night, walking around the sheaves in a circle with a poker, as if enclosing them with a fence. The Feast of the Cross, September 14th (September 27th), was also considered a special day for Leshy, when they would drive forest animals into special places to play cards with them. Peasants would avoid going into the forest on this day so as not to stumble upon the gathering of Leshy. On St. Erofey's Day, October 4th (October 17th), Leshy would stop wandering through the forest, as they would sink into the ground and only reappear in the spring. Parting ways with the forest for the winter, Leshy would become agitated, dissatisfied, and melancholic, causing winds, breaking trees, digging up the earth, and scattering all the animals to their burrows. It was considered dangerous to go into the forest on this day, as Leshy could lose their mind. Leshy would only reappear in the spring, when the snow began to melt. However, according to equally prevalent beliefs, Leshy would remain in the forest during the winter, causing blizzards. Like other unclean spirits, Leshy could manifest themselves during the Christmas season.
The origins of Leshy have been shrouded in ambiguity. Folklore suggests that Leshy are formed from cursed individuals, children traded with dark forces, restless souls, or descendants of unions between demons and witches. In popular Christianity, relatively recent motifs propose that Leshy, like all impure forces, is either a celestial being expelled from the heavens and consigned to the depths of the forest, or a manifestation devised by the Devil himself, endeavoring to replicate God's divine act of shaping humanity, only to be cast down to the earthly realm. Furthermore, Leshies are perceived as an unacknowledged progeny stemming from the lineage of Adam and Eve, or alternatively, as the cursed offspring of various condemned figures, forsaken by the divine.
Leshy and humans
The existence of the Russian peasant was intimately intertwined with the forest, upon which their livelihoods hinged. Within the forest, every aspect of agricultural labor unfolded, with slash-and-burn techniques carefully adhered to. Cattle grazed contentedly amidst the trees, while wood was selectively harvested for both construction and warmth. The pursuit of mushrooms, berries, and fishing opportunities thrived within this woodland realm, alongside the extraction of tar and the burning of charcoal. Crucially, the forest served as a vital thoroughfare for roads, while also playing host to various pagan rituals. However, despite mankind's active engagement with the forest and its proximity to their mastered territory, it remained an enigmatic and perilous domain. It was regarded as an otherworldly realm, teeming with impure forces and beyond the grasp of human control.Madlevskaya E. L. Nizshaya mifologiya: Leshij // Russkaya mifologiya. Enciklopediya. — Eksmo, Midgard, 2005. — P. 314-327. — 784 p.
The perception of Leshy, as a forest guardian, was ambiguous among the people. On one hand, Leshy was considered a hostile and dangerous force, sometimes even mistaken for a demon. On the other hand, it was often contrasted with "real" demons: its negative actions were not intended to harm humans, but rather to punish (even with death) for improper behavior in the forest, and sometimes for breaking societal rules. According to folklore, Leshy didn't intentionally harm people, but rather played tricks and pranks, albeit in a crude and malicious manner: it scared people with laughter and clapping, led them astray, hid their hats and baskets, silently made them sleep on anthills, forced them to climb trees, offered pine cones disguised as a drink, removed wagon wheels, and more. However, Leshy was also seen as a benevolent and just spirit, who wouldn't harm humans without reason. It could help gather mushrooms or berries, show the way if asked, and take care of a lost child. Leshy determined the success of hunting and the prosperous grazing of livestock. Numerous mythological tales depict the struggle between humans and Leshy, in search of a compromise. This ambivalent attitude was also evident in the portrayal of Leshy, sometimes as a powerful and terrifying spirit, against whom only prayers or magic (mainly in folk beliefs) could provide protection, and other times as a simple folk demon, easily outsmarted by a clever peasant (mostly in fairy tales and similar narratives).
According to folk etiquette, when going to the forest, one should pray and ask permission to enter it from Leshy as the "master of the forest". It was also necessary to ask for Leshy's consent to any activity in the forest. One should not, when going to the forest, say that you are going for a short time - it is not for a man to decide, but for the forest. It was very dangerous to get a curse from a relative before going to the forest, as Leshy believed that "cursed people" were promised to him. Leshy does not like it when in the forest swear, make noise, sing, and even more so whistle - it is his prerogative, he may take offense and hurry to respond with his destructive whistle. Do not imitate the echo and respond to an unfamiliar voice - it may be Leshy.
Protecting the forest, Leshy can prevent a man from cutting trees (hides axes, scatters logs), and even more so to maim them unnecessarily, and hunting (diverts the shot, deprives marksmanship and generally the ability to shoot, lures into impassable places). A person who stays overnight in a forest hut without being asked, Leshy tries to frighten with noise, shouts of animals and birds, opening doors, etc., and expel him, maybe even kill him. It is not allowed to lie down for the night and make a fire on the trail, and especially at the crossroads, as it can run over Leshy moving along it or a whole wedding or funeral procession of Leshy.
Leshy likes to warm himself by a human fire, but, when angry, he can scatter or trample it. If a person behaving badly in the forest, Leshy could scare him half to death, frighten him with visions, make him sick, tickle him to death (for the latter he was sometimes called a tickler). If a person fell ill and it was believed that it happened in the forest, Leshy was petitioned to recover. However, sometimes Leshy could harm a person without any apparent reason.
Meandering and enigmatic vanishing of individuals
Leshy, known by various names such as fornication, shatun, manilo, and vodyla, was widely believed to be responsible for causing humans to lose their way in the forest. It was said that Leshy would encircle individuals with an invisible barrier, separating them from the familiar world and leading them astray. Anyone who crossed paths with Leshy would inevitably become disoriented and lost. Leshy had the ability to obstruct paths with various obstacles, such as fallen trees or rivers, or even manipulate the very path itself. Furthermore, he possessed the power to conceal missing persons, making their presence known through distant sounds, yet remaining elusive and impossible to locate. Leshy could also bind individuals to the very trees he inhabited, causing them to continuously return to his domain as they wandered. He had the ability to deceive by distorting natural signs and landmarks that guided travelers. Hunters would often be lured into thickets by Leshy, who would masquerade as an elusive or exotic animal. Additionally, Leshy could mimic the voice of a familiar or a distressed child, leading unsuspecting individuals to impassable locations before vanishing. It was not uncommon for Leshy to assume the guise of a companion or stranger, engaging in distracting conversations or enticing promises of bountiful mushrooms or berries, only to lead them to an impenetrable place before disappearing. The appearance of Leshy in such instances was often associated with dreams of a companion. A lost individual finds himself in an unfamiliar place, which is perceived as inaccessible in practical terms and as another world in mythological terms. However, when the enchantment wanes, the person may discover themselves not far from familiar surroundings. Similarly, by pretending to be a familiar figure, Leshy can loom ahead at a distance, eluding capture and remaining unresponsive. This companion vanishes suddenly, often at the border of the cultural realm - while crossing a bridge or a barrier, typically with a mischievous laugh.
According to folklore, to rid oneself of Leshy, if it is perceived as an impure spirit, prayer, the sign of the cross, and invoking the name of God can be of assistance. However, in cases where Leshy is perceived as an ancient deity, profanity is more effective, and one can also try to amuse Leshy. To conclude a conversation with Leshy, it is necessary to utter the "backward word," that is, the word that he (or the person themselves) said first, as if closing the verbal circle. Protection against Leshy is provided by salt and fire, a circle drawn with a "magical" object, a peeled linden stick, a skull, and rowan berries. Leshy fears dogs and tricolored cats. Leshy can be driven away by a forceful strike. He is afraid of firearms, especially those loaded with copper button-bullets. To rid oneself of Leshy's spell, one must remove all their clothes and put them on backwards: inside out, back to front, switch footwear, invert insoles, and so on. While undressing, it is necessary to curse loudly and beat the clothes against a tree, and while dressing, recite a prayer and utter an incantation. Similarly, if one gets lost while driving a carriage, the horses should be harnessed in reverse. One could also attempt to exit the forest backwards along their own tracks. Additionally, one can simply ask Leshy to point the way.
Similar to other demonic characters, Leshy has the ability to abduct people. Individuals of any age or gender can fall victim to their grasp. Most commonly, the reason for abduction is a curse, particularly a parental one that sends the child "to Leshy." If the "cursed child" manages to be baptized, Leshy waits until they reach the age of 7 before luring them into the forest. In exchange for the stolen infant, Leshy sometimes places a substitute in the cradle - a log or a bundle of straw. Other times, they leave behind their own offspring, which takes on the appearance of the abducted child, but distorted and grotesque. The substitute child is malicious, cries incessantly, lacks the ability to walk or speak, and shows no signs of intellect. After some time, it either disappears or dies, or if it remains among humans, it becomes a sorcerer. According to some tales, Leshy treat the abducted kindly, nourishing and raising them, imparting secret knowledge and turning them into sorcerers and healers. Leshy often take abducted girls as wives and can have children with them. However, if a woman in the village gives birth to a child from Leshy, the infant soon vanishes. Leshy can also abduct individuals with the intention of turning them into slaves. Frequently, the abducted become invisible to people, although they can see their loved ones, hear their conversations, and experience separation, but are unable to reveal themselves. According to other accounts, the missing individuals become feral, losing their understanding of speech and their ability to wear clothes. They become covered in moss and bark, bite, and flee from people. There are also stories in which the "abducted" (lost) individuals perish due to exhaustion, hunger, falling into a pit, or sinking into a swamp.
It was believed that protection against abduction could be achieved immediately after a curse by employing Christian (praying, crossing oneself, remembering God, performing a supplication) or pagan methods (saying "tchur me", uttering an incantation, performing the ritual of "tasting"), or simply by acting quickly and catching up with the "abductee" in the woods. In order to find a lost person in the forest, people would perform the same ritual of "tasting" (or "averting") as they would for a lost domestic animal, only the offerings were slightly more valuable - not just bread with salt, but also pancakes, pies, a pot of porridge, and a piece of lard. Relatives also sought assistance from the house Leshy, addressing him by "barking" into a pipe. There was a belief that a person who had been abducted should not consume the food of the forest Leshy in order to return home (although in other stories, people would feast with the forest Leshy and still manage to return, but the food they brought would transform into cones, moss, and so on). If one managed to negotiate with Leshy, it would show the lost person the way, or even lead them out of the forest, or "reveal" them to the searchers - the missing person could end up in a place where they had already been fruitlessly searched for. Leshy had various attitudes towards parting with the abductee: with joy and instruction to no longer disturb him, with irritation that he had been needlessly bothered, or with reluctance, trying to hold onto his victim. Leshy could return a person who had been abducted long ago as a reward for someone else's assistance, or out of no longer needing them when the person grew old, or give away the person they had abducted as a child in marriage to humans.
There was a belief that those who returned from Leshy were transformed. They had to learn to speak again, their minds were damaged or, on the contrary, they became focused and serious, acquiring abilities for sorcery, predicting their own and others' fate, and communicating with spirits (leshy, house spirits). Those who returned were drawn back into the forest, they avoided people and often couldn't start a family. They didn't reveal everything about their time with Leshy, as they could pay for it with their lives. For girls (who were called forest maidens after their time with Leshy in Smolensk), the influence of the abduction faded after marriage.
In popular culture
Leshy is used as a prototype for the main character of Vladimir Vysotsky's song "Lukomorye", which depicts Leshy as an alcoholic who spends all his money on drinking and is abusive to his wife.
Leshy was the inspiration for an antagonist of the video-game Inscryption, who is also named "Leshy".
In 's comic-book Łauma the main protagonist is guarded by the Yotvingians' version of Leshy, the Lauma. They also appear on the cover.
The name "Leshy" can designate a type of ghillie suit used by military personnel for camouflage in forests and grassy fields.
The character "Lesh"'' appears as the guardian of the forest in Mavka, the highest-grossing Ukrainian film based on the 1918 play The Forest Song by poet Lesya Ukrainka
See also
Äbädä (Tatarstan)
Basajaun (Basque Country)
Berstuk (Wend people of Germany)
Boruta (Slavic region)
Grand Bois (loa) (Haiti)
Hidebehind (Americas)
Jinn (Arabian, Islamic)
Vörsa (Komi Republic)
List of nature deities (Slavic mythology)
Ochopintre (Republic of Georgia)
Shatans (Belarus, Russian Federation)
Shishiga (Russia)
Silvanus (Ancient Rome and Gaul)
Woodwose (medieval Europe)
Yum Caax (Mayan)
References
External links
Russian folklore characters
Mythological tricksters
Shapeshifting
Slavic gods
Slavic tutelary deities
Forest spirits
Slavic folklore characters
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambo%20%28franchise%29
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Rambo (franchise)
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Rambo is an American media franchise centered on a series of action films featuring John J. Rambo. The five films are First Blood (1982), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Rambo III (1988), Rambo (2008), and Rambo: Last Blood (2019). Rambo is a United States Army Special Forces veteran played by Sylvester Stallone, whose Vietnam War experience traumatized him but also gave him superior military skills, which he has used to fight corrupt police officers, enemy troops and drug cartels. First Blood is an adaptation of the 1972 novel First Blood by David Morrell.
The film series has grossed $819 million in total, $300 million of which is from the most successful film, Rambo: First Blood Part II. Stallone co-wrote the screenplays of all five films, and directed Rambo. The franchise also spawned an animated television series, Rambo: The Force of Freedom, and comic books, novels, and video games.
Films
First Blood (1982)
Upon returning to the United States, Vietnam veteran John Rambo has difficulty adjusting to civilian life and wanders the country as a drifter for almost a decade. In December 1981, Rambo travels to a small town in rural Washington (filmed in Hope, British Columbia, Canada), in search of a fellow U.S. Army Green Beret buddy. He learns that his friend died from cancer the previous summer due to exposure to Agent Orange.
He attempts to find a diner in town, and maybe a temporary job. The overconfident town sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy) does not welcome Rambo, judging the military hero negatively because of his long hair and scruffy look. Rambo disobeys the sheriff's order to stay away from town, as he has done nothing wrong and believes such banishment to be a violation of his freedom of movement, and most of all he is hungry. Rambo returns to town soon afterwards and is promptly charged with vagrancy and subject to harassment from the deputies.
The harassment triggers flashbacks of Rambo's memories of his torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese when he was a prisoner of war. Rambo fights his way out of the sheriff's department with his bare hands and makes his way into the wilderness. A manhunt ensues, with the sheriff and his deputies all badly wounded. Rambo chooses not to kill any of them, but unintentionally kills a police officer in self-defense by throwing a rock at a helicopter, causing the pilot to lose control and an officer to fall out. The State Police and National Guard are called in.
Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna), Rambo's former commanding officer, arrives. He suggests giving Rambo a chance to escape; if Rambo is allowed to slip away, he'll be given time to calm down and he can be arrested without incident. Teasle allows Trautman to contact Rambo through a stolen police radio, but Rambo refuses to surrender, stating that "They (the deputies) drew first blood, not me" and then hanging up.
The authorities reject Trautman's recommendation for a wait-and-see attitude and continue the manhunt, and Rambo's subsequent rampage culminates in him returning to town with guns and bombs from a commandeered Army truck. This results in the destruction of the sheriff's office and more of the town's main street. Rambo stands poised to eliminate the sheriff, but Trautman finally confronts Rambo face to face, and ultimately convinces his former soldier to surrender to the authorities.
Between the first and second films, Rambo is convicted and remanded to a civilian maximum-security prison where hard labor is the norm. Despite being a convict, the rigid routine and discipline of prison life provides Rambo with some measure of much-needed stability, as it reminds him of his past in the military and its own rigid hierarchy.
Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
The film opens with Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna) offering Rambo his freedom if Rambo will return to Vietnam to search for American prisoners of war remaining in Vietnamese captivity. Marshall Murdock (Charles Napier), the official in charge of the mission, is portrayed as a corrupt political figure who doesn't want to expose the truth. Rambo is not to engage the enemy and instead is ordered to take photographs of a North Vietnamese camp, the same camp he himself had been held prisoner in, to prove to the American public there are no more POWs in Vietnam, although Murdock knows that there are.
Rambo is flown into the country with the purpose of parachuting into the jungle, but a malfunction during his exit from the plane causes him to have to cut away much of his equipment. He then meets his in-country contact, anti-communist Vietnamese rebel Co Bao (Julia Nickson), who is serving as an intelligence agent. Rambo discovers that there are POWs being held in the camp where he was dropped and that POWs were rotated between camps. Rambo breaks one POW out of the camp and attempts to escape, only to be abandoned at the moment of a pick up by helicopter on a hilltop on the orders of Murdock, after which both he and the POW are recaptured by the Vietnamese soldiers. Rambo is immobilized in a pit of sewage and leeches, then tortured by Soviet soldiers, who are allied with the Vietnamese and training Vietnamese soldiers. Co enters the base under the guise of a prostitute for hire, where she aids Rambo in escaping. After Rambo expresses his deepest gratitude for his rescue, the two share a kiss, after Co implores him to take her back to America with him. As they prepare to move on, Co is shot by surprise gunfire.
Enraged, Rambo then acts on his own initiative and starts a one-man war, hunting the Vietnamese and Soviet soldiers searching for him in the jungle and stealing a Soviet-captured helicopter. He flies the helicopter back to the camp, destroying it and killing the remaining Vietnamese and Soviet soldiers in the camp. He frees all the POWs and is pursued by a Soviet Mi-24 Hind helicopter. After destroying the Hind with an RPG, he returns to the US base in Thailand with all the POWs. Rambo is enraged at how the United States government has ignored the existence of surviving soldiers being held captive, and grabs an M-60 machine gun and proceeds into the headquarters building, destroying all of the electronic gear within. Rambo then threatens Murdock and tells him to be forthright with the American public regarding the truth of the POWs and to spare no expense in rescuing them all, or else he will return for Murdock. When Trautman says Rambo will be honored once again, he declines, saying the POWs deserve the accolades more. For his actions in Vietnam, Rambo is granted a presidential pardon and decides to remain in Thailand.
Rambo III (1988)
The film opens with Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna) returning to Thailand to once again enlist Rambo's help. After witnessing Rambo's victory in a stick-fighting match, Trautman visits the temple Rambo is helping to build and asks him to join him on a mission to Afghanistan. This brings Rambo into the realm of the CIA's Special Activities Division which primarily hires Army Special Forces soldiers. The mission is meant to supply weapons, including FIM-92 Stinger missiles, to Afghan freedom fighters, the Mujahideen, who are fighting the Soviets. Despite having been shown photos of civilians suffering under Soviet rule, Rambo refuses and Trautman chooses to go on his own.
While in Afghanistan, Trautman's troops are ambushed by Soviet troops while passing through the mountains at night. Trautman is imprisoned in a Soviet base and tortured for information by commanding officer Zaysen (Marc de Jonge) and his henchman Kourov (Randy Raney). Rambo learns of the incident from embassy field officer Robert Griggs (Kurtwood Smith) and immediately flies to Pakistan where he meets up with Mousa (Sasson Gabai), a weapons supplier who agrees to take him to a village deep in the Afghan desert, close to the Soviet base where Trautman is kept. The Mujahideen in the village are already hesitant to help Rambo in the first place, but are convinced not to help him when their village is attacked by Soviet helicopters after one of Mousa's shop assistants informed the Russians of Rambo's presence. Aided only by Mousa and a young boy named Hamid (Doudi Shoua), Rambo makes his way to the Soviet base and starts his attempts to free Trautman. The first attempt is unsuccessful and results in Hamid getting shot in the leg, and Rambo himself getting hit by wooden shrapnel. After escaping from the base, Rambo tends to Hamid's wounds and sends him and Mousa away to safety.
The next day, Rambo returns to the base once again, just in time to rescue Trautman from being tortured with a flamethrower. After rescuing several other prisoners, Rambo steals a helicopter and escapes from the base. The helicopter crashes and Rambo and Trautman are forced to continue on foot. After a confrontation in a cave, where Rambo and Trautman kill several Russian soldiers including Kourov, they are confronted by an entire army of Russian tanks, headed by Zaysen. Just as they are about to be overwhelmed by the might of the Soviet Army, the Mujahideen warriors, together with Mousa and Hamid, ride onto the battlefield in a cavalry charge, overwhelming the Russians despite their numerical and technological superiority. In the ensuing battle, in which both Trautman and Rambo are wounded, Rambo manages to kill Zaysen by driving a tank into the helicopter in which Zaysen is flying.
At the end of the battle Rambo and Trautman say goodbye to their Mujahideen friends and leave Afghanistan to go home.
Rambo (2008)
The film opens with news footage of the crisis in Burma. Burma (also known as Myanmar) is under the iron fist rule of Than Shwe and takes harsher stances against the nation's pro-democracy movement. Rebels are thrown into a mine-infested marsh and then gunned down by a Burmese army unit, overseen by Major Pa Tee Tint.
Former U.S. soldier John Rambo still lives in Thailand, now residing in a village near the Burmese border and makes a living capturing snakes and selling them in a nearby village. A missionary, Michael Burnett (Paul Schulze), asks Rambo to take him and his associates down the Salween River to Burma on a humanitarian mission to help the Karen people. Rambo initially refuses but is convinced by another missionary in the group, Sarah Miller (Julie Benz), to take them.
The boat is stopped by pirates who demand Sarah in exchange for passage. After taking advantage of the pirates' complacency, Rambo kills them all. Although his actions save the missionaries, it greatly disturbs them. Upon arrival, Michael says that they will travel by road and will not need Rambo's help for the return trip. The mission goes well until the Burmese army, led by Major Tint, attacks the village, killing most of the villagers and two missionaries, and capturing the rest. When the missionaries fail to come back after ten days, their pastor, Arthur Marsh (Ken Howard), comes to Rambo to ask for his help in guiding hired mercenaries to the village where the missionaries were last seen.
Troubled by Sarah's potential fate, Rambo decides to accompany the soldiers. After seeing the destroyed village filled with mutilated humans and animals, the mercenaries spot some soldiers forcing several surviving villagers to run through a minefield. The mercenaries are hesitant to rescue the villagers, but not Rambo, who shoots the soldiers with a bow and arrow. Rambo reminds his colleagues of the rescue mission and encourages the team to move on. Hijacking a truck, they create a plan to save the hostages at the P.O.W. camp, doing so within fifteen minutes to avoid alerting the army. Rambo helps Sarah and the others to escape.
The Burmese Army (Tatmadaw) unit finds their hostages missing and organizes a massive manhunt. Everyone except for Rambo, Sarah, and "School Boy" (Matthew Marsden), the mercenary team's sniper, is captured. Just as the group is to be executed, Rambo hijacks a truck-mounted .50-caliber machine gun and engages the Burmese army. A group of Karen rebels joins the fight to help Rambo and the mercenaries defeat the Burmese unit. Seeing that the battle is lost, Major Tint decides to flee, only to run into Rambo's machete, which Rambo then uses to disembowel the Major.
Encouraged by Sarah's words, Rambo returns to the United States. The last scene shows him walking along a rural highway, past a horse farm and a rusted mailbox with the name "R. Rambo" on it. He makes his way down the gravel driveway as the credits roll.
Rambo: Last Blood (2019)
Eleven years after the events in Burma, Vietnam War veteran John Rambo lives in Bowie, Arizona at his deceased father's horse ranch, which he manages with his old friend, Maria Beltran, and her granddaughter, Gabriela. Gabriela tells Rambo that a friend of hers, Gizelle, has found Gabriela's biological father, Miguel, in Mexico. Both Rambo and Maria tell her not to go to Mexico, but Gabriela secretly drives there to ask Miguel why he abandoned her and her mother years ago. Gizelle leads Gabriela to Miguel's apartment, where he coldly tells her that he never really cared for Gabriela or her mother.
Gizelle takes a heartbroken Gabriela to a nearby club, where Gabriela is drugged and kidnapped by the enforcers of a Mexican cartel. Meanwhile, Maria informs Rambo of Gabriela's disappearance in Mexico. Rambo rushes to Mexico and interrogates both Miguel and Gizelle about Gabriela's whereabouts. Gizelle reluctantly leads Rambo to the club where Gabriela was last seen and confronts El Flaco, the man who last spoke with Gabriela. A mysterious woman, Carmen Delgado, tails Rambo as El Flaco leads him to Gabriela's location. Rambo is immediately confronted, beaten and marked by the cartel, led by the brothers Hugo and Victor Martinez. They take his driver's license with the location of Rambo's ranch and a photo of Gabriela, whom Victor recognizes. The cartel vow to mistreat Gabriela further due to Rambo's actions.
Carmen takes Rambo back to her home where she cares for him until he fully recovers after four days. While Rambo is cared for by Carmen, Gabriela is stripped and consistently dosed with heroin and sold to be raped repeatedly. Carmen says she is an independent journalist who has been investigating the Martinez brothers, who kidnapped and murdered her sister. Rambo later raids one of the brothels, killing several men until he finds a drugged Gabriela. While driving back home in his pickup, Rambo thanks Gabriela for giving him hope for ten years but she dies from the forced overdose. An enraged Rambo sends Maria away and rigs the ranch with traps for a confrontation, and later returns to Mexico to ask Carmen's help in finding Victor. Carmen initially refuses and tells Rambo that it will solve nothing, but is convinced after he appeals to her grief and frustration.
Rambo raids Victor's home, killing several guards and decapitating Victor. In retaliation, Hugo leads a large train of 7 SUVs filled with hitmen to Rambo's ranch, but each eventually falls victim to Rambo's rigged traps. Saving Hugo for the last, Rambo mutilates him and rips his heart out, killing him instantly. In the aftermath, a weakened Rambo sits on the porch of his father's house, vowing to continue fighting and keep the memories of his loved ones alive. During the credits, flashbacks to scenes from the first four movies in the franchise are shown, with Rambo finally saddling up his horse and riding off into the sunset.
Future
In June 2019 at Cannes, Stallone stated he would continue portraying John Rambo if the fifth film succeeds. Grunberg however, said that Rambo: Last Blood "closes the circle" and concludes the film series. In September 2019, Stallone expressed interest in a sixth Rambo film, where the character takes refuge at a Native American reservation. Stallone later elaborated that the story would explore Rambo's return to the reservation where he had grown up.
Television
Rambo: The Force of Freedom (1986)
Rambo: The Force of Freedom was an animated series that ran in 1986 in which John Rambo leads a team called The Force of Freedom to fight an evil organization called S.A.V.A.G.E. (short for Specialist-Administrators of Vengeance, Anarchy and Global Extortion). 65 episodes were aired. Rambo and the Forces of Freedom spawned a line of toys.
Future
In August 2013, it was announced that a Rambo television series was in development. The project was stated to include Avi Lerner and Sylvester Stallone in creative capacities. Stallone was contractually in negotiations to reprise his role from the film series, with John Morayniss and Lerner serving as executive producers. Lerner described the project as "the next phase of the Rambo legacy." The series was stated to be a joint-venture production between Nu Image, Millennium Media and eOne, while being shopped around to various television networks. By December 2015, the series was ordered by FOX Network and was officially titled Rambo: New Blood. Written by Jeb Stuart, the series would center around the complex relationship between John Rambo and an ex-Navy SEAL named J.R., his estranged son. Stallone and Stuart joined the production as additional executive producers. Later that month, Stallone stated that he would pass on reprising his role.
By October 2016, the project was temporarily repurposed as a described reboot film with the same title. Ariel Vromen joined the production as director, with a script written by Brooks McLaren. The project never materialized, in favor of Rambo: Last Blood. In November 2018, David Morrell revealed that he was commissioned by Stallone to write the script for the television series, after the previous attempts at launching the project had not succeeded. Morrell stated that the reason it had never been filmed, is that creatives had a difficult time completing the story on the story; reiterating that Rambo's son was an ex-Navy SEAL civilian, and comparing the character to The Equalizer. Miramax Television was attached to the project during his involvement.
In September 2019, Stallone announced plans for a prequel project. Though he would not reprise the title role, he would like to explore who Rambo was before the war: "the perfect guy", a Jim Thorpe-type super athlete captain of the sports team, and popular kid at school. Stallone stated that the series would explore the juxtaposition that took place, to show that joining the military and involved in war, completely changed John Rambo. Stallone later teamed with author Chuck Dixon to tell this story in the form of a graphic novel entitled "First Kill".
In November 2021, Head of Millennium Media Jeffrey Greenstein announced that the studio is once again actively developing a Rambo television series. By November 2022, Stallone stated that development on the prequel series is ongoing. He said that he would like the project to resemble a Vietnam documentary, with the series showing how war changes a person. The plot has John Rambo change from being popular athlete, to what he became in the film series. He also stated that the project may end in modern-day, where he "pass[es] the torch", which may resemble the original New Blood project.
Cast and crew
Cast
Additional crew and production details
Reception
Box office performance
Critical and public response
Cultural impact
Among the Kamula of Wawoi Falls in Western Province, Papua New Guinea, Rambo was very popular in the late 1990s. His figure was imported into local legends. For example, Rambo is rumored to have de-escalated the Bougainville conflict. Rambo is also said to have had sex with the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II. When threatened with execution, a Papua New Guinea lawyer pleaded in his favor, so Rambo promised to help Papua New Guinea in the Third World War.
Music
Soundtracks
The original scores for the first three films were composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith. The music from the first and second films was performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra and the music from the third by the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra. Goldsmith's main theme for Rambo was the basis for the end title song "It's a Long Road", performed by Dan Hill, part of the First Blood soundtrack.
Home media
All five existing films in the Rambo franchise are available from Lionsgate by virtue of the studio's output deal with StudioCanal (the company that currently holds the underlying rights to the first three films) and Lionsgate itself co-producing the latter film (in partnership with The Weinstein Company). Paramount Pictures (via Paramount Worldwide Television Licensing & Distribution and Trifecta Entertainment & Media) holds the television rights to the first three films, while Debmar-Mercury handles television distribution for the latter film on behalf of parent company Lionsgate.
Other media
Novelizations
First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III; David Morrell, author of the original First Blood novel, wrote novelizations (book adaptations) for the first two Rambo sequels. Morrell has said that he wrote the novelizations because he wanted to include characterization that is not in Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III. Morrell did not write a novelization for the 2008 film, Rambo, as he said the film's characterization matched that of the original First Blood novel.
Comic books
Rambo Adventures: in 1986 an Italian series of comic books inspired by Rambo was published, by Giorgio Pedrazzi.
Rambo III: in the late 1980s, Blackthorne Publishing published a few comics starring the character. Adapted the film of the same name and was also published in a 3D version by Blackthorne.
Rambo: also, there was a comic featuring other adventures of the character.
First Kill: in November 2022 an Indiegogo campaign launched for a new graphic novel depicting Rambo's first tour of duty in Vietnam written by Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Dixon.
Video games
Various licensed video games for various arcade and home console systems have been released:
Rambo; based on Rambo: First Blood Part II. Released in 1985 for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and Commodore 64
Rambo: First Blood Part II; based on Rambo: First Blood Part II. Released in 1986 for Master System
Rambo; based on Rambo: First Blood Part II. Released in 1987 for the NES
Rambo III; based on Rambo III. Various games released in 1989 for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, MSX, ZX Spectrum, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System, Arcade
Rambo III; based on Rambo III. Released in 1989 for the arcades
Rambo; based on Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III. Released in 2008 for Sega 2-player light gun game
Rambo: The Video Game; based on First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III. Released in 2014 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
Bollywood remake
In May 2013, Original Entertainment confirmed to have sealed a five-picture deal with Millennium Films to produce Bollywood remakes of First Blood, The Expendables, 16 Blocks, 88 Minutes, and Brooklyn's Finest, with the productions for First Blood and The Expendables expected to start at the end of that year.
In early 2016, Siddharth Anand was announced as the director and the film will be co-produced by Anand, Daljit DJ Parmar, Samir Gupta, Hunt Lowry, Saurabh Gupta and Gulzar Inder Chahal. The film will specifically remake First Blood and will follow the last member of an elite unit in the Indian Armed forces returning home only to discover a different war waiting for him, forcing Rambo to the jungles and mountains of the Himalayas and unleash mayhem and destruction.
In May 2017, Tiger Shroff was cast in the role of Rambo while production was scheduled for a late 2018 release date. By October 2017, the film was placed on hold while Shroff and Anand completed other projects.
The film was scheduled to be released in October 2020, with Shroff expected to star in Hindi remakes of all five films in the Rambo franchise.
Other appearances
Fight Klub: Rambo is a character in a trading card game published by Decipher, Inc.
Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff: a freemium video game in which Rambo is an unlockable character.
Broforce: a side-scrolling run-and-gun platform video game in which Rambo is an unlockable character.
Mortal Kombat 11: a fighting game in which Rambo is a playable DLC character via downloadable content, with Sylvester Stallone reprising his role. In his arcade ending, Rambo defeated Kronika and planned to use her hourglass to right every wrong in history. As picking who lives and who dies would "kill his soul", Rambo walked away forever this time, stating "After all I've been through, I've earned a little peace".
Call of Duty Warzone, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Mobile featured the character as a time-limited DLC
Rogue Company: a shooter game video game where Rambo is a character skin for the character Seeker
See also
Syndicate Sadists, a Poliziotteschi film that predates First Blood
Wild Blood, a Turkish copy film of First Blood
Missing in Action, an American film inspired by Rambo: First Blood Part II
Rampage, a Turkish copy film of Rambo: First Blood Part II
Hot Shots! Part Deux, an American parody film of Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III with colonel role reprised by Richard Crenna
Son of Rambow, a British comedy film inspired by First Blood
Second Blood, a Kuwaiti action film inspired by Rambo: First Blood Part II
References
External links
Film series introduced in 1982
Action film franchises
Lionsgate franchises
TriStar Pictures franchises
Sony Pictures franchises
Vivendi franchises
Vietnam War films
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common%20raven
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Common raven
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The common raven (Corvus corax) is a large all-black passerine bird. It is the most widely distributed of all corvids, found across the Northern Hemisphere. It is a raven known by many names at the subspecies level; there are at least eight subspecies with little variation in appearance, although recent research has demonstrated significant genetic differences among populations from various regions. It is one of the two largest corvids, alongside the thick-billed raven, and is possibly the heaviest passerine bird; at maturity, the common raven averages in length and in mass. Although their typical lifespan is considerably shorter, common ravens can live more than 23 years in the wild. Young birds may travel in flocks but later mate for life, with each mated pair defending a territory.
Common ravens have coexisted with humans for thousands of years and in some areas have been so numerous that people have regarded them as pests. Part of their success as a species is due to their omnivorous diet; they are extremely versatile and opportunistic in finding sources of nutrition, feeding on carrion, insects, cereal grains, berries, fruit, small animals, nesting birds, and food waste. Some notable feats of problem-solving provide evidence that the common raven is unusually intelligent.
Over the centuries, the raven has been the subject of mythology, folklore, art, and literature. In many cultures, including the indigenous cultures of Scandinavia, ancient Ireland and Wales, Bhutan, the northwest coast of North America, and Siberia and northeast Asia, the common raven has been revered as a spiritual figure or godlike creature.
Taxonomy
The common raven was one of the many species originally described, with its type locality given as Europe, by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae, and it still bears its original name of Corvus corax. It is the type species of the genus Corvus, derived from the Latin word for 'raven'. The specific epithet corax is the Latinized form of the Greek word , meaning 'raven' or 'crow'.
The modern English word raven has cognates in many other Germanic languages, including Old Norse (and subsequently modern Icelandic) and Old High German , all which descend from Proto-Germanic . An old Scottish word or , akin to the French , has been used for both this bird and the carrion crow. Collective nouns for a group of ravens (or at least the common raven) include "unkindness" and "conspiracy".
Classification
The closest relatives of the common raven are the brown-necked raven (C. ruficollis), the pied crow (C. albus) of Africa, and the Chihuahuan raven (C. cryptoleucus) of the North American Southwest. While some authorities have recognized as many as 11 subspecies, others recognize only eight:
Evolutionary history
The common raven evolved in the Old World and crossed the Bering land bridge into North America. Recent genetic studies, which examined the DNA of common ravens from across the world, have determined that the birds fall into at least two clades: a California clade, found only in the southwestern United States, and a Holarctic clade, found across the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. Birds from both clades look alike, but the groups are genetically distinct and began to diverge about two million years ago.
The findings indicate that based on mitochondrial DNA, common ravens from the rest of the United States are more closely related to those in Europe and Asia than to those in the California clade, and that common ravens in the California clade are more closely related to the Chihuahuan raven (C. cryptoleucus) than to those in the Holarctic clade. Ravens in the Holarctic clade are more closely related to the pied crow (C. albus) than they are to the California clade. Thus, the common raven species as traditionally delimited is considered to be paraphyletic.
One explanation for these genetic findings is that common ravens settled in California at least two million years ago and became separated from their relatives in Europe and Asia during a glacial period. One million years ago, a group from the California clade evolved into a new species, the Chihuahuan raven. Other members of the Holarctic clade arrived later in a separate migration from Asia, perhaps at the same time as humans.
A 2011 study suggested that there are no restrictions on gene flow between the Californian and Holarctic common raven groups, and that the lineages can remerge, effectively reversing a potential speciation.
A recent study of raven mitochondrial DNA showed that the isolated population from the Canary Islands is distinct from other populations. The study did not include any individuals from the North African population, and its position is therefore unclear, though its morphology is very close to the population of the Canaries (to the extent that the two are often considered part of a single subspecies).
Description
A mature common raven ranges between and has a wingspan of . Recorded weights range from , thus making the common raven one of the heaviest passerines. Birds from colder regions such as the Himalayas and Greenland are generally larger with slightly larger bills, while those from warmer regions are smaller with proportionally smaller bills. Representative of the size variation in the species, ravens from California weighed an average of , those from Alaska weighed an average of and those from Nova Scotia weighed an average of . The bill is large and slightly curved, with a culmen length of , easily one of the largest bills amongst passerines (perhaps only the thick-billed raven has a noticeably larger bill). It has a longish, strongly graduated tail, at , and mostly black iridescent plumage, and a dark brown iris. The throat feathers are elongated and pointed and the bases of the neck feathers are pale brownish-grey. The legs and feet are good-sized, with a tarsus length of . Juvenile plumage is similar but duller with a blue-grey iris.
Apart from its greater size, the common raven differs from its cousins, the crows, by having a larger and heavier black beak, shaggy feathers around the throat and above the beak, and a wedge-shaped tail. Flying ravens are distinguished from crows by their tail shape, larger wing area, and more stable soaring style, which generally involves less wing flapping. Despite their bulk, ravens are easily as agile in flight as their smaller cousins. In flight the feathers produce a creaking sound that has been likened to the rustle of silk. The voice of ravens is also quite distinct, its usual call being a deep croak of a much more sonorous quality than a crow's call. In North America, the Chihuahuan raven (C. cryptoleucus) is fairly similar to the relatively small common ravens of the American southwest and is best distinguished by the still relatively smaller size of its bill, beard and body and relatively longer tail. All-black carrion crow (C. corone) in Europe may suggest a raven due to their largish bill but are still distinctly smaller and have the wing and tail shapes typical of crows.
In the Faroe Islands, a now-extinct white-and-black colour morph of this species existed, known as the pied raven; the ordinary black-coloured common ravens remain widespread in the archipelago.
White ravens are occasionally found in the wild. Birds in British Columbia lack the pink eyes of an albino, and are instead leucistic, a condition where an animal lacks any of several different types of pigment, not simply melanin.
Common ravens have a wide range of vocalizations which are of interest to ornithologists. Gwinner carried out important studies in the early 1960s, recording and photographing his findings in great detail. Fifteen to 30 categories of vocalization have been recorded for this species, most of which are used for social interaction. Calls recorded include alarm calls, chase calls, and flight calls. The species has a distinctive, deep, resonant prruk-prruk-prruk call, which to experienced listeners is unlike that of any other corvid. Its very wide and complex vocabulary includes a high, knocking toc-toc-toc, a dry, grating kraa, a low guttural rattle and some calls of an almost musical nature.
Like other corvids, the common raven can mimic sounds from their environment, including human speech. Non-vocal sounds produced by the common raven include wing whistles and bill snapping. Clapping or clicking has been observed more often in females than in males. If a member of a pair is lost, its mate reproduces the calls of its lost partner to encourage its return.
Distribution and habitat
The common raven can thrive in varied climates; indeed this species has the largest range of any member of the genus, and one of the largest of any passerine. They range throughout the Holarctic from Arctic and temperate habitats in North America and Eurasia to the deserts of North Africa, and to islands in the Pacific Ocean. In the British Isles, they are more common in Scotland, Wales, northern England and the west of Ireland. In Tibet, they have been recorded at altitudes up to 5,000 m (16,400 ft), and as high as 6,350 m (20,600 ft) on Mount Everest. The population sometimes known as the Punjab raven—described as Corvus corax laurencei (also spelt lawrencii or laurencii) by Allan Octavian Hume but more often considered synonymous with subcorax—is restricted to the Sindh district of Pakistan and adjoining regions of northwestern India. They are generally resident within their range for the whole year. In his 1950 work, Grønlands Fugle [Birds of Greenland], noted ornithologist Finn Salomonsen indicated that common ravens did not overwinter in the Arctic. However, in Arctic Canada and Alaska, they are found year-round. Young birds may disperse locally.
In the United Kingdom, the common raven's range is currently increasing. It favours mountainous or coastal terrain, but can also be found in parks with tall trees suitable for use as habitation. Its population is at its most dense in the north and west of the country, though the species is expanding its population southwards.
Most common ravens prefer wooded areas with large expanses of open land nearby, or coastal regions for their nesting sites and feeding grounds. In some areas of dense human population, such as California in the United States, they take advantage of a plentiful food supply and have seen a surge in their numbers. On coasts, individuals of this species are often evenly distributed and prefer to build their nest sites along sea cliffs. Common ravens are often located in coastal regions because these areas provide easy access to water and a variety of food sources. Also, coastal regions have stable weather patterns without extreme cold or hot temperatures.
In general, common ravens live in a wide array of environments but prefer heavily contoured landscapes. When the environment changes in vast degrees, these birds will respond with a stress response. The hormone known as corticosterone is activated by the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. Corticosterone is activated when the bird is exposed to stress, such as migrating great distances.
Behaviour
Common ravens usually travel in mated pairs, although young birds may form flocks. Relationships between common ravens are often quarrelsome, yet they demonstrate considerable devotion to their families.
Predation
Owing to its size, gregariousness and its defensive abilities, the common raven has few natural predators. Predators of its eggs include owls, martens, and sometimes eagles. Ravens are quite vigorous at defending their young and are usually successful at driving off perceived threats. They attack potential predators by flying at them and lunging with their large bills. Humans are occasionally attacked if they get close to a raven nest, though serious injuries are unlikely. There are a few records of predation by large birds of prey. Their attackers in America have reportedly included great horned owls, northern goshawks, bald eagles, golden eagles and red-tailed hawks. It is possible that the two hawk species only attack young ravens; in one instance a peregrine falcon swooped at a newly fledged raven but was chased off by the parent ravens.
In Eurasia, their reported predators include, in addition to golden eagles, Eurasian eagle-owls, white-tailed eagles, Steller's sea-eagles, eastern imperial eagles and gyrfalcons. Because they are potentially hazardous prey for raptorial birds, raptors must usually take them by surprise and most attacks are on fledgling ravens. More rarely still, large mammalian predators such as lynxes, coyotes and cougars have also attacked ravens. This principally occurs at a nest site and when other prey for the carnivores are scarce. Ravens are highly wary around novel carrion sites and, in North America, have been recorded waiting for the presence of American crows and blue jays before approaching to eat.
Breeding
Juveniles begin to court at a very early age, but may not bond for another two or three years. Aerial acrobatics, demonstrations of intelligence, and ability to provide food are key behaviours of courting. Once paired, they tend to nest together for life, usually in the same location. Instances of non-monogamy have been observed in common ravens, by males visiting a female's nest when her mate is away.
Breeding pairs must have a territory of their own before they begin nest-building and reproduction, and thus they aggressively defend a territory and its food resources. Nesting territories vary in size according to the density of food resources in the area. The nest is a deep bowl made of large sticks and twigs, bound with an inner layer of roots, mud, and bark and lined with a softer material, such as deer fur. The nest is usually placed in a large tree or on a cliff ledge, or less frequently in old buildings or utility poles.
Females lay between three and seven pale bluish-green, brown-blotched eggs. Incubation is about 18 to 21 days, by the female only. The male may stand or crouch over the young, sheltering but not actually brooding them. Young fledge at 35 to 42 days, and are fed by both parents. They stay with their parents for another six months after fledging.
In most of their range, egg-laying begins in late February. In colder climates, it is later, e.g. April in Greenland and Tibet. In Pakistan, egg-laying takes place in December. Eggs and hatchlings are preyed on, rarely, by large hawks and eagles, large owls, martens and canids. The adults, which are very rarely preyed upon, are often successful in defending their young from these predators, due to their numbers, large size and cunning. They have been observed dropping stones on potential predators that venture close to their nests.
Common ravens can be very long-lived, especially in captive or protected conditions; individuals at the Tower of London have lived for more than 40 years. Lifespans in the wild are considerably shorter at typically 10 to 15 years. The longest known lifespan of a banded wild common raven was 23 years, 3 months, which among passerines only is surpassed by a few Australian species such as the satin bowerbird.
Feeding
Common ravens are omnivorous and highly opportunistic: their diet may vary widely with location, season and serendipity. For example, those foraging on tundra on the Arctic North Slope of Alaska obtained about half their energy needs from predation, mainly of microtine rodents, and half by scavenging, mainly of caribou and ptarmigan carcasses.
In some places they are mainly scavengers, feeding on carrion as well as the associated maggots and carrion beetles. With large-bodied carrion, which they are not equipped to tear through as well as birds such as hook-billed vultures, they must wait for the prey to be torn open by another predator or flayed by other means. They are also known to eat the afterbirth of ewes and other large mammals. Plant food includes cereal grains, acorns, buds, berries and fruit. They prey on small invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals and birds. Ravens may also consume the undigested portions of animal feces, and human food waste. They store surplus food items, especially those containing fat, and will learn to hide such food out of the sight of other common ravens. Ravens also raid the food caches of other species, such as the Arctic fox. They sometimes associate with another canine, the grey wolf, as a kleptoparasite, following to scavenge wolf-kills in winter. Ravens are regular predators at bird nests, brazenly picking off eggs, nestlings and sometimes adult birds when they spot an opportunity. They are considered perhaps the primary natural threat to the nesting success of the critically endangered California condor, since they readily take condor eggs and are very common in the areas where the species is being re-introduced. On the other hand, when they defend their own adjacent nests, they may incidentally benefit condors since they chase golden eagles out of the area that may otherwise prey upon larger nestling and fledging condors. Condors, despite their large size, do not seem to have well developed nest defenses.
Common ravens nesting near sources of human garbage included a higher percentage of food waste in their diet, birds nesting near roads consumed more road-killed vertebrates, and those nesting far from these sources of food ate more arthropods and plant material. Fledging success was higher for those using human garbage as a food source. In contrast, a 1984–1986 study of common raven diet in an agricultural region of southwestern Idaho found that cereal grains were the principal constituent of pellets, though small mammals, grasshoppers, cattle carrion and birds were also eaten.
One behaviour is recruitment, where juvenile ravens call other ravens to a food bonanza, usually a carcass, with a series of loud yells. In Ravens in Winter, Bernd Heinrich posited that this behaviour evolved to allow the juveniles to outnumber the resident adults, thus allowing them to feed on the carcass without being chased away. A more mundane explanation is that individuals co-operate in sharing information about carcasses of large mammals because they are too big for just a few birds to exploit. Experiments with baits however show that such recruitment behaviour is independent of the size of the bait.
Furthermore, there has been research suggesting that the common raven is involved in seed dispersal. In the wild, the common raven chooses the best habitat and disperses seeds in locations best suited for its survival.
Intelligence
The brain of the common raven is among the largest of any bird species. Specifically, their hyperpallium is large for a bird. They display ability in problem-solving, as well as other cognitive processes such as imitation and insight.
Linguist Derek Bickerton, building on the work of biologist Bernd Heinrich, has argued that ravens are one of only four known animals (the others being bees, ants, and humans) who have demonstrated displacement, the capacity to communicate about objects or events that are distant in space or time. Subadult ravens roost together at night, but usually forage alone during the day. However, when one discovers a large carcass guarded by a pair of adult ravens, the unmated raven will return to the roost and communicate the find. The following day, a flock of unmated ravens will fly to the carcass and chase off the adults. Bickerton argues that the advent of linguistic displacement was perhaps the most important event in the evolution of human language, and that ravens are the only other vertebrate to share this with humans.
One experiment designed to evaluate insight and problem-solving ability involved a piece of meat attached to a string hanging from a perch. To reach the food, the bird needed to stand on the perch, pull the string up a little at a time, and step on the loops to gradually shorten the string. Four of five common ravens eventually succeeded, and "the transition from no success (ignoring the food or merely yanking at the string) to constant reliable access (pulling up the meat) occurred with no demonstrable trial-and-error learning." This supports the hypothesis that common ravens are 'inventors', implying that they can solve problems. Many of the feats of common ravens were formerly argued to be stereotyped innate behaviour, but it now has been established that their aptitudes for solving problems individually and learning from each other reflect a flexible capacity for intelligent insight unusual among non-human animals. Another experiment showed that some common ravens could intentionally deceive their conspecifics.
A study published in 2011 found that ravens can recognise when they are given an unfair trade during reciprocal interactions with conspecifics or humans, retaining memory of the interaction for a prolonged period of time. Birds that were given a fair trade by experimenters were found to prefer interacting with these experimenters compared to those that did not. Furthermore, ravens in the wild have also been observed to stop cooperating with other ravens if they observe them cheating during group tasks.
Common ravens have been observed calling wolves to the site of dead animals. The wolves open the carcass, leaving the scraps more accessible to the birds. They watch where other common ravens bury their food and remember the locations of each other's food caches, so they can steal from them. This type of theft occurs so regularly that common ravens will fly extra distances from a food source to find better hiding places for food. They have also been observed pretending to make a cache without actually depositing the food, presumably to confuse onlookers.
Common ravens are known to steal and cache shiny objects such as pebbles, pieces of metal, and golf balls. One theory is that they hoard shiny objects to impress other ravens. Other research indicates that juveniles are deeply curious about all new things, and that common ravens retain an attraction to bright, round objects based on their similarity to bird eggs. Mature birds lose their intense interest in the unusual, and become highly neophobic.
The first large-scale assessment of ravens' cognitive abilities suggests that, by four months of age, ravens do about as well as adult chimps and orangutans on tests of causal reasoning, social learning, theory of mind, etc.
Play
There has been increasing recognition of the extent to which birds engage in play. Juvenile common ravens are among the most playful of bird species. They have been observed to slide down snowbanks, apparently purely for fun. They even engage in games with other species, such as playing catch-me-if-you-can with wolves, otters and dogs. Common ravens are known for spectacular aerobatic displays, such as flying in loops or interlocking talons with each other in flight.
They are also one of only a few wild animals who make their own toys. They have been observed breaking off twigs to play with socially.
Relationship with humans
Conservation and management
Compared to many smaller Corvus species (such as American crow), ravens prefer undisturbed mountain or forest habitat or rural areas over urban areas. In other areas, their numbers have increased dramatically and they have become agricultural pests. Common ravens can cause damage to crops, such as nuts and grain, or can harm livestock, particularly by killing young goat kids, lambs and calves. Ravens generally attack the faces of young livestock, but the more common raven behaviour of scavenging may be misidentified as predation by ranchers.
In the western Mojave Desert, human settlement and land development have led to an estimated 16-fold increase in the common raven population over 25 years. Towns, landfills, sewage treatment plants and artificial ponds create sources of food and water for scavenging birds. Ravens also find nesting sites in utility poles and ornamental trees, and are attracted to roadkill on highways. The explosion in the common raven population in the Mojave has raised concerns for the desert tortoise, a threatened species. Common ravens prey upon juvenile tortoises, which have soft shells and move slowly. Plans to control the population have included shooting and trapping birds, as well as contacting landfill operators to ask that they reduce the amount of exposed garbage. A hunting bounty as a method of control was historically used in Finland from the mid-18th century until 1923. Culling has taken place to a limited extent in Alaska, where the population increase in common ravens is threatening the vulnerable Steller's eider (Polysticta stelleri).
Ravens, like other corvids, are definitive hosts of West Nile Virus (WNV). The transmission can be from infected birds to humans, and ravens are susceptible to WNV. However, in a 2010 study, it was shown that the California Common Ravens did not have a high positivity rate of WNV.
Cultural depictions
Across its range in the Northern Hemisphere, and throughout human history, the common raven has been a powerful symbol and a popular subject of mythology and folklore.
In some Western traditions, ravens have long been considered to be birds of ill omen, death and evil in general, in part because of the negative symbolism of their all-black plumage and the eating of carrion. In Sweden, ravens are known as the ghosts of murdered people, and in Germany as the souls of the damned. In Danish folklore, valravne that ate a king's heart gained human knowledge, could perform great malicious acts, could lead people astray, had superhuman powers, and were "terrible animals".
It continues to be used as a symbol in areas where it once had mythological status: as the national bird of Bhutan (Kings of Bhutan wear the Raven Crown), official bird of the Yukon territory, and on the coat of arms of the Isle of Man (once a Viking colony).
In Persia and Arabia the raven was held as a bird of bad omen but a 14th-century Arabic work reports use of the raven in falconry.
The modern unisex given name Raven is derived from the English word "raven". As a masculine name, Raven parallels the Old Norse Hrafn, and Old English *Hræfn, which were both bynames and personal names.
Mythology
In Tlingit and Haida cultures, Raven was both a trickster and creator god. Related beliefs are widespread among the peoples of Siberia and northeastern Asia. The Kamchatka Peninsula, for example, was supposed to have been created by the raven god Kutkh. There are several references to common ravens in the Old Testament of the Bible and it is an aspect of Mahakala in Bhutanese mythology.
In Norse mythology, Huginn (from the Old Norse for "thought") and Muninn (from the Old Norse for "memory" or "mind") are a pair of ravens that fly all over the world of humans, Midgard, and bring the god Odin information. Additionally among the Norse, raven banner standards were carried by such figures as the Jarls of Orkney, King Cnut the Great of England, Norway and Denmark, and Harald Hardrada. In the British Isles, ravens also were symbolic to the Celts. In Irish mythology, the goddess Morrígan alighted on the hero Cú Chulainn's shoulder in the form of a raven after his death. In Welsh mythology they were associated with the Welsh god Brân the Blessed, whose name translates to "crow". According to the Mabinogion, Brân's head was buried in the White Hill of London as a talisman against invasion.
A legend developed that England would not fall to a foreign invader as long as there were ravens at the Tower of London; although this is often thought to be an ancient belief, the official Tower of London historian, Geoff Parnell, believes that this is actually a romantic Victorian invention.
In the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions, the raven was the first animal to be released from Noah's Ark. "So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground." The raven is mentioned 12 times in the Bible. In the New Testament Jesus tells a parable using the raven to show how people should rely on God for their needs and not riches (Luke 12:24). The raven is also mentioned in the Quran at the story of Cain and Abel. Adam's firstborn son Cain kills his brother Abel, but he does not know what to do with the corpse: "Then Allah sent a raven scratching up the ground, to show him how to hide his brother's naked corpse. He said: Woe unto me! Am I not able to be as this raven and so hide my brother's naked corpse? And he became repentant."
References
Cited texts
Further reading
Heinrich, B. (1999). Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds. New York: Cliff Street Books.
External links
RSPB: Raven
Common Raven Species Account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Ageing and sexing (PDF; 3.1 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
Common raven images at ARKive
Corvus corax at Encyclopedia of Life
Common Raven – Corvus corax – USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter (includes CBC/BBS range maps)
Raven recordings at naturesongs.com
Corvus
Holarctic birds
Ravens
Talking birds
Territorial symbols of Yukon
Birds described in 1758
Articles containing video clips
Fauna of the San Francisco Bay Area
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim%20Inhofe
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Jim Inhofe
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James Mountain Inhofe ( ; born November 17, 1934) is a retired American politician who served as a United States senator from Oklahoma from 1994 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he is the longest serving U.S. senator from Oklahoma. He served in various elected offices in the state of Oklahoma for nearly sixty years, between 1966 and 2023.
Born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1934, Inhofe moved with his parents to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1942. His father, Perry Inhofe, was an owner of insurance companies and his mother, Blanche Inhofe (née Mountain), was a Tulsa socialite. Jim was a high school track star and graduated from Central High School. He went on to briefly attend the University of Colorado before finishing his college degree at the University of Tulsa. He was drafted to the United States Army in 1956 and served between 1957 and 1958. He became vice-president of his father's insurance company in 1961 and president after his father's death in 1970.
Inhofe was an elected official representing the Tulsa area for nearly three decades. He represented parts of Tulsa in the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1966 to 1969 and the Oklahoma Senate from 1969 to 1977. During his time in the state legislature he was known for feuding with the Democratic Party's state leadership, particularly Governor David Hall and state treasurer Leo Winters, and spearheading the movement to bring the USS Batfish to Oklahoma. While a state senator, he unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Oklahoma in the 1974 election and the U.S. House in 1976. He was elected to three terms as the Mayor of Tulsa, serving between 1978 and 1984. He served in the United States House of Representatives representing from 1987 to 1994; he resigned after his election to the United States Senate.
Inhofe chaired the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) from 2003 to 2007 and again from 2015 to 2017. Inhofe served as acting chairman of the Armed Services Committee between December 2017 and September 6, 2018, while John McCain fought cancer. After McCain's death, he became chairman and served until February 3, 2021. From February 3, 2021, to January 3, 2023, he served as Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. During his Senate career he was known for his rejection of climate science, his support of constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage, and the Inhofe Amendment to make English the national language of the United States.
Family, early life, and education
James Mountain Inhofe was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on November 17, 1934, the son of Blanche (née Mountain) and Perry Dyson Inhofe. He moved with his family to Tulsa, Oklahoma, after his father became president of the National Mutual Casualty company in August 1942. His father, Perry Inhofe, was educated at Duke University and worked as a lawyer, president of multiple insurance companies, and banker. In 1949 his company, Tri-State, was ordered by the National Labor Relations Board to cease discouraging union membership. His father was also active in the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce and YMCA; and he was the official sponsor of Miss Tulsa and Miss Oklahoma winner Louise O'Brien in 1950. His mother was a Tulsa socialite and hosted guests such as Johnston Murray.
Inhofe's family had been involved in Oklahoma politics since the 1950's. His father, Perry Inhofe, had served on the executive committee for Democratic Governor Raymond D. Gary's successful 1954 campaign. In 1958, his brother, Perry Jr., ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Oklahoma House of Representatives as a Democrat.
Education, military and business careers
James Inhofe started kindergarten in Des Moines, Iowa, but moved halfway through the year to Hazel Dell in Springfield, Illinois. He skipped first grade after the schoolhouse burned down and started second grade after his family moved to Tulsa at Barnard Elementary School. As a teenager, he would "hire Indians to pick wild blackberries" and then he'd sell them in his neighborhood. He went on to attend Woodrow Wilson Junior High and Tulsa Central High School, where he was a member of his high school's track team. In 1952, his mile relay quartet team broke a school record with a 3:32.6 time. In January 1953, he was elected treasurer of the Brones social club in Tulsa; he graduated from Central High School later that year. He attended the University of Colorado that fall for three months and worked as a bartender.
In 1956, he received a draft letter from the United States Army and served from 1957 to 1958. He spent most of his time in the army stationed in Quartermaster Station in Fort Lee, Virginia. In 1961, his father formed a new life insurance company, Quaker Insurance, and Inhofe was the vice-president. On June 17, 1970, Perry Inhofe died of a heart attack; James Inhofe became president of Quaker Life Insurance and vice-president of Mid-Continental Casualty Co. and Oklahoma Surety Co., while his brother Perry Jr. became president of Mid-Continental and Surety and vice-president of Quaker Life.
College graduation scandal
Inhofe received a B.A. in economics from the University of Tulsa in 1973. Until his 1994 campaign for the U.S. Senate, his official biographies and news articles about him indicated that he had graduated in 1959. Inhofe initially denied the stories that uncovered the discrepancy, but later acknowledged them. After admitting that the stories were true, Inhofe explained that he had been allowed to take part in graduation ceremonies in 1959 though he was a few credits short of completing his degree, and did not finish his coursework until 1973.
State legislative career
Oklahoma House of Representatives
In February 1966, Inhofe launched his first campaign for office as a Republican; he ran for the Oklahoma House of Representatives's 71st district against incumbent Representative Warren Green. He lost the May primary election and then worked on J. Robert Wooten's 1966 lieutenant gubernatorial campaign as the Tulsa County campaign chair. In November 1966, Joe McGraw resigned from the Oklahoma House of Representatives 70th district to run for newly elected governor Dewey Bartlett's former state senate seat, triggering a special election. Inhofe was the first to announced his campaign for McGraw's former house seat. He won the Republican primary and the general election. He was sworn in December 29, 1966. During his time in the State House, Inhofe formed a close friendship with Democratic Representative David Boren.
In the Oklahoma House, Inhofe's first successful measure was a bill to allow for personalized license plates in Oklahoma that passed during his first legislative session. During his first term, he spoke against federal regulation at the United States House Committee on Public Works Sub-committee on Roads and voted in favor of an abortion liberalization law. In 1968, he served as the vice-chair of the rules committee for the Oklahoma Republican Party state convention. That May, he announced he would not seek re-election to the Oklahoma House of Representatives and instead would challenge Democrat state senator Beauchamp Selman for his seat in the next election.
Oklahoma Senate
Election, first term, and USS Batfish
After Inhofe had already announced his campaign for the Oklahoma Senate, Beauchamp Selman announced he would not seek re-election, creating an open seat for the 1968 election. He faced Madison J. Bowers, who was endorsed by the Political Action Committee of Educators, in the Republican primary election. He won the primary and faced Democratic nominee Jerry L. Goodman in the general election. Governor Dewey Bartlett knocked doors with Inhofe during his campaign and he later won the general election. After winning the special election, Republican party officials began considering Inhofe as a potential future U.S. Senate candidate.
In 1969, he was the chairman of the Tulsa County Republican Convention and he supported efforts to liberalize abortions laws in Oklahoma in the 32nd Oklahoma Legislature that passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives, but they failed in Senate committee. Republican party officials tried to recruit Inhofe to run for Treasurer of Oklahoma in 1970, but he declined to run. In 1970, Governor Dewey Bartlett created the Oklahoma Narcotics and Drug Abuse Council and appointed Inhofe as an inaugural member. That November, he was elected minority caucus chair of the Oklahoma Senate for the 33rd Oklahoma Legislature. In 1971, Inhofe served as the chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party's State Convention. While Inhofe had initially filed a resolution for Oklahoma to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, he retracted his support later that year.
In 1969, Inhofe sponsored a successful bill to bring a retired U.S. Navy submarine to Oklahoma. Inhofe initially wanted the USS Piranha for Tulsa, but it was determined that the Arkansas River was too shallow for the ship to travel that far upriver. The Muskogee City-County Trust Port Authority donated five acres of waterfront property to locate the ship in Muskogee. In September 1970, the USS Batfish was considered as an alternative and on December 9, 1971, the Batfish was given to the State of Oklahoma. The ship was unofficially opened to the public July 4, 1972, with its official opening on Memorial Day 1973.
1972 campaigning and second term
In 1972, Inhofe was appointed to serve as co-chair for Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign in Oklahoma with Ralph G. Thompson. During the campaign, Inhofe solicited Barry Goldwater to write a letter of endorsement for Nixon's campaign in Oklahoma to win over conservative Republicans and he represented Oklahoma at the 1972 Republican National Convention. He also worked on U.S. Senator Dewey Bartlett's campaign as the co-chair for Oklahoma's 1st congressional district. In his own district, Inhofe faced no Republican primary challenge and faced Democratic nominee Happy Miles in the general election. He won the general election by over 7,000 votes; afterward, he was elected by fellow Republican state senators to serve as the assistant floor leader in the 34th Oklahoma Legislature. He was elected minority leader of the Oklahoma Senate for the 35th Oklahoma Legislature to succeed Donald Ferrell who had lost re-election. In April 1975, he appointed the first blind page in Oklahoma history: 15 year-old Angela Keele. Later that year, Inhofe and Charles Ford wrote an article criticizing David Boren and spending by the Democratic Party in a party newspaper. Newspapers in the state responded by pointing out Inhofe had supported just as must spending; the article was syndicated by the Associated Press and Inhofe responded by publishing a Tulsa World op-ed arguing he had tried to amend bills to remove wasteful spending and was consistently critical of spending. He did not seek a third term to the Oklahoma Legislature and was succeeded as minority leader by Senator Stephen Wolfe.
1974 gubernatorial election
Inhofe had been floated as a potential gubernatorial candidate since 1972. Inhofe was considered a strong Republican candidate with his only weaknesses being his feuding with Leo Winters and the backlash to the USS Batfish project. By May 1973, he was openly campaigning, but had yet to officially announce his campaign. In October of that year, he was polling behind Denzil Garrison in the Republican primary 35% to 65%. Inhofe officially launched his campaign in May 1974. The main issue in both the Republican and Democratic primary campaigns was corruption during the term of incumbent Democratic Governor David Hall. Inhofe defeated Garrison in the August primary. During the campaign, he lost 57 pounds and was down to 148 pounds.
In a 2011 interview, Inhofe claimed that he and David Boren were both upset with Hall, so the pair decided to both campaign against him; Boren would primary him as a Democrat to weaken his campaign and Inhofe would run as the Republican challenger and defeat him. However, the plan was thrown off when Boren won the Democratic nomination. In October, then-President Gerald Ford visited Oklahoma to campaign for Inhofe. A poll later that month by The Daily Oklahoman showed Boren leading Inhofe 74%–25%. Inhofe ended up losing to Boren by 64%–36%.
1976 congressional election
In 1976, State Senator Frank Keating announced his campaign for Oklahoma's 1st congressional district and announced that Inhofe would be the master of ceremonies at his campaign launch announcement; however, Inhofe did not appear at Keating's announcement and instead announced he was considering his own campaign. Inhofe officially announced his candidacy on February 19, 1976. In the Republican primary, he defeated Keating and Tulsa Public Schools board member Mary Warner, 67%–25%–8%. In a 2011 interview, he credited his primary win to the use of the "Kasten Plan", a system of precinct organization. He also criticized Democratic presidential candidate, and U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, Fred Harris during his presidential primary campaign.
During the primary, Inhofe had called for Democratic incumbent James R. Jones to be expelled from Congress for his conviction while in office for failing to report campaign contributions.
Inhofe also criticized a donation Jones had received from Ross Perot, but he retracted his accusation that the donation affected Jones's voting record after threats from Perot and his lawyers. Inhofe was endorsed by the American Conservative Union and National Conservative Political Action Committee during the general election. Former California governor, and future president, Ronald Reagan endorsed and campaigned with Inhofe. He was also endorsed by President Gerald Ford, U.S. Representative John Rousselot of California, and the Tulsa Tribune. Polling before the election showed Jones leading Inhofe, 44% to 36%. In the general election, Jones won by 54%–45%.
Mayor of Tulsa
In January 1978, the Tulsa Daily World reported Republican party officials were courting Inhofe to run for Mayor of Tulsa. He initially denied he would run for any city office and instead insisted he was considering a rematch against Congressman Jones; but, Inhofe announced his mayor campaign in February. He won the Republican primary with over 92% of the vote, defeating Keith Robinson and Paul Cull. During the first three weeks of the primary, he was injured with a broken leg from a tennis injury and could not campaign. In the general election against Rodger Randle, he was endorsed by then-Mayor Robert LaFortune and U.S. Senator Dewey Bartlett. Randle had won the Democratic primary with a coalition of labor union and black voters; and Inhofe was supported in the general by his Republican base, anti-union and anti-black Democrats, and 22% of black voters. In April, he was elected mayor of Tulsa, defeating Democrat Rodger Randle, 51%–46%. The Tulsa Daily World heralded the race as Inhofe's "first general election victory in six years, and Randle's first election loss since he entered politics in 1970." The race broke then-fundraising records for a Tulsa mayoral election with Randle raising $78,062 and Inhofe raising $48,987. Inhofe's biggest donors were the Metropolitan Builder's Association, oilman Robert L. Parker, and Paul D. Hinch.
On May 2, he was sworn in as Mayor of Tulsa. Inhofe's first proclamation as mayor was to celebrate Sun Day and support alternative energy; in the proclamation he said, "I think we're all interested in looking for alternative sources of energy. And of course, we want clean sources." In his first month in office, he decried the city's reliance on federal funding, promised to "seek minorities to fill positions in city government, and nominated Jewish, senior citizen, anti-abortion, and Christian fundamentalist members to the Tulsa Human Rights Commission. In January 1979, Inhofe attended the first swearing in of a Governor of Oklahoma to occur in Tulsa when George Nigh was sworn in to serve the last five days of David Boren's term after Boren was elected to the U.S. Senate. In February, he appointed Ronald L. Young, the first African-American to ever serve on the City Commission. In December 1979, Inhofe officially announced his re-election campaign for a second term as mayor. He ran unopposed in the Republican primary and later won the general election, fending off Democratic nominee Richard Johnson and Independent candidate Robert Murphy. He broke Rodger Randle's record fundraising for a Tulsa mayoral race set in the last election by raising $87,667.
In 1982 he was reelected with 59% of the vote. He lost his 1984 re-election campaign to Terry Young.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
In 1986, when Representative James R. Jones decided to retire to run for the U.S. Senate, Inhofe ran for the 1st District and won the Republican primary with 54%. In the general election, he defeated Democrat Gary Allison 55%–43%. In 1988 he won reelection against Democrat Kurt Glassco 53%–47%. In 1990 he defeated Glassco again, 56%–44%. After redistricting, the 1st District contained only two counties, all of Tulsa and some parts of Wagoner. In 1992, Inhofe was reelected with 53% of the vote.
Tenure
In 1987 Inhofe voted against President Ronald Reagan's budget, which included tax increases and no increase in defense spending.
He first came to national attention in 1993, when he led the effort to reform the House's discharge petition rule, which the House leadership had long used to bottle up bills in committee.
U.S. Senate
Inhofe served as the longest serving U.S. Senator from Oklahoma serving between 1994 and 2023.
Elections
In 1994, incumbent Senator David Boren, who had been serving in the Senate since 1979, agreed to become president of the University of Oklahoma and announced he would resign as soon as a successor was elected. Inhofe was elected Boren's successor in an election cycle that saw the Republican Party take both houses of Congress and the Oklahoma governorship. Inhofe took office on November 17, giving him more seniority than the incoming class of senators. After serving the last two years of Boren's term, he won his first full term in 1996. He was reelected in 2002, 2008, 2014, and 2020.
Tenure
Fundraising
In the 2008 election cycle, Inhofe's largest campaign donors represented the oil and gas ($446,900 in donations), leadership PACs ($316,720) and electric utilities ($221,654) industries/categories. In 2010, his largest donors represented the oil and gas ($429,950) and electric ($206,654) utilities.
The primary PACs donating to his campaigns were Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association ($55,869), United Parcel Service ($51,850), National Association of Realtors ($51,700), NRA Political Victory Fund ($51,050) and American Medical Association ($51,000). Additionally, if company-sponsored PACs were combined with employee contributions, Koch Industries would be Inhofe's largest contributor, with $90,950 according to OpenSecrets.
Armed Services Committee
As a member of the Armed Services Committee, Inhofe was among the panelists questioning witnesses about the 2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, saying he was "outraged by the outrage" over the revelations of abuse. Although he believed that the individuals responsible for mistreating prisoners should be punished, he said that the prisoners "are not there for traffic violations ... they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents". In 2006, Inhofe was one of only nine senators to vote against the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which prohibits "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of individuals in U.S. Government custody.
When chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee John McCain was absent seeking medical treatment for brain cancer, Inhofe became acting chairman of the committee. During this time, Inhofe helped secure the passage of the record $716 billion National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019. McCain died in August 2018, and Inhofe lauded him as his "hero".
Inhofe also said that McCain was "partially to blame for" the White House's controversial decision to raise flags back to full mast after less than two days, as McCain previously "disagreed with the President in certain areas and wasn't too courteous about it".
On March 6, 2019, Inhofe said he intended to put language in the next defense authorization act to reinforce Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement and reintroduce severe sanctions on Tehran.
Committee assignments and caucus membership
During the 115th, 116th, and 117th Congresses, Inhofe was a member of the following committees:
Committee on Armed Services
Subcommittee on Airland
Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Committee on Environment and Public Works
Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Caucus memberships
International Conservation Caucus
Senate Army Caucus
Senate Diabetes Caucus
Senate General Aviation Caucus
Senate Rural Health Caucus
Senate Tourism Caucus
Sportsmen's Caucus
Retirement
On July 15, 2021, Inhofe told Tulsa World he planned to retire at the end of his current term, in 2027. In February 2022, The New York Times reported that Inhofe was planning to resign at the end of the 117th Congress. A special election for Inhofe's replacement was held in 2022 while he remained in office. He endorsed his former chief of staff, Luke Holland, in the special election. Oklahoma's 2nd congressional district Congressman Markwayne Mullin won the Republican primary and the special election. Inhofe resigned on January 3, 2023. It was reported in February 2023 that the primary reason for Inhofe's retirement was related to him suffering symptoms of long COVID, which had severely limited his capacity to do day-to-day activities, after an initial infection he had described as "very mild".
Political positions
Inhofe was ranked the most conservative member of Congress on the 2017 GovTrack report card. He received the same ranking for 2018. For 2019, he was ranked as the fifth-most conservative member of the U.S. Senate with a score of 0.91 out of 1, behind Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Mike Braun (R-IN), and Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Environmental issues
In December 1997, Inhofe argued that the Kyoto Protocol was a "political, economic, and national security fiasco."
Committee on Environment and Public Works
Before the Republicans regained control of the Senate in the November 2002 elections, Inhofe had compared the United States Environmental Protection Agency to a Gestapo bureaucracy, and EPA Administrator Carol Browner to a Tokyo Rose, i.e. an English-speaking spreader of Japanese propaganda during World War II. In January 2003, he became Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and continued challenging mainstream science in favor of what he called "sound science", in accordance with the Luntz memo.
Since 2003, when he was first elected Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Inhofe was the foremost Republican promoting climate change denial. He famously claimed in the Senate that global warming is a hoax, invited contrarians to testify in Committee hearings, and spread his views via the Committee website run by Marc Morano as well as through his access to conservative media. In 2012, Inhofe's The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future was published by WorldNetDaily Books, presenting his global warming conspiracy theory. He has said that, because "God's still up there", the "arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous", but also that he appreciates that this argument is unpersuasive, and that he has "never pointed to Scriptures in a debate, because I know this would discredit me."
As Environment and Public Works chairman, Inhofe gave a two-hour Senate floor speech on July 28, 2003, in the context of discussions on the McCain-Lieberman Bill. He said he was "going to expose the most powerful, most highly financed lobby in Washington, the far left environmental extremists", and laid out in detail his opposition to attribution of recent climate change to humans, using the word "hoax" four times, including the statement that he had "offered compelling evidence that catastrophic global warming is a hoax" and his conclusion that "manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people". He supported what he called "sound science", citing contrarian scientists such as Patrick Michaels, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen and Sallie Baliunas as well as some mainstream scientists. Two of these, Tom Wigley and Stephen Schneider, later issued statements that Inhofe had misrepresented their work.
On July 29, the day after his Senate speech, Inhofe chaired an Environment and Public Works hearing with contrarian views represented by Baliunas and David Legates, and praised their "1,000-year climate study", then involved in the Soon and Baliunas controversy, as "a powerful new work of science". Against them, Michael E. Mann defended mainstream science and specifically his work on reconstructions (the hockey stick graph) that they and the Bush administration disputed. During the hearing Senator Jim Jeffords read out an email from Hans von Storch saying he had resigned as editor-in-chief of the journal that published the Soon and Baliunas paper, as the peer review had "failed to detect significant methodological flaws in the paper" and the critique by Mann and colleagues was valid.
In a continuation of these themes, Inhofe had a 20-page brochure published under the Seal of the United States Senate reiterating his "hoax" statement and comparing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to a "Soviet style trial". In a section headed "The IPCC Plays Hockey" he attacked what he called "Mann's flawed, limited research." The brochure restated themes from Inhofe's Senate speech, and in December 2003 he distributed copies of it in Milan at a meeting about the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, where he met "green activists" with posters quoting him as saying that global warming "is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people". He signed a poster for them, and thanked them for quoting him correctly. In an October 2004 Senate speech he said, "Global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. It was true when I said it before, and it remains true today. Perhaps what has made this hoax so effective is that we hear over and over that the science is settled and there is a consensus that, unless we fundamentally change our way of life by limiting greenhouse gas emissions, we will cause catastrophic global warming. This is simply a false statement." In January 2005 Inhofe told Bloomberg News that global warming was "the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state", and that carbon dioxide would not be restricted by the Clear Skies Act of 2003. In a Senate Floor "update", he extended his argument against Mann's work by extensively citing Michael Crichton's fictional thriller State of Fear, mistakenly describing Crichton as a "scientist". On August 28, 2005, at Inhofe's invitation, Crichton appeared as an expert witness at a hearing on climate change, disputing Mann's work.
In his 2006 book The Republican War on Science, Chris Mooney wrote that Inhofe "politicizes and misuses the science of climate change".
During the 2006 North American heat wave, Inhofe said that the environmentalist movement reminded him of "the Third Reich, the Big Lie": "You say something over and over and over and over again, and people will believe it, and that's their strategy."
In a September 2006 Senate speech Inhofe argued that the threat of global warming was exaggerated by "the media, Hollywood elites and our pop culture". He said that in the 1960s the media had switched from warning of global warming to warning of global cooling and a coming ice age, then in the 1970s had returned to warming to promote "climate change fears". In February 2007 he told Fox News that mainstream science increasingly attributed climate change to natural causes, and only "those individuals on the far left, such as Hollywood liberals and the United Nations", disagreed.
In 2006, Inhofe introduced Senate Amendment 4682 with Kit Bond (R-MO), which would have modified oversight responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers. The League of Conservation Voters, an environmentalist group, said analyses for corps projects "have been manipulated to favor large-scale projects that harm the environment." During the 109th Congress, Inhofe voted to increase offshore oil drilling, to include provisions for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the House Budget Amendment, and to deny funding for both low-income energy assistance and environmental stewardship, citing heavy costs and unproven programs.
In May 2009, Inhofe gave support to the idea that black carbon is a significant contributor to global warming.
Inhofe has received money from the fossil fuel industry. For example: "Exxon's beneficiaries in Congress include the Oklahoma senator Jim Inhofe, who called global warming a hoax, and who has received $20,500 since 2007, according to the Dirty Energy Money database maintained by Oil Change International."
Climatic Research Unit email controversy
On November 23, 2009, as the Climatic Research Unit email controversy emerged, Inhofe said the emails confirmed his view that scientists were "cooking the science". On December 7 on the CNN program The Situation Room, Inhofe said that the emails showed that the science behind climate change "has been pretty well debunked"; the fact checking organization PolitiFact concluded that Inhofe's statement was false. On the same day, Inhofe said he would lead a three-man "truth squad" consisting of himself and fellow senators Roger Wicker and John Barrasso to the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Inhofe was unable to secure meetings with any negotiators or delegations to the conference and only met with a small group of reporters. The minority group of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works prepared a report on "the CRU Controversy", published in February 2010, which listed as "Key Players" 17 scientists including Mann and Phil Jones. Inhofe said it showed that the controversy was "about unethical and potentially illegal behavior by some of the world's leading climate scientists." On May 26 Inhofe formally requested that the Inspector General of the United States Department of Commerce investigate how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had dealt with the emails, and whether the emails showed any wrongdoing; it found no major issues or inappropriate actions.
Global warming temperatures
In July 2010 Inhofe said, "I don't think that anyone disagrees with the fact that we actually are in a cold period that started about nine years ago. Now, that's not me talking, those are the scientists that say that." The Union of Concerned Scientists said that Inhofe was wrong, pointing to a NOAA report indicating that the summer of 2010 had so far been the hottest on record since 1880. Inhofe added, "People on the other side of this argument back in January, they said, 'Inhofe, it has nothing to do with today's or this month or next month. We're looking at a long period of time. We go into twenty year periods.'"
During a House committee hearing in 2011, Inhofe testified, "I have to admit—and, you know, confession is good for the soul ... I, too, once thought that catastrophic global warming was caused by anthropogenic gases—because everyone said it was." Under questioning from committee member Jay Inslee, Inhofe dismissed the notion that he was less knowledgeable than climate scientists, saying that he'd already given "five speeches on the science."
2015: Chair of Environment and Public Works committee
On January 21, 2015, Inhofe returned to chairing the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works as part of a new Republican majority in the Senate. In response to NOAA and NASA reports that 2014 had been the warmest year globally in the temperature record, he said, "we had the coldest in the western hemisphere in the same time frame", and attributed changes to a 30-year cycle, not human activities. In a debate on the same day about a bill for the Keystone XL pipeline, Inhofe endorsed an amendment proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, "Climate change is real and not a hoax", which passed 98–1. Inhofe clarified his view that "Climate is changing and climate has always changed and always will. There is archaeological evidence of that, there is biblical evidence of that, there is historical evidence of that", but added, "there are some people who are so arrogant to think they are so powerful they can change climate."
On February 26, 2015, Inhofe brought a snowball to the Senate floor and tossed it before delivering remarks in which he said that environmentalists keep talking about global warming even though it keeps getting cold.
Hydraulic fracturing
On March 19, 2015, Inhofe introduced S.828, "The Fracturing Regulations are Effective in State Hands (FRESH) Act." The bill would transfer regulatory power over hydraulic fracturing from the federal government to state governments. In his announcement of the bill, Inhofe said that hydraulic fracturing has never contaminated ground water in Oklahoma. The U.S. senators from seven states (Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Dakota and Texas) cosponsored the bill.
Paris Agreement
Inhofe co-authored and was one of 22 senators to sign a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. According to OpenSecrets, Inhofe has received over $529,000 from the oil and gas industry since 2012.
Foreign policy
Israel Anti-Boycott Act
In October 2017, Inhofe co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (s. 720), which would have made it a federal crime for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government.
Western Sahara
Inhofe has long supported the Polisario Front and has traveled to Algeria many times to meet with its leaders. He has urged Morocco to hold a referendum on independence for Western Sahara. In 2017, Inhofe blocked the Trump administration's nomination of J. Peter Pham for Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, citing a disagreement over Western Sahara.
After the December 2020 Israel–Morocco normalization agreement, Inhofe sharply criticized the Trump administration for recognizing Morocco's claim over Western Sahara, calling the decision "shocking and deeply disappointing" and adding that he was "saddened that the rights of the Western Sahara people have been traded away".
War in Afghanistan
Inhofe opposed the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan under President Biden, saying that Biden should maintain "a relatively small troop presence until the conditions outlined in the 2020 U.S.-Taliban Agreement are fully implemented."
Immigration
Inhofe wrote the Inhofe Amendment to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, which was debated in Congress in May 2006. The amendment would make English the national language of the United States and require that new citizens take an English proficiency test. The amendment was passed on May 18, 2006, with 32 Democrats, one independent, and one Republican dissenting. The measure had 11 cosponsors, including one Democrat.
Social issues
Gun policy
In the aftermath of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Inhofe blamed the "culture of sanctuary cities" for the shootings.
LGBT rights
Inhofe has generally been seen as overtly hostile by LGBT advocacy groups, earning a 0% in every one of his terms on the Human Rights Campaign's position scorecard. Inhofe is in favor of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, against adding sexual orientation to the definition of hate crimes, and voted against prohibiting job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In 2008, Inhofe said his office "does not hire openly gay staffers due to the possibility of a conflict of agenda."
Inhofe campaigned for his Senate seat in 1994 using the phrase "God, guns, and gays." In 2008, his campaign was noted by the Associated Press for running an ad with "anti-gay overtones" featuring a wedding cake with two male figures on top, fading into his opponent's face.
In 1999, along with Republican colleagues Tim Hutchinson and Bob Smith, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Inhofe stalled the nomination of James Hormel, a gay man, as US Ambassador to Luxembourg for over 20 months specifically because of Hormel's sexual orientation. President Bill Clinton eventually appointed him in a recess appointment, making him the United States' first openly gay ambassador in June 1999, and angering Inhofe, who held up seven more Clinton appointees in retaliation.
In 2015, Inhofe condemned the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that same-sex marriage bans violated the Constitution.
Racial and gender civil rights
In 1995, Inhofe voted to ban affirmative action hiring with federal funds. In 1997, he voted to end special funding for minority- and women-owned businesses. The bill he voted for would have abolished a program that helps businesses owned by women and minorities to compete for federally funded transportation; it did not pass. The next year, Inhofe voted to repeal the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program, which is designed to "remedy ongoing discrimination and the continuing effects of past discrimination in federally-assisted highway, transit, airport, and highway safety financial assistance transportation contracting markets nationwide" by allocating 10% of highway funds to benefit the business enterprises of racial minorities and women.
Overall, in 2002, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) rated Inhofe at 20%, indicating that he has an anti-racial civil rights record. Four years later, on December 31, 2006, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) rated Inhofe at 7%, indicating that he has an anti-civil rights and anti-affirmative action record.
Privacy
In 2001, Inhofe voted to loosen restrictions on cell phone wiretapping. The bill, which passed, removed the requirement that a person or party implementing an order to wiretap a private citizen's cellphone must ascertain that the target of the surveillance is present in the house or using the phone that has been tapped.
Free speech and expression
In 1995, Inhofe co-sponsored a constitutional amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would give Congress and individual U.S. states the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the American flag. The bill's primary sponsor was Orrin Hatch (R-UT).
GI Bill reform
Inhofe, an initial sponsor of Senator Jim Webb's Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008, subsequently withdrew support for this bill to support S 2938, a competing bill that would have provided benefits beyond those offered in Webb's bill. But he voted to enact Webb's legislation in June 2008.
Inhofe agreed to support legislation allowing military mental health specialists to talk with veterans about private firearms in an effort to reduce suicides.
Economic issues
Aviation
Trained by the U.S. Navy, Inhofe was one of the few members of Congress holding a Commercial Airman certificate. In 1994, when he first ran for the U.S. Senate, he used his plane as a daily campaign vehicle to travel throughout Oklahoma and visit almost every town in the state. He was influential in Senate and Congressional debates involving aircraft regulation. In 2012, he authored the Pilot's Bill of Rights bill.
Taxpayer-funded travel
Inhofe has said that he has made over 140 trips to Africa over about 20 years and helped to get United States Africa Command established. He has made multiple foreign trips, especially to Africa, on missions that he described as "a Jesus thing" and that were paid for by the U.S. government. He has used these trips for activities on behalf of The Fellowship, a Christian organization. Inhofe has said that his trips included some governmental work but also involved "the political philosophy of Jesus, something that had been put together by Doug Coe, the leader of The Fellowship ... It's all scripturally based." Inhofe used his access as a Senator to pursue religious goals.
Federal disaster relief
Inhofe consistently voted against federal disaster relief, most notably in the case of relief for the 24 states affected by Hurricane Sandy, but argued for federal aid when natural disasters hit Oklahoma. In defense of his decision to vote against a relief fund for Sandy but not in Oklahoma after tornadoes ravaged it in May 2013, he claimed the situations were "totally different", in that the Sandy funding involved "Everybody getting in and exploiting the tragedy that took place. That won't happen in Oklahoma." Inhofe pointedly did not thank President Obama for his attention to the tragedy in his state, so as to not be compared to Chris Christie.
Earmarks
In April 2021, Inhofe expressed support for bringing back earmarks to the United States Senate.
Presidential Impeachments
On February 12, 1999, Inhofe was one of 50 senators to vote to convict and remove Bill Clinton from office. On February 5, 2020, he voted to acquit Donald Trump and on February 13, 2021, he voted to acquit Trump for the second time.
2016 presidential election
Early during the Republican Party presidential primaries in 2016, Inhofe endorsed fellow Republican John Kasich. During Donald Trump's presidency, he voted in line with Trump's position 94.2% of the time.
Purchase of Raytheon stock
In December 2018, Inhofe bought $50,000 to $100,000 worth of stock in Raytheon, a major defense contractor that has billions of dollars' worth of contracts with the Pentagon. The week before, he had successfully lobbied the Trump administration to increase military spending. Ethics watchdogs said the purchase raised conflict of interest concerns, and noted that members of Congress are not allowed to purchase stocks on the basis of information that is not publicly available. Inhofe sold the stock shortly after reporters asked him about the purchase. He said the purchase was made by a third-party adviser who manages Inhofe's investments on his behalf.
Judiciary
In March 2016, around seven months before the next presidential election, Inhofe argued that the Senate should not consider Obama's Supreme Court nominee because "we must let the people decide the Supreme Court's future" via the presidential election. In September 2020, less than two months before the next presidential election, Inhofe supported an immediate vote on Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death.
Inhofe also voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh (Trump's other two Supreme Court nominations) while voting against Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan (Obama's two Supreme Court nominations). All four were successful.
2021 storming of the United States Capitol
On May 28, 2021, Inhofe abstained from voting on the creation of an independent commission to investigate the January 6 United States Capitol attack.
Personal life
On December 19, 1959, Inhofe married Kay Kirkpatrick, with whom he has had four children. His mother, Blanche M. Inhofe, died in 1975.
On November 10, 2013, one of Inhofe's sons, Perry Inhofe, died in a plane crash in Owasso, Oklahoma, flying alone for the first time since training in a newly acquired Mitsubishi MU-2. Molly Rapert, an academic, is Inhofe's daughter.
Inhofe has had his pilot's license since he was 28; he flies a Van's Aircraft RV-8. He has attended the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh for 20 years; in 2021, he said, "I've slept in the same tent for 20 years. If you're not sleeping in a tent, it's not like being at Oshkosh." Inhofe has had to emergency-land his plane multiple times throughout his career.
He was the first recipient of the U.S. Air Force Academy's Character and Leadership Award for his character and leadership in public service.
Inhofe has symptoms of long COVID, which have severely limited his capacity to do day-to-day activities.
Electoral history
Oklahoma House
Oklahoma Senator
Oklahoma governor
1976 U.S. House
Tulsa mayor
U.S. Representative
U.S. Senator
See also
Politics of Oklahoma
List of United States senators from Oklahoma
2020 Congressional insider trading scandal
Notes
References
Sources
External links
Inhofe, James Mountain entry in The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wei%20Yan
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Wei Yan
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Wei Yan () (died October 234), courtesy name Wenchang, was a Chinese military general and politician of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period of China. Originally a subordinate of the warlord Liu Bei in the late Eastern Han dynasty, Wei Yan rose through the ranks and became a general when Liu Bei seized control of Yi Province (covering present-day Sichuan and Chongqing) in 214. His performance in battle helped him to become a prominent figure in the Shu military in a short period of time. He was later appointed as the Administrator of Hanzhong Commandery and as an Area Commander in 219. Between 228 and 234, he participated actively in the Northern Expeditions led by the Shu regent Zhuge Liang against Shu's rival state, Cao Wei. After Zhuge Liang's death in September 234, Wei Yan was killed by another Shu general, Ma Dai, for alleged treason.
Early life
Wei Yan was from Yiyang Commandery (), which covered parts of present-day Nanyang in southern Henan and parts of northern Hubei. He started his career as a foot soldier under the warlord Liu Bei, probably sometime between 209 and 211 when Liu Bei was in southern Jing Province (covering present-day Hubei and Hunan). Around 212, he followed Liu Bei into Yi Province (covering present-day Sichuan and Chongqing) and served Liu Bei as a personal retainer in a war against Liu Zhang, the Governor of Yi Province (益州牧). Huang Zhong and Wei Yan scored many military exploits during the capture of Guanghan County. Thus, Wei Yan promoted to full general.
The campaign met early success with the quick death of Gao Pei and Yang Huai and the later occupation of the passes, followed by the defeat of Liu Zhang's reinforcements at Fu County. Pang Tong was killed during the siege of Luo castle and the siege became a prolonged one. One year later, Wei Yan and Liu Bei finally captured Luocheng, then surrounded and occupied Chengdu together with Zhuge Liang, Zhang Fei along with others. Thus, around summer 214, Liu Bei seized control of Yi Province from Liu Zhang. As Wei Yan has made several contributions in the campaign of Yi, Liu Bei promoted him to the rank of General of Ivory Gate ().
Administrator of Hanzhong
In 219, Wei Yan participated in Liu Bei campaign against his rival Cao Cao in the Hanzhong Campaign. After Liu Bei captured Hanzhong, Liu Bei asked his subjects to nominate one of his generals to remain behind and guard Hanzhong. His subjects nominated Zhang Fei, who also strongly believed that he would most likely be chosen. However, much to everyone's surprise, Liu Bei chose Wei Yan instead and appointed him as General Who Guards Distant Lands () and acting Administrator of Hanzhong (). When Liu Bei asked Wei Yan in front of everyone how would he perform his duty, the latter confidently replied:
During his tenure, Wei Yan explained to Liu Bei that he borrowed a strategy which were called the "double gates" (重门之计). The ancient text I Ching described this strategy as a particularly designed fortification which laid numerous military garrisons surrounding the outskirt and trail exits linking to Hanzhong.
Following the end of the Eastern Han dynasty and the start of the Three Kingdoms period in 220, Liu Bei declared himself emperor in 221 and established the state of Shu Han (or Shu) to challenge the legitimacy of the Cao Wei (or Wei) state established by Cao Cao's successor, Cao Pi, to replace the Eastern Han dynasty. Liu Bei further promoted Wei Yan to General Who Guards the North () after his coronation.
Northern Expeditions
After Liu Bei died in 223, his son Liu Shan succeeded him as the emperor of Shu. In the same year, Liu Shan enfeoffed Wei Yan as a Marquis of a Chief Village ().
In 227, Zhuge Liang, the Imperial Chancellor of Shu, mobilised the Shu military and gathered troops in Hanzhong Commandery in preparation for a large-scale invasion of Shu's rival state, Cao Wei (or Wei), where he put Wei Yan in charge of the vanguard division and appointed him as acting Major under the Imperial Chancellor () and acting Inspector of Liang Province (). During this campaign, Wei Yan always requested to lead a separate detachment of 10,000 troops, take a different route and rendezvous with the Shu main army at Tong Pass (潼關; in present-day Tongguan County, Shaanxi).
Wei Yan argued that the valley and the people in it has sufficient food supply which can support the operation at least for a week. However, Zhuge Liang rejected the plan because he thought that it was too risky, which prompted Wei Yan to scold Zhuge Liang as a coward and complained that his talent was not put to good use. When Chen Shou compiled the unofficial works on the history of Shu to write the Sanguozhi, he only mentioned that Wei Yan suggested to Zhuge Liang to split the Shu army into two, and the two forces would take two different routes and rendezvous at Tong Pass.
Later in 230, during the Ziwu Campaign, Wei Yan led some troops towards Yangxi (陽谿; southwest of present-day Wushan County, Gansu) and engaged the Wei forces led by and Guo Huai and Fei Yao, where Wei Yan managed to inflict a heavy defeat to them. Also, during the same year, he assisted another Shu general Wu Yi, both of them were ordered to attack Nan'an Commandery (南安郡; southeast of present-day Longxi County, Gansu) where they scored another victory against Wei's army led by Fei Yao.
During the fourth campaign in 231, Wei Yan was also involved in the Battle of Mount Qi when he together with the Shu generals Gao Xiang and Wu Ban, scored a major victory against the Wei army led by Sima Yi, where they killed 3,000 Wei soldiers and seized 5,000 sets of armour and 3,100 crossbows. Sima Yi was forced to retreat back to his camp. Zhang He, a veteran Wei general was also killed in battle during this conflict. As a reward for his contributions, the Shu government promoted Wei Yan to Vanguard Military Adviser () and Senior General Who Attacks the West (), and elevated him from a village marquis to a county marquis under the title "Marquis of Nanzheng" ().
Battle of Wuzhang Plains
In 234, Zhuge Liang launched the fifth Shu invasion of Wei, with Wei Yan leading the Shu vanguard force as one of the commanding officers. Wei Yan reportedly had a dream that a horn grew on top of his head. He asked the dream diviner Zhao Zhi (趙直) the meaning of this. Zhao Zhi lied to him and said:
After he left, he revealed to someone that the word "horn" (角) is composed of a "knife" (刀) with "use" (用) below it, which meant dreaming of "using a knife" atop one's head should be considered an extremely ominous omen. Later, in the encampment Wei Yan had a quarrel with Yang Yi, Zhuge Liang's chief clerk, as Wei Yan was extremely resentful of Yang Yi. Whenever they got into heated quarrels, Wei Yan often drew his sword and brandished it in front of Yang Yi who sobbed as tears rolled down his cheeks; which prompted Fei Yi then to stepped in to stop them from fighting and managed to keep them under control until Zhuge Liang's death. Zhuge Liang was upset by the lack of harmony between Wei Yan and Yang Yi, but was unwilling to side with either of them because he appreciated the talents of both men.
When Zhuge Liang became critically ill during the invasion, he gave secret orders to Yang Yi, Fei Yi and Jiang Wei to lead the army back to Shu after his death, with Wei Yan in charge of the rearguard and Jiang Wei to follow behind, and if Wei Yan refused to follow the order, they were to retreat without him. When Zhuge Liang died, news of his death were kept secret. Yang Yi sent Fei Yi to meet Wei Yan and assess his intentions. Wei Yan told Fei Yi:
Wei Yan then asked Fei Yi to assist him in making arrangements for part of the Shu army to remain behind and continue with the campaign, while the rest would retreat back to Shu. Fei Yi pretended to write a letter, signed by both of them, and told Wei Yan that he would read out the letter to all the officers about the new arrangements, where he lied by telling Wei Yan that he will go back and explain Wei Yan's answer to Yang Yi.
Death
Wei Yan then let Fei Yi leave, but he immediately regretted his decision and went after Fei Yi, although Wei Yan could not catch up Fei Yi in time. He then sent his subordinate to meet Yang Yi and the others, but was shocked to discover that all units were preparing to retreat in accordance with Zhuge Liang's final orders. Wei Yan wanted to continue the battle even though Zhuge Liang had died, so he became furious when he heard of the retreat. He intended to block the Shu forces from retreating, so he led his force towards the south – ahead of the main army under Yang Yi's command – and sealed the return route by destroying the gallery roads leading back to Shu.
Wei Yan and Yang Yi separately wrote memorials to the Shu imperial court to accuse each other, and both memorials arrived in Chengdu on the same day. The Shu emperor Liu Shan asked the ministers Dong Yun and Jiang Wan for their opinions. Both of them sided with Yang Yi and felt that Wei Yan's actions were suspicious. In the meantime, Yang Yi ordered his men to cut down trees to rebuild the gallery roads, and his troops marched day and night to catch up with Wei Yan. Wei Yan arrived at the southern valley first and ordered his soldiers to attack Yang Yi. Yang Yi sent Wang Ping to resist Wei Yan. Wang Ping shouted at Wei Yan:
Wei Yan was left with only his son(s) and a few followers. They fled towards Hanzhong Commandery. Yang Yi ordered Ma Dai to give chase. Ma Dai killed Wei Yan, brought his head back, and threw it in front of Yang Yi. Yang Yi trampled on Wei Yan's decapitated head and said:
Thus, the family members and close relatives of Wei Yan were also executed. Before Wei Yan's death, Jiang Wan had led the imperial guards from Chengdu to deal with what appeared to be a mutiny by Wei Yan. They had travelled for about 10 li (about three miles) when they received news of Wei Yan's death; they then turned back and returned to Chengdu.
Character analysis
Wei Yan was known to treat his soldiers well and for his bravery with valor that surpassed others, although he was also boastful of his talents hence his peers tended to avoid him. Sun Quan, the ruler of Wu and another contemporary figure of three kingdoms era, has remarked that the moment Zhuge Liang passed away, Wei Yan will be proven unreliable. Chen Shou, who wrote Wei Yan's biography in the Sanguozhi, analysed Wei Yan's death as such: Chen Shou also remarked that Zhuge Liang himself highly valued Wei Yan bravery and caught in dilemma when the latter had conflict with Yang Yi, ration and transportation staff officer which talent in managing his duties Zhuge Liang also valued.
A similar, but somewhat different and more detailed account exists in the historical text Weilüe work by later Wei dynasty historian named Yu Huan stated that Zhuge Liang told Wei Yan to setting up defense, although he also gave further instruction to "not return here". Wei Yan kept this order for himself and did not share with others, thus prompting Wei Yan's rival, Yang Yi, to spread false rumours that Wei Yan has intended to defect to the enemy, which led the incited Shu soldiers to attack Wei Yan and killing him. However, Pei Songzhi, who added the Weilüe account to Wei Yan's biography and annotated the Sanguozhi, doubted the Weilüe account as he remarked:
Furthermore, modern era historical analysis stated that Wei Yan's death was explained in political terms in Injustice to Wei Yan (), a neoteric article by Zhu Ziyan, a history professor from Shanghai University, where Zhu wrote that Zhuge Liang personally appointed Jiang Wan, Fei Yi and Jiang Wei to be his successors, but Wei Yan's appointments and contributions were greater than those of any of them at the time. Zhuge Liang ostracised Wei Yan and cracked down on him because he wanted to eliminate Wei Yan as a possible obstacle to his appointed successors.<ref name="Zhu Ziyan">{{cite web |last1=Ziyan |first1=Zhu |title=Injustice to Wei Yan (魏延的千古奇冤) |url=http://www.qulishi.com/news/201405/13854.html |website=quilishi |access-date=20 January 2022 |language=zh |date=2014 |quote=诸葛亮亲自指定了接班人，蒋琬、费袆、姜维。但是魏延的官职、功劳要比他们个人大得多，诸葛亮打击魏延，排挤魏延是为他的接班人扫除障碍，去掉绊脚石}}</ref>
Meanwhile, in the Analysis of the Three Kingdoms, Yi Zhongtian commented that Zhuge Liang's last order to forcibly retreat and leave Wei Yan alone was contradicted by what he personally instructed Wei Yan, such contradiction indirectly leading to the tragedy between Wei Yan and Yang Yi. Hence the forcible retreat might be the idea of Yang Yi, not Zhuge Liang, since Zhuge Liang died before devising any withdrawal plan, thus prompted Yi Zhongtian to theorized that there was no evidence of this theory that Yang Yi fabricated the order. Yi Zhongtian also explained another possible hypothesis that Zhuge Liang's final order "leave Wei Yan alone" simply meant "ignore Wei Yan", did not mean "kill Wei Yan". Shu Han's main forces must withdraw to guard the rear area, and if Wei Yan could not be stopped then just let him be. Yi Zhongtian analized and criticize that Wei Yan did not grasp the political-economical reasons behind both of Zhuge Liang's expeditions and his extreme caution. Zhuge Liang launched the expeditions not only to restore the Han dynasty, but also to keep Shu Han in warring conditions and used that to increase his control over the internal affair and suppress the potential dissidents amongst local nobility.
As smallest and weakest amongst the Three Kingdoms, Shu Han would be the first one to be targeted at, hence it had to make pre-emptive attacks to intimidate the opponents, to enlarge its territory and to improve its conditions - the rate of success was not high but it was better than doing nothing. Zhuge Liang's goal of Han restoration was sincere and never changed, however the powerful Cao Wei could not be defeated quickly in one single blow, hence the expeditions must be done in a careful manner with guaranteed advances rather than daring but risky strikes which could lead to disasters like Xiaoting or Fancheng. Such a complicated situation could not be explained clearly to Wei Yan, and probably it did not need to be, as Zhuge Liang wanted to keep Wei Yan's spirit at its highest.
Ziwu Valley plan analysis
Wei Yan's reasoning for his Ziwu Valley Plan was recorded in the Weilüe, which was then added as an annotation to his biography in the Sanguozhi, where Chen Shou recorded that Wei Yan received intelligence which led him to conclude that the defender of the strategic city of Chang'an, Xiahou Mao, was incompetent. Thus, Wei Yan reasoned, it would be easy for him to take 5,000 troops (and another 5,000 to carry supplies) across the Qin Mountains via the Ziwu Valley (子午谷) and into Chang'an. Wei Yan estimated that he would reach Chang'an in ten days and scare Xiahou Mao into flight, leaving the grain in Chang'an's storehouses for Shu's taking. There, Wei Yan's force can wait for Zhuge Liang's main army to take the safer road out of Xie Valley (斜谷) and rendezvous in Chang'an. In this way, the region west of Xianyang could be conquered in one movement." Weilue argued that the plan might have worked, as although Sima Yi acknowledged the plan, Xiahou Mao did not realize it.
When the Wei government received intelligence about Wei Yan's Ziwu Valley Plan, the Wei emperor Cao Rui immediately removed Xiahou Mao from his military command in Chang'an and reassigned him to be a Master of Writing () in Luoyang. Yi Zhongtian in his Analysis of the Three Kingdoms commented that both proponents and opponents of Wei Yan's plan have their own good reasons. Cao Wei met the first Northern Expedition with little preparation as they didn't fathom that Shu Han could make such an offensive, hence the combination of Zhuge Liang's and Wei Yan's strikes could result in huge impact. However, Wei Yan's plan was also very risky, as neither the Xiahou Mao's flight nor the timely arrival of Zhuge Liang's main forces was guaranteed, moreover the formidable Guo Huai was also in nearby region and could come to assist Xiahou Mao.
However, recent scholarship of Chinese history criticized the account of Yu Huan in his Weilue work that Yu Huan has exaggerated the alleged conflict between Wei Yan with his superior, Zhuge Liang, regarding the rejection of the latter for the strategy which proposed by Wei Yan. Wen-Chin Wang from Department of Chinese Language and Literature has suspected the bias of Yu Huan personal view which he viewed Yu Huan as Wei supporter, where Wei kingdom during the late Han era were the arch enemy of Shu kingdom.
Legacy
Military fortification
The "Heavy Gate" (重门之计) bulwark which designed by Wei Yan during his tenure as administrator of Hanzhong particularly came to use twice when used by the successor administrator of Hanzhong. And greatly helped Wang Ping, to defend the province from a massive invasion led by Cao Shuang. Later, Jiang Wei, the grand commandant of Shu kingdom dismantled this "Heavy Gate" fortification which designed by Wei Yan in favor of his own design. However, Jiang Wei's new defense strategy failed to impede the advance of Zhong Hui, general of Wei, while Jiang Wei himself were repelled from Hanzhong effectively causing Hanzhong fall to Wei kingdom.
Wei Yan Shrines
A Wei Yan Shrine () is located in Baique Village, Sanquan Township, Zitong County, Sichuan. In front of the shrine flows a Wei Family River (). On the plains east of the river, there once stood a Wei Family River Temple (), which had three stone tablets in front of it. One of the stone tablets bore the words "Wei Yan once led soldiers and was stationed here.". According to legend, in 231, during the fourth Shu invasion of Wei, Zhuge Liang ordered Wei Yan to lead a separate force to station south of the Wei Family River where, in memory of the incident, the locals built the Wei Family River Temple beside the river and a small bridge called "General Bridge" (). The Wei Yan Shrine was initially demolished by the government but was rebuilt in 1995. A statue of Wei Yan stands in the main hall of the shrine.
There is another temple attributed to Wei Yan in allegedly Wei Yan hometown, in Weijia village Gaobao Township, Qingfeng County, Puyang City, in Henan Province.
In popular cultures
In Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Wei Yan appears as a character in the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, which romanticises the historical events leading to, and during the Three Kingdoms period, such as Wei Yan participation in the fictional Battle of Changsha. Wei Yan surrendered to Liu Bei after killing his superior, Han Xuan.
During a clash between Liu Bei against Ma Chao forces, Wei Yan defeat Ma Dai after they duelled for several bouts, causing the latter to flee.
During the battle in Hanzhong, Wei Yan and Zhang Fei were unable to overcame Zhang He, causing both to retreat.
According to Zhang Chaoju, Wei Yan were beaten during this campaign by Cao Cao general named Pang De.
Later, during the battle of Wuzhang plains, Wei Yan lured Sima Yi and his two sons, Sima Shi and Sima Zhao into fire ambush. However, suddenly there are heavy raining that caused the fire extinguished and the plan failed, prompting the Simas to escape.
Modern era depictions
“Sun Qi Mountain” drama which was written by Wei Ming-Lun, that described the relationship between two important historical figures Zhuge Liang and Wei Yan depicted the latter in positive light as it was not Wei Yan intent to betray Shu, which making him as tragic hero figure.
Wei Yan is featured as a playable character in Koei's Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi video game series. He also appears in Koei's Dynasty Tactics 2.
Bibliography
Notes
References
Primary & secondary sources
Chen, Shou (3rd century). Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi).
Pei, Songzhi (5th century). Annotations to Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi zhu'').
Year of birth unknown
234 deaths
3rd-century executions
Executed people from Henan
Executed Shu Han people
Executed Three Kingdoms people
Generals under Liu Bei
Political office-holders in Shaanxi
People executed by a Three Kingdoms state by decapitation
People executed by Shu Han
Shu Han generals
Shu Han government officials
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QI
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QI
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QI (short for Quite Interesting) is a British comedy panel game quiz show for television created and co-produced by John Lloyd. The series currently airs on BBC Two and is presented by Sandi Toksvig. It features permanent panellist Alan Davies and three guest panellists per episode; the panellists are mostly comedians. The series was presented by Stephen Fry from its beginning in 2003 until 2016.
The format of the show focuses on the panellists answering questions that are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given. To compensate, the panellists are awarded points not only for the correct answer, but also for interesting ones, regardless of whether they are correct or even relate to the original question, while points are deducted for "answers which are not only wrong, but pathetically obvious" – typically answers that are generally believed to be true but in fact are misconceptions. These answers, referred to as "forfeits", are usually indicated by a loud klaxon and alarm bell, flashing lights, and the incorrect answer being flashed on the video screens behind the panellists. Bonus points are sometimes awarded or deducted for challenges or incorrect references, varying from show to show. QI has a philosophy that "everything is interesting if looked at in the right way". Many factual errors in the show have been corrected in later episodes or on the show's blog.
For its first five series shown between 2003 and 2007, episodes premiered on BBC Four before receiving their first analogue airing on BBC Two a week later. From 2008 and 2011, the show was moved to BBC One, with an extended-length edition of each episode often broadcast on BBC Two a day or two after the regular show's broadcast under the title of QI XL. Series G and H saw the regular show broadcast in a pre-watershed slot with the extended edition remaining within a post-watershed slot. Beginning with the I series, the regular show returned to a post-watershed slot on BBC Two. Syndicated episodes of previous series are regularly shown on Dave. In November 2020 a new compilation series titled QI XS started, with a run-time of 14 minutes per episode. A second series of XS, with an 8-minute running time, started in February 2023. Series of QI are assigned letters in sequence and episodes are themed around topics starting with that letter.
The show has received very positive ratings from critics and has been nominated for multiple awards; QI itself has the highest viewing figures for any show broadcast on BBC Two and Dave. Several books, DVDs and other tie-ins to the show have been released, and international versions of QI have been made in other countries.
Format and concept
The panel consists of four participants: three rotating guests and one regular, Alan Davies, who has the seat to the immediate right of the host. Davies has appeared in every episode, although in "Divination" he was not able to appear at the studio but was still able to play "from beyond". Despite frequent wins, Davies often finishes last due to incurring forfeits.
Questions posed to the panellists are often misleading, obscure, or very difficult. Providing an "obvious but wrong" answer (referred to as a "forfeit") results in a sequence of klaxons, alarm bells, flashing lights, and a score penalty. Davies is often the panellist who gives these answers. In the first two series, Fry produced the given answer on a card to show the panellists, while it also flashed on the large screens behind them (except in the pilot episode and the first show of the first series, when only the cards were used.) In the third series and onward, Fry's answer cards were dispensed with altogether, leaving only the screens as proof that such answers had been predicted.
Because the show's creators expected that hardly anyone would be able to give a correct answer without significant prompting, they instead encourage sheer "interestingness", which is how points are mainly scored. As such, tangential discussions are encouraged, and panellists are apt to branch off into frivolous conversations, give voice to trains of thought, and share humorous anecdotes from their own lives. The number of points given and taken away are normally decided by the host or beforehand by QI researchers known as "The QI Elves". For example, in one episode Davies was docked 10 points for suggesting "oxygen" to the question "What is the main ingredient of air?"
Negative scores are common, and occasionally even the victor's score may be negative. Score totals are announced at the conclusion of the show. Fry has said, "I think we all agree that nobody in this universe understands QI's scoring system." John Lloyd, QIs creator, has, on one occasion, admitted that not even he has any idea how the scoring system works, but there is someone who is paid to check on the scores. According to the Series A DVD, guests are allowed the right of appeal if they believe their score is wrong, but none has so far exercised that right.
Buzzers
Panellists are given buzzers to use in signalling a response, each of which produces a different sound when pressed. For the first three series, the sounds were seemingly random things or followed an arbitrary theme in each episode, such as commonly heard everyday sounds in the Series C episode "Common Knowledge." From Series D onward, all four sounds are based on the particular episode's theme, such as in the Series F episode "Films and Fame" (sound clips associated with well-known movies, with Davies receiving Porky Pig's stuttering "That's all, folks!"). The buzzers are always demonstrated at the beginning of the programme, but are usually given a shortened version for repeated use during the episode, mostly in General Ignorance. Davies "always gets the most demeaning sound" for his buzzer.
Sometimes, the buzzers have unique points to them, such as having questions based on them; in most cases they are about Davies' own. For example, one of his buzzer noises in the Series D episode "Descendants" sounded like a Clanger, and the panel had to try and guess what was being said, while in the Series F episode "Fakes and Frauds", all the buzzers sounded like ordinary household objects, but three turned out to be the sound of the superb lyrebird mimicking the noises. In other episodes, they were sometimes changed to suit the theme of an episode; for the Series D episode "Denial and Deprivation", the panellists had to use unique buzzers – two had bells, one flicked a ruler over the edge of a school desk, and Davies squeezed a toy chipmunk – while in the Series G episode "Green", the buzzers were replaced with whistles so the show could be seen to be eco-friendly. On one occasion, points were automatically deducted from Davies' score solely because the buzzer did not match the theme of the episode, or activated the Klaxon.
General Ignorance
In a parody of ubiquitous general knowledge quizzes, the final round is off-topic and called "General Ignorance". It focuses on seemingly easy questions which have widely believed but wrong answers. Whereas in the main rounds of the show, the panellists' buzzer usage is not usually enforced, the "General Ignorance" questions are introduced by the host's reminder to keep "fingers on buzzers". "General Ignorance" was featured in every episode until the I (ninth) series, but featured only occasionally in the J (tenth) and K (eleventh) series before appearing regularly again in the L (twelfth) series. Due to the large number of "obvious but wrong" answers, panellists—especially Davies—usually incur the greatest point losses in this round.
Tasks and themes
In a number of episodes, either the set, the panellists' clothing, the opening theme, or a mixture of all, are changed to match the episode's theme. For example, in "Denial and Deprivation", the set was replaced with an auctioneer stand for Fry and school desks or side tables for the panellists, and the lighting was stripped down; while in "Health and Safety", the panellists wore hard hats, safety glasses, and bright yellow work vests and Fry wore a doctor's white coat and stethoscope.
In some episodes, an extra task is given to the panellists to complete during the course of an episode, which can earn them extra points. Such tasks have included a drawing contest, or spotting an item on the video screens and waving a "joker" card (e.g. Cuttlefish.) Several series have had a recurring task spanning every episode, often involving the use of a joker card to respond to a question whose answer fit a specified theme. Examples include "The Elephant in the Room" (series E, elephants), "Nobody Knows" (Series I, for questions without a known answer) and "Spend a Penny" (Series L, lavatories).
In addition to assigning tasks, Fry performed scientific experiments or demonstrations during certain episodes. He often did so once an episode in the J, K and L series, where they were called "Jolly Japes", "Knick-Knakes" and "Lab Larks", respectively, and usually occurred towards the end of the episode. Such experiments either used simple objects, various chemical compounds, odd contraptions, or a mixture of all. If an experiment's outcome was too fast to be seen, a short "replay" of it was shown, (sometimes with multiple angles) to reveal precisely what happened.
Production
[[File:John lloyd secret comedy podcast.jpg|thumb|upright|Veteran comedy producer John Lloyd was the driving force behind QIs creation.]]
Writer and former BBC producer John Lloyd devised the format of the show, and it is produced by Quite Interesting Limited, an organisation set up by Lloyd. QI was originally seen as being an "Annotated Encyclopædia Britannica ... the world's first non-boring encyclopaedia." As a panel game, it was conceived as a radio show, with Lloyd as chairman. While developing the show with Peter Fincham and Alan Yentob, Lloyd decided that it would work better on television. The three pitched it to Lorraine Heggessey, controller of BBC One at the time. Heggessey passed on the format, opting to commission a similar panel game called Class War, which was never made. When Fincham became controller of BBC One, Lloyd pitched it to him, only to be turned down by his former collaborator. Eventually, he pitched it to Jane Root, then controller of BBC Two, who agreed to develop it. When it was decided that the show would air on television, Michael Palin was offered the job of chairman with Fry and Davies as captains of the "cleverclogs" and "dunderheads" teams, respectively. However, when Palin decided not to take the job, the producers opted to change the format; Fry became the host, with Davies as the only regular panellist. Root commissioned a pilot and a further 16 episodes after that, although budget limitations reduced the first series to 12 episodes.
In October 2015, it was announced that Fry would be stepping down as host after Series M and would be replaced by Sandi Toksvig. Fry described his position on QI as "one of the best jobs on television", but that "it was time to move on". According to Alan Davies, Fry quit because the BBC cut the budget, so that three shows had to be recorded on the same day. "For budget reasons, they ended up making him do three shows in 24 hours", Davies said. Toksvig said that "QI is my favourite television programme both to watch and to be on". Lloyd said that Toksvig will be "the first female host of a mainstream comedy panel show on British television", and that although she is very different from Fry, she "will bring to the show the same kind of wonderful thing that Stephen does, the mixture of real brains and a hinterland of knowledge, plus this naughty sense of humour." He also said it will give the show a chance to "do things in a slightly different way".
Recording
Recordings usually take place over a few weeks in May or June; three episodes are typically filmed per week and sixteen are filmed for each series. Series A–P were filmed at The London Studios, with Series Q onwards being filmed at Television Centre.
In the morning on the day of recording, the studio has to be set up. Seven cameras are used to record QI. To check that images, forfeits, buzzers and lighting are working, the first technical rehearsal is hosted by floor manager Guy Smart with stand-ins for panellists. Fry, who was given the list of questions roughly an hour beforehand, hosted the second technical rehearsal at 2:00 pm. Guests may have time to practise with a set of warm-up questions.
For earlier series, warm-up comedians were used before recording began, frequently Stephen Grant, credited as the "audience wrangler". However, there have been no warm-ups for recent series. Fry recorded and tweeted audience AudioBooms and introduced the guests before the show. Recordings start at either 4:30 pm or 7:30 pm and last up to two hours, although only 30 minutes of footage is used for normal episodes and 45 minutes for "XL" episodes. By 10:00 pm, recording has usually finished and the set has been disassembled. Roughly 16 questions are asked and about half of those make it into the show; about 20% of material researched is used in a QI episode, while other facts may appear in the XL versions, a QI book, on QIs Twitter feed or on their website.
In March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, two episodes of series R were filmed without an audience, due to social distancing requirements. Further series R episodes were recorded with a virtual audience via Zoom.
Questions seen beforehand
The makers of the show insist that the answers are not given to the panellists beforehand. The host is given a list of questions about an hour before the show, for preparatory purposes, but the guests are forbidden to ask for preparatory materials or other help. Alan Davies never does any preparation.
In a 2010 interview with the Radio Times regarding the current state of the BBC, Fry revealed that one of the regular panellists insists on seeing the questions before they appear in the show. "There's only one regular guest who always insists on seeing the questions beforehand and prepares for them. I won't tell you his or her name," he said. "It really annoys me. In fact, one day, I'll make sure that person is given a list from another programme because they don't need them."
Following this comment, people asked Fry to identify the guest and some posted their own speculations. Fry later posted on his Twitter account that it was neither Davies nor Rob Brydon. In a 2022 Q&A at the Oxford Union, regular panellist Dara Ó Briain said that the guest in question was someone who had since died, but was not Sean Lock.
Research
The research for the show is mostly carried out by seven people called the "QI Elves", a team which has included Justin Pollard, Vitali Vitaliev, Molly Oldfield (daughter of Mike Oldfield), and Jenny Ryan. The "elves" devise the questions for the show, and one is on set during filming who is able to communicate with the host during the show to provide and correct information. Other people involved in researching questions and compiling the scripts are John Mitchinson and Piers Fletcher, known (along with Justin Pollard, Molly Oldfield, and James Harkin) as the Question Wranglers, whose research uses both Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia. The QI website also has a forum.
A QI Elves podcast, No Such Thing as a Fish, began on 8 March 2014. The title is taken from an entry into the Oxford Encyclopedia of Underwater Life (although in the opening theme of the first 41 episodes it is incorrectly referenced as the Oxford 'Dictionary' of Underwater Life), which was used on the show. The audio from the first episode in which they discuss how they found this fact is used as an introduction. Regular elves are Anna Ptaszynski, James Harkin, Dan Schreiber, and Andrew Hunter Murray, with occasional appearances from Alex Bell and Anne Miller. Schreiber is the host of the show. The theme song is "Wasps" from the band Emperor Yes, which is based on a fact about bees which was used on QI. The song is written as an exchange between the bees, as they defend their hive from attacking wasps by swarming the wasp, and using their body heat to kill the wasps by overheating. A TV show entitled No Such Thing as the News aired for two seasons in 2016, following a similar format based around news stories and current events. In 2018 an online behind the scenes series that followed the podcasters on their UK tour was released called 'Behind The Gills'.
Episodes
In QI, every series takes its theme from a different letter of the alphabet, starting with the letter "A". Series are referred to by letter rather than number. The first series started on 11 September 2003, and consisted of topics beginning with "A". The second series consisted of topics beginning with "B" and also saw the first attempts to pay attention to a particular theme throughout one episode, e.g. "Birds" (the over-riding theme did not necessarily begin with "B", although the questions always contained an element that did). The only exceptions to the alphabet system have been the Christmas specials, where the topics are often Christmas-based and do not necessarily correspond to that series' letter (although greater attempts have been made to do so since Series D).
Series D was the first to see all the episodes focus upon a single topic or theme, beginning with the series letter (e.g. Danger), and for each to be given an official title connected to the topic/theme. It also saw Fry modify his introduction of the panellists, by incorporating the theme/topic of the episode, with Davies often getting the "demeaning" introduction. This trend has continued with each subsequent series; episodes from previous series were retroactively given titles. A video podcast (featuring the best moments with some out-takes) was planned to accompany Series E, but this was instead turned into a set of "Quickies" featured on the QI homepage of the BBC's website. As this decision was not reached until after recording, the videos are still referred to as "vodcasts" by whoever is introducing them (usually Fry but occasionally a panellist or even the audience.) The series was ended by a special outtake compilation entitled "Elephants".
Points may be given to (or taken from) the studio audience, and five episodes have the distinction of being won by the audience: "Death", the fifth episode in Series D; "England", the 10th episode in Series E; "Flora & Fauna", the 10th episode in Series F; "Greeks", the 14th episode in Series G; "Next", the 15th episode in Series N; and "Quantity and Quality", the 15th episode in Series Q. The audience's win in "Greeks" was only announced during the XL broadcast as their contribution was cut out of the main broadcast. In contrast, the audience lost the fifth episode of Series E, "Europe", receiving a forfeit of −100 when they incorrectly sang the first stanza of the German national anthem, and the fourth episode of Series Q, “Queasy Quacks”, when they received a forfeit for referring to the first patient in a disease outbreak as Patient Zero. Several others have scored points in certain episodes by making appearances on the set or screens; these have included ASIMO (a humanoid robot) and US President Barack Obama.
A special stand-alone episode was filmed between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. (GMT) on 6 March 2011 as part of Comic Relief's special 24 Hour Panel People featuring David Walliams, who appeared in various old and new panel game shows throughout a 24-hour period. The shows were streamed live on the Red Nose Day website, and parts of each show were shown during five half-hour specials on Comic Relief. The QI episode featured panellists Sue Perkins, Jo Brand, Russell Tovey and David Walliams. Davies admitted through Twitter that he was asked to host the episode when it was not certain if Fry would be available, but Davies declined. Once Fry confirmed his participation, Davies did not hear back from the production team. Unlike the classic format of the show where most questions follow a subject, this episode was instead an hour-long General Ignorance round.
Guest appearances
As of 10 February 2023, the following have all appeared multiple times as one of the guest panellists on the show. This list only includes "canonical" episodes of the BBC show. This does not include the unbroadcast pilot, nor the special editions for the Comic Relief and Sport Relief telethons, nor any live stage editions.46 appearances Bill Bailey
Phill Jupitus41 appearances Jimmy Carr 40 appearances Jo Brand 32 appearances David Mitchell27 appearances Sean Lock25 appearances Rich Hall19 appearances Ross Noble17 appearances Jason Manford
Josh Widdicombe16 appearances Clive Anderson
Aisling Bea
Sandi Toksvig15 appearances Rob Brydon
Sue Perkins
Holly Walsh14 appearances Jeremy Clarkson
Dara Ó Briain
Sara Pascoe
Johnny Vegas13 appearances Cariad Lloyd12 appearances Sarah Millican11 appearances Susan Calman10 appearances John Sessions9 appearances Danny Baker
Joe Lycett8 appearances Victoria Coren Mitchell
Noel Fielding
Lee Mack7 appearances Ronni Ancona
Gyles Brandreth
Jack Dee
Andy Hamilton
Nish Kumar
Colin Lane
Richard Osman6 appearances Matt Lucas
Sally Phillips
Liza Tarbuck5 appearances Stephen K. Amos
Cally Beaton
Bridget Christie
Rhod Gilbert
Romesh Ranganathan4 appearances Tom Allen
Daliso Chaponda
Jeremy Hardy
Alice Levine
Zoe Lyons
Vic Reeves
Lou Sanders
Mark Steel
Jack Whitehall3 appearances James Acaster
Maisie Adam
Chris Addison
Eshaan Akbar
Richard Coles
Reginald D. Hunter
Chris McCausland
Lucy Porter
Arthur Smith
Linda Smith
Sindhu Vee
Julia Zemiro
Rich Hall has the highest number of guest appearances in a single series—six times in Series B (half of the episodes that year), while Phill Jupitus has won the most episodes of any guest panellist, with 14.a. Also made an additional appearance in the unbroadcast pilot.b. Also made an additional appearance in the 2011 Comic Relief episode.c. Also made an additional appearance in the live Sport Relief episode.d. Excluding Series N onwards. Toksvig took over hosting duties from Fry from the start of Series N.e. Also made an additional appearance in the 2022 Comic Relief episode.
International broadcasts
As of 2011, QI is distributed by Fremantle.
In Australia, QI is broadcast on the ABC. The programme was first broadcast on 20 October 2009 after the surprise ratings success of Stephen Fry in America. The ABC aired QI Series F first, but subsequently, in July 2010, ABC1 began broadcasting QI from the very beginning with Series A. QI has also been broadcast on the pay TV channel UKTV.
In March 2010, QI began a run in New Zealand on Prime. On 27 May 2011, Series A of QI was broadcast in South Africa on BBC Entertainment. QI series A-Q has also aired on BBC Entertainment in the Nordic countries.
There have been several attempts to broadcast QI in the United States. US networks that have tried to broadcast the series include Comedy Central, PBS, Discovery Channel and BBC America. Show creator and producer John Lloyd said that one factor in the failure to get the show broadcast is due to the cost. As QI features several images during each episode there are copyright issues. Lloyd said in an interview with TV Squad that: "No country in the world has bought the original show and this is partly a matter of cost. The pictures in the background of the show are only cleared for UK usage, so until the show is bought by a Stateside TV company and the rights cleared for World, the programme (is) unaffordable by smaller countries." Amongst the famous names also to express anger over QI not being shown in the US include comedian John Hodgman, who appeared as a "fifth guest" in the second episode of Series G. In 2013, QI was picked up in the US by the streaming video service Hulu.
On 30 January 2015 BBC America announced that they had acquired QI and planned on airing the show, beginning with Series J, on 19 February 2015.
Davies has criticised QI being repeated so often, saying "QI being in a soup of shows on one of these repeat channels ... completely devalues the brand". Davies thought the show would gain more viewers when a new series aired if channels made "an audience wait for a couple of months".
Versions and spin-offs
International versions
In 2008, the QI format was sold to the Dutch broadcaster VARA. Also called QI, the Dutch version of the show aired for the first time on 27 December 2008 and was hosted by the writer Arthur Japin with the comedian Thomas van Luyn taking the role of regular panellist. Japin also appeared (in the audience) in a British QI episode, "Gothic", explaining how the name Vincent van Gogh should be pronounced. The Dutch series was discontinued after six episodes.
A Swedish version of QI started airing on SVT1 8 September 2012, and was called Intresseklubben. Comedian Johan Wester hosted Intresseklubben, and Anders Jansson was featured as the regular panellist. A second series covering the letter B started airing in September 2013; Series C was recorded in June 2014 and aired in late 2014, while season D was recorded in June 2015 and started airing in August 2015.
A Danish version of QI, called Quiz i en hornlygte aired on DR2 between 2012 and 2013. The show was hosted by Danish comedian Carsten Eskelund. While not directly branded as a Danish version of QI, it maintained some recognisable elements, such as the difficulty of some questions and awarding points for interesting answers as well as negative points for wrong, but widely believed, answers.
The Czech version of QI was first broadcast on TV Prima on 14 August 2013. The programme is hosted by Leoš Mareš, with Patrik Hezucký appearing as a guest in every episode.
The QI TestThe QI Test was a planned spinoff version of QI that was to be broadcast on BBC Two. Created by Lloyd, Talkback Thames' Dave Morely and former QI Commercial Director Justin Gayner, The QI Test differed from QI in that it would have featured members of the public as contestants instead of comedians and celebrities. It would have been broadcast during the daytime schedules. The pilot was not hosted by Fry and was recorded in November 2009, but a series was never broadcast.
Mistakes and fact correction
Some of the answers on the show have been disputed and shown to be incorrect. In Series A, the show claimed that the longest animal in the world was the lion's mane jellyfish, but this was later corrected in Series C, saying that the longest animal in the world is the bootlace worm.
Members of the public and members of the QI website contact the show to correct information. At the end of the third series, Dara Ó Briain was docked points for having stated, in the previous series, that the triple point of water is zero degrees Celsius, an answer which earned him 2 points at the time. Viewers had written in to say that the triple point of water is in fact 0.01 degrees, and so the 2 points awarded Ó Briain in the previous series were revoked and he received a further deduction of 10 points for "saying a now obvious answer".
Various other retractions are made by the producers of the show on the special features of the DVD releases. The origin of the error may also be explained. For instance, Fry made a mistake when explaining why helium makes your voice higher, in the Series B Christmas special. He claimed that the gas only affected the frequency, but not the pitch, despite them being the same thing; in actuality, the timbre is affected.
Information contributed by a panellist during a discussion, but which has since been found to be false, have also been corrected. In the "Knowledge" episode in Series K it was explained that many facts on the show are later shown to be incorrect. Points were refunded to three panellists who had appeared previously; The largest refund went to Davies, who received in excess of 700 wrongly deducted points. Fry gave some examples of incorrect facts told in previous episodes, such as ones relating to lobster ages, the evolution of giraffe's necks and millipede legs.
More recently, the online forum now includes a "QI Qibbles" blog, which aims to rectify further mistakes in the show.
Notable examples
Welsh word for "blue"
The error that has attracted the most complaints to date was made in Series B, when it was claimed that the Welsh language has no word for blue. In fact it is glas. The error was explained on the "Banter" section of the Series B DVD as a mistake on the part of John Lloyd himself (the show's producer).
Flobbadob
An episode in Series B claimed that the language spoken by children's TV characters Bill and Ben was called "Flobbadob" and was named after the onomatopoeic phrase that supposed creator Hilda Brabban's younger brothers (after whom the characters were named) gave to their bath farts during their early childhood. However, in Series D, Fry read out the following letter written by Silas Hawkins, the son of veteran voice-over talent Peter Hawkins, who provided the original voices of the characters:
The fart-in-the-bath story was trotted out last year in an episode of Stephen Fry's otherwise admirable quiz show QI. It (the story) first appeared some twenty years ago in a newspaper article, to which my father immediately wrote a rebuttal. This was obviously ferreted out by some BBC researcher. It may be quite interesting, but in this case, it just isn't true.
Fry then apologised and corrected the error, saying "Their language is called 'Oddle poddle'. 'Flobbadob' means 'Flowerpot' in Oddle poddle."
It has later been established that while Hilda Brabban did sell stories about characters named Bill and Ben to the BBC in the 1950s, these bear no resemblance to the Bill and Ben of the Flower Pot Men.
Culture
QI has stated it follows a philosophy: everything in the world, even that which appears to be the most boring, is "quite interesting" if looked at in the right way. The website states that:
"We live, they say, in The Information Age, yet almost none of the information we think we possess is true. Eskimos do not rub noses. The rickshaw was invented by an American. Joan of Arc was not French. Lenin was not Russian. The world is not solid, it is made of empty space and energy, and neither haggis, whisky, porridge, clan tartans nor kilts are Scottish. So we stand, silent, on a peak in Darien a vast, rolling, teeming, untrodden territory before us. QI country. Whatever is interesting we are interested in. Whatever is not interesting, we are even more interested in. Everything is interesting if looked at in the right way. At one extreme, QI is serious, intensely scientific, deeply mystical; at the other it is hilarious, silly and frothy enough to please the most indolent couch-potato."
On 28 December 2009, the BBC Radio 4 panel game The Unbelievable Truth, hosted by frequent QI guest panellist David Mitchell, broadcast a New Year's Special which paid tribute to QI. The show featured Fry, Davies and Lloyd on the panel, as well as Rob Brydon, another regular QI participant.
Controversies and criticism
Content perceived as offensive
In December 2010, panellists on QI made jokes during a discussion about Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who survived both atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Yamaguchi had died only earlier that year. The Japanese embassy in London wrote a letter of complaint to the BBC about the content of its quiz show after being alerted to the content when viewers in Japan contacted diplomatic staff. Yamaguchi's daughter also made known how upset she was as a result of the comments broadcast on the BBC. She said that Britain, as a nuclear power, had no right to "look down" on her father. In January 2011, the BBC issued an apology for "any offence caused" to Japan by the incident, recognising "the sensitivity of the subject matter for Japanese viewers". In February 2011, the BBC cited a "strength of feeling" in Japan following its atomic bomb joke broadcast in its decision to cancel the filming of part of its Planet Word documentary in the country, which was due to be presented by Fry.
In February 2011, the BBC received several complaints about jokes made in an episode of QI about Margaret Thatcher. Regular panellist Jo Brand commented that Lady Thatcher sounded like "a device for removing pubic hair". Later, panellist Phill Jupitus shouted "Burn the witch!" when a digitally altered picture of Thatcher, showcasing the Thatcher effect optical illusion, was shown on-screen. Several Conservative politicians condemned the remarks; and Lord Tebbit complained that "Lady Thatcher has been treated like this by the BBC for the past 30 years".
In 2011, an episode of QI featuring Jeremy Clarkson was withdrawn due to controversial comments Clarkson had recently made about people dying by suicide by jumping in front of trains. The QI episode did not contain any such statements, but was postponed "to avoid putting Clarkson in the spotlight". The episode, on the subject of "idleness", was broadcast later.
On 11 January 2013, an episode of QI ending with Fry reading a limerick about paedophilia was criticised by viewers, especially as it was broadcast directly before a Newsnight report on Jimmy Savile. The BBC Trust described the incident as "unfortunate and regrettable" and the limerick as "capable of causing offence", but ruled it was not in breach of BBC guidelines.
Gender gap
The BBC has received criticism regarding the lack of women on their comedy panel shows. As a result, the corporation decided to ban all-male panels on comedy shows in February 2014, with BBC's director of TV Danny Cohen stating in an interview with The Observer that "shows without women are unacceptable". In November 2014, Mirror reported stats revealing that 38% of all QI episodes at that time had featured only men, 55.9% featured only one woman, and only the remaining 6.1% had two or three women, out of a total of three guest panellists per episode (the fourth one being regular panellist Alan Davies). Clem Bastow of The Sydney Morning Herald was supportive of BBC's decision, saying that "left to their own devices, the producers of these shows are clearly failing massively when it comes to putting together line-ups that aren't just endless parades of the same old white men," and noted that this could motivate the producers to uncover some new talent. In 2017, creator of QI John Lloyd commented on BBC's decision, telling the Cheltenham Literature Festival that "arguing a BBC quota for women panellists risked being mere tokenism", while his wife Sarah Wallace—director of QI Limited—stated that female comedians are hesitant to appear on the show.
In April 2014, Sandi Toksvig, who was hosting The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4 at that time, had also criticised BBC's decision saying that "recruiting more female hosts would be a more desirable way of correcting the imbalance." She explained that women would feel more comfortable about participating with a female host, and described the fact that many quiz shows are presented by men as "slightly ridiculous". In 2015, when Toksvig took over from Fry as a host of QI, she told the Guardian newspaper: "If I can show that by hosting a programme like this women neither destroy the social fabric of this country [nor] frighten the horses, it's a very good job." Nevertheless, Toksvig has acknowledged Fry's delicate treatment towards his female panellists, and she herself continues to encourage them to be smart and funny when they appear on the show. In 2018, Emma Cox of Radio Times highlighted a notable difference between QI and other "aggressively masculine" panel shows.
In September 2018, while responding to a question on equal pay at the Women's Equality Party's conference, Toksvig revealed that she receives 40% of what Stephen Fry was being paid as the host of QI, and the same amount as panellist Alan Davies. Talent fees for QI are managed by Talkback.
Reception
QI was received very positively by its viewers. It was the most popular programme on BBC Four in 2005, and one of its books, The Book of General Ignorance, became a global best-seller for Christmas 2006.
QI has been supported by nearly all critics. Peter Chapman said, "When the schedules seem so dumbed-down, it's a delight to encounter the brainy and articulate Stephen Fry. He excels in this format, being both scathing and generous." Another critic, Laura Barton said, "QI and its canny coupling of Stephen Fry and Alan Davies, which manages to condense tweedy goodness, cockney charm, pub trivia and class war into one half-hour."
Julia Raeside from The Guardian reviewed the show during its tenth series, calling it "still rather more than quite interesting" and complimenting it for being "one of the last truly popular programmes on mainstream television where comedians are allowed to be clever". Raeside noted ratings were still high, as four million viewers in total watched the first J series episode of QI and QI XL. American critic Liesl Schillinger described QI as "Jeopardy! with Stephen Colbert as host, with Steve Martin and Ellen DeGeneres as guests, working off a game board loaded with unanswerable questions."
Matt Smith gave QI Live a positive review, calling it "funny, educational, and ... quite interesting"; Smith noted there was a "great deal of Fry worship" and that, due to high ticket prices, "only the most dedicated Fry fans ... would come to this show". He commented that "much like the television show, your enjoyment of the stage version will be affected by how you perceive the guests", but went on to say that he enjoyed the line-up in the show he saw.
Awards
Media releases
QI has entered a number of different media, and has seen an increasing number of tie-in DVDs, books and newspaper columns released since 2005.
Books
United Kingdom
The first QI book was 2006's The Book of General Ignorance, published in hardback on 5 October by Faber and Faber. () Written by producer and series-creator John Lloyd and QI's head of research, John Mitchinson, it includes a foreword by Fry and "Four words" by Davies ("Will this do, Stephen?".) Most of the book's facts and clarifications have appeared on the programme, including its list of 200 popular misconceptions, many of which featured during the "General Ignorance" rounds. On 8 December 2006, the book "became a surprise bestseller over the Christmas period, becoming Amazon's number one Global bestseller for Christmas 2006." By the end of January 2007, it had sold more than 300,000 copies (and subsequently over half a million), paving the way for subsequent (projected) annual book releases to capitalise on the UK Christmas book market. The Official QI website notes that it will soon be published in 23 countries.
Pocket-sized and audio versions of General Ignorance went on sale the following year. In 2008, a newly revised version was published under the title of The Book of General Ignorance: The Noticeably Stouter Edition. This edition corrected and updated some of the information from the first print, while adding 50 new sections (and extra illustrations) to the original 230. It also included quotes from the series, new "Four Words" by Davies and added a complete episode listing from Series A–F, along with an index.
QIs second book, The Book of Animal Ignorance, was released in the UK (in the same hardback format) by Faber & Faber on 4 October 2007. () It promised to be a "bestiary for the 21st century," and contains almost completely new quite interesting facts. The book includes "400 diagrams and cartoons by the brilliant Ted Dewan", another Foreword by Stephen Fry and a "Forepaw" by Alan Davies. This publication has also been followed by a pocket-sized version.
On the Factoids feature of the Series A DVD, John Lloyd mentioned an idea he'd had for a QI book of quotations, under the working title Quote Interesting. This book was eventually published in 2008 as Advanced Banter. Similarly, on the Banter feature of the Series B DVD, Lloyd also previewed the title of QIs fourth book, The QI Book of the Dead, which went on sale on 15 October 2009.
7 October 2010 saw the publication of QIs fifth book—The Second Book of General Ignorance. Written by the same authors, this book covers a whole new series of questions on a wide variety of topics, which promises to prove that "everything you think you know is (still) wrong".
The sixth QI book, 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off, a list of facts, was published on 1 November 2012. James Harkin, QIs chief researcher, co-wrote the book with Lloyd and Mitchinson.
QIs first annual, The QI "E" Annual or The QI Annual 2008 was published by Faber and Faber on 1 November 2007, to coincide with the initial airing of the TV show's E series (.) Succeeding years have seen the publication of F, G and H annuals, concurrent with the BBC show's chronology, though retrospective annuals on the first four letters of the alphabet have yet to be published. The covers, which feature various cartoon scenes starring caricatures of Fry and regular QI panellists, are produced by David Stoten (one of Roger Law's Spitting Image team), who also contributed to the annuals' contents. Many of said cover stars are also credited with contributing content to the annuals, which also provide a showcase for Rowan Atkinson's talents as a 'rubber-faced' comic, as well as the comic stylings of Newman and Husband from Private Eye, Viz's Chris Donald, Geoff Dunbar, Ted Dewan and The Daily Telegraphs Matt Pritchett.
France
A French edition entitled Les autruches ne mettent pas la tête dans le sable : 200 bonnes raisons de renoncer à nos certitudes ("Ostriches don't put their heads in the sand: 200 good reasons to give up our convictions") was published by Dunod on 3 October 2007. () It is released as part of Dunod's "Cult.Science"/"Oh, les Sciences !" series, which also includes titles by Robert L. Wolke, Ian Stewart and Raymond Smullyan.
Italy
An Italian edition entitled Il libro dell'ignoranza ("The book of ignorance") was published by Einaudi in 2007 and in 2009 the same publisher published Il libro dell'ignoranza sugli animali ("The book of ignorance about animals".)
United States
On 7 August 2007, The Book of General Ignorance was published in America by Harmony Books. () It features a sparser cover downplaying its links to the TV series, which had yet to be broadcast in the US. The book received glowing reviews from both Publishers Weekly and The New York Times, which recommended it in its "Books Holiday Gift Guide". (It subsequently entered the New York Times "Hardcover Advice" best-seller charts at No. 10 on 9 December, falling to No. 11 two weeks later where it stayed until mid-January, before falling out of the top 15 on 20 January.)
DVDs
A number of DVDs related to QI have also been released, including interactive quizzes, and complete series releases.
Interactive quizzes
On 14 November 2005 an interactive QI DVD game, called QI: A Quite Interesting Game, was released by Warner Vision International. A second interactive game, QI: Strictly Come Duncing followed on 26 November 2007, once again from Warner Vision International. Both games feature Fry asking questions, and then explaining the answers in full QI-mode.
Series releases
United Kingdom
A DVD release for the first series was the direct result of an internet petition signed by 1,821 people, which persuaded the BBC of the interest in such a move. Series A, was therefore released by BBC Worldwide's DVD venture, 2 entertain Ltd. on 6 November 2006 (as "QI: The Complete First Series.") It contains a number of outtakes as well as the unbroadcast pilot. Sales over the Christmas period, however (in stark contrast to The Book of General Ignorance, which topped the Amazon.co.uk best-seller list), were not as strong as hoped. A lack of adequate advertising is thought to be to blame (and subsequent episodes of QI have since trailed the DVD), and may have factored in the label change for Series B. Series B was released on 17 March 2008, followed by Series C on 1 September. In 2014, a message on the QI site read "Due to a number of copyright issues there are difficulties releasing further series of QI on DVD".
On 14 December 2015, the Network imprint announced on its website that it had made a deal with FremantleMedia so previously unreleased shows could be made available on DVD sometime in 2016; among the list was QI. The DVD sets, released on 8 May 2017, were split into two initial volumes of series A-D and E-G, containing additional features including a 'Making of' feature, interviews and bloopers. Two additional sets, series H-J and K-M are scheduled for release on 23 October 2017.
Australia
A box-set of series 1–3 (Series A-C) was released in September 2011. Additionally, a single DVD titled "The Best Bits" containing clips from Series G was released on 3 June 2010. Two years later a three DVD set labelled as "Series 9" was released in August 2012, containing the Series H episodes. The Series 9 DVD title was later changed to "The H Series" and The Series J was released also on 5 March 2014.
List of releases
Online releasesUnited KingdomSeries J–M are available in HD on Netflix but can only be streamed in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Series N was available through the BBC Store but no longer due to the store's closure in 2017.
Series L–N are available on Amazon Video but can only be streamed in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Additionally UKTV Play also offers a number of episodes that have been repeated on Dave on its on-demand service.United States'''
Multiple services have made QI available to stream in the United States, including Acorn TV (Series A through G) and Hulu (Series I, J and K). By March 2022, ten seasons (series J-S) had been available through BritBox.
Other media
Since 10 February 2007, a weekly QI column has run in The Daily Telegraph newspaper. Fifty-two columns were planned, originally alphabetically themed like the TV series and running from A to Z twice, but the feature is ongoing and was recently re-launched in the newspaper's Saturday magazine and online. A QI feature has appeared in BBC MindGames magazine since its fifth issue, and revolves around facts and questions in the General Ignorance-mould. A weekly QI-linked multiple-choice question is featured in Radio Times, with the solution printed in the feedback section. QI also has an official website, QI.com, which features facts, forums and other information. It also links to QIs internet show QI News, a parody news show which broadcasts "News" items about things which are "quite interesting". QI News'' stars Glenn Wrage and Katherine Jakeways as the newsreaders, Bob Squire and Sophie Langton.
Footnotes
References
External links
QI XL
QI XS
Quite Interesting Ltd. official website.
QI home page at The Telegraph.
QI episode titles and broadcast dates at Epguides.com
2003 British television series debuts
2000s British comedy television series
2010s British comedy television series
2020s British comedy television series
BBC panel games
BBC television comedy
British panel games
2000s British game shows
2010s British game shows
2020s British game shows
Television series by Fremantle (company)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%20%28TV%20series%29
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Parkinson (TV series)
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Parkinson was a British television chat show presented by Michael Parkinson. It was first shown on BBC One from 19 June 1971 to 10 April 1982 and from 9 January 1998 to 24 April 2004. Parkinson then switched to ITV on which the show continued from 4 September 2004 to 22 December 2007. A parallel series was shown in Australia on the ABC between 1979 and 1982. A series entitled Parkinson One to One was produced by Yorkshire Television from 28 March 1987 to 23 July 1988.
Parkinson was revived again as Parkinson: Masterclass on Sky Arts from 2012 to 2014.
Background
Parkinson began in 1971 when the host was offered a series of twelve shows by the BBC's Head of Light Entertainment, Bill Cotton. It was to be transmitted during the "summer lull" in a late-night slot on Saturdays (which continued throughout its run), plus from 1979 a second mid-week edition when the series was on air. A parallel series was shown in Australia between 1979 and 1982. That year, 1982, Parkinson left the BBC to be co-founder and presenter on the ITV breakfast television station TV-am, where after many schedule upheavals he ended up presenting the Saturday and Sunday morning programme with his wife, Mary Parkinson, until 1984.
Michael Parkinson would eventually return to the BBC for further series. However, in between his work for the BBC he did two series of chat shows for Yorkshire Television in 1987–1988 as Parkinson One to One, the format being an interview with a single guest (a practice occasionally employed during his time with the BBC).
He returned to the BBC in August 1995 to present a series of retrospective shows, Parkinson: The Interviews, featuring memorable excerpts, eventually presenting a new, revived version of his chat show on BBC One in January 1998. However, in April 2004, ITV announced that it had "poached" the interviewer from the BBC from the autumn of that year. Parkinson said that he was sad to be leaving the BBC but that he and the channel controller, Lorraine Heggessey, could not agree on a suitable slot for his show following the return of Premiership football highlights to the BBC One Saturday evening schedule. The ITV version of the programme, produced by Granada, debuted in September 2004, with an identical set, theme tune and format to the BBC edition. Its audience was around 6m viewers.
The last Parkinson run on the BBC (1998–2004) was one of the few recent British TV programmes that was not made in widescreen. However, his ITV show was recorded in the format with very tight close-ups.
Parkinson: Masterclass
Sir Michael Parkinson Describes it as a show he's always wanted to do. The series welcomes top-flight guests from across the artistic spectrum and, in his inimitable style, gains a fascinating and intimate insight into their careers via one-on-one interviews. He finds out how they have honed and perfected their techniques and abilities throughout their careers, and episodes also feature unique performances from the guests to demonstrate the work for which they have become so well-known. As well, the studio audience gets to ask questions of the guests. The audience is made up of the general public and students from a vast array of disciplines specially selected to gain insight into the subjects.
Programme format
Initially Bill Cotton was keen on a format more akin to the USA's Ed Sullivan Show, featuring entertainment and chat. However, Parkinson and his producer, Richard Drewett (who had worked on Late Night Line-Up), envisaged a combination of guests whose celebrity had been achieved in different fields. Their plan was that the final section of each show would become a conversation rather than a formal interview. The pair wanted to move the style as far as possible from the American prototype, even down to the removal of the host's desk, which Parkinson viewed as the "biggest obstacle to a proper interview". At first, Cotton was against this but Drewett convinced him otherwise.
A typical programme included three interviews, each lasting around 15 minutes. It was customary for the first two guests to remain after their own chats to observe and occasionally participate in those that followed. Such contributions were usually made respectfully, and when invited, though this policy backfired on occasion. In addition, some Hollywood stars were honoured in receiving a solo spot, Russell Crowe being one example. On occasion, an episode featured a single guest for its entire duration if the subject was deemed to be sufficiently deserving. This was the case in 2005 when Madonna appeared as part of her Hung Up Promo Tour; besides her interview she performed two songs.
There was usually a musical interlude at some point, featuring a current recording star. If a solo singer, he/she was accompanied by the show's musicians, who also provided the walk-on music for each guest. In the 1970s, the group was led by organist Harry Stoneham, who composed the show's theme tune. The role was undertaken by Laurie Holloway in the relaunched show.
Interviewing style
Michael Parkinson always sought guests who, besides being well known, had some sort of story to relate. He then saw his job as allowing them to tell it and did so by being open, relaxed and attentive. (He learnt very early on that in order to be an adept interviewer, he had to be a good listener.) He researched his subjects thoroughly, and, in the early shows, always had his list of questions to hand. Having guided them to an area of discussion, he rarely interrupted his guests – except to provide the occasional prompt – instead letting them expand on a particular topic. Sometimes, a person would warm to this style with unpredictable results. For example, he regards his chats with Shirley MacLaine as bordering on flirtatious. In his final programme, broadcast 22 December 2007, Parkinson stated that one of his most memorable interviews was with Jacob Bronowski in 1973.
Guests
By his own reckoning, Parkinson interviewed over 2,000 of the world's most famous people, including: Anthony Hopkins, Barry White, Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb, Ben Elton, Bette Midler, Billie Piper, Billy Connolly, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Bonnie Tyler, Buddy Rich, Cameron Diaz, Celine Dion, Cher, Clint Eastwood, Dame Edna Everage, Daniel Craig, Dave Allen, David Attenborough, David Beckham, David Bowie, David Tennant, Denzel Washington, Diana Ross, Dudley Moore, Dustin Hoffman, Edith Evans, Elaine Stritch, Elton John, Eric Idle, Ewan McGregor, Freddie Starr, Gary Glitter, Gene Wilder, George Best, George Michael, Geri Halliwell, Gillian Anderson, Harold Wilson, Helen Mirren, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Lemmon, Jennifer Lopez, Jeremy Clarkson, Joan Collins, Joan Rivers, John Cleese, John Lennon, Jon Pertwee, Judi Dench, Julie Andrews, Justin Timberlake, Kate Winslet, k.d. lang, Kenneth Williams, Leslie Thomas, Liberace, Luciano Pavarotti, Madonna, Mark Knopfler, Mel Gibson, Michael Caine, Michael Crawford, Michael Palin, Miss Piggy, Morecambe and Wise, Muhammad Ali, Naomi Campbell, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Noel Gallagher, Oliver Reed, Olivia Newton-John, Ozzy Osbourne, Paul McCartney, Paul Schrader, Peter Cook, Peter Kay, Peter Sellers, Peter Ustinov, Phil Collins, Pierce Brosnan, Raquel Welch, Ray Winstone, Richard Attenborough, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Ricky Hatton, Robbie Coltrane, Robin Williams, Robert Redford, Rod Stewart, Ronnie Barker, Rowan Atkinson, Sandra Bullock, Sarah, Duchess of York, Sean Connery, Shane Warne, Sharon Osbourne, Shirley MacLaine, Simon Cowell, Thierry Henry, Tina Turner, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Tom Lehrer, Tommy Cooper, Tony Blair, Trevor McDonald, Victoria Beckham, Viggo Mortensen, and Walter Matthau.
During the 1970s, he attracted former big-name Hollywood stars, such as Fred Astaire, Orson Welles, James Stewart, John Wayne, Mickey Rooney, David Niven, Gene Kelly, James Cagney and Robert Mitchum, not on the basis that they had a film to promote, but simply because they wanted a chat. Despite this, Parkinson has since asserted that then as now, "there was just as much plugging in the seventies as at any time later. To suggest otherwise is to misunderstand the reason people come on to talk shows." In particular, he cites Bette Davis as being the guest who "more than anyone, made it clear she was there to plug a product, not because she was, or ever would be, your buddy."
Many guests appeared more than once and others on numerous occasions, Peter Ustinov was a guest on eight occasions. The record for most appearances is held by Scottish comedian Billy Connolly, having been a guest on fifteen occasions. His final appearance was in Parkinson's penultimate show, broadcast on 16 December 2007.
Rod Hull and Emu
Much to his chagrin, the most repeated clip is of Parkinson's interview with entertainer Rod Hull in 1976. While the pair were chatting, Hull's glove puppet, Emu, continually and (apparently) uncontrollably attacked the interviewer, eventually causing him to fall off his chair. Fellow guest Billy Connolly threatened, "If that bird comes anywhere near me, I'll break its neck and your bloody arm!" Hull swiftly got his "pet" back on best behaviour. Parkinson had always lamented the fact that despite all the star guests he had interviewed over the years, he would probably be remembered for "that bloody bird". However, in an appearance on the TV show Room 101, he got his chance of revenge when the host, Paul Merton, unexpectedly brought Emu locked in a guillotine on stage and Parkinson took his chance by beheading the puppet, saying, "Goodbye, you foul beast."
Notable moments
On his appearance in the 1970s series, Orson Welles insisted that Parkinson dispose of his list of questions beforehand, reassuring him, "We'll talk."
Reticent about discussing himself, Peter Sellers agreed to take part only if he were allowed to walk on as someone else. Once introduced, he appeared dressed as a member of the Gestapo, impersonating Kenneth Mars' role in The Producers, and performed a number of lines in character before removing his "mask". He then settled down for what is arguably one of Parkinson's most memorable interviews.
Richard Burton's chat had to be recorded during the afternoon, for fear that the notorious drinker would be inebriated by the evening if allowed sufficient access to alcohol. Accordingly, the audience was hastily convened and as a result, mainly comprised staff of the BBC canteen – still in their kitchen whites. Burton confessed afterwards that the view from the studio floor as he walked on made him think that the "men in white coats" had caught up with him at last.
During Kenneth Williams' second appearance in 1973, the talk turned to politics, and particularly the Carry On star's unsympathetic views for trade unions. Williams accepted an invitation to return three weeks later and discuss these with trade unionist Jimmy Reid. The hostile nature of their debate turned an entertainment show into something more akin to a serious current affairs programme, and the then Controller of BBC One Paul Fox, directed that the programme was not to venture into that sort of territory again. However, Williams would become one of Parkinson's most celebrated guests, making a total of eight appearances over the years.
In the interview with Helen Mirren in 1975 Parkinson suggested that her good "figure" could detract from her performance. Parkinson's attitude during the interview has been described as sexist by Mirren and many others. Although Mirren spoke dismissively about Parkinson in later interviews, she also laid part of the blame on the Zeitgeist, the seventies being a "perilous" period for women. "I feel it’s of its time, and of its time it’s embarrassing," Parkinson told Piers Morgan in 2019. "It was over the top, absolutely so."
Parkinson stated that the most remarkable man he ever interviewed was Muhammad Ali, who appeared four times on the show. During one appearance, the famously articulate Ali launched into an extraordinary tirade when Parkinson challenged him on the nature of his religious beliefs. This caused Parkinson to be lost for words.
Parkinson witnessed David Niven being physically sick in his dressing room shortly before his interview. The actor informed him that he had always suffered with nerves. However, once before the cameras, he proved to be an accomplished raconteur.
John Conteh was on the same show as Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Parkinson asked the boxer if it was true that he never had sex before a fight. While Conteh looked embarrassed, Cook chipped in with an observation for the host: "I wouldn't ask you if you have sex before a show. I can see that you have."
When comedian Dave Allen appeared in an edition that was transmitted on Halloween in 1981, Parkinson invited his guest to read a suitably themed poem. As he did so in his familiar Irish brogue, and as the ghostly nature of the words became ever more unsettling, the studio lights were gradually dimmed, leaving just a spotlight on Allen. After completing the final line ("And now, as the witching hour approaches...") with much gravitas, he paused, before exclaiming, "What a load of crap!"
When the show was relaunched on the BBC in 1998, the star guest on the first programme was Sir Anthony Hopkins, who demonstrated his talent for mimicry by telling several Tommy Cooper jokes. The studio audience was very appreciative, and Parkinson was visibly gratified to the actor for getting his new series off to a good start.
On the programme featuring John Prescott, his own interview was followed by one with Phil Collins. However, the UK's Deputy Prime Minister interjected frequently and at great length during Parkinson's chat with the musician. The exasperated host finally pleaded, "May I have my guest back, please?"
Before being interviewed as a well-known comedian in his own right, Peter Kay was once a warm-up act for the Parkinson studio audience. In 2005, Parkinson returned the compliment by appearing alongside other UK celebrities such as Ronnie Corbett, Jim Bowen, Geoffrey Hayes and Shakin' Stevens on Kay's video with Tony Christie for their number one single, "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo".
In 1999, Woody Allen was visibly disturbed when the line of questioning turned to details of the custody battle for his children.
In October 2003, while in the UK to promote her film In the Cut, Meg Ryan made a controversial appearance on Parkinson, which resulted in negative publicity. The press accused both Ryan and Parkinson of being rude to one another. Ryan gave a few one-word answers, and after she acknowledged that she wasn't comfortable with the interview, Parkinson asked her what she would do if she were in his position now. She replied that she would "just wrap it up". Parkinson later revealed to the press that he felt her behaviour to his earlier guests, Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, whom she turned her back on, was "unforgivable". Ryan also commented that Parkinson was a "nut" and said that she was "offended" by him as he was like a "disapproving father" in his tone. In a 2006 survey of British TV viewers, her behaviour on the show was voted the third "most shocking" TV chat show moment ever.
In an episode broadcast on ITV on 4 March 2006, Tony Blair became the first serving Prime Minister to be interviewed by Parkinson and volunteered the information that he believed he would be judged by God for the Iraq War. He also told of how Cherie Blair's father (Tony Booth) had asked if he could light a marijuana joint when they first met.
Parkinson was once asked if there was anyone that he regretted never having interviewed. He replied, "Sinatra was the one that got away. Otherwise, I've met everyone I have ever wanted to meet."
Retirement
Michael Parkinson announced his retirement on 26 June 2007:
The last regular Parkinson programme (the penultimate of the final series) was broadcast on ITV on 16 December 2007. An extended edition, it featured Billy Connolly, Peter Kay, Michael Caine, David Attenborough, Judi Dench, David Beckham, Jamie Cullum and Dame Edna Everage. The episode drew in 8.3 million viewers.
The last show, broadcast on 22 December 2007, showed memorable clips from previous interviews.
Transmissions
Original series
Specials
References
External links
Screenonline: Biography
1971 British television series debuts
2007 British television series endings
1970s British television talk shows
1980s British television talk shows
1990s British television talk shows
2000s British television talk shows
BBC television talk shows
English-language television shows
ITV talk shows
Television series by ITV Studios
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berardius
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Berardius
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The four-toothed whales or giant beaked whales are beaked whales in the genus Berardius. They include Arnoux's beaked whale (Berardius arnuxii) in cold Southern Hemispheric waters, and Baird's beaked whale (Berardius bairdii) in the cold temperate waters of the North Pacific. A third species, Sato's beaked whale (Berardius minimus), was distinguished from B. bairdii in the 2010s.
Arnoux's and Baird's beaked whales are so similar that researchers have debated whether or not they are simply two populations of the same species. However, genetic evidence and their wide geographical separation has led them to be classified as separate. Lifespan estimates, based on earwax plug samples, indicate male whales can live up to 85 years, while females can have a lifespan of 54 years. It is estimated that the length at birth is ~. Growing up to ~, these are the largest whales belonging to the family Ziphiidae. Sato's beaked whale is much smaller, with adult males having a length of ~.
While Berardius arnuxii and Berardius bairdii are considered least concern by the IUCN. Berardius minimus is labeled as near threatened as of 2020.
This article currently largely treats four-toothed whales as monospecific, due to a lack of species-specific information.
Species overview
Berardius was once classified as containing only two species: Arnoux's beaked whale (Berardius arnuxii) in the Southern Hemisphere waters, and Baird's beaked whale (Berardius bairdii) in the North Pacific. Arnoux's beaked whale was described by Georges Louis Duvernoy in 1851. The genus name honors admiral Auguste Bérard (1796-1852), who was captain of the French corvette Le Rhin (1842-1846), which brought back the type specimen to France where Duvernoy analyzed it; the species name honors Maurice Arnoux, the ship's surgeon who found the skull of the type specimen on a beach near Akaroa, New Zealand. Baird's beaked whale was first described by Leonhard Hess Stejneger in 1883 from a four-toothed skull he had found on Bering Island the previous year. The species is named for Spencer Fullerton Baird, a past Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
Researchers have debated over whether the northern and southern populations represent distinct species or whether they are simply geographic variants. Several morphological characters have been suggested to distinguish them, but the validity of each has been disputed; currently, it seems that there are no significant skeletal or external differences between the two forms, except for the smaller size of the southern specimens known to date. The morphological similarity gave rise to the hypothesis that the populations were sympatric as recently as the last Pleistocene Ice Age, approximately 15,000 years ago, but subsequent genetic analyses suggest otherwise. Phylogenetic analyses of the mitochondrial DNA control region (D-loop) revealed that Baird's and Arnoux's beaked whales were reciprocally monophyletic — lineages from each of the species grouped together to the exclusion of lineages from the other species. Diagnostic DNA substitutions were also found. These results are consistent with the current classification of Baird's and Arnoux's beaked whales as distinct species. Further, the degree of differentiation between the northern and southern forms of Berardius suggest that the species may already have been separated for several million years.
It is speculated that the Baird's and Arnoux's whales separated from one another after their common ancestor separated from the kurotsuchi; however, this is not certain. The Berardius sp. are deep divers that can spend long periods of time submerged below the surface of the water and thus are difficult to study.
Possible species
Sightings during whale watching tours and studies of stranded individuals suggest the possibility of another form of Berardius in the Sea of Okhotsk inclusive of the coast of northern Hokkaido especially around Shiretoko Peninsula and off Abashiri, or to Sea of Japan off Korean Peninsula and north pacific and Bering Sea off Alaska. These whales are generally much smaller than known species (), darker in color, and inhabit shallow waters closer to coastal areas, enough to be trapped within fixed nets for salmon. Local whalers had called them "kurotsuchi" (= black Berardius) or "karasu" (= ravens); it is not known whether these terms are synonyms or identify two separate species. Genetic studies indicate that kurotsuchi are Berardius minimus, recognized as a distinct species in the 2010s.
"Bottlenose whales in the Sea of Okhotsk" had been reported since the time of the Soviet Union's whaling, and an unknown type of beaked whale resembling Baird's beaked whales having four tusks on upper and lower jaws has also been recorded by traditional whalers in Japan. It is unknown whether these records correspond with this new form.
An unknown type of large beaked whale of similar size to fully grown Berardius bairdii have been reported to live in the Sea of Okhotsk, somewhat resembling Longman's beaked whale. The "Moore's Beach monster", an initially unidentified carcass found in 1925 on Moore's Beach on Monterey Bay, was identified by the California Academy of Sciences as a Baird's beaked whale. There have been claims that records of strandings of these whales exist along the areas within and adjacent to Tatar Strait in the 2010s.
Physical description
The two established species, Baird's and Arnoux's beaked whales, have very similar features and would be indistinguishable at sea if they did not exist in disjoint locations. Both whales reach similar sizes, have bulbous melons, and long prominent beaks. Their lower jaw is longer than the upper, and once sexual maturity is reached the front teeth are visible even when the mouth is fully closed. The Baird's and Arnoux's beaked whales are the only whales in the Ziphiidae family where both sexes have erupted teeth. The teeth in the Ziphiidae are presumed to be used by the males for fighting and competition for females. Ziphiidae has the most prevalent and pronounced markings caused by teeth scaring among the cetaceans. Front-facing teeth may be covered in barnacles after many years.
Baird's and Arnoux's beaked whales have similarly shaped small flippers with rounded tips, and small dorsal fins that sit far back on their body. Adult males and females of both species pick up numerous white linear scars all over the body as they age, and these may be a rough indicator of age. These traits are similar in both sexes, as there is little sexual dimorphism in either species. Among the observed differences in the sexes is their size: female Baird's and Arnoux giant beaked whales are slightly larger than the males.
Although fairly similar, there exist some differences between the species. Baird's beaked whales are around when born, and can reach lengths of as adults, making them the largest members of the beaked whale family. Members of the Baird's species have fairly narrow body shapes despite their large size, and have dorsal fins that are rounded at the tips. Their coloration is fairly uniform and can range from brown to grey. Arnoux's beaked whales are around long as calves and can reach lengths up to as adults. Their bodies are not as narrow as the Baird's, and resemble a spindle. Unlike the Baird's beaked whale, Arnoux's have slightly hooked dorsal fins. Arnoux's beaked whales have a dark coloration that ranges from brown to orange due to a buildup of algae on its body.
A third species, B. minimus, (known by the Japanese common name "kurotsuchi", which means "black Berardius") was formally named in 2019, after being distinguished in 2016, based on differences in haplotypes from mtDNA. It generally has a short beak (~4% body length). While other four-toothed whales are generally grey with scars, kurotsuchis usually have few linear scars, so that the dark, smooth skin contrasts highly with round, white scars of about 5 cm diameter (from cookiecutter shark bites). The tip of the rostrum is also white. The kurotsuchi is shorter than other four-toothed whales, around long at maturity, hence the species name, B. minimus (="smallest"). No females of this species have yet been described in the research literature.
Population and distribution
The total population is not known for two of the three species. Estimates for Baird's are of the order of 30,000 individuals. Nothing is known at all about the population size of the third species of Berardius, first scientifically described in the 2010s. Baird's and Arnoux's beaked whales have an allopatric (non-overlapping) antitropical distribution; kurotsuchis are known to live in the North Pacific.
Arnoux's
Arnoux's beaked whales inhabit great tracts of the Southern Ocean. Large groups of animals, pods of up to 47 individuals, have been observed off Kemp Land, Antarctica. Beachings in New Zealand and Argentina indicate the whale may be relatively common in the Southern Ocean between those countries and Antarctica; sporadic sightings have been recorded in polar waters, such as in McMurdo Sound. It has also been spotted close to South Georgia and South Africa, indicating a likely circumpolar distribution. The northernmost stranding was at 34 degrees south, indicating the whales inhabit cool and temperate, as well as polar, waters. There is no stock report for the Arnoux's beaked whale to date by NOAA.
Baird's
Baird's beaked whale is found in the North Pacific Ocean, the Sea of Japan and the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk. They appear to prefer seas over steep cliffs at the edge of the continental shelf, but are known to migrate to oceanic islands and to near shore waters where deep cliffs locate next to landmasses such as at Rishiri Island and in Tsugaru Strait, Shiretoko Peninsula, Tokyo Bay, and Toyama Bay.
The continental shelf was reported in the Alaska stock report as the whales migrate to the shelf in the summer months during when the water temperature are at the highest. According to the California/Oregon/Washington NOAA stock assessment report the Baird's beaked whales can be found in the deep waters along the continental slopes of the North Pacific Ocean. They are often seen along the slope between late spring to early fall.
Specimens have been recorded as far north as the Bering Sea and as far south as the Baja California Peninsula. They are also found on the east side and the southern islands (Izu and Bonin Islands) of Japan on the west although it is unclear whether records at these islands are of Berardius bairdii. Southern limits of historical occurrences in east Asian were unclear, while there had been either a stranding or a catch in East China Sea at Zhoushan Islands in the 1950s, and was a disentanglement at Kamae, Ōita. Whales off the east coast of North America seems to approach coasts less frequently than in the western North Pacific, but they may travel further south than in Japan. Historical distributions of southward migrations or vagrants in Asian waters are unknown as the whales wintering from Bōsō Peninsula and in Tokyo Bay to Sagami Bay and around Izu Ōshima have been severely depleted or nearly wiped out by modern whaling (recently whalers shifted their major hunting grounds from Bōsō Peninsula to further north due to the very small numbers of whales still migrating to the former habitats). Within the Sea of Japan, the first scientific approaches to the species were made in Peter the Great Gulf, and the whales can widely distribute more on Japanese archipelago from west of Rebun Island to west of Oki Islands on unknown regularities, and major whaling grounds were in Toyama Bay and Oshima Peninsula.
The historic and current status of the northern species in northwestern coastal Pacific outside the Japanese EEZ are vague, especially within North and South Korea and China. Some groups still survive in the Japanese archipelago but are under serious threat by commercial whaling activities. The species is not thought to occur in Chinese waters (or at least is not resident), and the origin of a skeletal specimen at the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History, although claimed to be national, is unreliable. However, archaeological and capture records by Japanese whalers suggest that there may have been historical migrant groups of Baird's beaked whales that once regularly reached the Yellow and Bohai Seas, especially around the island of Lingshan off Jiaozhou Bay and off Dalian, at least until the mid-16th century, until being wiped out by Japanese whalers. This may have included regions at least as far south as the Zhoushan archipelago. See also Wildlife of China for natural histories of large cetaceans in this region. 12 individuals were caught as by-catch along the east coasts of the Korean Peninsula between 1996 and 2012. Canada; Japan; Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea; Mexico; Russian; United States, (Taylor et al. 2008). Endemic to the North Pacific Ocean and the adjacent seas. There are two different stocks of Baird beaked whales that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) keeps track of for management of the species, the Alaska stock and the California-Oregon-Washington stock. (NOAA website). According to the Alaska 2017 stock report, the range of the Baird's beaked whale is north of the Cape Navarn (62o N) and Central Sea of Okhotsk (57o N) that spans to St. Matthew Island, the Pribilof Islands, and the northern Gulf of Alaska. (Alaska Stock assessment report and Balcomb 1989).
The seasonal distribution can be observed when the Baird's beaked whales spend the summer months in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea between April–May to October. (Tomilin 1957, Kasuya 2002, Alaska Stock assessment report 2017). The wintering habitats is assumed to be located in the northern Gulf of Alaska which was determined by using acoustic detection, (Baumann-Pickering et al. 2012b. and Alaska Stock assessment report 2017.)
Sato's
B. minimus is currently known to reside in only the central and western North Pacific Ocean. The species' range includes portions of Japan, Russia, and Alaska, between 40°N and 60°N and 140°E and 160°W. However, this distribution is based primarily on data collected from stranded specimens, and its range may extend further.
Behavior
Little is known about the behavior of Arnoux's beaked whale, but it is expected to be similar to that of Baird's. Distinctions between the two species are so slight that they are speculated to be the same, although genetic makeup and geographic distribution offer evidence otherwise. Baird's beaked whales generally move in pods of 5 to 20 individuals, with groups of 50 observed in rarer circumstances. Congregating groups of Baird's whales are led by a single large male. Scarring among males indicate competition for this leadership position that must entail more breeding opportunities and gives evidence that the species' behaviors portray sexual selection. Potentially one of the deepest diving cetaceans, they can dive for an hour at a time, predating on deep-water and bottom-dwelling fish, cephalopods, and crustaceans. When not diving, they drift along the surface. The deep diving whales can dive to depths of , and when feeding, they generally prefer deep waters near the continental shelf or around seamounts, where high biological activity is present in shallower waters. The deepest recorded dive is .
Diel variation in behavior suggests that beaked whales spend less time at the surface during the day than they do at night, so as to avoid surface predators like sharks and killer whales.
Considering the extent of whaling on the Baird's species, the pod's uninfluenced structure is not well known. To date, two-thirds of the whales caught have been male, despite the fact that females are somewhat larger than males and would be thought to be the preferred targets for whalers. They are listed as least concern under the IUCN Red List and not listed as depleted under the MMPA. They are not being hunted for research due to Japan pulling out of the whaling commission in 2018/2019.
Observations of Arnoux's beaked whales in Doubtful Sound, New Zealand in the same seasons in 2009 and in 2010 indicate that this species may possess a form of bond to locations similar to those of other species such as right whales. Another 4 or 5 sightings have been recorded in the Doubtful Sound between 2007 and in 2011. Underwater recordings, made in the austral summer in the Antarctic of a large group of 47 Arnoux's beaked whales showed that they were highly vociferous animals at this time. The whales produced clicks, click trains, and frequency modulated pulses and whistles which gives their vocalizations a characteristic warbling aural impression. The group swam in coordinated positions along the ice edge, some of them splitting and reassembling.
Reproduction
Mating in Baird's beaked whales happens in the months of October and November and calving occurs in March and April after a 17-month gestational period. Scarring among males indicate competition for leadership position that must entail more breeding opportunities and gives evidence that the species' behaviors portray sexual selection. The sex ratio seems to be skewed in favor of males from observational data; with some observations indicating as high is 3:1. Males are recorded to live longer. Males live 39 years longer than females with the adult sex ratio strongly biases toward males and the female's exhibit high annual ovulation. It is possible that these results are seasonal abundances of different sexes in the region studied. They exhibit a slight reverse sexual dimorphism with females tending to be larger than males in size. The females have no post-reproductive stage. Cetaceans in general have an interbirth interval which is the time between births of new calves. The mysticetes tend to have two or three years or relative to body size intervals whereas the odontocete interbirth intervals are more varied. Baird beaked whales have interbirth intervals similar to mysticeti to their size than they do with other odontocetes. In July 2006, in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, there was summer stranding event of 10 males of mixed age composition that was highly suggestive of male alloparental care. Females are slightly larger than the males and exhibit high annual ovulation and pregnancy rates. Males live about 30 years longer than the females with this sex ratio biased toward males it is speculated that the males provide alloparetnel care to offspring which in turn allows the females to have a shorten birth interval frequency.
Feeding
Baird's beaked whale has a diet that consists primarily of deep sea fish and cephalopods found at its preferred dive depths (1000–1777m). On rare occasions, it has been known to eat octopus, lobster, crab, rockfish, herring, starfish, pyrosomes and sea cucumbers. Baird's beaked whales in the southern Sea of Okhotsk diet consists of deep-water gadiform fishes and cephalopods. The species has a mean dive time of about 1 hour, which suggests a long search and handling time. Its generalist feeding strategy may be reflective of limited prey availability at such depths or regions, as mammals become more general feeding strategists as prey diversity decreases. It may also explain the species' migrational patterns around the North Pacific. In summer months, Baird's beaked whale can be found off the Pacific coast of Japan where demersal fish are abundant. Stomach content analysis's found that Baird's beaked whale feeds in benthic zones both day and night. This behavior differs from its other Odontocete relatives (namely the common dolphin and Dall's porpoise) who feed in mesopelagic regions during the day when the light can penetrate the water column. This suggests that Baird's beaked whale does not rely as much on its sense of sight and has evolved to navigate and hunt competently with echolocation. There is little information on the foraging behavior of Baird's beaked whales and their ecological role in the marine ecosystem.
Conservation
Arnoux's beaked whale has rarely been exploited, and although no abundance estimates are available, the population is not believed to be endangered.
Arnoux's beaked whale is covered by the Memorandum of Understanding for the Conservation of Cetaceans and Their Habitats in the Pacific Islands Region (Pacific Cetaceans MOU).
Baird's beaked whale is listed by the Mammalogical Society of Japan as rare in Japanese coastal waters. The Baird's beaked whale is listed on Appendix II of the convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS). It is listed on Appendix II as it has an unfavorable conservation status or would benefit significantly from international co-operation organised by tailored agreements. It is considered Least Concern by the IUCN. They are not listed as "threatened" or "endangered" under the endangered species act nor depleted under the MMPA. There is preliminary evidence of the Baird's beaked whale being sensitive to anthropogenic aquatic noise pollution, as other odontocete species are. Anthropogenic sound sources such as military sonar and seismic testing. The testing of military sonar has been recorded to effect the diving behavior of beaked whales. This implication on the whales effects their ability to decompress upon surfacing and results in the whales suffering the bends, increase nitrogen gas bubbles in the blood.
In the 20th century, Baird's beaked whales were hunted primarily by Japan and to a lesser extent by the USSR, Canada and the United States. The USSR reported killing 176 before hunting ended in 1974. Canadian and American whalers killed 60 before halting in 1966. Japan killed around 4000 individuals before the 1986 moratorium on whaling (about 300 were killed in the most prolific year, 1952). Baird's beaked whales are not protected under the International Whaling Commission's moratorium on commercial whaling, as Japan argues they are a 'small cetacean' species, despite being larger than minke whales, which are protected. Each year, 62 Baird's beaked whales are hunted commercially in Japan, with the meat sold for human consumption. A landing and processing of a Baird's beaked whale was filmed by the Environmental Investigation Agency on 7 August 2009. Meat and blubber food products of the whales have been found to contain high levels of mercury and other pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Population status
Estimates of the abundance of populations are unavailable. They are not listed as "threatened" or "endangered" under the endangered species act nor depleted under the MMPA.
Threats
The Baird's beaked whale is hunted by Japan. As of 2019, Japan pulled out of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to continue harvesting whales commercially. The California large mesh drift gillnet fishery has known to interact with the CA-OR-WA population. There are habitat concerns for the Alaska stock, in areas with oil and gas activities or shipping and military activities are high. For the Baird's beaked whale. Anthropogenic sound sources such as military sonar and seismic testing. The testing of military sonar has been recorded to effect the diving behavior of beaked whales. This implication on the whales effects their ability to decompress upon surfacing and results in the whales suffering the bends, increase nitrogen gas bubbles in the blood.
Common names
B. arnuxii is known as Arnoux's beaked whale, southern four-toothed whale, southern beaked whale, New Zealand beaked whale, southern giant bottlenose whale, and southern porpoise whale. In Japanese it is known as minami-tsuchi (ミナミツチ), literally "Southern hammer (i.e. Berardius)".
B. bairdii is known as Baird's beaked whale, northern giant bottlenose whale, North Pacific bottlenose whale, giant four-toothed whale, northern four-toothed whale, and North Pacific four-toothed whale. In Japanese, it is called tsuchi-kujira (ツチクジラ), where tsuchi means "hammer", in reference to the way the head vaguely resembles a traditional Japanese hammer or mallet, and kujira means "whale".
The newly described species, B. minimus, is traditionally known to Japanese whalers as kuro-tsuchi (黒ツチ), where kuro means "black" and tsuchi means "hammer". The Society for Marine Mammalogy lists Sato's beaked whale as an additional common name for B. minimus.
Specimens
MNZ MM002654 B. arnuxii Arnoux's beaked whale, collected Riverton, near Invercargill, New Zealand, 27 January 2006
See also
List of cetaceans
References
"Giant Beaked Whales" in the Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals pages 519-522 Teikyo Kasuya, 1998.
National Audubon Society Guide to Marine Mammals of the World Reeves et al., 2002. .
Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises Carwardine, 1995.
An image of a Baird's Beaked Whale at monteraybaywhalewatch.com
External links
The Environmental Investigation Agency
Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS)
Baird's Beaked Whale - ARKive bio
Arnoux's Beaked Whale - ARKive bio
Arnoux's beaked whale - The Beaked Whale Resource
Baird's beaked whale - The Beaked Whale Resource
Rare whale gathering sighted - BBC News
Species Convention on Migratory species page on Baird's Beaked Whale
Voices in the Sea - Sounds of the Baird's (Giant) beaked Whale
Ziphiids
Cetaceans of the Pacific Ocean
Mammals described in 1851
Taxa named by Georges Louis Duvernoy
Species endangered by use as food
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana%20State%20University
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Indiana State University
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Indiana State University (ISU) is a public university in Terre Haute, Indiana. It was founded in 1865 and offers over 100 undergraduate majors and more than 75 graduate and professional programs. Indiana State is classified among "D/PU: Doctoral/Professional Universities".
History
A seminary building was constructed and later used for Vigo Collegiate Institute. After several years the school closed and the property sold to be part of a public institution of education. It is now part of the Indiana State University campus.
Indiana State University was established by the Indiana General Assembly on December 20, 1865, as the Indiana State Normal School in Terre Haute. Its location in Terre Haute was secured by a donation of $73,000 by Chauncey Rose.
As the State Normal School, its core mission was to educate elementary and high school teachers.
The school awarded its first baccalaureate degrees in 1908 and the first master's degrees in 1928. In 1929, the Indiana State Normal School was renamed as the Indiana State Teachers College, and in 1961, it was renamed Indiana State College due to an expanding mission. In 1965, the Indiana General Assembly renamed the college as Indiana State University in recognition of increasing student population and expansion of degrees offered.
Campus
The Indiana State University main campus is located on the north side of Terre Haute's downtown business district and covers more than in the heart of the city. The main campus comprises over 60 brick and limestone buildings, halls and laboratories. Efforts to beautify the campus continue: a section of Seventh Street that runs by the university has been converted into a boulevard with flower beds and antique light posts; the old power plant was razed in 2002 and replaced with a modern facility; Stalker Hall reopened in fall 2005 after a complete renovation; Normal Hall, a Neo-Classic building erected in 1909, originally served as the library, was newly renovated in 2015. In 2009, the university dedicated a more than Student Recreation Center, financed via private funding and student fees, and the Bayh College of Education was relocated to the newly renovated, historic University Hall. The Scott College of Business has relocated to the renovated former Terre Haute Federal Building, a classic Art Deco building built in 1933. In fall 2019, the Fine Arts Building was rededicated after a $15 million renovation begun in the summer of 2018. The Hulman Center athletic arena is currently (summer 2020) being renovated at an estimated cost of $50 million.
The Indiana State University field campus is an outdoor teaching, learning, and research area designed to accommodate educational programs and services. The field campus is located on approximately east of Terre Haute near Brazil, Indiana, and includes eight man-made lakes.
Fairbanks Hall
Fairbanks Hall serves not only as an academic space for learning but also as a performance and fine arts venue. The Bare-Montgomery Gallery located inside provides students with the opportunity to exhibit their work or to curate exhibitions of student work.
Fairbanks Hall serves as both a working art studio as well as gallery space for the art department of Indiana State University. Originally built as a Terre Haute public library in 1903–06; it is an outstanding example of Beaux-Arts architecture and constructed entirely from Indiana Limestone.
In 1903, Fairbanks offered to construct a new public library on a site the city would provide; it was to be named in honor of his mother Emeline Fairbanks. Terre Haute acquired a parcel of land at Seventh and Eagle Streets by May 5, 1903, and the groundbreaking took place on March 15, 1904. On August 10, 1904, the cornerstone was placed. A time capsule containing the history of the building, as well as a list of city and university officials, photographs of the namesake Fairbanks family, a copy of the program for the ceremony, copies of the city's newspapers and a 1904 Terre Haute city directory.
The informal opening and dedication of the completed building took place on April 29, 1906. On Saturday, August 11, 1906, a formal ceremony to open the building to the public was held, the following Monday, the Emeline Fairbanks Memorial Library opened to the general public.
In 1978, Indiana State University took ownership and following its renovation, it was named Fairbanks Hall in honor of the prominent Terre Haute businessman and philanthropist, responsible for its original construction, Mr. Crawford Fairbanks.
Normal Hall
Originally built as the library in 1909, Normal Hall is the last remaining structure from Indiana State's Normal School era. Normal Hall served as the university library until Cunningham Memorial Library was built in 1974 and named in honor of Indiana State's first Librarian, Arthur Cunningham (1891–1928). On the centennial of Normal Hall's construction, it was announced that it would be fully remodeled and will become a student academic honors center. The 2014–15 renovation was approximately $16 million; the original grand staircase and a stained-glass dome featuring images of at least 24 educators and philosophers were restored and the building now meets ADA requirements.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
Center for Student Success (CFSS)
The Center for Student Success, housed within Normal Hall, provides tutoring, supplemental instruction, mentoring, advising, classroom instruction, counseling, and academic success workshops.
The center also provides specialized support programs including the 21st Century Scholar Corps Program, First-Generation Program, Summer Career Exploration Program (SCEE), Students in Transition Program, and Student Support Services Program which includes assistance to persons with disabilities and special needs, and first-generation, low-income students.
University Hall
The Indiana State Teachers College Laboratory School was a PWA-funded project, built on land donated to the university by the City of Terre Haute. The initial wing of the building was completed in July 1935. The Sycamore Theater and a gymnasium were completed in 1937 through funding provided by an additional PWA grant. Terre Haute-native Gilbert Brown Wilson added several murals to the interior. The laboratory school operated as a unit of the Vigo County School Corporation. In 2008–09, it was renovated at a cost of $29.8 million and became the new home of the Bayh College of Education.
The Bayh College of Education houses:
Administrative Placement
Audiology Clinic
College of Education
Blumberg Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Special Education
Department of Communication Disorders and Counseling, School, and Educational Psychology
Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Media Technology
Educational Assessment, Research, and Evaluation
Department of Educational Leadership
Department of Elementary, Early, and Special Education
Indiana Principal Leadership Institute
Instructional and Information Technology
ISU Educational Development Council
Teacher Licensure
Porter School Psychology Center
Professional Development Schools Partnership
Rowe Center for Communicative Disorders
Academics
Students
For fall 2023, minority student enrollment was 2,359, which represents 29.22% of total enrollment. The top three international student countries are India, Nigeria, and Ghana. Vigo and Marion County are the two largest counties that enrolled students originate from and approximately 57% of enrolled students originate from the state of Indiana.
Indiana State was the first public university in Indiana to require incoming freshmen to have a laptop. ISU first awarded laptop scholarships to incoming freshmen with high school GPAs of 3.0 or higher (on a 4.0 scale), giving students the option of choosing either a laptop or an iPad. The university now awards a laptop computer to those students who are admitted and are Pell-eligible as determined by the FAFSA.
Colleges
ISU offers more than 100 programs in the Colleges of Arts & Sciences, Business, Education, Technology, and Health and Human Services. The College of Graduate and Professional Studies offers programs that lead to doctoral and master's degrees. Students can also pursue certificates in a concentrated area of study, enroll in professional development courses, and fulfill continuing education requirements. ISU also offers 20 bachelor's degrees, 22 master's degrees, and 7 doctoral degrees—in addition to many professional certifications—available through Indiana State Online.
Indiana State University is organized into six academic colleges:
Bayh College of Education (est. 1865)
Donald W. Scott College of Business (est. 1918)
College of Graduate and Professional Studies (est. 1961)
College of Arts and Sciences (est. 1962)
Bailey College of Engineering and Technology (est. 1962)
College of Health and Human Services (est. 1963)
ISU is also a member of the College Consortium of Western Indiana. This membership allows students who are full-time at their home institution to take classes at the other member institutions of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College.
Library
The Cunningham Memorial Library collections include more than two million items. Undergraduate students may check out most materials for a three-week loan period, using their student ID. The library is part of the Library Consortium of Vigo County. Through a search engine called Fusion, students may search through 400,000 records found in the library catalogs for the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, and the Vigo County Public Library.
Accreditation
Indiana State University as a whole has been accredited by The Higher Learning Commission continuously since 1915. The Scott College of Business is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the Bayh College of Education is accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). The doctoral program in clinical psychology (Psy.D.) is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA). The School of Music is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM). The nursing programs are accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN). The Bachelor in Social Work program and the Master in Social Work program are both accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). The Doctor of Athletic Training program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE).
Campuses
Indiana State University-Evansville (now University of Southern Indiana) was created as a branch campus in 1965. Like Ball State University, it became an independent institution of higher education when it was granted independent standing as the University of Southern Indiana in 1985.
Student Media
Student Media was created in 2012 in a merger of Student Publications and electronic media outlets under Academic Affairs. Since then, in addition to operating the Indiana Statesman, Sycamore Video, and WISU-FM; Student Media has grown to include The Sycamore, a digital yearbook; Sync Creations, a client-driven video and web production group; the Indiana State Sports Network, which produces video for ESPN3 and ESPN+; WZIS, a student-staffed station created when WISU converted to a public radio format; and the Center for Innovation in Technology and Digital Media. While the center is the newest venture, Student Media outlets have been a part of the Indiana State experience for decades. The Statesman dates back to 1895 and WISU first went on the air in the early 1960s. The Sycamore, long an institution at Indiana State, was suspended in 1993 and revived in 2013–14.
University traditions
Donaghy Day
Named for Fred Donaghy, graduate of the Normal School (1912) and a professor of life sciences, this tradition was initiated in 1976 as a day set aside for the community to celebrate the season and to work to help beautify the campus and surrounding community; Donaghy Day is now conducted during the first week of the fall semester and is used to acquaint new students with the university's commitment to community engagement.
Homecoming
ISU's homecoming dates back to December 15, 1917, when Birch Bayh Sr. asked Charlotte Burford, Dean of Women if State could have a Blue and White Day similar to DePauw's Black and Gold Day. At that time it was merely an alumni reunion with the big event being the alumni varsity basketball game. The start of Blue and White Day began December 3, 1921, which included religious exercises, "The Alumni Welcome", a performance by the school orchestra, a pep session, noon luncheon, and the alumni varsity basketball game. Homecoming 1922 brought the addition of "Friday Night Affair" which was a theater party and pep session held at the Indiana Theater. The start of what is now the largest student-organized parade in the nation was December 8, 1923. "The Spirit of Normal," drawn by two white horses was the winning float, with the honor going to Omega Sorority. The annual bonfire and football game was added to the activities in November 1935. Going up against Rose-Poly (now Rose-Hulman), ISNS, won 25–6. It wasn't until sometime in the mid-30s that "Homecoming" was officially adopted as the actual name for the annual celebration.
1937 marked the first year that a Homecoming Queen was crowned. That honor went to Bette Whitmore of Kappa sorority (now Alpha Omicron Pi). The Bachelor of the Year became a part of Homecoming from 1974 to 1989. In 1992, a major change occurred in the traditional contest to diversify and become more inclusive of the student body. The Sycamore Court replaced the Queen and Bachelor of Year to include one female and one male representative from Greek, Residence Hall, African- American, International, Commuter, and Graduate students. It was decided to discontinue the contest entirely in 1993, due to few students participating in the voting of candidates.
The Sycamore Cup Tricycle Derby, a ten-lap race, was added to the growing list of events in 1963. Students rode children's tricycles around the "Quad." The winners were Reeve Hall for the women and Parsons Hall for the men. The popularity of the race became such that students wanted to make the event more prestigious. Thus, in 1967 larger tricycles were customized using frames from Sting-Ray model bicycles. The race moved from the Quad to Marks Field adding more laps and introducing exchanges to make it more competitive. Riders then began conditioning exercises and practices. Due to resurfacing of Marks Field in 1992, the race was moved to ISU's Driver Education Center at the Wabash Valley Fairgrounds located five miles south of campus. Today, the race is held at Recreation East which was dedicated in Spring 2000 as the new home for Trike and Tandem races. During the 2005 Homecoming Tricycle Derby festivities, the Michael Simmons Student Activity Center and Susan M. Bareford classroom were dedicated. This building, which is adjacent to the Recreation Track, serves as the headquarters for the two races as well as provides much needed multipurpose space.
The annual Blue and White Dance was always a popular formal dance held either in the Mayflower Room of the Terre Haute House or the Heritage and State Rooms in Tirey Memorial Student Union. Sycamore Showcase replaced the dance in 1968. The first year featured trumpeter Al Hirt with the Tijuana Brass. Throughout the next few years, performers included Bill Cosby, Dionne Warwick, Sergio Mendes and Brazil '66, Johnny Carson and Doc Severinsen, and Bob Hope. For several years the Sycamore Showcase was replaced with smaller comedy shows because of the difficulty of getting big-name talent to book on specific dates and their reluctance to appear in smaller venues.
Major events today include a campus-wide Blue and White Homecoming Parade, Sycamore Tricycle Derby, Stompin', Torchlight Parade, Pep Rally, Tent City, and the Football Game.
The Walk is an Indiana State Homecoming tradition that began in the late 70s. The Walk begins at 6AM on gameday when a large number of students, reaching in the thousands, make the two mile walk east on Wabash Avenue towards the Football Stadium stopping and having a drink at each bar along the way. In recent years Indiana State University has launched new program to make the walk safer for all. In 2009, the university launched “SoberRide” and “Designated Walker” programs for homecoming. The walk also coincides with the Blue and White parade that runs throughout downtown Terre Haute on game day.
The Walk can be traced back to the late 1970s when students walked from Saturday night football games back to campus, stopping for a beer at every establishment that served beer on Wabash.
Founders Day
Conducted in January or February of each year, this event commemorates the opening of the institution in 1870 when 23 students presented themselves to a faculty of three on the first day of classes at the Indiana State Normal School.
Mascots
The school has had two mascots. Early on in the school's history, the athletes were referred to as the "Fighting Teachers" until the students chose the name "Sycamores", from the abundance of Sycamore trees in Indiana and especially in the Wabash River Valley; though it is believed that the students voted on 'Sycamores' on a lark, never thinking it would win. During the 1950s and 60s, the sycamore tree itself was used as Indiana State's mascot, with a student dressed in a tree costume. However, as a tree does not lend itself well to an athletic mascot, especially considering Indiana State's in-state rivalries with the Ball State Cardinals and Butler Bulldogs, the university created an Indian mascot named Chief Ouabachi, and his Princess, in 1969.
This change paid homage to the fact that ISU was the "State" university of a state named after Indians (before statehood Indiana was primarily inhabited by Indians). However, the university stopped using Chief Ouabachi as a mascot in 1989. For six years, Indiana State did not have a mascot. In 1995, the university welcomed Sycamore Sam to the ISU family. The blue-and-white creature is a favorite among young and old alike.
Sycamores
In 1921 a contest was held to pick a name for the athletic teams at what was then called the Indiana State Normal School. Until that time, the term "Fighting Teachers" was frequently used in press accounts of athletic contests. In January 1922, it was announced that the name Sycamores had won a popular vote of the student body. Indiana State University has used this team name ever since.
Spring Week and Tandem
Spring Week Began in 1970 as part of Indiana State University's official Centennial Celebration. The major highlight of Spring Week is the Tandem Race—thought to be the only co-ed tandem bicycle race in the nation. Today, Spring Week is the largest all-campus activity in the spring. The activities include community service, educational, recreational, entertainment, and competitive involvement for students and organizations.
Tandem teams are composed of campus organizations—providing 10 male and female riders, plus two alternates. Organizations enter individually and are paired by drawings.
The 1970 tandem race featured 25 laps on a course through Fairbanks Park on the bank of the Wabash River. Included in the event were competitive games, special entertainment, and a carnival presented by campus organizations. In 1971, the race took place at the Wabash Valley Fairgrounds on the Action Track, a half-mile oval dirt track. It consisted of a 50-mile, 100- lap test of endurance and speed. Activities included midget-races, skydiving, arts and crafts, entertainment, and full-fledged carnival with rides.
The race returned to Fairbanks Park in 1972, then moved to campus in 1973. The race was held in the city streets, which surrounded Sycamore Tower Complex (4th, 5th, Chestnut, and Mulberry Streets). The name “Tandemonia” was coined to replace “Spring Week”. The race moves again in 1974 to Marks Field and consisted of 100 laps or 25 miles on a quarter-mile track. Seventeen teams competed in the race. Corners were close, but no wrecks were caused by the track itself. The 1976 Tandemonia Committee decided to begin the process of “changing over” from Schwinn bikes to newer, lightweight bikes.
Tandemonia 1991 included a Tandem kick-off that replaced the Donaghy Day activities and Tandem Games. Tandemfest, a lip-sync contest was held in Tilson Music Hall, Yell-Like-Hell, the Baseball Rally, and the actual race continued in their traditional pattern.
Due to resurfacing Mark's Field for major track events, the race was moved to the Driver's Education Center at the Wabash Valley Fairgrounds in 1993. Nineteen races were held on Mark's Field.
The 25th anniversary was held in 1995 with “Tandemonia” changing back to “Spring Week” and activities more like the original event, including a campus carnival. The 1996 Spring Week Committee emphasized involving more individuals, as well as residence hall students, by providing a roller blade contest and having pairing decorate windows in Residence Halls rather than in sorority suites. The race continued at the Wabash Valley Fairgrounds through April 1999. Seven races were held at the Driver's Education facility. In February 2000 the Tandem practice was moved to the new track at the Recreation East Facility located on 9th and Spruce Streets on the ISU campus. Nine teams competed on April 15, 2000, for a place in the history books as the first race on the new track!
The Michael Simmons Activity Center was added to the Recreation East complex in 2005. This building has added a new dimension to the practices and race by providing officials a central place to score the race and fans to have bleachers for better viewing of the competition.
Blue and White
In 1899, it was announced that Yale Blue and White would replace the colors of Salmon Pink and White. The colors are also applied to the Blue and White Parade and the Blue and White Dance held during Homecoming each fall.
Book and torch
The book and torch are official symbols of the university and are featured in its seal. The book symbolizes knowledge and truth gained here and the torch symbolizes the light of inspiration that comes to students in these halls
Book and Torch Ceremony
This traditional ceremony marks the commitment of the senior class to become active alumni of Indiana State. Historically, each senior class was charged with adding to the Parsons-Sandison Living Memorial Fund, a scholarship fund for Indiana State students. This tradition encompasses two ceremonies, the first of which is on Founder's Day (generally in January), at which time the president of the Alumni Board charges the senior class to commit to the university. At commencement, another ceremony is conducted. As part of this ceremony, the senior class answers the challenge of commitment, as they become alumni of the university.
Trike
The Indiana State Tricycle Derby was first run in 1963 as a 10-lap race around the sidewalks of the Quadrangle on children's tricycles. The races featured a men's and women's division (the Powder Puff Derby). The races now feature men's and women's teams racing on specially built tricycles at the new Recreation East complex at Ninth and Sycamore streets. In October 2005, the Michael Simmons Student Activity Center opened at Rec East, featuring commemorative displays chronicling the history and the participants of trike and tandem, containing bleacher seating, an all-purpose room, restrooms, an observation deck, and storage.
Songs
Fight song
"March On! (You Fighting Sycamores)", the university's fight song, was authored and arranged by Joseph A. Gramelspacher, an ISU professor of music, as a pep song. It was first performed at a homecoming eve pep rally on October 20, 1939.
Before "March On!", the school's fight song was "Cheer for the Blue and White", composed in 1931 as part of the Indiana State Teachers College song contest.
In addition to The Marching Sycamores (Pride of Indiana) the School of Music provides these other Ensembles available for music students to participate in as part of the well established School of Music: Concert Band, Jazz Combos, Jazz Ensemble, Percussion Ensemble, Steel Drum Band, University Symphony, Wind Orchestra, Wind Symphony, Sycamore Basketball Band, Choral Ensembles, Concert Choir, Masterworks Chorale, Music Theater/Opera, Sycamore Singers, & Women's Chorale.
Alma mater
Charles M. Curry, Professor of English and Literature authored The Alma Mater. It was originally entitled, "Indiana's Normal" and first printed in a June 1912 issue of the Normal Advance. Dr. Curry used the music of Annie Lisle for The Alma Mater.
Athletics
The school's athletic teams are known as the Sycamores. They participate in the Division I Missouri Valley Conference and NCAA FCS Missouri Valley Football Conference.
Athletically, it is known as the alma mater of basketball player Larry Bird; World Champion gymnast Kurt Thomas; and Olympic, World, and Pan-American Champion freestyle wrestler Bruce Baumgartner. Basketball coach John Wooden coached the Sycamores before accepting the head coaching position at UCLA. The men's basketball team won the 1950 NAIB National Champions and were National Runner-Up in 1946 and 1948. They were also the NCAA College Division (Div II) National Runner-Up in 1968 and the Division I National Runner-Up in 1979. The 1950 team comprised the core of the 1951 Pan-American Gold Medal Team. In 1971, Coach Grete Treiber led the ISU Women's gymnastics team to a National Runner-up finish at the AIAW National Championships. Kurt Thomas led the Men's Gymnastics Team to the 1977 NCAA National Championship. Men's tennis player Vedran Vidovic holds the NCAA Division I record for most consecutive singles victories by winning 37 matches in a row from March 18, 2001, to October 28 of the same year.
Facilities
Hulman Center, originally named Hulman Civic-University Center, is a multi-use arena that opened in December 1973. It seats 10,200 people for basketball and is home to the Indiana State University Sycamores men's and women's basketball teams of the Missouri Valley Conference. It has hosted multiple concerts and the Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball tournament title game in 1979, the year legendary Larry Bird helped the undefeated Sycamores reach the championship game of the NCAA tournament. The Hulman Center hosted the 1974 Midwest Region of the NCAA Tournament which featured Creighton, Texas, Oral Roberts, Syracuse, Louisville, and Kansas. It is currently being renovated at a cost of $50 million, scheduled to be completed in late 2020.
The baseball field is located within a mile of the main campus along the Wabash River. Bob Warn Field at Sycamore Stadium is home to the Sycamore Baseball program and played host to the 2014 and 2016 Missouri Valley Conference Baseball Championship. Memorial Stadium, the home field for Indiana State's NCAA Football Championship Subdivision football team of the Missouri Valley Football Conference, and the women's soccer team is located on Wabash Avenue, two miles (3 km) east of the main campus. The Gibson Track and Field Complex is the newest athletic facility at Indiana State and is located along the Wabash River on the west side of campus. It hosted the 2016 Missouri Valley Conference Track and Field Championships. Price Field is the home for the Sycamore Softball team.
Indiana State University has hosted thirteen (2002, 2004–2011, 2013–2014, 2016, 2019) NCAA Division I cross country championships at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course. The school has also hosted the NCAA Great Lakes Regional seven times (1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2017, 2018 and 2020*); ISU will host the Great Lakes Regional in 2022.
The university also hosted the 1975 NCAA Gymnastics National Championships and hosted the tenth NCAA Wrestling Championships in 1937; the school had yet to establish a wrestling program.
Men
Baseball – Bob Warn Field
Basketball – Hulman Center
Cross country – LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course, Wabash Valley Family Sports Center
Football – Memorial Stadium
Track and field – Gibson Track and Field
Women
Basketball – Hulman Center
Cross country – LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course, Wabash Valley Family Sports Center
Soccer – Memorial Stadium
Track and field – Gibson Track and Field
Softball – Eleanor Forsythe St. John Softball Complex
Golf – multiple (The Country Club of Terre Haute {private}; Idle Creek {semi-private}, Rea Park {public} and Hulman Links {public} Golf Courses)
Volleyball – ISU Arena
Swimming
Notable alumni
References
External links
Public universities and colleges in Indiana
1865 establishments in Indiana
Universities and colleges established in 1865
Terre Haute, Indiana
Education in Terre Haute, Indiana
Education in Vigo County, Indiana
Aviation schools
Aviation schools in the United States
Air traffic controller schools
Buildings and structures in Terre Haute, Indiana
Buildings and structures in Vigo County, Indiana
Tourist attractions in Terre Haute, Indiana
Tourist attractions in Vigo County, Indiana
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark%20Latham
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Mark Latham
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Mark William Latham (; born 28 February 1961) is an Australian politician and media commentator who is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. He previously served as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and leader of the opposition from December 2003 to January 2005, leading the party to defeat at the 2004 federal election. He left the ALP in 2017 and joined Pauline Hanson's One Nation in 2018, gaining a seat for that party in the New South Wales Legislative Council at the 2019 New South Wales state election and winning re-election in 2023.
Latham was born in Sydney and studied economics at the University of Sydney. He joined the Labor Party at a young age and worked as a research assistant to Gough Whitlam and Bob Carr. He was elected to the Liverpool City Council in 1987 and became mayor in 1991. Latham entered the House of Representatives by winning the seat of Werriwa at the 1994 Werriwa by-election. He was included in Labor's shadow cabinet after the 1996 federal election, but left the frontbench in 1998 following a dispute with the party leader, Kim Beazley. He returned to the shadow cabinet in 2001, when Simon Crean became leader.
Latham became leader of the Labor Party in December 2003, narrowly defeating Beazley in a leadership vote after Crean's resignation. He was the youngest leader of the party since Chris Watson in 1901. At the 2004 federal election, the ALP lost five seats and reduced its share of the two-party-preferred vote; the incumbent Howard government was re-elected to a fourth term. Latham became disillusioned with politics and retired in January 2005. After leaving politics, he published a memoir, The Latham Diaries, in which he attacked his former colleagues and condemned the state of political life in Australia.
After leaving parliament, Latham started a career as a prominent political and social commentator, and became highly critical of the Labor Party and left-wing politics. He would soon gain a reputation for making inflammatory and controversial comments. In December 2016, he began co-hosting Outsiders on Sky News Live, but he was fired from the network in March 2017 after he made insulting comments about a fellow presenter and the teenage daughter of a governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. Latham returned to politics and joined the Liberal Democratic Party in May 2017, which led to him receiving a lifetime ban from the Labor Party. In November 2018, Latham left the party and announced that he had joined One Nation as its state leader in New South Wales. He successfully stood for the party in the upper house at the 2019 state election. He resigned in the middle of his eight-year term on 2 March 2023 in order to run for a new eight-year term at the state election later that month.
In August 2023, it was announced that Pauline Hanson had removed Latham from the position of party leader for One Nation (New South Wales). On 22 August 2023, Latham resigned from One Nation to sit as an independent.
Early career
Latham was born on 28 February 1961 in Ashcroft, a suburb of south-western Sydney in New South Wales. He was educated at Hurlstone Public School; the Hurlstone Agricultural High School, where he was dux; and at the University of Sydney, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Economics with Honours in 1982. While he was a student, Latham worked at the Green Valley Hotel for 2 years. He also worked as an adviser to Labor politician John Kerin from 1980 to 1982. After completing his degree, Latham worked as a research assistant to the former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam from 1982 to 1987, which included working on the latter's book The Whitlam Government, and then as an adviser to then-Leader of the New South Wales Opposition Bob Carr from 1988 to 1991.
In 1987, he was elected to the Liverpool City Council, in Sydney's south-west, and was mayor from 1991 to 1994. Latham played rugby union with the Liverpool Bulls club and had a stint as its president. He has also been a fan of St George Dragons rugby league club since 1968.
Latham's term as mayor saw radical changes introduced to the council, with large spending on public works, to be paid for by a combination of loans and efficiencies achieved from outsourcing many council services.
In an article in Quarterly Essay, journalist Margaret Simons, who conducted an extensive investigation of the period, concluded that there were real issues in the financial management of the council. These mostly related to the drafting of the outsourcing agreements. Simons also said most of the allegations come from council members who were sacked for incompetence by the state government.
On 1 June 2004, Latham told Parliament that during his time as mayor he had reduced Liverpool's debt service ratio from 17 to 10 percent, which he said was less than half of western Sydney's average. He also said Liverpool had adopted a debt retirement strategy that he claimed would have made it debt free by 2005, but it was not implemented by his successors.
Labor member of Parliament
In January 1994, Latham was elected at a by-election to the House of Representatives for the Sydney seat of Werriwa, which had been Gough Whitlam's seat from 1952 to 1978. He was elected to the Opposition front bench after Labor lost the 1996 election, and became shadow minister for education. After the 1998 election he resigned from the front bench following a policy dispute with the opposition leader, Kim Beazley. The two became political enemies following this incident.
The views expressed in Civilising Global Capital (see below) alienated him from many Labor traditionalists, but his aggressive parliamentary style won him many admirers. He once referred to Prime Minister John Howard as an "arselicker" and to the Liberal Party frontbench as a "conga line of suckholes". He also described U.S. President George W. Bush as "the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory".
On politics, Latham commented in 2002: I'm a hater. Part of the tribalness of politics is to really dislike the other side with intensity. And the more I see of them the more I hate them. I hate their negativity. I hate their narrowness. I hate the way, for instance, John Howard tries to appeal to suburban values when I know that he hasn't got any real answers to the problems and challenges we face. I hate the phoniness of that.
Leader of the Opposition
Latham was a strong supporter of Kim Beazley's successor Simon Crean, defending the leader against his critics within the party. He called Crean's principal frontbench detractors, Stephen Smith, Stephen Conroy and Wayne Swan "the three roosters". When Crean resigned the Labor leadership, Latham contested the ballot for leader against Beazley. On 2 December 2003, Latham won the vote for the leadership by 47 votes to 45. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard were early contenders for the leadership, but both withdrew in favour of Beazley and Latham respectively. At age 42, Latham became the youngest leader of the federal parliamentary Labor Party since its first leader Chris Watson, who became leader at age 33 in 1901. In his first press conference as leader, Latham championed his belief in a "ladder of opportunity" that would bring prosperity to all Australians.
The Howard government targeted Latham's brash personality and his colourful past. Howard characterised him as "Mr Flip-Flop", referring to a character in a children's book. Peter Costello attempted to damage Latham's economic credentials by referring to the experimental economic ideas that he had put forward as shadow treasurer, such as abolishing negative gearing and replacing the GST with a Progressive Expenditure Tax. Frequent references were made to Latham's temper; he was alleged to have broken a taxi-driver's arm in a scuffle arising from a fare dispute.
On winning the leadership, Latham appointed his predecessor, Simon Crean, as shadow treasurer, while also retaining a number of Kim Beazley's supporters in senior positions. In July 2004 Beazley himself was re-elected to the ALP front bench as Shadow Minister for Defence.
In January 2004, the Labor Party national conference was held in Sydney. During the conference, Latham received very positive media coverage and introduced his plans for early childhood literacy. He introduced an unusual campaign style, choosing to focus on "values" issues, such as reading to children and economic relief for middle-class Australia, which he termed with the political slogan "ease the squeeze".
Latham also put forward plans to reform the education and health systems. In contrast to the intense stagecrafting of Latham's image at the conference, he boosted his profile by means of loosely organised "town hall"-style direct meetings around the country. By March, Labor had taken the lead over the Coalition in the opinion polls, and Latham had a higher personal approval rating than any opposition leader since Bob Hawke in 1983. Commentators began to discuss the serious possibility that Latham could be Prime Minister by the end of the year.
In March, following the Spanish election at which the pro-Bush administration People's Party government was defeated, Latham sparked a new controversy by committing a Labor government to withdrawing Australian troops from Iraq by Christmas. At that time, Australia had about 850 troops in Iraq, mostly involved in patrol work and in training members of the new Iraqi defence forces. Howard accused Latham of a "cut and run" approach and said "it's not the Australian way not to stay the distance".
2004 federal election campaign
Until March 2004, Labor under Latham's leadership held a strong lead in national opinion polls. Latham's commitment to withdraw from Iraq caused a sharp drop in Labor's lead, but following the revelations of prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison, Labor's lead increased again, suggesting that support for involvement in Iraq had declined, undermining Howard's position.
In June 2004, Labor's "troops home by Christmas" policy came under fire from U.S. President George W. Bush who, at a White House press conference during Howard's visit to Washington DC, described it as "disastrous". Bush's comments raised controversy in Australia over whether Bush was interfering in Australia's domestic political affairs, whether the election of a Latham government would endanger the U.S. alliance, and whether the comments were made with Howard's prior knowledge.
Shortly afterwards, Latham announced the recruitment of Peter Garrett, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation and former lead singer with the rock band Midnight Oil, as a Labor candidate in Kingsford Smith, a safe Sydney electorate being vacated by the retiring former minister Laurie Brereton. Garrett revealed that he had been approached months before by senior ALP figures, including John Faulkner and Kim Beazley, and had taken this long to make up his mind. Most commentators regarded his recruitment as a high-risk tactic, seeing the potential advantage to Labor of Garrett's popularity among young people as being offset by the possibility that his record of radical and anti-American statements in the past would offend moderate voters.
The second coup scored by Latham was the announcement that he would abolish the generous superannuation schemes available to members of parliament; his plan was quickly adopted by the Howard government in the face of a rising wave of public support with the support of his mentor former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, the former member for Werriwa.
Other announced policies and initiatives included: the introduction of federal government parenting classes for those parents deemed to be failing to adequately discipline their children; a ban on food and drink advertising during children's television viewing hours; the introduction of a national youth mentoring program; the government distribution of free story books to the families of newborn children; a federal ban on plastic shopping bags; and the introduction of legislation to prohibit vilification on the basis of religious beliefs or sexual orientation, similar to laws adopted in the state of Victoria that some critics said had led to a restriction of free speech. Some of these initiatives prompted Howard to criticise Latham as a "behavioural policeman".
In July 2004, Latham again became the centre of controversy when it was alleged on a commercial television network that he had punched a political rival during his time on Liverpool Council. Latham strongly denied the accusation. On 6 July 2004, he called a press conference and denounced the government for maintaining what he called a "dirt unit," which he said was gathering personal material about him, including details of his first marriage. The government denied that any such unit existed, but some observers speculated that Liberal Party researchers had accumulated more potentially embarrassing material about Latham, which would be used during the election campaign (a threat which never eventuated), in addition to claims that Latham was an inexperienced economic manager.
Between March and August, Latham's position in the opinion polls gradually declined, leading to renewed speculation that Howard would call an early election. During August, Labor claimed a tactical victory over the government on the issue of the Australia – United States Free Trade Agreement and there were allegations in a Senate inquiry that Howard had lied about the "Children Overboard Affair" during the 2001 election campaign. By mid-August, Labor was again ahead in all three national opinion polls.
The election was held on 9 October 2004. Although opinion polls showed the ALP leading the government at various stages of the six-week campaign, the government was re-elected with an increased majority. This was despite Latham being generally credited with a strong performance and a victory in the sole campaign debate. In the days after the election, Latham was criticised for releasing many key policies too late, a case in point being Labor's policy regarding conservation of Tasmanian old growth forests.
Among those critical of Latham were journalists Tom Allard and Mark Metherell, who said "the flurry of releases meant Mr Latham went off message from Labor's core strengths of health and education." Labor's party president, Carmen Lawrence, blamed the unexpected severity of the defeat on an effective Coalition "scare campaign" focused on Latham's limited economic management experience, and the alleged threat of a rise in interest rates under Labor, which was not effectively countered, reportedly in an attempt by Tim Gartrell to conserve funds for later in the campaign (where, in previous years, Labor had been outspent by the Liberals).
Gartrell also apparently failed to anticipate the interest rates scare campaign. The inability of his campaign to counter the Liberal campaign would later be cited by Latham himself, in the Latham Diaries, as a key reason for the election loss. Latham wrote that he had told his wife Janine that "I've tried to carry the whole show on my shoulders: my family, my community, my party. But now I'm stuffed. I have collapsed under the weight of those fucking ads". Michael Costello, a former chief of staff to Kim Beazley, said: "This is a complete train wreck. We now face at least two terms before we can win government again. We face at least three years with John Howard pretty much in control of the Senate."
On the morning of 8 October, the day before the election, a television crew filmed Latham and Howard shaking hands as they crossed paths outside an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio studio in Sydney. The footage showed Latham appearing to draw Howard towards him and tower over his shorter opponent. The incident received wide media coverage and, while Latham claimed to have been attempting to get revenge for Howard squeezing his wife's hand too hard at a press function, it was variously reported as being "aggressive", "bullying" and "intimidating" on the part of Latham. The Liberal Party campaign director, Brian Loughnane, later said this incident generated more feedback to Liberal headquarters than anything else during the six-week campaign, and that it "brought together all the doubts and hesitations that people had about Mark Latham". Latham disputes the impact of this incident, however, having described it as a "Tory gee-up: we got close to each other, sure, but otherwise it was a regulation man's handshake. It's silly to say it cost us votes – my numbers spiked in the last night of our polling." According to Latham's account of events, Latham came in close to Howard for the handshake to prevent Howard shaking with his arm rather than his wrist.
Latham became the first Labor opposition leader since Frank Tudor in 1917 to fail to make a net gain in seats from the government at his first election. Some commentators, including Kim Beazley, said Latham's leadership had rescued Labor from a much heavier defeat. Beazley said polling a year before the election indicated the ALP would lose "25–30 seats" in the House of Representatives. Instead the party lost a net four seats in the lower house, a swing of 0.21% and there was a 1.1% swing to the ALP in the Senate.
Leadership tensions
Labor's defeat led to media criticisms of Latham's personal style and policy priorities, and also to a crisis in confidence in his leadership within the Labor caucus. Several prominent members of the front-bench, notably John Faulkner, Lindsay Tanner and Bob McMullan, chose not to recontest front-bench positions. McMullan made it clear he was unhappy with Latham's leadership style and gave an interview suggesting there would be a leadership challenge early in 2005. The national secretary of the Australian Workers' Union, Bill Shorten, was also highly critical of Latham.
In December, after Latham was incorrectly reported to have blamed Labor's state premiers for the defeat, an unnamed Labor frontbencher predicted a leadership challenge within the next few months, saying Latham's supporters had lost confidence in him. Latham also had a heated public confrontation with the Labor deputy leader in the Senate, Stephen Conroy, renewing speculation there would be a challenge to Latham's leadership in the new year.
Latham was helped by the fact that there was no obvious successor to the leadership. The most likely candidates, Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and Stephen Smith, accepted senior positions on Latham's frontbench and pledged loyalty to him. The leaders of the Socialist Left faction, and the centre-left under Martin Ferguson and Julia Gillard, also maintained their support for him. There was little support for a return to Beazley, and neither Tanner nor McMullan were seen as viable leadership candidates. In the longer run, however, many commentators doubted Latham would survive until the 2007 election after such a heavy defeat.
The final crisis for Latham's leadership erupted in the aftermath of the December 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. With both Latham and his deputy leader, Jenny Macklin, on leave, the acting opposition leader, Senator Chris Evans, issued statements in the aftermath of the tsunami. Latham was criticised for not issuing a statement as leader personally, particularly at a time when John Howard expressed national sympathy over the disaster, pledged $1 billion in loans to Indonesia and declared a national day of mourning. Latham rejected the criticism of his non-appearance after the tragedy, saying "none of my verbiage could make any practical difference – bring back the dead, reverse the waves, organise the relief effort". Macklin issued a statement on the disaster on 30 December before also choosing to take leave.
Opinion polls in January showed a sharp decline in Latham's support and a preference for the return of Beazley as Labor leader.
Departure from politics
On 18 January 2005, citing life-threatening illness and family concerns, Latham announced his resignation from the Labor Party leadership and from Parliament. He strongly criticised the media for invading his family's privacy during his illness. Latham had been federal Labor leader for 13 months, the shortest tenure since Billy Hughes was expelled from the party in 1916. Latham was only the second federal Labor leader, after Matthew Charlton in 1928, to leave politics without ever having held ministerial office.
Political journalist Mungo MacCallum wrote: Latham became leader too early in his career, he lacked the skills needed to deal with the webs of intrigue within his own party, he refused to massage the media and the advisers he did listen to were out of their depth against Howard's praetorian guard. But he had many qualities that were not only desirable and attractive but are in short supply in today's ALP. In other circumstances he could have developed into a formidable leader, even prime minister. As it is, he remains one of the great what-ifs.
Publications
Although Latham wrote Civilising Global Capital while he was an MP, most of his works have been written after his parliamentary career.
Civilising Global Capital
While on the backbench of Parliament in the late 1990s, Latham published Civilising Global Capital: New Thinking for Australian Labor (Allen and Unwin, 1998), in which he argued that Labor needed to abandon many of its traditional policies and embrace the aspirational values (home ownership, higher education) of the upwardly-mobile skilled working class and small business class. His policies as the leader of the Labor Party were largely derived from the stance taken in this book, which ideologically is described as "the third way".
Biography
Latham's biography Loner: Inside a Labor Tragedy, by Bernard Lagan, was launched on 29 June 2005 by Senator John Faulkner, published by Allen & Unwin. The book caused furore within Labor ranks. Most of this was due to material contained within a single email written by Latham in the last page of the book. Of Kim Beazley's return to the leadership, Latham said: "Labor got the leader it truly deserves – it is well suited to a conservative stand-for-nothing type of leader." Latham also criticised state Labor premiers Bob Carr, Peter Beattie and Geoff Gallop, calling them "A-grade arseholes." Union leader Bill Shorten remarked that Latham had displayed "all the attributes of a dog except loyalty."
Of his election loss, Latham wrote: I had my shot at being prime minister. It didn't work out on several fronts. But life goes on, potentially in a splendid way, spending so much time with my family. After suffering testicular cancer, the greatest gift in my life has been the ability to have children with Janine. I would be a fool to waste it.
The Latham Diaries
Soon after his retirement, Latham announced his decision to publish a selection of diary entries spanning almost a decade. Following a bidding war, it was announced that Melbourne University Press (MUP) would publish the Diaries in late September. MUP later awarded the exclusivity rights for extracts to News Ltd and the exclusivity for the first interview to the ABC television program Enough Rope, which was due to be broadcast at 9.30 pm on Monday 19 September 2005.
Meanwhile, excerpts of the Diaries were published by The Australian from 15 September ahead of their publication in book form on 19 September. The excerpts published include attacks by Latham on the ALP, his successor Kim Beazley, frontbencher Kevin Rudd and former Labor prime ministers Paul Keating and Gough Whitlam.
Due to the publicity the Diaries were now generating, the extensive amount of published extracts, and concerns that Latham had recorded other interviews, in particular with another ABC program, Lateline, Enough Rope pushed to have the interview broadcast four days early on Thursday 15 September at 8.30 pm with a simultaneous broadcast on some ABC radio stations. However, when the time came to broadcast, the ABC announced that the interview would not be shown due to a legal injunction sought by News Limited (owner of The Australian), which had the rights to publish extracts from the Diaries. Reports on the night said any broadcast by the ABC was a breach of confidentiality between News and the book's publisher, MUP, the newspaper publisher having signed to an A$80,000 deal to publish excerpts of the book in the weekend newspapers. However, at 10.30 pm, the ABC aired the Denton interview after the Supreme Court of New South Wales lifted the injunction. Justice Harry Palmer said the publication of large parts of the book in News Limited newspapers largely destroyed the value of the material. Due to the last-minute changes, the edition of ABC's Lateline program scheduled for 10.30 pm featuring another interview with Latham (also subject to the short-lived injunction) was aired the following night.
The Diaries represent a remarkable and unprecedented statement by a former leader of a major political party. In the book, Latham is scathing about Australia's political system: It takes committed people ... and turns them into one-dimensional robots ... The only good news is that the public is on to them. The electorate has worked out the artificiality of it all. They can see through the spin doctors, the publicity stunts, the polling and the tricks of marginal-seat campaigning. This is why people now talk about politics with a cool anger. They have a clear feeling that the system is far from genuine. That the robots, in fact, are tin men.
A Conga Line of Suckholes
Latham's seventh book, a collection of quotations titled A Conga Line of Suckholes, was released by Melbourne University Publishing in late September 2006.
"No Exit The ALP"
In November 2010, Latham contributed an essay in The Monthly titled "No Exit The ALP". In it, Latham again criticised the ALP, writing that "for all the heightened rhetoric, for the seemingly endless creation of summits, committees and policy review processes, the lasting impression from the Rudd years is one of emptiness". He also remarked that "Without a guiding philosophy of politics, Rudd's prime ministership was an exercise in populism. He avoided tough decisions and mastered the art of media manipulation as a way of extending his honeymoon". Latham concludes that Labor had "lost its way". His suggested solution is that Labor again champions great causes, writing that:
Having studied the literature and, at one time, been part of these debates, I can identify just three credible ideas that have been advanced for the renewal of the social democratic project. Each seeks to move beyond economic issues, beyond the material realm of politics, to stake out new ground. The first tries to reclaim social capital, the rebuilding of mutualism and community, as a Labor icon. The second positions Labor as an anti-establishment party, breaking down the entrenched centres of power in society. The third champions a crusade on climate change, an uncompromising attempt to roll back the materialism of western society in favour of environmental values.
Latham finishes his essay by writing about the difficulties of each approach.
Other publications
Mark Latham also wrote Reviving Labor's agenda: a program for local reform (Pluto Press / Australian Fabian Society, 1990), What did you learn today?: creating an education revolution (Allen & Unwin, 2001), From the Suburbs: Building a Nation from our Neighbourhoods (Pluto Press Australia, 2003), The Political Bubble: Why Australians Don't Trust Politics (Pan Macmillan, 2014), Latham at Large (Melbourne University Press, 2015), and Taking Back Australia: Saving Our Country, Our Culture, Our Civilisation (Wilkinson Publishing, 2018).
He also wrote a weekly column for the Spectator magazine (Australian edition) entitled "Latham's Law".
Post-political life
Melbourne University Lecture
Latham gave his first public lecture since the release of the Diaries, titled "Ten Reasons Why Young Idealistic People Should Forget About Organised Politics", on 27 September 2005, at Melbourne University. During the lecture, he argued that organised politics is ineffective at achieving real social change, due to public apathy, the rise of conservatism and the inward-focused structure of the major parties, and instead encouraged youth to focus on more grassroots, community-based programs. He also claimed politics has a detrimental impact on health, happiness and family life, largely blaming the "arrogant" and "incompetent" media, as well as internal party struggles.
Incident at Hungry Jack's
On Thursday, 19 January 2006, Latham was eating with his two sons at a Hungry Jack's restaurant in Campbelltown, New South Wales when he was photographed by Ross Schultz, a photographer from The Daily Telegraph. Schultz alleged that Latham snatched the camera and smashed it, without destroying the electronic media that contained the photographs. The Telegraph subsequently announced plans for upcoming publication of the photographic images in the following Saturday's edition and that it would be seeking $12,000 from Latham to replace the equipment. The following day, Latham appeared to drive towards a Channel 7 television cameraman at his Sydney home. The photographer was unhurt but Seven's head of news in Sydney, Chris Willis, said the footage clearly showed Latham's car veer toward the cameraman as he stood on the side of the road. In February 2006, Latham was charged with assault, malicious damage and theft in relation to the incident. Latham did not appear in Campbelltown Local Court to face the charges, on 22 March, instead giving a lecture to political science students at the Australian National University. When asked by a student how he could blame everyone else but himself, Latham replied: "I'm sorry I didn't come in here and expose myself as a miserable arsewipe." On 26 April, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Latham again chose not to appear in Campbelltown Local Court in relation to the 19 January incident. The case was adjourned to 24 May. On 6 June, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Latham escaped having a criminal conviction for malicious damage to the camera being used by Schultz recorded against him, but had been placed on a good behaviour bond for two years. After pleading guilty to malicious damage, he had the charges of assault and theft dropped. He was also required to pay $6,763.70 in compensation for the damaged camera.
The Sun Herald reported on 13 August 2006 that the family were moving from their Glen Alpine home to a property at Mount Hunter, near Camden.
2007 federal election
He commented on the 2007 federal election campaign with an article in the Australian Financial Review, in which he said Australia was having a "Seinfeld election, a show about nothing". Latham wrote that, no matter which party won, Australia would have a conservative economic policy and an industrial relations system which was decentralised and productivity-based. He stated that Australian public life had reached the "zenith of policy convergence", and that "Many people in the Labor movement are expecting Labor in power to be far more progressive than its stated election promises. I expect a Labor administration to be even more timid, more conservative".
2010 federal election
In 2010, Latham was a guest reporter for television show 60 Minutes, where he reported on the federal election campaign. It was here that during a report he confronted Julia Gillard. Latham pushed his way through the crowd and confronted Gillard and her partner, Tim Mathieson, saying: "I understand you have made a complaint about me working for Channel 9". Gillard replied "I don't know anything about that, Mark. If you want to work with Channel 9, that's a matter for you", before Latham suggested that Kevin Rudd had been behind the leaks against her during the campaign.
During the campaign, Latham attacked Gillard's stance on population growth as "a fraud", arguing that the Gillard government would have to reduce immigration levels if it was serious about easing population pressures in Australia's capital cities.
He also caused a stir when, on 60 Minutes, he urged voters to issue a protest vote by leaving the ballot paper blank on election day: They say that voting in Australia is compulsory, but it's not compulsory to fill out the ballot paper. You can put it in the ballot box, totally blank. That's what I'll be doing on Saturday and I urge you to do the same. It's the ultimate protest vote. Following that interview, he continued to attack Gillard as well as journalist Laurie Oakes.
2013 federal election
On 14 August 2013, during the election federal campaign, Latham was interviewed by the 3AW radio station in Melbourne. He caused controversy when asked to comment on Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott's characterisation of Fiona Scott, the Liberal candidate for Lindsay, as having "sex appeal". Latham responded: It showed very bad judgment, it showed that he's got low standards. I've had a good look at Fiona Scott [...] and I don't think she's got sex appeal at all. [... Abbott] must have had the beer goggles on because she's not that good of a sort, and I'd rather have an aspirant for the prime ministership who's a good judge when it comes to checking out the good sorts.
Controversy at the Australian Financial Review and Triple M
In August 2015, Latham resigned from his regular column after spending eight years with the Australian Financial Review. His resignation was linked to a series of articles critical of Australian of the Year Rosie Batty and also Group Captain Catherine McGregor.
In January 2016, further controversy erupted over Latham's radio podcast on Triple M with comments that he paraphrased from a government report saying "men who have lost their self esteem" turn to domestic violence "as a coping mechanism." Latham referred to Batty (whose son was murdered by his father) as "exploiting her personal tragedy" and "doing more harm than good" by publicising domestic violence against women and children as an epidemic "when the official reports show it at one percent." Batty responded that she hoped "someone like Mark is able to become more informed and (is) not stuck in the, I guess, ignorant position because that type of thinking went out several decades ago...there are still some people unfortunately very influenced and stuck in those (mindsets)."
Triple M is a supporter of White Ribbon Campaign, a charity which is led by men to raise awareness of domestic violence caused by men. Since Latham's podcast was broadcast, there have been widespread calls for White Ribbon to distance itself from Triple M and Latham. The chair of White Ribbon, John Rosewarn, responded that "Mark Latham's views on domestic violence, as aired by Triple M, show his lack of understanding and knowledge of this complex issue, including its prevalence, causes and community response." White Ribbon also tweeted: "Domestic violence is much more than physical violence; it's never a coping mechanism."
2016 US presidential election
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Latham announced his support for Republican candidate Donald Trump, stating "Donald is by no means perfect but I much prefer his approach to the lying snakes of machine politics and media manipulation" and praised Trump's pledge to dismantle the Obama administration's deals with Iran.
Commentator
After leaving federal politics, Latham worked as a journalist and political and social commentator, appearing on numerous panel programs including Sunrise on the Seven Network and The Verdict on the Nine Network. In 2016, Latham became co-host of Sky News Live programs Jones + Co and in 2017 co-host of Outsiders.
In a March edition of Outsiders, Latham criticised a lack of diversity among corporate diversity officers and included Sky News colleague Peter van Onselen's wife as an example. Van Onselen and his To The Point co-host Kristina Keneally criticised Latham for the segment. Latham responded by criticising both, including negative statements about Keneally's record as Premier of New South Wales. Keneally threatened to take defamation action and made a formal complaint to Sky News management. In a separate incident, ABC Radio Sydney presenter Wendy Harmer initiated legal action after Latham made numerous statements criticising her.
A third controversy related to Latham questioning the sexuality of a school student during an Outsiders segment criticising a video put out by Sydney Boys High School in support of International Women's Day and suggested he "thought that first guy was gay", referring to a student in the video. Latham was fired from Sky News on 29 March 2017 after the story was published.
Latham later defended himself saying that a lot of journalists who discussed the comments had not seen the show: That video was put out there to deliberately confuse people, because the young people were using the words of women and the first fellow up was talking about sex with a man - so it became clear later on what the sort of trick was, but they put it up there for public discussion, we had a discussion about it on the show. No offence was meant, none should have been taken. It really is appalling that people who complained about nothing at the time all of a sudden get worked up later on...
In April 2017, Latham launched a website called Mark Latham's Outsiders and hosted a weekly Facebook Live program. Despite sharing the same name, it is unrelated to the Sky News program Outsiders which has continued without him as host.
In the same month, Latham created a video titled What's Gone Wrong With Australian Multiculturalism: Ethnic Enclaves in Fairfield, where he was subsequently criticised by the leaders of Fairfield for describing the deficiency of English in the area as "disgraceful". In the video, he tried to interview the residents of Fairfield, most of whom refused to speak due to a language barrier. Also in the video, Latham postulated that the ethnic enclave in Fairfield and Cabramatta signaled multiculturalism was failing as the West Asian-descent people in Fairfield did not want to visit Cabramatta, a suburb with a large East Asian population. Assyrian Resource Centre manager Carmen Lazar rebutted Latham, saying many programs in Fairfield aid refugees to learn English, such as Navitas Limited.
In 2019, Latham was a keynote speaker at the inaugural Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Australia, alongside former prime minister Tony Abbott and British politician Nigel Farage.
Return to politics
Liberal Democrats
In May 2017, Latham announced via his Facebook page that he would be joining the Liberal Democrats, a libertarian party. The Labor Party responded by placing a life ban on Latham from ever re-joining the party, after a motion was passed by the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party. According to Latham, he had terminated his ALP membership in March 2017 after being refused permission to address a party gathering.
Latham also announced that he was open to running as a candidate for the Liberal Democrats in future elections. However, he was blocked by the party executive from running as a candidate and, as a result, resigned his party membership in September 2018.
One Nation
In November 2018, Latham announced that he had joined One Nation as the party's state leader in New South Wales, and would stand for the Legislative Council at the 2019 state election. In response, Luke Foley, the state ALP leader, ruled out recommending preferences to One Nation candidates. Latham ran on a platform which opposed immigration, congestion, overdevelopment and renewable power, and proposed DNA tests for Aboriginal welfare recipients and banning the burqa in Government buildings.
Latham was successful in his bid to return to parliament, winning an eight-year term in the Legislative Council alongise Rod Roberts. Latham's maiden speech to the state parliament focused on criticising "leftist elites", maintaining the values of Western civilisation, the importance of education and the right to freedom of speech, as exemplified in the recent Israel Folau controversy.
Since 2020, Latham has promoted a bill titled "Parental Rights" which seeks to prohibit teachers from discussing "the ideology of gender fluidity to children in schools".
In 2021, Latham moved a motion to pull Bruce Pascoe's book Dark Emu from the New South Wales school curriculum. One Nation, Fred Nile and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party voted for it, while the Liberal Party, the National Party, Labor and the Greens voted down the motion.
In October 2022, Latham announced his plan to quit the Legislative Council just before the 2023 New South Wales state election and to run again on the top of the One Nation ticket. The plan was designed to increase the numbers of One Nation in the Legislative Council from two to four after the election. He resigned from the Legislative Council on 2 March 2023 and was re-elected 23 days later. His seat was filled by Tania Mihailuk.
Following an intervention from the federal branch of One Nation, Latham was removed from the position of state leader of One Nation in New South Wales. Hanson cited the party's worse than expected 14% drop in vote at the New South Wales state election in March. No member has replaced Latham as leader of the NSW One Nation branch. Latham denounced this decision, declaring that Hanson should "buy a mirror" as her own vote share had decreased at the previous federal election, and that she had stacked the NSW state executive with interstate residents. Latham's colleagues split over the issue; Roberts supported his position by denouncing several members of the new executive as unqualified, while Mihaluk remained silent and was seen as being supportive of Hanson's decision. On 22 August 2023, Latham and Roberts resigned from One Nation to sit as independents.
Political positions in One Nation
Immigration
Latham supports a travel ban on certain Islamic countries, saying, "If you know that there's a country that's producing a lot of troublemakers, would-be terrorists, radical jihadists coming to Australia, what sort of sane nation would say, 'Bring 'em in!' If you know there's a nation that's no good for us, then turn off the tap."
Burqa ban
Latham supports banning the burqa in government buildings, banks and airports.
LGBT rights
Same-sex-marriage
Latham has previously claimed he is a supporter of same-sex marriage. However, in 2017 during the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey he endorsed the 'no' vote, saying that a 'yes' vote "will open a can of worms".
Homophobic tweet controversy
Following the 2023 New South Wales state election, Latham published a tweet in response to fellow politician Alex Greenwich, who is openly gay, after he called Latham "disgusting". He wrote: "Disgusting? How does that compare with sticking your dick up a bloke's arse and covering it with shit?". The comments were deemed to be homophobic by Greenwich and other politicians, and received significant backlash, even from within his own party as Pauline Hanson criticised Latham and called for him to apologise. Latham later deleted the tweet, but refused to apologise.
Greenwich strongly criticised the tweet (which he says brought him to tears), calling Latham "unfit for office".
Conservative commentator Andrew Bolt, who has interviewed Latham several times on Sky News Australia, said that Latham had a "self-destruct button" and questioned his ability to function as a political leader after "earning the contempt of so many". Bolt previously criticised Latham for another tweet containing the term "abo", which is a racial slur targeting Indigenous Australians. The latter tweet was also criticised by former politician Warren Mundine, who is Indigenous.
Newly elected New South Wales Premier Chris Minns called Latham's tweet "vile and shameful", and labelled him a "bigot". Environment Minister Penny Sharpe also criticised Latham's comments.
Federal Nationals leader David Littleproud called on Pauline Hanson to take action against Latham for his comments.
His comments were also condemned by radio hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O on their radio show, The Kyle and Jackie O Show.
On 28 April 2023, Greenwich threatened legal action against Latham for "homosexual vilification". Latham again refused to apologise, causing Opposition Leader Mark Speakman to condemn his comments.
In May 2023, Greenwich announced he would be launching defamation action against Latham over the tweet. He also made a formal police complaint about Latham using a carriage service to harass and offend, and a homosexual vilification complaint to the anti-discrimination board.
Australia Day
In 2018, Latham launched a Save Australia Day campaign with help from Aboriginal politician Jacinta Price in response to the #ChangeTheDate social media campaign which called for the date of Australia Day to be moved or for the holiday to be abolished entirely. Latham argued "Changing the date will not change the circumstances of any disadvantaged Indigenous people" and "if the Left succeeds in moving or abolishing Australia Day, there is nothing about Australia that will be safe into the future".
Personal life
Latham began dating his first wife, Gabrielle Gwyther, in 1987, and they married in 1991. They separated in 1997 and divorced in 1999. Latham married his second wife, Janine Lacy, in 2000; they have two sons together. Latham announced his separation from Lacy in 2022.
Latham has described himself as a humanist. In a 2004 interview he said "I'm agnostic. I think there's a force, a spiritual world beyond the material. But I'm not in a position to define it, let alone put it into a certain form of religious practice."
References
Further reading
Duffy, Michael (2004), Latham and Abbott. The lives and rivalry of the two finest politicians of their generation, Random House Australia, Milsons Point (NSW).
Lagan, Bernard (2005), Loner. Inside a Labor Tragedy, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, New South Wales.
Latham, Mark (1998), Civilising global capital: new thinking for Australian Labor, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, New South Wales.
Latham, Mark (2001), What did you learn today? : creating an education revolution, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, New South Wales.
Latham, Mark (2002), Wedge politics and the culture war in Australia, Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King's College, University of London, London, England.
Latham, Mark (2003), From the Suburbs: Building a Nation from Our Neighbourhoods, Pluto Press, Annandale, New South Wales.
Latham, Mark (2005), The Latham Diaries, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria.
Latham, Mark (2006), A conga line of suckholes: Mark Latham's book of quotations, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, Victoria.
Latham, Mark (2017), Outsiders, Wilkinson Publishing, Melbourne, Victoria
Latham, Mark (2018), Taking Back Australia: Saving Our Country, Our Culture, Our Civilisation, Wilkinson Publishing, Melbourne, Victoria
McGregor, Craig (2004), Australian Son: Inside Mark Latham, Pluto Press, North Melbourne Victoria.
External links
Greenwich v Latham Federal Court of Australia online file
Abraham, Matt (9 July 2004). Howard's toughest interview of the year. Crikey.com.au
Allard, Tom; & Metherell, Mark (11 October 2004). Late release of policy cost Latham the Lodge. The Sydney Morning Herald.
A fair dinkum Labor hero (4 December 2003). The Economist.
Ill health ends Latham's career. NEWS.com.au.
Latham quits (18 January 2005). ABC News Online.
Mark Latham's concession of the 2004 Australian election
Latham diaries have 'fantastic bile'
First part of two part expose of Latham's personal life in Sydney Morning Herald
Second part of two part expose of Latham's personal life in Sydney Morning Herald
Labor's rebranded leader (BBC)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20P.%20Kennedy
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John P. Kennedy
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John Pendleton Kennedy (October 25, 1795 – August 18, 1870) was an American novelist, lawyer and Whig politician who served as United States Secretary of the Navy from July 26, 1852, to March 4, 1853, during the administration of President Millard Fillmore, and as a U.S. Representative from Maryland's 4th congressional district, during which he encouraged the United States government's study, adoption and implementation of the telegraph. A lawyer who became a lobbyist for and director of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Kennedy also served several terms in the Maryland General Assembly, and became its Speaker in 1847.
Kennedy later helped lead the effort to end slavery in Maryland, which, as a non-Confederate state, was not affected by the Emancipation Proclamation and required a state law to free slaves within its borders and to outlaw the furtherance of the practice.
Kennedy also advocated religious tolerance, and furthered studies of Maryland history. He helped preserve or found Historic St. Mary's City (site of the colonial founding of Maryland and the birthplace of religious freedom in America), St. Mary's College of Maryland (then St. Mary's Female seminary), the Peabody Library (now a part of Johns Hopkins University) and the Peabody Conservatory of Music (also now a part of Johns Hopkins).
Early life and education
John Pendleton Kennedy was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on October 25, 1795, the son of an Irish immigrant and merchant, John Kennedy. His mother, the former Nancy Pendleton, was descended from the First Families of Virginia family. Poor investments resulted in his father declaring bankruptcy in 1809. John Pendleton Kennedy attended private schools while growing up and was relatively well-educated for the time. He graduated from Baltimore College in 1812. His brother Anthony Kennedy would become a U.S. Senator.
Kennedy's college studies were interrupted by the War of 1812. He joined the army and in 1814, marched with the United Company of the 5th Baltimore Light Dragoons, known as the "Baltimore 5th," a unit that included rich merchants, lawyers, and other professionals. Kennedy wrote humorous amounts of his military escapades, such as when he lost his boots and marched onward in dancing pumps. The war was, however, serious, and Kennedy participated in the disastrous Battle of Bladensburg as the British threatened the new national capitol, Washington, D.C. Secretary of State James Monroe ordered the Baltimore 5th to move back from the left of the forward line to an exposed position a quarter-mile away. After the British forces crossed a bridge, the 5th moved forward. The fighting was intense: nearly every British officer among the advancing troops was hit, but then the British fired Congreve rockets. At first, the 5th stood firm, but when the two regiments to the right ran away, the 5th also broke. Kennedy threw away his musket and carried a wounded fellow-soldier (James W. McCulloh) to safety. Kennedy later fought in the Battle of North Point, which saved Baltimore from a burning similar to that of the capitol. Another wartime contact who proved crucial in Kennedy's later political and business career was George Peabody, who later helped finance the B&O Railroad and founded the House of Morgan, as well as the Peabody Institute.
Kennedy spent his summers in Martinsburg, Virginia, where he read law under the tutelage of his relative Judge Edmund Pendleton (descendant of the patriot Edmund Pendleton, who sat on the Virginia Court of Appeals). Kennedy would later often allude to genteel life on Southern plantations based on his youthful summers in Martinsburg. Later, Kennedy inherited some money from a rich Philadelphia uncle, and in 1829 married Elizabeth Gray, whose father Edward Gray was a wealthy mill-owner with a country house on the Patapsco River below Ellicott's Mills, and whose monetary generosity would allow Kennedy to effectively withdraw from his law practice for a decade to write.
Literary life
Although admitted to the bar in 1816, he was much more interested in literature and politics than law. He associated with the focal point of Baltimore's literary community, the Delphian Club. Kennedy's first literary attempt was a fortnightly periodical called the Red Book, published anonymously with his roommate Peter Hoffman Cruse from 1819 to 1820. Kennedy published Swallow Barn, or A Sojourn in the Old Dominion in 1832, which would become his best-known work. Horse-Shoe Robinson was published in 1835 to win a permanent place of respect in the history of American fiction.
Kennedy's friends and personal associates included George Henry Calvert, James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, William Gilmore Simms, and William Makepeace Thackeray.
Kennedy's journal entries dated September 1858 state that Thackeray asked him for assistance with a chapter in The Virginians; Kennedy then assisted him by contributing scenic written depictions to that chapter.
While sitting round a back parlor table at the home of noted Baltimore literarist, civic leader and friend John H. B. Latrobe at 11 West Mulberry Street, across from the old Baltimore Cathedral in the Mount Vernon, Baltimore neighborhood in October 1833, imbibing some spirits and genial conversation with another friend James H. Miller, they together judged the draft of "MS. Found in a Bottle" from a then-unknown aspiring writer Edgar Allan Poe to be worthy of publishing in the Baltimore Sunday Visitor because of its dark and macabre atmosphere. Also in 1835, he helped later introduce Poe to Thomas Willis White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger.
While abroad, Kennedy became a friend of William Makepeace Thackeray and wrote or outlined the fourth chapter of the second volume of The Virginians, a fact which accounts for the great accuracy of its scenic descriptions. Of his works, Horse-Shoe Robinson is the best and ranks high in antebellum fiction. Washington Irving read an advance copy of it and reported he was "so tickled with some parts of it" that he read it aloud to his friends. Kennedy sometimes wrote under the pen name 'Mark Littleton', especially in his political satires.
Lawyer and politician
Kennedy enjoyed politics more than law (although the Union Bank was a prime client), and left the Democratic Party when he realized that under President Andrew Jackson it came to oppose internal improvements. He thus became an active Whig like his father-in-law and favored Baltimore's commercial interests. He was appointed Secretary of the Legation in Chile on January 27, 1823, but did not proceed to his post, instead resigning on June 23 of the same year. He was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1820 and chaired its committee on internal improvements, championing the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal so vigorously (despite its failure to pay dividends), that he failed to win re-election after his 1823 vote for state support.
In 1838, Kennedy succeeded Isaac McKim in the U.S. House of Representatives, but was defeated in his bid for reelection in November of that year. Meanwhile, in 1835, Kennedy was among the 10 Baltimoreans who attended a railroad meeting in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, where he delivered a very well-received address urging completion of the B&O Railroad to the Ohio River valley (rather than to Pennsylvania canals, which fed Philadelphia rather than Baltimore). Kennedy was also on the 25-man committee that lobbied the Maryland legislature on the B&O's behalf and ultimately secured passage of the "Eight Million Dollar Bill" in 1836, which led to his becoming a B&O board member the following year (and remained such for many years). When the B&O chose a route westward through Virginia rather than the mountains near Hagerstown, Maryland in 1838, Kennedy was in the B&O's delegation to lobby Virginia's legislature (together with B&O President Louis McLane and well-connected Maryland delegate John Spear Nicholas, son of Judge Philip Norborne Nicholas, a leader of the Richmond Junto) that secured passage of a law authorizing a $1,058,000 (~$ in ) subscription (40% of the estimated cost for building the B&O through the state). However, the B&O's shareholders would reject the necessary Wheeling subscription because of its onerous terms, and Kennedy would again take up his pen in the B&O's defense against criticism by Maryland Governor William Grason.
Kennedy won re-election to Congress in 1840 and 1842; but, because of his strong opposition to the annexation of Texas, he was defeated in 1844. His influence in Congress was largely responsible for the appropriation of $30,000 to test Samuel Morse's telegraph. In 1847, Kennedy became speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates, and used his influence to help the B&O, although by the late 1840s it was caught in a three-way controversy with the states of Pennsylvania and Virginia as to whether the B&O's terminus should be Wheeling, Parkersburg or Pittsburgh. After an acrimonious shareholders meeting on August 25, 1847, the B&O affirmed Wheeling as its terminus, and finally completed track to the city in 1853.
Meanwhile, President Millard Fillmore appointed Kennedy as Secretary of the Navy in July 1852. During Kennedy's tenure in office, the Navy organized four important naval expeditions including that which sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to Japan and Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon and Lieutenant Lardner Gibbon to explore the Amazon .
Kennedy was proposed as a vice-presidential running mate to Abraham Lincoln when Lincoln first sought the Presidency of the United States, although Kennedy was ultimately not selected. Kennedy became a forceful supporter of the Union during the Civil War, and he supported the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation. Later, since the proclamation did not free Maryland slaves because the state was not in rebellion, he also used his influence to push for legislation in Maryland that ultimately ended slavery there in 1864.
In 1853, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.
Position on religious tolerance
Kennedy called for erecting a monument to the founding of the state of Maryland and to the birth of religious freedom in its original colonial settlement in St. Mary's City, Maryland. Three local citizens then expanded on his idea and sought to start a school that would become a "Living Monument" to religious freedom. The school was founded as such a monument in 1840 by order of the state legislature. Its original name was St. Mary's Seminary, but it would later be known as St. Mary's College of Maryland.
Earlier, when he was in the Maryland state legislature, Kennedy was instrumental in repealing a law that discriminated against Jewish people in court and trial procedures in Maryland. Jewish people were a tiny population in the state at the time and Kennedy was not Jewish, so there was no political or personal advantage to his position. His opposition to slavery in Maryland can be traced back for decades but the depth of that opposition went through an evolution from mild and more economically based in the beginning, to being stronger and more morally based by the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. Kennedy, an Episcopalian, also helped to lead private charitable efforts to aid Irish Catholic immigrants, who were experiencing a great deal of discrimination in the state at the time. However, he did also advocate setting limits on overall foreign national immigration into Maryland beginning in the 1850s, stating that he felt that the sheer number of new immigrants might overwhelm the economy.
Opposition to slavery
Kennedy's opposition to slavery was first publicly expressed in his writings, and then later in his life as a politician, through his speeches and political initiatives. His opposition to slavery in Maryland can be traced back through many decades of his life, but the depth of that opposition went through an evolution from milder and more understated in the beginning, to being stronger, more vocal and more morally based by the time of the Emancipation Proclamation and then the following state-level effort to end slavery in Maryland, as the state was not included in the Emancipation Proclamation because it was not in the Confederacy.
Kennedy once wrote that witnessing a speech by Frederick Douglass had opened his eyes more fully to the "curse" of slavery, as Kennedy called it by 1863.
Kennedy's 1830s novel Swallow Barn is critical of slavery but also idealizes plantation life. However, the original manuscript shows that some of Kennedy's initial descriptions of plantation life were much more critical of slavery, but that he crossed those out of the manuscript before the book went to the printer, possibly because he was afraid of being too openly critical of slavery while living in Maryland, a slave state.
Historians are not in consensus as to whether his earlier softer opposition to slavery was a way of preventing violent attacks against himself, since he lived in a border state where slavery was still practiced and still widely supported. Outright abolitionism at that time would have been an unpopular and potentially dangerous position in pro-slavery Maryland. Other historians maintain that his views on slavery simply evolved from weaker opposition to stronger opposition.
The novel, although more muted in its criticism of slavery by the time of its publication and also expressing some idyllic stereotypes about plantation life, leads to the prediction that slavery would bring the Southern states to ruin. Swallow Barn was published in 1832, 29 years before the start of the Civil War and long before anyone else was known to predict that the Southern and Northern states were headed for armed conflict.
Civil War
Just prior to the Civil War, Kennedy wrote that abolishing slavery immediately was not worth full-scale civil war and that slavery should instead be ended in stages to avoid war. He noted that civil wars were historically the most bloody and devastating kinds of warfare and suggested a negotiated, phased approach to ending slavery to prevent war between the sections.
But after the war broke out, he returned to a position of outright opposition to slavery and began to call for "immediate emancipation" of slaves. His demands for the end of slavery grew stronger as the war progressed. By the height of the Civil War, when Kennedy's opposition to slavery had become much stronger, he signed his name to a key political pamphlet in Maryland opposing slavery and calling for its immediate end.
There is consensus among historians that Kennedy was critical of slavery to some degree for decades, strongly opposed to slavery by the height of the Civil War, and strongly opposed the Confederacy. In Maryland state politics and charity leadership, Kennedy was also known to help other minority groups, notably Jews and Irish Catholics. When the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in Maryland, Kennedy played a key leadership role in campaigning for the end of slavery in the state.
Because Maryland was not in the Confederacy, the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the state and slavery continued there. Since there was no active insurrection in Maryland, President Lincoln did not feel constitutionally authorized to extend the Emancipation Proclamation to Maryland. Only the state itself could end slavery at this point, and this was not a certain outcome as Maryland was a slave state with strong Confederate sympathies. John Pendleton Kennedy and other antislavery leaders, therefore, organized a political gathering. On December 16, 1863, a special meeting of the Central Committee of the Union Party of Maryland was called on the issue of slavery in the state (the Union Party was a powerful political party in the state at the time).
At the meeting, Thomas Swann, a state politician, put forward a motion calling for the party to work for "Immediate emancipation (of all slaves) in Maryland". John Pendleton Kennedy spoke next and seconded the motion. Since Kennedy was the former speaker of the Maryland General Assembly, as well as a respected author, his support carried enormous weight in the party. A vote was taken and the motion passed. However the people of Maryland as a whole were by then divided on the issue and so twelve months of campaigning and lobbying on the matter of slavery continued throughout the state. During this effort, Kennedy signed his name to a party pamphlet calling for "immediate emancipation" of all slaves that was widely circulated. On November 1, 1864, after a year-long debate, a state referendum was put forth on the slavery question. The citizens of Maryland voted to abolish slavery, though only by a 1,000 vote margin, as the Southern part of the state remained heavily dependent on the slave economy.
Work with cultural and educational institutions
Kennedy, in his close association with George Peabody, was instrumental in the establishment of the Peabody Institute, which later evolved and split into the Peabody Library and the Peabody Conservatory of Music, which are now both part of Johns Hopkins University. He also served on the first board of trustees for the institute and did the first writing that outlined its mission. He also recorded minutes for the board's earliest meetings. Kennedy is known to have worked for years to help lay the groundwork for these institutions.
Kennedy also played an eseential but unintended role in the establishment of St. Mary's Female Seminary which is now known as St. Mary's College of Maryland, the state's public honors college. Kennedy's used his reputation as a respected Maryland politician and author, to call for designating St. Mary's City as the state's "Living Monument to religious freedom", memorializing its location on the site of Maryland's first colony, which was also considered to be the birthplace of religious freedom in America as well. A few years later three local citizens refined his idea into calling for a school in St. Mary's City that would be the "Living monument". The school continues to have this designation to this day.
Kennedy was the primary initial impetus and was also pivotal in gaining early state recognition of its responsibility for protecting, studying and memorializing St. Mary's City, Maryland (the then-abandoned site of Maryland's first colony and capitol, as well as being the birthplace of religious freedom in America), as a key state historic area, placing historical research and preservation mandates under the original auspices of the new state-sponsored St. Mary's Female Seminary, located on the same site. This planted the early seeds of what would eventually become Historic St. Mary's City, a state-run archeological research and historic interpretation area that exists today on the site of Maryland's original colonial settlement.
Historic St. Mary's City also co-runs (jointly with St. Mary's College of Maryland) the now internationally recognized Historical Archaeology Field School, a descendant of Kennedy's idea that a school should be involved in researching and preserving the remains of colonial St. Mary's City.
During his term as U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Kennedy made the request for the establishment of the United States Naval Academy Band in Annapolis in 1852. The band continues to be active to this day.
Roles in science and technology
Federal study and acceptance of the telegraph
While serving in the United States Congress, John Pendleton Kennedy was the primary and decisive force in Congress in securing $30,000 (an enormous sum at the time) for testing Samuel Morse's telegraph communications system. This was the first electronic means of long-distance communication in human history. The government tests corroborated Morse's invention and led to federal adoption of the technology and the subsequent establishment of the American telegraph communications system, which revolutionized communications and the economic development of the United States. Federal acceptance of the telegraph had a major impact on Abraham Lincoln's management of the Civil War as well.
Commissioner of the 1867 Paris Exposition
Kennedy was a commissioner of the 1867 Paris Exposition, an international science, technology and arts fair that was held in Paris, France, in 1867. The fair had participation from 42 nations and had over 50,000 exhibits. It was the second World's Fair.
Retirement from public office
Kennedy retired from elected and appointed offices in March 1853 when President Fillmore left office, but he remained very active in both Federal and state of Maryland politics, supporting Fillmore in 1856, when Fillmore won Maryland's electoral votes and Kennedy's brother Anthony won a U.S. Senate seat. His name was mentioned as one of the vice-presidential prospects on the Republican ticket alongside Abraham Lincoln in 1860 (which would have meant that Abraham Lincoln would be on the same ticket as a man named "John Kennedy"). Instead, Kennedy was the Maryland chairman of the Constitutional Union Party, which nominated John Bell and Edward Everett for the Presidency. Kennedy played an instrumental leadership role in the Union Party's successful effort to end slavery in Maryland in 1864. This had to be done at the state level because the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the state. At the end of the American Civil War – during which he forcefully supported the Union – he advocated amnesty for former rebels.
During this time, he had a summer home overlooking the south branch of the Patapsco River upstream near Orange Grove-Avalon-Ilchester off the main western line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad now in the area of Patapsco Valley State Park, which was devastated by a disastrous flood in 1868.
Kennedy died in Newport, Rhode Island, on August 18, 1870, and is buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.
Legacy
In his will, Kennedy wrote the following:
It is my wish that the manuscript volumes containing my journals, my note or common-place books, and the several volumes of my own letters in press copy, as also all my other letters, such as may possess any interest or value (which I desire to be bound in volumes) that are now in loose sheets, shall be returned to my executors, who are requested to have the same packed away in a strong walnut box, closed and locked, and then delivered to the Peabody Institute, to be preserved by them unopened until the year 1900, when the same shall become the property of the Institute, to be kept among its books and records.
Today there are two large special collections of his papers, manuscripts and correspondence; one remains at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore and the other is at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. There are also a number of libraries from Virginia to Boston that have smaller collections of his correspondence (both private and official letters).
The naval ships USS John P. Kennedy and USS Kennedy (DD-306) were named for him.
Books and essays
The Red Book (1818–19, two volumes).
Swallow Barn: Or, A Sojourn in the Old Dominion (1832) [under the pen-name Mark Littleton].
Horse-Shoe Robinson: A Tale of the Tory Ascendency in South Carolina, in 1780 (1835).
Rob of the Bowl: A Legend of St. Inigoe's (1838) [under the pen-name Mark Littleton].
Annals of Quodlibet [under the pen-name Solomon Secondthoughts] (1840).
Defence of the Whigs [under the pen-name A Member of the Twenty-seventh Congress] (1844).
Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt (1849, two volumes).
The Great Drama: An Appeal to Maryland, Baltimore, reprinted from the Washington National Intelligencer of May 9, 1861.
The Border States: Their Power and Duty in the Present Disordered Condition of the Country (1861).
Autograph Leaves of Our Country's Authors [anthology, co-edited by John P. Kennedy and Alexander Bliss] (1864)
Mr. Paul Ambrose's Letters on the Rebellion [under the pen-name Paul Ambrose] (1865).
Collected Works of John Pendleton Kennedy (1870–72, ten volumes).
At Home and Abroad: A Series of Essays: With a Journal in Europe in 1867–68 (1872, essays).
Further reading
Berton, Pierre (1981), Flames across the Border: The Canadian-American Tragedy, 1813-1814, Boston: Atlantic-Little, Brown.
Bohner, Charles H. (1961), John Pendleton Kennedy, Gentleman from Baltimore, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins.
Friedel, Frank (1967), Union Pamphlets of the Civil War, [includes Kennedy's Great Drama], A John Harvard Library Book, Cambridge, MA: Harvard.
Gwathmey, Edward Moseley (1931), John Pendleton Kennedy, New York: Thomas Nelson.
Hare, John L. (2002), Will the Circle be Unbroken?: Family and Sectionalism in the Virginia Novels of Kennedy, Caruthers, and Tucker, 1830—1845, New York: Routledge.
Marine, William Matthew (1913), The British Invasion of Maryland, 1812-1815, Baltimore: Society of the War of 1812 in Maryland.
Ridgely, Joseph Vincent (1966), John Pendleton Kennedy, New York: Twayne.
Tuckerman, Henry Theodore (1871), The Life of John Pendleton Kennedy, Collected Works of Henry Theodore Tuckerman, Volume 10, New York: Putnam.
Black, Andrew R. (2016), "John Pendleton Kennedy, Early American Novelist, Whig Statesman and Ardent Nationalist", Louisiana State University Press, Louisiana.
See also
History of slavery in Maryland
International Exposition (1867), the second Worlds Fair, held in Paris, of which Kennedy was a commissioner
References
External links
Biography at the Naval Historical Center
Swallow Barn, vol. 1
Swallow Barn, vol. 2
Horse-Shoe Robinson
West Virginia & Regional History Center at West Virginia University, John Pendleton Kennedy, Papers
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin%20Rudd
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Kevin Rudd
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Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian diplomat and former politician who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and June 2013 to September 2013. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Rudd has been the 23rd and current ambassador of Australia to the United States since 2023.
Born in Nambour, Queensland, Rudd graduated from the Australian National University with honours in Chinese studies, and is fluent in Mandarin. Before entering politics, he worked as a diplomat and public servant for the Goss Ministry. Rudd was elected to the Australian House of Representatives at the 1998 federal election, as a member of parliament (MP) for the division of Griffith. He was promoted to the shadow cabinet in 2001 as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. In December 2006, he defeated Kim Beazley in a leadership spill to become the leader of the Labor Party, thus becoming Leader of the Opposition. Rudd led Labor to a landslide victory at the 2007 election, defeating the Howard government. The Rudd government's earliest acts included action on climate change through ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and delivering the first national apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples for the Stolen Generations. The Government also provided economic stimulus packages in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008, resulting in Australia becoming one of the only developed countries to avoid the late-2000s recession. Other signature policies included establishing the National Broadband Network (NBN), launching the Digital Education Revolution and the Building the Education Revolution, dismantling WorkChoices, and withdrawing Australian troops from the Iraq War.
In 2010, Rudd began to face instability within his party, after the Australian Senate rejected his government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. This prompted deputy prime minister Julia Gillard to challenge him for the leadership of the Labor Party in June of that year. Rather than contest the leadership, Rudd chose to resign, meaning that Gillard replaced him as prime minister. His removal from office began a sequence of four subsequent prime ministers who would all be removed by their own parties before completing their full first term. Rudd remained in the party as a backbencher, and chose to re-contest his seat at the 2010 election, which resulted in a Gillard-led minority government. Within the Gillard government, Rudd was brought back into the Cabinet by Gillard as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He remained in that role until resigning in February 2012, citing Gillard's failure to discipline colleagues who had publicly criticised him. In response, Gillard called a leadership spill, which Rudd lost. Tensions over the leadership nevertheless continued; after a spill in March 2013, which Rudd did not contest, a further ballot was held in June 2013, which Rudd won by 57 votes to 45, becoming prime minister once again. His second term as prime minister lasted less than three months, as Labor was defeated at the 2013 election.
Rudd retired from parliament following the election, but has stayed active in politics. In February 2014, he was named Senior Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he leads research on the future of China–United States relations. He was also appointed as a distinguished fellow-in-residence at the Paulson Institute within the University of Chicago in September of that year. Additionally, he is chair of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism, chair of Sanitation and Water for All, and chairman of the board at the International Peace Institute. In January 2021, he was assigned as the eighth president and CEO of the Asia Society. Notably, Rudd has campaigned against media mogul Rupert Murdoch's dominance in Australian political debate, and called for a royal commission into media diversity in the country. He was appointed as Australia's Ambassador to the U.S. by the Albanese government in March 2023.
Rudd maintained long periods of popularity in opinion polls during his initial tenure as prime minister for successfully helping Australia through the global financial crisis and for his well renowned apology to the Indigenous community, but he saw a rapid decrease in popularity both in public polling and within his own party after his failure to deliver key pieces of legislation. He was praised for his management of the global financial crisis, willingness to apologise to Indigenous Australians, and diplomatic skills, but was widely criticised for his failure to negotiate a carbon pricing scheme and a tax on non-renewable resources. He is often ranked in the middle-to-lower tier of Australian prime ministers.
Early life and education
Rudd is of English and Irish descent. His paternal fourth great-grandparents were English and of convict heritage: Thomas Rudd and Mary Cable. Thomas arrived from London, England in 1801; Mary arrived from Essex in 1804. Thomas Rudd, who was convicted of stealing a bag of sugar, arrived in NSW on board the Earl Cornwallis in 1801.
Rudd was born in Nambour, Queensland, to Albert ("Bert") and Margaret (née DeVere) Rudd, the youngest son of four children, and grew up on a dairy farm in nearby Eumundi. At an early age (5–7), he contracted rheumatic fever and spent a considerable time at home convalescing. It damaged his heart, in particular the valves, for which he has thus far had two aortic valve replacement surgeries, but this was discovered only some 12 years later. Farm life, which required the use of horses and guns, is where he developed his lifelong love of horse riding and shooting clay targets. He attended Eumundi State School.
When Rudd was 11, his father, a share farmer and Country Party member, died. Rudd states that the family was required to leave the farm amidst financial difficulty between two and three weeks after the death, though the family of the landowner states that the Rudds didn't have to leave for almost six months. Following this traumatic childhood and despite familial connections with the Country Party, Rudd joined the Australian Labor Party in 1972 at the age of 15.
Rudd boarded at Marist College Ashgrove in Brisbane, although these years were not happy due to the indignity of poverty and reliance on charity; he was known to be a "charity case" due to his father's sudden death. He has since described the school as "tough, harsh, unforgiving, institutional Catholicism of the old school". Two years later, after she retrained as a nurse, Rudd's mother moved the family to Nambour, and Rudd rebuilt his standing through study and scholastic application and was dux of Nambour State High School in 1974. In that year, he was also the state winner of the "Youth Speaks for Australia" public speaking competition sponsored by the Jaycees. His future Treasurer Wayne Swan attended the same school at the same time, although they did not know each other as Swan was three years ahead.
Rudd studied at the Australian National University in Canberra, where he resided at Burgmann College and graduated with Bachelor of Arts (Asian Studies) with First-Class Honours. He majored in Chinese language and Chinese history, and became proficient in Mandarin. His Chinese name is Lù Kèwén (). Rudd completed his BA in 1978, deferring his honours component for a year during which time he took a study trip to Taiwan. He also volunteered as a research assistant with the Zadok Institute for Christianity and at a St Vincent de Paul drug rehabilitation centre.
Rudd's thesis on Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng was supervised by Pierre Ryckmans, the eminent Belgian-Australian sinologist. During his studies, Rudd did housecleaning for political commentator Laurie Oakes to earn extra money. In 1980 he continued his Chinese studies at the Mandarin Training Center of National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan. Delivering the 2008 Gough Whitlam Lecture at the University of Sydney on The Reforming Centre of Australian Politics, Rudd praised the former Labor Prime Minister for implementing educational reforms, saying he was:... a kid who lived Gough Whitlam's dream that every child should have a desk with a lamp on it where he or she could study. A kid whose mum told him after the 1972 election that it might just now be possible for the likes of him to go to university. A kid from the country of no particular means and of no political pedigree who could therefore dream that one day he could make a contribution to our national political life.
Diplomatic career
Rudd joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1981 as a graduate trainee. His first posting was as Third Secretary at the Australian Embassy in Stockholm from November 1981 to December 1983 where he organised an Australian film festival, represented Australia at the Stockholm Conference on Acidification of the Environment, and reported on Soviet gas pipelines and European energy security. In 1984, Rudd was appointed Second Secretary at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, and promoted to First Secretary in 1985, where he was responsible for analysing Politburo politics, economic reform, arms control and human rights under Ross Garnaut, David Irvine and Geoff Raby. He returned to Canberra in 1987 and was assigned to the Policy Planning Branch, then the Staffing Policy Section, and was selected to serve as the Office of National Assessments Liaison Officer at the Australian High Commission in London commencing in 1989 but declined.
Entry into politics
In 1988, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Opposition Leader in Queensland, Wayne Goss. He remained in that role when Goss was elected Premier in 1989, a position he held until 1992 when Goss appointed him Director-General of the Office of Cabinet. In this position, Rudd was arguably Queensland's most powerful bureaucrat. He presided over a number of reforms, including development of a national program for teaching foreign languages in schools. Rudd was influential in both promoting a policy of developing an Asian languages and cultures program which was unanimously accepted by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in 1992 and later chaired a high-level working group which provided the foundation of the strategy in its report, which is frequently cited as "the Rudd Report".
The Goss Government saw its majority slashed in 1995, before losing it altogether after a by-election one year later. After Goss' resignation, Rudd left the Queensland Government and was hired as a Senior China Consultant by the accounting firm KPMG Australia. While in that position, he won selection to be the Labor candidate for the seat of Griffith at the 1996 federal election. Despite being endorsed by the retiring Labor MP, Ben Humphreys, Rudd was considerably hampered by Labor's unpopularity in Queensland, as well as a redistribution that almost halved Labor's majority. Rudd was defeated by Liberal Graeme McDougall on the eighth count as Labor won only two seats in Queensland. Rudd stood in the same seat against McDougall in the 1998 election, this time winning on the fifth count.
Member of Parliament (1998–2007)
Rudd made his maiden speech to the House of Representatives as the new Member for the Division of Griffith on 11 November 1998.
Shadow Minister (2001–2006)
Following Labor's defeat in the 2001 federal election, Rudd was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet and appointed Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. In 2002, he met with British intelligence and helped define the position that Labor would take in regards to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
There is no debate or dispute as to whether Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. He does. There's no dispute as whether he's in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. He is.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein he would criticise the Howard government over its support for the United States, while maintaining Labor's position of support for the Australian-American alliance.
Well, what Secretary Powell and the US seems to have said is that he now has grave doubts about the accuracy of the case he put to the United Nations about the claim that Iraq possessed biological weapons laboratories – the so-called mobile trailers. And here in Australia, that formed also part of the government's argument on the war. I think what it does is it adds to the fabric of how the Australian people were misled about the reasons for going to war.
Rudd's policy experience and parliamentary performances during the Iraq War made him one of the best-known Labor members. When Labor Leader Simon Crean was challenged by his predecessor Kim Beazley, Rudd did not publicly commit himself to either candidate. When Crean resigned, Rudd was considered a possible candidate for the Labor leadership, however he announced that he would not run in the leadership ballot, and would instead vote for Kim Beazley.
Rudd was predicted by some commentators to be demoted or moved as a result of his support for Beazley following the election of Mark Latham as Leader, but he retained his portfolio. Relations between Latham and Rudd deteriorated during 2004, especially after Latham made his pledge to withdraw all Australian forces from Iraq by Christmas 2004 without consulting Rudd. After Latham failed to win the 2004 federal election, Rudd was again spoken of as a possible alternative leader, although he disavowed any intention of challenging Latham.
When Latham suddenly resigned in January 2005, Rudd was in Indonesia and refused to say whether he would be a candidate for the Labor leadership. After returning from Indonesia, Rudd announced that he would again not contest the leadership, and Beazley was subsequently elected unopposed. Following this, Rudd was given expanded responsibilities in the Shadow Cabinet, retaining his role as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and also becoming the Shadow Minister for Trade.
Leader of the Opposition (2006–2007)
Following opinion polls indicating that voter support for Rudd as Labor Leader was higher than for Beazley, speculation mounted that Rudd would challenge Beazley for the leadership. One particular poll in November 2006 indicated that support for Labor would double if Rudd was to become Leader. On 1 December 2006, Beazley called a leadership election. Rudd announced his candidacy for the leadership hours later. On 4 December, Rudd was elected Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition with 49 votes to Beazley's 39. Julia Gillard was subsequently elected unopposed as Deputy Leader after Jenny Macklin resigned.
At his first press conference as Labor Leader, having thanked Beazley and Macklin, Rudd said he would offer a "new style of leadership" and would be an "alternative, not just an echo" of the Howard government. He outlined the areas of industrial relations, the war in Iraq, climate change, Australian federalism, social justice and the future of Australia's manufacturing industry as major policy concerns. Rudd also stressed his long experience in state government and also as a diplomat and in business before entering federal politics.
Rudd and the Labor Party soon overtook the Howard government in both party and leadership polling. Rudd maintained a high media profile with major announcements on an "education revolution", federalism, climate change, a National Broadband Network, and the domestic car industry.
In March 2007 the government raised questions over a series of meetings Rudd had had with former West Australian Labor Premier Brian Burke during 2005, alleging that Rudd had been attempting to use Burke's influence to become Labor leader (after losing office, Burke had spent time in prison before returning to politics as a lobbyist). Rudd said that this had not been the purpose of the three meetings and said that they had been arranged by his colleague Graham Edwards, the Member for Cowan.
From 2002, Rudd appeared regularly in interviews and topical discussions on the popular breakfast television program Sunrise, along with Liberal MP Joe Hockey. This was credited with helping to raise Rudd's public profile even further. Rudd and Hockey ended their joint appearances in April 2007, citing the increasing political pressures of an election year.
On 19 August 2007, it was revealed that Rudd, while on a visit to New York City as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, had visited a strip club in September 2003, with New York Post editor Col Allan and Labor MP Warren Snowdon. By way of explanation, Rudd said: "I had had too much to drink, I have no recollection, and nor does Mr Snowdon, of any incident occurring at the nightclub – or of being asked to leave...it is our recollection that we left within about an hour". The incident generated a lot of media coverage, but made no impact on Rudd's popularity in the polls. Some believe the incident may have enabled Rudd to appear "more human" and lifted his popularity.
2007 election
Electoral writs were issued for the 2007 federal election on 17 October 2007. On 21 October, Rudd faced incumbent Prime Minister John Howard in a television debate, where he was judged by most media analysts to have performed strongly.
On 14 November, Rudd officially launched the Labor Party's election campaign with a policy of fiscal restraint, usually considered the electoral strength of the opposing Liberal Party. Rudd proposed Labor spending measures totalling $2.3 billion, contrasting them to $9.4 billion Rudd claimed the Liberals had promised, declaring: "Today, I am saying loud and clear that this sort of reckless spending must stop."
The election was held on 24 November, and was won overwhelmingly by Labor. The result was dubbed a 'Ruddslide' by the media and was underpinned by the considerable support from Rudd's home state of Queensland, with the state result recording a two-party preferred swing of 7.53%. The overall swing was 5.44% from the Liberals to Labor, the third largest swing at a federal election since two party estimates began in 1949.
As foreshadowed during the election campaign, on 29 November Rudd announced the members of his Government (see First Rudd Ministry), breaking with more than a century of Labor tradition whereby the frontbench was elected by the Labor caucus, with the leader then given the right to allocate portfolios.
First term as Prime Minister (2007–2010)
On 3 December 2007, Rudd was sworn in as the 26th prime minister of Australia by governor-general Michael Jeffery. Rudd was the first Labor Prime Minister since Paul Keating left office in 1996, and the first ever to make no mention of the monarch when taking his oath of office. He also became only the second Queenslander to lead his party to a federal election victory (the first being Andrew Fisher in 1910) and was the first prime minister since the Second World War not to have come from either New South Wales or Victoria.
Early initiatives of the Rudd government included the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, a Parliamentary Apology to the Stolen Generations and the 2020 Summit in April 2008. Other achievements of the Rudd government included keeping Australia out of recession during the global financial crisis, commencing the rollout of the National Broadband Network, the introduction of nationwide early childhood education, the development of a national Australian Curriculum for schools, the construction of 20 cancer clinics around regional Australia, and paid parental leave. Rudd was named as one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2008.
During his first two years in office, Rudd set records for popularity in Newspoll opinion polling, maintaining very high approval ratings. By 2010, however, Rudd's approval ratings had begun to drop significantly, with controversies arising over the management of the financial crisis, the Senate refusal to pass the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, policies on asylum seekers and a debate over a proposed "super profits" tax on the mining industry.
On 23 June 2010, following lengthy media speculation, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard publicly asked that a leadership election be held. Rudd announced a leadership election for the following day.
Domestic policies
Environment
In opposition, Rudd made combatting climate change a key priority for the Labor Party, proposing an emissions trading scheme and setting an ambitious long term target of a cut to greenhouse gas emissions by 60% before 2050. He also released a plan before the election to require 20% of Australia's electricity to be generated from renewable power sources. Prior to the election, Paul Kelly wrote that Rudd had "enshrined climate change as the new moral passion for the Labor Party in a way that recalled Ben Chifley's invocation of the Light on the Hill".
The first official act of the Rudd government, on 3 December 2007, was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Rudd attended the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2007 just ten days after being sworn in. In February 2008, the Prime Minister told Parliament that "the costs of inaction on climate change are much greater than the costs of action" and that "Australia must... seize the opportunity now to become a leader globally". In the 2008 budget, the Rudd government set out its climate agenda which included an emissions trading scheme and a number of renewable energy, energy efficiency and research, development and demonstration (RD&D) programs.
Rudd established the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute to accelerate the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology globally and the sharing of information. The institute was launched in a joint press conference with US President Barack Obama and Rudd at the Major Economies Forum in Italy in 2009. Obama said the partnership aimed to double the amount of investment in research and development needed to make alternative technologies viable and "points to the ability for us to pool our resources in order to see the technological breakthroughs necessary in order for us to solve this problem." The Institute received international support with 15 governments and more than 40 major companies and industry groups signing on as foundation members.
The Rudd government committed significant resources to renewable energy. Legislation for an expanded Renewable Energy Target was passed in August 2009, expanding it from 9,500 GWh by 2010 to 45,000 GWh by 2020 and introducing a 'solar credits' multiplier to provide an additional incentive for the installation of solar photovoltaic systems.
The Rudd government sought to introduce an emissions trading scheme to tackle climate change in Australia and embarked on a thorough policy development process involving the Garnaut Review led by its climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, followed by a green paper on ETS design issues, Treasury modelling to inform mitigation target decisions and a final white paper, which would be published in December 2008. The White Paper included a plan to introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2010, known as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and gave a target range for Australia's greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 of between 5% and 15% less than 2000 levels. However, the ultimate legislation was frustrated in the Australian Senate — with the Liberal Party, Nationals and Australian Greens voting against it, the Senate rejected it on 13 August 2009. Rudd and key Labor ministers worked with the Liberals under opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, who personally supported action on emissions, to achieve compromise on details of the scheme and gain their support. On 1 December 2009, Turnbull was replaced in a leadership spill called over the issue, by ETS opponent Tony Abbott, and the following day, the Senate voted against the revised package of bills. Rudd criticised the Liberals heavily for their refusal to support the legislation ("What absolute political cowardice, what absolute failure of leadership, what absolute failure of logic ...") but in April 2010 announced that the Government would delay implementing an emissions trading scheme until 2011.
Rudd personally committed himself to international action on climate change in the lead-up to the Copenhagen Summit in December 2009. Ahead of the summit, he convened a meeting of leaders at the 2009 APEC conference in Singapore which brought together the leaders of China, the United States, Japan and Denmark for the first time to discuss their respective positions. Rudd announced financial help for small island states affected by climate change at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago in 2009 and used the meeting to rally support for the Copenhagen summit. Rudd played a key role in Copenhagen in delivering an accord despite the wide divergence of views among advanced and emerging economies. Gordon Brown, the then-prime minister of the United Kingdom, said of Rudd at Copenhagen: "Kevin stood up to those who wanted to say 'no' on climate change ... The fact we got a Copenhagen declaration which has now led to the next stage ... is in no small measure due to him." However, the perceived weakness of the Copenhagen accord in setting binding targets impacted upon the momentum towards an emissions trading scheme at home. Rudd reflected later that "we all failed... though not for want of effort from many of us."
Stolen Generations
As the parliament's first order of business, on 13 February 2008, Rudd gave a national apology to Indigenous Australians for the stolen generations. The apology, for the policies of successive parliaments and governments, passed unanimously as a motion by both houses of parliament. Rudd pledged the government to bridging the gap between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australian health, education and living conditions, and in a way that respects their rights to self-determination. During meetings held in December 2007 and March 2008 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) adopted six targets to improve the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians over the next five to twenty years. As of 2016, there have been eight Closing the Gap Reports presented to Parliament, providing data in areas that previously had none and updates on progress.
Since leaving politics, Rudd has established the Australian National Apology Foundation, as foreshadowed in his final speech to Parliament, to continue to promote reconciliation and closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. He has contributed $100,000 to the Foundation and to kickstart fundraising for a National Apology Chair at the Australian National University.
Economy
The Rudd government's economic policy response to the Global Financial Crisis has been cited as an effective international model and described by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz as "one of the strongest Keynesian stimulus packages in the world" that "helped Australia avoid recession and saved up to 200,000 jobs". Following the start of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, increased exports and consumer spending stimulated by the Rudd government's intervention helped the Australian economy avoid recession in 2009. Australia was the only western economy to do so. Internationally, Kevin Rudd helped lead efforts to make the G20 the most influential global forum coordinating policies to counter the global impact of the crisis.
In his first speech to Parliament in 1998, Rudd outlined his belief in the need for governments to take an active role in the economy, particularly to assure equality of opportunity. He affirmed his general belief in competitive markets, but repudiated neoliberalism and free market economists such as Friedrich Hayek, saying governments must regulate markets and intervene where they fail. Upon becoming leader in December 2006, he promised an economic policy with two arms to its philosophy and practice: rewarding hard work and achievement, but with a guarantee of fairness and social justice.
On election to office prior to the Global Financial Crisis, the Rudd government announced a five-point plan to combat inflation. The first budget of the Rudd government was delivered by Treasurer Wayne Swan in May 2008 and a projected surplus of $21.7 billion was announced. In line with Rudd's explanation of his economic philosophy on taking office, his government intervened early as the global recession began to take hold by guaranteeing bank deposits and announcing two stimulatory spending packages. The first was worth $10.4 billion and announced in late 2008, and included measures such as lump sum payments for low to middle income earners, increasing the first homebuyers' bonus, doubling training places and fast-tracking a national infrastructure program. The second, worth $42 billion, was announced in February 2009 and included $900 cash payments to resident taxpayers who paid net tax in the 2007–08 financial year. Stating that his Government would "move heaven and earth to reduce the impact of the global recession", Rudd delivered a spending program for infrastructure, schools and housing worth $28.8 billion as part of this package. After initially raising interest rates to combat inflation, The Reserve Bank cut official interest rates several times in increments of up to 1 percent, and fell to 3 percent in May 2009, the lowest since 1960. The second budget, released in May 2009, projected a $57.6 billion deficit for 2009–10. The majority of the deficit was created by a loss of taxation revenue as a result of the recession, with the rest made up in stimulus and other spending. The downturn was expected to remove $210 billion in taxation revenue from the budget over the next four years.
The Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan, as it was branded, contained a range of programs implemented through Commonwealth legislation and overseen by Commonwealth agencies, although administered by state governments and other authorities. The Building the Education Revolution (BER) program, worth $16.2 billion, sought to stimulate the nationwide economy by employing construction workers in school building developments. These included the construction of libraries, classrooms and multipurpose centres, the refurbishment and repairs of existing facilities, and science and language centres in 70 secondary schools in disadvantaged areas. A$4 billion Energy Efficient Homes Package was also launched, containing a Home Insulation Program (HIP) which provided $1,600 worth of assistance to owner-occupiers to install ceiling insulation in existing homes. The government estimated that 40% of homes were not insulated, and that this had costs in energy waste, household bills for heating and cooling, and resident health and comfort among others. Other components included social and defence housing construction, funding for local community infrastructure and road projects, and the $950 cash bonus. The OECD assessed in its 2009 Economic Outlook Report that the Rudd government's policy response to the crisis had reduced the impact of the global recession on employment.
Two major controversies, however, affected public reception of the scheme. The Home Insulation Program became controversial in early 2010 after reports of house fires, possible fraud and the deaths of four young insulation installers. Rudd responded by demoting the minister responsible, Peter Garrett, suspending the scheme and commissioning an immediate review of the program by Dr Allan Hawke. Hawke noted in his report that "despite the safety, quality and compliance concerns, there were solid achievements against the program objectives". Approximately 1.1 million homes had been insulated through the scheme by April 2010, about 10,000 jobs had been created, and national safety standards and training were a focus. However, Hawke found the department was not up to the task of monitoring thousands of independent contractors around Australia on a tight timeframe and that demand was higher than anticipated, which led to safety and quality risks that "cannot be fully abated". Greg Combet, who had been appointed Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, announced upon the report's release on 22 April that the scheme would not resume, and that he would work to restore public confidence in the home insulation industry. Rudd personally apologised to the families on 26 April. In a 2014 Royal Commission investigation into the scheme, Rudd accepted his Government's responsibility for systems failures that led to the deaths, describing them as a "deep tragedy" and acknowledged the pain of the families involved.
The Building the Education Revolution program rolled out 23,670 school projects around Australia representing a completion rate of 92 per cent. However, claims of overpricing and poor value for money in some projects resulted in a taskforce being established to examine the implementation of the scheme, led by Brad Orgill, the former CEO of UBS Australasia. Only 3% of complaints about the scheme were upheld, and most projects were found to have been good value for money.
In early 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Rudd stated "that the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed", and that "Neo-liberalism and the free-market fundamentalism it has produced has been revealed as little more than personal greed dressed up as an economic philosophy. And, ironically, it now falls to social democracy to prevent liberal capitalism from cannibalising itself." Rudd called for a new era of "social capitalism" from social democrats such as himself and US President Barack Obama to "support a global financial system that properly balances private incentive with public responsibility". The Center for Strategic and International Studies has acknowledged Kevin Rudd as one of the founders of the G20 that helped prevent a second global depression.
The Rudd government's third budget in 2010 projected a $40.8 billion deficit for 2010–11 but forecast that Australia would return to surplus by 2012–13. The government proposed a "super profits" tax on the mining industry and included $12 billion in revenue from the proposal in the forecast, although the tax had not been passed by the Senate.
Australia 2020 Summit
In February 2008 Rudd announced the Australia 2020 Summit, held from 19–20 April 2008, which brought together 1000 leading Australians to discuss ten major areas of policy innovation. Among the initiatives supported at the event, the summit voted in favour of a plebiscite on Australia "relinquishing ties" to the United Kingdom followed by a referendum on the model for an Australian republic, a bill of rights, the re-formation of an Indigenous peak representative body similar to ATSIC, (which had been abolished by the Howard government), the introduction of an Emissions Trading Scheme and a National Disability Insurance Scheme, and a review of the taxation system.
Findings released in April 2009 reported that nine out of the 1000 submitted ideas were to be immediately enacted and that the government was deliberating on other ideas proposed. By mid-2010, among the key reform ideas suggested, Prime Minister Rudd had sought to introduce an ETS, but postponed it after failing to secure passage through the senate; formed a consultative committee on a Bill of rights then rejected its recommendation for implementation; established the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples in 2010; commissioned the Henry Review of taxation (on the basis of which the Rudd government proposed a new "super-profits" tax on mining); and Rudd had described the issue of a vote on a republic as not being "a priority".
Industrial relations
Kevin Rudd came to office pledging to overhaul WorkChoices, a key Howard government policy commencing in March 2006 which had been attacked for reducing pay and conditions in the workplace, and which was crucial to Howard's defeat at the 2007 federal election.
Upon Rudd's arrival as Leader of the Opposition in December 2006, he gave a speech emphasising this commitment. In April 2007, he announced Labor's "Forward with Fairness" plan to take to the election, which included a phased abolition of Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) over five years, a safety net consisting of 10 National Employment Standards, an independent umpire and simplified industrial awards. It also included the restoration of unfair dismissal laws for companies with under 100 employees (probation period of 12 months for companies with less than 15 employees), and the retention of the Australian Building and Construction Commission until 2010. It retained the illegality of secondary boycotts, the right of employers to lock workers out, restriction of a union right of entry to workplaces, and restrictions on workers' right to strike. It was broadly seen as a concession to business on some areas of concern while still upholding key elements of the original plan.
On 20 March 2008, the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Act 2008 gained assent, and gave effect to some of these measures, including preventing any new AWAs from being signed. Rudd declared AWA's "dead and buried", saying: "Today we declare this shameful chapter in the history of Australia's workplaces to be dead and buried. And today with this legislation we begin the process of burying the rest of the Work Choices omnibus once and for all."
In 2009, the Fair Work Act was passed. Rudd also established a single industrial relations bureaucracy called Fair Work Australia, designed to play a far more interventionist role than the Howard government's Fair Pay Commission. Fair Work Australia mediated the 2011 Qantas industrial disputes.
Education
During the election, Rudd promised a "Digital Education Revolution", including provision of a computer on the desk of every upper secondary student. The program initially stalled with state governments asserting that the proposed funding was inadequate. The federal government increased proposed funding from $1.2 billion to $2 billion, and did not mandate that a computer be provided to each upper secondary student. The program supplied office software, photo and video editing software, and web design software, some of it unusable due to the hardware becoming obsolete.
Immigration
As prime minister, Rudd professed his belief in a "Big Australia", while his government increased the immigration quota after to around 300,000 people. In 2010, Rudd appointed Tony Burke as population minister to examine population goals.
In 2008, the government adjusted the mandatory detention policies established by the Keating and Howard governments and declared an end to the Pacific Solution. Boat arrivals increased considerably during 2009 and the Opposition said this was due to the government's policy adjustments, the Government said it was due to "push factors". After a fatal explosion on an asylum seeker boat in April 2009, Rudd said: "People smugglers are the vilest form of human life." Opposition frontbencher Tony Abbott said that Kevin Rudd was inept and hypocritical in his handling of the issue during the Oceanic Viking affair of October 2009. In April 2010, the Rudd government suspended processing new claims by Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers, who comprised 80 per cent of all boat arrivals, for three and six months respectively.
Taxation
In the 2007 election, Rudd committed to increase the fairness of the tax system. The 2008 Budget aimed to achieve this with a range of measures including $47 billion of tax cuts over four years focused on lower and middle income workers, an increase of the child care tax rebate from 30% to 50%, an increase of the income level at which the Medicare Levy Surcharge was targeted, and introducing means tests for some other benefits. Some other measures were blocked or amended in the Senate, in which any crossbencher in combination with the Coalition could defeat a bill.
In May 2008, Rudd committed to a "root and branch" review of all aspects of the Australian taxation system, led by the secretary of the Treasury, Ken Henry, and taking evidence from a wide range of sources. After receiving around 1,500 submissions and running a two-day conference, the Henry Tax Review reported to the Treasurer in December 2009. On 2 May 2010, the Rudd government formally responded, announcing a package of measures to help support investment in the non-mining sectors and rebalance the economy to a more sustainable trajectory.
The government's tax plan had three components: reducing the corporate tax rate to 28% and introducing investment incentives for small business; increasing the compulsory employee superannuation rate to 12% to increase the savings base; and eliminating state-based mining royalties, establishing a $5.6 billion infrastructure fund to support resources sector expansion and competitiveness, and increasing tax rebates for mining exploration. These three components were to be funded by a new Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT) on the 'super profits' of mining companies. The RSPT was a profits-based tax, which meant that when resource companies made large profits their effective tax rate increased and when those profits fell, their tax rate fell. The tax policy was the subject of strong opposition from the mining industry, including an advertising campaign.
Immediately following Kevin Rudd's replacement as Prime Minister by Julia Gillard, the Government did a deal with the largest mining companies to replace the RSPT with a new tax – the Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT). The Government claimed the new tax would raise $10.6 billion in its first two years, just $1.5 billion less than the $12 billion that RSPT had been forecast to raise. It was quickly realised that this was a wildly optimistic estimate. John Quiggin said, "All the changes that were made to the package between the original tax and the agreement they reached in the end were too generous." Prior to the introduction of the MRRT in the May 2012 budget, the government revised down its forecasts, suggesting that the tax would only bring in $3 billion for the financial year. In October 2012, the figure was reduced to $2 billion, while on 14 May 2013, it was announced that the receipts were expected to be less than $200 million.
Healthcare
Rudd announced a significant and far-reaching strategic reform to Australian healthcare in 2010. However, this was not pursued beyond in-principle agreements with Labor State and Territory governments, and was scrapped by Julia Gillard during her first year in office.
Families
The Rudd government increased the age pension by more than $100 a fortnight for singles and $76 for couples, the largest increase since 1909, in response to the Harmer Review which found that single retirees living on their own were unusually disadvantaged. It also lifted the Child Care Tax Rebate from 30 to 50 per cent for around 600,000 families – paid quarterly rather than annually. In addition, the Government introduced an Education Tax Refund of 50 per cent of up to $750 per child, benefiting 1.3 million families. Prime Minister Rudd was also responsible for Australia's first paid parental leave scheme – benefiting 150,000 new parents 18 weeks of paid leave each year.
Disabilities
Work began under Rudd on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. First floated as a big idea by advocates at the 2020 Summit in April 2008, the Rudd government doubled funding for disability services to the States and introduced the National Disability Strategy. The PM referred the idea of an insurance scheme to the Productivity Commission in 2009, announced at the National Disability Awards in Canberra.
Foreign affairs
As prime minister, Rudd saw Australia as being able to help shape world responses to urgent global challenges through active diplomacy, including the creation of global and regional institutions and building of coalitions, and playing an important role in the "Asia Pacific century".
Rudd's first official overseas visit as Prime Minister was to Indonesia in December 2007 for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, then visited Australian troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. In February 2008, he visited East Timor following the assassination attempt on the President of East Timor, Dr José Ramos-Horta, and in March 2008 travelled to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, Dr Derek Sikua, was also the first foreign head of government Mr Rudd received as Prime Minister. In April 2008, Rudd signed Australia to the global Millennium Development Goals Call to Action.
Pacific Islands
A close, co-operative relationship was developed with the Pacific Island nations, leading to Australia hosting the Pacific Islands Forum in 2009, and the application of a Millennium Development Goals framework to Australian aid programs with development partners across the Pacific.
The revised aid program set out concrete goals in areas such as health, education and employment for Australia's 15 development partners in the region. In August 2008, at the Pacific Islands Forum in Niue, Mr Rudd also announced the introduction of a three-year pilot seasonal worker scheme for up to 2,500 workers from Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Tonga and Kiribati to work in Australia's horticulture industry for up to seven months. This acceptance of guest workers was a radical departure from previous Australian policy. The seasonal worker scheme got off to slow start, bringing in 1,100 workers to 2012. However, it accelerated over the ensuing years as demand for labour increased.
Iraq
In his 2007 election campaign, Kevin Rudd committed to withdrawing Australian military forces from Iraq. He dismissed each of the reasons which had been used to commit Australian troops to the Iraq War in 2003, and accused his predecessor of abusing pre-war intelligence, some of which indicated that an attack on Iraq would increase the threat of terrorism.
In accordance with a Multinational Force Iraq agreement with the new Iraqi Government,
Labor's plan to withdraw the Australian Defence Force combat contingent was completed on 28 July 2009, three days ahead of the deadline. In mid-2010, there were about 65 ADF personnel remaining in Iraq supporting UN operations or the Australian Embassy.
In March 2009, Nouri Al-Maliki, the then-Prime Minister of Iraq, visited Australia. During the visit, Prime Minister Al-Maliki and then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signed a declaration on increased cooperation in six key areas and to enhance trade and investment ties. The leaders agreed to an Australia-Iraq Agricultural Partnership focused on bolstering Iraq's agricultural productivity and food security as a central element of Iraq's reconstruction and development. Australia also appointed a Senior Trade Commissioner to contribute to stronger commercial links, and committed to an AusAID presence in Baghdad to support the Government's three-year A$165 million development assistance commitment.
Afghanistan
The Rudd government redefined Australia's role in Afghanistan, including Australia's particular responsibility for Uruzgan Province. In Afghanistan, the Australian presence not only trained the 4th Brigade of the Afghan National Army, but also undertook large scale programs in the education of women and girls, the building of mosques with schools attached, basic healthcare and the extension of the road network. From a total of $56 million spent on foreign aid in 2009–2010, $25 million went to Afghanistan through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund.
Rudd continued to support Australian military involvement in Afghanistan, despite the growing number of Australian casualties. On 29 April 2009, Rudd committed 450 extra troops to the region bringing the total to 1550. Explaining the deployment, he said, "A measured increase in Australian forces in Afghanistan will enhance the security of Australian citizens, given that so many terrorists attacking Australians in the past have been trained in Afghanistan."
On a November 2009 visit to Afghanistan, Rudd told Australian troops: "We from Australia will remain for the long haul." In April 2010, the Australian Government decided not to commit further troops to Uruzgan Province to replace Dutch forces when they withdrew, but increased the numbers of diplomatic, development aid, and police personnel to around 50 with military effort and civilian work focussed on Uruzgan.
The United States diplomatic cables leak reported Rudd's criticisms of Australia's European allies in the Afghanistan campaign.
Political positions
Nationhood
As shadow foreign minister, Rudd reformulated Labor's foreign policy in terms of "Three Pillars": engagement with the UN, engagement with Asia, and the US alliance.
Although disagreeing with the original commitment to the Iraq War, Rudd supports the continued deployment of Australian troops in Iraq, but not the continued deployment of combat troops. Rudd was also in favour of Australia's military presence in Afghanistan.
Rudd backs the road map for peace plan and defended Israel's actions during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, condemning Hezbollah and Hamas for violating Israeli territory.
As prime minister, he also pledged support for East Timor, stating that Australian troops would remain in East Timor for as long as East Timor's government wanted them to.
Rudd also gave his support for the independence of Kosovo from Serbia,
before Australia officially recognised the republic. This decision sparked protests of the Serbian Australian community against Rudd.
In 2008 Rudd advised the appointment of Quentin Bryce as the first female Governor-General of Australia to Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia.
Society
Some commentators have described Rudd as a social conservative. He has moved to remove financial discrimination against LGBT couples, but he had previously been opposed to legislation to recognize same-sex marriage.
In May 2013, however, Rudd announced he had changed his position based on personal experience and the fact that his children had long thought him "an unreconstructed dinosaur" for not supporting marriage equality legislation. He went on to say that "I believe the secular Australian state should be able to recognise same sex marriage" while opposing any compulsion for churches to marry same-sex couples if that was not their wish.
In a conscience vote in 2006, Rudd supported legislation to transfer regulatory authority for the abortion-inducing drug RU486 from the federal Minister For Health to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, removing the minister's veto on the use of RU486 in Australia. Rudd said that "For me and for the reasons I have outlined, the life of the unborn is of great importance. And having tested these reasons with men and women of faith, and men and women of science, that I've decided not to oppose this bill. "
In another 2006 conscience vote, Rudd voted against legislation to expand embryonic stem cell research
In May 2008, Rudd was drawn into the controversy over photographic artist Bill Henson and his work depicting naked adolescents as part of a show due to open at an inner-city gallery in Sydney. In a televised interview, Rudd stated that he found the images "absolutely revolting" and that they had "no artistic merit". These views swiftly drew censure from members of the "creative stream" who attended the 2020 Summit convened by Rudd, led by actor Cate Blanchett.
Resignation
On 23 June 2010, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Rudd's Chief of Staff, Alister Jordan, had talked to over half of the Labor caucus to gauge the level of Rudd's support within the party. This followed significant media speculation that his deputy, Julia Gillard, would challenge him for the leadership. Late that evening, after it became clear that Rudd had lost the support of a large number of Labor MPs, Gillard publicly requested that Rudd hold a leadership election as soon as possible. Rudd subsequently announced a leadership election for 24 June, saying that he would stand. Hours before the vote, however, it became clear that Rudd would not have the support to win, and so he stood down as Labor leader and prime minister.
Gillard was elected unopposed, becoming Australia's first female prime minister. Bill Shorten, the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services and a key member of the Labor Party's right faction, speculated that it was the Government's handling of the insulation program, the sudden announcement of change of policy on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and the way in which they had "introduced the debate" about the Resource Super Profits Tax as the main reasons which had led to a collapse in support for Rudd's leadership.
Barry Cohen, a former minister in the Hawke government, said that many in the Labor Party felt ignored by Rudd's centralist leadership style, and his at times insulting and rude treatment of staff and other ministers. Many were willing to overlook this due to his immense popularity, but when Rudd's poll numbers began to drop in late 2009 and 2010, they wanted to install a leader more able to establish consensus and involve the party caucus as a whole. Rudd became the first Australian prime minister to be removed from office by his own party during his first term.
2010 election
Rudd announced following his resignation as prime minister that he would re-contest his seat of Griffith for the 2010 federal election, set for 21 August. Early in the campaign, he suffered abdominal pain and underwent surgery to remove his gall bladder. His first public statements after the operation were in an interview with ABC Radio National's Phillip Adams for Late Night Live, which received wide national coverage; in it, he denied being the source of political leaks concerning Julia Gillard. Gillard later requested that Rudd join the national campaign to boost Labor's chances of re-election, which he did. Rudd and Gillard were subsequently photographed together during a private meeting in Brisbane, both appearing uncomfortable, unsmiling and unspeaking. Rudd was comfortably re-elected as the Member for Griffith. Labor under Gillard went on to form a minority government after the election resulted in a hung parliament.
Foreign Minister (2010–2012)
Prime Minister Julia Gillard appointed Rudd as Minister for Foreign Affairs in Cabinet on 14 September 2010. He represented Gillard at a UN General Assembly meeting in September 2010.
WikiLeaks, in 2010, published material about Kevin Rudd's term as prime minister, included United States diplomatic cables leak. As foreign minister, Rudd denounced publishing classified documents by WikiLeaks. The Australian media reported that references to Rudd in the cables included frank discussions between Rudd and US officials about China and Afghanistan. This included negative assessments of some of Rudd's foreign policy initiatives and leadership style, written in confidence for the US Government by the US Embassy staff in Australia.
Before his first visit to Israel as Foreign Minister, Rudd stated Israel should be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman rejected the call.
Following the 2011 Egyptian revolution and resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Rudd called for "constitutional reform and a clear timetable towards free and fair elections".
In response to the 2011 Libyan civil war, Rudd announced in early March 2011, the international community should enforce a no-fly zone, as the "lesser of two evils". The US officials in Canberra sought clarification on what the Australian Government was proposing. Gillard said the United Nations Security Council should consider a full range of alternatives, and that Australia was not planning to send forces to enforce a no-fly zone.
Following the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Rudd announced after talking with Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto, he had offered Australian field hospitals and disaster victim identification teams to help with recovery. Rudd also said he had offered Australian atomic expertise and sought urgent briefings following an explosion at a nuclear plant.
Rudd announced his resignation as Foreign Minister on 22 February 2012, citing Gillard's failure to counter character attacks launched by Simon Crean and "other faceless men" as his reasons. Speaking to the press, Rudd explained that he considered Gillard's silence as evidence that she no longer supported him, and therefore he could not continue in office. "I can only serve as Foreign Minister if I have the confidence of Prime Minister Gillard and her senior ministers," he said.
Rudd resigned as the Minister for Foreign Affairs followed heated speculation about a possible leadership spill. Craig Emerson temporarily replaced Rudd as Minister for Foreign Affairs, until Senator Bob Carr became Minister for Foreign Affairs on 13 March 2012.
Leadership tensions
February 2012 spill
Speculation regarding Rudd's desire to challenge Gillard to regain the leadership of the Labor Party—and hence the Prime Ministership—became a near constant feature of media commentary on the Gillard government. In October 2011, Queensland MP Graham Perrett, the member for the marginal Brisbane-area seat of Moreton, announced that if Labor replaced Gillard with Rudd, he would resign and force a by-election—a move that would likely cost Labor its majority. In her speech to Labor's 2011 Conference, Prime Minister Gillard mentioned every Labor Prime Minister since World War II with the exception of Kevin Rudd. The speech was widely reported as a snub to Rudd. In early 2012, Labor MPs began to openly discuss the issue of leadership. Simon Crean told Radio 3AW, "[Rudd] can't be leader again...people will not elect as leaders those they don't perceive as team players".
Following a Four Corners program that revisited Gillard's role in Rudd's downfall as prime minister, a breakdown in party discipline saw Labor MP Darren Cheeseman call on Gillard to resign, while his colleague Steve Gibbons called Rudd a "psychopath with a giant ego". Amidst the controversy, an expletive-laden video of out-takes of an intemperate Kevin Rudd attempting to record a Chinese language message during his time as prime minister was released anonymously on YouTube, apparently aimed at discrediting his push for the leadership. While Rudd said publicly only that he was "happy as Foreign Minister", media commentators widely declared that a leadership challenge was "on".
When Rudd resigned on 22 February 2012, Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan lambasted Rudd as "dysfunctional". His Cabinet colleague Tony Burke also spoke against Rudd, saying of his time in office that "the stories that were around of the chaos, of the temperament, of the inability to have decisions made, they are not stories.". Labor Senator Doug Cameron came out in support of Rudd and called on his colleagues to show him respect.
Later that day, Rudd said that he did not think Gillard could defeat the Coalition at the next election and that, since his resignation, he had received encouragement from Labor MPs to contest the leadership. Gillard responded to these developments by announcing a leadership election for the morning of 27 February 2012, and stating that she would be a candidate. Two days later, Rudd announced his own candidacy. Before the vote, Rudd promised that he would not initiate any further leadership challenges against Gillard should he lose, but he did not rule out becoming Leader again at a later date.
Gillard won the leadership election comfortably with 71 votes to Rudd's 31. Following the result Rudd returned to the backbenches, reiterating that he would not mount any further leadership challenges against Gillard, and stating that he would support her in any further leadership elections.
March 2013 spill
On 21 March 2013, following a request from Simon Crean, the prime minister, Julia Gillard, called a leadership spill. It was widely reported that Rudd was considering nominating for the leadership of the Australian Labor Party, but he chose not to stand. Gillard was the sole candidate and was elected unopposed.
June 2013 spill
On 10 June 2013, the security of Gillard's position as leader was put in doubt following the loss of significant support in the Labor caucus. Furthermore, polling in the preceding week indicated that the party could be left with a very low number of 40 seats in the Federal Parliament, while one Labor backbencher compared the Labor Party to the Titanic. ABC reported that "some former staunch supporters" held the view that Gillard could not win the election, and ABC journalist Barrie Cassidy identified Rudd as the only feasible replacement.
The political editor of the Australian newspaper, Dennis Shanahan, reported on 10 June 2013 that Rudd was "mobbed" by supporters in the Victorian city of Geelong on 7 June 2013 and that he was "expected to be returned to the ALP leadership".
On 26 June 2013, Julia Gillard called a leadership spill, intending to head off any challenge. Rudd announced that he would challenge the prime minister. Gillard said that, in her view, the loser of the ballot should retire from politics; Rudd agreed that this would be appropriate. Key Gillard supporter Bill Shorten, who was one of the main figures responsible for Rudd's previous overturn as prime minister, this time announced his support for Rudd. Rudd subsequently won the leadership ballot, 57–45, and became the Leader of the Labor Party for the second time.
Second term as Prime Minister (2013)
Following the leadership election on 26 June 2013, Julia Gillard resigned as prime minister. After seeking legal advice from the acting Solicitor-General, Robert Orr, the Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, invited Rudd to be sworn in as prime minister for the second time on 27 June. At 9:53 am (AEST), Rudd was sworn in as prime minister for a second term, becoming the second Labor Prime Minister to have a second non-consecutive term; the first was Andrew Fisher.
2013 election
On 4 August 2013, Rudd announced that he had visited Governor-General Quentin Bryce at Parliament House, asking her to dissolve Parliament and for a federal election to be held on 7 September. After Labor subsequently lost the election, Rudd resigned as prime minister for the second time on 18 September 2013.
Post-political career (2013–present)
Resignation from Parliament
On 13 November 2013, Rudd announced that he would soon resign from Parliament. In his valedictory speech to the House of Representatives, Rudd expressed his attachment to his community but said he wanted to dedicate more time to his family and minimise disruption to House proceedings. Rudd submitted his resignation in writing to the Speaker, Bronwyn Bishop, on 22 November 2013, formally ending his parliamentary career. Terri Butler was selected to run for the Labor Party at the resulting by-election in the electorate of Griffith to be held on 8 February 2014. Rudd offered Butler his support and advice, and campaigned with her in a low-key appearance on 11 January 2014. Butler ultimately succeeded Rudd in the seat.
International roles
Since leaving the Australian Parliament, Rudd has served in senior roles for a range of international organisations and educational institutions.
In early 2014, Rudd left Australia to work in the United States, where he was appointed a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he completed a major research effort on the future of US-China relations. Through 2014 Rudd joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies as a distinguished statesman, and was appointed a distinguished fellow at both the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago, Illinois and Chatham House, London.
In September of that year, he was appointed Chair of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism at the International Peace Institute in Vienna, Austria, and in October became the first President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York City.
On 5 November 2015, Rudd was appointed to chair Sanitation and Water For All, a global partnership to achieve universal access to drinking water and adequate sanitation. He has also actively contributed to the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on China. Rudd is also a member of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council. On 21 October 2016, he was awarded an honorary professorship at Peking University.
In 2016, Rudd asked the Government of Australia (then a government of the Liberal/National Coalition) to nominate him for Secretary-General of the United Nations. At its meeting on 28 July, the Cabinet was divided on his suitability for the role and, on that basis, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull decided to decline the request; since nomination by the Australian government was considered a necessary prerequisite for candidacy, Turnbull's decision essentially ended Rudd's campaign; Rudd later confirmed as much. However, there remains dispute over what if any earlier assurances Turnbull may have given to Rudd and about what happened in the Cabinet meeting.
Rudd is also a member of the Global Leadership Foundation, a non-profit organisation comprising a network of former heads of state or government.
Ambassador to the United States
In late 2022, there were calls for Rudd to be appointed as the next Australian Ambassador to the United States. On 20 December 2022, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong announced that Rudd would be appointed as the 23rd Ambassador of Australia to the United States in early 2023, succeeding Arthur Sinodinos. Rudd assumed the position on 20 March 2023.
Autobiography
In October 2017, Rudd launched the first volume of his autobiography, entitled Not for the Faint-hearted: A Personal Reflection on Life, Politics and Purpose, which chronicles his life until becoming prime minister in 2007.
Royal commission into Australian news media
On 10 October 2020, Rudd launched a petition for a royal commission into what he termed the "Murdoch media monopoly" and its impact on Australian democracy. The public demand to sign the petition following Rudd's Twitter announcement caused the Australian Parliament House's ePetitions site to experience technical difficulties. On 25 October 2020, Rudd was joined by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull who gave him his support, tweeting that he too had signed the petition. With more than 500,000 signatures, the petition became the most signed parliamentary e-petition in Australia and the third most signed parliamentary petition ever. The petition was tabled in the House of Representatives by Labor MP Andrew Leigh on 9 November 2020. Peta Credlin, a Sky News commentator gave an on air apology in February 2021 to Rudd as part of a confidential legal settlement regarding defamation over comments she made in 2020 about him and his petition.
Academic
In 2017, Rudd began studying for a doctorate on Xi Jinping at Jesus College, Oxford. In 2022, Rudd was conferred with a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Oxford. In his thesis, titled "China's new Marxist nationalism: defining Xi Jinping's ideological worldview", Rudd argues that Xi has adopted a more Marxist political and economic approach to government and that will have negative consequences for economic growth and China as a whole.
Personal life
In 1981, Rudd married Thérèse Rein whom he had met at a gathering of the Australian Student Christian Movement during his university years. Both were residents at Burgmann College during their first year of university. Rudd and Rein have three children. Rudd is a supporter of the Brisbane Lions.
Religion
Rudd and his family attend the Anglican church of St John the Baptist in Bulimba in his electorate. Although raised a Roman Catholic, Rudd was actively involved in the Evangelical Union while studying at the Australian National University, and he began attending Anglican services in the 1980s with his wife. In December 2009, Rudd attended a Catholic Mass to commemorate the canonisation of Mary MacKillop at which he received Holy Communion. Rudd's actions provoked criticism and debate among both political and religious circles. A report by The Australian quoted that Rudd embraced Anglicanism but at the same time did not formally renounce his Catholic faith.
Rudd was a mainstay of the parliamentary prayer group in Parliament House, Canberra.
He has been vocal about his Christianity and has given a number of prominent interviews to the Australian religious press on the topic.
Rudd has defended church representatives engaging with policy debates, particularly with respect to WorkChoices legislation, climate change, global poverty, therapeutic cloning, and asylum seekers. In 2003, he described himself as "an old-fashioned Christian socialist". In a 2006 essay in The Monthly, he argued:
A [truly] Christian perspective on contemporary policy debates may not prevail. It must nonetheless be argued. And once heard, it must be weighed, together with other arguments from different philosophical traditions, in a fully contestable secular polity. A Christian perspective, informed by a social gospel or Christian socialist tradition, should not be rejected contemptuously by secular politicians as if these views are an unwelcome intrusion into the political sphere. If the churches are barred from participating in the great debates about the values that ultimately underpin our society, our economy and our polity, then we have reached a very strange place indeed.
He cites Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a personal inspiration in this regard.
When in Canberra, Rudd and Rein worshipped at St John the Baptist Church, Reid, where they were married. Rudd often did a "door stop" interview for the media when leaving the church yard.
Health
In 1993, Rudd underwent a cardiac valve transplant operation (Ross procedure), receiving a cadaveric aortic valve replacement for rheumatic heart disease. In 2011, Rudd underwent a second cardiac valve transplant operation, making a full recovery from the surgery.
Published works
See also
Second Rudd Ministry
List of prime ministers of Elizabeth II
References
Bibliography
Paul Kelly, Triumph and Demise: The Broken Promise of a Labor Generation, Melbourne University Press, 2014. Triumph and Demise
External links
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court%20of%20Session
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Court of Session
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The Court of Session () is the supreme civil court of Scotland and constitutes part of the College of Justice; the supreme criminal court of Scotland is the High Court of Justiciary. The Court of Session sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh and is both a trial court and a court of appeal. Decisions of the court can be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, with the permission of either the Inner House or the Supreme Court. The Court of Session and the local sheriff courts of Scotland have concurrent jurisdiction for all cases with a monetary value in excess of ; the plaintiff is given first choice of court. However, the majority of complex, important, or high value cases are brought in the Court of Session. Cases can be remitted to the Court of Session from the sheriff courts, including the Sheriff Personal Injury Court, at the request of the presiding sheriff. Legal aid, administered by the Scottish Legal Aid Board, is available to persons with little disposable income for cases in the Court of Session.
The court is a unitary collegiate court, with all judges other than the Lord President of the Court of Session and the Lord Justice Clerk holding the same rank and title—Senator of the College of Justice and also Lord or Lady of Council and Session. The Lord President is chief justice of the court, and also head of the judiciary of Scotland; the Lord Justice Clerk is his deputy. There are 35 senators, in addition to a number of temporary judges; these temporary judges are typically serving sheriffs and sheriffs principal, or advocates in private practice. The senators sit also in the High Court of Justiciary, where the Lord President is called the Lord Justice General, and senators are known as Lords Commissioners of Justiciary.
The court is divided into the Inner House of twelve senators, which is primarily an appeal court, and the Outer House, which is primarily a court of first instance. The Inner House is further divided into two divisions of six senators: the first division is presided over by the Lord President, and the second division is presided over by the Lord Justice Clerk. Cases in the Inner House are normally heard before a bench of three senators, though more complex or important cases are presided over by five senators. On very rare occasions the whole Inner House has presided over a case. Cases in the Outer House are heard by a single senator sitting as a Lord Ordinary, occasionally with a jury of twelve.
The court is administered by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, and the most senior clerk of court is the Principal Clerk of Session and Justiciary; the Principal Clerk is responsible for all court staff, and is also responsible for the administration of the High Court of Justiciary.
The court was established in 1532 by an Act of the Parliament of Scotland, and was initially presided over by the Lord Chancellor of Scotland and had equal numbers of clergy and laity. The judges were all appointed from the King's Council.
As of May 2017, the Lord President was Lord Carloway, who was appointed on 19 December 2015, and the Lord Justice Clerk was Lady Dorrian, who was appointed on 13 April 2016.
History
Establishment
The Lords of Council and Session had previously been part of the King's Council, but after receiving support in the form of a papal bull of 1531, King James V established a separate institution—the College of Justice or Court of Session—in 1532, with a structure based on that of the Parlement of Paris. The Lord Chancellor of Scotland was to preside over the court, which was to be composed of fifteen lords appointed from the King's Council. Seven of the lords had to be churchmen, while another seven had to be laymen. An Act of Parliament in 1640 restricted membership of the court to laymen only, by withdrawing the right of churchmen to sit in judgement. The number of laymen was increased to maintain the number of lords in the court.
Courts Act 1672
The Courts Act 1672 allowed for five of the Lords of Session to be appointed as Lords Commissioners of Justiciary, and as such becomes judges of the High Court of Justiciary. The High Court of Justiciary is the supreme criminal court of Scotland. Previously the Lord Justice General, the president of the High Court, had appointed deputes to preside in his absence. From 1672 to 1887, the High Court consisted of the Lord Justice General, Lord Justice Clerk, and five Lords of Session.
Treaty of Union
The Court of Session is explicitly preserved "in all time coming" in Article XIX of the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland, subsequently passed into legislation by the Acts of Union in 1706 and 1707 respectively.
19th Century
Court of Session Act 1810
Several significant changes were made to the court during the 19th century, with the Court of Session Act 1810 formally dividing the Court of Session into the Outer House (with first-instance jurisdiction before a Lord Ordinary) and Inner House (with appellate jurisdiction.) Cases in the Outer House were to be heard by Lords Ordinary who either sat alone or with a jury of twelve. Cases in the Inner House were to be heard by three Lords of Council and Session, but significant or complicated cases were to be heard by five or more judges. A further separation was made in 1815, by the Jury Trials (Scotland) Act 1815, with the creation of a lesser Jury Court to allow certain civil cases to be tried by jury. In 1830 the Jury Court, along with the Admiralty and Commissary courts, was absorbed into the Court of Session following the enactment of the Court of Session Act 1830.
Judicial remuneration
In 1834, the remuneration and working conditions were a matter of public discussion and debate in the House of Commons. On 6 May 1834 Sir George Sinclair addressed the House of Commons to plead for an increase in the salaries of the senators, noting that "a Civil Judge in the Supreme Court in Scotland received only " and the masters in the Court of Chancery were paid . A Select Committee was appointed to investigate the matter.
In October 1834, The Spectator reported on the conflicting views around the remuneration and working conditions of the judges of the Court of Session, with conflicting views being presented in response to the Report on the Scotch Judges' Salaries. The Spectator reported the arguments made by Sir William Rae, Lord Advocate, that the judges of the Court of Session had considerable duties, which he listed as:
The Select Committee's Report recommended that the salaries of the Lord President, Lord Justice Clerk and remaining senators should be increased, and also recommended that all senators should become Lords Commissioners of Justiciary. The recommended salaries were:
Lord President: increase from to
Lord Justice Clerk: increase from to
Senator: increase from to
However, The Spectator was very critical of the actual amount of work done by the judges of the Court, noting that there was much public criticism of their effectiveness. The article noted that the judges were entitled to 7 months vacation in each year. The Spectator also asserted that civil justice was out of the reach of the poor in Scotland.
Unification of supreme courts judiciary
In 1887 all of the Lords of Session were made Lords Commissioners of Justiciary, and thus judges of the High Court of Justiciary, following the passage of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1887.
Remit and jurisdiction
Civil cases
The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland, and it shares concurrent jurisdiction with the local sheriff courts over all cases with a value of more than (including personal injury claims.) Where a choice of jurisdiction exists between the Court of Session and the sheriff courts, including the Sheriff Personal Injury Court, it is for the pursuer to decide which court to raise the action in. The court sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh and is both a trial court and a court of appeal.
Exchequer cases
The primary task of the Court of Session is to decide on civil law cases. The court is also the Court of Exchequer for Scotland, a jurisdiction previously held by the Court of Exchequer. (In 1856, the functions of that court were transferred to the Court of Session, and one of the Lords Ordinary sits as Lord Ordinary in Exchequer Causes when hearing cases therein.) This was restated by the Court of Session Act 1988.
Admiralty cases
The Court of Session is also the admiralty court for Scotland, having been given the duties of that court by the provisions of the Court of Session Act 1830. The boundaries of the jurisdiction of the Court of Session in maritime cases were specified in 1999 by an Order in Council: the Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundaries Order 1999.
Nobile officium
The jurisdiction of the Court of Session extends beyond statutory and common law powers, with the Court having an equitable and inherent jurisdiction called the nobile officium, unique among British courts. The nobile officium enables the court to provide a legal remedy where statute or the common law are silent, and prevent mistakes in procedure or practice that would lead to injustice. The exercise of this power is limited by adherence to precedent, and when legislation or the common law do not already specify the relevant remedy. Thus, the court cannot set aside a statutory power, but can deal with situations where the law is silent, or where there is an omission in statute. Such an omission is sometimes termed a casus improvisus.
The nobile officium was used to implement recognition of an order of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales for the placement of children in secure accommodation in Scotland, in the case of Cumbria County Council, Petitioners [2016] CSIH 92. An application was made to the Court of Session under the nobile officium by Cumbria County Council, Stockport Metropolitan Council, and Blackpool Borough Council on behalf of four children. There was insufficient accommodation in England to house the children, so the councils sought to place them in suitable Scottish accommodation. However, legislation was silent on the cross-border jurisdiction of such orders as made by the High Court of Justice. Nonetheless, equivalent orders made by a Scottish court were enforceable in England and Wales. Thus, the Court of Session found, using its inherent powers, that the orders could be applied as though they had been issued by the Court of Session itself.
In September 2019 UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he would "rather be dead in a ditch" than apply for an extension to Britain's application to leave the European Union (Brexit), due on 31 October, although the UK parliament had required him to do so under circumstances laid out in the Benn Act. Following this, an application was made to the Court of Session to require the Prime Minister to sign a letter requesting extension if no exit deal could be agreed in time. The applicants hoped that the unique power of nobile officium would enable the court to send the article 50 extension letter on Johnson's behalf, if he declined to do so.
Appellate jurisdiction
Appeals in the Court of Session are generally heard by the Inner House before three judges, although in important cases in which there is a conflict of authority a court of five judges or, exceptionally, seven, may be convened. The Inner House is sub-divided into two divisions of equal authority and jurisdiction - the First Division, headed by the Lord President; and the Second Division headed by the Lord Justice Clerk. The courts to hear each case are, ordinarily, drawn from these divisions. When neither is available to chair a hearing, an Extra Division of three senators is summoned, chaired by the most senior judge present; due to pressure of business the Extra Division sits frequently nowadays.
Until 2015 civil cases that went to a full proof (hearing) in the sheriff courts of Scotland could be appealed by right to the Inner House of the Court of Session. Appellants could take the appeal to a sheriff principal for an initial appeal, and then onto the Inner House, or they could take the appeal directly to the Inner House. However, the appellate jurisdiction of sheriffs principal for all civil cases (including summary cause and small claims actions) was transferred to the Sheriff Appeal Court following passage of the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014. The 2014 Act also modified the appellate jurisdiction of the Inner House with civil appeals from the sheriff courts being heard by an appeal sheriff sitting in the Sheriff Appeal Court. Such appeals are binding on all sheriff courts in Scotland, and appeals can only be remitted (transferred) to the Inner House where they are deemed to be of wider public interest, raise a significant point of law, or are particularly complex:
Legal aid
Legal aid, administered by the Scottish Legal Aid Board, is available to persons with little disposable income for cases in the Court of Session.
Oath of Allegiance
The Oath of Allegiance is taken by holders of political office in Scotland before the Lord President of the Court of Session at a meeting of the court.
Acts of Sederunt
Civil procedure in Scotland is regulated by the Court of Session through Acts of Sederunt, which are subordinate legislation and take legal force as Scottish statutory instruments. The power to enact Acts of Sederunt is granted by the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 and the Tribunals (Scotland) Act 2014, which replaced powers regulated by the Court of Session Act 1988 and the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act 1971. These are generally incorporated into the Rules of Court, which are published by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and form the basis for Scots civil procedure.
Acts of Sederunt regulate civil procedure in the Court of Session, the sheriff courts of Scotland (including the Sheriff Appeal Court and Sheriff Personal Injury Court), and in the tribunals of Scotland. The Court of Session can amend or repeal any enactment, including primary legislation, if it relates to matters an Act of Sederunt may cover. Rules for regulating civil procedure are decided upon by the Scottish Civil Justice Council before being presented to the Lords of Session for decision; the Lords of Session may approve, amend or reject the rules so presented.
An Act of Sederunt, Act of Sederunt (Regulation of Advocates) 2011, devolves authority to the Faculty of Advocates to regulate admission to practice as an advocate before the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary; advocates are notionally officers of the court, and are de jure appointed by the court.
Structure
Houses and Lords Ordinary
The Court of Session constitutes part of the College of Justice, and is divided into two houses. The Lords Ordinary sit in the Outer House, and usually singly. The Lords of Council and Session sit in the Inner House, typically in threes. The nature of cases referred to the Court of Session will determine which house that case shall be heard in.
Inner House
The Inner House is the senior part of the Court of Session, and is both a court of appeal and a court of first instance. The Inner House has historically been the main locus of an extraordinary equitable power called the nobile officium – the High Court of Justiciary has a similar power in criminal cases. Criminal appeals in Scotland are handled by the High Court of Justiciary sitting as the Court of Appeal.
The Inner House is the part of the Court of Session which acts as a court of appeal for cases decided the Outer House and of civil cases from the sheriff courts, the Court of the Lord Lyon, Scottish Land Court, and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland. The Inner House always sits as a panel of at least three senators and with no jury.
Unlike in the High Court of Justiciary, there is a right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom of cases from the Inner House. The right of appeal only exists when the Court of Session grants leave to this effect or when the decision of the Inner House is by majority. Until the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 came into force in October 2009, this right of appeal was to the House of Lords (or sometimes to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council).
Outer House
The Outer House is a court of first instance, although some statutory appeals are remitted to it by the Inner House. Such appeals are originally referred from the sheriff courts, the court of first instance for civil causes in the court system of Scotland. Judges in the Outer House are referred to as Lord or Lady [name], or as Lord Ordinary. The Outer House is superficially similar to the High Court in England and Wales, and in this house judges sit singly—and with a jury of twelve in personal injury or defamation actions. Subject-matter jurisdiction is extensive and extends to all kinds of civil claims unless expressly excluded by statute, and it shares much of this jurisdiction with the sheriff courts. Some classes of cases, such as intellectual property disputes, are heard by an individual judge designated by the Lord President as the jurist for intellectual property cases.
Final judgments of the Outer House, as well as some important judgements on procedure, may be appealed to the Inner House. Other judgments may be so appealed with leave.
Lands Valuation Appeal Court
The Lands Valuation Appeal Court is a Scottish civil court, composed of three Court of Session judges, and established under Section 7 of the Valuation of Lands (Scotland) Amendment Act 1879. It hears cases where the decision of a local Valuation Appeal Committee is disputed. The senators who make up the Lands Valuation Appeal Court was specified in 2013 by the Act of Sederunt (Lands Valuation Appeal Court) 2013, which has both Lord Carloway (Lord President) and Lady Dorrian (Lord Justice Clerk) as members with a further four senators specified.
Rights of audience
Members of the Faculty of Advocates, known as advocates or counsel, and as of 1990 also some solicitors, known as solicitor-advocates, have practically exclusive right of audience rights of audience in the court. Barristers from England and Wales have no right of audience, which caused controversy in 2011 (over an appeal from an immigration tribunal) and again in 2015 (over an appeal from a tax tribunal) when barristers recognised by the General Council of the Bar were denied the right to take an appeal on behalf of clients they had represented at tribunal.
Judges and office holders
The court's president is the Lord President, the second most senior judge is the Lord Justice Clerk, with a further 33 senators of the College of Justice holding office as Lords of Council and Session. The total numbers of judges is fixed by Section 1 of the Court of Session Act 1988, and subject to amendment by Order in Council. Judges are appointed for life, subject to dismissal if they are found unfit for office, and subject to a compulsory retirement age of 75.
Temporary judges can also be appointed.
The court is a unitary collegiate court, with all judges other than the Lord President and the Lord Justice Clerk holding the same rank and title—Senator of the College of Justice and also Lord or Lady of Council and Session. There are thirty-four judges, in addition to a number of temporary judges; these temporary judges are typically sheriffs, or advocates in private practice. The judges sit also in the High Court of Justiciary, where the Lord President is called the Lord Justice General.
Appointment
To be eligible for appointment as a senator, or temporary judge, a person must have served at least five years as sheriff or sheriff principal, been an advocate for five years, a solicitor with five years rights of audience before the Court of Session or High Court of Justiciary, or been a Writer to the Signet for ten years (having passed the exam in civil law at least two years before application.)
Appointments are made by the First Minister of Scotland on the recommendation of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland. The Judicial Appointments Board has a statutory authority for making recommendations under Sections 9 to 27 of the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008 (as amended by the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014). Appointments to the Inner House are made by the Lord President and Lord Justice Clerk, with the consent of the Scottish Ministers.
Removal from office
The Lord President, Lord Justice Clerk and other senators can be removed from office after a tribunal has been convened to examine their fitness for office. The tribunal is convened on the request of the Lord President, or in other circumstances that the First Minister sees fit. However, the First Minister must consult the Lord President (for all other judges) and the Lord Justice Clerk (when the Lord President is under investigation.) Should the tribunal recommend their dismissal the Scottish Parliament can resolve that the First Minister make a recommendation to the Monarch.
Lord President
The Lord President is the most senior judge of the Court of Session, and is also president of the 1st Division of the Inner House.
Lord Justice Clerk
The Justice Clerk is the second most senior judge of the Court of Session, and deputises for the Lord President when the Lord President is absent, unable to fulfil his duties, or when there is a vacancy for Lord President. The Lord Justice Clerk is president of the 2nd Division of the Inner House.
Principal Clerk of Session and Justiciary
The administration of the court is part of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, and is led by the Principal Clerk of Session and Justiciary. The Principal Clerk is responsible for the administration of the Supreme Courts of Scotland and their associated staff. As of June 2018, the Principal Clerk is Gillian Prentice.
See also
Bill Chamber
Office of the Accountant of Court
Senators of the College of Justice
Historic list of senators of the College of Justice
List of Scottish legal cases
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Court Service
Court of Session Digital Archive
Faculty of Advocates
Scottish Legal Aid Board
1532 establishments in Scotland
16th century in Scotland
Appellate courts
Civil law (common law)
Royal Mile
College of Justice
Privy Council of Scotland
Courts and tribunals established in 1532
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retford
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Retford
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Retford (), also known as East Retford, is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England, and one of the oldest English market towns having been granted its first charter in 1105. It lies on the River Idle and the Chesterfield Canal passes through its centre. Retford is east of Sheffield, west of Lincoln and north-east of Nottingham. The population at the 2021 census was 23,740.
In 1878 an Act of Parliament extended the borough of East Retford to include the village of Ordsall, West Retford and part of the parish of Clarborough. The town is represented on Bassetlaw District Council by ten district councillors, and on Nottinghamshire County Council by two county councillors.
In addition to being an ancient market town and infamous Rotten Borough, Retford is known as being at the centre of Nonconformism, with the origins of the Pilgrims, Baptists and Wesleys being in this area.
History
Origins of the name
The origins of the town's name are unknown and have been subject to much debate, but consensus seems to conclude that it gets its name from an ancient ford crossing the River Idle. There is considerable variation in how its name has been spelt historically, although in early usage it is usually styled as Redeforde or Redforde. A common explanation of the name is that the river water was tinged red due to the frequent crossing of people and livestock disturbing the clay river bed. Other traditions include that it refers to the reeds that are plentiful in the river, or that the name references the Battle of the River Idle which was said to tinge the Idle red with blood.
Wilmshurst proposes another theory as to the origin of the name:
The historical importance of the town as a river crossing is underlined by the fact that one of the main streets is named 'Bridgegate'.
The official name of the town is still East Retford, although this refers only to the historically larger of the two settlements on either side of the Idle. The inhabitants of the town and the people in the surrounding area traditionally refer to the town simply as 'Retford'.
Settlement
The first land settled was on the western side of the ford, this area being less liable to flooding. However, as the community grew it spread to occupy land on the other bank of the river, and it was this eastern part of the town that eventually became more important; hence Retford's alternative (and, for administrative purposes, still official) name of East Retford. The centre of Retford is characterised by a large Market Square surrounded by Georgian period architecture. The Retford Conservation Area contains the historic cores of both West and East Retford, which sit either side of the River Idle. The Conservation Area also extends southwards up to and including the 18th century Chesterfield Canal. The town also includes the small villages and hamlets that are adjacent to it, which have effectively become suburbs of the town. These include Ordsall and Babworth.
Early history
Evidence of early human activity around Retford stretches back to the Mesolithic period, with archaeological evidence of human activity in the area including a Mesolithic flint tool found in Ordsall, an axe from the Neolithic era (New Stone Age) from Little Morton and a Neolithic polished flint axe discovered near the River Idle at Tiln.
A Bronze Age spearhead was found near Whinney Moor Lane and Romano-British crop marks are visible around Babworth.
The area Retford is situated in was on the border of the territories of the Brigantes and the Corieltauvi during the Iron Age period. It is likely that the existence of Retford is partly owed to its water resources, in the form of both the river Idle (and its crossing) and the wells that are dotted around the area that are either still in existence or can be identified from placename evidence. These include Spa Common, Cobwell Road (named after the Cob Well) and the ancient well at Welham (called 'Wellun' in the Domesday Book).
Between Retford and Grove there are a range of earthworks of unknown date. They may be pre-historic and/or Roman. There is evidence of a medieval moated site or possible motte & bailey construction. This site was later reinforced during the English Civil War. The wood here is known as Castle Hill Wood.
Roman-era artefacts are rare in Retford, although 1st–2nd century items were found at a site on Carolgate in 1922. The remains of a group of 1st–3rd century buildings were found at Babworth in 1981. A coin hoard was found at Little Morton that was dated to the 3rd century, and Roman artefacts and pottery fragments have been found at Tiln (Stroud, 2001). Evidence of Roman field patterns were identified by Derrick Riley of Sheffield University in the 1970s and 80s. Nottingham University archaeological researchers have said that during the 5th century and even into the 6th century, North Nottinghamshire was likely populated by "British communities with a sub-Romano-British culture".
Anglo-Saxon and Viking period
Retford has traditionally been placed within the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia because it is situated within Nottinghamshire. More recent historical research suggests that the South of Nottinghamshire and North Nottinghamshire may have had very different cultures. North Nottinghamshire, including Retford, belonged to an area called Bernet-seatte, which later became Bernesedelaue and then Bassetlaw. This territory is now thought to have been "substantially British". It practised, for example, partible inheritance, had British placenames and there is relatively little Anglo-Saxon material. West and East Markham seem to have been on the boundaries of this territory (maerc means boundary). It is not known if Bernet-seatte extended across the whole of North Nottinghamshire, or whether the Kingdom of Lindsey controlled the East of this area (Retford and Retford rural district). What is known is that this corridor of land was seen as strategic, which is why several notable battles were fought in the area between the kings of Northumbria and Mercia.
The strategic Battle of the River Idle (617) was fought in or near Retford. The Battle of the River Idle was significant in establishing Rædwald's power, such that Bede called him "Rex Anglorum" (King of the Angles). Various battlesites have been suggested including at Retford, Eaton and Bawtry. No evidence of a battlefield has been found in any of these sites, although according to Hunt this led to a saying: "The River Idle was foul with the blood of Englishmen". A variant local tradition says this was the origin of the name "Redforde".
Placename evidence in Retford does suggest Viking settlement. Many of the streets in the centre of town are -gates, deriving from the Old Norse gata, which means street. In Retford there are streets named Moorgate, Bridgegate, Chapelgate, Churchgate and Carolgate. Grove Street was previously known as Newgate and Lidgett Lane was originally Hildgeat or Hildgate. The Reverend WP McFarren (1947) wrote that Bridgegate was previously spelt Briggate (1340) suggesting the river had a bridge from a very early date. Moorgate contains both Anglo-Saxon (AS) and Old Norse (ON) elements, deriving from AS mor and ON gate. Its literal meaning is 'miry street'. This is a reference to the beck that used to cross it. (This beck was progressively contained within a culvert and is no longer visible for most of its course into the Idle.) Carolgate is derived from the ON karla (karl) + ON gate. A karl was a freeman. WP McFarren (1947) also mentions a 'Kynegesgate' (Kingsgate), which is now lost. Piercy mentions Carhillgate (p. 146).
Timber piles were found in Retford in 1995 on the Western bank of the Idle at Bridgegate, which were dated to 947-1030 AD.
Norman period and Middle Ages
In the Domesday Book Retford was recorded as Redforde, and joined to Odesthorpe (now unknown). It appears to have been the property or fee of Roger de Busli, who was granted large amounts of land in what had been Anglo-Saxon Mercia. In 1105, East Retford was established as a royal borough by Henry I. This would have made it the second most important settlement after Nottingham itself in the county. According to Marcombe (1993), the intention was for East Retford "to compete with the trading privileges of Blyth Priory and to exploit the market opportunities of north Nottinghamshire". In 1225, the burgesses of Retford are said to have taken over the collection of 'river tolls' from Blyth Priory.
Retford was granted a total of 17 Royal Charters (including the Letters Patent of 1225 that granted it the right to levy tolls on travellers in North Nottinghamshire) up to 1607. There is some controversy over when it was granted its first charter with Piercy (1828) suggesting it was granted in 1246 by King Henry III, which allowed an 8-day annual fair to be held. However, Ballard & Tait (1923) and Dolby (1997) say that there is no existing historical evidence to support this, making the 1259 charter the earliest known to be granted. The 1313 charter has survived and is now held in the Bassetlaw Museum.
The first town hall or 'moot hall' was built in 1388 and demolished in 1754. It is believed that this may have been situated in what is now known as Cannon Square. The hall was built of timber and faced east. On the ground floor of this building was the Shambles. At that time, the present Market Square was possibly used for cattle/horses, with Marcombe suggesting this was the site of the ‘beast market’ in the Tudor period.
Modern period
16th century
The 16th century began was an unlucky period for Retford. At this time, the majority of buildings were of timber and thatch construction. However, most of these were destroyed by fires. In 1528 a fire destroyed more than three-quarters of the buildings in East Retford. By 1552 Retford's population had dropped to 700. In 1558 there was an outbreak of plague, which caused 300 deaths in East Retford and killed half the people of West Retford. A fire in 1585 was so profound that the people of Worksop raised money for 'the poor men of the late burned town of Retford'. Yet another fire struck in 1631 and caused £1,300 worth of damage.
17th century
The Civil War seems to have largely bypassed Retford, although W.E. Doubleday wrote in the Nottinghamshire Guardian (1947) that "During the Civil War a Roundhead force from Retford attempted to capture the mansion occupied by the Royalist Gervase Lee, but the attack was beaten off and the besiegers compelled to retreat as a party of Cavalier troops from Newark approached rapidly". Charles I was also said to have stayed in the house of Mr Lane, a lawyer, on 20 August 1645. He was on his way from Doncaster and set off the following day to Lord Danecourt's in Newark.(Wilmshurst 1908)
In 1657 there was a Great Storm, which destroyed the steeple and Chantries of St Swithun's Church. This was restored in 1658 at a cost of £3,648.
18th century
Retford was more troubled during the Jacobite rising of 1745. Cornelius Brown records that in 1745 an army of 6,000 English and Hessian troops camped on Wheatley Hills and the soldiers marched through Retford and used East Retford (St Swithun's) church as a stable. This was The Derbyshire Blues, which had been formed to protect Derby under the aegis of the Duke of Devonshire, but which retreated 50 miles to Retford when reports reached Derby that the Jacobites had a 9,000 strong army.
On 23 August 1750, an earthquake struck Retford.
In 1757 the Town Clerk successfully petitioned for the Great North Road to be diverted to run through the town, which led to an Act of Parliament (1760) authorising the re-routing of the Great North Road between Barnby Moor and Markham Moor to pass through Retford. The new turnpike was completed in 1765–66 and after this the town prospered. (Piercy 1828) Then in 1777 the Chesterfield Canal was built by James Brindley through the town.
During the 18th century improvements were made to West Retford Bridge - the main bridge over the Idle which is where the original ford was situated. Moss says that the first stone bridge was erected in 1659 and that it was thirteen feet wide and had five arches. Wilmshurst records that in 1752 the bridge was "widened for carts" and was replanked, suggesting that at least part of the construction was still wooden. In 1794 it was rebuilt on stone arches, according to Wilmshurst, with Moss adding that it was thirty-one feet wide at this time. Moss notes that before 1776 a toll was charged to cross the river and that to the north side were the corn mills mentioned in the Domesday Book that were once owned by Hubert de Burgh. The 1794 bridge was later to be replaced in 1886 with the current bridge, which Wilmshurst says was because of floods: "In consequence of these continuous Floods the Corporation demolished the great Mill, and the narrow 5-arched Bridge, and erected present wide girder Bridge in West Retford". Moss (1908) says this bridge (which he dates as 1868) cost £1,500 to construct.
Moss (1908) tells us that in 1760 Retford's ducking stool was used for the last time. He says it was situated at the end of a narrow street opposite the Post Office that led down the River Idle. The use of the ducking stool was granted in 1279 by Edward I and was used for the last time to punish a "Scotswoman of violent temperament" called "Dame Barr", who was ducked for offending John White by "throwing the contents of her snuff-box in his face, and uttering opprobrious terms".
19th century
In 1801 there were 5,999 people, which rose to 12,340 by 1901. Many improvements were made including the direct London to York railway being routed via the borough in 1849.
In 1831, the Gas Works was built by James Malam and gaslights were lit in the town for the first time on 22 December 1831. The Square was lit by a cast iron light bearing five gas lamps at that time. The Gas Works became a target on 2 September 1916 when a German Zeppelin dropped 14 bombs on Retford. The Retford Times (8 September 1916) noted that bombs were dropped from Zeppelin L-13 into the orchard that surrounded the Gas Works, and although there wasn't a direct hit, shrapnel hit the sides of the gasometers setting them on fire. This fire was said to be so intense that according to the Retford Times "apples [were] baked on the trees, and roosting wild birds roasted alive". The Nottingham Daily Express (8 September 1916) reported that the Zeppelin then departed "at great altitude and terrific speed". The manager and his family were said to have had a very lucky escape as the shrapnel also hit their house. John Hook records that the Zeppelin left Retford at 1.05am, dropping a further bomb just south of Lea. One of the replacement gasometers later exploded on 16 March 1955, injuring 7 men and killing the manager. According to reports in The Retford Times, flames shot 200 feet into the air. The gasometers were finally dismantled when the town was connected to North Sea gas in the 1970s.
In 1878 an Act of Parliament added the parishes of West Retford and Ordsall, and part of the parish of Clarborough to East Retford.
20th century
Weeks before the outbreak of World War I, the Retford Times reported that "the town really turned on the charm" when King George V visited Retford in 1914. This is said to have included a large pavilion in the market square that was decorated with flowers, three different renderings of the National Anthem plus dancing and fireworks.
One of the main changes in Retford during the 20th century was the opening of King's Park in 1938. The park commemorated the reign of George V and the coronation of George VI. The site was presented to the Borough by Mrs M J Huntsman of West Retford Hall, with £2000 towards the cost of the park layout raised by public subscription.
According to war records, Retford was bombed six times during World War II - on 26 September 1940, 30 October 1940, 16 December 1940, 15 March 1941 (2 injuries), 15 August 1941 and 25 August 1941. Although it was on the bombing route to higher value targets such as Sheffield and Rotherham, was surrounded by airforce bases, and had the intersection between two railway lines, no-one was killed in the raids and the town escaped the war virtually unscathed.
The Great North Road was diverted around the town in 1961 and part of the route through the town is now pedestrianised. The 1971 census showed the population to be 18,407. By 2001 the population had grown to 22,000 (Nicholson, 2008), with a large proportion living on housing estates in Ordsall, Hallcroft and Spital Hill.
Political history
History of the Borough
Retford is one of the oldest boroughs in England and was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as 'Redeforde'. Henry I established the borough in 1105, and it gained a Royal Charter in 1246, when Henry III granted the right to a fair. This was later extended to holding a Saturday Market by Edward I in 1275. The granting of Royal Charters was important because it enabled Retford to self-govern and become independent of interference from the Sheriff of Nottingham. A total of 17 charters (including the Letters Patent of 1225) are believed to have been granted to East Retford up to 1607.
Retford's civic traditions are maintained by Charter Trustees and its coat of arms consists of two rampant choughs, which were taken from an old seal of the Borough. The crest is based on the design on a Mace presented to the Borough in 1679 by Sir Edward Neville, with few changes. A small shield replaces the original rose, upon which the lion rests its paw. The shield features a deed which references the Boroughs ancient Royal Charters. The unicorns are from the heraldry of Lord Galway, whose ancestors were High Stewards of the Borough. The shells are from the arms of Rt Hon FJ Savile Foljambe, appointed High Steward 1880.
Since 1974, Retford has been part of the district of Bassetlaw which was formed by the merger of the boroughs of Worksop and East Retford, as well as most of Worksop Rural District and East Retford Rural District. Bassetlaw is named after the historic Anglo-Saxon Bassetlaw Wapentake of Nottinghamshire.
Parliamentary history
From 1316 Retford was entitled to two sitting MPs. Although by 1330 it was begging to be excused the privilege on the grounds of poverty, inability to afford the cost of paying the heavy expenses of the MPs' long journeys to and from the capital. The petition was granted and it was to be several generations (1571) before Retford was represented in the Lower Chamber again.
Historically, Retford was notorious as one of the most corrupt boroughs - a so-called 'rotten' borough - in England and was considered to be in the gift of the Duke of Newcastle. There were vigorous debates in Parliament over whether to transfer Retford's franchise to one of the larger unrepresented towns such as Manchester or Birmingham. Hansard records that during the House of Lords debates on the Disfranchisement Bill, the town had an active committee, led by a couple of attorneys and meeting at the Turk's Head Inn, who were trying to make the borough seem even more corrupt than it was to ensure its extinction. One of the committee members was later seen wearing a gold watch, apparently presented in gratitude by well-wishers in Birmingham. Viscount Howick objected to the disenfranchisement of Retford not on the basis that the accusations of corruption were not true, but that it punished the innocent as well as the guilty and ignored the fact that many boroughs were equally corrupt.
The 1830 Act extended the borough's boundaries to encompass the Wapentake of Bassetlaw (which included the whole of the northern end of Nottinghamshire, including the town of Worksop). All those within this area who were qualified to vote in the county elections were given votes for East Retford. Within a year, Parliament was debating the Great Reform Bill, but the extended boundaries meant Retford could retain its seats until in 1885 the Municipal Borough of East Retford was reformed and the constituency replaced by an identically delineated single-member county constituency - Bassetlaw. Retford and its rural district was removed from Bassetlaw in 1983 and transferred to the redrawn Newark constituency. The boundaries were redrawn again in 2010, with Retford returning to the Bassetlaw parliamentary constituency (although some of the Retford rural district remains in the Newark constituency such as Markham Moor).
Current parliamentary representation
The Bassetlaw constituency was held by Labour from 1929 until 2019 when the sitting Labour MP (John Mann) stood down. The current MP is Conservative Brendan Clarke-Smith who won the seat with the biggest swing from one party to another in the entire country in the General Election 2019.
Regional administration
For administrative purposes Retford is regarded as being within the East Midlands region, though it has strong cultural and economic links to South Yorkshire.
Twinning
Retford has twinning associations with:
Pfungstadt (Germany).
Aurillac (France) since 1980.
Farmers Branch (USA) since 1980.
Historians
Dorothy May Meads was born here in 1891 when her family name was Gladish. She took a masters degree in History and wrote The Tudor Privy Council in 1915. She became the principal of Bishop Otter College which became the University of Chichester.
John Shadrach Piercy was born in Rillington, near Malton, North Yorkshire, and moved to Retford in 1822 to teach at the National School (a school that traditionally had strong links with St Swithun's church) on Grove Street. While living in Retford, Piercy wrote 'The History of Retford in the County of Nottingham (1828)'. This is an important work because it contains references to material that has subsequently been lost. Jones & Co Solicitors hold the Piercy Manuscript.
Robert Thoroton was a physician and country gentleman who published a history of Nottinghamshire in 1667 entitled 'The Antiquities of Nottinghamshire'. In 1796 a new edition was published by John Throsby (1740–1803), who added an additional volume. Retford is mentioned in Volume 3. pp. 274–280.
B.J. Biggs was the principal lecturer in history at Eaton Hall College and a keen local historian. He wrote a number of histories of Retford including 'Looking at Old Retford', Published by Eaton Hall College (1968), with drawings by CT Boothby; 'Living in Old Retford', Published by Eaton Hall College (1973); 'The Lost Windmills of Retford', Published by Eaton Hall College (1978).
Other histories include:
'In the Shadow of the Workhouse', Maurice Caplan (1984)
'The Book of Retford', James Joffey (1991), pub Barracuda Books
'The Early Days of Retford Workhouse', Dorinda Clark (1969), Eaton Hall College of Education
‘The Origins of East Retford’, M W Bishop, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 82 (1978)
'English small town life. Retford 1520-1642', David Marcombe (1993), Department of Adult Education, University of Nottingham
‘1246 and all that! A look at Retford’s historic charters’, Dolby, M (1997), Retford & District Historical & Archaeological Society Review
'The Lay Subsidy of 1334', Glasscock, R. E., British Academy Records of Social and Economic History n.s. II, 1975
'A history of Retford. The growth of a Nottinghamshire borough', A Jackson (1971), Eaton Hall College of Education
'Retford Through Time', Nicola Davison Reed (2012), Amberley Publishing
'A History of East Retford Church', Arthur A Kidson (1905)
Geography and climate
Retford lies in a shallow, fertile river valley which has a wide flood plain on either side of the River Idle. This makes the low-lying land next to the river prone to flooding. The underlying geology is Primo-Triassic rocks which lie over coal measures. This district therefore forms part of the Nottinghamshire-Yorkshire Coalfield. To the West are Pebble Beds and Sandstone outcrops. To the east are heavy claylands of Keuper Marl.
Weather
Retford lies 18m above sea level and the climate is mild, and generally warm and temperate. The climate is classified as Cfb by the Köppen Climate Classification (temperate oceanic climate). The average annual temperature in Retford is 10.1°C or 50.1°F. Average rainfall is 685 mm or 27.0 inches. The nearest official Met Office weather station for which online records are available is an automatic station at Gringley on the Hill, about eight miles north of Retford. (Location: 53.406, -0.883)
Flooding
Retford lies in the Idle River Valley and low-lying areas are prone to flooding. Flooding is confined to the well-defined and wide flood plain of the Idle, and areas above the flood plain or on sandstone (to the west) do not flood. To the north and east the land is clay and the area was historically marshy (see Isle of Axholm), but was drained by Dutch engineers under Cornelius Vermuyden in the 17th century.
Hardmoors, which is adjacent to the Idle at Ordsall, was so called because it floods and freezes in winter. According to the Environment Agency, which has a gauge on the Idle at Ordsall (location ID 4164) for 90% of the time since monitoring began the Idle has had a depth of between 0.19m and 0.85m. In 2020 the range was 0.22m to 0.86m. The highest level ever recorded since the gauge was put in place was 1.65m, reached on 27 June 2007 at 10:30am, which was at the apex of the 2007 floods.
In 1947, an article in The Retford Times by Rev. W.P. McFarren notes that Moorgate (one of the principal streets) derives from the Anglo-Saxon 'mor' meaning a marsh. The author notes that across Moorgate there runs a brook commonly called 'The Beck', which floods annually. He comments that "The soil here is largely clay, and Moorgate was well called the 'morgata' - the miry street".
Many floods are recorded in the historical record including:
A Great Flood in 1775 which destroyed a house.
February 1795 the town flooded.
1872 there were "serious floods on 4 April and two other dates".
There was a Great Flood in 1886 which caused considerable damage. The council demolished the bridge and built a new bridge in West Retford to facilitate the flow of water under the bridge.
1922 Flood.
1930 Flood.
On 27 June 2007, a few low-lying parts of the town were affected by the 2007 United Kingdom floods. The majority of Kings Park was flooded under three feet of water. The Asda and Morrisons supermarkets adjacent to the river were also flooded.
In November 2019 Retford along with the surrounding areas suffered extensive flooding along the Idle flood plain, including in the centre of town where the Idle crosses King's Park and around the Idle bridge in Ordsall. The local hedgehog rescue centre was flooded, with locals having to rally round to save 70 rescue hedgehogs.
March 2020 there was flooding at Grove Lane and Blackstope Lane with 31 properties affected after a month's worth of rain fell in 24 hours.
In January 2021 there was flooding on low-lying land along the course of the Idle near Victoria Road which is currently used for allotments. This resulted in another call for action against flooding which has been partly attributed to building on the natural flood plain. Restoration of the flood plain has been one solution suggested to address the issue.
Nature and biodiversity
The area in and around Retford has a varied geology and habitat. There are 30 known Ancient woodlands of more than 2 hectares in Bassetlaw, and the town is surrounded by a rich and diverse ecosystem including rare and endangered animals and birds.
The Idle Valley Nature Reserve, which is managed by Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust (NWT) is the largest of the trust's reserves in Nottinghamshire. The eastern boundary is created by the natural path of the River Idle; redundant gravel quarries to the west of the river have created wetland areas which comprise the majority of the site. The reserve contains many different habitats over 450 hectares, with 300 hectares being designated with SSSI status. It is the largest wetland area in Nottinghamshire and over 250 species of birds have been recorded there making it one of the top birding sites in the UK. The reserve is known for spectacular starling murmations. NWT has a program of activities and events for the benefit of schools, community groups and individuals and is becoming increasingly popular with established walking groups in the area and also neighbouring counties.
The River Idle is a critical habitat for eels - with an eel pass being installed in 2018 to help silver eels get upstream. 9 species of bats have been recorded in and around the town including Daubenton's bat, whiskered bat, Brandt's bat, Natterer's bat, common noctule, Leisler's bat, common pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle and brown long-eared bat. And a range of mammals and amphibians can be seen such as hedgehog, frog, rabbit, brown hare, grey squirrel, toad, newts, mole, badger and red fox.
In 2021, Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust revealed that it had consulted on the re-introduction of beavers to the Idle valley and planned to release 4 beavers (2 pairs) into the 55 hectare Idle Valley Nature Reserve in the summer of 2021. The trust stated that it planned to create one of the largest beaver enclosures in England, with space for up to three beaver families. Eight beavers - four adults and four kits - were released into a specially built enclosure in November 2021, the largest release of beavers in the UK to date.
Bassetlaw has 19 Sites of Special Scientific Interest that cover broadleaved woodland, wetlands and grasslands comprising 1361 hectares. The area also has 290 Local Wildlife Sites. SSI's around Retford, including the reason for their importance:
'Ashton's Meadow' - A hay meadow with a valuable flora. 3.6Ha
'Barrow Hills Sandpits' - An excellent area of grassland and scrub on glacial sands - of both invertebrate zoological and botanical importance. 2.9Ha
'Castle Hill Woods' - A unit of fine deciduous woodlands with a characteristic structure and species composition - of botanical and zoological interest. 33Ha
'Chesterfield Canal' - A representative stretch of canal supporting a nationally notable aquatic plant community characteristic of brackish waters, and a rich invertebrate habitat. 20Ha
'Clarborough Tunnel' - A fine example of species-rich calcareous grassland and scrub developed around the tunnel top and cuttings on an active railway line - a site of botanical interest. 7.9Ha
'Clumber Park' - A diverse area of mixed habitats of considerable botanical and zoological importance. 562Ha
'Eaton Wood' - An excellent deciduous woodland of botanical and invertebrate zoological interest. 24Ha
'Gamston Wood' - An excellent ancient woodland site of botanical and zoological importance. 41Ha
'Gamston and Eaton Verges' - species-rich roadside verges. 1.5Ha
'Mattersey Hill Marsh' - One of the best examples of mixed marsh in Nottinghamshire and representative of marsh communities in Central and Eastern England. 6Ha
'Misson Line Bank' - An excellent mosaic of open water, marsh, grassland and scrub communities developed around several old borrow pits. 20Ha
'Misson Carr' - Nationally rare wet woodlands, marsh, and old grazing pastures. One of the county's largest remaining fragments of a fenland system that once covered much of the local landscape, but which has been progressively lost to drainage and agriculture over the last three hundred years. 85Ha
'Mother Drain, Misterton' - Ditch and banks of considerable zoological interest and of some botanical importance 4Ha
'River Idle Washlands' - An extensive area of open water, marsh, grassland, scrub and wet woodland which support a rich assemblage of plants, invertebrates and birds. 575Ha
Treswell Woods - One of the best remaining examples of ancient semi-natural broad-leaved (ash, oak, maple) woodland on clay soils in the county. Of botanical and zoological interest. 50ha. 3 miles East of Retford
Landmarks and built environment
Opinions on Retford
In The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1820-1832 Retford was described as "a thriving and genteel market town in the hundred of Bassetlaw, on the border with Yorkshire, [which] boasted hat and sailcloth manufacturing, but had been superseded by Worksop in the barley trade".
Nikolaus Pevsner, architectural historian, writing in 1951, was fairly scathing about Retford and its lack of distinguished buildings. "A singularly unattractive town," he wrote.
However, William White in his Directory of Nottinghamshire (1853) is more complimentary about Retford: "The approach to the town, from every side, is by a beautiful and gradual descent, and its open and spacious Market-place, surrounded by good regular buildings, and having several commodious streets of neat houses branching from it gives the whole an air of importance, comfort, and wealth, possessed but by few country towns of the same size."
Retford and its environs were thought to be sufficiently attractive for the Great Northern Railway Company to organise trips based in Retford (1908). Visitors stayed at the White Hart Hotel, with a fare inclusive of the railway journey, the drive (by four in-hand, landau, citoria or dogcart), and a couple of meals. C Moss, author of the 1908 handbook, notes: "Attention, almost at the very outset of the journey, is directed to the beauties of the drive. By a gentle incline we pass into the fair demesne of Babworth. At the foot of the declivity, Babworth Hall, the church, the rectory and the lake, wherein shrub and tree are shadowed, naturally catch the eye."
In 1896, Cornelius Brown wrote that Retford was "discernible from the [Great Northern Railway] line as a mass of red-brick houses and smoking chimneys, with the tower of an old parish church rising in their midst’.
C Moss wrote: "Not only does the proximity of Retford to the Dukeries make the town attractive to visitors, but it is also sought after as a place of residence...One of the charms of Retford is undoubtedly its antiquity."
Bill Bryson, the American author and former president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, praised the town. In his bestselling book Notes from a Small Island, he writes, 'Retford, I am pleased to report, is a delightful and charming place even under the sort of oppressive grey clouds that make far more celebrated towns seem dreary and tired. Its centrepiece is an exceptionally large and handsome market square lined with a picturesque jumble of noble Georgian buildings. Beside the main church stood a weighty black cannon with a plaque saying 'Captured at Sevastopol 1855', which I thought was a remarkable piece of initiative on the part of the locals - it's not every day, after all, that you find a Nottinghamshire market town storming a Crimean redoubt and bringing home booty - and the shops seemed prosperous and well ordered.'
Market Square
The Square is in the centre of Retford and features an ornate French-inspired Victorian Town Hall (Grade II listed), in front of which is the Grade II listed Broad Stone.
Broad Stone
Legend says that the Broad Stone had a hollow in it that used to be filled with vinegar during plague times to disinfect coins. However, it is thought to be the upturned base of a boundary marker – perhaps the "Dominie Cross".
A 1908 guidebook to the town says the following:
Stapleton suggested in his study of Nottinghamshire crosses that the crosses mentioned in the 1908 guide were market crosses.
War memorial
The Grade II* listed war memorial is in the form of an Eleanor Cross, an octagonal structure of late Gothic design. It was unveiled by Sir Frederick Milner, the town's former MP, in 1921. The memorial features an eternal flame, with the names of the men killed in World War I on the lower eight panels, with bronze plaques containing the names of those killed in World War II. The monument was designed by architect Leonard W. Barnard FRIBA of Cheltenham, and built of Stancliffe stone from Darley Dale, Derbyshire by RL Boulton & Sons. A plaque for the Korean War was unveiled and dedicated on 17 August 2008.
In addition to the main memorial in The Square, there are other war memorials in the town. For example, the Sevastopol Cannon in neighbouring Cannon Square is a memorial to those killed in the Crimean War. A window in the south aisle of St Swithun's church (by Charles Eamer Kempe) was erected in memory of the Sherwood Rangers who fell in the Second Boer War, being unveiled in December 1903. The tablet below contains the following inscription: "To the glory of God, and to the Memory of those of the Sherwood Rangers Imperial Yeomanry who died for their Sovereign and Country in South Africa, 1900-1902" and after the names: "This Window was dedicated by their friends". In St Swithun's is also a set of oak boards, naming the 205 fallen members of the Parish from the First World War.
In St Saviour's Church there is a memorial to the 65 men of the parish killed in the First World War. In the churchyard of All Hallows Church in Ordsall is a carved granite cross based on St Columb's Cross in Cornwall. The inscription is in lead letters and reads: "1914-1918/ 1939-1945/ In Proud Remembrance Of Those Who Did Not Return." No names are given. This is a replacement (1951) for an earlier wooden cross, and is Grade II listed. There is also a memorial window in All Hallows’ church. Fives Court is a Grade II listed monument of the Rugby Fives type, but without the usual back wall, and was built at the former King Edward VI school site by the mother of William Eyre, a former pupil who died in the First World War. The plaque reads: "In Memory Of Capt. William Eyre; Who Died Of Wounds; August 19th 1916; Their Name Liveth Forever More." Bassetlaw Council notes that the year of death is incorrect (it should read 1915).
Town Hall
Retford has had two known moot halls, and two town halls (including the current building). The earliest known moot hall dated from 1388. The building was in the old market square, North of the current market square. Like many early buildings the moot hall was almost certainly badly damaged in the 1528 fire. It was replaced in 1528 but according to Piercy by 1754 was in such a poor state of repair that the corporation decided to demolish it. It was replaced in 1755 by a town hall designed in the neoclassical style by Messrs White and Watson. This hall was demolished in 1868 because it had become an obstruction to traffic.
It was decided to move the town hall to a new site to the south of the current market place to alleviate the problem with traffic. The current Retford Town Hall was designed in the Italianate style on the new site by Bellamy and Hardy and dates from 1868.
Cannon Square
Just across from the Market Square is Cannon Square which has St Swithun's Church and a cannon captured from the Russians during the Siege of Sevastopol at the end of the Crimean War in 1856.
The cannon, supporting plinth, lamp arch and iron posts with chains are all listed (Grade II). The cannon arrived in Retford in April 1858 by rail. It was given the name ‘The Earl of Aberdeen’ and was officially unveiled on 17 February 1859 by Gunner Cole (of the Royal Artillery). It was removed during the scrap drive of the Second World War, but was rescued by Alderman Alfred Wilson. The cannon was reinstated after the Second World War, set on a new wooden gun carriage, being officially unveiled on 29 March 1950 by the Mayor of Retford, Councillor T. Richmond.
In 2006 the Sebastopol Cannon was taken away to be restored through funds raised by the Retford Civic Society and on 16 September it was re-installed and a day of celebration was held to re-enact the original arrival of the cannon in 1858. The Retford Civic Society had a replica cannon built especially for the occasion and it was paraded through the town as part of the celebration.
In 2019 The Crimea Memorial was sited in the exhibition cupboards in Retford Town Hall. It records the names and regiments of 24 local men who served in the Crimean War (1854–56).
King's Park
Kings' Park was opened on 29 June 1938, to commemorate not only the reign of King George V, but also the Coronation year of King George VI. The site for the original park occupies the land from Chancery Lane to the River Idle and was donated by Mrs M Huntsman of West Retford Hall in 1937. A public appeal by the Borough of East Retford at the time raised £2,000 towards the estimated cost of £8,000 (equivalent to £485,000 today) to develop the park.
In 1960 a further donation of land by R H Williamson to the west of the River Idle allowed for an extension to the park within the former grounds of the historic West Retford Hall, which dates from 1699 and still stands outside the north-west boundary of the park.
Kings Park has received many awards including winning the prestigious Britain's Best Park competition in the Midlands region (2007). It also received the Green Flag Award in both 2008 and 2009, and was voted the UK's fifth favourite park in 2014 in the People's Choice Vote. It is described as a 'jewel in the crown' by Bassetlaw council.
The Park now covers some 10 hectares on either side of the Idle River, just off the town centre. In addition to formal gardens, it contains large areas of grassland suitable for ball games and picnics, a children's water play area, bowling greens, tennis courts, skate park, children's play ground, a performance stage, rose gardens, wildlife gardens and public conveniences.
Sloswicke’s Hospital
Sloswicke's Hospital is a Grade II* listed building founded in 1657 from money left in Richard Sloswicke's will to found almshouses "for the maintenance of six poore old men of good carriage and behaviour to the end of the world." The present building dates from 1806; an additional pair of houses being added in 1819.
Trinity Hospital
Trinity Hospital Retford is a Grade II listed alms house, set in gardens off Hospital Road. It was established over 340 years ago through the will of John Darrell. The current building on Hospital Road was designed by Edward Blore with 1872 additions.
Corporation Almshouses, Union Street
Consisting of a terrace of nine almshouses, which were built for £1,100 in 1823 for women of the town.
Amcott House
A Grade II* listed 18th century townhouse on Grove Street, which was rebuilt in its current brick and slate style by Retford M.P. Wharton Amcott around 1780. Previously, a 17th-century house belonging to the Wharton family stood on the site. Inside the current building are original features such as ornamental plasterwork ceilings and a wrought-iron staircase. From the 1870s until the 1930s the house belonged to the Pegler family, founders of the Northern Rubber Company. The building was bought by the former East Retford Rural District Council following Stephen Pegler's death and used as council offices. In 1983 it became the site of the Bassetlaw Museum.
Other buildings of note
A large number of buildings in the Retford Conservation area are listed buildings.
Spa Common
There were originally two commons in Retford - Spa Common and Far Common. Today only Spa Common remains. It is located behind Carolgate, lying adjacent to the Chesterfield Canal. The common gets its name because there used to be a spa in the North East corner of the common.
Retford sits on Artesian aquifer - with rain water filtering through the Bunter sandstone. Before mains water was established, most houses had their own wells or used communal wells. One of these wells was located on what is now called Spa Common. The water from this well developed a reputation for being able to cure various ailments whether drunk or used to wash in. An article in The Retford Times newspaper (5 July 1957) that was compiled from the notes of the historian, John Piercy, noted that he had personally tried the water and said it was red in colour and tasted of ink.
J.C. Short MD, writing in 1734, says that at that time the water on Spa Common bubbled to the surface inside a handsome freestone basin which itself was enclosed in a pleasant, decorated building shaped like a pyramid. He says that the red colour of the water was probably the result of iron oxide, and that it developed a white scum on the surface when left standing, due to the presence of gypsum.
The building mentioned by Short was later demolished by John Kirke and John Hutchinson, according to Piercy, before Robert Hudson re-opened the well. This building was also subsequently demolished and today there is no trace of the spa on the Common.
Religion and places of worship
A circle 30 miles in diameter drawn around Retford encompasses an area that has had an enormous global impact on Christianity. Every English-speaking nonconformist church in the world can trace its origins back to this area.
St Michael the Archangel
The limestone built, Grade II* listed St Michael the Archangel church, West Retford was dedicated in 1227 and sits on an elevation on Rectory Road. The oldest part of the church is the south aisle and the chapel dedicated to Oswald of Northumbria. Its outstanding feature is the octagonal spire on a square tower (a 'broach' spire) which is said to be an exact, early 14th century replica of the spire of St Michael at Rouen in Normandy. At that time, Lincoln Cathedral was served by Norman priests from Rouen, and as the Manor of West Retford was among the Manors granted to Roger-de-Buesli, it is almost certain that this and other churches in Nottinghamshire were designed and built by Norman architects from Rouen.
Originally, the spire was surmounted by an iron cross, but in 1855 a severe gale damaged the tip of the spire and the cross was replaced by the current weather vane. It is the crocketted spire and tower that was referred to by Pugin as "a poem in stone" and by Nikolaus Pevsner (1979) as "remarkable". There are six bells in the tower, the largest tenor bell weighing 9cwt in A Flat is dated to 1619 and is inscribed "Jesus be our speed", the 5th bell was originally cast in 1620 and recast in 1884 by Mr Taylor of Loughborough at the cost of £200 raised by public subscription. There is an inscription on this bell that reads "Fili Dei Misere Mei" – "Son of God have Mercy on me". The other four bells were cast in the 19th century.
St Oswald's chapel is the oldest part of the church. There is a carved statue of St Oswald in a niche on one of the pillars in the south aisle, which was placed there in the 19th century. The church was significantly restored in 1863 by notable Gothic Revival architect James Fowler. The window above the altar depicts St Michael and was designed by the architect William Butterfield in memory of the Rev Charles Butterfield, rector of West Retford parish from 1857 to 1866. In the small chapel at the end of the north aisle, also known as the 'Mary chapel', there is a reredos by Sir Ninian Comper.
Within the grounds of St Michael's is a stone known as the ‘preaching cross’. It is thought this could be an old boundary cross (Stapleton) or a plague stone (Percy), being the West Retford equivalent to the Broadstone. During the Georgian and Victorian periods this stone sat on the top of the boundary wall before being moved to its current location in the late-19th or early-20th century.
St Swithun's
St Swithun's Church, East Retford is a Grade II* listed church in East Retford that is dedicated to St Swithun and founded in 1258. The church is located in the centre of town between Churchgate and Chapelgate.
St Swithun's is of cruciform shape, now mainly of perpendicular architecture, but still preserving in its south and west doorways, and in the tracery of some of its windows, marks of earlier styles. In 1528 there was a great fire in Retford which damaged the church. In 1535, we learn that: "Where sumtyme were iiii chauntries which now er in decaye by reason they er consumed wt. fyer." The tower and chancel collapsed in 1651 and were rebuilt in 1658. The current building is therefore largely the work of restorers of 1658, 1854-5 and 1905.
The church has a square, battlemented tower, containing a clock and 10 bells. The oldest, virtually untouched, part is the north transept, although it has now been transformed into a chapel as a war memorial. The tower is supported by four massive arches and the nave and aisles are separated by arcades of five bays. There is a stone pulpit, an eagle lectern in oak, and a large organ erected in 1841. In the north transept is an incised slab to Henry Smyth (d 1496) and Sir Whatton Amcotts (d 1807) by William Kinnard, architect. The Victorian stained glass includes work by Clayton and Bell, Charles Eamer Kempe, Michael O’Connor, Hardman & Co, William Wailes and George Shaw.
The figure over the southern door is locally said to be of St Swithun, but according to Kidson is of a bishop. He says the figure was brought from a dissolved monastery in Portugal and was given to the Church, and placed in its present position, in about 1895.
The British Museum contains several architectural drawings of East Retford Church by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm. These include a general view of the exterior, and a drawing of the tracery of the east window. There are also drawings by Thomas Kerrich (1748-1828) including a drawing of a window which used to be in the Chancel, but which no longer exists.
John Buckler (1770-1851) made several drawings of the church, including one of the figure in the vesica piscis, at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
St Joseph
Catholics mainly worshipped in homes following the reformation and up until the 20th century, although demand for a Catholic church rose with an increase in Irish workers and Italian immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1895 a piece of land was purchased on the corner of Queen Street and Pelham Road and what came to be known locally as the "tin chapel" was constructed. A nearby house on Pelham Road was used by the priest.
As the Catholic community continued to expand it was decided to build a bigger church and land was purchased on the Babworth Road. The present Catholic church - St Joseph's - opened in 1959 and was designed by Ernest Bower Norris in modern Romanesque design, incorporating Art Deco elements. The church was later reordered in 1968 by renowned Modernist architect Gerard Goalen, at which time a large sculpture by Steven Sykes was introduced. St Joseph's is prominently located on Babworth Road and its campanile serves as a local landmark. In its Conservation Plan, Bassetlaw Council says: "The bell tower with copper roof is one of the most prominent architectural features within the entire Conservation Area." Next to the church is St Joseph's Catholic Primary School.
All Hallows, Ordsall
Ordsall is a village that is now a suburb of Retford. Its church All Hallows is a Grade II* listed building. The first recorded rector is in 1277. The current building dates from that period but was rebuilt in the 19th century by TC Hine of Nottingham. The church has a short, square tower with diagonal buttresses that is thought to date from the 15th century. The upper parts of the tower had to be repaired in 1823 after it was struck by lightning.
The church's east window is by Camm Brothers of Smethwick and dates from 1877, as is the window in the north aisle east (1881). In the chancel there is a window by James Powell and Sons (Flint memorial, 1923) and another by Charles Eamer Kempe (Hall memorial, 1905). There are a number of unusual brass plates in the south aisle, dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. In the north aisle is a memorial made of Nottinghamshire alabaster with kneeling figure between Corinthian columns (c 1600–20).
St Saviour's, Retford
St Saviour's is a Grade II listed church in Retford at the top of Moorgate Hill. It was designed by the Lincoln architect Edward James Willson, FSA and was completed in 1829. It was the first major project by Willson and cost £4,000.
At the West End of the building are a pair of octagonal towers which have ogee shaped, lead covered, caps. The church is built in yellow brick, which has weathered to dark grey. There is a brass plaque at the church which says the following: "This first stone of the new chapel dedicated to the Saviour, and containing silver and copper coins of the reign of George the Fourth, was laid on the second day of June, AD 1828, by Henry Clark Hutchinson Esq., of Welham." The church was restored and repewed in 1877–8. In 1936 there was a reduction in seats and the removal of the side galleries. A major reordering of the inside of the church was carried out in 2001, removing the oak pews and replacing them with individual seats.
The building seems to be far bigger than was required. BJ Biggs in 'Looking at Old Retford' (p14) notes: "There were 1,040 sittings and it is interesting to speculate whether they were ever fully occupied. At the time of the census of 1851 there was an average morning congregation of 300 adults and 123 children, and an average evening attendance of 400."
Methodist Chapel
The current Grade II listed Methodist chapel in Grove Street dates from 1880 and was built by Bellamy and Hardy, who were also the architects of Retford Town Hall. Its listing states that the chapel retains a high quality of architectural and artistic embellishment in both the external and internal detail. The oval galleries are an architectural expression of distinctive worshipping practice and there has been minimal alteration to the original fabric or fittings. The chapel contains flooring laid in the early 20th century, an example of the terrazzo and mosaic craft of Italian immigrant craftsmen.
Nonconformists
Retford and its rural district contain a large number of historic churches. The area has a strong nonconformist tradition. In addition to the Methodist chapel on Grove Street there are other non-conformist chapels around the town. Some are in use as places of worship and others are now used for other purposes.
Pilgrim Fathers
The Pilgrim Fathers, a name commonly applied to early Separatist settlers of the Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts originated from the villages of Babworth and Scrooby on the outskirts of Retford between 1586 and 1605. At the time they were known as 'Separatists' and only a few left Nottinghamshire, most stayed behind to try and reform the church from within. The Denmans were a prominent Retford family who were Nonconformists but chose to remain in Retford.
Retford's Bassetlaw Museum was awarded £776,000 (including £450,000 of National Lottery Funding) in 2018 to create a gallery dedicated to telling the story of the Pilgrim Fathers. The gallery was opened by Dr Jeremy Bangs, director of The Leiden American Pilgrim Museum in the Netherlands, the Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, Sir John Peace, and chairman of Bassetlaw District Council, Cllr Debbie Merryweather in 2019.
The Society of Friends
Retford played a role in the early history of the Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers). In 1652(?) James Parnell converted to the faith after walking 150 miles from Retford to Carlisle and visiting George Fox in gaol. Parnell had been born in Retford and attended the King Edward VI Grammar School. He became a well known preacher, writer and advocate of Quakerism before dying in Colchester in 1656 at the age of 19(?). He was regarded as being a martyr and became known as 'The Boy Martyr'.
Methodism
Retford was involved in the early history of Methodism, with John Wesley preaching in the town square in 1779. However, Methodism was said to have been introduced to the town by a Scot named John MacFarlane in 1776. In an article published in The Proceedings of The Wesley Historical Society (1968) p149-152 BJ Biggs records that when Wesley did visit Retford in 1779 "a mob of local rowdies" planned a warm reception, led by a certain John Willey. In the end because of MacFarlane and his supporters this was limited to the throwing of a bad egg, which missed Wesley but hit his sister. She was said to have retaliated with a torrent of abuse that made the crowd laugh.
Retford's first Methodist chapel opened the same year as Wesley's visit. This chapel was deemed too small for the crowd expected for his second visit to Retford when he was 83 years old. According to Wesley's journal he preached first at the New Inn, afterwards at Newark, and in the evening at Retford. Biggs (1967) records that there is a tablet in the wall of a house in Bridgegate, marking the spot where Wesley preached under a pear tree in an orchard just over the Idle in the parish of West Retford. Moss (1908) notes that the inscription states that in an orchard on this site on the evening of 24 June 1786, a sermon was preached by the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., from the words 'I saw the small and great stand before God'.
Biggs (1968) records that John MacFarlane fell on hard times in later life but refused a place in Trinity Hospital because it would mean he would have to attend West Retford Church saying he would not "sell his soul to the devil for a place". Instead, he entered the workhouse, where he was known as "Johnny Mac-farthing". Friends conducted him to the stone-laying in Newgate Street where he laid a stone. He died in 1824 and was buried in the Methodist cemetery on Grove Street.
Other places of worship in Retford
The Bridge Church, Bridgegate, Retford
The Well, Hospital Road, Reford - a Baptist church
St Alban's Church, London Road - a Grade II listed, stone-built Edwardian church that fell into disuse and was gutted by fire in 2008
Salvation Army, Exchange Street, Retford
Hallcroft Methodist Church, Retford
All Saints, Babworth - a Grade I listed church on the outskirts of Retford in the village of Babworth
Economy
Current economy of Retford
Since the 1980s many of Retford's long-established companies such as Jenkins Newell Dunford (engineering) and Bridon Ropes (wire rope) have closed, with the economy becoming more services-based.
Retford is an important commercial centre for the local area, with large supermarkets, many independent shops and a market every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. In 2013, Retford's town centre had an empty shop rate of only 9%, 5% less than the national average. Bassetlaw Council refurbished Retford market square at a cost of £1.5 million as well as investing £2.5 million in Retford Enterprise Centre.
Retford has a strong economy mainly consisting of services with some light industry. Retail, health, manufacturing, education and accommodation are major employers. There is also a high representation of arts & recreational, finance & insurance jobs.
The town has a very low unemployment rates compared to the national average. In 2018, Nottinghamshire County Council calculated unemployment in Retford as follows: East Retford South (1.8%), East Retford North (1.6%), East Retford East (1.5%), East Retford West (1.3%). This compares to 1.7% for Bassetlaw as a whole and 4.4% nationally. The highest rate of unemployment in Bassetlaw at this time was in Worksop South East (3.5%) According to the ONS, 61% of people work locally (2011 Census ONS), which is far lower than neighbouring areas. Strong transport links mean that many Retford workers commute to neighbouring towns and cities such as Sheffield, Doncaster, Mansfield and Lincoln; some commute to London.
The Northern Rubber Company, which was established in 1871 by Alfred Pegler has evolved into the specialist aerospace components manufacturer Icon, employing 200+ people on Thrumpton Lane, Retford. Langley Holdings is based in Retford and owns more than 80 subsidiaries including Piller, Druck Chemie, Oakdale Homes, Protran and Claudius Peters. Langley's subsidiaries produce components for the automotive industry, parts for Airbus wings, and supply back-up power for data centres amongst other activities. In 2012 Langley Holdings bought the sheet-fed operations of German printing press company Manroland Sheetfed out of insolvency for £140 million.
Brewing was traditionally an important industry in Bassetlaw with brewers such as Worksop & Retford Brewing Company. Retford was also an important hop market. This tradition was revived by a number of microbreweries based in or near the town including Broadstone Brewery (1999-2006), Idle Valley Brewing (2014-2018), Harrisons Brewery (2018-), Pheasantry Brewery in East Markham (2012-) and Springhead in Laneham (1990-).
Historic economy of Retford
Retford did not experience the large-scale industrial growth of nearby towns and remained primarily a rural market town. Historically, it traded agricultural produce, but has also been a producer of hats, sail-cloth, rope, sack bags, paper and leather.
In 1788 Major John Cartwright, the older brother of Edmund Cartwright inventor of the power loom, built The Revolution Mill on Spital Hill, near the Chesterfield Canal. The mill was a steam-powered wool spinning and weaving mill employing around 600 people. The ambitious enterprise, however, failed a few years later and the site and machinery were eventually sold at great loss in 1805. Only one building survives.
Hezekiah Clark of Derby came to work in Cartwright's mill in the 1780s as a dyer. After the Mill failed he set up as a dyer in Retford in 1798, resulting in the business Clarks of Retford. This business gave its name to Dyers Court in Retford. The company eventually became known for its dry cleaning and laundry services, and had 138 shops before it ceased trading in the 1980s. The business is commemorated by a mural in Dyer's Court.
The Bolham Paper Making Company made glazed papers, shop papers, boards, boxboards; other new paper mills were built in the mid-19th century, including a mill on Albert Road (1867). Foundries and iron works were also established. The Beehive Works was built in Thrumpton in 1873 and William Bradshaw set up his Carr Foundry in Albert Road which specialised in heating and rainwater pipes, gutters, stoves, fireplaces and general engineering castings. The late nineteenth century also saw the introduction of new technologies when the Northern Rubber Company was created by Alfred Pegler in 1871. The factory's proximity to the junction of two important railways helped it prosper.
The agricultural land surrounding Retford was an important area for hop growing from the seventeenth century onwards. According to DCD Pocock, "Retford, as the most northerly hop fair in the country, was of special importance until the breaking down of traditional economic watersheds and marketing limits with the advent of rail transport". These North Clay hops (named after the North Clay Division of which Retford is part) were considered much stronger than Kentish hops and were used in the original Nottingham Brewery's bitter beers. At the beginning of the 19th Century 11,000 acres of hops were grown, which had dwindled to 29 acres by 1880. Hops are no longer cultivated in the area.
The role of women in Retford's economy
Women have played an important role in the economy of Nottinghamshire particularly in certain industries (such as lace making and farming). In Retford women were always economically active and some businesses relied heavily on female labour (such as Clark's of Retford).
Until the Black Death, most beer in the UK was produced by women. The term for a female brewer is 'brewster'. Brewing was an important industry in Nottinghamshire from hop growing, to brewing to selling beer. Nottinghamshire women have had considerable involvement in all aspects of the brewing trade, with many historic Retford pubs being recorded as having female managers.
Women-owned businesses were also relatively common in Retford. For example, Piercy mentions in 1828 that the Post Office in Grove Street is run by the post mistress Miss Elizabeth Barker. Three years later, White's 1831 directory notes it is run by Mrs Elizabeth Taylor. The postal service seems to have historically involved women workers in Retford. Moss (1908) noted there were four deliveries of letters per day and says: "Within living memory the letters were distributed by one woman, 'Old Betty Chapman.'"
Women are recorded in the 1831 directory undertaking a number of other trades. Mary Clark and Catherine Dean were grocers; Mary Stocks was a boat owner; Mrs Jane Taylor, Frances Holliday, Susanna Slaney and Elizabeth Wilkinson were stay makers; Faith Walker was a farmer; Margaret Holderness was a bookseller; Ellen Lawrence was a shoemaker; Mary Burley was a China and Glass dealer; Ann Appleby, Ann Colbeck, Sarah Graves, Mary Penington and Susan Penington were straw hat makers; Ann Burton, Mary Chester and Jane Walker were shopkeepers. Several Retford public houses were also run by a landlady at that time.
The first female councillor on Retford Town Council was Mrs Ellen Gentle Howell, born 1872 in Huckle in Luton, who was elected in 1926, becoming Mayoress of Retford. But it wasn't until 1951 that a woman became a mayor of Retford in her own right - Mrs M E Williamson JP who was also the Chair of Governors of Retford High School for Girls, and who became the first woman Alderman on Retford Town Council (1961). First Female Magistrate in Retford was Miss Grace M Bradshaw who sat on the Retford Borough Bench (1933) and was also appointed to the Retford County Bench in 1934. Grace Bradshaw was also the Chairman of Governors of the County High School for Girls, Retford and secretary of the Retford Ladies Health Association.
The work of the WVS of Retford is celebrated with a plaque at Retford train station which states that between March 1940 and March 1946 they served 2,284,000 meals to HM and Allied Forces in the canteen and rest room.
Transport
Road
Retford was historically on the Great North Road. It is now bypassed by the A1 trunk road and the A57 which links Retford to a number of major towns and cities, with London just over two hours away. The East Retford bypass was built in three stages mostly along what was previously the A57. In 1957, the West Drayton diversion opened up to the B6387 near Elkesley. Also near Elkesley and Gamston is the Retford Gamston Airport. The section from Elkesley bypass to Five Lane Ends (A614 junction) at Apleyhead Wood opened in 1958, and the third section was from Five Lane Ends to north of Checker House at Ranby (A620 junction). Recent investment led to a renovation of junctions at Blyth, Great Whin Covert and Markham Moor.
The town is also served by a number of buses operated by Stagecoach in Bassetlaw, Stagecoach in Lincolnshire, TM Travel as well as smaller local bus operators, to destinations including Worksop, Newark, Nottingham and Doncaster. Retford bus station is also the terminus of the 450 National Express coach service between Victoria Coach Station in London and Retford.
The current bus station was built and opened on 30 July 2007 at a cost of £1.4 million, and was given a highly commended accolade in the infrastructure category of the UK Bus Awards 2008. The previous bus station on the same site was a collection of bus shelters, but also allowed vehicles to drive illegally through the bus station. The new bus station has new traffic controls in order to prevent this.
Rail
Retford is served by two railway lines, the East Coast Main Line which runs between London and Scotland, with trains taking from 1hr 20 minutes to London Kings Cross, and the Sheffield to Lincoln Line which has links to Sheffield, Lincoln, Gainsborough, Worksop, Grimsby and Cleethorpes. These two lines meet at Retford railway station which acts as an important interchange in the British rail network.
Retford station was Grade II listed by Historic England in July 2020. The buildings date from 1891 to 1892 and the reason for listing was given as "the very rare survival of the original finishes in the dining room and refreshment room" which are said to be ornate and featuring "fine craftsmanship"; the "remarkably long and well-balanced composition in the Italianate style" of the station buildings and the "impressive" canopy over the platform; and the well-preserved plan form which make it "one of the most intact medium-sized GNR stations".
Canal
Retford is connected to the UK Inland Waterways network by the Chesterfield Canal. Indeed, up to Retford the canal was built to be accessible by broad-beam boats rather than the more usual narrowboats, Retford Town Lock being the first narrow lock on the canal from its junction with the River Trent at West Stockwith. However, narrow sections now prevent such craft reaching Retford. The canal starts at Chesterfield in Derbyshire.
Although the canal was built to export coal, limestone, and lead from Derbyshire, iron from Chesterfield, and corn, deals, timber, groceries and general merchandise into Derbyshire, today it is used for leisure purposes. Based in Retford on the lower side of the Town Lock is a boat club called Retford Mariners Boat Club (R.M.B.C), which was formed in November 1978 by a group of canal enthusiasts.
The Chesterfield Canal hit international headlines in 1978. While dredging the bottom of the canal to remove rubbish a maintenance team pulled up a large chain which had a wooden plug attached to it. Later that day it was noticed that a whirlpool had formed and it became evident that the section of the canal between Whitsunday Pie Lock and Retford Town Lock was losing water. Unbeknown to the workmen, but commonly known locally, the plug was an original engineering feature of the canal to allow sections to be drained for future maintenance. The water drained (as designed) harmlessly into the nearby river Idle. The accidental removal of the plug became a national and international story, and was even recorded in Lloyd's List.
An early Twentieth Century crane situated at Retford Wharf was Grade II listed by Historic England in 1996.
Air
Retford (Gamston) Airport is a private airport located a few miles south of Retford in the village of Gamston, operated by Gamston Aviation Ltd.
Leisure, entertainment, traditions
Museum
Retford is home to the Bassetlaw Museum, which was created in 1983 and has a number of collections donated by people in the local area. The museum tells the history of North Nottinghamshire from its earliest people to the present day. Collection highlights include: Carlton-in-Lindrick knight, Anglo-Saxon boat and autochromes by Stephen Pegler. It was voted the Nottinghamshire Museum of the Year in 2009, following extensive renovation, and is based in the Grade II* listed Amcott House.
In 2002, the Heritage Lottery Fund gave the museum a grant of £78,000 to enable the purchase and digitisation of 20,000 negatives taken by professional photographers Edgar Welchman and Son of Grove Street, Retford between 1910 and 1960. The photograph collection at the Museum contains over 27,000 photographs of the towns and villages of North Nottinghamshire and people who lived there from about 1870 onwards. 8,000 general photographs from the museum's collections have been added to the Welchman Project images.
In 2019 The Pilgrims Gallery was added as part of a £750,000 Heritage Lottery funded project to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower's voyage to America in 1620. The Gallery features a recreation of William Brewster's study.
Theatres and cinemas
Piercy mentions a theatre situated on "the west side, and nearly in the centre, of Carrhillgate" which was built in 1789 by Mr William Pero who purchased the ground from Sir Thomas Woolaston White.
Retford now has two theatres in the town: the Grade II listed Majestic Theatre, which hosts famous entertainers, music concerts from local performers and plays, and Retford Little Theatre, a smaller theatre which hosts the Retford Little Theatre amateur drama group.
The Majestic is an Art Deco building designed by Alfred John Thraves for Cyril Getliffe as a joint cinema and theatre building on Coronation Street, Retford. It opened with a stage production of No, No, Nanette in 1927. It was closed three times, threatened with demolition and has been used as a bingo hall. In 1993 it was bought by The Retford Theatre Trust and since 1996 a small group of volunteers have restored its original features. It is now Grade II listed.
Retford also had a cinema built around 1917 called The Picture House, later The Roxy, which stood on Carolgate and was also owned by Cyril Getliffe. It was demolished in the 60s.
The Regent Theatre is an Art Deco cinema opened in Carolgate in 1911 and renamed The Ritz in 1934. It closed in 1957 and the building became a Masonic hall in 1962. It can now be hired for weddings and other events.
Historic pubs
According to Cornelius Brown, a licence was granted to John Watson and his wife in 1625 to keep a tavern and sell whisky, with a payment of £3 per annum due to the king.
The Retford area had a thriving hops industry and traditionally a large number of pubs, because it was situated on the Great North Road. White, in his 1831 trade directory, records 27 public houses and 11 beer houses, which had increased by 1896 to 56 Inns and 3 beer houses. Retford's pubs have played an important part in its social, cultural and political history. For example, The Duke of Newcastle's True Blue Club met in The Turk's Head.
Many of the historic public houses are listed buildings. Historic pubs include:
The White Hart, an historic 18th Century Coaching Inn which has a cobbled yard and stabling for horses. At its peak it saw 19 stages a day pass through.
The Vine Inn (Grade II listed), an 18th-century public house
Whitehouse Inn (Grade II listed) an 18th-century Inn on the south edge of town.
The Olde Sun on Chapelgate is a Grade II listed timber-framed building that dates from the 16th century and is one of the oldest buildings remaining in the town
The Crown Inn (building still exists but no longer a pub) dates from 1754 was once the principal place of conducting business in the town
The Queen's Head, a Grade II listed Public House on Moorgate
New Inn Public House (building still exists but no longer a pub), a Grade II listed building on Whinney Moor Lane
The Black Boy, a Grade II listed 19th century public house on Moorgate
The Turk's Head which replaced an earlier building and was built in the 1930s. Many original features remain
The Elms Hotel, an early 19th century detached stucco house on London Road
Galway Arms, an early 19th century public house on Bridgegate that was previously called the Mermaid Inn
Newcastle Arms on Bridgegate (building still exists but no longer a pub)
The Anchor, a Grade II listed early 19th century public house on Carolgate now called 'The Idle Valley Tap'.
The Sherwood Ranger on Churchgate which was built in the late 1800s and was originally known as the "Ram Inn" but was renamed in 1894 in honour of the Sherwood Ranger Yeomanry Regiment who were based in Retford
In White's 1831 directory, several of the public houses are recorded as having female proprietors, including Ann Green of the Black Head (Chapelgate), Ann Sheppard of the George Inn (Moorgate), Mary Barlow of the Granby (Carolgate), Sarah Walker of the Sun (Spittal Hill) and Ann Clarke of the Turk's Head (Grove Street).
In 2020 the landlord of the historic Black Boy Inn in Retford removed the pub's signage after it was highlighted on a crowdsourced map entitled 'topple the racists - statues and monuments that celebrate slavery and racism' during the Black Lives Matter protests. The name of the pub is said to refer to its royalist history. Charles II was called 'the black boy' by his mother Henrietta Maria due to his swarthy complexion and dark hair. During the interregnum, some public houses across England changed their name to The Black Boy in a show of concealed (and deniable) allegiance and because they were meeting places for royalist supporters.
Sundown Adventureland
Sundown Adventureland is a 30-acre children's theme park for the under 10s situated in the Retford Rural District at Rampton. It was originally opened as a farmyard in 1968 (as'Pets Corner') and is privately owned by the Rhodes family. The park currently attracts over 270,000 visitors a year, employs 120 staff at peak season, and in 2019 TripAdvisor voted it the 23rd best theme park in Europe. In February 2020 it was announced that the park had been granted planning permission to add 90 holiday lodges.
Youth groups
Retford is served by many youth groups including The Scout Association, Girlguiding UK, St. John Ambulance and Young Farmers, meeting within the town. Retford is also home to 1403 ATC Retford Squadron and Army Cadets. In addition Retford is served by a youth musical theatre group known as The MOB (mini operatic bunch) the junior section of Retford Amateur Operatic Society.
Charter Day
To celebrate the granting of Retford's Royal Charter in 1246, the town holds a celebration known as Charter Day on the first Bank Holiday in May. The event celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2018 and now enjoys tens of thousands of visitors who take part in the many events held around the town. These include musical performances, vintage car rallies, street entertainers, dance performances, dog displays, food stalls, workshops, demonstrations and a charity market. Retford Fire Station perform 'rescues' to demonstrate their job to the public. One of the most popular events is the annual Lions' Duck Race, where locals and visitors sponsor a yellow plastic duck which is then 'raced' between two bridges on the river Idle. The money raised is donated to charity.
Retford Heritage Day
Since 2007 Retford has held an annual Heritage Day organised by the Civic Society. It is part of the National Heritage Days weekend with Retford celebrating its heritage with a host of activities and entertainment. Each year has a different theme, with 2014 being 'The End of an Era', 2015 being 'Entertainment', 2016 being 'Rebels and Pilgrims', and 2017 was 'Dukes and Outlaws'. In 2019, the Heritage Day is planned to take place at the same time as the first North Notts Literary Festival and the start of the Chesterfield Canal Walking Festival, with the theme being the Chesterfield Canal and Retford's working history.
Morris dancing
Retford is home to the Rattlejag Morris Dancers who are based at the Church Hall next to Grove Street Methodist Church. Rattlejag Morris is a mixed dance side formed in January 2002. Using material initially collected from East Yorkshire as the basis they have set out to revive and develop a local dance programme based on research into dancing traditions in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. They perform morris dances with rattles and sticks, broom, bacca pipe and sword dances. They "dance out" at Folk Festivals, Village Fayres, Community Events, Village Public Houses, Morris Day of Dance Events, May Day Celebrations, Charity fundraising events and more.
Ghosts
Retford has a tradition of ghost sightings. In 1915 an unknown correspondent wrote to The Retford Times about ghostly sightings in the 19th century. The writer reports seeing a woman wearing Georgian dress on Sutton Lane, as well as a less human-like figure on the North Road. Other ghost traditions include The Grey Lady of Ye Olde Bell Hotel (Barnby Moor), The Unfaithful Wife of West Retford Hotel, the White Girl of the White Hart Hotel. Other haunted buildings include the Masonic Hall.
Sport and fitness
Bowling
Retford has facilities for flat green bowling at Goosemoor Lane and in King's Park, provided by Bassetlaw Council, and at Hallcroft. Teams from Retford and the surrounding area (including Worksop) compete in The Retford and District Bowls League.
The Goosemoor Bowling Greens are used by the Goosemoor Bowls Club which play in the Retford & District, Goosemoor Afternoon League and the Worksop Friday League.
The King's Park Bowling Greens are home to the Retford Park Bowls Club.
Retford Bowling Green Limited was established in 1897 and is a lawn and short mat bowls club with a nine rink bowling green and a large club house.
Cricket
The Retford Town Cricket and Sports Club was established in 1850 and moved to its present ground in 1858. The club was a founding member of the Bassetlaw Cricket league in 1904, their inaugural match was against Whitwell Colliery. However, they had to wait until 1984 before they won the League Division 1A Championship. Retford has developed players who have played at County and International level, including Derek Randall.
Fitness and health
There are a number of gymnasiums, spas, and health, beauty & fitness centres in Retford. Aquatic activities such as lane swimming, fun swims, and water aerobics are provided in the Retford Leisure Centre, as well as gym facilities. Retford also has a small skate park within the grounds of Kings Park. Walking and cycling are well catered for, with a selection of well-maintained and sign-posted routes. The 46-mile Cuckoo Way, which runs alongside the Chesterfield Canal runs through Retford.
Retford launched a men's walk and talk group in 2021, which supports male mental health in Retford and is co-ordinated by Bassetlaw Action Centre. One walk takes place at Idle Valley, every second Saturday in the month, and another at Kings Park every fourth Saturday of the month.
Football
Retford is home to Retford United F.C. formed in 1987 and known as 'The Badgers' who play in the Northern Counties East League Division One whose ground is Cannon Park on Leverton Road.
Retford is also home to Retford F.C. formed in 2015 and known as 'The Choughs' whose ground is the Rail Ground on Babworth Road and who also play in the Northern Counties East League Division One.
In July 2020 Retford F.C. was awarded FA Charter Standard Community Club status.
Both Retford teams have junior sides, with Retford F.C taking over Ordsall Rangers during the summer of 2019.
Babworth Rovers, a well-established junior football team, is on the outskirts of town and includes players from Retford and the surrounding villages.
Golf
Located at the south eastern edge of the town, Retford Golf Club is a private members club founded in 1921. The original six hole course was designed by Tom Williamson and laid out on 38 acres of land leased from Colonel Sir Albert Whitaker of Babworth Hall around the area known locally as Whisker Hills. Two further new holes were opened in 1958 by Sir Stuart Goodwin. In 1990 nine more holes were added. The current course provides a varied mixture of open parkland, oak-lined fairways and changes of level. It is a popular destination for golf societies from across the East Midlands and South Yorkshire areas.
Racing
The East Retford Cavalry Races were held between 1849 and 1864. On 1 April 1868, the United Hunt Committee organised a race meeting at which the Sandbeck Farmers Stakes was won by a horse named Gobbo and the Retford United Hunt Steeplechase was won by Gladiateur.
On 9 April 1877, after a gap of 10 years, meetings began being held on land owned by the 7th Viscount Galway to the north of the town (off Bigsby Road). The second meeting took place on 1 April 1878 with five races being held: the Nottinghamshire Steeplechase, The Grove Farmers Stakes, Maiden Steeplechase, Innkeepers Selling Steeplechase Plate and the Retford Steeplechase. The third meeting did not take place until 1894 due to lack of interest. Various promotions were attempted to boost attendance including train excursions and in 1898 a Tenant Farmers lunch in the Town Hall followed by a free pass to the races. The Retford Hunt Committee oversaw the meetings until 1913, with racing being suspended during WW1 until being resumed in 1921. The final meeting took place in 1928. The land was then sold off to pay the debts of the 8th Viscount Galway. The Retford Handicap was transferred to the course at Southwall and ran until the early 2000s.
Rugby
Founded in 1952, East Retford Rugby Union Football Club competes in the Midlands League Division. The club celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 2002. It initially played on a pitch at Hard Moors, off Goosemoor Lane, then owned by Jenkins of Retford. A pitch at Ranby Camp followed before the club moved to Frank Wood's field on Green Mile, Ranby. In 1966 the club entered into a long-term rental agreement with Anglian Water Authority for use of land at Ordsall Road, which has room for three pitches on flat, well-drained land. The Club purchased the majority of its Ordsall Road ground from Anglian Water in 2000. The club currently runs two senior teams and a thriving and successful junior section, from minis to under 16s, for both boys and girls.
Snooker
Retford has a long running snooker league consisting of two divisions.
Swimming
Retford Swimming Club represent the town and the surrounding area in the pool. The club, established in 1896, trains swimmers and takes part in competitive swimming galas against other teams in Nottinghamshire, in the Sports Centre League. Retford Swimming Club competes in Division 1 of the Sports Centre League. An annual Open Meet is held at Ponds Forge International Pool in Sheffield, hosted by the club.
Health
Today Retford is served by Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. A number of GP centres, dental services, a hospital and hospice are situated in the town.
East Retford Cottage Hospital
East Retford Cottage Hospital (East Retford Dispensary) was a former hospital in the town of Retford situated on Thrumpton Lane. SK 700 800 38240
Eaton Hall
Between 1939 and 1941, Mrs KL Kayser agreed to allow the upper floors of Eaton Hall to be used as a maternity hospital for soldiers' wives who had been bombed-out of their homes.
Retford Hospital
Retford and District Hospital was built in 1922 with the foundation stone laid by the Mayor of Retford, Alderman SH Clay. At that time it comprised two wards, a private patients’ wing, an operating theatre, casualty service, and X-ray. It was extended in the late 1960s and early 1970s with two more wards, which were used for long-stay, elderly patients.
The operating theatre was closed in 1980 and inpatient services were transferred to Bassetlaw Hospital in the late 1980s. The Trust now provides a range of outpatient and community services on the site, which is also the headquarters of Bassetlaw PCT. Services include: an outpatient department, physiotherapy, speech therapy, chiropody, audiology, child health, community occupational health, community nursing/ equipment loans, continence service, dental, Genito-Urinary medicine, intermediate care and medical imaging. SK 700 800 102583
Co-located on the site of Retford Hospital is Retford Primary Care Centre which was built in 2007 and incorporates three GP practices, rehabilitation and physiotherapy departments, community nursing services and an on-site Boots pharmacy. To the rear of the hospital is Bassetlaw Hospice which was built in 1994.
World War 1
During the First World War Retford had two Red Cross Hospitals for wounded servicemen. One was based at Babworth Hall and the Sherwood Rangers Headquarters hospital was at 12 Lime Tree Avenue, Retford.
Media
The majority of the town receives its terrestrial television from the Emley Moor transmitting station, which broadcasts local news from BBC Look North and Calendar News. A minority of residents receive programming from Belmont serving Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire (to the east) and Waltham serving the East Midlands (to the south). The BBC local news programme for the latter, BBC East Midlands Today, also features news stories from Retford.
Retford's officially designated BBC Local Radio station in terms of radio coverage is BBC Radio Sheffield. However, editorially, local news coverage is covered on BBC Radio Nottingham's radio and Internet outlets, despite Retford being outside the official coverage area of both BBC Radio Nottingham's FM and DAB signals. Hallam FM's and Greatest Hits South Yorkshire's AM signals also cover the town of Retford. National analogue FM radio services from the BBC and Classic FM are broadcast from the Holme Moss transmitting station in West Yorkshire. Digital Radio services come primarily from the Clarborough transmitter outside of Retford for the Sheffield and Digital One multiplexes, Clifton transmitter near Doncaster for the BBC National DAB multiplex and the Belmont, High Hunsley (near Hull) and Tapton Hill (Sheffield), Waltham and Emley Moor transmitters for the Sound Digital multiplex.
Trax FM formerly editorially covered the town of Retford, although its Ofcom designated FM coverage area only covered the Doncaster area, Worksop and rural areas west of Retford, Retford was covered on DAB via the Sheffield multiplex. It has since been replaced with a relay of Greatest Hits Radio Yorkshire on its former FM frequencies. TX1 Radio took over as a replacement local commercial service from 2020 for the same editorial area as Trax FM covered via the Internet and for a short time on DAB via the Lincolnshire multiplex which has overspill coverage into the Doncaster and Bassetlaw area.
Retford also has one newspaper serving the town, the Retford Times which is published on Thursdays. It was founded in 1869 by Alexander Watson Lyall as the 'Retford and Gainsborough Times and Worksop Weekly News'. In 1880 it changed its name to the 'Retford and Gainsborough Times and Worksop & Newark Weekly News' and from 1901 it was the 'Retford, Gainsborough & Worksop Times and Newark & Mansfield Weekly News'. In 1967 it became the 'Retford, Gansborough & Worksop Times' before dropping 'Worksop' from its masthead in 2011. In 2013 it became simply 'The Retford Times'. It is now published by Lincolnshire Media, although the editorial offices are in Retford.
The Worksop Guardian, although predominately a newspaper serving Worksop and its area, also covers stories in Retford. The publishers of the Worksop Guardian formerly published a free weekly newspaper for Retford and Bawtry, the Guardian and Trader newspaper.
Retford cemetery
Retford cemetery is a Victorian era cemetery, with the site's first burial dating back to 1854 (when it was built). Prior to the cemetery, maps dating back to 1835 confirm that the area was covered by farmland. It is approximately in size, situated between Babworth Road and North Road. It is bounded by the Chesterfield canal (which separates the two halves of the cemetery) and has two entrances - one on North Road (the original entrance) and one on Babworth Road next to St Joseph's church. It is maintained by Bassetlaw District Council (BDC), which has freehold ownership of the site.
The cemetery was opened in several parts. The oldest part of the cemetery dates to 1854 and was opened at a cost of £1,800. It had two mortuary chapels designed by Arthur Wilson (one Church of England and one Non-conformist) which were linked by a porch. These were demolished in the 1970s. It also had a cemetery lodge designed by James Fowler which still exists as a private home. In the 1854 cemetery is a separate Catholic cemetery. In the 1890s the town cemetery was extended to land on the other side of the canal, with the two halves linked by a bridge. In the 1950s a donation of land was made by the Catholic church to extend the 1890 cemetery. This land had been donated in 1922 by Major Milner for the burial of Catholics. Part of the land was used for a Catholic church, school and hall. The remainder was donated to extend the general cemetery, with provision for a (new) separate Catholic cemetery.
Retford cemetery contains 14 Commonwealth war graves from the First World War, and 16 from the Second World War. There is also one Polish soldier buried there.
Education
Primary schools
St Swithun's C of E Primary & Nursery School
St Josephs Catholic Primary school
Bracken Lane Primary School
Thrumpton Primary School
Carr Hill Primary School
Ordsall Primary School
Clarborough primary school
Senior schools
The Elizabethan Academy
Retford Oaks Academy
St. Giles
As part of a major overhaul of secondary schools in the Bassetlaw area, all schools have now been moved to new facilities built around the town as part of the Transform Schools scheme. Retford is home to a Post-16 centre the aim of which was to unite all Sixth Form students in one site (formerly Ordsall Hall School) and provide other courses available through North Nottinghamshire College (based at Worksop). Since the spring of 2018, A Level students have returned to their respective secondary schools and now use the dedicated Post-16 centre for vocational and technical courses, as well as higher education.
Historic schools
King Edward VI Grammar School (Motto - Ex Pulvere Palma) opened in August 1857 and was designed by the noted Victorian architect Decimus Burton. The school traced its foundations to Thomas Gunthorpe of Babworth in 1519, although there are references to a still earlier school in the town. It was refounded around 1551 during the reign of King Edward VI. The school accepted boarders from at least the 17th century onwards, with the last boarders leaving in 1938. During the Second World War Retford took in over 6,000 evacuee children, including a number of boys from Great Yarmouth Grammar School who were evacuated to Retford (from 1940 to 1944) and taught in classrooms at King Edward VI Grammar School. The school eventually became part of the Retford Oaks Academy and moved to new premises on the edge of town, although the original Grade II listed buildings still exist on London Road.
The school donated the sledge pulled by the pony Michael in Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to the South Pole. Scott had appealed to the school boys of Great Britain to provide funds for the expedition, and the boys of Retford Grammar School contributed three guineas, with the Head Master adding 12s 6d to round it up to the cost of providing one sledge. Scott acknowledged the donation and wrote a postscript to the acknowledgement by hand to say: "Will you please give my hearty thanks to the boys for their generous subscription and good wishes. A sledge will be called ‘Retford.’—R.S."
Retford County High School for Girls has its origins in a meeting convened at the White Hart Hotel, Retford 'to consider the advisability of taking steps to establish a public High School for Girls in the district'. The prime instigator in the new project was the manager of the Westminster Bank, Mr. William Oakden, who in 1891 had moved from Nottingham to Retford. He and other like-minded people wanted to provide their daughters with some form of higher education. The school eventually found a site on the corner of Pelham Road and Queen Street, adjacent to the canal. The school educated around 400 girls in the 1950s to 1970s. In 1979 the secondary schools in Retford were reorganised and the 11+ abolished. Boys were to be admitted for the first time. The result was a comprehensive school called 'The Elizabethan High School' under head teacher Mrs Coxon-Butler. At this time the former Hallcroft Girls' secondary modern school on Hallcroft Road became the new school's Lower Site and the Retford Girls' High School became the school's Upper Site. The former Pelham Road/Queen Street site was demolished when the school moved to new buildings in Hallcroft and was renamed The Elizabethan Academy. The Pelham Road site is now a housing estate.
Notable people
Hugh Armstrong (actor)
Anthony Perrinott Lysberg Barber, Baron Barber, was a British Conservative politician
Max Blagg, poet.
Stephen Booth, crime writer.
Frank Branston, journalist, newspaper owner, and mayor of Bedford
Ed Bulling, professional footballer
John Cartwright, built The Revolution Mill in Retford.
Thomas Clater, painter
Doc Cox, went to the King Edward VI School
Robert Craufurd, Major General during Peninsular War and Member of Parliament for East Retford
Anne Denman, grandmother of Anne Hyde and great-grandmother of Queen Mary and Queen Anne
John Glasby, novelist, chemist, mathematician
Catherine Grace Frances Gore (Moody), novelist and playwright, was born in Retford
Mike Hall, cricketer for Nottinghamshire who lived in Retford for most of his life and played for Retford Cricket Club
Kat Hawkins, presenter and producer
George F. Hopkinson OBE, MC, commanded the First Airborne Division in the World War II
Philip Jackson, actor, best known for his role as Chief Inspector Japp in the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot
John Kelsall, British composer, conductor and lecturer
Liam Lawrence, football player for Sunderland AFC and the Republic of Ireland national football team
Ted Linley, footballer
Arthur James Mason, clergyman, theologian and classical scholar
Jim McCairns DFC, MM, pilot, grew up on Chapelgate, Retford and completed his education at King Edward VI Grammar School
Samuel Milner, physicist
Andrew Moody, journalist and recipient of the Chinese Government's 'Friendship Award'
Francis Orpen Morris, an ornithologist and entomologist who was curate at All Hallows 1837-1842
James Parnell, a prominent Quaker, writer, preacher and martyr. Known as "The Boy Martyr"
Albert Peatfield, cricketer
Derek Randall, cricketer for Nottinghamshire and England
John Taylor, English publisher
Francis Thornhagh, Parliamentarian soldier during the English Civil War was born in Sturton and was MP for East Retford when he was killed at the Battle of Preston
Sam Trickett, poker player
Russell Wainscoat, footballer
John Warham, photographer
Thomas White, politician, MP for Retford
Samuel Wright, nonconformist
See also
Municipal Borough of East Retford
Ordsall, Nottinghamshire
Listed buildings in Retford
Retford United F.C.
East Retford (UK Parliament constituency)
References
External links
Chesterfield Canal History Archive
List of histories of Retford by Ordsall Parish
Towns in Nottinghamshire
Market towns in Nottinghamshire
Bassetlaw District
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Avro Manchester
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The Avro 679 Manchester was a British twin-engine heavy bomber developed and manufactured by the Avro aircraft company in the United Kingdom. While not being built in great numbers, it was the forerunner of the famed and vastly more successful four-engined Avro Lancaster, which was one of the most capable strategic bombers of the Second World War.
Avro designed the Manchester in conformance with the requirements laid out by the British Air Ministry Specification P.13/36, which sought a capable medium bomber with which to equip the Royal Air Force (RAF) and to replace its inventory of twin-engine bombers, such as the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Handley Page Hampden and Vickers Wellington. Performing its maiden flight on 25 July 1939, the Manchester entered squadron service in November 1940, just over twelve months after the outbreak of the war.
Operated by both RAF and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), the Manchester came to be regarded as an operational failure, primarily as a result of its Rolls-Royce Vulture engines, which were underdeveloped and hence underpowered and unreliable, and production was terminated in 1941. However, the Manchester was redesigned into a four-engined heavy bomber, powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine instead, which became known as the Lancaster.
Development
The Manchester has its origins in a design produced by Avro in order to fulfil the British Air Ministry's Specification P.13/36. This was the same specification to which Handley Page had also produced their initial design for what would become the Halifax bomber. Issued in May 1936, Specification P.13/36 called for a twin-engine monoplane "medium bomber" for "worldwide use", which was to be capable of carrying out shallow (30°) dive bombing attacks and carry heavy bombloads (8,000 lb/3,630 kg) or two 18 in (457 mm) torpedoes. Additionally, provisions to conduct catapult assisted takeoffs, which would permit the carriage of the maximum payload, was also a stated requirement, although this provision was removed in July 1938. The envisioned cruising speed of the bomber was to be a minimum of 275 mph at 15,000 feet. The Air Ministry had expectations for an aircraft of similar weight to the B.1/35 specification, but smaller and faster.
Avro had already started work on a corresponding design prior to having received a formal invitation to tender. The company was in competition with Boulton Paul, Bristol, Fairey, Handley Page and Shorts. Vickers also had its Warwick, which had Napier Sabre engines, but eventually chose against tendering it. In early 1937, both the Avro design and the rival Handley Page HP.56 were accepted and prototypes of both ordered; but in mid-1937, the Air Ministry exercised their rights to order the types "off the drawing board". This skipping of the usual process was necessary due to the initiation of a wider expansion of the RAF in expectation of large scale war in Europe. From 1939, it was expected that the P.13/36 would begin replacing the RAF's existing medium bombers, such as the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Handley Page Hampden and Vickers Wellington.
The Avro design used the Rolls-Royce Vulture 24-cylinder X-block engine, which was two Rolls-Royce Peregrine Vee cylinder blocks mounted one on top of the other, the bottom one inverted to give the "X" shape. When developed in 1935, the Vulture engine had promise — it was rated at 1,760 hp (1,310 kW) but it proved woefully unreliable and had to be derated to 1,480–1,500 hp (1,100–1,120 kW). Avro's prototype Manchester L7246, was assembled by their experimental department at Manchester's Ringway Airport and first flew from there on 25 July 1939, with the second aircraft following on 26 May 1940. The Vulture engine was chosen by Avro and not stipulated by the Air Ministry as is sometimes claimed; other engine layouts considered included the use of two Bristol Hercules or Bristol Centaurus radial engines. The Handley Page HP.56, always intended as the backup to the Avro, was redesigned to take four engines on the orders of the Air Ministry in 1937, when the Vulture was already showing problems.
While the Manchester was designed with a twin tail, the first production aircraft, designated the Mk I, had a central fin added and twenty aircraft like this were built. They were succeeded by the Mk IA which reverted to the twin-fin system but used enlarged, taller fin and rudders mounted on a new tailplane, with span increased from 22 ft (6.71 m) to 33 ft (10.06 m). This configuration was carried over to the Lancaster, except for the first prototype, which also used a central fin and was a converted, unfinished Manchester. Avro constructed 177 Manchesters while Metropolitan-Vickers completed 32 aircraft. Plans for Armstrong Whitworth and Fairey Aviation at Ringway (now Manchester Airport) to build the Manchester were abandoned. Fairey's order for 150 Manchesters was replaced by orders for the Halifax.
Design
The Avro Manchester was designed with great consideration for ease of manufacture and repair. The fuselage of the aircraft comprised longitudinal stringers or longerons throughout, over which an external skin of aluminium alloy was flush-riveted for a smooth external surface. The wings were of a two-spar construction, the internal ribs being made of aluminium alloys; fuel was contained with several self-sealing fuel tanks within the wings. The tail shared a similar construction to the wing, featuring a twin fin-and-rudder configuration that provided good vision for the dorsal gunner.
The cockpit housed the pilot and fighting controller's position underneath the canopy, and these two crew members were provided with all-round vision. The navigator was seated aft of the fighting controller and the position included an astrodome for use of a sextant. The bomb aimer's station was housed inside the aircraft's nose, beneath the forward turret and bomb aiming was conducted using optical sights housed in this compartment. For crew comfort on lengthy missions, a rest area was situated just to the rear of the main cabin.
The aircraft's undercarriage was entirely retractable via hydraulic systems, or in an emergency, a backup air system. The doors to the bomb bay were also operated by these systems, an additional safety measure was installed to ensure that the bombs could not be dropped if the doors were shut. The bombs were housed on bomb racks inside the internal bomb bay, and other armaments such as torpedoes could also be fitted. All fuel tankage was located in the wings in order to keep the fuselage free to accommodate more armaments in the bomb bay which covered nearly two-thirds of the underside of the fuselage.
Vulnerable parts of the aircraft were armoured; the pilot had additional armour and bulletproof glass and an armoured bulkhead was to the rear of the navigator's position. The Manchester featured three hydraulically-operated turrets, located in the nose, rear and mid-upper fuselage; the addition of a ventral turret directly behind the bomb bay had been considered and tested on the second prototype, but did not feature on production aircraft. Access to all crew stations was provided by a walkway and crew positions had nearby escape hatches.
The Manchester was powered by a pair of Vulture engines; in service these proved to be extremely unreliable. Aviation author Jon Lake stated of the Vulture: "The engine made the Manchester mainly notable for its unreliability, poor performance, and general inadequacy to the task at hand" and attributed the aircraft's poor service record to the engine troubles.
I was one of the six original pilots to have flown with the first Manchester squadron. That was a disaster. The aircraft itself, the airframe, had many shortcomings in equipment in the beginning, but as we found out Avro were excellent in doing modifications and re-equipping the aeroplane. The engines never were and never did become reliable. They did not give enough power for the aeroplane, so we ended up with two extremely unreliable 1,750 hp engines having to haul a 50,000-pound aircraft. We should really have had 2,500 hp engines. You felt that if you'd lost one, that was it, you weren't coming home. It didn't matter if you feathered the propeller or not. There was only one way you went and that was down. I have seen an aircraft doing a run up on the ground and have two pistons come right out through the side of the engine. The original bearings were made without any silver as an economy measure, so they weren't hard enough. The bearings would collapse the connecting rod and the piston would fling out through the side of the engine and bang! Your engine just destroyed itself.
Operational history
On 5 August 1940, the first production Avro Manchester, L7276, was delivered to RAF Boscombe Down in advance of service acceptance trials. In November 1940, the Manchester officially entered service with the newly reformed No. 207 Squadron of RAF Bomber Command. The type passed all acceptance tests by 21 December 1940, and 207 Squadron had at least 80 Manchesters on strength by the end of 1940. The Manchester's first operational mission was conducted on 24–25 February 1941 in a raid on the French port of Brest. On 13 March 1941, L7319 became the first Manchester to be shot down by enemy fire.
On 13 April 1941, all Manchesters were temporarily grounded due to a higher than expected number of engine bearing failures; on 16 June 1941, a second grounding of the type was ordered due to more engine troubles. The unserviceability of the Vulture engine forced squadrons to make use of obsolete bombers such as the Hampden in its place. Upon the restart of operations in August 1941, additional failings were encountered; excessive tail flutter, hydraulic failures and faulty propeller feathering controls. Production of the Manchester was halted in November 1941, by which point a total of 202 aircraft had been constructed. A total of eight bomber squadrons were equipped with the type, it also served in two further squadrons and also saw use by RAF Coastal Command.
While modifications were made by Avro to address some of the technical issues experienced, unit strength suffered and Bomber Command was frequently unable to raise significant numbers of aircraft to participate in large bombing missions; on 7 November 1941, all of the RAFs serviceable bombers had been dispatched to bomb Berlin, out of a force of over 400 bombers, only 15 were Manchesters. On 3 March 1942, out of a force of nearly 200 bombers sent against a Renault factory near Paris, 25 were Manchesters; while during the first 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne on 30 May 1942, 35 Manchesters were amongst the 1,047 bombers sent to attack the city. Flying Officer Leslie Manser was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions while piloting Manchester L7301 of 50 Squadron during the Cologne bombing mission.
The Mk III Manchester (serial number BT308) which first flew on 9 January 1941, was essentially the first Lancaster, featuring a longer wing fitted with four Rolls-Royce Merlins in new unitized, power-egg nacelles – originally developed by Rolls-Royce for the Merlin-powered Beaufighter II – although initially retaining the three fins and twin outboard rudders (the central fin had no movable control surface) of the Manchester I. BT308 received the "Lancaster" name immediately after its first flight. The second prototype Lancaster DG595 featured the twin, enlarged fins and rudders of the Manchester IA. Manchester production continued until November of that year but some aircraft that were still in production were instead completed as Lancasters.
The 193 operational Manchesters flew 1,269 sorties with Bomber Command, dropping 1,826 tons (1,657 tonnes) of bombs and lost 78 aircraft in action, flying its last operation against Bremen on 25 June 1942. A further 45 were non-operational losses of which 30 involved engine failure. The Manchester was withdrawn from operations in mid-1942 in favour of more capable aircraft. Its final role in RAF service was as instructional trainers for converting crews to the RAF's new Lancaster bombers; the Manchester and Lancaster shared nearly identical crew positions and fuselages. The type persisted in use for training purposes into 1943 before being completely retired.
Variants
Manchester L7246
First prototype originally with twin tail. Due to lack of directional stability, it had a third fin added. Became a training airframe in November 1942.
Manchester L7247
Second prototype first flown 26 May 1940, fitted with armament, became a training airframe in October 1941.
Manchester I
First production version with 90 ft wing and 28 ft twin tail and additional central fin later added; 20 of this type were built.
Manchester IA
Main production version with 90 ft wing, twin tail with 33 ft enlarged tailplane. It also had taller fins and rudders.
Manchester IB
As Manchester IA but with thin-gauge fuselage skin.
Manchester IC
As Manchester IB but with 2 x 2,520 hp Bristol Centaurus. Installed in one airframe but never flown.
Manchester II
As Manchester IB but with 95 ft wing.
Manchester IIA
As Manchester II but with 2 x Bristol Centaurus. None built.
Manchester III BT308
This version was powered by four Merlin engines with increased wingspan; also, the three fins and rudders of the Manchester I were retained. This variant was the first prototype of the later Avro Lancaster.
Orders and production
Two prototypes were ordered against specification P.13/36 and were built by Avro at Ringway.
Production contract for 200 Manchesters placed with Avro to be built at Chadderton, contract changed to Lancaster I production after 157 had been built, delivered between August 1940 and November 1941.
Production contract for 150 Manchesters placed with Fairey to be built at Ringway, order cancelled.
Production contract for 200 Manchesters placed with Metropolitan-Vickers at Trafford Park, contract changed to Lancaster I production after 43 had been built, delivered between March 1941 and March 1942. The first 12 aircraft being built on the Trafford Park production line were destroyed in a German air raid on 23 December 1940, not being completed they are not included in the total aircraft built.
Production contract for 150 Manchesters placed with Armstrong-Whitworth, order cancelled.
In total two prototypes and 200 production aircraft were built before the production lines changed to building the four-engine Lancaster.
Operators
Royal Australian Air Force
No. 460 Squadron RAAF (August 1942 - October 1942)
Royal Canadian Air Force
No. 408 Squadron RCAF
No. 420 Squadron RCAF
Royal Air Force
No. 49 Squadron RAF at RAF Scampton (April 1942 – June 1942)
No. 50 Squadron RAF at RAF Skellingthorpe (April 1942 – June 1942)
No. 61 Squadron RAF at RAF Hemswell (June 1941 – June 1942)
No. 83 Squadron RAF at RAF Scampton (December 1941 – June 1942)
No. 97 Squadron RAF at RAF Waddington then RAF Coningsby (February 1941 – February 1942)
No. 106 Squadron RAF at RAF Coningsby (February 1942 – June 1942)
No. 207 Squadron RAF at RAF Waddington then RAF Bottesford (November 1940 – March 1942)
No. 25 Operation Training Unit at RAF Finningley
No. 44 Conversion Flight
No. 1485 Flight RAF
No. 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit
No. 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit
No. 1660 Heavy Conversion Unit
No. 1668 Heavy Conversion Unit
Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment
Torpedo Development Unit at RAF Gosport
Specifications (Manchester Mk I)
See also
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Bowyer, Chaz. Aircraft Profile No. 260: Avro Manchester. Windsor, UK: Profile Publications, 1974.
Buttler, Tony. British Secret Projects: Fighters and Bombers 1935–1950. Hickley, UK: Midland Publishing, 2004. .
Jackson, A.J. Avro Aircraft since 1908. London: Putnam Aeronautical Books, Second edition, 1990. .
Lake, Jon. The Great Book of Bombers: The World's Most Important Bombers from World War I to the Present Day. Zenith Imprint, 2002. .
Lewis, Peter. The British Bomber since 1914. London: Putnam, Second edition, 1974. .
"Manchesters". Aeromilitaria No. 2. Tonbridge, Kent, UK: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd., 1990.
Mason, Francis K. The British Bomber since 1914. London: Putnam Aeronautical Books, 1994. .
Sinnott, Colin. The RAF and Aircraft Design 1923–1939: Air Staff Operational Requirements (Studies in Air Power). London: Frank Cass, 2001. .
Thetford, Owen. Aircraft of the Royal Air Force 1918–57. London: Putnam, First edition, 1957. .
Further reading
Chant, Christopher. Lancaster: The History of Britain's Most Famous World War II Bomber. Bath, UK: Parragon, 2003. .
Holmes, Harry. Avro: The History of an Aircraft Company. Marlborough, UK: Crowood Press Ltd, Second edition, 2004. .
Holmes, Harry. Avro Lancaster (Combat Legend series). Shrewsbury, UK: Airlife Publishing Ltd., 2002. .
Jackson, Robert. Aircraft of World War II. Enderby, UK: Silverdale Books, 2006. .
Kirby, Robert. Avro Manchester: The Legend Behind the Manchester. Leicester, UK: Midland Publishing, 1995. .
Mackay, R.S.G. Lancaster in action. Carrollton, Texas: Squadron/Signal Publications Inc., 1982. .
External links
Royal Air Force Bomber Command 60th Anniversary – Avro Manchester
History, Specifications and Pictures of the Avro Manchester
The Lancaster & Manchester Bomber Archive
1941 British Pathe news report on the newly introduced Avro Manchester
Conventional landing gear
Manchester
1930s British bomber aircraft
World War II British bombers
Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1939
Twin-tail aircraft
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pite%C8%99ti
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Pitești
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Pitești () is a city in Romania, located on the river Argeș. The capital and largest city of Argeș County, it is an important commercial and industrial center, as well as the home of two universities. Pitești is situated in the historical region of Muntenia. It lies on the A1 freeway connecting the city directly to the national capital Bucharest, being an important railway junction, with a classification yard in nearby Bălilești. The city houses the Arpechim oil refinery, and is a marketing center for the automotive industry, in particular, Automobile Dacia.
Inhabited since prehistoric times but first mentioned in the 14th century, it developed as a trading town in northern Wallachia, serving as an informal residence for various Wallachian Princes until the 18th century. From the 19th century and until the interwar period, it was an important political center for the National Liberal Party and the main residence of the Brătianu family of politicians. During the early stages of the communist regime, it was one of the main sites of political repression, with the Pitești Prison becoming home to an experiment in brainwashing techniques.
History
Early history
The earliest traces of human settlements in this area relate to the Paleolithic. Coins minted by the Dacians during the 3rd century BC, copying the design of Thracian tetradrachmon issued by Lysimachus, have been discovered here. A small Roman castrum was built sometime in the 3rd century AD in the vicinity of present-day Pitești (part of a protection system for Roman Dacia and Moesia). During the Age of Migrations, the Pitești area was, according to historian Constantin C. Giurescu, the site of trading between Vlachs and Slavs, which, in his opinion, was the origin of Târgul din Deal ("The Market on the Hill"), a separate locality.
The first recorded mention of Pitești itself was on May 20, 1386, when Wallachian Prince Mircea I granted a gristmill in the area to Cozia Monastery. Pitești was subsequently one of the temporary residences of Wallachian Princes. Due to its positioning on the junction of major European routes (and its proximity to the Saxon markets in Hermannstadt, Transylvania), the city originally developed as an important commercial center. By the late 14th century, it became home to a sizable Armenian community.
At the time, the locality was only extending on the left bank of the Argeș, and gradually expanded over the river, reaching the hill slopes to the west (in the 19th century, it completely absorbed Târgul din Deal). While Pitești was commonly designated as a high-ranking town, a village of Pitești was still mentioned as late as 1528, which led some historians to conclude that the village and urban area coexisted within the same boundaries.
Early Modern period
Although princely quarters have not been uncovered, among the rulers to issue documents from Pitești were Basarab Țepeluș cel Tânăr (1477–1481), Neagoe Basarab (1512–1521), Vlad Înecatul (1530–1532), Vlad Vintilă de la Slatina (1532–1535), Michael the Brave (1593–1601), Simion Movilă (1601–1602), Matei Basarab (1632–1654) and Constantin Șerban (1654–1658). In addition, Constantin Brâncoveanu (1688–1714), who owned large sections of vineyard in the area, is reported to have spent several seasons in the town.
Under Vlad Vintilă, who allied himself with the Holy Roman Empire against his Ottoman overlords, Aloisio Gritti (governor of Ottoman Hungary) and his Wallachian boyar partisans camped in the Pitești neighborhood of Războieni, where they were attacked and defeated by the Prince. In 1600–1601, troops of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, led by Jan Zamoyski, were stationed in Pitești during their expedition against Michael the Brave (see Moldavian Magnate Wars). Around that time, fighting occurred in and around the town as the new prince Radu Șerban clashed with the Ottomans and their Crimean Khanate allies.
Constantin Șerban financed the building of the Orthodox Saint George Church, completed in 1656. His building program also included a (since-lost) palace and adjacent gardens. Around that time, the city hosted travelers of renown, such as Arab chronicler Paul of Aleppo and Swedish politician Claes Rålamb. It was during Brâncoveanu's rule that the city was home to Stolnic Constantin Cantacuzino, who was exchanging letters with English statesman William, Baron Paget. A tower and other princely houses, built by Brâncoveanu outside the town, gradually deteriorated over the 18th and 19th centuries (the last standing structure was lost in the 20th century). In 1689, Habsburg troops led by Louis William of Baden occupied the city as part of the Great Turkish War (they were repelled later that year).
18th and early 19th centuries
In November 1714, as a direct result of Swedish defeats in the Great Northern War against Imperial Russia, Swedish King Charles XII unsuccessfully sought an alliance with Sultan Ahmed III; on his way back from Istanbul, Charles and Axel Sparre passed through Pitești, and, after a three-week stay, made their way to Swedish Pomerania through Habsburg-ruled regions. During the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–1718, Habsburg troops attacked and captured the town; Pitești was again the scene of battles during the Austro-Turkish War of 1737–1739.
In 1780, Tuscan numismatist Domenico Sestini passed through the Argeș region, and described the town as having 250 houses and 7 churches. In 1804, the citizens requested to have an upper school opened (to offer lectures in Greek, the educational language of the time); their request was denied by Prince Constantine Ypsilantis. During the 1790s, Pitești was visited by Luigi Mayer, a German pupil of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, who left etchings of the region (including the very first one of Pitești); they were published in London in 1810, with text by a T. Bowyer, whose caption for Pitești read "nothing more wild or romantic can be conceived".
The town was an important location for events relating to the last stage of the Wallachian uprising of 1821 and the first stages of the Greek War of Independence: it was here that, in late spring 1821, the Wallachian rebel leader Tudor Vladimirescu settled after retreating from Bucharest. His departure raised suspicion from his Eterist allies that he was planning to abandon the common cause. Vladimirescu was captured in the nearby locality of Băilești and executed soon after, on orders from Alexander Ypsilantis.
Late 19th and early 20th century
The city was developed further after the 1859 unification of the Danubian Principalities and the 1881 creation of the Romanian Kingdom. Around that time, and down to the late interwar, the city became a National Liberal center, largely due to the Brătianu family of politicians residing in nearby Ștefănești. Their manor, Florica, housed most major reunions of the National Liberal leaders. For a short period in 1882, Pitești was home to dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale, leading some to propose that it was the unnamed National Liberal-dominated city depicted in Caragiale's famous play O scrisoare pierdută.
By 1872, a national railway connection with the capital Bucharest and Târgoviște was built, at the same time as one linking Bucharest with Ploiești through Chitila. Overseen by the German financier Bethel Henry Strousberg, this was the second project of its kind in Romania (after the Bucharest-Giurgiu rail link of 1869). The Pitești Town Hall was completed in 1886, and currently houses an art gallery. The Argeș County Prefecture, designed by Dimitrie Maimarolu, was erected in 1898–1899 on the site previously occupied by an Orthodox hermitage; it is the present-day site of the County Museum of History and Natural Sciences. Both buildings are eclectic in style, and feature frescoes painted by Iosif Materna.
Pitești experienced urbanization and economic development with several changes in landscape and a number of regional firsts. In 1868–1869, Pitești was the first city in Romania to have a recorded Seventh-day Adventist community, formed around Michał Belina-Czechowski, a Polish preacher and former Catholic priest who had returned from the United States (the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Romania was established only after 1918). By 1906, Pitești was home to a thriving cooperative bank, Banca Populară Pitești, which was also the first-ever financial institution in the Argeș County. In 1907, factory manager Edmond Landauer performed the very first Tayloristic experiments in Romania, at Pitești Weaving Mill.
From late autumn 1916 to 1918, during the World War I battles, Pitești was occupied by the troops of the Central Powers. The city was originally abandoned by the Romanian Army and taken by the German commander August von Mackensen as the front stabilized on the Olt River, before Mackensen was able to occupy Bucharest and the entire southern Romania. During the post-war existence of Greater Romania, Pitești became a regional cultural center, notably hosting the 1928–1929 series of the magazine Kalende (published in cooperation by literary critics Vladimir Streinu, Șerban Cioculescu, Pompiliu Constantinescu, and Tudor Șoimaru).
World War II and communism
Pitești was affected in various ways by World War II and its successive regimes. After a fascist National Legionary State was proclaimed by the Iron Guard in late 1940, a bronze bust of former Premier Armand Călinescu (whom the Guard had assassinated in September 1939), was chained and dragged through the city streets. In December 1943, under the dictatorship of Conducător Ion Antonescu (a Pitești native), it saw the final chapter in a chain of deportations of Romani people to Transnistria (see Holocaust in Romania). The city was sporadically bombed by the Allies: on July 4, 1944, it was struck by a section of the US Fifteenth Air Force (see Bombing of Romania in World War II).
In the 1950s, while serving as capital of Regiunea Argeș, Pitești gained an ill notoriety, when the communist authorities used the local detention facility to subject political detainees to "reeducation", in which violence between inmates was encouraged to the point of being mandatory (see Pitești prison). The experiment was carried out by the Securitate secret police and overseen by Alexandru Nicolschi; its goal was to psychologically destroy the capacity for outside attachment and outside loyalty, creating the brainwashed New Man prototype of Leninism. The program was canceled after some five years. At a trial held in 1953–1954, twenty-two inmate-participants were sentenced, with sixteen being condemned to death for their role in the experiment. In 1957, a new trial convicted certain members of the prison staff, who received light sentences; they were later pardoned.
In parallel, Pitești underwent numerous changes in landscape, including the completion of the A1 freeway, the first road of its kind, during the 1960s, and the acceleration of industrialization with a focus on the chemical and automotive industries. Around 1950, Pitești area accommodated ELAS refugees from the Greek Civil War (some of the buildings erected for this purpose were later used to house resettled peasants). Florica was nationalized in 1948, and was later partly devastated by Romanian Communist Party activists (for a while during the 1970s, it was a residence of the communist politician Ion Dincă). The bust of Ion Brătianu, standing in front of Saint Nicholas Church, was removed and melted, and the church itself was demolished in 1962.
Geography
The city is part of the historical region of Wallachia, situated in its north and in the westernmost part of its Muntenian subregion. It lies on the right bank of the Argeș, where the river meets its tributary, Râul Doamnei.
Pitești is situated above sea level, on terraces formed by the Argeș, and belongs to the southernmost section of the Getic Plateau (an area of foothills leading up to the Southern Carpathians). The Plateau is at its narrowest in the Pitești area, where it only reaches in width, as opposed to the average. The city has access to a piedmont plain, known as Câmpia Piteștilor ("Pitești Plain") and characterized by water-meadows. To the west, it abuts the Trivale Forest, which has been partly set up as a leisure park.
Pitești is adjacent to two reservoirs on the Argeș, in its Prundu area and in nearby Bascov (the Budeasa Dam). It is situated downstream from Lake Vidraru and upstream from the reservoir in Bălilești.
Climate
According to the Köppen climate classification, the city lies within the humid continental climate (Dfb) category. Average annual temperatures range between 9 °C and 10 °C. The average January temperature is -2.4 °C, while the average July temperature is 20.8 °C.
Demographics
As of 2021 census data, 141,275 inhabitants live within the city limits, a decrease from the figure recorded at the 2011 census.
Romania's 2011 census recorded a population of 155,383 for the city. Of the individuals for whom data were available, 99.1% were ethnic Romanians and 0.6% Roma. In terms of religion, 98.4% were Romanian Orthodox; 0.3% Roman Catholic; and 0.2% each Pentecostal, Christian Evangelical, Baptist and Evangelical. A further 0.2% were atheist or non-religious. A 2016 estimate placed the population at 177,485. The 1930 census found that 88.0% of residents were Romanians, 3.0% Jews, 2.5% Hungarians, 2.2% Roma, 1.4% Germans, 0.6% Greeks and 0.3% each Russians, Bulgarians, Armenians and, grouped together, Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
The population of Pitești grew between the 1830s and the 1990s, with the most sustained period of growth occurring after the 1950s, when industrial development created jobs and attracted residents from nearby settlements. The population peaked at an estimated 187,000 in 1997, then stagnated until 2001, and has gradually decreased since that time. The drop is particularly noticeable among the male population: this segment not only has a higher mortality and lower life expectancy, but also, due to de-industrialization, emigrated in search of work in significant numbers.
Economy
Pitești is one of the most industrialized cities in Romania. It is the center of the automotive industry in the country: the Automobile Dacia automaker is situated in the nearby town of Mioveni, and several other automobile parts manufacturers are located within its urban area (Dräxlmaier Group, Lear Corporation and Valeo). The city also houses the Arpechim oil refinery, part of the Petrom group. The plant, established as a state-owned company during communism, has traditionally been the center of controversy over its air pollution records. In 2007, the Ministry of the Environment withdrew Arpechim's permit, but Petrom contested the decision in court. The plant is scheduled to gradually reduce its activity over a period of several years, pending eventual closure.
The city is surrounded by hills rich in wineries and plum orchards. The latter give one of the finest Romanian țuicas: țuica de Pitești. The Ștefănești winery, situated on the opposite bank of the Argeș River, is one of the best known in Romania.
Culture
Theatre
Pitești is home to a County Theater; established in 1948, it was named in honor of playwright Alexandru Davila a decade later. Its branches include a puppet theater (created in 1949), the Estrada section for open-air performances (1958), and a folklore section (1970). The Theater's Studio 125 was established in May 1975 by director Liviu Ciulei.
The first written record of a theatrical performance in the city dates to 1848, when Constantin Halepliu set up a troupe. Following that year's revolution, several actors, Halepliu included, were arrested, and the theatre closed until 1856. A Communal Theatre was built in 1914–1916. Since 1948, the local acting ensemble has performed both in other Romanian cities and abroad, including in Poland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Italy and Spain.
Education
The city houses two universities: the state-run University of Pitești and the private Constantin Brâncoveanu University (founded 1991, with branches in Brăila and Râmnicu Vâlcea). There are 17 secondary education institutions, including two main high schools—the Ion Brătianu National College (founded 1866) and the Zinca Golescu National College. There are also 20 primary schools, 23 kindergartens and 10 nursery schools.
A public library, named after intellectual figure Dinicu Golescu, was planned in 1869 by Paraschiva Stephu, a female member of the upper class, who drew up a will leaving 200 Austrian ducats for the purpose of creating a library. The institution became operational in 1880, and a large part of the volumes were bequeathed by historian George Ionescu-Gion immediately following his death in 1904. His donation included over a thousand books in Romanian, French and Italian. The library moved into its current headquarters in the city center in 2003.
Festivals
Each year during springtime, Pitești is host to a festival and fair known as Simfonia lalelelor (the "Tulip Symphony"). Tulips were introduced locally in 1972–1973, when around 3,000 bulbs brought from Arad and Oradea were planted in its central area, along with other flowers. Pitești consequently acquired a reputation as a tulip-growing area, and the flower-themed festival was first organized by the local authorities in 1978. Typically held in the cultural centre building (Casa Cărții), the festival also includes folk music performances, international scientific conferences, an art exhibit and youth sport competitions.
Sport
The major football club in the city is FC Argeș Pitești, which has generally played in Liga I, and has the Nicolae Dobrin Stadium as its home ground. In addition, the city was home to a Liga II football club, Internațional Pitești (located on Stadionul Ștrand), and has a school which doubles as a junior team, Sporting Pitești. Pitești hosts basketball team BCM U Pitești, as well as a women's volleyball team, Argeș Volei Pitești.
Pitești is home to an Olympic size swimming pool, the home ground for CSM Pitești, and a public outdoor swimming pool in the Tudor Vladimirescu area. Nearby Bascov also has a public swimming place, on grounds adjacent to the Budeasa Dam. The national canoe racing also trains at the Budeasa Dam sports base, and the location is also used for recreational fishing. A tennis challenger tournament (Turneul challenger feminin Pitești) takes place each year, on grounds in Bascov.
Gallery
Notable people
Ion Antonescu
Ilie Bărbulescu
Mauriciu Blank
Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești
Dimitrie Brătianu
Ion Brătianu
Armand Călinescu
Corneliu Calotescu
Nicolae Comănescu
Nicolae Dică
Nicolae Dobrin
Ruxandra Dragomir
Haralamb H. Georgescu
Al. Gherghel
Gheorghe Ionescu-Gion
Alexandru Kirițescu
Cristian Minculescu
Adrian Neaga
Marian Oprea
Constance Pascal
Sebastian Papaiani
Mircea Pârligras
Nicolae Penescu
Costin Petrescu
Rudolf Schweitzer-Cumpăna
Ioan Sion
Smiley
Lavinia Stan
Bogdan Stancu
Cristian Tănase
Tudor Teodorescu-Braniște
Teo Trandafir
Ion Trivale
Lucian Turcescu
Robert Turcescu
Adrian Ungur
Zavaidoc
Twin towns – sister cities
Pitești is twinned with:
Beit Jala, Palestine
Borlänge, Sweden
Bydgoszcz, Poland
Caserta, Italy
Chongqing, China
Gyumri, Armenia
Kragujevac, Serbia
Muntinlupa, Philippines
Nafplio, Greece
Ourém, Portugal
Springfield, Ohio, United States
Tynaarlo, Netherlands
Notes
References
Monografia geografică a Republicii Populare Romîne, Vol. I: "Geografia fizică", Editura Academiei RPR, Bucharest, 1960
Adrian Cioroianu, Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc, Editura Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2005.
Constantin C. Giurescu, Istoria Bucureștilor. Din cele mai vechi timpuri pînă în zilele noastre, Editura Pentru Literatură, Bucharest, 1966.
External links
Populated places in Argeș County
Cities in Romania
Capitals of Romanian counties
Localities in Muntenia
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open%20access
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Open access
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Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. Under some models of open access publishing, barriers to copying or reuse are also reduced or removed by applying an open license for copyright.
The main focus of the open access movement is "peer reviewed research literature". Historically, this has centered mainly on print-based academic journals. Whereas non-open access journals cover publishing costs through access tolls such as subscriptions, site licenses or pay-per-view charges, open-access journals are characterised by funding models which do not require the reader to pay to read the journal's contents, relying instead on author fees or on public funding, subsidies and sponsorships. Open access can be applied to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed academic journal articles, conference papers, theses, book chapters, monographs, research reports and images.
Since the revenue of most open access journals is earned from publication fees charged to the authors, OA publishers are motivated to increase their profits by accepting low-quality papers and by not performing thorough peer review. On the other hand, the prices for OA publications in the most prestigious journals have exceeded US$5,000 per article, making such publishing model unaffordable to a large number of researchers. This increase in publishing cost has been called the "Open-Access Sequel to [the] Serials Crisis".
Definitions
There are different models of open access publishing and publishers may use one or more of these models.
Colour naming system
Different open access types are currently commonly described using a colour system. The most commonly recognised names are "green", "gold", and "hybrid" open access; however, several other models and alternative terms are also used.
Gold OA
In the gold OA model, the publisher makes all articles and related content available for free immediately on the journal's website. In such publications, articles are licensed for sharing and reuse via Creative Commons licenses or similar.
Many gold OA publishers charge an article processing charge (APC), which is typically paid through institutional or grant funding. The majority of gold open access journals charging APCs follow an "author-pays" model,
although this is not an intrinsic property of gold OA.
Green OA
Self-archiving by authors is permitted under green OA. Independently from publication by a publisher, the author also posts the work to a website controlled by the author, the research institution that funded or hosted the work, or to an independent central open repository, where people can download the work without paying.
Green OA is gratis for the author. Some publishers (less than 5% and decreasing as of 2014) may charge a fee for an additional service such as a free license on the publisher-authored copyrightable portions of the printed version of an article.
If the author posts the near-final version of their work after peer review by a journal, the archived version is called a "postprint". This can be the accepted manuscript as returned by the journal to the author after successful peer review.
Hybrid OA
Hybrid open-access journals contain a mixture of open access articles and closed access articles. A publisher following this model is partially funded by subscriptions, and only provide open access for those individual articles for which the authors (or research sponsor) pay a publication fee. Hybrid OA generally costs more than gold OA and can offer a lower quality of service. A particularly controversial practice in hybrid open access journals is "double dipping", where both authors and subscribers are charged. For these reasons, Hybrid Open Access journals have been called a "Mephistophelian invention", and publishing in Hybrid OA journals is not considered as meeting the open access mandate.
Bronze OA
Bronze open access articles are free to read only on the publisher page, but lack a clearly identifiable license. Such articles are typically not available for reuse.
Diamond/platinum OA
Journals that publish open access without charging authors article processing charges are sometimes referred to as diamond or platinum OA. Since they do not charge either readers or authors directly, such publishers often require funding from external sources such as the sale of advertisements, academic institutions, learned societies, philanthropists or government grants. There are now over 350 platinum OA journals with impact factors over a wide variety of academic disciplines, giving most academics options for OA with no APCs. Diamond OA journals are available for most disciplines, and are usually small (<25 articles per year) and more likely to be multilingual (38%).
Black OA
The growth of unauthorized digital copying by large-scale copyright infringement has enabled free access to paywalled literature. This has been done via existing social media sites (e.g. the #ICanHazPDF hashtag) as well as dedicated sites (e.g. Sci-Hub). In some ways this is a large-scale technical implementation of pre-existing practice, whereby those with access to paywalled literature would share copies with their contacts. However, the increased ease and scale from 2010 onwards have changed how many people treat subscription publications.
Gratis and libre
Similar to the free content definition, the terms 'gratis' and 'libre' were used in the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition to distinguish between free to read versus free to reuse.
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Gratis open access () refers to free online access, to read, free of charge, without re-use rights.
Libre open access () also refers to free online access, to read, free of charge, plus some additional re-use rights, covering the kinds of open access defined in the Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. The re-use rights of libre OA are often specified by various specific Creative Commons licenses; all of which require as a minimum attribution of authorship to the original authors. In 2012, the number of works under libre open access was considered to have been rapidly increasing for a few years, though most open-access mandates did not enforce any copyright license and it was difficult to publish libre gold OA in legacy journals. However, there are no costs nor restrictions for green libre OA as preprints can be freely self-deposited with a free license, and most open-access repositories use Creative Commons licenses to allow reuse.
FAIR
FAIR is an acronym for 'findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable', intended to more clearly define what is meant by the term 'open access' and make the concept easier to discuss. Initially proposed in March 2016, it has subsequently been endorsed by organisations such as the European Commission and the G20.
Features
The emergence of open science or open research has brought to light a number of controversial and hotly-debated topics.
Scholarly publishing invokes various positions and passions. For example, authors may spend hours struggling with diverse article submission systems, often converting document formatting between a multitude of journal and conference styles, and sometimes spend months waiting for peer review results. The drawn-out and often contentious societal and technological transition to Open Access and Open Science/Open Research, particularly across North America and Europe (Latin America has already widely adopted "Acceso Abierto" since before 2000) has led to increasingly entrenched positions and much debate.
The area of (open) scholarly practices increasingly see a role for policy-makers and research funders giving focus to issues such as career incentives, research evaluation and business models for publicly funded research. Plan S and AmeliCA (Open Knowledge for Latin America) caused a wave of debate in scholarly communication in 2019 and 2020.
Licenses
Subscription-based publishing typically requires transfer of copyright from authors to the publisher so that the latter can monetise the process via dissemination and reproduction of the work. With OA publishing, typically authors retain copyright to their work, and license its reproduction to the publisher. Retention of copyright by authors can support academic freedoms by enabling greater control of the work (e.g. for image re-use) or licensing agreements (e.g. to allow dissemination by others).
The most common licenses used in open access publishing are Creative Commons. The widely used CC BY license is one of the most permissive, only requiring attribution to be allowed to use the material (and allowing derivations and commercial use). A range of more restrictive Creative Commons licenses are also used. More rarely, some of the smaller academic journals use custom open access licenses. Some publishers (e.g. Elsevier) use "author nominal copyright" for OA articles, where the author retains copyright in name only and all rights are transferred to the publisher.
Funding
Since open access publication does not charge readers, there are many financial models used to cover costs by other means. Open access can be provided by commercial publishers, who may publish open access as well as subscription-based journals, or dedicated open-access publishers such as Public Library of Science (PLOS) and BioMed Central. Another source of funding for open access can be institutional subscribers. One example of this is the Subscribe to Open publishing model introduced by Annual Reviews; if the subscription revenue goal is met, the given journal's volume is published open access.
Advantages and disadvantages of open access have generated considerable discussion amongst researchers, academics, librarians, university administrators, funding agencies, government officials, commercial publishers, editorial staff and society publishers. Reactions of existing publishers to open access journal publishing have ranged from moving with enthusiasm to a new open access business model, to experiments with providing as much free or open access as possible, to active lobbying against open access proposals. There are many publishers that started up as open access-only publishers, such as PLOS, Hindawi Publishing Corporation, Frontiers in... journals, MDPI and BioMed Central.
Article processing charges
Some open access journals (under the gold, and hybrid models) generate revenue by charging publication fees in order to make the work openly available at the time of publication. The money might come from the author but more often comes from the author's research grant or employer. While the payments are typically incurred per article published (e.g. BMC or PLOS journals), some journals apply them per manuscript submitted (e.g. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics until recently) or per author (e.g. PeerJ).
Charges typically range from $1,000–$3,000 ($5,380 for Nature Communications) but can be under $10 or over $5,000. APCs vary greatly depending on subject and region and are most common in scientific and medical journals (43% and 47% respectively), and lowest in arts and humanities journals (0% and 4% respectively). APCs can also depend on a journal's impact factor. Some publishers (e.g. eLife and Ubiquity Press) have released estimates of their direct and indirect costs that set their APCs. Hybrid OA generally costs more than gold OA and can offer a lower quality of service. A particularly controversial practice in hybrid open access journals is "double dipping", where both authors and subscribers are charged.
By comparison, journal subscriptions equate to $3,500–$4,000 per article published by an institution, but are highly variable by publisher (and some charge page fees separately). This has led to the assessment that there is enough money "within the system" to enable full transition to OA. However, there is ongoing discussion about whether the change-over offers an opportunity to become more cost-effective or promotes more equitable participation in publication. Concern has been noted that increasing subscription journal prices will be mirrored by rising APCs, creating a barrier to less financially privileged authors.
The inherent bias of the current APC-based OA publishing perpetuates this inequality through the 'Matthew effect' (the rich get richer and the poor get poorer). The switch from pay-to-read to pay-to-publish has left essentially the same people behind, with some academics not having enough purchasing power (individually or through their institutions) for either option. Some gold OA publishers will waive all or part of the fee for authors from less developed economies. Steps are normally taken to ensure that peer reviewers do not know whether authors have requested, or been granted, fee waivers, or to ensure that every paper is approved by an independent editor with no financial stake in the journal. The main argument against requiring authors to pay a fee, is the risk to the peer review system, diminishing the overall quality of scientific journal publishing.
Subsidized or no-fee
No-fee open access journals, also known as "platinum" or "diamond" do not charge either readers or authors. These journals use a variety of business models including subsidies, advertising, membership dues, endowments, or volunteer labour. Subsidising sources range from universities, libraries and museums to foundations, societies or government agencies. Some publishers may cross-subsidise from other publications or auxiliary services and products. For example, most APC-free journals in Latin America are funded by higher education institutions and are not conditional on institutional affiliation for publication. Conversely, Knowledge Unlatched crowdsources funding in order to make monographs available open access.
Estimates of prevalence vary, but approximately 10,000 journals without APC are listed in DOAJ and the Free Journal Network. APC-free journals tend to be smaller and more local-regional in scope. Some also require submitting authors to have a particular institutional affiliation.
Preprint use
A "preprint" is typically a version of a research paper that is shared on an online platform prior to, or during, a formal peer review process. Preprint platforms have become popular due to the increasing drive towards open access publishing and can be publisher- or community-led. A range of discipline-specific or cross-domain platforms now exist. The posting of pre-prints (and/or authors' manuscript versions) is consistent with the Green Open Access model.
Archiving
The "green" route to OA refers to author self-archiving, in which a version of the article (often the peer-reviewed version before editorial typesetting, called "postprint") is posted online to an institutional and/or subject repository. This route is often dependent on journal or publisher policies, which can be more restrictive and complicated than respective "gold" policies regarding deposit location, license, and embargo requirements. Some publishers require an embargo period before deposition in public repositories, arguing that immediate self-archiving risks loss of subscription income.
Embargo periods
Embargoes are imposed by between 20 and 40% of journals, during which time an article is paywalled before permitting self-archiving (green OA) or releasing a free-to-read version (bronze OA). Embargo periods typically vary from 6–12 months in STEM and >12 months in humanities, arts and social sciences. Embargo-free self-archiving has not been shown to affect subscription revenue, and tends to increase readership and citations. Embargoes have been lifted on particular topics for either limited times or ongoing (e.g. Zika outbreaks or indigenous health). Plan S includes zero-length embargoes on self-archiving as a key principle.
Motivations
Open access (mostly green and gratis) began to be sought and provided worldwide by researchers when the possibility itself was opened by the advent of Internet and the World Wide Web. The momentum was further increased by a growing movement for academic journal publishing reform, and with it gold and libre OA.
The premises behind open access publishing are that there are viable funding models to maintain traditional peer review standards of quality while also making the following changes:
Rather than making journal articles accessible through a subscription business model, all academic publications could be made free to read and published with some other cost-recovery model, such as publication charges, subsidies, or charging subscriptions only for the print edition, with the online edition gratis or "free to read".
Rather than applying traditional notions of copyright to academic publications, they could be libre or "free to build upon".
An obvious advantage of open access journals is the free access to scientific papers regardless of affiliation with a subscribing library and improved access for the general public; this is especially true in developing countries. Lower costs for research in academia and industry have been claimed in the Budapest Open Access Initiative, although others have argued that OA may raise the total cost of publication, and further increase economic incentives for exploitation in academic publishing. The open access movement is motivated by the problems of social inequality caused by restricting access to academic research, which favor large and wealthy institutions with the financial means to purchase access to many journals, as well as the economic challenges and perceived unsustainability of academic publishing.
Stakeholders and concerned communities
The intended audience of research articles is usually other researchers. Open access helps researchers as readers by opening up access to articles that their libraries do not subscribe to. All researchers benefit from open access as no library can afford to subscribe to every scientific journal and most can only afford a small fraction of them – this is known as the "serials crisis".
Open access extends the reach of research beyond its immediate academic circle. An open access article can be read by anyone – a professional in the field, a researcher in another field, a journalist, a politician or civil servant, or an interested layperson. Indeed, a 2008 study revealed that mental health professionals are roughly twice as likely to read a relevant article if it is freely available.
Research funders
Research funding agencies and universities want to ensure that the research they fund and support in various ways has the greatest possible research impact. As a means of achieving this, research funders are beginning to expect open access to the research they support. Many of them (including all UK Research Councils) have already adopted open-access mandates, and others are on the way to do so (see ROARMAP).
Universities
A growing number of universities are providing institutional repositories in which their researchers can deposit their published articles. Some open access advocates believe that institutional repositories will play a very important role in responding to open-access mandates from funders.
In May 2005, 16 major Dutch universities cooperatively launched DAREnet, the Digital Academic Repositories, making over 47,000 research papers available. From 2 June 2008, DAREnet has been incorporated into the scholarly portal NARCIS. By 2019, NARCIS provided access to 360,000 open access publications from all Dutch universities, KNAW, NWO and a number of scientific institutes.
In 2011, a group of universities in North America formed the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI). Starting with 21 institutions where the faculty had either established an open access policy or were in the process of implementing one, COAPI now has nearly 50 members. These institutions' administrators, faculty and librarians, and staff support the international work of the Coalition's awareness-raising and advocacy for open access.
In 2012, the Harvard Open Access Project released its guide to good practices for university open-access policies, focusing on rights-retention policies that allow universities to distribute faculty research without seeking permission from publishers. Rights retention is currently being explored in the UK by UKSCL.
In 2013 a group of nine Australian universities formed the Australian Open Access Strategy Group (AOASG) to advocate, collaborate, raise awareness, and lead and build capacity in the open access space in Australia. In 2015, the group expanded to include all eight New Zealand universities and was renamed the Australasian Open Access Support Group. It was then renamed the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group , highlighting its emphasis on strategy. The awareness raising activities of the AOASG include presentations, workshops, blogs, and a webinar series on open access issues.
Libraries and librarians
As information professionals, librarians are often vocal and active advocates of open access. These librarians believe that open access promises to remove both the price and permission barriers that undermine library efforts to provide access to scholarship, as well as helping to address the serials crisis. Open access provides a complement to library access services such as interlibrary loan, supporting researchers' needs for immediate access to scholarship. Librarians and library associations also lead education and outreach initiatives to faculty, administrators, the library community, and the public about the benefits of open access.
Many library associations have either signed major open access declarations or created their own. For example, IFLA have produced a Statement on Open Access. The Association of Research Libraries has documented the need for increased access to scholarly information, and was a leading founder of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). Librarians and library associations also develop and share informational resources on scholarly publishing and open access to research; the Scholarly Communications Toolkit developed by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association is one example of this work.
At most universities, the library manages the institutional repository, which provides free access to scholarly work by the university's faculty. The Canadian Association of Research Libraries has a program to develop institutional repositories at all Canadian university libraries. An increasing number of libraries provide publishing or hosting services for open access journals, with the Library Publishing Coalition as a membership organisation.
In 2013, open access activist Aaron Swartz was posthumously awarded the American Library Association's James Madison Award for being an "outspoken advocate for public participation in government and unrestricted access to peer-reviewed scholarly articles". In March 2013, the entire editorial board and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Library Administration resigned en masse, citing a dispute with the journal's publisher. One board member wrote of a "crisis of conscience about publishing in a journal that was not open access" after the death of Aaron Swartz.
Public
The public may benefit from open access to scholarly research for many reasons. Advocacy groups such as SPARC's Alliance for Taxpayer Access in the US argue that most scientific research is paid for by taxpayers through government grants, who have a right to access the results of what they have funded. Examples of people who might wish to read scholarly literature include individuals with medical conditions and their family members, serious hobbyists or "amateur" scholars (e.g. amateur astronomers), and high school and junior college students. Additionally, professionals in many fields, such as those doing research in private companies, start-ups, and hospitals, may not have access to publications behind paywalls, and OA publications are the only type that they can access in practice.
Even those who do not read scholarly articles benefit indirectly from open access. For example, patients benefit when their doctor and other health care professionals have access to the latest research. Advocates argue that open access speeds research progress, productivity, and knowledge translation.
Low-income countries
In developing nations, open access archiving and publishing acquires a unique importance. Scientists, health care professionals, and institutions in developing nations often do not have the capital necessary to access scholarly literature.
Many open access projects involve international collaboration. For example, the SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), is a comprehensive approach to full open access journal publishing, involving a number of Latin American countries. Bioline International, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping publishers in developing countries is a collaboration of people in the UK, Canada, and Brazil; the Bioline International Software is used around the world. Research Papers in Economics (RePEc), is a collaborative effort of over 100 volunteers in 45 countries. The Public Knowledge Project in Canada developed the open-source publishing software Open Journal Systems (OJS), which is now in use around the world, for example by the African Journals Online group, and one of the most active development groups is Portuguese. This international perspective has resulted in advocacy for the development of open-source appropriate technology and the necessary open access to relevant information for sustainable development.
History
Extent
Various studies have investigated the extent of open access. A study published in 2010 showed that roughly 20% of the total number of peer-reviewed articles published in 2008 could be found openly accessible. Another study found that by 2010, 7.9% of all academic journals with impact factors were gold open access journals and showed a broad distribution of Gold Open Access journals throughout academic disciplines. A study of random journals from the citations indexes AHSCI, SCI and SSCI in 2013 came to the result that 88% of the journals were closed access and 12% were open access. In August 2013, a study done for the European Commission reported that 50% of a random sample of all articles published in 2011 as indexed by Scopus were freely accessible online by the end of 2012. A 2017 study by the Max Planck Society put the share of gold access articles in pure open access journals at around 13 percent of total research papers.
In 2009, there were approximately 4,800 active open access journals, publishing around 190,000 articles. As of February 2019, over 12,500 open access journals are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.
A 2013-2018 report (GOA4) found that in 2018 over 700,000 articles were published in gold open access in the world, of which 42% was in journals with no author-paid fees. The figure varies significantly depending on region and kind of publisher: 75% if university-run, over 80% in Latin America, but less than 25% in Western Europe. However, Crawford's study did not count open access articles published in "hybrid" journals (subscription journals that allow authors to make their individual articles open in return for payment of a fee). More comprehensive analyses of the scholarly literature suggest that this resulted in a significant underestimation of the prevalence of author-fee-funded OA publications in the literature. Crawford's study also found that although a minority of open access journals impose charges on authors, a growing majority of open access articles are published under this arrangement, particularly in the science disciplines (thanks to the enormous output of open access "mega journals", each of which may publish tens of thousands of articles in a year and are invariably funded by author-side charges—see Figure 10.1 in GOA4).
The adoption of Open Access publishing varies significantly from publisher to publisher, as shown in Fig. OA-Plot, where only the oldest (traditional) publishers are shown, but not the newer publishers, that use the Open Access model exclusively (such as MDPI and OMICS).This plot shows, that since 2010 the Institute of Physics has the largest percentage of OA publications, while the American Chemical Society has the lowest. Both the IOP and the ACS are non-profit publishers. The increase in OA percentage for articles published before ca. 1923 is related to the expiration of a 100-year copyright term. Some publishers (e.g. IOP and ACS made many such articles available as Open Access, while others (Elsevier in particular) did not.
The Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) indexes the creation, location and growth of open access open access-repositories and their contents. As of February 2019, over 4,500 institutional and cross-institutional repositories have been registered in ROAR.
Effects on scholarly publishing
Article impact
Since published articles report on research that is typically funded by government or university grants, the more the article is used, cited, applied and built upon, the better for research as well as for the researcher's career.
Some professional organizations have encouraged use of open access: in 2001, the International Mathematical Union communicated to its members that "Open access to the mathematical literature is an important goal" and encouraged them to "[make] available electronically as much of our own work as feasible" to "[enlarge] the reservoir of freely available primary mathematical material, particularly helping scientists working without adequate library access".
Readership
OA articles are generally viewed online and downloaded more often than paywalled articles and that readership continues for longer. Readership is especially higher in demographics that typically lack access to subscription journals (in addition to the general population, this includes many medical practitioners, patient groups, policymakers, non-profit sector workers, industry researchers, and independent researchers). OA articles are more read on publication management programs such as Mendeley. Open access practices can reduce publication delays, an obstacle which led some research fields such as high-energy physics to adopt widespread preprint access.
Citation rate
A main reason authors make their articles openly accessible is to maximize their citation impact. Open access articles are typically cited more often than equivalent articles requiring subscriptions. This 'citation advantage' was first reported in 2001. Although two major studies dispute this claim, the consensus of multiple studies support the effect, with measured OA citation advantage varying in magnitude between 1.3-fold to 6-fold depending on discipline.
Citation advantage is most pronounced in OA articles in hybrid journals (compared to the non-OA articles in those same journals), and with articles deposited in green OA repositories. Notably, green OA articles show similar benefits to citation counts as gold OA articles. Articles in gold OA journals are typically cited at a similar frequency to paywalled articles. Citation advantage increases the longer an article has been published.
Alt-metrics
In addition to format academic citation, other forms of research impact (altmetrics) may be affected by OA publishing, constituting a significant "amplifier" effect for science published on such platforms. Initial studies suggest that OA articles are more referenced in blogs, on Twitter, and on English Wikipedia. The OA advantage in altmetrics may be smaller than the advantage in academic citations, although findings are mixed.
Journal impact factor
Journal impact factor (JIF) measures the average number of citations of articles in a journal over a two-year window. It is commonly used as a proxy for journal quality, expected research impact for articles submitted to that journal, and of researcher success. In subscription journals, impact factor correlates with overall citation count, however this correlation is not observed in gold OA journals.
Open access initiatives like Plan S typically call on a broader adoption and implementation of the Leiden Manifesto and the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) alongside fundamental changes in the scholarly communication system.
Peer review processes
Peer review of research articles prior to publishing has been common since the 18th century. Commonly reviewer comments are only revealed to the authors and reviewer identities kept anonymous. The rise of OA publishing has also given rise to experimentation in technologies and processes for peer review. Increasing transparency of peer review and quality control includes posting results to preprint servers, preregistration of studies, open publishing of peer reviews, open publishing of full datasets and analysis code, and other open science practices. It is proposed that increased transparency of academic quality control processes makes audit of the academic record easier. Additionally, the rise of OA megajournals has made it viable for their peer review to focus solely on methodology and results interpretation whilst ignoring novelty. Major criticisms of the influence of OA on peer review have included that if OA journals have incentives to publish as many articles as possible then peer review standards may fall (as aspect of predatory publishing), increased use of preprints may populate the academic corpus with un-reviewed junk and propaganda, and that reviewers may self-censor if their identity of open. Some advocates propose that readers will have increased skepticism of preprint studies - a traditional hallmark of scientific inquiry.
Predatory publishing
Predatory publishers present themselves as academic journals but use lax or no peer review processes coupled with aggressive advertising in order to generate revenue from article processing charges from authors. The definitions of 'predatory', 'deceptive', or 'questionable' publishers/journals are often vague, opaque, and confusing, and can also include fully legitimate journals, such as those indexed by PubMed Central. In this sense, Grudniewicz et al. proposed a consensus definition that needs to be shared: "Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices."
In this way, predatory journals exploit the OA model by deceptively removing the main value added by the journal (peer review) and parasitize the OA movement, occasionally hijacking or impersonating other journals. The rise of such journals since 2010 has damaged the reputation of the OA publishing model as a whole, especially via sting operations where fake papers have been successfully published in such journals. Although commonly associated with OA publishing models, subscription journals are also at risk of similar lax quality control standards and poor editorial policies. OA publishers therefore aim to ensure quality via auditing by registries such as DOAJ, OASPA and SciELO and comply to a standardised set of conditions. A blacklist of predatory publishers is also maintained by Cabell's blacklist (a successor to Beall's List). Increased transparency of the peer review and publication process has been proposed as a way to combat predatory journal practices.
Open irony
Open irony refers to the situation where a scholarly journal article advocates open access but the article itself is only accessible by paying a fee to the journal publisher to read the article. This has been noted in many fields, with more than 20 examples appearing since around 2010, including in widely-read journals such as The Lancet, Science and Nature. A Flickr group collected screenshots of examples. In 2012 Duncan Hull proposed the Open Access Irony award to publicly humiliate journals that publish these kinds of papers. Examples of these have been shared and discussed on social media using the hashtag #openirony (e.g. on Twitter). Typically these discussions are humorous exposures of articles/editorials that are pro-open access, but locked behind paywalls. The main concern that motivates these discussions is that restricted access to public scientific knowledge is slowing scientific progress. The practice has been justified as important for raising awareness of open access.
Infrastructure
Databases and repositories
Multiple databases exist for open access articles, journals and datasets. These databases overlap, however each has different inclusion criteria, which typically include extensive vetting for journal publication practices, editorial boards and ethics statements. The main databases of open access articles and journals are DOAJ and PMC. In the case of DOAJ, only fully gold open access journals are included, whereas PMC also hosts articles from hybrid journals.
There are also a number of preprint servers which host articles that have not yet been reviewed as open access copies. These articles are subsequently submitted for peer review by both open access or subscription journals, however the preprint always remains openly accessible. A list of preprint servers is maintained at ResearchPreprints.
For articles that are published in closed access journals, some authors will deposit a postprint copy in an open-access repository, where it can be accessed for free. Most subscription journals place restrictions on which version of the work may be shared and/or require an embargo period following the original date of publication. What is deposited can therefore vary, either a preprint or the peer-reviewed postprint, either the author's refereed and revised final draft or the publisher's version of record, either immediately deposited or after several years. Repositories may be specific to an institution, a discipline (e.g.arXiv), a scholarly society (e.g. MLA's CORE Repository), or a funder (e.g. PMC). Although the practice was first formally proposed in 1994, self-archiving was already being practiced by some computer scientists in local FTP archives in the 1980s (later harvested by CiteSeer). The SHERPA/RoMEO site maintains a list of the different publisher copyright and self-archiving policies and the ROAR database hosts an index of the repositories themselves.
Representativeness in proprietary databases
Uneven coverage of journals in the major commercial citation index databases (such as Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed) has strong effects on evaluating both researchers and institutions (e.g. the UK Research Excellence Framework or Times Higher Education ranking). While these databases primarily select based on process and content quality, there has been concern that their commercial nature may skew their assessment criteria and representation of journals outside of Europe and North America. At the time of that study in 2018, there were no comprehensive, open source or non-commercial academic databases. However, in more recent years, The Lens emerged as a suitable outside-paywalls universal academic databse.
Distribution
Like the self-archived green open access articles, most gold open access journal articles are distributed via the World Wide Web, due to low distribution costs, increasing reach, speed, and increasing importance for scholarly communication. Open source software is sometimes used for open-access repositories, open access journal websites, and other aspects of open access provision and open access publishing.
Access to online content requires Internet access, and this distributional consideration presents physical and sometimes financial barriers to access.
There are various open access aggregators that list open access journals or articles. ROAD (the Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources) synthesizes information about open access journals and is a subset of the ISSN register. SHERPA/RoMEO lists international publishers that allow the published version of articles to be deposited in institutional repositories. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) contains over 12,500 peer-reviewed open access journals for searching and browsing.
Open access articles can be found with a web search, using any general search engine or those specialized for the scholarly and scientific literature, such as Google Scholar, OAIster, base-search.net, and CORE Many open-access repositories offer a programmable interface to query their content. Some of them use a generic protocol, such as OAI-PMH (e.g., base-search.net). In addition, some repositories propose a specific API, such as the arXiv API, the Dissemin API, the Unpaywall/oadoi API, or the base-search API.
In 1998, several universities founded the Public Knowledge Project to foster open access, and developed the open-source journal publishing system Open Journal Systems, among other scholarly software projects. As of 2010, it was being used by approximately 5,000 journals worldwide.
Several initiatives provide an alternative to the English language dominance of existing publication indexing systems, including Index Copernicus (Polish), SciELO (Portuguese, Spanish) and Redalyc (Spanish).
Policies and mandates
Many universities, research institutions and research funders have adopted mandates requiring their researchers to make their research publications open access. For example, Research Councils UK spent nearly £60m on supporting their open access mandate between 2013 and 2016. New mandates are often announced during the Open Access Week, that takes place each year during the last full week of October.
The idea of mandating self-archiving was raised at least as early as 1998. Since 2003 efforts have been focused on open access mandating by the funders of research: governments, research funding agencies, and universities. Some publishers and publisher associations have lobbied against introducing mandates.
In 2002, the University of Southampton's School of Electronics & Computer Science became one of the first schools to implement a meaningful mandatory open access policy, in which authors had to contribute copies of their articles to the school's repository. More institutions followed suit in the following years. In 2007, Ukraine became the first country to create a national policy on open access, followed by Spain in 2009. Argentina, Brazil, and Poland are currently in the process of developing open access policies. Making master's and doctoral theses open access is an increasingly popular mandate by many educational institutions.
In the US, the NIH Public Access Policy has required since 2008 that papers describing research funded by the National Institutes of Health must be available to the public free through PubMed Central (PMC) within 12 months of publication. In 2022, US President Joe Biden's Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a memorandum calling for the removal of the 12-month embargo. By the end of 2025, US federal agencies must require all results (papers, documents and data) produced as a result of US government-funded research to be available to the public immediately upon publication.
In 2023, the Council of the European Union recommended the implementation of an open-access and not-for-profit model for research publishing by the European Commission and member states. These recommendations are not legally binding and received mixed reactions. While welcomed by some members of the academic community, publishers argued that the suggested model is unrealistic due to the lack of crucial funding details. Furthermore, the council's recommendations raised concerns within the publishing industry regarding the potential implications, and they also emphasized the importance of research integrity and the need for member states to address predatory journals and paper mills.
Compliance
As of March 2021, open-access mandates have been registered by over 100 research funders and 800 universities worldwide, compiled in the Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies. As these sorts of mandates increase in prevalence, collaborating researchers may be affected by several at once. Tools such as SWORD can help authors manage sharing between repositories.
Compliance rates with voluntary open access policies remain low (as low as 5%). However it has been demonstrated that more successful outcomes are achieved by policies that are compulsory and more specific, such as specifying maximum permissible embargo times. Compliance with compulsory open-access mandates varies between funders from 27% to 91% (averaging 67%). From March 2021, Google Scholar started tracking and indicating compliance with funders' open-access mandates, although it only checks whether items are free-to-read, rather than openly licensed.
Inequality and open access
Gender inequality
Gender inequality still exists in the modern system of scientific publishing.
In terms of citation and authorship position, gender differences favoring men can be found in many disciplines such as political science, economics and neurology, and critical care research. For instance, in critical care research, 30.8% of the 18,483 research articles published between 2008 and 2018 were led by female authors and were more likely to be published in lower-impact journals than those led by male authors. Such disparity can adversely affect the scientific career of women and underrate their scientific impacts for promotion and funding. Open access (OA) publishing can be a tool to help female researchers increase their publications' visibility, measure impact, and help close the gendered citation gap. OA publishing is a well-advocated practice for providing better accessibility to knowledge (especially for researchers in low- and middle-income countries) as well as increasing transparency along with the publishing procedure [21,22]. Publications' visibility can be enhanced through OA publishing due to its high accessibility by removing paywalls compared to non-OA publishing.
Additionally, because of this high visibility, authors can receive more recognition for their works.
OA publishing is also suggested to be advantageous in terms of citation number compared to non-OA publishing, but this aspect is still controversial within the scientific community. The association between OA and a higher number of citations may be because higher-quality articles are self-selected for publication as OA. Considering the gender-based issues in academia and the efforts to improve gender equality, OA can be an important factor when female researchers choose a place to publish their articles. With a proper supporting system and funding, OA publishing is shown to have increased female researchers' productivity.
High-income–low-income country inequality
A 2022 study has found "most OA articles were written by authors in high-income countries, and there were no articles in Mirror journals by authors in low-income countries." "One of the great ironies of open access is that you grant authors around the world the ability to finally read the scientific literature that was completely closed off to them, but it ends up excluding them from publishing in the same journals" says Emilio Bruna, a scholar at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
By country
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Denmark
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
India
Republic of Ireland
Italy
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Ukraine
See also
Access to knowledge movement
Altmetrics
Copyright policies of academic publishers
Freedom of information
Guerilla Open Access
List of open access journals
Open Access Button
Open access monograph
Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association
Open Access Week
Open data
Open educational resources
Open government
Predatory open access publishing
Right to Internet access
Category:Open access journals
Category:Open access by country
Category:Publication management software
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Kirsop, Barbara, and Leslie Chan. (2005) Transforming access to research literature for developing countries. Serials Reviews, 31(4): 246–255.
"Open and Shut?" Blog on open access by Richard Poynder, a freelance journalist, who has done a series of interviews with a few of the leaders of the open access movement.
.
In Oldenburg's Long Shadow: Librarians, Research Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of Scientific Publishing
External links
OAD: Open Access Directory, an "open-access, wiki-based, community-updated encyclopedia of OA factual lists" (started by Peter Suber and Robin Peek). . Published by Simmons School of Library and Information Science in US.
OASPA: Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association, a community of organisations engaged in open scholarship with a mission to encourage and enable open access as the predominant model of communication for scholarly outputs
OATP: Open Access Tracking Project, a crowd-sourced tagging project providing real-time alerts about new OA developments and organizing knowledge of the field (started by Peter Suber).
GOAP: UNESCO's Global Open Access Portal, providing "status of open access to scientific information around the world"
Academic publishing
Social movements
Electronic publishing
Scholarly communication
Free culture movement
Articles containing video clips
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower%20Hill%20Memorial
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Tower Hill Memorial
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The Tower Hill Memorial is a pair of Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials in Trinity Square Gardens, on Tower Hill in London, England. The memorials, one for the First World War and one for the Second, commemorate civilian, merchant seafarers and fishermen who were killed as a result of enemy action and have no known grave. The first, the Mercantile Marine War Memorial, was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled in 1928; the second, the Merchant Seamen's Memorial, was designed by Sir Edward Maufe and unveiled in 1955. A third memorial, commemorating merchant seamen who were killed in the 1982 Falklands War, was added to the site in 2005.
The first memorial was commissioned in light of the heavy losses sustained by merchant shipping in the First World War—more than 17,000 people died and some 3,300 British and Empire-registered commercial vessels sunk as a result of enemy action. The Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) commissioned Lutyens, who initially designed a massive arch on the banks of the River Thames, but this was rejected by the authorities, to Lutyens' disdain. A compromise was struck, as a result of which the memorial was constructed in Trinity Square Gardens on Tower Hill, a site further from the river but with a long maritime history. The site was Crown land, meaning a special Act of Parliament was required to allow the construction. Queen Mary unveiled the memorial on 12 December 1928 at a ceremony broadcast live on the radio, her first use of the medium. The memorial is a vaulted corridor reminiscent of a Doric temple and similar to Lutyens' structures in cemeteries on the Western Front. The walls are clad with bronze panels which bear the names of the missing.
Merchant shipping losses in the Second World War were significantly higher than in the first (4,786 ships, 32,000 lives) and the IWGC commissioned a second memorial on the same site, intended to complement the first. Maufe designed a sunken garden, accessed by steps behind the original memorial, the walls of which were again clad with bronze panels with the names of the missing. At regular intervals between the panels are relief sculptures (by Charles Wheeler) representing the seven seas. Wheeler also sculpted two sentries, a Merchant Navy sailor and officer, which stand at the top of the steps. The new memorial was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in November 1955, after which relatives of those named on it were invited to lay flowers.
The memorials to the world wars are both listed buildings—the Mercantile Marine Memorial is gradeI and part of a national collection of Lutyens' war memorials, and Maufe's Merchant Seamen's Memorial is listed at gradeII*. The Falklands War memorial is not listed.
First World War memorial
Background
In the aftermath of the First World War and its unprecedented casualties, thousands of war memorials were built across Britain and other countries affected. In particular, the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) assumed responsibility for commemorating all casualties from the British Empire. The commission was established in 1917, and one of its first principal architects was Sir Edwin Lutyens, an English architect who made his reputation building country houses and later designed much of New Delhi. Lutyens acted as an unpaid advisor to the IWGC during the war, in which capacity he made several visits to France to make initial plans for organised cemeteries. The war had a profound effect on Lutyens; following it, he devoted much of his time to memorialising its casualties. He designed The Cenotaph on Whitehall in central London (which became Britain's national memorial to the two world wars) and many other cemeteries and memorials for the IWGC, including the Thiepval Memorial (completed 1932).
The IWGC and its founder, Fabian Ware, were determined from the outset that all casualties should be individually and equally commemorated, regardless of military rank or social status. Where it was not possible to provide a headstone (for example because a body could not be recovered), a casualty's name was included on one of the commission's large memorials, such as Tower Hill. The Admiralty did not initially believe that the IWGC's remit extended to sailors lost at sea and planned its own commemorations, but after negotiation, it was agreed that the commission would take responsibility for commemorating maritime casualties as it did with those who died on land. The commission's charter defined its scope as "members of the military and naval forces of the Crown"; in 1921 the commissioners resolved that this extended to the Mercantile Marine and other civilian organisations who were engaged in the war effort.
Merchant shipping and fishing fleets played a vital role in supporting the British war effort throughout the First World War, both by resupplying the Royal Navy at sea and by delivering food, products, and raw materials to the United Kingdom. Merchant ships were regularly sunk by the German Navy from the outset of the war, particularly after Germany commenced unrestricted submarine warfare. By the end of the war, more than 3,300 British- and empire-registered merchant ships had been sunk, with the loss of more than 17,000 lives.
History
The IWGC sought advice on the form of the memorial from the seafarers' unions, who consistently requested a memorial in the form of a home for aged seamen or similar, but the commission was set against functional memorials in the belief that they became associated more with their function than with commemoration. It rejected the request, overruling its own advisory committee in doing so, on the grounds that its charter did not allow it to fund the ongoing costs of an institution. It insisted that merchant seamen would be commemorated on a monument.
The commission first intended to site the memorial at Temple Steps, on the bank of the River Thames, for which it commissioned Lutyens. The architect designed a massive arch. The proposed structure would have consisted of two stone piers of linked, alternating arches (reminiscent of the Thiepval Memorial, which he was designing for the IWGC at around the same time) joined by a large beam, itself supported by two Doric columns between the arches. This was approved by London County Council, but the Office of Works rejected it on the advice of the Royal Fine Arts Commission (RFAC), which objected on two grounds: first, that Lutyens' proposal would involve the demolition of an arch built when the Thames Embankment was constructed; and second, that the memorial would be better suited to a site further downstream, east of Tower Bridge, where it would be seen by ocean-going vessels which could not travel west of the bridge. Both Lutyens and Ware attempted to persuade the RFAC to reconsider but to no avail. Lutyens was furious, feeling the merchant seamen had been relegated to "some hole in the corner because they happened to be low in social status" and that Sir Reginald Blomfield (a member of the RFAC and a rival of Lutyens) was acting out of spite.
Lutyens described the RFAC's opinion as "bosh", and suggested to Ware that they should continue regardless and force a confrontation. Ware was more diplomatic, and the IWGC chose a new site in Trinity Square Gardens on Tower Hill, still west of Tower Bridge but further from the river. This site was considered appropriate because it was within sight of the Thames, albeit not on the riverbank, and the area already had maritime connections, including the headquarters of the Port of London Authority at 10 Trinity Square, Trinity House, and the church of All Hallows-by-the-Tower (itself home to many nautically themed memorials). Philip Longworth, in a history of the IWGC, remarked that the location meant the commission's only memorial in London "would never be seen by most Londoners, still less find a place in the national consciousness as did Lutyens' stark monument on Whitehall". (The Cenotaph was not commissioned by the IWGC.)
Trinity Square Gardens was Crown land administered by trustees. Although the trustees suggested they would not object to the memorial, they did not have the power to give full consent and a special Act of Parliament was required. The bill was laid before Parliament in December 1926 and received royal assent in June 1927, becoming the Mercantile Marine Memorial Act. The building work was undertaken by Holloway Brothers (London) and the memorial was unveiled by Queen Mary (deputising for her husband, King George V) on 12 December 1928, her first solo engagement of the sort. The unveiling ceremony was broadcast live on the radio in the queen's first use of the medium. Despite taking place in torrential rain, the unveiling ceremony was attended by a large crowd, who cheered the queen as she was driven away.
Design
The main structure is in Portland stone. It takes the form of a vaulted colonnade or pavilion reminiscent of a Doric temple but open at both ends. After the Arch of Remembrance in Leicester, it is Lutyens' second-largest war memorial in the United Kingdom, and is the only British First World War memorial dedicated exclusively to merchant seamen. It is raised on a platform slightly above street level, oriented east to west and accessed from the street by a set of five stone steps at each end. The structure is long by wide and up to tall. It consists of three bays on either side, created by eight alternating square piers and six pairs of round columns. The eight piers are clad in rectangular bronze panels to give the impression of rustication. The panels (divided into 24 numbered sections) contain the names of missing mariners, ordered by ship name and then alphabetically following the name of the captain or master. The vessels of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets are listed separately. Above the bays is a Doric entablature. The low, pitched roof has shallow parapets on either side and gabled ends; on top, in the centre, is a large square attic which supports a large stone drum. The attic is similar to Lutyens' original design for the York City War Memorial, which featured a Stone of Remembrance rather than a drum. The sculptural element is the work of William Reid Dick, who worked on several other war memorials, including the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium.
The memorial's main dedication is in bronze letters to the front (south) of the attic: TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND TO THE HONOUR OF TWELVE THOUSAND OF THE MERCHANT NAVY AND FISHING FLEETS WHO HAVE NO GRAVE BUT THE SEA; above it are the dates of the First World War (1914–1918), which are also carved into the stone on north side. To either side are decorative bronze wreaths. On the inside, the floor is in black and white stone in a chequerboard pattern. On the north side, bronze spikes occupy the otherwise-open bays.
The largest single loss of life commemorated on the memorial is from the sinking of the RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915. Of the 1,200 dead, more than 350 British crew members are commemorated on the Mercantile Marine memorial. In total, the First World War memorial records the names of some 12,000 casualties.
In his biography of Lutyens, Michael Barker described the design as "dignified classicism"; another Lutyens biographer, Christopher Hussey, described it as a "classical shrine". Tim Skelton, author of Lutyens and the Great War, notes the similarity of the colonnade to the shelter buildings in Lutyens' cemeteries in France and Belgium and suggests that the memorial would be "equally well at home on the Western Front as in the heart of London". The resemblance to the cemetery buildings is also noted by the Dutch architect Jeroen Geurst, who compares it in particular to those at Hooge Crater in Belgium and Serre Road in France. In the opinion of the historian David Crane, the memorial never recovered from its "miserable start" and is consequently the least well-known of the IWGC's major works following the First World War.
Second World War memorial
Background
From the outbreak of the Second World War, shipping losses were again high and a similar convoy system was used in an effort to protect merchant vessels. By the war's end, 4,786 ships had been sunk, with the loss of some 32,000 lives (of which almost 24,000 are commemorated at Tower Hill); almost a quarter of the losses were in British waters. Although military casualties were lower in the Second World War than in the First, civilian casualties were higher and there was widespread destruction of British cities. By the end of the second war there was little appetite for another wave of large memorials. Instead, many memorials from the first war were adapted or expanded to commemorate the new casualties—an approach the IWGC took at Tower Hill and elsewhere. Generally, it only built new memorials to the missing in places which had not been touched by the First World War. The IWGC was by this time a much more established and well-respected institution and thus found it easier to obtain the agreements and public support necessary for its work.
The architect was Edward Maufe, who began his career designing churches and by the 1950s was the IWGC's principal architect for the United Kingdom for the Second World War commemorations. Maufe was also responsible for the Air Forces Memorial in Surrey and extensions to the Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Chatham naval memorials.
History
Following the Second World War, the IWGC considered various sites for a memorial to the new casualties but, after consultation with the relevant public bodies, decided Tower Hill was the most appropriate location. The commission briefed Maufe that the new memorial should complement Lutyens' design and fit in with the existing architecture in the area, including the Port of London Authority building. Maufe first proposed extending Lutyens' structure with a further colonnade, but this was rejected. His next design, for a sunken garden, was accepted. Another Act of Parliament was required, which was passed in July 1952 as the Merchant Navy Memorial Act. Work began later in 1952 and was completed in 1955. Some modifications to Maufe's design were necessary. Maufe initially planned a larger grassy area between Lutyens' colonnade and the sunken garden with a Stone of Remembrance at the centre. The stone was eliminated and the grass scaled back to reduce the overall size of the memorial and assuage the concerns of local people. The depth of the garden had to be reduced at the south end because of a London Underground tunnel.
The memorial commemorates merchant seamen from ships registered in Britain or its Empire or on loan to the governments of those countries, and who were lost at sea as a result of enemy action in the Second World War; it lists 23,765 men, of whom 832 were fishermen and 80 maritime pilots and lighthousemen. The much larger casualty figures and corresponding scale of the memorial reflect the vital contribution of the Merchant Navy to the British war effort in the Second World War. The memorial was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II at a modest ceremony on 5 November 1955, two days before Remembrance Sunday. The ceremony, described by The Sunday Times as "all as modest and anonymous as the Merchant Navy itself", concluded with the sounding of the "Last Post" by buglers from the Royal Marines, answered by a single ship's horn on the River Thames. After the unveiling, 16,000 relatives of those commemorated on the memorial laid flowers around it, a process which lasted until late in the evening.
Design
The Second World War memorial takes the form of a semi-circular sunken garden located behind the First World War Memorial, to its north in Trinity Square Gardens. The idea of a sunken garden appears to have originated from discussions immediately following the end of the war. There was a feeling among the new generation of artists and architects that the elaborate and artistic memorials to the First World War did not capture the national mood of mourning for the new wave of casualties and that spaces such as gardens, which provided a location for individual mourning and reflection, were more suitable. According to the architectural historian Philip Ward-Jackson, Maufe's memorial gives the impression of being a wing of an imaginary ruined church, complete with provided seats—an image which would have had "powerful resonance in the bombed City" (much of the surrounding area, including the Port of London Authority building, was severely damaged by German bombing). The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner described Maufe's extension as "less assertive" than the original memorial; he praised the idea of a memorial to the missing in the form of a void (the sunken garden), but felt it was let down by Wheeler's "strangely jaunty" reliefs between the lists of names.
The ground-level entrance area to the Second World War memorial is on the southern side of the sunken garden and consists of two pylons flanking a low wall that faces the First World War memorial. Built into the low wall is a stone similar to Lutyens' Stone of Remembrance, which is inscribed with the years of the war (1939–1945) and carries the memorial's dedication: THE TWENTY FOUR THOUSAND OF THE MERCHANT NAVY AND FISHING FLEETS WHOSE NAMES ARE HONOURED ON THE WALLS OF THIS GARDEN GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY AND HAVE NO GRAVE BUT THE SEA. Each of the flanking pylons supports an over-life-sized statue, representing a Merchant Navy sailor (on the east side) and officer (on the west). The entrance steps either side of the pylons descend to the sunken garden which contains the name panels. The walls of the garden are high in Portland stone, to match the original memorial, with the names of the missing from the Second World War listed on 132 bronze panels fixed to the walls. The name panels circle the entire sunken garden, lining both the northern and the southern walls, and the eastern and western walls. Spaced at regular intervals along the semi-circular (northern) part of the memorial are seven allegorical sculptures representing the Seven Seas. These are the work of Charles Wheeler, who also executed the sculptures for Maufe's extensions of the Royal Navy memorials. The garden is mainly grass, with a sculpture of a compass in a 'pool' of bronze, set to magnetic north, in the centre. The Red Ensign (the flag flown by British-registered civilian vessels) flies over the site.
Later history
The Tower Hill memorial commemorates 36,087 seafarers from both world wars. Only merchant seamen who have no known grave are listed at Tower Hill. Those whose bodies were recovered or who served with other organisations (such as the Indian Merchant Navy) are commemorated elsewhere—for example, 1,200 merchant seamen who served with the Royal Navy during the Second World War are commemorated on the Liverpool Naval Memorial. The memorial register for the Mercantile Marine Memorial was originally published by the IWGC in nine volumes in 1928. After the Second World War, a three-volume Roll of Honour of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets 1939–1945 was produced in 1958 by the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation and distributed to a range of organisations in the UK and abroad. The first two volumes of this roll of honour contain the names listed on the Merchant Seamen's Memorial at Tower Hill. The registers for the Tower Hill memorials are held at the nearby Trinity House on the north side of Trinity Square Gardens.
Since 2000, 3 September has been celebrated annually as Merchant Navy Day; a memorial service is held close to that date at the Tower Hill Memorial. In 2005, the Merchant Navy Association unveiled another memorial on the site. The work of Gordon Newton, it is dedicated to the Merchant Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary casualties of the 1982 Falklands War. It consists of a bronze sundial, raised on a granite base; at the dial's centre is a large bronze anchor. Around the base are bronze plaques, one of which contains the inscription IN MEMORY OF THOSE MERCHANT SEAFARERS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES TO SECURE THE FREEDOM OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 1982. The others record the names of the 17 dead, ordered by ship. The Falklands memorial, which is not listed, was unveiled on 4 September 2005 by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Alan West and is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (the IWGC having changed its name in 1960).
Liverpool marked the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, by having twenty-five warships sail through the port to mark the milestone. Ceremonies were also held at the Tower Hill Memorial on 11 May 2013, along with other events elsewhere in London and Britain.
Lutyens' First World War Memorial became a gradeII* listed building in 1973. Listed status offers legal protection from demolition or modification; gradeII* is reserved for "particularly important buildings of more than special interest" and is applied to about 5.5% of listings. It was upgraded to gradeI status (which is applied to around 2.5% of listed buildings, those of "the greatest historic interest") in November 2015 when Lutyens' war memorials were declared a national collection. Maufe's Merchant Seamen's Memorial has separately been a gradeII* listed building since 1998. The CWGC began a major restoration project of the colonnade in 2019.
See also
List of ships named on the Tower Hill Memorial
Grade I listed war memorials in England
Grade II* listed war memorials in England
Grade I and II* listed buildings in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
List of Commonwealth War Graves Commission World War I memorials to the missing
List of Commonwealth War Graves Commission World War II memorials to the missing
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
Citations
External links
Tower Hill: 'Lest we forget' (includes an index of all the ships named on the memorial)
Queen Mary unveils Mercantile Marine Memorial [12 December 1928] (British Pathé news reel)
Queen Elizabeth II unveils Merchant Navy Memorial: clip 1 clip 2 [5 November 1955] (British Pathé news reels)
1928 sculptures
British military memorials and cemeteries
Buildings and structures completed in 1928
Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials
Grade I listed buildings in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Grade I listed monuments and memorials
History of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Military memorials in London
Naval monuments and memorials
Tourist attractions in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Works of Edwin Lutyens in England
War memorials by Edwin Lutyens
World War I memorials in England
World War II memorials in England
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum%20of%20London
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Museum of London
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The Museum of London is a museum in London, covering the history of the city from prehistoric to modern times, with a particular focus on social history. It was formed in 1976 by amalgamating collections previously held by the City Corporation at the Guildhall Museum (founded in 1826) and of the London Museum (founded in 1911). From 1976 to 2022, its main site was located in the City of London on London Wall, close to the Barbican Centre, as part of the Barbican complex of buildings created in the 1960s and '70s to redevelop a bomb-damaged area of the city. In March 2015, the museum revealed plans to move to the General Market Building at the nearby Smithfield site. Reasons for the proposed move included the claim that the current site was difficult for visitors to find, and that by expanding, from 17,000 square metres to 27,000, a greater proportion of the museum's collection could be placed on display. In December 2022, the museum permanently closed its site at London Wall in preparation for reopening in 2026 at Smithfield Market as the London Museum.
The museum has the largest urban history collection in the world, with more than six million objects. It is primarily concerned with the social history of London and its inhabitants throughout time. Its collections include archaeological material, such as flint handaxes from the prehistoric Thames Valley, marble statues from a Roman temple called the London Mithraeum, and a cache of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery called the Cheapside Hoard. Its modern collections include large amounts of decorative objects, clothing and costumes, paintings, prints and drawings, social history objects, and oral histories. The museum continues to collect contemporary objects, such as the Whitechapel fatberg or the Trump baby blimp.
The museum is part of a group that also includes two other locations: the Museum of London Docklands, which is based in West India Quay and remains open to the public; and Museum of London Archaeology, which conducts archaeological excavations both inside and outside London. The museum is jointly controlled and funded by the City of London Corporation and the Greater London Authority. Its current director is Sharon Ament.
History
The Guildhall Museum (1826–1976)
One of the two museums that were merged to form the Museum of London was the Guildhall Museum, founded by the City of London Corporation in 1826 when it received the gift of a Roman mosaic from Tower Street as "a suitable place for the reception of such Antiquities as relate to the City of London and Suburbs". As the collection grew, it was given a room in the London Guildhall. The museum focussed on archaeological remains from the City, and objects linked to the Corporation, and had a particularly strong collection of Roman objects. It was mostly inaccessible to the public until 1872, when work was begun on dedicated premises in Basinghall Street. During World War II, the museum closed so that the Corporation could use the building for other purposes, and after the war, in 1955, it re-opened in the Royal Exchange. However, this was not seen as a long-term satisfactory solution, and in 1960 the museum seriously started to engage with the scheme to merge with the London Museum.
The London Museum (1912–1976)
The museum has its origins in, and derives much of its collection from, the London Museum, founded in 1911 by Viscount Esher and Lewis Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt and originally based in the State Apartments of Kensington Palace. It first opened to the public on 8 April 1912. Harcourt became the first Commissioner of Works, and the first Keeper was Guy Francis Laking. In 1913, it became a National Museum.
In 1914, it moved to Lancaster House, which had been bought by William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, soap magnate and founder of the model town of Port Sunlight, and given to the nation as a home for the London Museum. Visitors travelled through a mostly chronological route, entering the Prehistoric Room, the Roman Room, the Saxon and Early Norman Gallery, the Mediaeval Room, and finally a Jewellery Room before heading to the upper floor. Here, they would find the Tudor Room, the Early Seventeenth Century, the Late Seventeenth Century, a room with a large collection of porcelain, the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Room, and finally, the Costume Gallery. The museum also contained a basement which contained come exhibits from all eras, some of which were too large for the main galleries, and which could serve as an introduction to the collections. It included a Roman boat, a carriage belonging to the Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, a parlour decorated in the Stuart style, and prison cells.
The Keeper of the London Museum from 1926 to 1944, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, proposed merging the London Museum with the Guildhall Museum as early as 1927, as the two museums had a significant overlap in their collections, but the scheme wasn't given serious thought until after both museums had been forced to close during World War II.
During the war, the Museum closed, and in 1945 it vacated Lancaster House so that the government could use the space for hospitality events. The trustees considered several sites for the new museum, including Holland House and various sites on the South Bank. However, in the end, King George VI leased part of Kensington Palace for the museum to move back in. The new site opened in 1951.
The Kensington Palace museum kept a generally chronological structure to its layout, but alongside the rooms devoted to various time periods, there were separate galleries for historical shop fronts; prints; theatre; glass; paintings, toys and games; and royal costume. The glass room included Sir Richard Garton's collection of 437 pieces of 17th-19th century table glass, including goblets, wine glasses, bowls, candlesticks and decanters. The Print Room comprised around 3,000 watercolours and drawings and 7,000 prints, including a view of Whitehall and Westminster by Hendrick Danckerts made c.1675, The Cries of London by Paul Sandby, and works by Thomas Rowlandson, Wenceslaus Hollar, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. The Theatre room included many theatrical costumes, several on loan from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. These included Henry Irving's costumes for Malvolio and King Lear, the dress Anna Pavlova wore as The Dying Swan, and Ivor Novello's costume from The King's Rhapsody. There was also a clown costume worn by the comedy pioneer Joseph Grimaldi, a piano belonging to W. S. Gilbert, a death mask of David Garrick, and Walter Lambert's Popularity, a painting of dozens of music hall and variety stars. By the 1970s, multiple coronation robes were on display, from 1838, 1902, 1911, and 1937. There were also other items of royal clothing belonging to Charles I, a collection of Queen Victoria's dresses, and Princess Margaret's wedding dress designed by Norman Hartnell.
In 1960, a plan was formed to merge the London Museum with the Guildhall Museum, to be funded jointly by the government, the City of London Corporation, and the Greater London Council. An Act of Parliament is passed to this effect in 1965. The City of London Corporation provided a site near what is now the Barbican Centre.
Museum of London (1976–2022)
The new site for the museum was at the corner of London Wall and Aldersgate Street, an area that had almost entirely been flattened by bombing in The Blitz. The architects appointed to oversee the construction of the new museum building were Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, who designed a complex with four main parts: a tower block containing offices and not open to the public; two floors of exhibition space arranged around a courtyard; a lecture theatre and education wing; and a rotunda containing a small garden and restaurant. With the museum galleries themselves, Powell and Moya adopted an innovative approach to museum design, whereby the galleries were laid out so that there was only one route through the museum – from the prehistoric period to the modern galleries. As in the previous incarnation of the museum, the galleries would be set out in a roughly chronological order. The building also incorporated a viewing window out onto one of the remaining pieces of London's city wall, originally built by the Romans around three sides of the City. Construction began in April 1971, with the foundation stone laid by the Queen Mother on 29 March 1973, and the museum was opened in December 1976 by Queen Elizabeth II as part of the Barbican Estate.As in the London Museum, visitors entered a series of rooms set out in chronological order, moving anti-clockwise around the main courtyard on the upper floor through London's history up to the Great Fire in 1666, and then descending to the lower level and moving clockwise around the courtyard up to the present day. Visitors would finish their visit by the Lord Mayor's Gold State Coach.
In November 2002, the previous The Thames In Prehistory gallery was replaced with an entirely new display titled London Before London.
A £20 million redevelopment called the "Galleries of Modern London" was completed in May 2010, the museum's biggest investment since opening in 1976. The redesign, by London-based architects Wilkinson Eyre, comprised the entire lower floor of the main galleries, covering the period from the 1670s to the present day. The Galleries of Modern London displayed a total of 7,000 objects. Star exhibits included a mummified cat, a 1928 Art Deco lift from Selfridges department store on Oxford Street, and a complete 18th century debtor's prison cell covered in graffiti.
The transformation included four new galleries. The Expanding City gallery covered the period 1670-1850. People's City addressed 1850-1940s, including a "Victorian Walk" displaying some of the museum's real office and shop frontages and interiors; objects relating to the suffragette movement; and pages of Charles Booth's 1888 "poverty map", colour-coding London's streets according to the relative wealth of their inhabitants. World City was the gallery containing objects dating from the 1950s to the present day, including 1950s suits, a Mary Quant dress from the 1960s, Biba fashion in the 1970s, outfits from London's punk scene, and a pashmina from Alexander McQueen's 2008 collection. Finally, the City Gallery featured large, street-level windows along London Wall that allowed passers-by to view the Lord Mayor's State Coach, which takes to the streets each November for the Lord Mayor's Show.
In 2014, the museum opened a new gallery displaying the cauldron from the 2012 Summer Olympics. The cauldron was made up of 204 steel stems, each tipped with a copper "petal", which could be raised or lowered to create various formations. When all the petals were raised to their full height, they together formed the shape of a cauldron. The gallery featured 97 of the original stems, wooden moulds for the copper petals, Great Britain's Paralympic petal, and footage showing the cauldron in use during the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympiad. The room also showed interviews with some of the creators, including lead designer Thomas Heatherwick and an engineer called Gemma Webster.
Relocation to Smithfield
In 2016, the museum announced it would be closing its London Wall site and moving to a set of disused market buildings in West Smithfield in 2021. The new site will increase the museum's size from 17,000 square metres to over 27,000. Museum director Sharon Ament said that one reason for the move was "a failing building with problematic entrances and a location which is difficult to find". A competition was held to find an architectural firm to design the new building, with over 70 firms taking part. Six were shortlisted, and their initial designs released to the public in 2016. Stanton Williams and Asif Khan were chosen as the final architects.
The site at Smithfield includes part of the Thameslink train line running into Farringdon Station, and from an early point in the process, the Museum expressed interest in creating a see-through section of tunnel for commuters to glimpse inside the museum and visitors to see the train go by. It also includes the River Fleet, a tributary of the Thames which has long since become buried underground due to the high volume of construction work around it. One early plan for the new museum, since scrapped, included creating a well reaching down to the Fleet, which has been completely covered since the 1870s. Another idea for the new museum is to revive the ancient St Bartholomew’s Fair, which took place on the site regularly in the medieval period until being shut down by authorities in 1855. The museum will also feature spiral escalators taking visitors to the underground storage rooms which will function as the main historical galleries.
In 2019, further plans were released, which showed late-night queues outside the museum frontage and visitors perusing real items from the museum’s collection. Ament announced that workers had found the remains of a Victorian café called the Temperance Cocoa Room, complete with original tiling, and that the museum intended to re-open this section as a café.
The scheme was originally set to cost £250 million and open in 2021; current estimates are that it will cost £337 million and open in 2026. Ament blamed the rising cost on the difficulty of working with an old building: "It is to do with things like waterproofing a building that hasn't needed to be water-proofed, it is to do with engineering".
In August 2022, the museum announced that a previously-unknown freshwater spring had been found underneath the new site. Tests revealed that it was safe to drink, and Ament claimed that she hoped visitors would be able to "fill up their water bottles from it".
On 4 December 2022, the Museum closed its site at London Wall ahead of the move. It was also announced that when the new site opened in 2026, it would be called the London Museum.
Once the museum has vacated the London wall site, it will revert to the City of London Corporation. In 2019, plans were revealed to use the site to house a London Centre For Music, a £288m concert hall for use by the London Symphony Orchestra. However, in 2022, the Corporation submitted plans to demolish the building, including the Bastion House office block above, and replace it with a 780,000 sq. ft office block, citing dangerous structural issues, poor energy performance, fire safety and limited possible uses as reasons in favour of demolition.
Collections
The museum holds in its collections objects covering 10,000 years of London's history, totalling around 7 million objects. It combines the original collections of both the Guildhall Museum and London Museum, plus many objects that the Museum of London has acquired since its foundation in the 1970s. In particular, since the 1970s the museum has been able to acquire more archaeological objects due to the more systematic and protected nature of modern archaeology, and a wider range of contemporary objects, such as photographs, oral histories, and video games.
In particular, the museum owns such a large collection of objects relating to London's docks that it was able to open a secondary site, the Museum of London Docklands, in 2003.
Pre-modern collections
The museum has over 13,000 objects in its prehistoric collections, of which 11,000 are made of stone, particularly flint. Many of these were found during 19th and 20th century construction in the city and date from the Lower Paleolithic era. The museum also owns the Garraway Rice Collection of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic material from Yiewsley, just west of London, and Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic material from Three Ways Wharf in Uxbridge. Neolithic items in the collection include polished axe heads and mace heads. The museum's Bronze Age and Iron Age finds mostly come from 19th and 20th century dredging of the River Thames, particularly the collections of Thomas Layton. In 2019, the museum acquired the Havering Hoard, the largest Bronze Age hoard thus discovered in London, and the third-largest of its kind in the UK. It included 453 bronze objects, such as axe heads, spearheards and knives made between 900 and 800 BCE. They had almost all been broken or damaged, and buried carefully in four separate groups around the site. The museum put on a temporary exhibition of the hoard at its Docklands site in 2020.
The Roman collection totals over 47,000 objects, mostly from the Roman-occupied areas of the City of London and Southwark, including the UK's largest collection of terra sigillata (samianware). It also includes entire wall paintings and floors such as the Bucklersbury Mosaic; metalwork such as hipposandals, cutlery, jewellery and tweezers; four leather "bikini bottoms", possibly worn by female acrobats; and a wooden ladder. In September 1954, a Roman temple to the god Mithras was discovered in the City of London. An estimated 400,000 members of the public visited the site while it was being excavated, a job which was mostly carried out by archaeology students led by the then director of the London Museum, W. F. Grimes. The building stones of the temple have been reconstructed on their original site at the London Mithraeum, while the marble carvings found inside are part of the collections of the Museum of London.
The museum owns around 12,000 medieval objects, including 700 from the Saxon period. Some of these were found by mudlarks on the banks of the River Thames, as well as from cemeteries at Mitcham, Hanwell, Ewell, and the Savoy Palace. The medieval collection includes everyday objects such as spades, daggers, and belt buckles, over 1,350 pewter pilgrim badges, medieval ceramics, and floor tiles.
The museum holds over 1,500 pieces of Tudor and Stuart cutlery, mostly recovered from the Thames, and some purchased from the private collection of Hilton Price. There is also a large group of edged weapons, including some 17th-century swords made at the Hounslow Sword Factory; and Tudor and Stuart ceramics. One of the most well-known and popular groups in the museum's collection from this period is the Cheapside Hoard, a hoard of almost 500 Tudor and Jacobean pieces of jewellery found in 1912 on Cheapside in the City of London. The entire hoard went on display for the first time as a temporary exhibition at the museum in 2013. In 2017, it was announced that the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths would donate £10 million to the museum in order to secure a permanent display for the Cheapside Hoard at the new museum site in West Smithfield.
Modern collections
Demonstrating London's manufacturing prowess has been one of the museum's goals since the inception of the London Museum in 1911.To that end, the museum collects the decorative arts, such as 18th century glass, silver, jewellery and enamel. In 1943, the heirs of Sir Richard Garton donated his collection of 400 pieces of table glass, and the museum has pieces from London manufacturers like James Powell and Sons, also known as Whitefriars Glass. The museum has collected porcelain from the Chelsea, Bow and Vauxhall china factories, as well as the Martin Brothers. Donors such as Joan Evans, Catherine d'Erlanger, Mary of Teck, Jane Anne Gordon and Lady Cory have enlarged the museum's collection of jewellery, particularly mourning jewellery, chatelaines and costume jewellery.
The museum's dress and textile collection spans 23,000 homemade garments and professionally-made creations from the Tudor period to the modern day, and some have been in the collection since the London Museum's inception in 1911, at a time when few museums showed interest in clothing. The London Museum was the first British museum to produce a catalogue of its costume collection, in 1933. There is a particular focus on clothing made by London dressmakers and tailors, sold in London shops, or worn by Londoners. The museum's collection includes pieces by Lucile, Hardy Amies, Norman Hartnell, Victor Stiebel, Mary Quant, Katharine Hamnett, and Vivienne Westwood. The collection also includes several pieces of royal clothing, including a shirt thought to have belonged to Charles I; many theatrical, ballet, circus, music hall, and opera costumes; and silk garments woven in Spitalfields. Outside of clothing, the museum also holds banners and sashes related to the female suffrage campaign of the early 20th century, the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, and dockworker trade unions. The collection also includes several objects examined by fashion historian Janet Arnold in her book series Patterns of Fashion- eight dresses dating 1860-1930 from Patterns of Fashion 1, a 16th-century leather jerkin from Patterns of Fashion 3, and a shirt and two smocks from the late 16th to early 17th centuries featured in Patterns of Fashion 4.
The museum holds over 100,000 paintings, prints and drawings, either by London artists or taking London and Londoners as their subject. These include works by Wenceslaus Hollar, Paul Sandby, Canaletto, William Powell Frith, George Elgar Hicks, Walter Greaves, Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Thomas Rowlandson, C. R. W. Nevinson, and Spencer Gore. The museum's collection also contains portraits of London figures such as military leader and politician Oliver Cromwell and suffrage campaigner and activist Sylvia Pankhurst; and several panoramas and views of London dating back as far as c.1630. One of the most popular examples of these is the Rhinebeck Panorama, an 180° aerial view made around 1806, looking west from where Tower Bridge stands today. In 1806, there was not yet a bridge at this point in the river, and so the view imagines the viewer to be floating in a hot air balloon over the River Thames. It may have been a preparatory drawing for a larger, full-colour, 360° view, capitalising on a trend for panoramic views in the late 18th century (indeed, the word panorama was coined in 1789). It was made by three unknown artists: one who painted the main cityscape, one who painted the ships on the river, and one who painted the church spires in the distance. Little is known about the origins of the panorama, as it was discovered lining a barrel of pistols in a town called Rhinebeck in the state of New York in the United States. The drawing was acquired by the museum in 1998.
The Museum of London has collected around 150,000 photographs focussing on everyday life in London. The earliest example dates from c.1845 and shows a view of the then-newly-opened Hungerford Bridge taken by Henry Fox Talbot. Other photographs include views of London dating back to c.1855 by Roger Fenton; Bill Brandt's series taken inside World War II air raid shelters; scenes of the building of the first line of what is now the London Underground transport network; pictures of suffragette protests taken by pioneering female photographer Christina Broom; and works by British photographer Henry Grant. The largest work in this collection is a camera obscura print made by Vera Lutter showing Battersea Power Station, at 7 feet (2.1m) high.
The museum also collects more general social and working history objects relating to the everyday lives and trade of ordinary Londoners. This includes shop fronts, food packaging, entire vehicles, and a large collection of "penny toys"- toys costing a penny. The museum also collects objects related to London trades such as clockmaking, coopering, silk-weaving, engraving, and silversmithing. The museum holds an internationally-important collection of suffragette material, largely from the archive of the suffrage group, the Women's Social and Political Union; the archives of the Whitefriars Glassworks, and papers relating to Kibbo Kift. The museum has also collected a range of telecommunications devices and equipment, including telephone kiosks.
The museum has been collecting oral histories since the 1980s, and now holds over 5,000 hours of interviews with Londoners from the 20th and 21st centuries. Particular emphasis is placed on narratives surrounding immigration and London's docks, as well as 3,000 hours of interviews made by the London History Workshop Centre.
The collections include a substantial amount of material relating to London's port and the River Thames, much of which is on display at the museum's secondary site, the Museum of London Docklands. This includes vessels such as a 1930s skiff called the Thames, cargo handling equipment. models of vessels such as the Lord Mayor of London's barge and the SS Great Eastern, and material relating to trades connected to the port, such as dock police, wheelwrights and administrative staff.
The Sainsbury Study Centre is hosted at the Museum of London Docklands, detailing the history of the supermarket chain since its foundation in 1869. This site also hosts the archives for the Port of London Authority, including the minute books and business records for many London dock companies dating back to the West India Dock Company, founded in 1799. It includes 40,000 photographs of London's docks and the River Thames, many showing various trades around the river. This archive is popular with visitors tracing their family history, who may have ancestors who worked in the docks.
Contemporary collecting
The museum continues to add to its collection, often through the acquisition of contemporary objects, including those connected to national news stories, such as the Whitechapel fatberg or the Trump baby blimp.
During the 2012 London Summer Olympics, the Museum of London collected tweets using the hashtag #citizencurators, both by the public and by a select group of 18 contributors from across the city.
In 2016, the museum attempted to buy a water-cannon truck bought by then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson. In the summer of 2014, Johnson bought three water cannon trucks from the German federal police for £218,000 in order to combat civil unrest. These were then banned for use in the UK by Home Secretary Theresa May, and could not be deployed. Johnson attempted to sell them. The museum tried to buy one, but the trucks were only available to European policing or civil protection organisations. Unable to find a buyer, the trucks were sold to a reclamation yard in 2018 for £3,675 each. The museum's director, Sharon Ament, expressed interest in collecting some of the scrap or salvage, but no part of the trucks has yet entered the museum's collection.
In 2018, the museum displayed a section of the Whitechapel fatberg, a solid lump of fat and grease that had formed in the sewer network underneath Whitechapel. After being on display for several months, the chunk was removed from the galleries and placed in a freezer, where fans could view it around the clock on a live webcam.
In 2019, the museum collected a coffee stall called "Syd's" (named for its founder, Syd Tothill) that had stood on the corner of Shoreditch High Street and Calvert Avenue since 1919. The stall closed in 2019 due to poor sales and was donated to the museum by Syd's granddaughter, Jane Tothill. The museum has announced that it will be put on display when it opens its new site in Smithfield Market.
In January 2021, the museum acquired a giant inflatable blimp depicting former US President Donald Trump as a giant baby. The 6 metre-high blimp was designed by Matt Bonner to protest Trump's visit to the UK in 2018, and has since been flown around the world in protest of the president's regime.
In 2021, the museum negotiated with The Clash bass player Paul Simonon for a long-term loan of his broken Fender bass guitar, played onstage at the New York Palladium in 1979, where Simonon smashed it onstage. The moment was captured by photographer Pennie Smith and became the album cover for the band's album, London Calling.
In June 2022, the museum bought the film Putin's Happy by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller, documenting protests, activism and onlookers between January and March 2019 while the British government was negotiating the terms of Brexit.
In April 2020, the museum put out a call for donations of objects and oral histories connected to the global COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the Collecting Covid project, London Zoo donated a large illuminated sign showing the logo of the UK's National Health Service surrounded by hearts, which was hung outside their giraffe house during lockdown in March 2020. In July 2020, sound designers String and Tins made recordings of soundscapes in London streets that had become deserted due to pandemic lockdowns for the museum's collection. In October 2020, Arsenal football player Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang donated his shirt featuring a Black Lives Matter logo, which had been worn by him during games that season. The logo had been added to all Premier League shirts for the summer 2020 season following widespread protests against racial violence in London and around the world.
During celebrations for the Islamic festival of Ramadan, the museum collected thousands of messages from a WhatsApp group made up of five Muslim women in West London sharing their reflections on celebrating during lockdown. In January 2021, the museum announced the acquisition of thirteen tweets made by Londoners during lockdown. In February 2021, Mayor of Lambeth Philip Normal donated his chain of office, which he had made from card and t-shirt fabric while the real one was locked up in the town hall. Normal had a virtual appointment ceremony to the role in April 2020. The museum also asked volunteers to describe their "pandemic dreams" to collect oral histories of how the pandemic affected Londoners' sleep cycles.
Exhibitions
2006–2007: belonging: Voices of London's Refugees
2010–2011: London Futures
2011–2012: Charles Dickens
2012–2013: Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men
2013: Opening The Olympics
2013–2014: The Cheapside Hoard
2014–2015: Sherlock Holmes: The Man Who Never Lived And Will Never Die
2015–2016: The Crime Museum Uncovered
2016–2017: Fire! Fire!
2017–2018: The City Is Ours
2017: Junk
2018: London Nights
2018: Fatberg!
2018–2019: Votes For Women
2019–2020: Beasts of London
2019–2020: The Clash: London Calling
2020–2021: Dub London: Bassline of a City
2022–: Grime Stories: From the Corner to the Mainstream
2022–: Harry Kane: I Want To Play Football
Other locations
Museum of London Docklands
In 2003, the Museum opened the Museum in Docklands (later renamed the Museum of London Docklands) in a 19th-century grade I listed warehouse near Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs. The Museum of London Docklands charts the history of London as a port, beginning 2,000 years ago with the Roman trading post set up on the banks of the Thames and following London's expansion into the biggest port the world had ever known. In November 2007, it opened the capital's first permanent gallery examining London's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, "London, Sugar & Slavery".
Museum of London Archaeology
Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) is an archaeology and built heritage practice originally that was originally part of the Museum of London, but became an independent charity in November 2011, regulated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. It employs 310 staff and works not just in London, but across the UK and internationally. It is based at Mortimer Wheeler House in Shoreditch.
Governance
The Museum of London and Museum of London Docklands are part of the same group. Since 1 April 2008, the Museum has been jointly controlled and funded by the City of London Corporation and the Greater London Authority. Prior to this, the Museum had been jointly controlled by the City of London and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is headed by a director.
List of directors
1965–1970: Donald Harden (acting)
1972–1977: Tom Hume
1977–1997: Max Hebditch
1997–2002: Simon Thurley
2002 to 2012: Jack Lohman
September 2012 – present: Sharon Ament
See also
Culture of London
London and Middlesex Archaeological Society
References
External links
Official website of the Museum of London
Museum of London Docklands
Museum of London within Google Arts & Culture
1976 establishments in England
London
London
Archaeological museums in London
History of the City of London
Local government in London
Museums of ancient Rome in the United Kingdom
History museums in London
Exempt charities
Charities based in London
Museums in the City of London
London
Museum of London Group
Barbican Estate
The Twentieth Century Society Risk List
Museum of the Year (UK) recipients
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London%20Wall
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London Wall
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The London Wall was a defensive wall first built by the Romans around the strategically important port town of Londinium in AD 200, and is now the name of a modern street in the City of London, England.
London was, from around 120–150, protected by a large fort, with a large garrison, that stood to its north-western side. The fort, now referred to as the Cripplegate Fort, was later incorporated into a comprehensive city wide defence, with its strengthened northern and western sides becoming part of the Wall which was built around 200. The incorporation of the fort's walls gave the walled area its distinctive shape in the north-west part of the city.
The end of Roman rule in Britain, around 410, led to the wall falling into disrepair. It was restored in the late Anglo-Saxon period, a process generally thought to have begun under Alfred the Great after 886. Repairs and enhancements continued throughout the medieval period. The wall largely defined the boundaries of the City of London until the later Middle Ages, when population rises and the development of towns around the city blurred the perimeter.
From the 18th century onward, the expansion of the City of London saw large parts of the wall demolished, including its city gates, to improve traffic flow. Since the Second World War, conservation efforts have helped to preserve surviving sections of the city wall as scheduled monuments.
Like most other city walls around England, the London Wall has been largely lost, though a number of fragments remain (see interactive map). The long presence of these walls had had a profound and continuing effect on the character of the City of London, and surrounding areas. The walls constrained the growth of the city, and the location of the limited number of gates and the route of the roads through them shaped development within the walls, and more fundamentally, beyond them. With few exceptions, the modern roads heading into the former walled area are the same as those which passed through the former medieval gates.
History
Roman London Wall
It has origins as an initial mound wall and ditch from AD 100 and a fort, now called Cripplegate fort after the city gate (Cripplegate) that was subsequently built on its northern wall later on, built in 120–150
The fort was later incorporated into a city-wide defence in the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD, though the reason for such a large and expensive fortification is unknown. The fort's north and west walls were thickened and doubled in height to form part of the new city wall. The incorporation of the fort's walls gave the walled area its distinctive shape in the north-west part of the city.
It continued to be developed until at least the end of the 4th century, making it among the last major building projects undertaken by the Romans before the Roman departure from Britain in 410. Reasons for its construction may have been connected to the invasion of northern Britain by Picts who overran Hadrian's Wall in the 180s. This may be linked to the political crisis that emerged in the late 2nd century when the governor of Britain Clodius Albinus was consolidating his power after claiming the right of succession as Roman emperor. After a struggle with his rival Septimius Severus, Albinus was defeated in 197 at the Battle of Lugdunum (near Lyon, France). The economic stimulus provided by the wall and Septimius's subsequent campaigns in Scotland improved Londinium's financial prosperity in the early 3rd century.
Roman London wall characteristics
The wall's gateways coincided with their alignment to the British network of Roman roads. The original gates, clockwise from Ludgate in the west to Aldgate in the east, were: Ludgate, Newgate, Cripplegate, Bishopsgate and Aldgate. Aldersgate, between Newgate and Cripplegate, was added around 350. Moorgate, initially just a postern i.e. a secondary gate, was built later still, in the medieval period.
The length and size of the wall made it one of the biggest construction projects in Roman Britain. It had gateways, towers and defensive ditches, and was built from Kentish ragstone, which was brought by barge from quarries near Maidstone. It was long, enclosing an area of about . It was wide and up to high. The ditch or fossa in front of the outer wall was deep and up to wide. There were at least 22 towers spaced about apart on the eastern section of the wall.
Roman Thamesside wall
Excavation work has traced a significant development of 300 metres of timber-framed waterfronts to the east and west of the modern site of London Bridge, with a piece of wooden bridge found at the end of Fish Street Hill. The constructions advancing around 35 metres into the River Thames took place between the late 1st and mid-3rd centuries, highlighting that between these periods no wall stood against the river.
After Londinium was raided on several occasions by Saxon pirates in the late 3rd century, construction of an additional riverside wall, built in phases, began in 280 and was repaired 390. The existence of this riverside section was long doubted due to a lack of evidence, but excavations at the Tower of London in 1977 showed that the section of the inner curtain wall between the Lanthorne and Wakefield Towers, to the south of the White Tower, was originally the eastern part of the Roman riverside wall that was built or rebuilt in the late 4th century. The riverside wall may have limited access to the Thames, both commercial and otherwise, so it may have reflected a diminished level of activity within the city.
It is not clear how long the riverside wall survived, but there are references to a part of it near the dock of Queenhithe, in two charters of 889 and 898. There is currently no evidence of post-Roman restoration, so surviving sections are not likely to have been part, or an important part, of defences much after the Roman period.
Post-Roman disrepair
The end of Roman rule in Britain in 410 resulted in the wall slowly falling into disrepair, though the survival of Romano-British culture in the area is indicated by the settlement in the nearby St Martin-in-the-Fields area of Westminster, which persisted until around 450.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that the Romano-British retreated back to London after their bloody defeat at the Battle of Crecganford (Crayford, Kent) at the hands of Hengist and Horsa, leaders of the Saxon invaders, in 457. This suggests that London's walls retained some military value, although the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was written many centuries after the Battle of Crayford took place, if it took place at all.
Anglo-Saxon London Wall
Anglo-Saxon city revival
From 500, an Anglo-Saxon settlement known as Lundenwic developed in the same area slightly to the west of the abandoned Roman city, in the vicinity of the Strand.
In 886 the King of Wessex, Alfred the Great, formally agreed to the terms of the Danish warlord, Guthrum, concerning the area of political and geographical control that had been acquired by the incursion of the Vikings. Within the eastern and northern part of England, with its boundary roughly stretching from London to Chester, the Scandinavians would establish Danelaw.
Anglo-Saxon London Wall restoration
In the same year, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that London was "refounded" by Alfred. Archaeological research shows that this involved abandonment of Lundenwic and a revival of life and trade within the old Roman walls. This was part Alfred's policy of building an in-depth defence of the Kingdom of Wessex against the Vikings as well as creating an offensive strategy against the Vikings who controlled Mercia. The burh of Southwark was also created on the south bank of the River Thames during this time.
The city walls of London were repaired as the city slowly grew until about 950 when urban activity increased dramatically. A large Viking army that attacked the London burgh was defeated in 994.
Medieval London Wall
By the 11th century, London was beyond all comparison the largest town in England. Westminster Abbey, rebuilt in the Romanesque style by King Edward the Confessor, was one of the grandest churches in Europe. Winchester had previously been the capital of Anglo-Saxon England, but from this time on, London was the main forum for foreign traders and the base for defence in time of war. In the view of Frank Stenton: "It had the resources, and it was rapidly developing the dignity and the political self-consciousness appropriate to a national capital."
Medieval London Wall restoration
The size and importance of London led to the redevelopment of the city's defences. During the early medieval period – following the Norman Conquest of England – the walls underwent substantial work that included crenellations, additional gates and further towers and bastions. Aside from the seven City Wall gates and the four bars, there are the 13 water-gates on the Thames where goods were unloaded from ships. These include Billingsgate and Bridge Gate. Additionally there were pedestrian-only gates such as the Tower Hill Postern at Tower Hill.
A further medieval defensive feature was the restoration of the defensive ditch immediately adjacent to the outside of the wall. The street name Houndsditch recalls a part of this former feature. This seems to have been re-cut in 1213, with the restored ditch being V-cut to a depth of 6 feet and a width of between 9 and 15 feet.
The re-cut of the ditch may have diverted some of the waters of the Walbrook which would otherwise have flowed through the city, and the wall itself does appear to have acted like a dam, partially obstructing the Walbrook and leading to the marshy conditions at the open space of Moorfields, just north of the wall.
As London continued to grow throughout the medieval period, urban development grew beyond the city walls. This expansion led to the suffix words "Without" and "Within" which denote whether an area of the City – and usually applied to the wards – fell outside or within the London Wall, though only Farringdon and (formerly) Bridge were split into separate wards this way (Bridge Without falling beyond the gates on London Bridge). Some wards – Aldersgate, Bishopsgate and Cripplegate – cover an area that was both within and outside the wall; although not split into separate wards, often the part (or "division") within the Wall is denoted (on maps, in documents, etc.) as being "within" and the part outside the Wall as being "without". Archaically infra (within) and extra (without) were also used and the terms "intramural" and "extramural" are also used to describe being within or outside the walled part of the city.
The suffix is applied to some churches and parishes near the city gateways, such as St Audoen within Newgate and St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate.
Blackfriars extension
Edward I gave the Dominican Friars (or Black Friars) permission to demolish and re-route the section of City wall between Ludgate and the Thames. The did this in stages between 1284 and 1320, extending the walled area as far as the River Fleet so that it enclosed their precinct. The westward extension is likely to have improved the defensibility of Ludgate.
The Wall and the developed area
In the medieval period the developed area of the city was largely confined to the City Wall, but there was extramural development, especially in the large western ward of Farringdon Without. The wall provided security but was a constraint to accessibility and growth. The extent of the city's jurisdiction has changed little from 1000 to the modern day; but the extramural parts were long home to only a few people. A notable late change to the boundary appears to be that Stow's Survey of London suggests that the part of Moorfields next to the wall was still, in 1603, outside the city's jurisdiction.
The boundary of the city's jurisdiction was marked by "city bars", toll gates which were situated just beyond the old walled area; Holborn Bar, Temple Bar, West Smithfield Bar, and Whitechapel Bar. These were the important entrances to the city and their control was vital in maintaining the city's special privileges over certain trades.
Great Fire of London
During the Great Fire of London in September 1666, almost all of the medieval City of London inside the wall was destroyed, but the wall and gates survived.
Demolition
The seven gates to the City of London, with many repairs and rebuilding over the years, stood until they were all demolished between 1760 and 1767. Work to demolish the walls continued into the 19th century; however, large sections of the wall were incorporated into other structures.
20th century London Wall
Second World War
London Blitz
The Blitz during the Second World War, through the sheer scale of bombing and destruction of buildings and the surrounding landscape, revealed numerous parts of the London Wall.
At 00:15 on 28 August 1940, during the pre-wave of bombing before the Blitz, buildings and parts of the wall were destroyed between Fore Street and St. Alphage's churchyard gardens around Cripplegate. This revealed parts of the wall unseen for over 300 years as the rubble of buildings destroyed around it were removed.
On 29 December 1940, heavy bombing led to conditions known as the Second Great Fire of London. Bomb damage revealed a section of wall at Noble Street, near the Museum of London.
Post-war loss
In 1957, a 64-metre section of the wall was uncovered during works on the London Wall road; the section was then destroyed to accommodate the road changes and to make way for a new car park. An 11-metre section has been preserved.
Conservation and heritage efforts
In 1984, the Museum of London set up a Wall Walk from the Tower of London to the museum, using 23 tiled panels. A number of these have been destroyed in subsequent years. At Noble Street, the panels were replaced by etched glass panels. These were intended as a prototype for new panels along the entire walk, but no further replacements have been made. One of the largest and most readily accessed fragments of the wall stands just outside Tower Hill tube station, with a replica statue of the Emperor Trajan standing in front of it. There is a further surviving section preserved in the basement of the One America Square building. There are further remains in the basement of the Old Bailey.
Impact on current city
The layout of the Roman and medieval walls have had a profound effect on the development of London, even down to the present day. The walls constrained the growth of the city, and the location of the limited number of gates and the route of the roads through them shaped development within the walls, and in a much more fundamental way, beyond them. With a few exceptions, the parts of the modern road network heading into the former walled area are the same as those which passed through the former medieval gates.
Part of the route originally taken by the northern wall is commemorated, although now only loosely followed, by the road also named London Wall. The modern road starts in the west with the Rotunda junction at Aldersgate, then runs east past Moorgate, from which point it runs parallel to the line of the City Wall, and eventually becomes Wormwood Street before it reaches Bishopsgate. This alignment, however, is the result of rebuilding between 1957 and 1976. Before this, London Wall was narrower, and ran behind the line of the City Wall for its entire length, from Wormwood Street to Wood Street. The western section is now St Alphage Garden.
Course
Eastern wall section
Tower of London
The eastern section of the wall starts in what is now the Tower of London. Within the grounds of the Tower remains of the eastern most wall can still be seen along with a line in the paths heading North within the Tower grounds to outline where it used to run before most of it was demolished to expand the fortification of the Tower. This followed on with a junction at the Tower of London's moat to the Tower Hill Postern, Gate 1, a medieval fortified entrance. The foundation to this entrance can still be seen today within the Tower Hill pedestrian subway. Other large sections of the wall can also be seen further ahead within the Tower Hill gardens.
Aldgate
The wall from Tower Hill then runs east of Walbrook toward the second historic gate, Aldgate – Gate 2. These would have led onto the Roman road network toward Essex and East Anglia via Stratford and Colchester. In present times the roads Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street lead into Aldgate High Street, where the gate's foundations are buried roughly where the Jewry Street intersects. Following the wall north, it runs between what is now The Aldgate School and Aldgate Square.
Bishopsgate
From Aldgate, the wall then ran North-West toward Gate 3, Bishopsgate. The road through this would have led onto the Roman road network toward leading to Lincoln and York. The current road, the A10 going north, now goes over the foundations of this gate.
Northern wall section
Moorgate
From Bishopsgate going along the northern section of wall leads to Gate 4; Moorgate. Until 1415 this was a small postern leading into the marshy Moorfields area of Finsbury. The wet conditions were probably caused by the wall partially obstructing the flow of the Walbrook. Moorgate remained ill-connected with no direct approach road from the south until 1846, some time after the wall had been demolished. London Wall, the modern road following this section of the wall, now crosses this gate's foundations. Leading north from here are routes into Finsbury.
Cripplegate
Route to the London Charterhouse, Clerkenwell and Islington.
Aldersgate
With direct access to more local routes.
Western wall section
Newgate
High Holborn and Oxford Street, with access via the Devil's Highway to Silchester and Bath, and Watling Street to St Albans and the west midlands. These roads leading over the River Fleet.
Ludgate
Fleet Street and the Strand
Characteristics
Bastions
The bastions, towers built against the face of the city wall, are scattered irregularly across its perimeter. Not bonded to the city wall itself, they are considered to be added after the construction of the wall and even later after by post-Roman builders.
21 bastions are currently known about (more may be undiscovered) that can be grouped into an eastern section from the Tower of London to Bishopsgate (B1–10), a single bastion west of Bishopsgate (B11), and a western section (B12–21). Between the eastern and western section, a gap of 731 metres (2400 feet or 800 yards) along the northern section of the city wall has no recorded bastions.
Known monuments and landmarks
Related signage
See also
Fortifications of London
List of cities with defensive walls
List of town walls in England and Wales
Scheduled monuments in Greater London
References
External links
PhotoEssay on London Walls with markers
Map of London Wall Walk and Photos
Interactive map with illustrations
2nd-century fortifications
City walls in the United Kingdom
English Heritage sites in London
Fortifications of London
Grade I listed buildings in the City of London
History of the City of London
Roman London
Roman walls in England
Ruins in London
Streets in the City of London
Walls in England
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC%20Basel
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FC Basel
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Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss professional football club based in Basel, in the Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been Swiss national champions 20 times, Swiss Cup winners 13 times, and Swiss League Cup winners once.
Basel have competed in UEFA competitions every season since 1999–2000. They have qualified for the Group stages of the Champions League more times than any other Swiss club – a total of seven times – and are the only Swiss club to have ever qualified to the Group stages directly. In 2021 they set the new record for a Swiss team with the most successful international group stage campaign by reaching 14 points in their Conference League group.
Since 2001, the club has played its home games at St. Jakob-Park, built on the site of their previous home, St. Jakob Stadium. Their home colours are red and blue, leading to a nickname of "RotBlau".
History
Foundation
FC Basel was started by an advertisement placed by Roland Geldner in the 12 November 1893 edition of the Basler national newspaper, requesting that a football team be formed and that anyone who wished to join should meet up the following Wednesday at 8:15 in the restaurant Schuhmachern-Zunft. Eleven men attended the meeting, generally from the academic community, founding Fussball Club Basel on 15 November 1893.
Founder members
(Source: the documentation to the club's 50th anniversary)
Emil Abderhalden was first team player in the early days, a famous physiologist and head of the physiological institute at the University of Halle in Germany.
Max Born, nothing is known about his private life.
Josy Ebinger was long-time player in the first team. He was active as a club official in various offices, club chairman from October 1902 to May 1903. He was vice president of the Swiss Football Association in 1900.
Max Geldner played at least six games for the club's first team in the first two years and was still a loyal friend and a patron of FC Basel 50 years later.
Roland Geldner was the first president of FC Basel. He was a well-known personality in the city and football player from the early days of football. A distinguished person, he was the soul of the club in the early years.
Wilhelm Glaser wore the red and blue colors as a center forward for years, played at least 14 matches. He was still follower with great interest of the FC Basel activities 50 years later
Jean Grieder was first and second team player, with at least one match for the first team. He was asset and liability manager and became the clubs first actuary. For years he held high honorary positions in his hometown.
Ferdinand Isler was a professor at the canton school in Frauenfeld. He was the first teams first captain, played at least 17 games during the clubs first three seasons. He later became actuary of the club. He was a great propagandist. He wrote brochures about the football game and translated the English rules of the game into German. He was one of the first sports journalists.
Wilhelm Oser was pharmacist by profession. His cheerful, spirited manner was highly valued in the club. An avid pioneer of the football movement.
Fritz Schäublin for many years was the highly respected rector of the humanistic grammar school in Basel. With his excellent skills he served the club in various offices for many years. He was an excellent player in the early days, played four matches in the club's first two season. He was founder of the tennis department.
Lucien Schmoll, nothing is known about his private life.
Richard Strub was still and quite, loyal member of the club. Very little is known about his private life.
John Tollmann was a proficient goalkeeper and played at least 23 matches during the club's first five years. He was the first secretary-treasurer of the Swiss Football Association. A personality with a very special character. Together with Roland Geldner, he was the club's driving force in the early days.
Charlie Volderauer was an excellent defender and played at least 33 matches. He was president December 1896 to December 1899. Arranged the first games in Switzerland against British professionals: Newcastle United and Celtic Glasgow. A rarely eager club member.
Fussball Club Basel 1893 has a long and illustrious history, that spans the period from 1893 to the present day. Having competed at the highest level of football in Switzerland for most of this time, FCB currently play in the Swiss Super League. The club was founded on 15 November 1893. At first the club played their home games in the Landhof stadium. During the mid- 1960's Basel then played their games in St. Jakob Stadium which was demolished in 1998. During the construction of the new stadium, between 1998 and 2001, the Stadion Schützenmatte was the clubs temporary home ground. Since 2001 Basel play home games at St. Jakob-Park, which is currently the largest club stadium in Switzerland.
The history of FC Basel
Due to its size the history of FC Basel has been divided into five sections. For details on individual periods of the club's history, see the following articles:
History of FC Basel (1893–1918)
The first section deals with the foundation, the early years, the forming of the Swiss Football Association (ASF-SFV), the first league championships and the years up to and during the first World War.
History of FC Basel (1918–1939)
The second section is about the period between the two World Wars and the introduction of the Swiss Cup. FCB did not have much of an early footballing success; it took them 40 years to win their first trophy, winning the cup in 1933, as they defeated arch-rivals and reigning cup-holders Grasshopper Club Zürich in the final.
History of FC Basel (1939–1965)
The third section starts with relegation, no promotion, missed promotion, promotion after all, another relegation, another promotion and the second cup title. It then spans the period of Jules Düblin as chairman, the first championship title and the third cup win.
History of FC Basel (1965–2000)
Under the motto rise and fall, the fourth section deals with the era Benthaus, seven domestic league titles, the subsequent decline, relegation, six seasons of second-tier football and the long-awaited promotion.
History of FC Basel (2000–present)
The fifth section deals with the financial backing that had been put into the club at that time, the move to the new stadium St. Jakob-Park, how success returned and how things have progressed to the present day.
Supporters and rivalries
Fans
FC Basel is known for having a big and loyal local following. When polls are conducted about the most passionate club football fans, FC Basel's fans usually make the top 200 if not top 100 in the world, resulting in what is by far the highest average attendance in Switzerland with around 30,000 fans attending every home game and with the new extension being built that number is expected to rise to around 40,000. The fans have also made themselves a name in numerous international matches in recent years. World tennis legend Roger Federer is one of the club's most famous fans.
In November 2010 their supporters caused the game against FC Luzern to be stopped after they threw hundreds of tennis balls onto the pitch. This was in protest at the kick off times being moved to accommodate a tennis tournament on the TV schedule.
Rivalry
The city of Basel and the city of Zürich have a long-standing rivalry. Therefore, FCB's most traditional and fiercest rivals are Grasshopper Club Zürich and FC Zürich. In the past few seasons, the rivalry between FC Zürich and Basel has been fueled by Zürich's narrow league championship wins over Basel. Supporters from both sides have caused trouble in the past years, with the worst incident happening in May 2006. Basel had won the league in 2003–04 and 2004–05 and were set to make it three in a row if they won or drew against Zürich at home on the last day of the 2005–06 season. Zürich took the lead after a late goal from Iulian Filipescu and consequently won the match and the league. After the final whistle, players and fans from both teams started fighting on the pitch and in the stands. This incident has fueled hatred and bitterness between fans from FC Zürich and FC Basel. There is controversy about which rivalry is bigger, the one with Grasshopper or FC Zürich, but it usually depends on the success of these teams.
Stadium
FC Basel play their home games at the 37,500 capacity St. Jakob-Park.
UEFA have awarded the stadium a 4-star rating, the highest rating that could be given to a stadium of that capacity. St. Jakob-Park was opened in 2001, originally holding a maximum attendance of 33,433. The stadium was expanded with a new stand (sector G) and upgraded to 42,500 due to Switzerland co-hosting UEFA Euro 2008. After Euro 2008, a number of seats were removed, thus giving more space between them, and the capacity was reduced 37,500 seats. The stadium is nicknamed "Joggeli" by the fans and has two restaurants, Restaurant UNO and Hattrick's Sports Bar, as well as a shopping centre which opened on 1 November 2001. It also has parking space for 680 cars and has its own train station. St. Jakob-Park hosted six matches during Euro 2008, including the opening game between Switzerland and Czech Republic, and a semi-final between Germany and Turkey. The most interesting feature of the stadium is the translucent outer layer, which can be illuminated in different colours for impressive effects; this effect was copied three years later for Bayern Munich's new stadium, the Allianz Arena.
Before St. Jakob-Park was built, FC Basel played home games in the Landhof (in the Quarter Kleinbasel) and, following the 1954 FIFA World Cup, in the newly built St. Jakob Stadium which was on the same site as the current stadium. During the construction period of St. Jakob-Park, Basel's home matches were played at the Stadion Schützenmatte.
In 2016, the UEFA Europa League final was played at St. Jakob-Park.
Affiliated clubs
FC Concordia Basel – FC Basel are the parent-club of local side Concordia, who currently play in the 1. Liga Classic. Many of Basel's youth players, such as Patrik Baumann, Beg Ferati, and Simone Grippo, have had loan spells there. Basel have also signed a number players from Concordia, like Louis Crayton and Murat Yakin. Miroslav König, Riccardo Meili, André Muff, and Dominik Ritter are just a few ex-Basel players who have gone on to play for Concordia.
Chennai City FC – FC Basel owns 26% of the club.
Colours and logo
FC Basel's traditional kit is a red and blue shirt. Due to the fact that some of the founders were members of the "Basler Ruder-Club", whose colors were red and blue, they adopted those colours for their new club. FC Basel's outfit is completed by blue shorts with gold trim and blue socks with red trim. From this comes the nickname "RotBlau" which is Swiss German and German for "RedBlue". Their away kit is all white with two stripes down the middle, the left being red and the right being blue. FC Basel's kits were formerly manufactured by Nike, however in the summer of 2012 a new contract was formed with Adidas to produce the kits until 2017. The main sponsor is Novartis, a multinational pharmaceutical company which is based in the city of Basel. On the inside tag of the jerseys is inscribed "Rot isch unseri Liebi, Blau die ewigi Treui, Basel unseri Stadt." This roughly translates to "Red is our love, blue the eternal loyalty, Basel our city."
According to a legend, the famous "Blaugrana" colours of Barcelona have been said to have originated from the Rotblau colours of FC Basel. This legend evolved because Joan Gamper, founder of both FC Zürich and FC Barcelona had played two friendly games for FC Basel against Mulhouse and Strasbourg on short visits, as he did for other Swiss clubs, too. FC Barcelona today based on accounts of the Gamper family assumes, the colours had been taken from the rugby team of the Merchant Taylors' School near Liverpool.
For the 2008–09 season, Basel changed their shirt to resemble the traditional Barcelona shirt (red and blue vertical stripes). Barcelona changed theirs to one half of the shirt red, the other blue, which happens to resemble the traditional Basel shirt.
Basel's current logo is a shield, the left half red and the right half blue. The shield is outlined with gold and in the centre in gold letters it reads "FCB", for "Football Club Basel" or "Fussballclub Basel". The logo is worn in the centre of the shirt opposed to on the traditional left-hand side. Like the club colours of Basel, the logo has a striking resemblance to that of Barcelona's. There are theories that suggest that the founder of Barcelona, being at one time the captain of Basel, reincorporated the logo of Basel to that of Barcelona. The resemblances seem clear: both logos seem to incorporate the shield design, as do most other clubs. Most notably, however, is the FCB acronyms on both logos and the red-blue colours, outlined in gold. Additionally, the football that lies on the left side of the Basel logo seems to be the exact shape, type and colour as that of the Barcelona logo in the bottom centre. Because of this, many say that Basel was the inspiration in the process of founding Barcelona.
Records
Highest stage reached in Champions League: Round of 16 (2002–03, 2011–12, 2014–15, 2017–18)
Highest stage reached in UEFA Europa League: Semi-finals (2012–13)
Highest stage reached in UEFA Europa Conference League: Semi-finals (2022–23)
Biggest European home win: Basel 7–0 Folgore (24 August 2000, UEFA Cup qualifying round second leg)
Biggest European away win: Fram 0–5 Basel (18 September 1973, European Champion Clubs' Cup first round first leg)
Biggest European home defeat: Basel 0–5 Barcelona (22 October 2008, UEFA Champions League)
Biggest European away defeat: Bayern Munich 7–0 Basel (13 March 2012, UEFA Champions League knockout stage)
Most league appearances: Massimo Ceccaroni (398)
Most league goals: Josef Hügi (244)
Record number of consecutive home games unbeaten: 59 (February 2003 to May 2006)
Record number of consecutive unbeaten games: 26 (2011–12)
Highest home game attendance (St. Jakob Stadium): 60,000
Highest home game attendance (St. Jakob-Park): 42,500
Most capped foreign player: Teófilo Cubillas, 81 caps, Peru
Most capped Swiss player: Alexander Frei, 82 caps
Individual records, league
Updated to league matches played on 22 May 2022.
Individual records, all competitions
Updated to all matches played on 22 May 2022.
Honours
National
Swiss Championship: 20
1952–53, 1966–67, 1968–69, 1969–70, 1971–72, 1972–73, 1976–77, 1979–80, 2001–02, 2003–04, 2004–05, 2007–08, 2009–10, 2010–11, 2011–12, 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2016–17
Swiss Cup: 13
1932–33, 1946–47, 1962–63, 1966–67, 1974–75, 2001–02, 2002–03, 2006–07, 2007–08, 2009–10, 2011–12, 2016–17, 2018–19
Swiss League Cup: 1
1972
European record
As of 18 May 2023.
Ownership
FC Basel Holding AG
The FC Basel Holding AG owns 75% of FC Basel 1893 AG and the other 25% is owned by the club FC Basel 1893 members. The club FC Basel 1893 functions as a base club independent of the holding company and the AG. FC Basel 1893 AG is responsible for the operational business of the club, e.g. the 1st team, a large part of the youth department and the back office are affiliated there. All decisions that affect the club FC Basel 1893 are made within the AG.
On 11 May 2021 the FC Basel Holding AG chairman Bernhard Burgener and board member David Degen announced a transfer of ownership rights, after months of massive fan protests. The new situation meant Degen owned 92% of the shares and about 8% is held by four small investors. At the AGM of FC Basel Holding AG on 15 June 2021, Bernhard Burgener, Peter von Büren and Karl Odermatt stood down from the board of directors. A new board of directors stood for election. From that date the board consisted of Reto Baumgartner (president), Dani Büchi (delegate of the board), David Degen (vice-president), Johannes Barth, Marco Gadola, Christian Gross, Sophie Herzog and Andreas Rey. Degen said he will sell a part of the shares within his management team.
On 18 August the Holding AG announced how the shares had been divided between the shareholders. Degen himself kept 40%, Andreas Rey held 18,41%, his wife Ursula Rey-Krayer also held 18,41%. A group of four other investors, these being Johannes Barth, Marco Gadola, Dani Büchi and Dan Holzmann, together held 15,14%. The other 8,04% of the shares remained by another group of investors, these being Manor AG, J. Safra Sarasin, Novasearch AG, MCH Group AG and Weitnauer Holding AG.
On 27 December 2021 an extraordinary AGM of the Holding AG was held and it was announced that the Board had reorganised itself. Ursula Rey-Krayer and Dan Holzmann were unanimously elected to the board of directors. At the same time, Sophie Herzog, Christian Gross, Johannes Barth and Reto Baumgartner resigned from the Board and were to focus upon their duties as members of the Board of Directors of FC Basel 1893 AG.
Since that date the new Board of the FC Basel Holding AG consists of the following members: David Degen (president), Dani Büchi (delegate of the board), Marco Gadola, Dan Holzmann, Ursula Rey-Krayer and Andreas Rey (vice-president). With the meeting FC Basel Holding AG had an adjusted composition - the FCB shareholders were represented upon the Board of Directors of FC Basel Holding AG by those with the overall largest proportion.
The Board of Directors of the FC Basel 1893 AG as it was announced in June 2021: Reto Baumgartner, (president), Johannes Barth. David Degen (vice-president), Carol Etter (delegate of the club), Marco Gadola, Christian Gross, Sophie Herzog and Andreas Rey.
Club management
The club's 127th AGM tookk place in written form, during the week from Saturday 5 June and Friday 11 June. The results were communicated on Monday 14 June. On 13 April 2021 the club announced their proposal for the club management. Club president Reto Baumgartner and the two directors, Dominik Donzé and Benno Kaiser, remained in the board and three new members were elected. These three being Carol Etter (sports lawyer), Edward Turner (financial specialist) and Tobias Adler (marketingspecialist). Their exact roles are to be decided. Carol Etter was elected as delegate of the board, to represent the club at the meetings of the Holding.
Team management
On 28 November 2022 FCB had announced that they had taken Heiko Vogel under contract as their new sporting director, as per 1 January 2023. After the end of their previous season, in which Vogel had taken over in charge of the coaching of their first team following the dismissal of Alexander Frei in February, Vogel continued in his role as sports director for this season.
On 12 May 2023 the club announced that Timo Schultz had been signed a contract as head coach of the new FCB first team. On 22 May they announced that the entire trainer staff had been appointed. Loïc Favé would join Davide Callà as assistant coach and Johannes Wieber would become athletic coach, Gabriel Wüthrich remained goalkeeper coach. On 23 May the club announced that the new coach of the U-21 is the ex-footballer Dennis Hediger, who had been the coach of the U-18 team the previous season. Appointed a his assistant coaches were Marco Aratore and Michaël Bauch.
On 29 September the club announced that they were parting with coach Schultz, together with his assistant Loïc Favé, and that he would be replaced by the current sport director Heiko Vogel.
Players
Current squad
Players out on loan
Retired numbers
Women's team
Since 2009 Basel have a women's team. It competes in the Nationalliga A.
Superleague Formula
FC Basel had a team in the Superleague Formula race car series where football teams lent their name to cars. GU-Racing International has operated the car for all seasons and Max Wissel has driven the car in all the races. FC Basel and Wissel won one race, in the 2009 season at Donington Park. The team have scored three other podiums in the series.
Youth system
Basel is known throughout Switzerland for having a good youth system. It has produced Swiss internationals such as Erni Maissen, Adrian Knup, Alexander Frei, Marco Streller, Philipp, and David Degen. Since Basel moved into the St. Jakob-Park in 2001, they have strengthened their youth academy and many young talents like the Felipe Caicedo, Ivan Rakitić, Zdravko Kuzmanović, Xherdan Shaqiri, Yann Sommer, Eren Derdiyok, and Mohammed Salah have risen through the ranks there. Since 2001, more than 40 successful players have risen through the Basel youth system and joined their first team, including:
Under-19 team
There is no official Basel U-19 team, because a U-19 championship does not exist in Swiss football. The team was quickly put together in the 2011–12 season from the youngest members of the first team, the younger Under-21 and the Under-18 teams who were eligible to play in the 2011–12 NextGen Series.
Because Basel qualified for the 2013–14 UEFA Champions League, the Under-19 team was again called to life and played in the 2013–14 UEFA Youth League. This time the members of this squad were solely members from the U-21 and U-18 teams, but the team only trained together once a week. A year later Basel qualified for the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League. Therefore, they were eligible to play in the 2014–15 UEFA Youth League and they took the matter a lot more seriously than the year before. Reserve team manager Thomas Häberli was also appointed as U-19 coach. Häberli's U-19 squad was still a mix between the younger U-21 and the older U-18 teams, but the team had training together virtually daily. This resulted with improved results, the team winning four games from their six, but failing to qualify for the knockout phase on tiebreak.
Basel's first team qualified for the Champions League again in 2016–17, so the U-19 team was revived for the 2016–17 UEFA Youth League. Raphaël Wicky was U-19 coach. In the group stage they reached second position and advanced to the play-offs, but lost this against Rosenborg.
Arjan Peço is the team coach in the 2017–18 UEFA Youth League. The team will advance to the next round.
Other youth teams
The club also have 12 further youth teams: Under-18, Under-17 (Team Basel/Jura), Under-16, Under-15, Under-14, Under-13 (Footeco), Under-12 (Junioren D9 Promotion), Under-11 (Junioren Ea), Under-10 (Junioren Eb), Under-9 (Junioren F), Under-8 (Junioren F), and Bebbi (Under-7).
Employees of note
Former players
Coaches
NOTE: early history is largely unknown.
Percy Humphreys (1913–14)
Walter Dietrich (1919–22)
Max Breunig (1922–23)
Gyula Kertész (1928–30)
Gustav Putzendopler (1930–32)
Otto Haftl (1932)
Karl Kurz (1932–33)
Josef Haist (1933–34)
Richard (Dombi) Kohn (1934)
Alwin Riemke (1934–36)
Heinz Körner (1936–37)
Fernand Jaccard (1937–39)
Walter Dietrich (1939)
Max Galler (1939–40)
Eugen Rupf (1940–43)
Willy Wolf (1943–46)
Max Barras (1946)
Anton Schall (1946–47)
Ernst Hufschmid (1947–52)
René Bader (1952–55)
Willy Dürr (1955)
Béla Sárosi (1955–57)
Rudi Strittich (1957–58)
René Bader (1958–59)
Jenő Vincze (1 July 1959 – 30 June 61)
Georges Sobotka (1961–65)
Helmut Benthaus (1 July 1965 – 30 June 82)
Rainer Ohlhauser (1982–83)
Ernst August Künnecke (1983–85)
Emil Müller (1985)
Helmut Benthaus (1 July 1985 – 30 June 87)
Urs Siegenthaler (1 July 1987 – 30 June 90)
Ernst August Künnecke (1990–92)
Karl Odermatt and Bruno Rahmen (1992)
Friedel Rausch (1 July 1992 – 30 June 93)
Claude Andrey (1993–95)
Karl Engel (1995–97)
Heinz Hermann (22 March 1997 – 31 March 97)
Salvatore Andracchio (interim), (1 April 1997 – 30 June 97)
Jörg Berger (1 July 1997 – 6 October 97)
Salvatore Andracchio (interim), (7 October 1997 – 31 December 97)
Guy Mathez (1 Jan 1998 – 14 May 99)
Marco Schällibaum (15 May 1999 – 14 June 99)
Christian Gross (15 June 1999 – 30 June 2009)
Thorsten Fink (1 July 2009 – 16 October 11)
Heiko Vogel (interim) (13 October 2011 – 11 December 11)
Heiko Vogel (12 December 2011 – 15 October 12)
Murat Yakin (15 October 2012 – 17 May 2014)
Paulo Sousa (1 July 2014 – 17 June 2015)
Urs Fischer (18 June 2015 – 3 June 2017)
Raphaël Wicky (4 June 2017 – 26 July 2018)
Alexander Frei (interim) (26 July 2018 – 2 August 2018)
Marcel Koller (2 August 2018 – 31 August 2020)
Ciriaco Sforza (1 September 2020 – 6 April 2021)
Patrick Rahmen (6 April 2021 – 21 February 2022)
Guille Abascal (interim) (21 February 2022 – 23 May 2022)
Alex Frei (23 May 2022 – 7 February 2023)
Heiko Vogel (7 February 2023 – 31 October 2023)
Fabio Celestini (31 October 2023 – present)
President
Roland Geldner (1893–1896)
Emanuel Schiess (1896–1896)
Charlie Volderauer (1896–1899)
Ernst-Alfred Thalmann ( 1900–1901)
Emanuel Schiess (1901–1902)
Ernst-Alfred Thalmann (1902–1902)
Josy Ebinger (1902–1903)
Ernst-Alfred Thalmann (1903–1907)
Siegfried Pfeiffer (1907–1908)
Ernst-Alfred Thalmann (1908–1913)
Karl Ibach (1913–1913)
Carl Albert Hintermann (1913–1914)
Ernst-Alfred Thalmann (1914–1915)
Philipp Leichner (1915–1915)
Franz Rinderer (1915–1918)
August Rossa (1918–1919)
Bernard Klingelfuss (1919–1920)
Franz Rinderer (1920–1921)
Carl Burkhardt (1921–1922)
Karl Ibach (1922–1925)
Carl Burkhardt (1925–1926)
Franz Rinderer (1926–1927)
Karl Ibach (1927–1927)
Karl Junker (1927–1927)
Hans Rupprecht (1927–1929)
Otto Kuhn (1929–1931)
Franz Rinderer (1931–1936)
Emil Junker (1936–1939)
Albert Besse (1939–1944)
Emil Junker (1944–1946)
Jules Düblin (1946–1959)
Ernst Weber (1959–1962)
Lucien Schmidlin (1962–1966)
Harry Thommen (1966–1970)
Félix Musfeld (1970–1976)
René Theler (1976–1980)
Pierre Jacques Lieblich (1980–1982)
Roland Rasi (1982–1983)
Urs Gribi (1983–1986)
Peter Max Sutter (1986–1987)
Charles Röthlisberger (1987–1992)
Peter Epting (1992–1996)
René C. Jäggi (1996–2002)
Werner Edelmann (2002–2006)
Gisela Oeri (2006–2011)
Bernhard Heusler (2012–2017)
Bernhard Burgener (2017–2020)
Reto Baumgartner (2020–)
At the club's Extraordinary General Assembly on 16 January 2012, the 601 attending members appointed Oeri as honorary president.
See also
History of FC Basel
List of FC Basel players
List of FC Basel seasons
Football in Switzerland
The Football Club Social Alliance
Notes and references
Notes
References
External links
Rotblau.ch Statistics (archived 1 December 2005)
FC Basel at Soccerway
Basel
Basel
Multi-sport clubs in Switzerland
1893 establishments in Switzerland
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Carradine
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John Carradine
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John Carradine ( ; born Richmond Reed Carradine; February 5, 1906 – November 27, 1988) was an American actor, considered one of the greatest character actors in American cinema. He was a member of Cecil B. DeMille's stock company and later John Ford's company, known for his roles in horror films, Westerns, and Shakespearean theater, most notably portraying Count Dracula in House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945), Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966), and Nocturna: Granddaughter of Dracula (1979). Among his other notable roles was “Preacher Casy” in John Ford’s The Grapes Of Wrath. In later decades of his career, he starred mostly in low-budget B-movies. In total, he holds 351 film and television credits, making him one of the most prolific English-speaking film and television actors of all time.
Carradine was married four times, had five children, and was the patriarch of the Carradine family, including four sons and four grandchildren who are or were also actors.
Early life
Carradine was born in New York City, the son of William Reed Carradine, a correspondent for the Associated Press, and his wife, Genevieve Winnifred Richmond, a surgeon. William Carradine was the son of evangelical author Beverly Carradine. The family lived in Peekskill, New York and Kingston, New York. William Carradine died from tuberculosis when his son John was two years old. Carradine's mother then married "a Philadelphia paper manufacturer named Peck, who thought the way to bring up someone else's boy was to beat him every day just on general principle." Carradine attended the Christ Church School in Kingston and the Episcopal Academy in Merion Station, Pennsylvania, where he developed his diction and his memory skills from portions of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer meted out as a punishment.
Carradine's son David claimed his father ran away when he was 14 years old. He later returned and studied sculpture at Philadelphia's Graphic Arts Institute. Carradine lived with his maternal uncle, Peter Richmond, in New York City for a while, working in the film archives of the public library. David said that while still a teenager, his father went to Richmond, Virginia, to serve as an apprentice to Daniel Chester French, the sculptor who created the statue of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. He traveled for a time, supporting himself painting portraits. "If the sitter was satisfied, the price was $2.50," he once said. "It cost him nothing if he thought it was a turkey. I made as high as $10 to $15 a day." During this time, he was arrested for vagrancy. While in jail, Carradine was beaten, suffering a broken nose that did not set correctly. This contributed to "the look that would become world famous."
David Carradine said, "My dad told me that he saw a production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice when he was 11 years old and decided right then what he wanted to do with his life". He made his stage debut in 1925 in New Orleans in a production of Camille and worked for a time in a New Orleans Shakespeare company. Carradine joined a tent repertory theater under the management of R. D. MaClean, who became his mentor. In 1927, he took a job escorting a shipment of bananas from Dallas, Texas to Los Angeles, where he eventually picked up some theater work under the name of Peter Richmond, in homage to his uncle. He became friends with John Barrymore, and began working for Cecil B. DeMille as a set designer. Carradine, however, did not have the job long. "DeMille noticed the lack of Roman columns in my sketches," Carradine said. "I lasted two weeks." Once DeMille heard his baritone voice, however, he hired him to do voice-overs. Carradine said, "the great Cecil B. DeMille saw an apparition – me – pass him by, reciting the gravedigger's lines from 'Hamlet', and he instructed me to report to him the following day." He became a member of DeMille's stock company and his voice was heard in several DeMille pictures, including The Sign of the Cross.
Career
Carradine's first film credit was Tol'able David (1930), but he claimed to have done 70 pictures before getting billing. Carradine claimed to have tested, as an unknown – along with well-known leading men Conrad Veidt, William Courtenay, Paul Muni, and Ian Keith – for the title role in Dracula, but the historical record does not support the claim. The part eventually went to Bela Lugosi. Carradine later played the Count in the 1940s Universal Studios Dracula sequels House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula. Carradine also claimed to have tested for the monster role in Frankenstein (1931), though again, no account exists other than his own that he actually did so. By 1933, he was being credited as John Peter Richmond, perhaps in honor of his friend, John Barrymore. He adopted the stage name "John Carradine" in 1935, and legally took the name as his own two years later. In 1935's Bride of Frankenstein, Carradine had a brief uncredited walk on role as a hunter in the forest.
On April 11, 1934, Wilfred Talbot Smith and Regina Kahl of the O.T.O. Agape Lodge held a "Crowley Night on Winona Blvd". Martin Starr recounts that "It included a program of recitation of (Aleister) Crowley's poetry, rituals and sacred texts...One surprising name was among the participants: the stage and motion picture actor John Carradine...who read the Crowley poem, "O Madonna of the Golden Eyes."
By 1936, Carradine had become a member of John Ford's stock company and appeared in The Prisoner of Shark Island. In total, he made 11 pictures with Ford, including his first important role, as Preacher Casy in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Other Ford films in which Carradine appeared include The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Stagecoach (1939).
He also portrayed the Biblical hero Aaron in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956), and he dominated Hitler's Madman (1943) as Reinhard Heydrich.
Carradine did considerable stage work, much of which provided his only opportunity to work in a classic drama context. He toured with his own Shakespearean company in the 1940s, playing Hamlet and Macbeth. His Broadway roles included Ferdinand in a 1946 production of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, the Ragpicker in a 13-month run of Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, Lycus in a 15-month run of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and DeLacey in the expensive one-night flop Frankenstein in 1981. He also toured in road companies of such shows as Tobacco Road and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in which he was properly emaciated as the cancer-ridden Big Daddy, a part, he said, which Tennessee Williams wrote for him.
Carradine claimed to have appeared in more than 450 movies, but only 225 movies can be documented. His count is closer to fact if theatrical movies, made-for-TV movies, and television programs are included. He often played eccentric, insane, or diabolical characters, especially in the horror genre with which he had become identified as a "star" by the mid-1940s. He occasionally played a heroic role, as in The Grapes of Wrath, in which he played Casy, the ill-fated "preacher", and he occasionally played a sympathetic role, as in Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake, in which he played Blake's shipmate, who escapes with him to a tropical island full of riches.
He appeared in dozens of low-budget horror films from the 1940s onwards, to finance a touring classical theater company. He also played a small but important role in the very-high-budget comedy The Court Jester, which was at the time of its release the most expensive comedy film ever made. He played a mad scientist in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask). He sang the theme song to one film in which he appeared briefly, Red Zone Cuba. Carradine also made more than 100 acting appearances on television over a period of 39 years. His first performance on the "small screen" was on the DuMont Television Network in 1947, when he played Ebenezer Scrooge in a broadcast presentation of A Christmas Carol. His final role on television was in 1986 as Professor Alex Stottel on a revival of the classic series The Twilight Zone, in an episode segment titled "Still Life." Some examples of other television series on which he appeared include My Friend Flicka, Johnny Ringo (as The Rain Man), and Place the Face, NBC's Cimarron City as the foreboding Jared Tucker in the episode "Child of Fear" and on William Bendix's Overland Trail in the 1960 episode "The Reckoning," on Harrigan and Son starring Pat O'Brien in the episode "A Matter of Dignity," Maverick in "Red Dog" starring Roger Moore and Lee Van Cleef, Sugarfoot, The Rebel, and The Legend of Jesse James, on the syndicated adventure series Rescue 8 with actor Jim Davis and in two episodes of the western TV series Bonanza ("Springtime" and "Dead Wrong"). John Carradine also appeared in 1959 as the mind reader in The Rifleman episode of the same name.
Carradine also made recurring appearances as the mortician Mr. Gateman on the television comedy series The Munsters. He appeared as well in both of Irwin Allen's classic 1960s science-fiction television series Lost in Space and Land of the Giants. In 1985, Carradine won a Daytime Emmy Award for his performance as an eccentric man who lives by the railroad tracks in the Young People's Special Umbrella Jack.
In 1982, he supplied the voice of the Great Owl in the animated feature The Secret of NIMH. Also, he played the voice of the Wizard in the English-dubbed version of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. One of Carradine's later appearances was Peggy Sue Got Married in 1986. Carradine's last released film credit was Jack-O, released years after his death.
Carradine's deep, resonant voice earned him the nickname "The Voice". He was known as the "Bard of the Boulevard" due to his idiosyncratic habit of strolling Hollywood streets while reciting Shakespearean soliloquies, something he always denied.
Personal life and death
Carradine was married four times. He married his first wife, Ardanelle Abigail McCool (January 25, 1911 – January 26, 1989), in 1935. She was the mother of Bruce and David. John adopted Bruce, Ardanelle's son from a previous marriage. John had planned a large family, but according to the autobiography of his son David, after Ardanelle had had a series of miscarriages, Carradine discovered that she had repeated "coat hanger" abortions, without his knowledge, which rendered her unable to carry a baby to full term. After only three years of marriage, Ardanelle Carradine filed for divorce, but the couple remained married for another five years.
They divorced in 1944 when David was seven years old. Carradine left California to avoid court action in the alimony settlement. After the couple engaged in a series of court battles involving child custody and alimony, which at one point landed Carradine in jail, David joined his father in New York City. By this time, his father had remarried. For the next few years, David was shuffled among boarding schools, foster homes, and reform school.
In 1945, immediately following his divorce from Ardanelle, Carradine married Sonia Sorel (May 18, 1921 – September 24, 2004), who had appeared with him in the 1944 film Bluebeard. Sonia, who had adopted the stage name of Sorel, was the daughter of San Francisco brewer Henry Henius, granddaughter of biochemist Max Henius, and a great-niece of the historian Johan Ludvig Heiberg. Together, Carradine and Sonia had three sons, Christopher, Keith, and Robert. Their divorce in 1957 was followed by an acrimonious custody battle, which resulted in their sons being placed in a home for abused children as wards of the court. Keith Carradine said "It was like being in jail. There were bars on the windows, and we were only allowed to see our parents through glass doors. It was very sad. We would stand there on either side of the glass door crying".
Eventually, Carradine won custody of the children. For the next eight years, Sonia was not permitted to see the children. Robert Carradine said that he was raised primarily by his stepmother, his father's third wife, Doris (Rich) Grimshaw, and believed her to be his mother until he was introduced to Sonia Sorel at a Christmas party when he was 14 years old. He told a journalist "I said, 'How do you do?' Keith took me aside and said 'That's our real mother.' I didn't know what he was talking about. But he finally convinced me."
When John Carradine married Doris (Erving Rich) Grimshaw in 1957, she already had a son, Dale, from a previous marriage and a son, Michael, from a later relationship. Both Dale and Michael, along with Sonia Sorel's son, Michael Bowen, are sometimes counted among John Carradine's eight sons. She was a one-time studio typist who typed the script to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and who played a few roles in film and television. Doris died in 1971 in a fire in her apartment in Oxnard, California. The fire was caused by a burning cigarette. She had been rescued from a similar fire two weeks earlier. At the time of her death, Carradine and she were separated. Carradine was married a fourth time, from 1975 to his 1988 death, to Emily Cisneros.
Semi-retired by the late 1980s, Carradine suffered from painful and crippling rheumatoid arthritis in the years before he died from heart and kidney failure at the in Milan, Italy on November 27, 1988 at the age of 82. Hours before he was stricken, he had climbed the 328 steep steps of Milan's Gothic cathedral, the Duomo. According to David Carradine, his father had just finished a film (Buried Alive) in South Africa and was about to begin a European tour. David was with him, reading Shakespeare to him in his hospital bed, when he succumbed to his condition. By the time David and Keith Carradine had arrived at their father's bedside at the hospital, he was unable to speak. "I was told that his last words were 'Milan: What a beautiful place to die.'" David recalled, "but he never spoke to me or opened his eyes. When he died, I was holding him in my arms. I reached out and closed his eyes. It's not as easy as it is in the movies." There was a mass for John Carradine at St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church in Hollywood. An Irish wake followed, and his body was buried at sea between the California coast and Catalina Island.
Legacy
For his contributions to the film industry, Carradine was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 with a motion pictures star located at 6240 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2003, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Four of Carradine's five sons became actors: David, Robert, Keith, and Bruce. David had a prolific career, amassing 227 movie and television credits by the time of his death in 2009. He also had a brief Broadway career and produced and directed a number of independent projects. His success often led to work for other members of his family, including his father. The two appeared together in a few films, including The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969) and Boxcar Bertha (1972), produced by Roger Corman and directed by Martin Scorsese.
David's television series Kung Fu featured his father John and half-brother Robert in the episode "Dark Angel". John appeared as the same character, the Reverend Serenity Johnson, in two more episodes: "The Nature of Evil" and "Ambush". David's brothers Bruce and Keith appeared in the series, with Keith playing David's character as a teenager for a brief period. David, Keith, and Robert appeared together in a humorous cameo on The Fall Guy, on an episode titled "October the 31st", in which their father co-starred.
Robert appeared with his father in an episode of the first Twilight Zone revival television series in 1986. The episode segment titled "Still Life" featured Robert as a photographer who discovers an unusual camera and his father as a college professor who helps him discover the camera's secret.
Filmography
Television roles
The following are only a few examples of the many roles John Carradine performed on television between 1947 and 1986:
My Friend Irma, CBS comedy (1952–1954) as Mr. Corday
Cheyenne, TV western (1957) Episode – "Decision at Gunsight" as Delos Gerrard
The Restless Gun as Arch in Episode "More Than Kin"
The Rifleman, TV western (1959) Episode – "The Photographer" as Abel Goss
Gunsmoke, TV western (1959) as Kader
The Twilight Zone (1959) Episode – "The Howling Man" (1960) as Brother Jerome
Maverick in "Red Dog" (1960) starring Roger Moore, Lee Van Cleef and Sherry Jackson
The Rebel, TV western (1961) as Elmer Dodson
The Beverly Hillbillies (1966) Episode - “The Great Jethro” as Marvin Bagby/Marvo the Magnificent
The Munsters (1964–1966) as Mr. Gateman
Lost In Space (television series 1965–1968) Episode – "The Galaxy Gift" (April 26, 1967)
Daughter of the Mind (ABC Movie of the Week 1969) as Bosch (December 9, 1969)
Night Gallery (episode: "Big Surprise/Quoth the Raven/Prof. Peabody's Last Lecture", 1971)
Kung Fu (3 episodes: 1972, 1974 and 1975); as Preacher Serenity Johnson, John played opposite his son David, who was the star of the series.
The Night Strangler (1973) as Llewelyn Crossbinder
The New Adventures of Wonder Woman (1978) as Harlow Gault
The Twilight Zone (1985) Episode – "Still Life" (1985) as Professor Stottel
Gallery
References
Explanatory notes
Citations
Further reading
External links
1906 births
1988 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American male film actors
American male Shakespearean actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
Audiobook narrators
Burials at sea
Carradine family
Daytime Emmy Award winners
Deaths from kidney failure
Episcopal Academy alumni
Male actors from New York City
Male actors from Oxnard, California
Male Western (genre) film actors
Actors from Greenwich Village
Western (genre) television actors
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken%20%28game%29
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Chicken (game)
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The game of chicken, also known as the hawk-dove game or snowdrift game, is a model of conflict for two players in game theory. The principle of the game is that while the ideal outcome is for one player to yield (to avoid the worst outcome if neither yields), individuals try to avoid it out of pride, not wanting to look like "chickens." Each player taunts the other to increase the risk of shame in yielding. However, when one player yields, the conflict is avoided, and the game essentially ends.
The name "chicken" has its origins in a game in which two drivers drive toward each other on a collision course: one must swerve, or both may die in the crash, but if one driver swerves and the other does not, the one who swerved will be called a "chicken", meaning a coward; this terminology is most prevalent in political science and economics. The name "hawk–dove" refers to a situation in which there is a competition for a shared resource and the contestants can choose either conciliation or conflict; this terminology is most commonly used in biology and evolutionary game theory. From a game-theoretic point of view, "chicken" and "hawk–dove" are identical. The game has also been used to describe the mutual assured destruction of nuclear warfare, especially the sort of brinkmanship involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Popular versions
The game of chicken models two drivers, both headed for a single-lane bridge from opposite directions. The first to swerve away yields the bridge to the other. If neither player swerves, the result is a costly deadlock in the middle of the bridge or a potentially fatal head-on collision. It is presumed that the best thing for each driver is to stay straight while the other swerves (since the other is the "chicken" while a crash is avoided). Additionally, a crash is presumed to be the worst outcome for both players. This yields a situation where each player, in attempting to secure their best outcome, risks the worst.
The phrase game of chicken is also used as a metaphor for a situation where two parties engage in a showdown where they have nothing to gain and only pride stops them from backing down. Bertrand Russell famously compared the game of Chicken to nuclear brinkmanship:Since the nuclear stalemate became apparent, the governments of East and West have adopted the policy that Mr. Dulles calls 'brinkmanship'. This is a policy adapted from a sport that, I am told, is practiced by some youthful degenerates. This sport is called 'Chicken!'. It is played by choosing a long, straight road with a white line down the middle and starting two very fast cars toward each other from opposite ends. Each car is expected to keep the wheels on one side of the white line. As they approach each other, mutual destruction becomes more and more imminent. If one of them swerves from the white line before the other, the other, as they pass, shouts 'Chicken!', and the one who has swerved becomes an object of contempt. As played by irresponsible boys, this game is considered decadent and immoral, though only the lives of the players are risked. But when the game is played by eminent statesmen, who risk not only their own lives but those of many hundreds of millions of human beings, it is thought on both sides that the statesmen on one side are displaying a high degree of wisdom and courage, and only the statesmen on the other side are reprehensible. This, of course, is absurd. Both are to blame for playing such an incredibly dangerous game. The game may be played without misfortune a few times, but sooner or later, it will come to be felt that loss of face is more dreadful than nuclear annihilation. The moment will come when neither side can face the derisive cry of 'Chicken!' from the other side. When that moment comes, the statesmen of both sides will plunge the world into destruction.Brinkmanship involves the introduction of an element of uncontrollable risk: even if all players act rationally in the face of risk, uncontrollable events can still trigger the catastrophic outcome. In the "chickie run" scene from the film Rebel Without a Cause, this happens when Buzz cannot escape from the car and dies in the crash. The opposite scenario occurs in Footloose where Ren McCormack is stuck in his tractor and hence wins the game as they cannot play "chicken". A similar event happens in two different games in the film The Heavenly Kid, when first Bobby, and then later Lenny become stuck in their cars and drive off a cliff. The basic game-theoretic formulation of Chicken has no element of variable, potentially catastrophic, risk, and is also the contraction of a dynamic situation into a one-shot interaction.
The hawk–dove version of the game imagines two players (animals) contesting an indivisible resource who can choose between two strategies, one more escalated than the other. They can use threat displays (play Dove), or physically attack each other (play Hawk). If both players choose the Hawk strategy, then they fight until one is injured and the other wins. If only one player chooses Hawk, then this player defeats the Dove player. If both players play Dove, there is a tie, and each player receives a payoff lower than the profit of a hawk defeating a dove.
Game theoretic applications
Chicken
A formal version of the game of Chicken has been the subject of serious research in game theory. Two versions of the payoff matrix for this game are presented here (Figures 1 and 2). In Figure 1, the outcomes are represented in words, where each player would prefer to win over tying, prefer to tie over losing, and prefer to lose over crashing. Figure 2 presents arbitrarily set numerical payoffs which theoretically conform to this situation. Here, the benefit of winning is 1, the cost of losing is -1, and the cost of crashing is -1000.
Both Chicken and Hawk–Dove are anti-coordination games, in which it is mutually beneficial for the players to play different strategies. In this way, it can be thought of as the opposite of a coordination game, where playing the same strategy Pareto dominates playing different strategies. The underlying concept is that players use a shared resource. In coordination games, sharing the resource creates a benefit for all: the resource is non-rivalrous, and the shared usage creates positive externalities. In anti-coordination games the resource is rivalrous but non-excludable and sharing comes at a cost (or negative externality).
Because the loss of swerving is so trivial compared to the crash that occurs if nobody swerves, the reasonable strategy would seem to be to swerve before a crash is likely. Yet, knowing this, if one believes one's opponent to be reasonable, one may well decide not to swerve at all, in the belief that the opponent will be reasonable and decide to swerve, leaving the first player the winner. This unstable situation can be formalized by saying there is more than one Nash equilibrium, which is a pair of strategies for which neither player gains by changing their own strategy while the other stays the same. (In this case, the pure strategy equilibria are the two situations wherein one player swerves while the other does not.)
Hawk–dove
In the biological literature, this game is known as Hawk–Dove. The earliest presentation of a form of the Hawk–Dove game was by John Maynard Smith and George Price in their paper, "The logic of animal conflict". The traditional payoff matrix for the Hawk–Dove game is given in Figure 3, where V is the value of the contested resource, and C is the cost of an escalated fight. It is (almost always) assumed that the value of the resource is less than the cost of a fight, i.e., C > V > 0. If C ≤ V, the resulting game is not a game of Chicken but is instead a Prisoner's Dilemma.
The exact value of the Dove vs. Dove payoff varies between model formulations. Sometimes the players are assumed to split the payoff equally (V/2 each), other times the payoff is assumed to be zero (since this is the expected payoff to a war of attrition game, which is the presumed models for a contest decided by display duration).
While the Hawk–Dove game is typically taught and discussed with the payoffs in terms of V and C, the solutions hold true for any matrix with the payoffs in Figure 4, where W > T > L > X.
Hawk–dove variants
Biologists have explored modified versions of classic Hawk–Dove game to investigate a number of biologically relevant factors. These include adding variation in resource holding potential, and differences in the value of winning to the different players, allowing the players to threaten each other before choosing moves in the game, and extending the interaction to two plays of the game.
Pre-commitment
One tactic in the game is for one party to signal their intentions convincingly before the game begins. For example, if one party were to ostentatiously disable their steering wheel just before the match, the other party would be compelled to swerve. This shows that, in some circumstances, reducing one's own options can be a good strategy. One real-world example is a protester who handcuffs themselves to an object, so that no threat can be made which would compel them to move (since they cannot move). Another example, taken from fiction, is found in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. In that film, the Russians sought to deter American attack by building a "doomsday machine", a device that would trigger world annihilation if Russia was hit by nuclear weapons or if any attempt were made to disarm it. However, the Russians had planned to signal the deployment of the machine a few days after having set it up, which, because of an unfortunate course of events, turned out to be too late.
Players may also make non-binding threats to not swerve. This has been modeled explicitly in the Hawk–Dove game. Such threats work, but must be wastefully costly if the threat is one of two possible signals ("I will not swerve" or "I will swerve"), or they will be costless if there are three or more signals (in which case the signals will function as a game of "rock, paper, scissors").
Best response mapping and Nash equilibria
All anti-coordination games have three Nash equilibria. Two of these are pure contingent strategy profiles, in which each player plays one of the pair of strategies, and the other player chooses the opposite strategy. The third one is a mixed equilibrium, in which each player probabilistically chooses between the two pure strategies. Either the pure, or mixed, Nash equilibria will be evolutionarily stable strategies depending upon whether uncorrelated asymmetries exist.
The best response mapping for all 2x2 anti-coordination games is shown in Figure 5. The variables x and y in Figure 5 are the probabilities of playing the escalated strategy ("Hawk" or "Don't swerve") for players X and Y respectively. The line in graph on the left shows the optimum probability of playing the escalated strategy for player Y as a function of x. The line in the second graph shows the optimum probability of playing the escalated strategy for player X as a function of y (the axes have not been rotated, so the dependent variable is plotted on the abscissa, and the independent variable is plotted on the ordinate). The Nash equilibria are where the players' correspondences agree, i.e., cross. These are shown with points in the right hand graph. The best response mappings agree (i.e., cross) at three points. The first two Nash equilibria are in the top left and bottom right corners, where one player chooses one strategy, the other player chooses the opposite strategy. The third Nash equilibrium is a mixed strategy which lies along the diagonal from the bottom left to top right corners. If the players do not know which one of them is which, then the mixed Nash is an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), as play is confined to the bottom left to top right diagonal line. Otherwise an uncorrelated asymmetry is said to exist, and the corner Nash equilibria are ESSes.
Strategy polymorphism vis-à-vis strategy mixing
The ESS for the Hawk–Dove game is a mixed strategy. Formal game theory is indifferent to whether this mixture is due to all players in a population choosing randomly between the two pure strategies (a range of possible instinctive reactions for a single situation) or whether the population is a polymorphic mixture of players dedicated to choosing a particular pure strategy(a single reaction differing from individual to individual). Biologically, these two options are strikingly different ideas. The Hawk–Dove game has been used as a basis for evolutionary simulations to explore which of these two modes of mixing ought to predominate in reality.
Symmetry breaking
In both "Chicken" and "Hawk–Dove", the only symmetric Nash equilibrium is the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium, where both individuals randomly chose between playing Hawk/Straight or Dove/Swerve. This mixed strategy equilibrium is often sub-optimal—both players would do better if they could coordinate their actions in some way. This observation has been made independently in two different contexts, with almost identical results.
Correlated equilibrium and the game of chicken
Consider the version of "Chicken" pictured in Figure 6. Like all forms of the game, there are three Nash equilibria. The two pure strategy Nash equilibria are (D, C) and (C, D). There is also a mixed strategy equilibrium where each player Dares with probability 1/3. It results in expected payoffs of 14/3 = 4.667 for each player.
Now consider a third party (or some natural event) that draws one of three cards labeled: (C, C), (D, C), and (C, D). This exogenous draw event is assumed to be uniformly at random over the 3 outcomes. After drawing the card the third party informs the players of the strategy assigned to them on the card (but not the strategy assigned to their opponent). Suppose a player is assigned D, they would not want to deviate supposing the other player played their assigned strategy since they will get 7 (the highest payoff possible). Suppose a player is assigned C. Then the other player has been assigned C with probability 1/2 and D with probability 1/2 (due to the nature of the exogenous draw). The expected utility of Daring is 0(1/2) + 7(1/2) = 3.5 and the expected utility of chickening out is 2(1/2) + 6(1/2) = 4. So, the player would prefer to chicken out.
Since neither player has an incentive to deviate from the drawn assignments, this probability distribution over the strategies is known as a correlated equilibrium of the game. Notably, the expected payoff for this equilibrium is 7(1/3) + 2(1/3) + 6(1/3) = 5 which is higher than the expected payoff of the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium.
Uncorrelated asymmetries and solutions to the hawk–dove game
Although there are three Nash equilibria in the Hawk–Dove game, the one which emerges as the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) depends upon the existence of any uncorrelated asymmetry in the game (in the sense of anti-coordination games). In order for row players to choose one strategy and column players the other, the players must be able to distinguish which role (column or row player) they have. If no such uncorrelated asymmetry exists then both players must choose the same strategy, and the ESS will be the mixing Nash equilibrium. If there is an uncorrelated asymmetry, then the mixing Nash is not an ESS, but the two pure, role contingent, Nash equilibria are.
The standard biological interpretation of this uncorrelated asymmetry is that one player is the territory owner, while the other is an intruder on the territory. In most cases, the territory owner plays Hawk while the intruder plays Dove. In this sense, the evolution of strategies in Hawk–Dove can be seen as the evolution of a sort of prototypical version of ownership. Game-theoretically, however, there is nothing special about this solution. The opposite solution—where the owner plays dove and the intruder plays Hawk—is equally stable. In fact, this solution is present in a certain species of spider; when an invader appears the occupying spider leaves. In order to explain the prevalence of property rights over "anti-property rights" one must discover a way to break this additional symmetry.
Replicator dynamics
Replicator dynamics is a simple model of strategy change commonly used in evolutionary game theory. In this model, a strategy which does better than the average increases in frequency at the expense of strategies that do worse than the average. There are two versions of the replicator dynamics. In one version, there is a single population which plays against itself. In another, there are two population models where each population only plays against the other population (and not against itself).
In the one population model, the only stable state is the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium. Every initial population proportion (except all Hawk and all Dove) converge to the mixed strategy Nash Equilibrium where part of the population plays Hawk and part of the population plays Dove. (This occurs because the only ESS is the mixed strategy equilibrium.) In the two population model, this mixed point becomes unstable. In fact, the only stable states in the two population model correspond to the pure strategy equilibria, where one population is composed of all Hawks and the other of all Doves. In this model one population becomes the aggressive population while the other becomes passive. This model is illustrated by the vector field pictured in Figure 7a. The one-dimensional vector field of the single population model (Figure 7b) corresponds to the bottom left to top right diagonal of the two population model.
The single population model presents a situation where no uncorrelated asymmetries exist, and so the best players can do is randomize their strategies. The two population models provide such an asymmetry and the members of each population will then use that to correlate their strategies. In the two population model, one population gains at the expense of another. Hawk–Dove and Chicken thus illustrate an interesting case where the qualitative results for the two different versions of the replicator dynamics differ wildly.
Related strategies and games
Brinkmanship
"Chicken" and "Brinkmanship" are often used synonymously in the context of conflict, but in the strict game-theoretic sense, "brinkmanship" refers to a strategic move designed to avert the possibility of the opponent switching to aggressive behavior. The move involves a credible threat of the risk of irrational behavior in the face of aggression. If player 1 unilaterally moves to A, a rational player 2 cannot retaliate since (A, C) is preferable to (A, A). Only if player 1 has grounds to believe that there is sufficient risk that player 2 responds irrationally (usually by giving up control over the response, so that there is sufficient risk that player 2 responds with A) player 1 will retract and agree on the compromise.
War of attrition
Like "Chicken", the "War of attrition" game models escalation of conflict, but they differ in the form in which the conflict can escalate. Chicken models a situation in which the catastrophic outcome differs in kind from the agreeable outcome, e.g., if the conflict is over life and death. War of attrition models a situation in which the outcomes differ only in degrees, such as a boxing match in which the contestants have to decide whether the ultimate prize of victory is worth the ongoing cost of deteriorating health and stamina.
Hawk–dove and war of attrition
The Hawk–Dove game is the most commonly used game theoretical model of aggressive interactions in biology. The war of attrition is another very influential model of aggression in biology. The two models investigate slightly different questions. The Hawk–Dove game is a model of escalation, and addresses the question of when ought an individual escalate to dangerously costly physical combat. The war of attrition seeks to answer the question of how contests may be resolved when there is no possibility of physical combat. The war of attrition is an auction in which both players pay the lower bid (an all-pay second price auction). The bids are assumed to be the duration which the player is willing to persist in making a costly threat display. Both players accrue costs while displaying at each other, the contest ends when the individual making the lower bid quits. Both players will then have paid the lower bid.
Chicken and prisoner's dilemma
Chicken is a symmetrical 2x2 game with conflicting interests, the preferred outcome is to play Straight while the opponent plays Swerve. Similarly, the prisoner's dilemma is a symmetrical 2x2 game with conflicting interests: the preferred outcome is to Defect while the opponent plays Cooperate. PD is about the impossibility of cooperation while Chicken is about the inevitability of conflict. Iterated play can solve PD but not Chicken.
Both games have a desirable cooperative outcome in which both players choose the less escalated strategy, Swerve-Swerve in the Chicken game, and Cooperate-Cooperate in the prisoner's dilemma, such that players receive the Coordination payoff C (see tables below). The temptation away from this sensible outcome is toward a Straight move in Chicken and a Defect move in the prisoner's dilemma (generating the Temptation payoff, should the other player use the less escalated move). The essential difference between these two games is that in the prisoner's dilemma, the Cooperate strategy is dominated, whereas in Chicken the equivalent move is not dominated since the outcome payoffs when the opponent plays the more escalated move (Straight in place of Defect) are reversed.
Schedule chicken and project management
The term "schedule chicken" is used in project management and software development circles. The condition occurs when two or more areas of a product team claim they can deliver features at an unrealistically early date because each assumes the other teams are stretching the predictions even more than they are. This pretense continually moves forward past one project checkpoint to the next until feature integration begins or just before the functionality is actually due.
The practice of "schedule chicken" often results in contagious schedule slips due to the inter-team dependencies and is difficult to identify and resolve, as it is in the best interest of each team not to be the first bearer of bad news. The psychological drivers underlining the "schedule chicken" behavior in many ways mimic the hawk–dove or snowdrift model of conflict.
See also
Brinkmanship
Coordination game
Fireship, a naval tactic of intentional suicidal ramming into an enemy ship
Matching pennies
Mexican standoff
Prisoner's dilemma
Ritualized aggression
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Volunteer's dilemma
War of attrition
Zugzwang
Notes
References
External links
The game of Chicken as a metaphor for human conflict
Game-theoretic analysis of Chicken
Game of Chicken – Rebel Without a Cause by Elmer G. Wiens.
Online model: Expected Dynamics of an Imitation Model in the Hawk-Dove Game
Online model: Expected Dynamics of an Intra-Population Imitation Model in the Two-Population Hawk-Dove Game
Non-cooperative games
Evolutionary game theory
Endurance games
Social science experiments
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Hackenschmidt
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George Hackenschmidt
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Georg Karl Julius Hackenschmidt ( – 19 February 1968) was an early 20th-century Estonian strongman, professional wrestler, author, and sports philosopher who is recognized as professional wrestling's first world heavyweight champion.
Hackenschmidt launched his professional career in Reval (Tallinn), Estonia (then part of Russian Empire), at the time when contests were largely legitimate, and lived most of his life in London, England, where he gained the nickname of "The Russian Lion". He is believed to be the creator of the professional wrestling version of the bear hug as well as the person who popularised the hack squat, a deadlift with arms behind the body; additionally, Hackenschmidt is also attributed as the creator of the bench press. He was known for his impressive strength, fitness, and flexibility; and, later in life, he wrote many books on physical culture, training and philosophy.
Early life
Georg Hackenschmidt was born in Dorpat, Governorate of Livonia, on 1 August 1878, where he lived with his parents, Baltic German Georg Friedrich Heinrich Hackenschmidt (born 1847) and Ida Louise Johansson, who was of Estonian and Estonian Swede descent. He had a younger brother, Bruno, and sister Alice. He later said that neither of his parents were particularly robust in stature or had any unusual physical characteristics, though his maternal grandfather was said to have been a huge and powerful man. His paternal grandfather, Christian Philipp Hackenschmidt, a Prussian dyer, accepted Russian citizenship with his wife in 1845; he died about 1881–1882.
From his earliest years, Hackenschmidt devoted himself to physical development, particularly at the Secondary Science School (Realschule of Dorpat [as Tartu was then known]), where he took advantage of the gymnasium. He excelled in gorodki, cycling, gymnastics, swimming, running, jumping and weightlifting. His feats of strength astounded his teachers, as he could lift a small horse off the ground and lift 276 pounds overhead one handed. In a wrestler's bridge, he could pull a 335-pound barbell from the floor to his chest and press it overhead, bridging on his neck. He set several records in weight lifting and was considered both the strongest and the best-developed man in the world.
Graduating from school in 1895, he entered the Lausmann factory, a large engineering factory in the city of Tallinn (then known as Reval), as a blacksmith's apprentice. He joined the city's Athletic and Cycling Club, becoming an ardent cyclist and winning prizes, but also developed a keen interest in wrestling and weight lifting. The turning point in his life came in 1896 when Georg Lurich, Hackenschmidt's compatriot Greco-Roman wrestler and strongman, toured through the area with a small company, challenging any and all comers. Hackenschmidt took up the challenge and was beaten. German wrestler Fritz Konietzko came to Tallinn in 1897, and Hackenschmidt fared better.
Professional wrestling career
In late 1897-early 1898, Hackenschmidt suffered a minor hand injury at the factory and consulted a doctor who was acquainted with Dr. Vladislav Krajewski, who was in the service of the Russian Emperor. Krajewski was the founder of the St. Petersburg Athletic and Cycling Club, with Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich as president. While observing Hackenschmidt's arm, Dr. Krajewski noticed the athlete's physique and invited him to St. Petersburg and offered to stay with him, as he saw in him the potential to become a professional wrestler. Krajewski trained Georg Lurich for some time and told Hackenschmidt that he had the potential to become the strongest man in the world.
Despite his parents' objections, Hackenschmidt left for St. Petersburg in the spring of 1898. In 1898 Hackenschmidt trained at Krajewski's and was supported by Count Georgy Ribeaupierre. In April the club organized a competition in lifting weights for the title of Russian champion, which Hackenschmidt won. In late April in St. Petersburg he defeated the famous French wrestler Paul Pons in 45 minutes. In preparation to performing in front of an audience, Krajewski sent Hackenschmidt to Riga, where he performed under an assumed name as a weightlifter and wrestler. During this period Hackenschmidt still noted his lack of wrestling technique, which he made up for with strength.
In January 1899 he had to serve in the army: he was assigned to the Preobrazhensky Regiment. Demobilized five months later, on May 16 of that year Hackenschmidt defeated Alexander von Schmelling in a fight for the title of Russian champion of 1899. On 19 May he defeated von Schmelling again and was crowned Russian champion of 1899. In September, despite an arm injury, Hackenschmidt travelled to Paris for the World Wrestling Championships. There he received his moniker, "The Russian Lion". After a few matches, he aggravated the injury and went home. Doctors treated him electrically for six months, but it did more harm than good.
In May 1900 Hackenschmidt returned to weight training. In July 1900 Hackenschmidt took part in a forty-day wrestling tournament in Moscow, making his first appearance as a professional wrestler in Russia. He competed for two prizes, and won both, becoming champion of Moscow and St. Petersburg. During the tournament he competed almost daily against 3-5 opponents. At the Chemnitz tournament, Hackenschmidt met Lurich for the first time in his professional career. According to Hackenschmidt's memories, Lurich bragged widely about his former victories over him. This led Georg to challenge Lurich to a match, which he usually never did. When Hackenschmidt took the stage, Lurich ran backstage. The next morning Lurich left Chemnitz.
In March 1901, Hackenschmidt suffered the death of his mentor Krajewski, whom he considered his second father. On November 30, 1901, the World Championship of Wrestling opened at the Casino de Paris with 130 wrestlers. Hackenschmidt won first place, received two gold medals (for the lightweight tournament and the heavyweight tournament) and 3000 francs. After that Georg went to the town of Alsleben to the trainer Siebert, who helped him to gain weight, which dropped due to the heavy schedule. During this time, he jumped 100 times over a table with his feet tied together. He won tournaments everywhere he wrestled, and toured England in 1903 managed by the flamboyant C. B. Cochran to confront the country's best wrestlers in the catch-as-catch-can style which was regaining popularity. They created a music hall boom in professional wrestling, and Hackenschmidt became a major superstar and drawing card. He wrestled in opera halls, music halls and theaters. As the wrestling boom took hold in England and wrestlers came in from all around the world for the grand tournaments that had become the rage, he remained the dominant grappler, rather easily defeating every man he met. Cochran polished his act until Hackenschmidt was a major showstopper. He might take on five wrestlers in the same evening, defeating them all with ease.
Handsome as well as beautifully built, Hackenschmidt was adored by women and admired by men, and became the darling of society. Personally a soft-spoken, cultured and intellectual young man, he could speak seven languages fluently and became a noted author, speaker and philosopher. Hackenschmidt moved well in social circles and was a credit to the sport. United States President Theodore Roosevelt, himself a proponent of physical culture and exercise, proclaimed, "If I wasn't president of the United States, I would like to be George Hackenschmidt".
Hackenschmidt continued touring England and defeated the local favorites Tom Cannon, Tom Connors, Tom MacInerney, Jack Baldwin and Tom Clayton- However, when he defeated the Italian Antonio Pieri twice, Pieri sought revenge by trying to find a wrestler who could beat him. He thought he had found such a man in Ahmed Madrali, called the "Terrible Turk", who tangled with Hackenschmidt at the Olympia in London on 30 January 1904. Because of all the ballyhoo, traffic was jammed from the Olympia back to Piccadilly, and the Olympia was packed. Hackenschmidt picked up Madrali and threw him down onto his arm, dislocating his shoulder. The contest had lasted about two minutes. Madrali recovered, and the two would face each other again, with Hackenschmidt winning just as easily.
On 2 July at the Royal Albert Hall, Hackenschmidt faced the American heavyweight champion Tom Jenkins, a vastly underrated wrestler who would prove to be Hackenschmidt's toughest opponent to date, under Greco-Roman rules. Nevertheless, he pinned Jenkins in two straight falls. Hackenschmidt left Cochran's management to tour Australia where he defeated, amongst others, the Australian Cornish wrestling champion Deli Nelson in 1905. He then sailed to the United States for an extended tour and a rematch with Jenkins at the Madison Square Garden under catch-as-catch-can rules, which Hackenschmidt by now preferred. Jenkins put up a hard battle, but Hackenschmidt again won in two straight falls, the first in 31 minutes, 14 seconds, and the second in 22 minutes, 4 seconds. He was declared the inaugural World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion and subsequently most major league US versions of this title in the 20th and 21st centuries trace their roots back to this match. He then wrestled in Canada, did some sightseeing and returned to England for a long list of music hall engagements.
On October 28, 1905, Hackenschmidt faced Scottish champion Alexander Munro at the Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow with an audience of 16,000. Munro was 7 cm taller and 5.5 kg heavier. Heavy rain throughout the performance hindered both wrestlers. The first fall ended after 40 minutes and 22 seconds when Munro surrendered from a half nelson. Ten minutes later, the second bout began, which Hackenschmidt successfully finished in 11 minutes, 11 seconds. For the next 6 months, Hackenschmidt performed in music halls, after which he agreed to a rematch with "Terrible Turk" Madrali by catch wrestling rules to show the English public that the first victory was no accident. He took extra catch trainings from Jack Gromley at Shepherd's Bush. Hackenschmidt defeated Madrali at the Olympia London in just four minutes, but noted that the Turk was one of the toughest men he had ever faced.
He then sailed to the United States to fulfill his obligation to meet a new challenger from Iowa by the name of Frank Gotch.
Rivalry with Frank Gotch
Wrestling historian Mike Chapman wrote "In all of athletic history, there are a mere handful of rivalries between individual stars that have become almost as large as the sport itself. In boxing, such matchups as Sullivan–Corbett, Dempsey–Tunney, Louis–Conn and Ali–Frazier are a part of boxing folklore. In wrestling, there is only one: Gotch–Hackenschmidt".
After defeating Jenkins in 1905, Hackenschmidt held the world title and remained undefeated until he and Frank Gotch finally squared off on 3 April 1908, at the Dexter Park Pavilion in Chicago. Showing his contempt for Gotch and for American wrestling in general, Hackenschmidt was not in the best condition. Refusing to train publicly at the Chicago Athletic Club in spite of arrangements having been made for him to do so, he was barred from the club and spent his time either in his hotel room or taking long morning and evening walks along Lake Michigan. By neglecting his training, he lost his endurance, which had never been a factor in his previous matches because he ended them so quickly. Against Gotch, who was in peak condition, it would be decisive.
Gotch used his speed, defense and rough tactics to wear the champion down and then assume the attack. The wrestlers stood on their feet for two full hours before Gotch was able to get behind Hackenschmidt and take him down. While on their feet, Gotch made sure to lean on Hackenschmidt to wear him down. He bullied him around the ring, and his thumbing and butting left Hackenschmidt covered in blood. At one time, Gotch also punched Hackenschmidt on the nose. Hackenschmidt complained to the referee of Gotch's foul tactics and asked that Gotch be forced to take a hot shower to rid his body of an abundance of oil, but the referee ignored the complaints and told Hackenschmidt he should have noticed the oil before the match began. The match continued until the two-hour mark, when Hackenschmidt was forced against the ropes. Gotch tore him off the ropes, threw him down and rode him hard for three minutes, working for his dreaded toe hold. Hackenschmidt had trained to avoid this hold, which he did, but the effort took his last remaining strength. Hackenschmidt quit the fall. "I surrender the championship of the world to Mr. Gotch", he said, and stood up and shook Gotch's hand. The wrestlers then retired to their dressing rooms before coming out for the second fall, but Hackenschmidt refused to return to the ring, telling the referee to declare Gotch the winner, thereby relinquishing his title to him. Although he at first called Gotch "the greatest man by far I ever met", and explained how his muscles had become stale and his feet had given out, and that he knew he could not win and therefore conceded the match, Hackenschmidt later reversed his opinion of Gotch and Americans in general, claiming to have been fouled by Gotch and victimized in America, and calling for a rematch in Europe.
In August 1907, Hackenschmidt suffered pain in his knee and returned to Russia for rehabilitation. Hackenschmidt failed to heal his knee and was sent back to England. By 1907 the situation in the wrestling world had changed, Hackenschmidt noticed the emergence of four strong wrestlers: Constant Le Marin, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Ivan Poddubny and Joe Rogers. All four challenged Hackenschmidt, and he agreed to compete against the strongest of them, which should determine the tournament. In England, Hackenschmidt attended a match between Zbyszko and Poddubny, which Zbyszko won. Rogers was unable to compete due to sepsis and demanded a rematch from Hackenschmidt for the loss in USA. The contest was held on February 6, 1908, at Oxford Music Hall, where Hackenschmidt defeated Rogers in a short bout. Hackenschmidt was then scheduled to face Zbyszko, but the match was canceled due to knee problems. The wrestler went to Aachen, where he underwent knee surgery, followed by a long recovery. During his rehabilitation, Hackenschmidt wrote that the only opponent he was interested in was Frank Gotch.
Hackenschmidt and Gotch met again on 4 September 1911, at the newly opened Comiskey Park in Chicago, which drew a crowd of nearly 30,000 spectators and a record gate of $87,000. The rematch is one of the most controversial and talked about matches in professional wrestling history, as Hackenschmidt claimed to have injured his knee against Roller, his chief training partner. Years later, professional wrestler Ad Santel told Lou Thesz that he was paid $5,000 by Gotch's backers to cripple Hackenschmidt in training, and make it look like an accident. However, according to Hackenschmidt himself, the injury was accidentally inflicted by his sparring partner, Roller, when trying to hold Hackenschmidt down onto his knees in the down position. Roller's right foot struck Hackenschmidt's right knee, which in 1904 had developed "Housemaid's Knee", requiring treatment, and had acted up again in 1907. Furthermore, according to Hackenschmidt, his sparring partners for this match were Americus (Gus Schoenlein), Jacobus Koch, Wladek Zbyszko and Dr. Roller. Ad Santel is not mentioned in any account of Hackenschmidt's training by either Hackenschmidt or Roller, both of whom offered their insights and accounts.
Whatever the case may be, Dr. Roller did not consider the injury to be serious, and referee Ed Smith dismissed it as inconsequential. Hackenschmidt himself ignored it completely in declaring, the day before the match, that he was "fit to wrestle for my life" and was "satisfied with my condition and confident of the outcome". However, Gotch, tearing into Hackenschmidt with a vengeance, discovered the weakness quickly and took advantage of it. Hackenschmidt was easy prey for Gotch, losing in straight falls in only 20 minutes. Gotch clinched the match with his feared toe hold, which forced Hackenschmidt to quit.
Retirement and writing career
Following his second defeat at the hands of Gotch, upon returning to England, Hackenschmidt was preparing for a match with Stanislaus Zbyszko to take place the following June, but when he began working out he felt such pain in his right knee that it was painful even to walk. It necessitated surgery, but Hackenschmidt decided at that point to retire and pursue his other interests in philosophy, physical culture and gardening.
Hackenschmidt was a pioneer in the field of weightlifting. He invented the exercise known as the hack squat, whose name is a reference to his own. Hackenschmidt also helped to popularize many other types of lifts common within the modern training regimen, such as the bench press. During his career, he established numerous weightlifting records, which were improved upon by others in ensuing decades.
Hackenschmidt was an educated man who spoke seven languages. He went on to write books, including Complete Science of Wrestling (1909), Man and Cosmic Antagonism to Mind and Spirit (1935), Fitness and Your Self (1937), Consciousness and Character: True Definitions of Entity, Individuality, Personality, Nonentity (1937), The Way to Live in Health and Physical Fitness (1941), and The Three Memories and Forgetfulness: What They Are and What Their True Significance Is in Human Life. He also taught physical education to members of the House of Lords and served as a judge at the 1948 Mr. Universe show in London won by John Grimek.
His book Man and Cosmic Antagonism to Mind and Spirit was the personal philosophy he developed while interned as a prisoner-of-war in Germany.
Hackenschmidt was already hospitalized at St. Francis Hospital in Dulwich, a suburb of London, when he died on 19 February 1968. He was 89 years old. He was cremated at West Norwood Cemetery, where his memorial plaque records him as George Hackenschmidt.
Personal life
During World War I, Hackenschmidt was interned by the German Empire authorities in Berlin with his wife. His brother Bruno, who was also a wrestler, was also captured in Germany and died in captivity. During World War II, he lived with his wife in the family home in the south of France.
Hackenschmidt became a naturalized French citizen in 1939, and then became a British subject in 1946. He lived with his French wife Rachel in South Norwood, London.
He was a great friend with famous magician Harry Houdini and playwright George Bernard Shaw. As he aged, Hackenschmidt also expressed a high regard for his old opponent, Tom Jenkins, by then the wrestling coach at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Hack visited Jenkins in 1939 and the two got along splendidly, with Jenkins accommodating Hackenschmidt in his home and giving him a tour of the West Point training facilities. In their mutual admiration society, they never publicly expressed any credit to Frank Gotch, and Hackenschmidt spent the rest of his life complaining about Gotch's foul tactics and his knee injury in explaining his "inexplicable" losses. After Yury Vlasov won and set a world record at the London tournament in July 1961, George Hackenschmidt gave him the medal and presented Vlasov his picture with a dedicatory inscription.
Diet
Throughout his life, Hackenschmidt paid strict attention to his diet. According to historian Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, during his career in the ring Hackenschmidt promoted a largely vegetarian diet of "fresh, uncooked food and nuts". He abstained from alcohol, coffee and tobacco and advised moderation in sexual intercourse.
In 1925, Charles B. Cochran recounted that he once invited Hackenschmidt to dine at his flat in Piccadilly. Cochran noted that Hackenschmidt ate "eight or nine eggs, a porterhouse-steak, and a whole Camembert cheese". Journalist Maurice Richardson commented that Hackenschmidt was a considerable meat eater during the height of his wrestling career and would eat steak and half a dozen eggs as a snack but did not eat tinned foods. In opposition to this, sportswriter Lew Freedman has written that Hackenschmidt rarely ate meat and did not like cooked food.
Hackenschmidt is alleged to have written that he consumed eleven pints of milk a day for training. However, this was later disputed. Hackenschmidt told Atholl Oakeley that the quantity of milk prescribed had been a misprint. After retiring from the ring, Hackenschmidt became a strict vegetarian. In The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy, it stated that Hackenschmidt developed a "system of philosophy based on the values of spirituality, vegetarianism and self-control." His vegetarian diet of fresh uncooked foods avoided "everything which has been artificialised in any way".
He remained physically fit well into old age, and at 56 he could jump over a 4-foot, 6-inch high board ten times. Even through his mid-80s, he would jump fifty times over a chair once a week, bench press 150 pounds and run seven miles in 45 minutes.
Wrestling style and persona
In his entire professional wrestling career, Hackenschmidt engaged in about 3,000 matches, losing only two. Powerfully built, Hackenschmidt's measurements for his 1905 match with Alexander Munro were: age – 28; weight – 204 pounds; height – 5′, 9½″; reach – 75″; biceps – 19″; forearm – 15½″; neck – 22″; chest – 52″; waist – 34″; thigh – 26¾″; calf – 18″. He also rose to prominence when the governing style of wrestling was the slower, more ponderous Greco-Roman style that emphasized muscle power more than speed, agility and ring generalship, and involved holds only above the waist. Being bulkier of build than his sleeker opponents, and slower of movement, Hackenschmidt's style and temperament were not geared as much to the catch-as-catch-can style. Hackenschmidt was a natural showman, he was honest, straightforward and serious, and he would finish off his opponents quickly. His manager C. B. Cochran had to convince him to extend his matches and put on a show, which in turn ensured more bookings and sold-out shows. This did not mean the matches were fake, as excluding exhibitions, his matches were all on the level, but he might allow a local wrestler to last ten minutes and collect his £25 prize, and set up a highly publicized match for later in the week, where he would defeat his foe handily. Unlike many other professional wrestlers, including Frank Gotch, Hackenschmidt was never mean, vindictive or unnecessarily rough in the ring, "contrasting his physical prowess and fighting skills with a quietness of spirit", David Gentle explained. "George Hackenschmidt was the epitome of calm, self-assurance and inner peace, with full awareness of his own capabilities and thus like all masters of combat found no need for machoism or outward aggression. His tactic to win was skill and speed, born of confidence in his own ability and fighting prowess". However, he had three weaknesses. Against a first-class opponent, of whom he faced extremely few, he could be slow to adapt. Gotch reported after their first match that "every move the Russian made he telegraphed me in advance, which shows that he thinks too slowly".
Hackenschmidt was also given to depression and irascibility. When he came to Chicago to train for his first match with Gotch, promoter Jack Curley had arranged for Hackenschmidt to work out every day before a paying public, which Hackenschmidt refused to do. Barred from the athletic club, he spent his time before the match either exercising in his room or taking morning and evening walks along Lake Michigan, but no serious workouts. The more depressed he got, the more difficult he was to work with, and this all worked against him because, for the first time in his professional career, Hackenschmidt faced a foe fully capable of defeating him. Finally, and worst of all, in both matches with Gotch, Hackenschmidt was accused of lack of heart. Referee Ed Smith, following the 1908 match, said that "deep down in my own mind, I decided that George Hackenschmidt had quit – quit quite cold, as a matter of fact – because there was nothing about Gotch's treatment of him in that first encounter that could by a stretch of the imagination call for a disqualification. There was some face-mauling, just as there always is ... but at no time did the vaunted Hackenschmidt ever make a serious move toward slapping down his opponent, never showed much in the wrestling line during the entire two hours... Again, I say, that as the referee of that match, I thought that the 'Russian Lion' quit". Following the 1911 rematch, one newspaper described Gotch's easy victory and then added that "in the parlance of the sporting world, Hackenschmidt is yellow ... He quit when his position became dangerous". Perhaps the most frustrated was Hackenschmidt's second, Dr. Benjamin Roller, who himself had lost several times to Gotch, but had displayed the utmost gameness and courage. "Hack did not get started", Roller explained. "That's largely a matter of gameness". Hackenschmidt's injuries had not been serious enough, Roller felt. "I have tried my best to make a winner out of him and put him into the ring in the best possible condition, but ... gameness is something you can not put into a man".
Legacy
The years spanning Hackenschmidt's professional career are called the Golden Age of professional wrestling. Not only were professional wrestling matches more widely believed to be honestly contested, but wrestling was the most popular sport on every continent. However, it was Hackenschmidt's showmanship that made professional wrestling arguably the most popular sport in the United Kingdom at the time, and it was he and Gotch together who brought it to entirely new heights around the world. "The Hackenschmidt-Gotch matches were the pinnacle of professional wrestling during the time period and received much attention from media, fans, and celebrities", Andrew Malnoske observed. "They were even described in the 1937 book Fall Guys – The Barnums of Bounce by famed writer Marcus Griffen. To this day, the Chicago Public Library receives requests to view the newspaper accounts and files on the bouts." As Mark Palmer pointed out, "For starters, George Hackenschmidt and Frank Gotch were major sports superstars of the early 20th century. Fans of all ages collected cabinet cards and postcards with their images, read their books, and devoured articles about them in newspapers. Their epic matches were front-page news around the world – akin to today's World Cup in terms of garnering global attention – and helped to launch organized amateur wrestling in the United States in the early part of the 20th century. In fact, a large number of high school and college wrestling programs can trace their roots back to the 1910s and 1920s – the era when Hackenschmidt and Gotch were still household names, and highly respected athletes".
Having already made his mark in bodybuilding, Hackenschmidt caused the major surge in the popularity of professional wrestling in England, and he was considered unbeatable. However, Hackenschmidt probably would not be so well remembered today were it not for two things: 1) his enormous standing in the world of physical culture, and 2) his two defeats at the hands of Frank Gotch. Hackenschmidt remained in the public eye because he had become an icon in the world of physical culture, a legendary bodybuilder as well as health addict, and a world champion wrestler central to a movement that was now increasingly popular. He spoke and published widely on a wide range of subjects, but most notably on health and fitness. His most popular book was the classic The Way To Live, the last words of which read, "Throughout my whole career I have never bothered as to whether I was a champion or not a champion; The only title I have desired to be known by is simply my name – George Hackenschmidt". However, it was his matches with Gotch that ensured the growing popularity of catch-as-catch-can wrestling over the more laborious Greco-Roman that had previously dominated, and this is the style that enjoys popularity at all scholastic levels, private clubs and the Olympics to this day. Hackenschmidt was a major reason for this.
The H. J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports at the Todd-McLean Library and Special Collections in Austin, Texas, has a digitized version of a nearly 600-page scrapbook owned for decades by Hackenschmidt and bequeathed by his widow Rachel. The international Georg Hackenschmidt Memorial in Greco-Roman wrestling has been held in Tartu since 1969.
Championships and accomplishments
Greco-Roman wrestling
European Greco-Roman Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Professional wrestling
French Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship (1 time)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Class of 2003
International Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Class of 2021
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
Class of 2002
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996)
WWE
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2016)
References
Cited sources
Further reading
External links
Wrestling Museum profile
Wrestling-titles.com profile
1877 births
1968 deaths
Sportspeople from Tartu
People from Kreis Dorpat
Baltic German people from the Russian Empire
Estonian people of Baltic German descent
Estonian people of Swedish descent
19th-century professional wrestlers
20th-century professional wrestlers
Catch wrestlers
Estonian male weightlifters
Estonian professional wrestlers
Estonian strength athletes
People associated with physical culture
Professional bodybuilders
Estonian expatriate sportspeople in England
Estonian expatriate sportspeople in the United States
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
World Weightlifting Championships medalists
WWE Hall of Fame Legacy inductees
Burials at West Norwood Cemetery
Estonian bodybuilders
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takanori%20Nishikawa
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Takanori Nishikawa
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is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, voice actor, radio personality, and businessman. He performs under the stage name T.M.Revolution (T.M.R.), which stands for , stemming from the famous 1980s pop electronic band TM Network. Despite most of his songs being written by Akio Inoue and composed/arranged by Daisuke Asakura (also TMR's former producer), T.M.Revolution is considered Nishikawa's solo project. Nishikawa is also known for contributions of ending and opening themes to many notable anime and game series.
After three years as vocalist of the visual kei rock band Luis-Mary, Nishikawa debuted as TMR with the release of his first solo single in May 1996. Later that year, his third single was used as the third ending song for the anime series Rurouni Kenshin, further expanding his fan base. He also contributed six songs to the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED franchise – three for Gundam SEED and three for Gundam SEED Destiny. Nishikawa has guest starred as a minor character in each of those anime series that featured his songs. In 2010, his single "Save the One, Save the All" was used as the ending theme song for the movie Bleach: Hell Verse. Several of Nishikawa's songs, such as "Crosswise" and "Flags", have been used by Capcom's Sengoku Basara video game series and media franchise.
In 2005, Nishikawa formed the rock band Abingdon Boys School. T.M.Revolution was the first artist to be signed to Tofu Records, a record label (affiliated with Sony Music Japan) promoting Japanese artists in North America. Tofu released three of his studio albums: coordinate (2003), Seventh Heaven (2004), and vertical infinity (2005). Nishikawa made his North American live debut at Otakon, a large anime convention in 2003. He has also performed at Pacific Media Expo in 2004 and at the New York Comic Con in 2008. Nishikawa revisited his 2003 US performance at the Asian culture convention Otakon by performing at Otakon's 20th Anniversary on August 10, 2013.
Biography
Early life
Nishikawa was born to a government worker (father, Yasuhiro) and a dental hygienist (mother, Kazuko) in Hikone, Shiga and moved to Yasu, Shiga. He attended as a child. Nishikawa was close to his grandfather (a retired policeman), whom he visited every day after school, since his parents were always working. Under the encouragement of his grandfather, Takanori studied kendo until age ten, when his grandfather died due to illness.
Nishikawa also attended and . While in junior high, Takanori began to consider a career in music. He dropped out of high school and left Shiga to pursue his dream.
Takanori was also married to Yumi Yoshimura of Puffy AmiYumi from 1999 to 2002.
Luis-Mary
Nishikawa joined the visual kei rock band Luis-Mary in 1990 as the vocalist. His band nickname and his appearance at the time would eventually become the inspiration for Nishikawa's character in Gundam SEED Destiny (Heine Westenfluss). Luis-Mary released three singles; "Rainy Blue", "Whisper(In Your Eyes)" and "Drive Me Mad". The band broke up in 1993.
T.M.Revolution
In 1995, Daisuke Asakura signed on with Nishikawa under the FunHouse label, now owned by BMG Japan. They released one single, Black or White?, under the name Daisuke Asakura expd. Takanori Nishikawa. This song was rerecorded in 1997 and also rearranged in 2000 as TMR's twelfth single (Black or White? version 3). The original “Black or White?” song also appears as the third track on TMR's first album Makes Revolution (1996). Nishikawa participated in a mini three-band event in November 1995. His fan club, turbo, was established shortly afterwards, in December 1995. In early 1996, Nishikawa made several radio appearances announcing the debut of his solo project. On March 22, 1996, the project was given the name T.M.Revolution, with Asakura named as TMR's producer.
Dokusai -monopolize- was released on May 13, 1996, under the Antinos Records label. It reached #28 on the Oricon charts. Nishikawa's performance on NHK's music variety show Pop Jam (which he would, later in his career, cohost for eleven months) helped boost sales, eventually selling out all first press copies of the single. His second single, was released two months later, followed by the release of TMR's first album Makes Revolution another month later.
Heart of Sword: Yoake Mae was released in November 1996 and was used as the third ending song for Rurouni Kenshin. It later replaced "The Fourth Avenue Cafe" (by rock band L'Arc-en-Ciel) as the fourth ending song, due to drug charges laid against a now former member of that band. "Heart of Sword: Yoake Mae" became a fan favourite that sold 360,000 copies and reached #16 on the Oricon charts. Nishikawa's second album, restoration LEVEL➝3 [sometimes called ] was released in February 1997, which reached #5 on the Oricon charts.
Nishikawa released three singles, Level 4, High Pressure, and White Breath, in 1997. High Pressure became TMR's breakthrough single, selling 800,000 copies. White Breath sold over one million copies and became the first TMR single to reach #1 on the Oricon charts. Nishikawa performed White Breath on the 48th edition of Kōhaku Uta Gassen, an annual music show televised by NHK. Less than a month later, his third album triple joker was released and went on to sell two million copies. , the first track from triple joker, was recut as a single in February 1998 and it was used in a Yamaha JOG commercial. Nishikawa's three albums were also released in other parts of Asia, and he visited Taiwan in April 1998 to promote triple joker. Hot Limit, released in June 1998, sold 900,000 copies and became Nishikawa's second #1 single. Nishikawa also performed at the 49th edition of Kōhaku Uta Gassen. His fourth album, the force, was released in March 1999 and featured album mixes of the four singles (Hot Limit, Thunderbird, Burnin' X'mas, Wild Rush) that followed Aoi Hekireki. Shortly after the force was released, Nishikawa performed two concerts at Tokyo Dome to a total audience of 100,000.
In 1999, Nishikawa announced the end of T.M.Revolution. He and Daisuke Asakura went on to form The End of Genesis T.M.R. evolution Turbo Type D (or TMR-e, for short). The name implied it was an "evolution" of TMR. Asakura also appeared in their music videos and performed alongside Nishikawa. Three singles were released under that name, all in 1999: , , and . Their only album, Suite Season, was released in February 2000. Nishikawa and Asakura started becoming more distant from each other, and Nishikawa reverted to his original stage name in April 2000.
BLACK OR WHITE? version 3, a self-cover, was released in April 2000. It was used as a professional baseball theme song on Nippon Television. Two other singles [HEAT CAPACITY and ], a remix album (DISCORdanza: Try My Remix ~Single Collections~), and studio album (progress; TMR's fifth) were also released in 2000.
Boarding was released in February 2001. The title track of the single was used as a theme song to a drama called . Nishikawa started self-producing, with the release of his sixteenth single (Out of Orbit ~Triple ZERO~) one year later. (Asakura continued to compose music for TMR.) His compilation album B☆E☆S☆T was released the next month. Epic Records Japan purchased Antinos Records that year, and all albums on the Antinos catalogue were re-released under the Epic label on July 1, 2002. "Thunderbird" inspired anime director Mitsuo Fukuda to ask Nishikawa to perform the first opening song for Gundam SEED ("Invoke"). Invoke, released in September 2002, sold 250,000 copies and reached #2 on the Oricon charts. Nishikawa also voice acted as Miguel Aiman early in that series and narrated a recap episode of Gundam SEED.
Coordinate, his sixth original album, was released in March 2003. The cover was a closeup of the customized orange GINN that Nishikawa's Gundam SEED character piloted. (Orange is Nishikawa's favourite colour.) , an album track from coordinate, was used as an insert song to Gundam SEED. The album mix of "THUNDERBIRD", originally from the force, was also included on this album. Later that year, Nishikawa became the first artist to be signed under Tofu Records, and coordinate was the first album released by Tofu. The Tofu release of coordinate also included "HEART OF SWORD ~Yoake Mae~" as a bonus track. Nishikawa made his debut North American performance at Otakon in August 2003, to a massive audience who filled both the ballroom and overflow room (an exhibition hall) of the Baltimore Convention Center to their entirety.
Nishikawa released his eighteenth single, , in February 2004. (Albireo is a bright star from the constellation Cygnus.) "Albireo" was used in a music variety show on Nippon Television called AX MUSIC-TV, where it was #49 on the show's "power play" list. SEVENTH HEAVEN, his aptly named seventh album, was released in March 2004. Tofu Records released SEVENTH HEAVEN a few weeks later and Nishikawa performed at Pacific Media Expo in May 2004. “Zips”, a track from SEVENTH HEAVEN, was used as an insert song for the first Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Special Edition movie. "Wheel of Fortune" was used as a Formula Nippon theme song on Fuji Television.
Nishikawa was asked to sing the ending theme song of the Japanese theatrical release of Spider-Man 2 ("Web of Night"), because of his performance at PMX 2004 and his relations at Sony Music Japan. Web of Night, released in late July 2004, also included a rearrangement of "Tears Macerate Reason" (originally from Seventh Heaven) and an English version of the song (translated by Lynne Hobday). Nishikawa shot the "Web of Night" PV in both languages. He also attended the world premiere of Spider-Man 2 wearing a traditional Japanese kimono. was used as the first opening song of Gundam SEED Destiny, which premiered in October 2004. The release of the ignited single was the first TMR single to reach #1 on the Oricon charts since 1998, becoming the 900th #1 single in the Oricon chart. It was #53 on the 2004 Oricon Top 100 Singles chart, having sold 161,324 copies. Nishikawa also voice acted as Heine Westenfluss for several episodes of Gundam SEED Destiny. His character was directly modelled after Nishikawa himself, as opposed to Miguel Aiman of SEED. Heine's hairstyle resembled Nishikawa's Luis-Mary hairstyle, and his name was a play on Nishikawa's pseudonym with that band (Haine). [Heine's first name is written as in katakana.] The surnames of both Nishikawa and Westenfluss mean "west river" in Japanese (西川) and German (Westenfluß), respectively. "Ignited"'s title is closely similar to the mobile suit (GOUF Ignited) that Nishikawa's GSD character piloted.
Vertical infinity was released on January 26, 2005, by Epic and exactly six months later by Tofu Records. The infinity symbol (∞), when facing vertically or turned sideways, looks like the number 8. That is also the number of original studio albums Nishikawa has released to date as T.M.Revolution. vertical infinity included album mixes of "Web of Night" (both Japanese and English versions) and "ignited". It also included two English-language tracks, "Bring It On" (written by Nishikawa) and "Chase / The Thrill" (written by Hobday). "Chase / The Thrill" was used as the Japanese theme song of the X Games. vertical infinity marked a significant change in T.M.Revolution's musical style, as only half of the album was arranged by Daisuke Asakura, while Nishikawa arranged or co-arranged the other tracks.
With preparations for T.M.Revolution's tenth anniversary in May 2006 and other commitments, Nishikawa was unable to visit North America in 2005. In April 2005, he began cohosting NHK's music variety show Pop Jam with NHK Broadcasting Center announcer and comedy duo . Nishikawa's twenty-first single, , was released in August 2005. It was his fourth single, and second consecutive, to reach #1 on the Oricon charts. "Vestige" was used as an insert song for Gundam SEED Destiny. "Crosswise", the other track, was used as the theme song for PlayStation 2 game Sengoku BASARA. Vestige was #54 on the 2005 Oricon Top 100 Singles chart, with 176,028 copies sold that year. The Vestige single came with a unique password that was used to vote online (on T.M.Revolution's official website) for which songs would appear on an upcoming self-cover album. These songs would be rearranged and re-recorded. Ten songs were originally planned for this album, but due to the overwhelming number of votes, fifteen tracks were recorded instead. The “self-cover best album”, titled UNDER:COVER, was released on January 1, 2006, and was ranked #8 on the Oricon charts. UNDER:COVER came in two editions, limited (or first press) and regular. The regular edition contained fourteen tracks. The limited edition came with fourteen tracks, a bonus track on a separate disc (instrumental version of “Meteor”, Daisuke Asakura's only contribution to the album), and a poster which listed the names of all the people who selected the tracks. The rearrangement of “Zips” was used as an insert song to the first Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: Special Edition movie.
Nishikawa performed the UNDER:COVER mix of “WHITE BREATH” at the 56th edition of Kōhaku Uta Gassen, his third appearance and his first since 1998. His cohosting duties on Pop Jam came to an end in March 2006. His tenth anniversary celebration was held at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka on May 13, 2006. That day, it was announced that Nishikawa will perform at USJ, near Peter Pan's Neverland, on his 36th birthday on September 19, 2006. His second compilation album, 1000000000000 (a one followed by 12 zeroes), was released on June 7, 2006. It was a two disc set that contained the A-sides of all twenty-one singles released to date, and was ranked #1 on the Oricon charts. The corresponding DVD, released three weeks later, contained all twenty-four TMR PVs made. Nishikawa has also starred in a drama called Nursing Étoile in autumn 2006.
Abingdon Boys School era
Nishikawa established a new band called Abingdon Boys School in 2005. Named after the school where Radiohead met, ex-Wands guitarist Hiroshi Shibasaki joined the band alongside Sunao and Toshiyuki Kishi. Abingdon Boys School scored seven straight top ten hits and released two albums, as well as touring throughout Europe and having their albums, including English language songs, released through a German record label. The band also performed at the Live Earth concert in Tokyo, Japan, on July 7, 2007.
Cloud Nine era
Nishikawa held the Real Time Countdown Party Revolution, a live concert he did with all of his fans on New Year's Eve, to make up for the lack of new T.M. Revolution material. Although in a recent magazine interview, Nishikawa has stated that he will make a comeback in 2008 as T.M. Revolution. His first new single, 'Resonance', which features all his past famous hit song music videos and promotes Sony products in its Music Video, is the Anime theme song for the anime Soul Eater and was released on June 11. Resonance reached #4 on Oricon Singles Chart on its release day. "Soul's Crossing", the B-side of the "Resonance" single, was used as the theme song for the Soul Eater video game for the Wii console.
T.M.Revolution took part in the "hide memorial summit", a music festival to honor the tenth anniversary of the death of X Japan guitarist hide.
At the New York Anime Festival 2008, and official TMR and ABS panel hinted at some 'surprise projects' involving Nishikawa. However, no further news on a new album were made. And on March 23, 2009, T.M.Revolution released a Memorial Box featuring the songs from his debut single, Dokusai monopolize through eleventh single, WILD RUSH. These singles were originally released on 8 cm minidiscs but will now be in high-fidelity Blu-spec CD format (fully compatible with standard CD players). The box also contains a bonus DVD from his T.M.R. YEAR COUNTDOWN LIVE, a photo book and logo sticker set. The box's price is 17 800 yen, but the singles are also sold separately.
T.M.Revolution is going to release a single dedicated to a beautiful regional lake. From 2009 the song has been performed during live shows known under the title [Lakers] and for the first time ever, it will be a single only available for download, scheduled for March 3. The song [Lakers] will also be the image song of the 65th Biwako Marathon. The lyrics have been written by Inoue Akio, the music arrangement is made by Asakura Daisuke.
On March 24 T.M.Revolution will release a collaboration work with the Gundam franchise called "T.M.R.×GUNDAM SEED SPECIAL PROJECT [X42S-REVOLUTION]"
The CD will contain all the 5 songs he made for the series. 'Invoke', 'Ignited', 'Meteor', 'Zips' and 'Vestige'. But there will be a 6th track on the CD called 'imaginary ark' and this is the 30th Anniversary song for Gunpla. The CD comes in 3 versions.
On August 11, a double A-side single 'Naked Arms/Sword Summit' will be released. Naked arms will be the opening song for the new Sengoku Basara game. An English version of the song will be able on the regular edition of this single. That song will be the opening for the game outside Japan. SWORD SUMMIT is the new opening for the second season of the Sengoku Basara anime.
Preserved Roses / Kakumei Dualism era
In 2013, Nishikawa teamed up with Nana Mizuki in a collaboration called T.M.Revolution X Nana Mizuki, and they released two singles, Preserved Roses and 革命デュアリズム (Kakumei Dyuarizumu, lit. Revolution Dualism), both recorded as the opening theme songs of Valvrave the Liberator, 1st and 2nd Season respectively.
Ten (天) era
Takanori announced his new album Ten (天)(Heaven). His 10th album and first album in four years came on three editions scheduled for release on his 19th anniversary at May 13, 2015.
This album comes about 4 years after his last original album Cloud Nine. It consists of 15 tracks including "Flags", "The party must go on", and "Count Zero", which are all songs he collaborated with Sengoku BASARA, as well as "Summer Blizzard" and "Heaven Only Knows ～Get the Power～", which were only released digitally. It also includes brand new songs such as "Double-Deal" and "Amakaze".
The album comes in 2 limited editions (A & B) and a regular edition. Limited edition A comes with a DVD featuring live footage of 'Inazuma Rock Fes 2014', while limited edition B DVD contains a digest of 'T.M.R. Live Revolution'14 in Taipei' and an interview.
Afterwards T.M.Revolution held a long tour titled "T.M.R. Live Revolution '15 -Ten-" kicking off on April 4 and 5 at Harmony Zama Hall in Kanagawa.
Committed RED / Inherit the Force and 2020 -T.M.Revolution All Time Best- era
On April 6, 2016, Nishikawa released the single "Committed RED / Inherit the Force" . The song "Committed RED" was used for the theme song of the PS4 game Sengoku Basara: Sanada Yukimura-Den (Sengoku Basara: The Legend of Sanada Yukimura), while the song "Inherit the force" was used for the theme song of the PS Vita game Kidou Senshi Gundam EXTREME VS-FORCE
Nishikawa was also featured in AOA's first Japanese single, "Give Me The Love" during this time.
On May 11, 2016, he released the best album "2020 -T.M.Revolution All Time Best-". The album was released to celebrate 20 years of his career. The album contains 3 discs. In Disc 1, it contains all of the singles that released from his first single until his single that released in 2000 (all singles that released before and in 2000). In Disc 2, it contains all of the singles that released from 2001 to 2010. And in Disc 3, it contains all of the singles that released from 2011 until his new singles of that year (2016), "Inherit the Force" and "Committed Red". On the DVD track list, it contains the video "20 Years of Nishikawa in 2020 Seconds", a video that told the story of his career from 20 years before until now.
On August 31, 2016, he released the single "Raimei". The song was used as the opening theme for the live-action puppetry collaboration between Japan and Taiwan, Thunderbolt Fantasy.
Takanori Nishikawa - BIRI x BIRI, Bright Burning Shout, Singularity, REALxEYEZ, 天秤-Libra-
On September 19, 2017, he released a digital single titled "BIRI x BIRI" collaborating with Shuta Sueyoshi from AAA; the song itself is used as the theme song of the film Overdrive, known in Japan as "Scramble". This single is also marked as a single that uses his real name, instead of using his stage name. In various articles promoting the movie and his contribution to it, he stated that he wished to try more and different styles of music under his own name. On March 7, 2018, he will release a single titled "Bright Burning Shout", which was released digitally on January 28, 2018; the song is used as the opening theme to the 2018 anime Fate/Extra Last Encore.
He covered "Ever Free" for the June 6, 2018 hide tribute album Tribute Impulse. On March 6, 2019, Nishikawa was released the album Singularity, which will include "Be Affected", his collaboration with Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas, the Hiroyuki Sawano-produced tracks "His/Story" and "Roll The Dice", and the digital single "UNBROKEN" feat. Tomoyasu Hotei, which will be used as the theme for the live action film, Million Arthur vs. Touken Ranbu the Movie.
By August 2019, Takanori, along with J from the band Luna Sea, was collaborated to perform a theme song titled 'REALxEYEZ' for 2019 tokusatsu series, Kamen Rider Zero-One., along with Another Daybreak, the theme song for Kamen Rider Reiwa The First Generation. Both songs was released as a single on January 22, 2020.
He collaborated with ASCA in performing the song that was released on May 27, 2020; the song is used as the opening theme of anime series White Cat Project: Zero Chronicle. Later that year, he collaborated with Shō Kiryūin of the band Golden Bomber in performing a cover of the song "1・2・3" originally sung by Mafumafu and Soraru under the unit After the Rain; the cover was used as the second opening theme of the anime series Pokémon Journeys.
Other activities
International market
Nishikawa was the guest of honor at Comic Con 2008 in New York.
In early 2008, Nishikawa starred in the movie Corazon de Melon. It premiered at NYU's Cantor Film Center in New York City on September 28, 2008, as part of the film festival.
Ambassador for Shiga Prefecture
Takanori now has a new title for his resume: first Cultural Ambassador for Shiga prefecture, his home region. At the inauguration ceremony, he said that "I want to return a favor for my hometown by music" and realized his plan. In 2009, he took place a two-day event called "Inazuma Rock Fes" (inazuma means "lightning" associated with a shape of , the first kanji character of Shiga) at a lakeside park in Kusatsu city near his hometown on September 19 (Takanori's birthday) and 20th. It was the first large-scale open-air music festival in history of Shiga. The Inazuma Rock Fes was a big hit, and became an annual event.
Record label Defröck Records
Takanori has established his own indies record label called Defrock Records. The first artist on the label is the four-member rock band Agitato, who will release a mini-album titled "Colors" on January 20.
Agitato formed in 2004. This past October, they served as the opening act for Nishikawa's band, abingdon boys school, at the Ebisu Liquid Room.
Nishikawa described the label as "borderless," saying that he hopes to deliver a variety of high quality music to the world.
Takanori Nishikawa's All Night Nippon
was a radio show Nishikawa hosted on All Night Nippon. Listeners, who were unable to meet him at his concerts, had a chance to talk to Nishikawa on air. Nishikawa's radio show was broadcast on Monday nights and ran for eight years and nine months, from January 6, 1997, to September 26, 2005. The show was called from April 1999 to March 2003. A two-hour television special with Masaharu Fukuyama, called , was aired on September 30, 2001, on Fuji Television.
Diesel Corporation
Established on April 7, 1998, Diesel Corporation is a company run by Nishikawa. The company is responsible for artist management & promotion, operating Nishikawa's fan club, and marketing the DEFRÖCK brand (see next section).
Defröck
Launched in 2001, Defröck is Nishikawa's clothing line. The name comes from a play on words, most notably the near-phonetic indifference between "l” and "r” in Japanese. Cars, which Nishikawa likes, use a device called differential lock. Nishikawa's favourite music genre is rock (although he does enjoy various kinds of music). He took the first few syllables of “differential”, changed “lock” into “rock”, and combined the two together to form this name. On a side note, in Gundam SEED, the Defröck label appears on Nishikawa's character's mobile suit as a custom sticker.
Babel Fish
Babel Fish, which opened in 2004, was a shop (in Shibuya) that sold Defröck clothes. It closed on July 31, 2006.
abingdon boys school
Live Revolution '08–'09
He did a comeback tour as T.M. Revolution from the end of 2008 to March 2009. A photobook, Re:incarnation, has been released, documenting the tour.
Discography
Nishikawa has released 12 studio albums, 1 pre-debut singles, 41 singles, 15 digital single, 8 compilations, 1 remix album, and 2 "self-cover bests" album as T.M.Revolution. He also recorded a cover of dance group TRF's song "Silver and Gold dance", from their 2006 album Lif-e-Motions.
the end of genesis T.M.Revolution turbo type D released 1 album and 3 singles.
Studio albums
As T.M.Revolution
Makes Revolution (1996)
Restoration Level 3 (1997)
Triple Joker (1998)
The Force (1999)
Progress (2000)
Coordinate (2003)
Seventh Heaven (2004)
Vertical Infinity (2005)
Cloud Nine (2011)
Ten (2015)
As Takanori Nishikawa
SINGularity (March 6, 2019)
SINGularity II - Hyperpaslia protoCOL - (August 10, 2022)
Filmography
Anime
Rurouni Kenshin (1996) –
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (2002/2003) – Miguel Aiman / narrator (phase-26)
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny (2005) – Heine Westenfluss
Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers (2014) – Kenuichio Harada / Silver Samurai
Sengoku Basara: End of Judgement (2014) – Sakai Tadatsugu
ReLIFE episode 2 closing song, Hot Limit (2016)
B-Project: Kodō＊Ambitious - Nishiyama/series producer (2016)
White Cat Project opening song featuring Asuka Ōkura also called ASCA, Tenbin -LIBRA- (2020)
Edens Zero opening song, Eden through the rough (2021)
Pop Team Epic Series 2 Episode 12 - General Nishikawa (2022)
Edens Zero opening theme 2 song, Never say Never (2023)
Soul Eater opening theme 1 song, Resonance (2009)
Puppetry
Thunderbolt Fantasy: The Sword of Life and Death - Làng Wū Yáo (Rōfu Yō) / Xián Gē Duàn Xié (Genka Danja) 2017
Thunderbolt Fantasy: Sword Travels in the East2 - Làng Wū Yáo (Rōfu Yō) / Xián Gē Duàn Xié (Genka Danja) 2018
Thunderbolt Fantasy: Sword Seekers 3 - Làng Wū Yáo (Rōfu Yō) / Xián Gē Duàn Xié (Genka Danja) 2021
Video games
Shin SD Gundam Force Tensei Knight Saga (2014/2015) - Knight Gundam / Versal Knight Gundam / Superior Dragon, Musha Godmaru
White Cat Project (2020)
Genshin Impact (2021) - Arataki Itto
Drama
Beautiful Life (2000) - Satoru Kawamura
Nursing Étoile (2006) - Takeo Baba
Okusama wa 18-sai (2011) - Tatsuya Takagi
Scarlet (2019) - George Fujikawa
Film
Corazon de Melon (2008)
Galaxy Turnpike (2015)
Godai - The Wunderkind (2020) - Iwasaki Yatarō
Theatre
Little Shop of Horrors (1999) – Seymour Krelborn (Japanese production)
Other media appearances
TV
Kōhaku Uta Gassen (1997/1998/2005/2013/2014)
Masaharu Fukuyama and Takanori Nishikawa's All Night Nippon (2001)
Pop Jam (2005/2006)
Shin Domoto Kyoudai (2011~)
Who is Princess? (2021)
Radio
Liquid ROOM (January 17, 1996 / March 22, 1996)
ON Air West (February 18, 1996)
T.M.Radio Wave (April 5, 1996)
Love Revolution (April 7, 1996)
JRA Power Revolution (October 3, 1996)
Takanori Nishikawa's All Night Nippon (1997–2005)(2010)
Podcasts
Geeknights with Rym and Scott (April 4, 2008)
Products
Photobooks
Starman from Miracle Wonder Planet (1997)
T.M.R. Live Revolution ’97 -Joker- Documentary Tour Book (1997–98)
T.M.Revolution Perfect Bible Volume 3 (1998)
Takanori Nishikawa B-Pass Special Edition Perfect Bible Volume 4 (1998)
T.M.R. Live Revolution ’98 Joker Type 2 -Great Fighter- (1998)
the end of genesis T.M.R.evolution turbo type D (1999)
Seventh Heaven (2004)
Ray of Light – Defrock (2005)
Under:Cover (2006)
Re:Incarnation (2009)
Inazuma Rock Fes. 2009 Document Photo Book (2009)
Inazuma Rock Fes. 2010 Document Photo Book (2010)
Inazuma Rock Fes. 2011 Document Photo Book (2011)
Inazuma Rock Fes. 2012 Document Photo Book (2012)
Inazuma Rock Fes. 2013 Document Photo Book (2013)
Hello Kitty keychains
Five Hello Kitty keychains were released as promotional items for TMR's tenth anniversary in 2005. They are based on the costume used in the respective song's PV.
ignited Wild Rush Black Or White? version 3 Hot Limit Burnin’ X’mas''
See also
TM Network
abingdon boys school
Tofu Records
References
External links
Official site
turbo – official fan club
Sony Music Japan page
Sony Music Japan page
Tofu Records page
Defröck – clothing line
Diesel Corporation – Nishikawa's company
J!-ENT 2004 Interview (J!-ENT Interview Round 2)
J!-ENT 2003 Interview (J!-ENT Interview Round 1)
T.M.Revolution on Myspace – T.M.Revolution's official Music Myspace page
Nippon Project interview
Fan-interview with T.M.Revolution
1970 births
Living people
Sony Music Entertainment Japan artists
Sony BMG artists
Visual kei musicians
Japanese male pop singers
Japanese male rock singers
Japanese male voice actors
Japanese male television actors
Actors from Shiga Prefecture
Male voice actors from Shiga Prefecture
Singers from Shiga Prefecture
21st-century Japanese singers
21st-century Japanese male singers
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car%20classification
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Car classification
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Governments and private organizations have developed car classification schemes that are used for various purposes including regulation, description, and categorization of cars.
The International Standard ISO 3833-1977 Road vehicles – Types – Terms and definitions also defines terms for classifying cars.
Summary of classifications
The following table summarises the commonly used terms of market segments and legal classifications.
Market segments
Microcar / kei car
Microcars and their Japanese equivalent— kei cars— are the smallest category of automobile.
Microcars straddle the boundary between car and motorbike, and are often covered by separate regulations to normal cars, resulting in relaxed requirements for registration and licensing. Engine size is often or less, and microcars have three or four wheels.
Microcars are most popular in Europe, where they originated following World War II. The predecessors to micro cars are voiturettes and cycle cars. Kei cars have been used in Japan since 1949.
Examples of microcars and kei cars:
Honda Life
Smart ForTwo
Tata Nano
A-segment / City car / Minicompact
The smallest category of vehicles that are registered as normal cars is called A-segment in Europe, or "city car" in Europe and the United States. The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines this category as "minicompact." However, this term is not widely used.
The equivalents of A-segment cars have been produced since the early 1920s. However, the category increased in popularity in the late 1950s when the original Fiat 500 and BMC Mini were released.
Examples of A-segment / city cars / minicompact cars:
Fiat 500
Hyundai i10
Toyota Aygo
B-segment / Supermini / Subcompact
The next larger category small cars is called B-segment Europe, supermini in the United Kingdom and subcompact in the United States.
The size of a subcompact car is defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as having a combined interior and cargo volume of between . Since the EPA's smaller minicompact category is not as commonly used by the general public, A-segment cars are sometimes called subcompacts in the United States. In Europe and Great Britain, the B-segment and supermini categories do not have any formal definitions based on size.
Early supermini cars in Great Britain include the 1977 Ford Fiesta and Vauxhall Chevette.
In the United States, the first locally-built subcompact cars were the 1970 AMC Gremlin, Chevrolet Vega, and Ford Pinto.
Examples of B-segment / supermini / subcompact cars:
Chevrolet Aveo (Chevrolet Sonic)
Hyundai Accent
Volkswagen Polo
C-segment / Small family / Compact
The largest category of small cars is called C-segment or small family car in Europe, and compact car in the United States.
The size of a compact car is defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as having a combined interior and cargo volume of .
Examples of C-segment / compact / small family cars:
Honda Civic
Toyota Corolla
Renault Mégane
D-segment / Large family / Mid-size
In Europe, the third-largest category for passenger cars is called D-segment or large family car.
In the United States, the equivalent term is mid-size or intermediate cars. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines a mid-size car as having a combined passenger and cargo volume of .
Examples of D-segment / large family / mid-size cars:
Chevrolet Malibu
Ford Mondeo
Kia K5
E-segment / Executive / Full-size
In Europe, the second-largest category for passenger cars is E-segment / executive car, which are usually luxury cars.
In other countries, the equivalent terms are full-size car or large car, which are also used for relatively affordable large cars that are not considered luxury cars.
Examples of non-luxury full-size cars:
Chevrolet Impala
Toyota Avalon
F-segment / Luxury saloon / Full-size luxury
See Luxury saloon / full-size luxury section below.
Minivans / MPVs
Minivan is an American car classification for vehicles that are designed to transport passengers in the rear seating rows, have reconfigurable seats in two or three rows. The equivalent terms in British English are multi-purpose vehicle (MPV), people carrier, and people mover. Minivans are often of the "one-box" or "two-box" body configuration, high roofs, flat floors, sliding doors for rear passengers, and high H-point seating.
Mini MPV
Mini MPV is the smallest size of MPVs and the vehicles are often built on the platforms of B-segment hatchback models.
Examples of Mini MPVs:
Fiat 500L
Honda Freed
Ford B-Max
Compact MPV
Compact MPV is the middle size of MPVs. The compact MPV size class sits between the mini MPV and large MPV (minivan) size classes.
Compact MPVs remain predominantly a European phenomenon, although they are also built and sold in many Latin American and Asian markets.
Examples of Compact MPVs:
Renault Scénic
Volkswagen Touran
Ford C-Max
Large MPV
The largest size of minivans is also referred to as "large MPV" and became popular following the introduction of the 1984 Renault Espace and Dodge Caravan. Since the 1990s, the smaller compact MPV and mini MPV sizes of minivans have also become popular. If the term "minivan" is used without specifying a size, it usually refers to a large MPV.
Examples of Large MPVs:
Chrysler Pacifica
Ford S-Max
Toyota Sienna
Luxury vehicles
Premium compact
The premium compact class (also called subcompact executive) is the smallest category of luxury cars. It became popular in the mid-2000s, when European manufacturers — such as Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz — introduced new entry-level models that were smaller and cheaper than their compact executive models.
Examples of premium compact cars:
Acura ILX
Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class
Lexus CT200h
Compact executive / luxury compact
A compact executive car or a compact luxury car is a premium car larger than a premium compact and smaller than an executive car. Compact executive cars are equivalent size to mid-size cars and are part of the D-segment in the European car classification.
In North American terms, close equivalents are "luxury compact" and "entry-level luxury car", although the latter is also used for the smaller premium compact cars.
Examples of compact executive cars:
Audi A4
BMW 3 Series
Volvo S60
Executive / mid-size luxury
An executive car is a premium car larger than a compact executive and smaller than a full-size luxury car. Executive cars are classified as E-segment cars in the European car classification.
In the United States and several other countries, the equivalent categories are full-size car (not to be confused with the European category of "full-size luxury car") or mid-size luxury car.
Examples of executive cars:
Mercedes-Benz E-Class
Lexus GS
Volvo S90
Luxury saloon / full-size luxury
The largest size of a luxury car is known as a luxury saloon in the United Kingdom and a full-size luxury car in the United States. These cars are classified as F-segment cars in the European car classification.
Vehicles in this category are often the flagship models of luxury car brands.
Examples of luxury saloons:
BMW 7 Series
Lincoln Continental
Porsche Panamera
Sports / performance cars
Cars that prioritize handling or straight-line acceleration are called sports cars or performance cars. However the term "sports car" is also sometimes used specifically for lightweight two-seat cars. Sports/performance cars can either be built on unique platforms or be upgraded versions of regular cars.
Common categories of sports/performance cars are:
sports car
sports sedan / sports saloon
supercar
hypercar
hot hatch
sport compact
muscle car
pony car
grand tourer
The definitions for these categories are often blurred and a car may be a member of multiple categories.
Sports car
Sports cars are designed to emphasize handling, performance, or the thrill of driving. Sports cars originated in Europe in the early 1900s, with one of the first recorded usages of the term "sports car" being in The Times newspaper in the United Kingdom in 1919. Sports cars started to become popular during the 1920s. The term was originally used for two-seat roadsters (cars without fixed roofs). However, since the 1970s the term has also been used for cars with fixed roofs (which were previously considered grand tourers).
Examples of sports cars:
Chevrolet Corvette
Mazda MX-5
Porsche 911
Sports sedan / sports saloon
A sports sedan — also known as "sports saloon" — is a subjective term for a sedan/saloon car which is designed to have sporting performance or handling characteristics.
Examples of sports sedans:
BMW M5
Mazdaspeed6 / Mazda 6 MPS
Dodge Charger
Supercar / hypercar
A supercar – also called an exotic car – is a loosely-defined description of certain high-performance sportscars. Since the 1990s or 2000s, the term "hypercar" has come into use for the highest performing supercars.
Examples of supercars:
McLaren P1
Koenigsegg Agera R
Bugatti Veyron 16.4
SUVs / off-road vehicles
Passenger vehicles with off-road capability or styling features are often categorized as either off-road vehicles, sports utility vehicles, or crossover SUVs. There are no commonly agreed boundaries between these categories, and usage of the terms varies between countries.
Off-road vehicle
The earliest type of passenger vehicle is called an "off-roader", "four-by-four" or "four-wheel drive". Off-road vehicles usually more focussed on off-road capability than SUVs and crossover SUVs (often compromising their on-road ride quality or handling). Common features of off-road vehicles are four-wheel drive, high ground clearance, a body-on-frame (separate chassis) construction and low-range gearing.
Examples of off-road vehicles:
Nissan Patrol
Toyota Land Cruiser
Suzuki Jimny
Sport utility vehicle
A sports utility vehicle (SUV) combines elements of road-going passenger cars with features from off-road vehicles, such as raised ground clearance and four-wheel drive.
There is no commonly agreed definition of an SUV, and usage varies between countries. Some definitions claim that an SUV must be built on a light-truck chassis. However, a broader definition considers any vehicle with off-road design features as an SUV. In some countries — such as the United States — SUVs have been classified as "light trucks", resulting in more lenient regulations compared to passenger cars.
The predecessors to SUVs date back to military and low-volume models from the late 1930s, and the four-wheel drive station wagons / carryalls that began to be introduced in 1949. The 1984 Jeep Cherokee (XJ) is considered to be the first SUV in the modern style. Most SUVs produced today use unibody construction (as per passenger cars). However, in the past, many SUVs used body-on-frame construction.
Examples of SUVs:
Chevrolet Tahoe
Mercedes-Benz M-Class
Mitsubishi Pajero
Crossover SUV
A crossover SUV— also called crossover or CUV— is a type of sports utility vehicle (SUV) that uses a unibody construction. Crossovers are often based on a platform shared with a passenger car, as a result, they typically have better comfort and fuel economy, but less off-road capability (many crossovers are sold without all-wheel drive) than truck-based SUVs, though more so than passenger cars.
There are various inconsistencies about whether vehicles are considered crossovers or SUVs, therefore the term SUV is often used as a catch-all for both crossovers and SUVs.
Examples of crossover SUVs:
Nissan Qashqai
Tesla Model Y
Volkswagen Tiguan
Government classification methods
These classifications can be based on body style (e.g. sedan, coupe or hatchback), number of doors or seating capacity.
Government departments often create classification schemes for the purposes of taxation or regulating vehicle usage (e.g. vehicles that require a specific licence or are restricted to certain roads). Some jurisdictions may determine vehicle tax based upon environmental principles, such as the user pays principle.
Australia
In Australia, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries publishes its own classifications.
Canada
A similar set of classes is used by the Canadian EPA. The Canadian National Collision Database (NCDB) system defines "passenger car" as a unique class, but also identifies two other categories involving passenger vehicles—the "passenger van" and "light utility vehicle"—and these categories are inconsistently handled across the country with the boundaries between the vehicles increasingly blurred.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, a vehicle is taxed according to the vehicle's construction, engine, weight, type of fuel and emissions, as well as the purpose for which it is used.
United States
In the United States, since 2010 the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety uses a scheme it has developed that takes into account a combination of both vehicle footprint (length times width) and weight.
The United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) separates vehicles into classes by the curb weight of the vehicle with standard equipment including the maximum capacity of fuel, oil, coolant, and air conditioning, if so equipped.
The United States Federal Highway Administration has developed a classification scheme used for automatically calculating road use tolls. There are two broad categories depending on whether the vehicle carries passengers or commodities. Vehicles that carry commodities are further subdivided by number of axles and number of units, including both power and trailer units.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has developed a classification scheme used to compare fuel economy among similar vehicles. Passenger vehicles are classified based on a vehicle's total interior passenger and cargo volumes. Trucks are classified based upon their gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR). Heavy-duty vehicles are not included within the EPA scheme.
Certain cities in the United States in the 1920s chose to exempt electric-powered vehicles because officials believed those vehicles did not cause "substantial wear upon the pavements".
North American market segments
Several other segment descriptions, listed below, are used in North America. Cars from these segments may also be sold in other countries. However, usage of the terms is mostly specific to within North America.
Muscle car
Muscle car is an American term for high-performance cars, usually rear-wheel drive and fitted with a large and powerful V8 engine. The term originated for the 1960s and early 1970s special editions of mass-production cars which were designed for drag racing.
Examples of muscle cars:
Ford Torino
Plymouth Road Runner
Pontiac GTO
Pony car
Pony car is an American class of automobile launched and inspired by the Ford Mustang in 1964. It broke all post-World War II automobile sales records, "creating the 'pony car' craze soon adopted by competitors." The term describes an affordable, compact, highly styled car with a sporty or performance-oriented image
Examples of pony cars:
AMC Javelin
Chevrolet Camaro
Dodge Challenger
Personal luxury car
A personal luxury car is a North American market segment for premium coupé or convertible produced from 1952–2007. These two door cars prioritized comfort, styling and a high level of interior features. Not prioritizing maximum interior space, interior volumes are equivalent size to mid-size cars and are part of the D-segment in the European car classification, and exterior dimensions can exceed F-segment.
The segment rose to popularity following the success of the 1958-60 Ford Thunderbird, which sold 200,000 units. Personal luxury cars from General Motors and Chrysler respectively include the Buick Riviera and Chrysler Cordoba.
Examples of personal luxury cars:
Ford Thunderbird
Cadillac Eldorado
Chrysler Cordoba
Sport compact
A sporting version of an affordable compact car or a subcompact car. There is no precise definition and the description is applied for marketing purposes to a wide variety of models.
Cars began to be marketed as sport compacts in the mid-1980s when it was used for option packages on American-built coupes. Since then, it has also been used for standalone sports car models and cars imported from Europe and Asia.
The European equivalent is a hot hatch. However, sport compacts are not restricted to just hatchback body styles.
Examples of sport compact cars:
Chevrolet Cavalier Z24
Ford Probe
Honda Civic Si
European market segments
Several other segment descriptions, listed below, are used in Europe. Cars from these segments may also be sold in other countries. However, usage of the terms is mostly specific to within Europe.
Grand tourer
A grand tourer (GT) is a car that is designed for high speed and long-distance driving, due to a combination of performance and luxury attributes. The most common format is a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive two-door coupé with either a two-seat or a 2+2 arrangement.
The term derives from the Italian language phrase gran turismo which became popular in the English language from the 1950s, evolving from fast touring cars and streamlined closed sports cars during the 1930s.
Examples of grand tourers:
Aston Martin V8
Lexus SC300/400
Ferrari 612 Scaglietti
Hot hatch
Hot hatch (shortened from hot hatchback) is a high-performance version of a mass-produced hatchback car.
The term originated in the mid-1980s. However, factory high-performance versions of hatchbacks have been produced since the 1970s.
Front-mounted petrol engines, together with front-wheel drive, is the most common powertrain layout. However, all-wheel drive has become more commonly used since around 2010. Most hot hatches are manufactured in Europe or Asia.
Examples of hot hatches:
Volkswagen Golf GTi
Peugeot 205 GTi
Honda Civic Type R
See also
ACRISS Car Classification Code
Car body style
Commercial vehicle
Three-wheeler
Truck classification
Vehicle category
Vehicle size class
References
classifications
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381359
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield%20medicine
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Battlefield medicine
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Battlefield medicine, also called field surgery and later combat casualty care, is the treatment of wounded combatants and non-combatants in or near an area of combat. Civilian medicine has been greatly advanced by procedures that were first developed to treat the wounds inflicted during combat. With the advent of advanced procedures and medical technology, even polytrauma can be survivable in modern wars. Battlefield medicine is a category of military medicine.
Chronology of battlefield medical advances
During Alexander the Great’s military campaigns in the fourth century BC, tourniquets were used to stanch the bleeding of wounded soldiers. Romans used them to control bleeding, especially during amputations. These tourniquets were narrow straps made of bronze, using leather only for comfort.
An early stretcher, likely made of wicker over a frame, appears in a manuscript from c.1380. Simple stretchers were common with militaries right through the middle of the 20th century.
During the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, Prince Henry had an arrow removed from his face using a specially designed surgical instrument.
Ambulances or dedicated vehicles for the purpose of carrying injured persons were first used by Spanish soldiers during the Siege of Málaga (1487).
French military surgeon Ambroise Paré (1510–90) pioneered modern battlefield wound treatment. His two main contributions to battlefield medicine are the use of dressing to treat wounds and the use of ligature to stop bleeding during amputation.
The practice of triage, pioneered by Dominique Jean Larrey during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). He also pioneered the use of ambulances in the midst of combat ('ambulances volantes', or flying ambulances). Prior to this, military ambulances had waited for combat to cease before collecting the wounded by which time many casualties would have succumbed to their injuries.
Russian surgeon Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov was one of the first surgeons to use ether as an anaesthetic in 1847, as well as the very first surgeon to use anaesthesia in a field operation during the Crimean War.
American Civil War surgeon Jonathan Letterman (1824–72) originated modern methods of medical organization within armies.
The Relief Society for Wounded Soldiers, forerunner of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was founded in 1863 in Geneva. The ICRC advocated for the establishment of national aid societies for battlefield medical relief, and stood behind the First Geneva Convention of 1864 which provided neutrality for medics, ambulances, and hospitals.
In the late 19th century, the influence of notable medical practitioners like Friedrich von Esmarch and members of the Venerable Order of Saint John pushing for every adult man and woman to be taught the basics of first aid eventually led to institutionalised first-aid courses amongst the military and standard first-aid kits for every soldier.
Advances in surgery - especially amputation - during the Napoleonic Wars and First World War on the battlefield of the Somme.
Medical advances also provided kinder methods for treatment of battlefield injuries, such as antiseptic ointments, which replaced boiling oil for cauterizing amputations.
During the Spanish Civil War there were two major advances. The first one was the invention of a practical method for transporting blood. Developed in Barcelona by Duran i Jordà, the technique mixed the blood of the donors with the same blood type and then, using Grífols glass tubes and a refrigerator truck, transported the blood to the frontline. A few weeks later Norman Bethune developed a similar service. The second advance was the invention of the mobile operating room by the Catalan Moisès Broggi, who worked for the International Brigades.
The establishment of fully equipped and mobile field hospitals such as the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital was first practiced by the United States in World War II. It was succeeded in 2006 by the Combat Support Hospital.
The use of helicopters as ambulances, or MEDEVACs, was first practiced in Burma in 1944. The first MEDEVAC under fire was done in Manila in 1945 where over 70 troops were extracted in five helicopters, one and two at a time.
The extension of emergency medicine to pre-hospital settings through the use of emergency medical technicians.
The use of remote physiological monitoring devices on soldiers to show vital signs and biomechanical data to the medic and MEDEVAC crew before and during trauma. This allows medicine and treatment to be administered as soon as possible in the field and during extraction. Similar telemetry units are used in crewed spaceflight, where a flight surgeon at the Command Center can monitor vital signs. This can help to see issues before larger problems occur, such as elevated carbon dioxide levels, or a rise in body temperature indicating a possible infection.
History of Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC)
In 1989, the Commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command (NAVSPECWARCOM) established a research program to conduct studies on medical and physiologic issues. The research concluded that extremity hemorrhage was a leading cause of preventable death in the battlefield. At that time, proper care and treatment was not provided immediately which often resulted in death. This insight prompted a systematic reevaluation of all aspects of battlefield trauma care that was conducted from 1993 to 1996 as a joint effort by special operations medical personnel and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Through this 3-year research, the first version of the TCCC guidelines were created to train soldiers to provide effective intervention on the battlefield. The TCCC aims to combine good medicine with good small-unit tactics. One very important aspect that the TCCC outlined was the use of tourniquets, initially there was a belief that the use of tourniquets led to the preventable loss of an extremity due to ischemia but after careful literature search the committee arrived at the conclusion that there was not enough information out there to confirm this claim. The TCCC therefore outline the appropriate usage of tourniquets to provide effective first aid on the battlefield.
After the TCCC article was published in 1996, the program undertook 4 parallel efforts during the next 5-year period. These efforts are as follows:
Presenting TCCC concepts to senior Department of Defense (DoD) line and medical leaders and advocating for their use.
Identifying and developing responses to representative types of TCCC casualty scenarios.
Initiating TCCC’s first strategic partnership with civilian trauma organizations—the Prehospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) Committee, the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT), and the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS-COT).
Expanding TCCC training beyond medical personnel to include SEAL and 75th Ranger Regiment combat leaders and nonmedical unit members.
Current applications of battlefield medicine
Over the past decade combat medicine has improved drastically. Everything has been given a complete overhaul from the training to the gear. In 2011, all enlisted military medical training for the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Army were located under one command, the Medical Education and Training Campus (METC). After attending a basic medical course there (which is similar to a civilian EMT course), the students go on to advanced training in Tactical Combat Casualty Care.
Tactical combat casualty care (TCCC)
Tactical combat casualty care is becoming the standard of care for the tactical management of combat casualties within the Department of Defense and is the sole standard of care endorsed by both the American College of Surgeons and the National Association of EMT's for casualty management in tactical environments.
Tactical combat casualty care is built around three definitive phases of casualty care:
Care Under Fire: Care rendered at the scene of the injury while both the medic and the casualty are under hostile fire. Available medical equipment is limited to that carried by each operator and the medic. This stage focuses on a quick assessment, and placing a tourniquet on any major bleed.
Tactical Field Care: Rendered once the casualty is no longer under hostile fire. Medical equipment is still limited to that carried into the field by mission personnel. Time prior to evacuation may range from a few minutes to many hours. Care here may include advanced airway treatment, IV therapy, etc. The treatment rendered varies depending on the skill level of the provider as well as the supplies available. This is when a corpsman/medic will make a triage and evacuation decision.
Tactical Evacuation Care (TACEVAC): Rendered while the casualty is evacuated to a higher echelon of care. Any additional personnel and medical equipment pre-staged in these assets will be available during this phase.
Since "90% of combat deaths occur on the battlefield before the casualty ever reaches a medical treatment facility" (Col. Ron Bellamy) TCCC focuses training on major hemorrhaging and airway complications such as a tension-pneumothorax. This has driven the casualty fatality rate down to less than 9%.
Interventions used
Listed below are interventions that a TCCC provider may be expected to perform depending on the phase of TCCC they are at and their level of training. This list is not comprehensive and may be subject to change with future revisions in TCCC guidelines.
Hemorrhage control interventions include the use of extremity tourniquets, junctional tourniquets, trauma dressings, wound packing with compressed gauze and hemostatic dressings, and direct pressure. Newer devices approved for use by the CoTCCC for hemorrhage control include the iTClamp and XStat. Pharmacological options also include tranexamic acid, and hemostatic agents such as zeolite and chitosan.
In managing a casualty’s airway, a TCCC provider may position the casualty in the recovery position or utilize airway adjuncts such as nasopharyngeal airways, oropharyngeal airways, and supraglottic airways. They may also utilize the jaw thrust and head-tilt/ chin-lift maneuver to open a casualty's airway. Advanced TCCC providers may also perform endotracheal intubation and cricothyroidotomy.
Respiratory management largely revolves around the use of chest seals, vented and unvented, and needle decompressions to manage tension pneumothoraxes.
In circulation management a TCCC provider may obtain intravenous/ intraosseous access for the administration of fluids such as normal saline, lactated Ringer’s solution, whole blood, and colloids and plasma substitutes for fluid resuscitation. This also provides a route for the administration of other drugs in accordance with the provider’s scope of practice.
Head injuries would indicate for cervical spine immobilization to the best of the provider’s abilities if deemed appropriate in a given setting, or the use of devices such as a cervical collar.
As trauma-induced hypothermia is a leading cause of battlefield deaths, a provider may also perform hypothermia prevention can be accomplished through the use of a Hypothermia Prevention and Management Kit or emergency blanket, the placement of a casualty on an insulated surface, and the removal of wet clothing from a casualty’s body.
Care under fire
Care under fire is care provided at the point of injury immediately upon wounding while the casualty and care provider remain under effective hostile fire. The casualty should be encouraged to provide self-aid and continue remain engaged in the firefight if possible. If unable to do so, the casualty should be encouraged to move behind cover or "play dead". Due to the high risk of injury to the care-provider and limited resources at this phase, care provided to the casualty should be limited to controlling life-threatening hemorrhage with tourniquets and preventing airway obstruction by placing casualty in the recovery position. The primary focus during care under fire should be winning the firefight to prevent further casualties and further wounding of existing casualties.
Tactical field care
Tactical field care phase begins when the casualty and care-provider are no longer under imminent threat of injury by hostile actions. Though the level of danger is lessened, care-providers should exercise caution and maintain good situational awareness as the tactical situation may be fluid and subject to change. The tactical field care phase enables the provision of more comprehensive care according to care providers' levels of training, tactical considerations, and available resources. Major tasks that are to be completed in the tactical field care phase include the rapid trauma survey, the triage of all casualties, and the transport decision.
Tactical evacuation care
Tactical evacuation care refers to care provided when a casualty is being evacuated and en-route to higher levels of medical care. Care providers at this phase are at even less risk of imminent harm as result of hostile actions. Due to improved access to resources and the tactical situation, more advanced interventions can be provided to casualties such as endotracheal intubation. Patient re-assessments and the addressing of issues that were not or were inadequately addressed previously are also major components of this phase.
In tactical evacuation (TACEVAC), casualties are moved from a hostile environment to a safer and more secure location to receive advanced medical care. Tactical evacuation techniques use a combination of air, ground and water units to conduct the mission depending on the location of the incident and medical centres. Ground vehicle evacuations are more prevalent in urban locations that are in close proximity to medical facilities. Requests for evacuation of casualties and pertinent information are typically communicated through 9-Line MEDEVAC and MIST reports.
Tactical evaluation is an umbrella term that encompasses both medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) and casualty evacuation (CASEVAC). Medical evacuation platforms are typically not engaged in combat except in self-defence and defence of patients. MEDEVAC takes place using special dedicated medical assets marked with a red cross. Casualty evacuation is through non-medical platforms and may include a Quick-Reaction force aided by air support.
For aircraft involved TACEVAC situations there are many considerations that need to be accounted for. Firstly, the flying rules vary widely depending on the aircraft and units in play. The list of determinants to create the TACEVAC strategy include the distances and altitudes involved, time of day, passenger capacity, hostile threat, availability of medical equipment/personnel, and icing conditions. As mentioned TACEVAC is more advanced than TCCC, it also includes training to/for:
improve breathing
provide supplemental oxygen
administer Tranexamic acid (TXA)
deal with traumatic brain injuries
fluid resuscitation
blood product administration
blood transfusion
preventing and treating hypothermia
Canadian armed forces
There are three levels of tactical combat casualty care providers in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Combat first aid
Every soldier receives a two-day combat first aid training course. The course focuses on treating hemorrhages, using tourniquets and applying dressings, and basic training for casualty management.
Tactical combat casualty care
A select number of soldiers are chosen to participate in an intense 2-week tactical combat casualty care course where soldiers are provided with additional training. Overall, they are trained to work as medic extenders since they work under the direction of medics.
Tactical medicine
The tactical medicine (TACMED) course is offered exclusively to medics. The tactical medicine program provides training for advanced tactical combat casualty care and is the highest level of care provided by the Canadian Armed Forces in a battlefield setting. Medics are trained to treat and manage patients using the MARCHE protocol. The MARCHE protocol prioritizes potential preventable causes of death in warfare as follows:
Massive hemorrhage control
Airway management
Respiratory management
Circulation
Bleeding control
Intravenous (IV)/ intraosseous (IO) access
Fluid resuscitation
Tourniquet reassessment
Hypothermia prevention
Head injuries
Eye injuries
Everything else
Monitor patient
Pain management
Head-to-toe assessment
Address all wounds found
Antibiotics
Tactical evacuation preparation
Documentation of care and findings
United States
Care under fire
Care under fire happens at the point of injury. According to tactical combat casualty care guidelines, the most effective way to reduce further morbidity and mortality is to return fire at enemy combatants by all personnel. The priority is to continue the combat mission, gain fire superiority, and then treat casualties. The only medical treatment rendered in care under fire is the application of direct pressure on massive bleeding. Tactical combat casualty care recommends a tourniquet as the single most important treatment at the point of injury. It is recommended during care under fire to quickly place tourniquets over clothing, high, and tight; the tourniquet should be reassessed when out of danger in the tactical field care phase.
Tactical field care
Tactical field care is considered to be the backbone of Tactical Combat Casualty Care and consists of care rendered by first responders or prehospital medical personnel while still in the tactical environment. The acronyms MARCH and PAWS help personnel remember crucial treatment steps while under duress.
MARCH
The MARCH acronym is used by personnel to remember the proper order of treatment for casualties.
Massive hemorrhage. The most potentially survivable cause of death is hemorrhage from extremity bleeds, however more than 90% of 4596 combat mortalities post September 11, 2001 died of hemorrhage associated injuries. It is recommended to apply a Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care (CoTCCC) approved tourniquet for any life-threatening extremity hemorrhages. Tourniquets during tactical field care should be placed under clothing 2 to 3 inches above the wound, with application time written on the tourniquet.
Airway. Non-patent or closed airway is another survivable cause of death. Airway injuries typically occur due to inhalation burns or maxillofacial trauma. If a person is conscious and speaking they have a patent open airway, while nasopharyngeal airway could benefit those who are unconscious and breathing. However, unconscious casualties who are not breathing could require surgical cricothyroidotomy, as endotracheal intubation is highly difficult in tactical settings.
Respirations. Tension pneumothorax (PTX) develops when air trapped in the chest cavity displaces functional lung tissue and puts pressure on the heart causing cardiac arrest. Thus, open chest wounds must be sealed using a vented chest seal. Tension pneumothorax should be decompressed using a needle chest decompression (NCD) with a 14 gauge, 3.25 inch needle with a catheter. Ventilation and/or oxygenation should be supported as required.
Circulation. It is more important to stem the flow of bleeding than to infuse fluids, and only casualties in shock or those who need intravenous (IV) medications should have IV access. Signs of shock include unconsciousness or altered mental status, and/or abnormal radial pulse. IV should be applied using an 18 gauge catheter and saline lock in tactical field care, secured by transparent would-dressing film. Tranexamic acid (TXA) should be given as soon as possible to casualties in or at risk of hemorrhagic shock. An intraosseous (IO) device could also be used for administering fluids if IV access is not feasible.
Head injury/hypothermia. Secondary brain injury is worsened by hypotension (systolic blood pressure under 90 mmHg), hypoxia (peripheral capillary oxygen saturation under 90%), and hypothermia (whole body temperature below 95 Fahrenheit or 35 Celsius). Medical personnel can use the Military Acute Concussion Evaluation (MACE), while non-medical personnel can use the alert, verbal, pain, unresponsive (AVPU) scale to identify traumatic brain injury. The "lethal triad" is a combination of hypothermia, acidosis, and coagulopathy in trauma patients. Since hypothermia can occur regardless of ambient temperature due to blood loss, the Hypothermia Prevention and Management Kit (HPMK) is recommended for all casualties.
PAWS
The PAWS acronym is used by personnel to remember additional casualty care items that should be addressed.
Pain. Proper management of pain reduces stress on a casualty's mind and body, and have reduced incidents of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Pain management is shown to reduce harmful patient movement, improves compliance and cooperation, and allows for easier transport as well as improved health outcomes.
Antibiotics. All battlefield wounds are considered contaminated, and thus any penetrating injury should receive antibiotics at the point of injury as well as in tactical field care. The recommended parenteral antibiotics are 1g ertapenem or 2g cefotetan, which can treat multi drug-resistant bacteria. if the casualty can tolerate oral fluids, 400mg moxifloxacin can be administered orally instead of ertapenem or cefotetan.
Wounds. Assessing the casualty for additional wounds improves morbidity and mortality. First responders must address burns, open fractures, facial trauma, amputation dressings, and security of tourniquets. Prior to movement, reassessment of wounds and interventions is very important. Casualties with penetrating trauma to the chest or abdomen should receive priority evacuation due to the possibility of internal hemorrhage.
Splinting. Explosions (such as from improvised explosive device or land mines) that cause lower extremity traumatic amputation cause forces to move upward through the body, which may cause further bone disruption, hollow organ collapse, or internal bleeding. Thus, first responders should use the Combat Ready Clamp (CRoC), the Junctional Emergency Treatment Tool (JETT), or the SAM Junctional Tourniquet to control junctional hemorrhage and stabilize the pelvis. In cases of penetrative eye trauma, responders should first perform a rapid field test of visual acuity, then tape a rigid shield over the eye to prevent further damage, and also give 400mg oral moxifloxacin as soon as possible. Pressure must never by applied to an eye suspected of penetrative injury.
Evaluating effectiveness
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of Tactical Combat Casualty Care, a study was conducted which analyzed US military casualties who died from an injury that occurred while they were deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq from October 2001 to June 2011. Of the 4,596 casualties, 87% died in the pre-medical treatment facility, prior to receiving surgical care. Of the casualties in the pre-medical treatment facility, 75.7% of the prehospital deaths were non-survivable, while 24.3% of deaths were potentially survivable. Instantaneous non-survivable mortalities included physical dismemberment, catastrophic brain injury, and destructive cardiovascular injury. Non-instantaneous non-survivable mortalities included severe traumatic brain injury, thoracic vascular injury, high spinal cord injury, and destructive abdominal pelvic injury. These injuries are very difficult to treat given currently fielded medical therapies such as Tactical Combat Casualty Care.
In terms of potentially survivable mortalities, 8.0% of mortalities were associated with airway obstruction. Majority of mortalities (90.9%) which were classified as potentially survivable mortalities were attributed to hemorrhage, with 67.3% of the hemorrhage being truncal, 19.2% junctional, and 13.5% extremity. During the study period, there were no effective protocols put in place to control junctional or truncal sources of hemorrhage in the battlefield, which suggests a gap in medical treatment capability.
This study shows the majority of battlefield casualties which occur prior to receiving surgical care are non-survivable. However, of the casualties which are survivable, the majority of deaths can be attributed to hemorrhages. Developing protocol which can control and temporize hemorrhage in the battlefield would improve the effectiveness of Tactical Combat Casualty Care, and decreases the number of casualties in the battlefield.
Another study analyzed the effectiveness of tourniquets for hemorrhage control, which are used in Tactical Combat Casualty Care. A four-year retrospective analysis showed that out of 91 soldiers who were treated with tourniquets, 78% of tourniquets were applied effectively. The success rate for tourniquets applied to upper limbs was 94% while the success rate for tourniquets applied to lower limbs was 71%. The difference between the success rates can be attributed to the tourniquets themselves, as in another study, tourniquets applied on healthy volunteers resulted in a much lower success rate for lower limbs in comparison to upper limbs. Therefore, the tourniquets themselves can be redesigned to increase its effectiveness and improve Tactical Combat Casualty Care.
A prospective study of all trauma patients treated at the Canadian-led Role 3 multinational medical unit (Role 3 MMU) established at Kandahar Airfield Base between February 7, 2006, to May 20, 2006, was conducted to examine how Tactical Combat Casualty Care interventions are delivered. The study concluded that tourniquets are effective, but must be used appropriately. The distinction between venous and arterial tourniquets must be reinforced in Tactical Combat Casualty Care training. Tactical Combat Casualty Care courses must also train soldiers to remove tourniquets for the purposes of reassessing trauma after the patient and caregiver is no longer under enemy fire. This is because the risks of iatrogenic ischemic injury of prolonged use of tourniquets outweigh the risks of increased blood loss.
The study also identified technical errors in performing needle decompressions. All needle decompressions were performed at least 2 cm medial to the mid-clavicular line and well within the cardiac box. This may result in injury to the heart and surrounding vasculature. Tactical Combat Casualty Care training must reinforce using landmarks when performing needle decompressions. This is especially useful since soldiers may have to perform this procedure in poor lighting conditions.
See also
Military medicine
Medical Corps
Combat medic
Aid station
History of medicine
Timeline of medicine and medical technology
Textbook of Military Medicine
Medical Education and Training Campus
CASEVAC
National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians
Citations
Further reading
Memoirs
External links
"Sawbones 1945" video, depicting archeological evidence of first aid and emergency surgery on the exhumed bodies of World War II German soldiers
Military medicine
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement%20Clarke%20Moore
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Clement Clarke Moore
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Clement Clarke Moore (July 15, 1779 – July 10, 1863) was an American writer, scholar and real estate developer. He is best known as author of the Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas."
Moore was Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature, as well as Divinity and Biblical Learning, at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in New York City. The seminary was developed on land donated by Moore and it continues on this site at Ninth Avenue between 20th and 21st streets, in an area known as Chelsea Square. Moore gained considerable wealth by subdividing and developing other parts of his large inherited estate in what became known as the residential neighborhood of Chelsea. He also served for 44 years as a member of the board of trustees of Columbia College (later University), and was a board member of the New York Society Library and the New York Institution for the Blind.
"A Visit from St. Nicholas," which later became widely known by its opening line, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," was first published anonymously in 1823. Moore publicly claimed authorship in 1837, and this was not disputed during his lifetime, but a rival claimant emerged later and scholars now debate the identity of the author, calling on textual and handwriting analysis as well as other historical sources.
Early life
Moore was born on July 15, 1779, in New York City at "Chelsea", his mother's family estate. He was the son of Benjamin Moore (1748–1816) and Charity (née Clarke) Moore (1747–1838). At the time of Clement's birth Benjamin Moore was assistant rector of Trinity Church in Manhattan. He later became rector of Trinity and bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, also serving as acting president of Kings College in 1775 and 1776 and president of the renamed Columbia College (now Columbia University) from 1801 to 1811.
Moore's maternal grandfather was Major Thomas Clarke, an English officer who stayed in the colony after fighting in the French and Indian War. He owned the large Manhattan estate "Chelsea", then in the country north of the developed areas of the city. As a girl, Moore's mother Charity Clarke wrote letters to her English cousins. Preserved at Columbia University, these show her disdain for the policies of the British monarchy and her growing sense of patriotism in pre-Revolutionary days. Moore's grandmother Sarah Fish was a descendant of Elizabeth Fones and Joris Woolsey, one of the earlier settlers of Manhattan. Moore's parents inherited the Chelsea estate, and deeded it to him in 1813. He earned great wealth by subdividing and developing it in the 19th century.
Moore received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College as valedictorian of the class of 1798, and earned his Master's degree there in 1801.
Career
One of Moore's earliest known works was an anonymous pro-Federalist pamphlet published prior to the 1804 presidential election, attacking the religious and racial views of Thomas Jefferson (the incumbent president and Democratic-Republican candidate). His polemic, titled in full "Observations upon Certain Passages in Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, which Appear to Have a Tendency to Subvert Religion, and Establish a False Philosophy," depicted Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) as an "instrument of infidelity" that "debases the negro to an order of creatures lower than those who have a fairer skin and thinner lips."
In 1820, Moore helped Trinity Church organize a new parish church, St. Luke in the Fields, on Hudson Street. He later gave 66 tracts of land – the apple orchard from his inherited Chelsea estate – to the Episcopal Diocese of New York to be the site of the General Theological Seminary.
Based likely on this donation, and on the publication of his Hebrew and English Lexicon in 1809, Moore was appointed as professor of Biblical learning at the Seminary. He held this post until 1850.
After the seminary was built, Moore began the residential development of his Chelsea estate in the 1820s with the help of James N. Wells, dividing it into lots along Ninth Avenue and selling them to well-heeled New Yorkers. Covenants in the deeds of sale created a planned neighborhood, specifying what could be built on the land as well as architectural details of the buildings. Stables, manufacturing and commercial uses were forbidden in the development.
Moore was appointed to the Columbia College board of trustees in 1813 and served until 1857, by which time the institution had changed its name to Columbia University. He was clerk of the board from 1815 to 1850. From 1840 to 1850, Moore also served as a board member of the New York Institution for the Blind at 34th Street and Ninth Avenue (now the New York Institute for Special Education). He published a collection of poems (1844).
A Visit from St. Nicholas
This poem, "arguably the best-known verses ever written by an American," was first published anonymously in the Troy, New York Sentinel on December 23, 1823. It had been given to the paper's editor by Sarah Sackett of Troy, who probably got it from Harriet Butler of Troy, a family friend of the Moores.
Anonymous or pseudonymous publication of poetry was customary at the time, but as the poem's popularity grew so did curiosity about its author. In response to a query in 1829, Sentinel editor Orville Holley wrote that "We have been given to understand that the author ... belongs by birth and residence to the city of New York, and that he is a gentleman of more merit as a scholar and a writer than many of more noisy pretensions." (Italics his.)
In 1837 Moore was finally publicly identified as the author in journalist Charles Fenno Hoffman's The New-York Book of Poetry, to which Moore had submitted several poems. In 1844, he included "Visit" in Poems, an anthology of his works. His children, for whom he had originally written the piece, encouraged this publication. In 1855, Mary C. Moore Ogden, one of the Moores' married daughters, painted "illuminations" to go with the first color edition of the poem.
Authorship controversy
Scholars have debated whether Moore was the author of this poem. Professor Donald Foster used textual content analysis and external evidence to argue that Moore could not have been the author. Foster believes that Major Henry Livingston, Jr., a New Yorker with Dutch and Scottish roots, should be considered the chief candidate for authorship. This view was long espoused by the Livingston family. Livingston was distantly related to Moore's wife.
In response to Foster's claim, Stephen Nissenbaum, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, wrote in 2001 that, based on his research, Moore was the author. In his article, "There Arose Such a Clatter: Who Really Wrote 'The Night before Christmas'? (And Why Does It Matter?)", Nissenbaum confirmed Moore's authorship, "I believe he did, and I think I have marshaled an array of good evidence to prove [it]".
Foster's claim has also been countered by document dealer and historian Seth Kaller, who once owned one of Moore's original manuscripts of the poem. Kaller has offered a point-by-point rebuttal of both Foster's linguistic analysis and external findings, buttressed by the work of autograph expert James Lowe and Dr. Joe Nickell, author of Pen, Ink and Evidence.
There is no evidence that Livingston ever claimed authorship, nor has any record ever been found of any printing of the poem with Livingston's name attached to it. But, according to the original copy of the poem that was sent to The Sentinel, the names of Santa's last two reindeer were Dunder and Blixem, instead of Donder (later Donner) and Blitzen, as printed. The changes in spelling are attributed to a printing error and/or correcting Moore's spelling inaccuracies, as he did not speak Dutch.
In 2016, the matter was discussed by MacDonald P. Jackson, an emeritus professor of English literature at the University of Auckland, a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and an expert in authorship attribution using statistical techniques. He evaluated every argument using modern computational stylistics, including one never used before – statistical analysis of phonemes – and found, in his opinion, that in every test that Livingston was the more likely author.
Developing Chelsea
Moore's estate, named Chelsea, was on the west side of the island of Manhattan north of Greenwich Village. It was mostly open countryside before the 1820s. It had been purchased in 1750 by his maternal grandfather Maj. Thomas Clarke, a retired British veteran of the French and Indian War (the North American front of the Seven Years' War). Clarke named his house for the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London that served war veterans. Moore's parents inherited the estate in 1802, and several years later they deeded it to him.
When the government of New York City decided on a street grid in Manhattan, based on the Commissioner's Plan of 1811, the new Ninth Avenue was projected to go through the middle of the Chelsea estate. In 1818, Moore wrote and published a pamphlet calling on other "Proprietors of Real Estate" to oppose the manner in which the city was being developed. He thought it was a conspiracy designed to increase political patronage and appease the city's working class, and argued that making landowners bear the costs of the streets laid through their property was "a tyranny no monarch in Europe would dare to exercise." He also criticized the grid plan and the flattening of hills as ill-advised.
Despite his protests, Moore was already preparing to develop Chelsea, acquiring adjacent plots of land from relatives and neighbors until he owned everything from Eighth Avenue to the Hudson River between 19th and 24th Streets. Together with carpenter-builder James N. Wells he divided the neighborhood into lots and marketed them to well-heeled New Yorkers. He donated a large block of land to the Episcopal diocese for construction of a seminary, giving them an apple orchard consisting of 66 tracts. Construction began in 1827 for the General Theological Seminary. Based on his knowledge of Hebrew, Moore was appointed as its first professor of Oriental Languages, serving until 1850.
The seminary continues to operate on the same site, taking up most of the block between 20th and 21st streets and Ninth and Tenth avenues. Ten years later, Moore gave land at 20th Street and Ninth, east of the avenue, to the diocese for construction of St. Peter's Episcopal Church. The contemporary Manhattan neighborhood is known as Chelsea after his estate.
Moore and slavery
When Moore's maternal grandmother died in 1802 she left four slaves to Moore's parents. In his 1956 biography of Moore, Samuel W. Patterson asserted that the four remained with the Moore family and were not freed until the full abolition of slavery in New York in 1827, and this assertion has been repeated in many other works. It is incorrect. Manumission records show that Benjamin and Charity Moore freed one of the four, Charles Smith, in 1803. In the 1810 U.S. Census Benjamin Moore is listed as having two slaves in his household, who according to manumission records were subsequently freed in 1811 and 1813 and did not have the same names as the inherited slaves. In the 1820 Census, Clement Moore's first as a head of household, he is listed as having no slaves.
Personal life
In 1813, Moore married Catherine Elizabeth Taylor, daughter of William Taylor and Elizabeth (née Van Cortlandt) Taylor. William Taylor was a New Jersey lawyer who had served as chief justice of Jamaica. Elizabeth Van Cortlandt was a direct descendant of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, the first native-born mayor of New York City and first patroon of Van Cortlandt Manor, as well as the niece by marriage of Sir Edward Buller, 1st Baronet. Together, Catherine and Clement Moore were the parents of nine children:
Margaret Elliot Moore (1815–1845), who married John Doughty Ogden (1804–1887), a grandson of U.S. Attorney Abraham Ogden and nephew of U.S. Representative David A. Ogden.
Charity Elizabeth Moore (1816–1830), who died young.
Benjamin Moore (1818–1886), who married Mary Elizabeth Sing (1820–1895), in 1842, and was the father of Clement Clarke Moore and grandfather of Barrington Moore Sr.
Mary Clarke Moore (1819–1893), who married John Doughty Ogden, her older sister's widower, in 1848.
Clement Moore (1821–1889), who did not marry.
Emily Moore (1822–1828), who also died young.
William Taylor Moore (1823-1897), who married Lucretia Post in 1857 and, after her death in 1872, Katherine E. Robinson. He had no children.
Catharine Van Cortlandt Moore (1825–1890), who did not marry.
Maria Theresa ("Terry") Barrington Moore (1826–1900), who did not marry.
After spending a month in their company in the resort town of Sharon Springs, New York, in 1848, the acerbic diarist George Templeton Strong described the unmarried Moore children as, "the sons a compound of imbecility deep beyond all fathoming, with an appetite for chambermaids beyond all precedent—the two Miss M’s very nice indeed." In the 1850s, Moore began summering in Newport, Rhode Island, together with his daughters Terry and Mary, and Mary's family. He died on July 10, 1863, at his summer residence on Catherine Street in Newport, five days before his 84th birthday. His funeral was held in Trinity Church, Newport, where he had owned a pew. His body was returned to New York for burial in the cemetery at St. Luke in the Fields. On November 29, 1899, his body was reinterred in Trinity Church Cemetery in New York.
Legacy and honors
In 1911, the Church of the Intercession in Manhattan started a service on the Sunday before Christmas that included a reading of the poem followed by a procession to Moore's tomb at Trinity Church Cemetery on the Sunday before Christmas. This continues until this day.
Clement Clarke Moore Park, located at 10th Avenue and 22nd Street in Chelsea, is named after Moore.
A playground opened in the park November 22, 1968, and was named for Moore by local law the following year. In 1995 it was fully renovated, and new trees were added. Local residents gather annually there on the last Sunday of Advent for a reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas".
PS13 in Elmhurst, Queens is named after Clement C. Moore.
See also
Santa Claus's reindeer
References
Notes
Bibliography
General
Burrows, Edwin G. & Mike Wallace (1999). Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press.
James W. Moore (1903), Rev. John Moore of Newtown, Long Island and some of his Descendants. Easton, PA: Chemical Publishing Company, p. 107.
A Visit from St. Nicholas
Stedman, Edmund Clarence, An American Anthology (Boston, 1900)
Observations upon Certain Passages in Mr. [Thomas] Jefferson's Notes on Virginia which Appear to have a Tendency to Subvert Religion, and Establish A False Philosophy (New York, 1804).
"The Night Before Christmas", New York Sentinel on December 23. The original publisher hinted at Moore's authorship in 1829. Moore was first credited as author by Charles Fenno Hoffman, ed., The New-York Book of Poetry (New York: George Dearborn, 1837)
Nickell, Joe. "The Case of the Christmas Poem." Manuscripts, Fall 2002, 54;4:293–308, and Manuscripts, Winter 2003, 55;1:5–15
Nissenbaum, Stephen. The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America's Most Cherished Holiday (New York: Vintage, 1996)
Kaller, Seth T. "The Moore Things Change…," The New-York Journal of American History, Fall 2004
External links
"The Authorship of The Night Before Christmas" by Seth Kaller
A Visit from Saint Nicholas on Poets.org
Peter Christoph, "Clement Moore revisited", 1982
The Night Before Christmas Bibliography by Nancy H. Marshall
Biography of Moore at University of Toronto's Representative Poetry Online.
Urban Legends – Clement Clarke Moore: The Reluctant Mythmaker
1779 births
1863 deaths
18th-century American people
19th-century American poets
American biblical scholars
Columbia College (New York) alumni
American Episcopalians
New York (state) Federalists
People from Elmhurst, Queens
Anglican biblical scholars
Cornell family
American people of English descent
Poets from New York (state)
Winthrop family
Woolsey family
General Theological Seminary faculty
People from Chelsea, Manhattan
Burials at Trinity Church Cemetery
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381369
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine%20Jorgensen
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Christine Jorgensen
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Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989) was an American actress, singer, recording artist, and transgender activist. A trans woman, she was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery.
In 1945, Jorgensen was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. After she served as a military clerical worker, Jorgensen attended several schools, worked, and pursued a photography career. During this time, she learned about sex reassignment surgery and traveled to Europe, where in Copenhagen, Denmark, she obtained special permission to undergo a series of operations beginning in 1952.
Upon her return to the United States in the early 1950s, her transition was the subject of a New York Daily News front-page story. She became an instant celebrity, known for her directness and polished wit, and used the platform to advocate for transgender people.
Her 1967 autobiography Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography sold almost 450,000 copies. Throughout her career, she gave lectures at colleges at university on the topics of transsexuality, though she would later disassociate with the term "transsexual" and prefer the term transgender. She also wrote a Scandinavian cookbook.
Early life
Jorgensen was the second child of carpenter and contractor George William Jorgensen and his wife, Florence Davis Hansen. She was named George William, after her father, when she was born. She was raised in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City, and baptized a Lutheran. She described herself as a "frail, blond, introverted little boy who ran from fistfights and rough-and-tumble games".
Jorgensen graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in 1945 and was soon drafted into the U.S. Army at 19. After being discharged from the Army, she attended Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica, New York; the Progressive School of Photography in New Haven, Connecticut; and the Manhattan Medical and Dental Assistant School in New York City. She also worked briefly for Pathé News.
Gender transition
Returning to New York after military service, and increasingly concerned over, as one obituary later called it, a "lack of male physical development", Jorgensen heard about sex reassignment surgery. She began taking estrogen in the form of ethinylestradiol. She started researching the surgery with the help of Joseph Angelo, the husband of a classmate at the Manhattan Medical and Dental Assistant School. Jorgensen intended to go to Sweden, where the only doctors worldwide who performed the surgery were located. During a stopover in Copenhagen to visit relatives, she met Christian Hamburger, a Danish endocrinologist and specialist in rehabilitative hormonal therapy. Jorgensen stayed in Denmark and underwent hormone replacement therapy under Hamburger's direction. She chose the name Christine in honor of Hamburger.
Doctor Hamburger explained the gender hormone procedure, "The first sign was an increase in size of the mammary glands and then hair began to grow where the patient had a bald patch on the temple. Finally the whole body changed from a male to a female shape.'' More than a year after beginning hormone therapy, Jorgensen received her first surgery. However, she never publicly explained her new anatomy or the surgery outcome but said, "Everyone is both sexes in varying degrees. I am more of a woman than a man… Of course I can never have children but this does not mean that I cannot have natural sexual intercourse - I am very much in the position right now of a woman who has a hysterectomy," in 1958.
Her parents were from Denmark, so her trip for reassignment surgery was easy to disguise as a trip to visit family. She did not relay her plan for procedures on the trip to anyone due to her concern that she would not be supported.
She obtained special permission from the Danish Minister of Justice to undergo a series of operations in Denmark. On September 24, 1951, surgeons at Gentofte Hospital in Copenhagen performed an orchiectomy on Jorgensen. In a letter to friends on October 8, 1951, she referred to how the surgery affected her:
In November 1952, doctors at Copenhagen University Hospital performed a penectomy. In Jorgensen's words, "My second operation, as the previous one, was not such a major work of surgery as it may imply."
She returned to the United States and eventually obtained a vaginoplasty when the procedure became available. The vaginoplasty was performed under the direction of Angelo, with Harry Benjamin as a medical adviser. Later, in the preface of Jorgensen's autobiography, Harry Benjamin gave her credit for the advancement of his studies. He wrote, "Indeed Christine, without you, probably none of this would have happened; the grant, my publications, lectures, etc."
In a 1980s Hour Magazine interview with Gary Collins, Jorgensen described her family's acceptance:My family were very understanding. They had a choice; I gave them only one choice. Either they were to accept me or there was a break. My family did not want to lose me, and I was very close with [my mother and father] until they died.
Publicity
Jorgensen was publicly outed when her letter to her parents in New York leaked to the press. She had planned to keep her transition a secret but she was forcefully outed by the New York Daily News. Her letter stated, "Nature made a mistake which I have had corrected, and now I am your daughter."
The New York Daily News ran a front-page story on December 1, 1952, under the headline "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty", announcing (incorrectly) that Jorgensen had become the recipient of the first "sex change." In reality, German doctors had performed this type of surgery in the late 1920s and early 1930s; Dorchen Richter and Danish artist Lili Elbe, both patients of Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin, were known recipients of such operations.
After her surgeries, Jorgensen originally stated that she wanted a quiet life of her design. However, upon returning to the United States, she could only earn a living by making public appearances. Jorgensen was an instant celebrity when she returned to New York in February 1953. A large crowd of journalists met her as she came off her flight, and despite the Danish royal family being on the same flight, the audience largely ignored them in favor of Jorgensen. Soon after her arrival, she launched a successful nightclub act and appeared on television, radio, and theatrical productions. The first five-part authorized account of her story was written by herself in a February 1953 issue of The American Weekly, titled "The Story of My Life." In 1967, she published her autobiography, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography, which sold almost 450,000 copies.
The publicity following her transition and gender reassignment surgery became "a model for other transsexuals for decades. She was a tireless lecturer on the subject of transsexuality, pleading for understanding from a public that all too often wanted to see transsexuals as freaks or perverts ... Ms Jorgensen's poise, charm, and wit won the hearts of millions." However, over time the press was much less fascinated by her and started to scrutinize her much more harshly. Print media often asked her if she would pose nude in their publications.
According to a 1985 publication, Jorgensen opposed the word "transsexual" due to the word sex, in her opinion, only being relevant to sexual intercourse. She stated, "I am a transgender because gender refers to who you are as a human."
Later life
After her vaginoplasty, Jorgensen planned to marry labor union statistician John Traub, but the engagement was called off. In 1959 she announced her engagement to typist Howard J. Knox in Massapequa Park, New York, where her father built her a house after reassignment surgery. She and Knox settled down and joined a Lutheran church. However, the couple was unable to obtain a marriage license because Jorgensen's birth certificate listed her as male. In a report about the broken engagement, The New York Times reported that Knox had lost his job in Washington, D.C. when his engagement to Jorgensen became known.
After her parents died, Jorgensen moved to California in 1967. She left behind the ranch home built by her father in Massapequa and settled at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. During this same year, Jorgensen published her autobiography, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography, which chronicled her life experiences as a transsexual and included her perspectives on some of her significant life events. In her autobiography, Jorgensen revealed her struggles with depression. She explained how her mental health deteriorated and contemplated suicide but did not act on it. She wrote, "The answer to the problem must not lie in sleeping pills and suicides that look like accidents, or in jail sentences, but rather in life and the freedom to live it."
During the 1970s and 1980s, Jorgensen toured university campuses and other venues to speak about her experiences. She was known for her directness and polished wit. She once demanded an apology from Vice President Spiro T. Agnew when he called Charles Goodell "the Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party." Agnew refused her request.
Jorgensen also worked as an actress and nightclub entertainer and recorded several songs. In summer stock, she played Madame Rosepettle in the play Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad.
Circa 1958, while she was performing at the Latin Quarter in New York, she saw the 1958 musical Flower Drum Song on Broadway. There, she saw Pat Suzuki perform "I Enjoy Being a Girl," which shortly became Jorgensen's "theme song." Jorgensen included the song in her nightclub act, incorporating a quick-change into a Wonder Woman costume.
Warner Communications, owners of the Wonder Woman character's copyright, demanded she quit using the character. She did so, using instead a new character of her invention, Superwoman, who was marked by the inclusion of a large letter S on her cape. Jorgensen continued her act, performing at Freddy's Supper Club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan until at least 1982 when she performed twice in the Hollywood area: once at the Backlot Theatre, adjacent to the discothèque Studio One, and later at The Frog Pond restaurant. The performance was recorded and made available as an album on iTunes. In 1984, Jorgensen returned to Copenhagen to perform her show and was featured in Teit Ritzau's Danish transsexual documentary film Paradiset er ikke til salg (Paradise Is Not for Sale). Jorgensen was the first and only known trans woman to perform at Oscar's Delmonico Restaurant in downtown New York, for which owners Oscar and Mario Tucci received criticism.
She died of bladder and lung cancer on May 3, 1989, at age 62. Her ashes were scattered off Dana Point, California.
Legacy
Jorgensen's highly publicized transition helped bring to light gender identity and shaped a new culture of more inclusive ideas about the subject. As a transgender spokesperson and public figure, she influenced other transgender people to change their sex and names on their birth certificates. Jorgensen saw herself as a founding member in what became known as the "sexual revolution." In a 1988 Los Angeles Times interview, Jorgensen stated, "I am very proud now, looking back, that I was on that street corner 36 years ago when a movement started. It was the sexual revolution that was going to start with or without me. We may not have started it, but we gave it a good swift kick in the pants."
In 2012, Jorgensen was inducted into Chicago's Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display celebrating LGBT history and people.
In 2014, Jorgensen was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields".
In June 2019, Jorgensen was one of the inaugural 50 American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" included on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City's Stonewall Inn. The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history, and the wall's unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
In popular culture
During the 1950s, entrepreneurs and romantic partners Chuck Renslow and Dom Orejudos founded Kris Studios, a male physique photography studio that took photos for beefcake magazines they published, which was named in part to honor Jorgensen as a transgender pioneer.
Posters for the Ed Wood film Glen or Glenda (1953), also known as I Changed My Sex and I Led Two Lives, publicize the movie as being based on Jorgensen's life. Originally producer George Weiss made her some offers to appear in the film, but she turned them down. Jorgensen is mentioned in connection with Glen or Glenda in Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood (1994), but Jorgensen is not depicted as a character.
In 1954, during his earlier career as a calypso singer under the name The Charmer, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan recorded a song about Jorgensen, "Is She Is or Is She Ain't." (The title is a play on the 1940s Louis Jordan song, "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby".)
The Christine Jorgensen Story, a fictionalized biopic based on Jorgensen's memoir, premiered in 1970. John Hansen played Jorgensen as an adult, while Trent Lehman played her at age seven.
In Christine Jorgensen Reveals, a stage performance at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Jorgensen was portrayed by Bradford Louryk. To critical acclaim, Louryk dressed as Jorgensen and performed in a recorded interview with her during the 1950s. At the same time, a video of Rob Grace as comically inept interviewer Nipsey Russell played on a nearby black-and-white television set. The show went on to win Best Aspect of Production at the 2006 Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, and it ran Off-Broadway at New World Stages in January 2006. The LP was reissued on CD by Repeat The Beat Records in 2005.
Transgender historian and critical theorist Susan Stryker directed and produced an experimental documentary about Jorgensen, titled Christine in the Cutting Room. In 2010 she also presented a lecture at Yale University titled "Christine in the Cutting Room: Christine Jorgensen's Transsexual Celebrity and Cinematic Embodiment". Both works examine embodiment vis-à-vis cinema.
Journalist Claudia Kalb's 2016 book Andy Warhol was a Hoarder: Inside the Minds of History's Great Personalities devotes a chapter to Jorgensen's story, using her as an example of gender dysphoria and the process of gender transition in the 20th century.
Books
See also
April Ashley, second publicized British citizen to undergo SRS
Coccinelle, first publicized French citizen to undergo SRS
Roberta Cowell, first publicized British citizen to undergo SRS
Lili Elbe, first publicized Danish citizen to undergo SRS
Charlotte Frances McLeod, second American woman to undergo SRS in Denmark
Maryam Khatoon Molkara, first publicized Iranian citizen to undergo SRS
Xie Jianshun, Taiwanese intersex soldier who was often called "Chinese Christine"
Renee Richards, competed on the men's professional tennis circuit in the 1970s, and became widely known following male-to-female SRS, when she fought to compete as a woman in the 1976 US Open
References
Citations
General and cited references
External links
BBC article about Christine Jorgensen, November 2012
GLTBQ.com article: Christine Jorgensen
Christine Jorgensen Website, with newsreel footage, songs, and other performances
Christine Jorgensen, A Transsexual Media Sensation, Transgender Zone Media Archives.
Christine Jorgensen Collection at the Digital Transgender Archive
1926 births
1989 deaths
American LGBT military personnel
20th-century American memoirists
Writers from the Bronx
LGBT people from New York (state)
Transgender singers
Transgender actresses
Transgender military personnel
American LGBT singers
American people of Danish descent
Military personnel from New York City
United States Army soldiers
Women in the United States Army
American women in World War II
20th-century American actresses
Deaths from bladder cancer
Deaths from lung cancer in California
20th-century American singers
American women memoirists
Transgender memoirists
United States Army personnel of World War II
American transgender writers
American transgender musicians
American transgender actors
20th-century American LGBT people
American LGBT actresses
Transgender women musicians
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity
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Hydroelectricity
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Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and also more than nuclear power. Hydropower can provide large amounts of low-carbon electricity on demand, making it a key element for creating secure and clean electricity supply systems. A hydroelectric power station that has a dam and reservoir is a flexible source, since the amount of electricity produced can be increased or decreased in seconds or minutes in response to varying electricity demand. Once a hydroelectric complex is constructed, it produces no direct waste, and almost always emits considerably less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel-powered energy plants. However, when constructed in lowland rainforest areas, where part of the forest is inundated, substantial amounts of greenhouse gases may be emitted.
Construction of a hydroelectric complex can have significant environmental impact, principally in loss of arable land and population displacement. They also disrupt the natural ecology of the river involved, affecting habitats and ecosystems, and siltation and erosion patterns. While dams can ameliorate the risks of flooding, dam failure can be catastrophic.
In 2021, global installed hydropower electrical capacity reached almost 1400 GW, the highest among all renewable energy technologies. Hydroelectricity plays a leading role in countries like Brazil, Norway and China. but there are geographical limits and environmental issues. Tidal power can be used in coastal regions.
History
Hydropower has been used since ancient times to grind flour and perform other tasks. In the late 18th century hydraulic power provided the energy source needed for the start of the Industrial Revolution. In the mid-1770s, French engineer Bernard Forest de Bélidor published Architecture Hydraulique, which described vertical- and horizontal-axis hydraulic machines, and in 1771 Richard Arkwright's combination of water power, the water frame, and continuous production played a significant part in the development of the factory system, with modern employment practices. In the 1840s the hydraulic power network was developed to generate and transmit hydro power to end users.
By the late 19th century, the electrical generator was developed and could now be coupled with hydraulics. The growing demand arising from the Industrial Revolution would drive development as well. In 1878, the world's first hydroelectric power scheme was developed at Cragside in Northumberland, England, by William Armstrong. It was used to power a single arc lamp in his art gallery. The old Schoelkopf Power Station No. 1, US, near Niagara Falls, began to produce electricity in 1881. The first Edison hydroelectric power station, the Vulcan Street Plant, began operating September 30, 1882, in Appleton, Wisconsin, with an output of about 12.5 kilowatts. By 1886 there were 45 hydroelectric power stations in the United States and Canada; and by 1889 there were 200 in the United States alone.
At the beginning of the 20th century, many small hydroelectric power stations were being constructed by commercial companies in mountains near metropolitan areas. Grenoble, France held the International Exhibition of Hydropower and Tourism, with over one million visitors 1925. By 1920, when 40% of the power produced in the United States was hydroelectric, the Federal Power Act was enacted into law. The Act created the Federal Power Commission to regulate hydroelectric power stations on federal land and water. As the power stations became larger, their associated dams developed additional purposes, including flood control, irrigation and navigation. Federal funding became necessary for large-scale development, and federally owned corporations, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority (1933) and the Bonneville Power Administration (1937) were created. Additionally, the Bureau of Reclamation which had begun a series of western US irrigation projects in the early 20th century, was now constructing large hydroelectric projects such as the 1928 Hoover Dam. The United States Army Corps of Engineers was also involved in hydroelectric development, completing the Bonneville Dam in 1937 and being recognized by the Flood Control Act of 1936 as the premier federal flood control agency.
Hydroelectric power stations continued to become larger throughout the 20th century. Hydropower was referred to as "white coal". Hoover Dam's initial power station was the world's largest hydroelectric power station in 1936; it was eclipsed by the Grand Coulee Dam in 1942. The Itaipu Dam opened in 1984 in South America as the largest, producing , but was surpassed in 2008 by the Three Gorges Dam in China at . Hydroelectricity would eventually supply some countries, including Norway, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Paraguay and Brazil, with over 85% of their electricity.
Future potential
In 2021 the International Energy Agency (IEA) said that more efforts are needed to help limit climate change. Some countries have highly developed their hydropower potential and have very little room for growth: Switzerland produces 88% of its potential and Mexico 80%. In 2022, the IEA released a main-case forecast of 141 GW generated by hydropower over 2022-2027, which is slightly lower than deployment achieved from 2017-2022. Because environmental permitting and construction times are long, they estimate hydropower potential will remain limited, with only an additional 40 GW deemed possible in the accelerated case.
Modernization of existing infrastructure
In 2021 the IEA said that major modernisation refurbishments are required.
Generating methods
Conventional (dams)
Most hydroelectric power comes from the potential energy of dammed water driving a water turbine and generator. The power extracted from the water depends on the volume and on the difference in height between the source and the water's outflow. This height difference is called the head. A large pipe (the "penstock") delivers water from the reservoir to the turbine.
Pumped-storage
This method produces electricity to supply high peak demands by moving water between reservoirs at different elevations. At times of low electrical demand, the excess generation capacity is used to pump water into the higher reservoir, thus providing demand side response. When the demand becomes greater, water is released back into the lower reservoir through a turbine. In 2021 pumped-storage schemes provided almost 85% of the world's 190 GW of grid energy storage and improve the daily capacity factor of the generation system. Pumped storage is not an energy source, and appears as a negative number in listings.
Run-of-the-river
Run-of-the-river hydroelectric stations are those with small or no reservoir capacity, so that only the water coming from upstream is available for generation at that moment, and any oversupply must pass unused. A constant supply of water from a lake or existing reservoir upstream is a significant advantage in choosing sites for run-of-the-river.
Tide
A tidal power station makes use of the daily rise and fall of ocean water due to tides; such sources are highly predictable, and if conditions permit construction of reservoirs, can also be dispatchable to generate power during high demand periods. Less common types of hydro schemes use water's kinetic energy or undammed sources such as undershot water wheels. Tidal power is viable in a relatively small number of locations around the world.
Sizes, types and capacities of hydroelectric facilities
Large facilities
The largest power producers in the world are hydroelectric power stations, with some hydroelectric facilities capable of generating more than double the installed capacities of the current largest nuclear power stations.
Although no official definition exists for the capacity range of large hydroelectric power stations, facilities from over a few hundred megawatts are generally considered large hydroelectric facilities.
Currently, only seven facilities over () are in operation worldwide, see table below.
Small
Small hydro is hydroelectric power on a scale serving a small community or industrial plant. The definition of a small hydro project varies but a generating capacity of up to 10 megawatts (MW) is generally accepted as the upper limit. This may be stretched to and in Canada and the United States.
Small hydro stations may be connected to conventional electrical distribution networks as a source of low-cost renewable energy. Alternatively, small hydro projects may be built in isolated areas that would be uneconomic to serve from a grid, or in areas where there is no national electrical distribution network. Since small hydro projects usually have minimal reservoirs and civil construction work, they are seen as having a relatively low environmental impact compared to large hydro. This decreased environmental impact depends strongly on the balance between stream flow and power production.
Micro
Micro hydro means hydroelectric power installations that typically produce up to of power. These installations can provide power to an isolated home or small community, or are sometimes connected to electric power networks. There are many of these installations around the world, particularly in developing nations as they can provide an economical source of energy without purchase of fuel. Micro hydro systems complement photovoltaic solar energy systems because in many areas water flow, and thus available hydro power, is highest in the winter when solar energy is at a minimum.
Pico
Pico hydro is hydroelectric power generation of under . It is useful in small, remote communities that require only a small amount of electricity. For example, the 1.1 kW Intermediate Technology Development Group Pico Hydro Project in Kenya supplies 57 homes with very small electric loads (e.g., a couple of lights and a phone charger, or a small TV/radio). Even smaller turbines of 200-300 W may power a few homes in a developing country with a drop of only . A Pico-hydro setup is typically run-of-the-river, meaning that dams are not used, but rather pipes divert some of the flow, drop this down a gradient, and through the turbine before returning it to the stream.
Underground
An underground power station is generally used at large facilities and makes use of a large natural height difference between two waterways, such as a waterfall or mountain lake. A tunnel is constructed to take water from the high reservoir to the generating hall built in a cavern near the lowest point of the water tunnel and a horizontal tailrace taking water away to the lower outlet waterway.
Calculating available power
A simple formula for approximating electric power production at a hydroelectric station is:
where
is power (in watts)
(eta) is the coefficient of efficiency (a unitless, scalar coefficient, ranging from 0 for completely inefficient to 1 for completely efficient).
(rho) is the density of water (~1000 kg/m3)
is the volumetric flow rate (in m3/s)
is the mass flow rate (in kg/s)
(Delta h) is the change in height (in meters)
is acceleration due to gravity (9.8 m/s2)
Efficiency is often higher (that is, closer to 1) with larger and more modern turbines. Annual electric energy production depends on the available water supply. In some installations, the water flow rate can vary by a factor of 10:1 over the course of a year.
Properties
Advantages
Flexibility
Hydropower is a flexible source of electricity since stations can be ramped up and down very quickly to adapt to changing energy demands. Hydro turbines have a start-up time of the order of a few minutes. Although battery power is quicker its capacity is tiny compared to hydro. It takes less than 10 minutes to bring most hydro units from cold start-up to full load; this is quicker than nuclear and almost all fossil fuel power. Power generation can also be decreased quickly when there is a surplus power generation. Hence the limited capacity of hydropower units is not generally used to produce base power except for vacating the flood pool or meeting downstream needs. Instead, it can serve as backup for non-hydro generators.
High value power
The major advantage of conventional hydroelectric dams with reservoirs is their ability to store water at low cost for dispatch later as high value clean electricity. In 2021 the IEA estimated that the "reservoirs of all existing conventional hydropower plants combined can store a total of 1 500 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electrical energy in one full cycle" which was "about 170 times more energy than the global fleet of pumped storage hydropower plants". Battery storage capacity is not expected to overtake pumped storage during the 2020s. When used as peak power to meet demand, hydroelectricity has a higher value than baseload power and a much higher value compared to intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar.
Hydroelectric stations have long economic lives, with some plants still in service after 50–100 years. Operating labor cost is also usually low, as plants are automated and have few personnel on site during normal operation.
Where a dam serves multiple purposes, a hydroelectric station may be added with relatively low construction cost, providing a useful revenue stream to offset the costs of dam operation. It has been calculated that the sale of electricity from the Three Gorges Dam will cover the construction costs after 5 to 8 years of full generation. However, some data shows that in most countries large hydropower dams will be too costly and take too long to build to deliver a positive risk adjusted return, unless appropriate risk management measures are put in place.
Suitability for industrial applications
While many hydroelectric projects supply public electricity networks, some are created to serve specific industrial enterprises. Dedicated hydroelectric projects are often built to provide the substantial amounts of electricity needed for aluminium electrolytic plants, for example. The Grand Coulee Dam switched to support Alcoa aluminium in Bellingham, Washington, United States for American World War II airplanes before it was allowed to provide irrigation and power to citizens (in addition to aluminium power) after the war. In Suriname, the Brokopondo Reservoir was constructed to provide electricity for the Alcoa aluminium industry. New Zealand's Manapouri Power Station was constructed to supply electricity to the aluminium smelter at Tiwai Point.
Reduced CO2 emissions
Since hydroelectric dams do not use fuel, power generation does not produce carbon dioxide. While carbon dioxide is initially produced during construction of the project, and some methane is given off annually by reservoirs, hydro has one of the lowest lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions for electricity generation. The low greenhouse gas impact of hydroelectricity is found especially in temperate climates. Greater greenhouse gas emission impacts are found in the tropical regions because the reservoirs of power stations in tropical regions produce a larger amount of methane than those in temperate areas.
Like other non-fossil fuel sources, hydropower also has no emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, or other particulates.
Other uses of the reservoir
Reservoirs created by hydroelectric schemes often provide facilities for water sports, and become tourist attractions themselves. In some countries, aquaculture in reservoirs is common. Multi-use dams installed for irrigation support agriculture with a relatively constant water supply. Large hydro dams can control floods, which would otherwise affect people living downstream of the project. Managing dams which are also used for other purposes, such as irrigation, is complicated.
Disadvantages
In 2021 the IEA called for "robust sustainability standards for all hydropower development with streamlined rules and regulations".
Ecosystem damage and loss of land
Large reservoirs associated with traditional hydroelectric power stations result in submersion of extensive areas upstream of the dams, sometimes destroying biologically rich and productive lowland and riverine valley forests, marshland and grasslands. Damming interrupts the flow of rivers and can harm local ecosystems, and building large dams and reservoirs often involves displacing people and wildlife. The loss of land is often exacerbated by habitat fragmentation of surrounding areas caused by the reservoir.
Hydroelectric projects can be disruptive to surrounding aquatic ecosystems both upstream and downstream of the plant site. Generation of hydroelectric power changes the downstream river environment. Water exiting a turbine usually contains very little suspended sediment, which can lead to scouring of river beds and loss of riverbanks. The turbines also will kill large portions of the fauna passing through, for instance 70% of the eel passing a turbine will perish immediately. Since turbine gates are often opened intermittently, rapid or even daily fluctuations in river flow are observed.
Drought and water loss by evaporation
Drought and seasonal changes in rainfall can severely limit hydropower. Water may also be lost by evaporation.
Siltation and flow shortage
When water flows it has the ability to transport particles heavier than itself downstream. This has a negative effect on dams and subsequently their power stations, particularly those on rivers or within catchment areas with high siltation. Siltation can fill a reservoir and reduce its capacity to control floods along with causing additional horizontal pressure on the upstream portion of the dam. Eventually, some reservoirs can become full of sediment and useless or over-top during a flood and fail.
Changes in the amount of river flow will correlate with the amount of energy produced by a dam. Lower river flows will reduce the amount of live storage in a reservoir therefore reducing the amount of water that can be used for hydroelectricity. The result of diminished river flow can be power shortages in areas that depend heavily on hydroelectric power. The risk of flow shortage may increase as a result of climate change. One study from the Colorado River in the United States suggest that modest climate changes, such as an increase in temperature in 2 degree Celsius resulting in a 10% decline in precipitation, might reduce river run-off by up to 40%. Brazil in particular is vulnerable due to its heavy reliance on hydroelectricity, as increasing temperatures, lower water flow and alterations in the rainfall regime, could reduce total energy production by 7% annually by the end of the century.
Methane emissions (from reservoirs)
Lower positive impacts are found in the tropical regions. In lowland rainforest areas, where inundation of a part of the forest is necessary, it has been noted that the reservoirs of power plants produce substantial amounts of methane. This is due to plant material in flooded areas decaying in an anaerobic environment and forming methane, a greenhouse gas. According to the World Commission on Dams report, where the reservoir is large compared to the generating capacity (less than 100 watts per square metre of surface area) and no clearing of the forests in the area was undertaken prior to impoundment of the reservoir, greenhouse gas emissions from the reservoir may be higher than those of a conventional oil-fired thermal generation plant.
In boreal reservoirs of Canada and Northern Europe, however, greenhouse gas emissions are typically only 2% to 8% of any kind of conventional fossil-fuel thermal generation. A new class of underwater logging operation that targets drowned forests can mitigate the effect of forest decay.
Relocation
Another disadvantage of hydroelectric dams is the need to relocate the people living where the reservoirs are planned. In 2000, the World Commission on Dams estimated that dams had physically displaced 40-80 million people worldwide.
Failure risks
Because large conventional dammed-hydro facilities hold back large volumes of water, a failure due to poor construction, natural disasters or sabotage can be catastrophic to downriver settlements and infrastructure.
During Typhoon Nina in 1975 Banqiao Dam in Southern China failed when more than a year's worth of rain fell within 24 hours (see 1975 Banqiao Dam failure). The resulting flood resulted in the deaths of 26,000 people, and another 145,000 from epidemics. Millions were left homeless.
The creation of a dam in a geologically inappropriate location may cause disasters such as 1963 disaster at Vajont Dam in Italy, where almost 2,000 people died.
The Malpasset Dam failure in Fréjus on the French Riviera (Côte d'Azur), southern France, collapsed on December 2, 1959, killing 423 people in the resulting flood.
Smaller dams and micro hydro facilities create less risk, but can form continuing hazards even after being decommissioned. For example, the small earthen embankment Kelly Barnes Dam failed in 1977, twenty years after its power station was decommissioned, causing 39 deaths.
Comparison and interactions with other methods of power generation
Hydroelectricity eliminates the flue gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion, including pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, dust, and mercury in the coal. Hydroelectricity also avoids the hazards of coal mining and the indirect health effects of coal emissions. In 2021 the IEA said that government energy policy should "price in the value of the multiple public benefits provided by hydropower plants".
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is relatively inflexible; although it can reduce its output reasonably quickly. Since the cost of nuclear power is dominated by its high infrastructure costs, the cost per unit energy goes up significantly with low production. Because of this, nuclear power is mostly used for baseload. By way of contrast, hydroelectricity can supply peak power at much lower cost. Hydroelectricity is thus often used to complement nuclear or other sources for load following. Country examples where they are paired in a close to 50/50 share include the electric grid in Switzerland, the Electricity sector in Sweden and to a lesser extent, Ukraine and the Electricity sector in Finland.
Wind power
Wind power goes through predictable variation by season, but is intermittent on a daily basis. Maximum wind generation has little relationship to peak daily electricity consumption, the wind may peak at night when power isn't needed or be still during the day when electrical demand is highest. Occasionally weather patterns can result in low wind for days or weeks at a time, a hydroelectric reservoir capable of storing weeks of output is useful to balance generation on the grid. Peak wind power can be offset by minimum hydropower and minimum wind can be offset with maximum hydropower. In this way the easily regulated character of hydroelectricity is used to compensate for the intermittent nature of wind power. Conversely, in some cases wind power can be used to spare water for later use in dry seasons.
An example of this is Norway's trading with Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK. Norway is 98% hydropower, while its flatland neighbors have wind power. In areas that do not have hydropower, pumped storage serves a similar role, but at a much higher cost and 20% lower efficiency.
World hydroelectric capacity
The ranking of hydroelectric capacity is either by actual annual energy production or by installed capacity power rating. In 2015 hydropower generated 16.6% of the worlds total electricity and 70% of all renewable electricity.
In 2021, hydropower produced 4 200 TWh, more than half of total renewable generation for the year. Hydropower is produced in 150 countries, with the Asia-Pacific region (excluding China) generating 26% of global generation in 2021. China is the largest hydroelectricity producer, with 721 terawatt-hours of production in 2010, representing around 17 percent of domestic electricity use. Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Austria, Switzerland, Venezuela and several other countries have a majority of the internal electric energy production from hydroelectric power. Paraguay produces 100% of its electricity from hydroelectric dams and exports 90% of its production to Brazil and to Argentina. Norway produces 96% of its electricity from hydroelectric sources. Large plants tend to be built by governments, so most capacity (70%) is publicly owned, even though most plants (nearly 70%) are owned and operated by the private sector, as of 2021.
A hydroelectric station rarely operates at its full power rating over a full year; the ratio between annual average power and installed capacity rating is the capacity factor. The installed capacity is the sum of all generator nameplate power ratings.
Economics
The weighted average cost of capital is a major factor.
See also
Energy transition
Hydraulic engineering
International Hydropower Association
International Rivers
List of energy storage power plants
List of hydroelectric power station failures
List of largest power stations
List of renewable energy topics by country and territory
Lists of hydroelectric power stations
Marine current power – electricity from sea currents
National Hydropower Association (US)
References
External links
Hydropower Reform Coalition
Interactive demonstration on the effects of dams on rivers
European Small Hydropower Association
IEC TC 4: Hydraulic turbines (International Electrotechnical Commission - Technical Committee 4) IEC TC 4 portal with access to scope, documents and TC 4 website
Bright green environmentalism
Landscape
Sustainable technologies
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Secret%20Adversary
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The Secret Adversary
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The Secret Adversary is the second published detective fiction novel by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in January 1922 in the United Kingdom by The Bodley Head and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company later in that same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $1.75.
The book introduces the characters of Tommy and Tuppence who feature in three other Christie novels and one collection of short stories; the five Tommy and Tuppence books span Agatha Christie's writing career. The Great War is over, and jobs are scarce. Childhood friends Tommy Beresford and Prudence "Tuppence" Cowley meet and agree to start their own business as The Young Adventurers. They are hired for a job that leads them both to many dangerous situations, meeting allies as well, including an American millionaire in search of his cousin.
Reviews were generally positive on this adventure, which manages to keep the identity of the arch-criminal secret to the very end.
Plot summary
In 1920 London, demobilised soldier Tommy Beresford reunites with his childhood friend and war volunteer Prudence "Tuppence" Cowley. Out of work and money, they form "The Young Adventurers, Ltd". Their first client, a Mr Whittington, makes Tuppence a suspiciously generous offer. Remembering a seemingly unrelated anecdote of Tommy’s, when Whittington asks Tuppence her name, she gives him the alias "Jane Finn." A shocked Whittington offers her £50 hush money and disappears. Carter, an old friend of Tommy's from British intelligence, tells them that Jane Finn was a British agent who disappeared while attempting to deliver a secret treaty to the American embassy in London. Tommy and Tuppence agree to find her, but Carter warns them about an enemy agent known only as "Mr Brown." Also searching for Jane Finn is her cousin Julius Hersheimmer, an American multimillionaire.
Tommy and Tuppence's investigation leads them to the home of Mrs Marguerite "Rita" Vandemeyer, a woman with several powerful friends, including Whittington and Sir James Peel Edgerton, K C. Tuppence obtains a job as Mrs Vandemeyer's maid and enlists the help of a young boy working there named Albert. Tuppence hears Mrs Vandemeyer mention Mr Brown and forces her to admit she knows his real identity. Mrs Vandemeyer screams, collapses, and murmurs "Mr Brown" to Tuppence just before dying. Tuppence receives a telegram signed by Tommy and rushes after him.
Meanwhile, Tommy follows Boris Ivanovitch, another of Rita's associates, to a house in Soho, where Tommy is taken prisoner while attempting to eavesdrop on a meeting of Bolshevist conspirators. A young French woman at the house, Annette, arranges his escape, but refuses to leave herself. Tommy returns to the Ritz and finds Tuppence.
Sir James discovers Jane Finn, who has recovered her memory after an accident. She tells them where she hid the treaty, but they find instead a message from Mr Brown. While searching for writing paper in Julius's drawer, Tommy finds a photograph of Annette. Tommy concludes that Annette is the real Jane Finn and the Jane Finn they met was a plant to stop their investigation. He gets an original copy of the telegram sent to Tuppence and sees that her destination was altered on the copy he read. Tommy and Albert proceed to the correct destination.
Hersheimmer arranges for the release of Tuppence and Annette. At Sir James's residence, Jane tells her story: after receiving the packet, she became suspicious of Mrs Vandemeyer. Jane placed blank sheets in the original packet, sealing the treaty inside magazine pages. Travelling from Ireland, she was mugged and taken to the house in Soho. Perceiving the intent of her captors, Jane faked amnesia, conversing only in French. She hid the treaty in a picture frame in her room and has maintained her role as "Annette" ever since. Tuppence suspects that Hersheimmer is Mr Brown. Sir James agrees, adding that the real Hersheimmer was killed in America and that his imposter killed Mrs Vandemeyer. They rush to Soho, recovering the treaty at the house. Sir James identifies himself as the true Mr Brown, and announces his plan to kill them, wound himself, and then blame it on the elusive Mr Brown. Julius and Tommy, who are hiding in the room, overwhelm Sir James. He commits suicide using poison concealed in his ring, the compelling evidence to persuade Mr Carter of his old friend's guilt.
Tommy’s role in solving the mystery persuades his estranged rich uncle to support him financially and make Tommy his heir. The novel ends with both Hersheimmer and Jane, and Tommy and Tuppence, engaged to marry.
Characters
Thomas Beresford: Tommy, young redheaded Englishman who fought in the Great War, wounded twice, considered slow but steady and clear-headed in his thinking, at his best in a tight situation. In his early twenties.
Prudence L Cowley: Tuppence, young woman with black bobbed hair, one of several children of a conservative archdeacon, served in the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) during the Great War. She is modern and stylish, quick and intuitive in her thinking, acts rapidly on her ideas. In her early twenties.
Julius P Hersheimmer: Millionaire from America, seeking his first cousin Jane Finn, a girl he never met in America due to a family quarrel. He is quick-thinking, quick-acting, and being from America, he carries a gun and knows how to use it. In his early thirties.
Mr Carter: Englishman skilled in the intelligence service and connected with the highest political powers, known only by this alias. He seeks the treaty and the girl who might have carried it off the ship.
Jane Finn: American woman, 18 years old when she left the US, with good skills in speaking French, who aimed to work in a war hospital during the Great War. She sailed on the Lusitania, and she survived, carrying a document from a man named Danvers.
Marguerite Vandemeyer: Rita, a beautiful woman in society who followed Danvers on the Lusitania. She is affiliated with the conspirators and uniquely knows "Mr Brown"'s true identity. Her character is steely and powerful and she sees Sir James socially. She dies by poison.
Albert: Lift boy at the building in which Rita Vandemeyer lives, becomes helper to Tuppence, then to Tommy.
Mr Whittington: Member of the conspirators who first encounters Tommy and Tuppence as they plan their joint venture over lunch in a restaurant. He spoke Jane Finn's name in the streets as Tommy passed him.
Boris Ivanovitch, Count Stepanov: Member of the conspiracy, who keeps in touch with Whittington and Rita.
Mr Kramenin: Russian Bolshevik, serving in London, and one of the conspirators, called number one. Julius selects him to lead him to the girls.
Dr Hall: Runs the nursing home in Bournemouth where he took in the amnesia patient as a niece of Rita Vandemeyer, under the name Janet, for several years.
Sir James Peel Edgerton: MP and prominent London defence lawyer, known to instinctively identify a criminal. He is socially and politically well known, and seen as a potential future prime minister. Mr Carter respects his intelligence, going back years. He sees Rita socially. He is known for his persuasive ways.
Mr Brown: Elusive leader of the conspirators, who appears as a man named Brown often, but in a minor role, so others do not recall his appearance. He is key to all decisions of the conspirators, subtle with information, brutal or fatal with his enemies, the master criminal mind of the age.
Literary significance and reception
Upon publication of the first book edition it was reviewed by The Times Literary Supplement in its edition of 26 January 1922, which described it as "a whirl of thrilling adventures". It stated that the characters of Tommy and Tuppence were "refreshingly original" and praised the fact that the "identity of the arch-criminal, the elusive "Mr Brown", is cleverly concealed to the very end".
The critic for The New York Times Book Review (11 June 1922) was also impressed: "It is safe to assert that unless the reader peers into the last chapter or so of the tale, he will not know who this secret adversary is until the author chooses to reveal him." The review gave something of a backhanded compliment when it said that Christie "gives a sense of plausibility to the most preposterous situations and developments." Nevertheless it conceded thatMiss Christie has a clever prattling style that shifts easily into amusing dialogue and so aids the pleasure of the reader as he tears along with Tommy and Tuppence on the trail of the mysterious Mr Brown. Many of the situations are a bit moth-eaten from frequent usage by other writers, but at that Miss Christie manages to invest them with a new sense of individuality that renders them rather absorbing.
Robert Barnard described the novel as "The first and best (no extravagant compliment this) of the Tommy and Tuppence stories. It tells how the dauntless pair foils a plot to foment labour unrest and red revolution in Britain, masterminded by the man behind the Bolshevists. Good reactionary fun, if you're in that mood."
Some additional blurbs regarding the book, and used by The Bodley Head for advertising subsequent print runs, are as follows:
"It's an excellent yarn and the reader will find it as impossible as we did to put it aside until the mystery has been fathomed." — Daily Chronicle
"We promise our readers an exciting story of adventure, full of hairbreadth escapes, and many disappointments if they try to guess the riddle before the author is ready to give them the clue. — An excellent story." — Saturday Review.
"The atmosphere of the book is admirable and the story will be read with avidity by all. Undoubtedly the book is a success." — East Anglian Daily Times.
"A book of thrilling adventure. Sensational adventures which make thrilling and gripping reading. Mrs Christie has certainly succeeded in writing a story not only entertaining, but ingenious and amazingly clever." — Irish Independent.
The one critic who was not so keen on the book was Christie's publisher, John Lane, who had wanted her to write another detective novel along the lines of The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
Adaptations
Film
The Secret Adversary was the second Christie work to be turned into a film. Made in Germany by the Orplid Film company, it was released in that country on 15 February 1929 as Die Abenteurer G.m.b.H., a silent movie which ran for 76 minutes. It was released in the UK and US under the title Adventures Inc. Character names from the book were changed for the film. Previously thought to be lost, it was given a rare showing at the National Film Theatre on 15 July 2001 (see National Film Theatre: A Tribute to the Work of Agatha Christie)
Adaptor: Jane Bess
Director: Fred Sauer
Photography: Adolf Otto Weitzenberg
Art Direction:' Leopold Blonder and Franz Schroedter
Cast:
Eve Gray as Lucienne Fereoni
Carlo Aldini as Pierre Lafitte
Elfriede Borodin as Jeanette Finné
Hilda Bayley as Rita van den Meer
Eberhard Leithoff as George Finné
Jack Mylong-Münz as Boris
Shayle Gardner as Julius Vardier
Hans Mierendorff as Hans Mierendorff
Valy Arnheim as Wittington
Television
The novel was adapted twice for television, in 1983 and in 2014 (aired July–August 2015 in the UK).
The book was adapted by London Weekend Television as a 115-minute drama, and transmitted on Sunday, 9 October 1983. It acted as an introduction to a ten-part adaptation of Partners in Crime, made with the same stars, which began transmission one week later under the title Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime.
Adaptor: Pat Sandys
Director: Tony Wharmby
Cast:
Francesca Annis as Prudence Cowley
James Warwick as Thomas Beresford
Reece Dinsdale as Albert
Arthur Cox as Detective Inspector Marriott
Gavan O'Herlihy as Julius P Hersheimmer
Alec McCowen as Sir James Peele Edgerton
Honor Blackman as Rita Vandemeyer
Peter Barkworth as Carter
Toria Fuller as Jane Finn
John Fraser as Kramenin
George Baker as Whittington
Donald Houston as Boris
Joseph Brady as Dr Hall
Wolf Kahler as The German
Peter Lovstrom as Henry
Matthew Scurfield as Conrad
Gabrielle Blunt as Annie
In February 2014, the BBC announced it had commissioned the TV series Partners in Crime, with three episodes as an adaptation of The Secret Adversary, written by Zinnie Harris. It aired in July/August 2015, marking the 125th anniversary of Dame Agatha Christie's birth. It is not set in the post-Great War period, so Tommy and Tuppence are not the young things of that era, are married and have a son sent off to school. It is instead set in 1952, with references made to the Cold War against Stalin.
Cast:
Jessica Raine as Tuppence
David Walliams as Tommy
Camilla Marie Beeput as Jane Finn
Alice Krige as Rita Vandemeyer
James Fleet as Mr. Carter
Clarke Peters as Julius Hersheimer
Matthew Steer as Albert Pemberton
Graphic novel adaptation
The Secret Adversary was released by HarperCollins as a graphic novel adaptation on 20 May 2008, adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq (). This was translated from the edition first published in France by Emmanuel Proust éditions in 2003 under the title of Mister Brown.
Stage
Agatha Christie’s The Secret Adversary was presented for the stage for the first time in 2015 as a Watermill Theatre production, adapted from the Christie novel by Sarah Punshon and Johann Hari for a company of seven actors. A play in two acts, it was described in the publicity as being "shot through with fast-paced action, comedy, live music and a dash of romance". The live music was performed by the cast. Tuppence was played by Emerald O’Hanrahan, and Tommy by Garmon Rhys. It opened and ran at The Watermill Theatre, West Berkshire Playhouse from Thursday 12 February to Saturday 21 March, and then toured until Saturday 9 May, ending its run at the Rose Theatre, Kingston.
On 16 February 2016, Great Lakes Theater debuted a 70-minute stage adaptation as part of their educational programming. Adapted by David Hansen, this production is performed by a cast of five (3 men, 2 women) with most performers playing more than one role.
Publication history
1922, John Lane (The Bodley Head), January 1922, Hardback, 320 pp
1922, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1922, Hardback, 330 pp
1927, John Lane (The Bodley Head), February 1927, Hardback (Cheap Edition – two shillings)
1946, Avon Books (New York), Avon number 100, Paperback, 264 pp
1955, Pan Books, Paperback (Pan number 357)
1957, Pan Books, Paperback (Great Pan GP82)
1967, Bantam Books (New York), Paperback
1976, Panther Books (London), Paperback;
1991, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 256pp;
1991, Ulverscroft Large Print Edition, Hardcover;
2001, Signet (Penguin Group), Paperback
2007, Facsimile of 1922 UK first edition (HarperCollins), 5 November 2007, Hardcover, 320 pp;
Like its predecessor, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Secret Adversary was first published as an unillustrated serialisation in The Times weekly edition (aka The Weekly Times) as a complete and unabridged text in seventeen instalments from 12 August (Issue 2328) to 2 December 1921 (Issue 2343). Christie was paid £50 for the serialisation rights (£1,545 in 2003 currency).
Book dedication
The dedication of the book reads:
"To all those who lead monotonous lives in the hope that they experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure".
This rather whimsical statement was one of only two times that Christie addressed a dedication to her readers, the other occasion being the penultimate Tommy and Tuppence book, By the Pricking of My Thumbs in 1968.
Dustjacket blurb
The dustjacket front flap of the first edition carried no specially written blurb. Instead, it repeated the text which appeared on the jacket of The Mysterious Affair at Styles (the back jacket flap carrying review quotes of the earlier novel). In later editions, blurbs first published in the back of Poirot Investigates were used.
References
External links
The Secret Adversary is in the public domain in the US. The copyright on the book will not expire in many other Western countries until 2047.
The Secret Adversary at the official Agatha Christie website
Die Abenteurer GmbH (1929) entry at British Film Institute
The Secret Adversary (1983) article at Screenonline
1922 British novels
Novels by Agatha Christie
Novels set in London
Fiction set in 1915
Fiction set in 1919
Works originally published in The Times
Novels first published in serial form
The Bodley Head books
British novels adapted into films
British novels adapted into television shows
Novels set in the 1910s
Tommy and Tuppence
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s%20Liberation%20Army%20Air%20Force
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People's Liberation Army Air Force
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The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF; ), also referred to as the Chinese Air Force () or the People's Air Force (), is an aerial service branch of the People's Liberation Army, the military force of the People's Republic of China. The PLAAF was officially established on 11 November 1949 and it is composed of five branches: aviation, ground-based air defense, radar, Airborne Corps and other support elements.
The PLAAF first faced combat in the Korean War against the United States using primarily the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 fighter aircraft, aircraft provided by the Soviet Union, which also assisted with the expansion of the Chinese aerospace industry. Changes in the organization of the PLAAF followed by modernization programs in the 1990s and increased technology development in the 21st century has created the J-20 stealth multirole fighter, the first of its kind for China.
History
Origins
Today's People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) traces its roots back to September 1924 when a small group of nine cadets from the still-young Chinese Communist Party graduated from Sun Yat-sen's military flight school in Guangzhou. Having only been founded three years prior in July 1921, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) formed a united front with the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party against competing warlords in a bid to reunite a fractionalized China. The eighteen graduate pilots of the military flight school, under Sun's Guangzhou Revolutionary Government Aviation Bureau, included nine nationalist and nine communist pilots who were sent to the Soviet Union for two years of advanced flight training under the tutelage of the more experienced Soviet Air Force. Two of the CCP's graduates, Chang Qiankun and Wang Bi, continued to serve in the Soviet Air Force for fourteen years until, in September 1938, they returned to Dihua (now Ürümqi) as instructors. Chang and Wang would play instrumental roles in the founding of the PLAAF.
In January 1941, as intensifying clashes between CCP and KMT forces ended the united front against invading Japanese forces, and despite having neither aircraft nor airfields, the CCP's Central Military Commission (CMC) established the Air Force Engineering School with Wang as commandant and Chang as head instructor. In May 1944, just over a year before the Japanese surrender to Allied forces, the CMC established an Aviation Section in Yan'an with Wang as its director and Chang as deputy director. Two years later in May 1946 and after the withdrawal of Japanese troops, the CMC established the Northeast Old Aviation School in Jilin. By 1949 the Aviation Section of the CMC had 560 trained personnel (125 pilots and 435 ground support specialists), purchased 435 aircraft from the Soviet Union, acquired 115 Nationalist aircraft, and operated seven military flight schools.
Founding
The first organized air unit of the People's Liberation Army was formed in July 1949 at Beijing Nanyuan Airport (built and first operated under the Qing Dynasty) and operated American P-51 Mustangs, PT-19s, and British DH.98 Mosquitos. The squadron had acquired the Western-made aircraft once donated to the KMT for use against the Japanese, through a series of airfield captures and nationalist defections.
In March 1949, the CMC elevated its Aviation Section to the shortly-lived Aviation Bureau with Chang and Wang appointed as the bureau's director and political commissar, respectively. On 1 October 1949, the victorious communist forces established the People's Republic of China and, on 11 November 1949, the CMC dissolved its Aviation Section founding instead the People's Liberation Army Air Force. Initially manned by a variety of units from ground forces, the new PLAAF organized its headquarters (PLAAF HQ) in Beijing and organized administrative aviation divisions for each of the PLA's six military regions, later to each be named a Military Region Air Force (MRAF). The new organization, which was not yet seen as a service separate from the army, was headed by ground force commander Li Yalou with Xiao Hua (former ground force commander and political commissar) as the PLAAF's first political commissar. Chang was appointed as a PLAAF deputy commander and as director of the PLAAF's Training Department while Wang was named deputy political commissar and director of the Aeronautical Engineering Department.
In June 1950, the first PLAAF aviation unit, the 4th Composite Air Brigade () was established in Nanjing based on the 30th Army's 90th Division and commanding the 10th, 11th and 12th Air Regiments. In the same year, the PLAAF created the 2nd and 3rd Composite Air Brigades. Although the 4th Composite Air Brigade would be renamed in 1950 to the PLAAF 4th Air Division, it would become the 1st Air Division in 1956 with the 2nd and 3rd Composite Air Brigades becoming the 2nd and 3rd Air Divisions, respectively.
Korean War to the Sino-Soviet Split
The PLAAF expanded rapidly during the Korean War. Two brigades were created in 1950, but disbanded in the early 1950s and replaced by division; both had subordinate regiments. During the war, 26 divisions and a smaller number of independent regiments and schools were created by personnel transfers from the army; the air force inherited the army's organization and was commanded by army officers. By early 1954, there were 28 divisions, with 70 regiments, and five independent regiments operating 3000 aircraft. The Soviets provided Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 aircraft (J-2 in Chinese service), training, and support for developing the domestic aviation industry. Shenyang Aircraft Corporation built the two-seat MiG-15UTI trainer as the JJ-2, and during the war manufactured various components to maintain the Soviet-built fighters. By 1956 the People's Republic was assembling licensed copies of MiG-15s and eight years later was producing both the Shenyang J-5 (MiG-17) and the Shenyang J-6 (MiG-19) under license.
The PLAAF emerged from the war as an air defense force. The main role was to support the army by achieving air superiority using fighters, radar, and ground-based weapons. This was reinforced through the 1950s and 1960s when the PLAAF's main activities were skirmishing with the Republic of China Air Force near the Taiwan Strait, and intercepting American aircraft. The PLAAF was passive in applying offensive airpower due to the limited range of capabilities and political considerations. PLAAF was used as a deterrence due to the political culture at the time. The Chinese leadership, in many instances, would cancel offensive bombing missions to prevent escalation, affecting the decision-making autonomy of the PLAAF.
In 1960, Soviet engineers and advisors left China due to the Sino-Soviet split; although the Soviet Union granted licensed rights to MiG-15, MiG-17, MiG-19, MiG-21, Il-28, and Tu-16, China didn't retain the technical material or machinery as the Soviet advisory withdrew. China had to reverse-engineer aircraft and missile systems to set up production lines. Internal political and economic chaos from the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward severely impacted the modernization and development of the PLAAF.
The prioritization of the missile and nuclear weapon programs also removed necessary resources from the aviation industry, which markedly declined through 1963. PLAAF as a whole stagnated, in metrics such as flight safety, pilot education, training, and strategic planning. However, flight hours recovered around 1965 as China started to support North Vietnam and was involved in the Vietnam War. Due to difficult conditions, the accident rates raised from 0.249 to 0.6 per 10,000 sorties in 1965.
Between January 1954 and 1971, 22 divisions were created for a total of 50.
1970s to 1980s
In the 1970s, the Culture Revolution (1966-1976) continued to damage the PLAAF readiness, leading to devastating impacts on pilot training, maintenance operation, and logistics. All PLAAF technical and maintenance schools were closed for a prolonged time, halting nearly every activity besides pilot flights. Moreover, the Chinese aviation industrial base was vandalized heavily due to the political turmoil, with many aircraft development programs stretched out, and the quality control in factories wasn't sustained due to disruptions caused by Red Guards. Political fallouts from the Culture Revolution could still be felt by the leadership, and recovery only began in the 1980s.
PLAAF leadership recognized the importance of modern airpower and the existing weakness of the force in the late 1980s. After critical assessments, the 1985 reform led to force reduction, reorganization, and streamlining. Before the 1985 reorganization, the Air Force reportedly had four branches: air defense, ground attack, bombing, and independent air regiments. In peacetime the Air Force Directorate, under the supervision of the PLA General Staff Department, controlled the Air Force through headquarters located with, or in communication with, each of the seven military region headquarters. In war, control of the Air Force probably reverted to the regional commanders. In 1987 it was not clear how the reorganization and the incorporation of air support elements into the group armies affected air force organization. The largest Air Force organizational unit was the division, which consisted of 17,000 personnel in three regiments. A typical air defense regiment had three squadrons of three flights; each flight had three or four aircraft. The Air Force also had 220,000 air defense personnel who controlled about 100 surface-to-air missile sites and over 16,000 AA guns. In addition, it had a large number of early-warning, ground-control-intercept, and air-base radars operated by specialized troops organized into at least twenty-two independent regiments.
In the 1980s, the Air Force made serious efforts to raise the educational level and improve the training of its pilots. Superannuated pilots were retired or assigned to other duties. All new pilots were at least middle-school graduates. The time it took to train a qualified pilot capable of performing combat missions reportedly was reduced from four or five years to two years. The training emphasized raising technical and tactical skills in individual pilots and participation in combined-arms operations. Flight safety also increased.
From 1986 to 1988, each military region converted a division into a division-level transition training base (改装训练基地), which replaced training regiments in operational divisions.
In 1987 the Air Force had serious technological deficiencies — especially when compared with its principal threat, the Soviet Armed Forces — and had many needs that it could not satisfy. It needed more advanced aircraft, better avionics, electronic countermeasures equipment, more powerful aircraft weaponry, a low-altitude surface-to-air missile, and better controlled antiaircraft artillery guns. Some progress was made in aircraft design with the incorporation of Western avionics into the Chengdu J-7 and Shenyang J-8, the development of refueling capabilities for the B-6D bomber and the A-5 attack fighter, increased aircraft all-weather capabilities, and the production of the HQ-2J high-altitude surface-to-air missile and the C-601 air-to-ship missile.
Although the PLAAF received significant support from Western nations in the 1980s when China was seen as a counterweight to Soviet power, this support ended in 1989 as a result of the Chinese crackdown on the Tiananmen protests of 1989 and the later collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. After the fall of the USSR, the Russian Federation became China's principal arms supplier, to the extent that Chinese economic growth allowed Russia to sustain its aerospace industry.
1990s to 2000s
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, PLAAF still remained a large yet antiqued force. As of 1995, the air force consisted of approximately 4,500 combat aircraft based on the 1950s and 1960s technologies, which were approaching the end of their service life. The overall force strategy is defensive, with the primary objectives limited to protecting cities, airbases, economic and industrial centers, and important institutions and facilities. The air fleet continued to shrink, with RAND Corporation predicting PLAAF being halved by the early 2000s. PLAAF leadership also lacked strategic options, given the severe constraints in China's budgets, manpower, and technology at the time. The force lacked joint operation capabilities, had no combat experience since 1979, and lacked command and control infrastructure to support offensive operations beyond the Chinese borders. The Chinese aviation industrial base was inadequate and weak, and China lacked the capacity to produce modern avionics, composites, turbofan engines, and integrated systems.
Despite the difficulties, PLAAF was determined to introduce modern airpower and secure technological self-sufficiency. The air force inducted Sukhoi Su-27, the most sophisticated fighter Soviets had at the time. The sales were approved in December 1990, with three fighters delivered to China before the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contract with Soviet Union and later Russia also included manufacture license for China to build the Su-27 domestically, which helped Chinese aviation industry to accumulate know-how and experience. Other technology transfer and license agreements were also signed between China and countries such as Russia, France, Israel, which allowed Chinese access to many state-of-the-art technologies. China and Western countries also made several attempted to modernize the aging Chinese fleet in the form of Peace Pearl program and Chengdu Super 7. However, the political fallout from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests terminated some of these efforts.
In the early 1990s, PLAAF continued to invest in domestic aircraft programs, including the J-10, the Project Sabre II, and the Sino-Pakistani FC-1. However, the concerns over the US possible intervention during Taiwan independence scenario in 1992 to 1993 pressurized PLAAF to build near-term combat capability by prioritizing procurement of foreign platforms, which led to the further induction of platforms such as Sukhoi Su-30 and S-300 PMU-1.
At the same time, PLAAF leadership advocated for more active roles in the Chinese military but was sidelined by the PLA headquarters due to concerns over political reliability and a general lack of capabilities. PLAAF continued persuasive efforts, and their plans were eventually endorsed by the PLA leadership in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 1999, PLAAF set up a combined arms training base to conduct multi-force joint operations. In 2003, PLAAF began structural reforms and reduced the number of personnel by 200,000 (85% were officials), freeing up resources for the force overhaul. The leadership was consolidated to become more operationally efficient. Three dedicated training bases were established to provide research, testing, training, and combat support. In 2004, PLAAF released the force reform concept "Strategic Air Force", aiming to reconstruct the PLAAF into an integrated fighting force capable of both offensive and defensive operations in air and space. The 2004 reform included changes in doctrine, equipment, training, education, organizational structure, and strategic thinking.
By 2005, PLAAF was in the process of modernizing force composition by retiring obsolete aircraft. The antiquated Shenyang J-6 fighters were completely phased out of the service, and the more competent Chengdu J-7 and Shenyang J-8 platforms were partially retired with the remaining fleet upgraded with improved technologies. The number of second and third-generation aircraft was reduced to about 1,000 planes. Fighters of foreign and domestic origin with modern avionics and missiles began to enter the service more rapidly. From 2000 to 2004, PLAAF incorporated 95 home-built Shenyang J-11A with license, acquired 76 Sukhoi Su-30MKK and 24 Su-30MK2 from Russia with improved composite material, weapons, and avionics akin to Sukhoi Su-35, and negotiated the purchase of 38 Ilyushin Il-76 and Ilyushin Il-78 transport/tanker aircraft. To replace the antiquated Nanchang Q-5 attacker, PLAAF introduced fighter-bomber Xi'an JH-7A with precision strike capabilities. The homegrown Chengdu J-10 platform also matured into a highly capable, multirole fighter as PLAAF continued to accumulate experience in operating modern aircraft since the 1990s. By the mid-2000s, PLAAF had grown familiar with precision-guided munitions, aerial refueling, AEW&C aircraft, and networked command&control systems.
Several uncertainties troubled the PLAAF leadership, including China's inability to produce advanced jet engines, the lack of bombers to conduct long-range strike missions, and the dilemma between procuring foreign designs or supporting the homegrown defense industry that could only produce less capable ones. Thus, generous resources were devoted to research and development, with every possible approach, including purchase, license, technology transfer, reverse-engineering, and intelligence gathering to absorb foreign technology and build up the domestic defense industry. New home-built airframes emerged in the late 2000s, including CAIC Z-10 attack helicopter and KJ-2000 airborne early warning & control aircraft in 2003, Shenyang J-11B air superiority fighter in 2006, Shaanxi Y-9 medium airlifter and Shenyang J-15 carrier-born fighter in 2009, and Chengdu J-20 fifth-generation stealth fighter in 2010. Other crucial aviation technologies that support the airframes, such as turbofan engines, advanced aerospace materials, full authority digital engine control (FADEC), integrated avionics, missile technologies, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, saw substantial progress in this decade.
2010s
In the 2010s, PLAAF began to transform expeditiously and emerged as one of the significant competitors in airpower. According to the US Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center, PLAAF was projected to become one of the most capable air forces in 2020. PLAAF improved capabilities in several areas, including fighters, advanced missiles, early warning systems, and air defense systems; the force also started major reforms in training and doctrines. PLAAF leadership realized the force was insufficient to counter US intervention in the Taiwan strait confrontations, thus invested heavily in a wider range of conventional capabilities to transition the PLAAF from a large, technologically inferior force to hold advantageous positions in both quality and quantity at its own geopolitical theater.
In 2013, it was estimated that China had 400 modern fighters in the fourth-generation class, and the number of fourth-generation aircraft was projected to increase further with improvements in training and force compositions. According to a 2015 Pentagon report, PLAAF had approximately 600 modern aircraft and phased out more outdated platforms. The percentage of fourth-generation fighters raised from 30 percent in 2010 to 50 percent in 2015, projecting a majority fourth-generation force structure in the near future. The PLAAF also focused on developing long-range strike options with improved bomber platforms based on Xian H-6K, long-range cruise missiles, as well as fielding more multirole aircraft such as Shenyang J-16. In 2014, the Pentagon noted PLAAF was rapidly closing the gap in its training, equipment, and power projection capabilities with the United States.
From 2014 to 2016, PLAAF intensified its joint operation effort with the PLA Navy, building up power projection and expeditionary strike capabilities with other service branches, and engaged in joint patrol missions with PLA Navy in East and South China Sea. In 2015, PLA separated PLA Ground Force headquarters from the senior position, putting all service branches in the same echelon, thus ending the tradition of Army domination in PLA's command structure. A joint command structure under the newly reformed theater commands was established, improving inter-service support, command and control efficiency, and cross-service warfighting capability. In 2016, PLA established People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force, which stripped PLAAF's responsibilities in space and information domain, leaving the air force focused on air operations, air defense, electronic warfare, airborne early warning, and air-to-ground surface strike missions. At the same time, PLAAF actively developed one of the most sophisticated integrated air defense systems, capable of providing air defense coverage beyond the coastline and borders. In the same year, PLAAF general Ma Xiaotian announced that China was developing a new type of long-range bomber on the air force's open day, which is later coined as the Xian H-20 stealth bomber.
After the reform, analysts noted PLAAF's joint operation and integrated fighting capabilities were considerably improved. In March 2017, PLAAF incorporated Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter into service and formed the first combat unit in February 2018, making China the second country in the world and the first in Asia to field an operational stealth aircraft. Around the same time, PLAAF introduced PL-10 and PL-15 missiles to noticeably improved the PLAAF's air combat capability. By 2019, aviation researchers believed that Chinese weapon platforms have reached approximate parity with Western equivalents, and surpassed Russia in most aspects of aviation technology development and implementation. In 2019 and 2020, PLAAF began to reform its pilot curriculum and transitional training programs, inducting advanced jet trainers and active-service fighters at dedicated training academies, ending the traditional practice of training pilot at operational units. The measure improved training efficiency and prevented distraction to the defense responsibilities of the active units.
According to International Institute for Strategic Studies, PLAAF had an unprecedented military build-up between 2016 and 2022. The force successfully closed the gap with the West due to improved domestic production, introducing indigenously developed airframes, composite materials, turbofan engines, advanced avionics, and weapon systems. In six years, PLAAF incorporated over 600 fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft in more than 19 frontline combat brigades. The modern Chengdu J-10C, Shenyang J-16, and Chengdu J-20 are all equipped with AESA radar systems, domestic WS-10 engines, standoff weapons, and long-range air-to-air missiles. PLAAF also made substantial progress with larger aircraft design and production in the form of Xian Y-20 and WS-20 engines. In 2021, PLAAF announced the force had achieved the status of "Strategic Air Force". Though the self-claimed designation wasn't universally agreed upon, many analysts acknowledged the rapid modernization progress. According to the Air University assessment in 2022, PLAAF was adjudged a strategic air force with the capabilities of long-distance power protection, maintaining combat readiness, and conducting global operations to protect Chinese interests. In 2023, PLAAF planned to decommission all older Chengdu J-7 and Shenyang J-8 platforms, which completed the PLAAF's transition to an air fleet composed of only fourth-generation and fifth-generation combat aircraft.
Personnel
Ranks and insignia
The ranks in the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force are similar to those of the Chinese Army, formally known as the People's Liberation Army Ground Force, except that those of the PLA Air Force are prefixed by . See Ranks of the People's Liberation Army or the article on an individual rank for details on the evolution of rank and insignia in the PLAAF. This article primarily covers the existing ranks and insignia.
The markings of the PLAAF are a red star in front of a red band, very similar to the insignia of the Russian Air Force. The Red star contains the Chinese characters for eight and one, representing August 1, 1927, the date of the formation of the PLA. PLAAF aircraft carry these markings on the fins as well.
Commanders
Liu Yalou (October 1949 – May 1965)
Wu Faxian (May 1965 – September 1971)
Ma Ning (May 1973 – February 1977)
Zhang Tingfa (April 1977 – July 1985)
Wang Hai (July 1985 – November 1992)
Cao Shuangming (November 1992 – October 1994)
Yu Zhenwu (October 1994 – November 1996)
Liu Shunyao (November 1996 – May 2002)
Qiao Qingchen (May 2002 – September 2007)
Xu Qiliang (September 2007 – October 2012)
Ma Xiaotian (October 2012 – August 2017)
Ding Laihang (August 2017 – September 2021)
Chang Dingqiu (September 2021 – present)
Structure
Headquarters
The highest leadership organization is PLAAF Headquarters (PLAAF HQ). PLAAF HQ's peacetime responsibilities are force generation, modernization, and operational control of some units like the Airborne Corps and the 34th Air Transport Division. PLAAF HQ contains four first-level departments: the Staff (formerly Headquarters), Political Work (formerly Political), Logistics, and Equipment Department.
The Staff Department () manages the PLAAF organizational structure, personnel management, intelligence, communications, air traffic control, weather support, development of air force military theory, and air force education and safety. The Staff Department is led by the chief of staff who is the "principal organizer and coordinator of military operations." The Staff Department's chief of staff has a number of deputy chiefs of staff. Previously known as the Headquarters Department, the post-2016 Staff Department maintains a number of subordinate bureaus () including the Operations Bureau, Information and Communications Bureau, Training Bureau, Ground-based Air Defense Bureau, Air Traffic Control Bureau, Pilot Recruitment Bureau, Flight Safety Bureau, Test Flight Bureau, Aviation Bureau, Confidential Bureau, Unit Management Bureau, and Planning and Organization Bureau.
The Political Work Department (), sometimes abbreviated PWD, is responsible for managing propaganda, security, political education, personnel records, civil-military relations, party discipline, party organizations within the PLAAF, and cultural activities to include song and dance troupes or public events. The Political Work Department is led by a director () and at least two deputy directors (). Subordinate to the department include bureaus such as a Cadre Bureau, Propaganda Bureau, and a Soldier and Civilian Personnel Bureau.
The Logistics Department (, led by a director and political commissar, oversee the PLAAF's logistics to include transportation, materials, supplies, finance, medical care, and petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL). Since the 2016 reform, subordinate bureaus include a Finance Bureau, Transport and Delivery Bureau, Procurement and Supply Bureau, Air Force National Defense Engineering Development Command Bureau, Real Estate Management Bureau, Ordnance General-use Equipment Bureau, Military Facilities Construction Bureau, Combat Service Planning Bureau, Materials Bureau, and Audit Bureau.
The Equipment Department (), originally the Air Force Engineering Department, manages the PLAAF's cradle-to-death lifecycle including repair and maintenance of the branch's weapons systems and instruments. Led by a director and political commissar, the department leads bureaus to include the Comprehensive Planning Bureau, Airfield Support Bureau, Scientific Research and Procurement Bureau, Major Type/Model Bureau, Project Management Bureau, Equipment Purchasing Bureau, Testing and Inspection Bureau, Armament General-use Equipment Bureau, Flight Safety Bureau, and Aviation Equipment Bureau.
Commands
Below PLAAF HQ are five Theater Command Air Forces (TCAF), successors of Military Region Air Forces (MRAFs) prior to 2016.
Before 2003, MRAF had subordinate air corps and Bases which exercised direct control over units in their area of responsibility (AOR); MRAF only directly controlled fighter and ground attack divisions in the same province as MRAF headquarters (MRAF HQ). From 2004, leadership of units was consolidated in MRAF HQ, with air corps and Bases downgraded to command posts that acted on behalf of MRAF HQ. From 2012 onwards, the command posts were mostly replaced by Bases that exercised command and control over units (brigades) in their AOR and conducted joint exercises.
Below TCAF/MRAF and the air corps/command posts/Bases are corps, division, brigade, and regimental level units ().
The first divisions in the 1950s was organized into a HQ and two or three regiments. In 1953, this was standardized to three regiments per division, including one training regiment. Regiments had three or four flight groups, each in turn made of three or four squadrons. Between 1964 and 1970, regiments were called groups. In the late 1980s, operational squadrons lost their training regiments. By 2010, many divisions had only two regiments. In 2019, the bomber, transport, and specialized divisions had not been reorganized into brigades and remained under the control of PLAAF HQ and TCAF headquarters.
Beginning in 2011, and in a similar process as the PLAGF, the PLAAF dissolved the majority of its air division headquarters changing previously subordinate air regiments to brigades and subordinating them directly under military region (now theater command) air forces. Brigades contain several subordinate flight groups; a flight group has one type of aircraft. All fighter and ground attack divisions and regiments were reorganized into air force brigades, organized into a brigade HQ and the flight groups organized under it.
Everything from battalions to squads are considered subunits ().
Order of battle
PLAAF Headquarters
Staff Department
Political Work Department
Logistics Department
Equipment Department
Directly reporting units
Experimental Training Base
Flight Test Training Base
Research Institute
Airborne Training Base
Command Academy
Engineering University
Aviation University
Early Warning Academy
Harbin Flight Academy
Shijiazhuang Flight Academy
Xi'an Flight Academy
Medical University
Service Academy
Communications Sergeants Academy
66th Blue Brigade
Eastern Theater Command Air Force
Southern Theater Command Air Force
Western Theater Command Air Force
Northern Theater Command Air Force
Central Theater Command Air Force
Airbases
The PLAAF has over 150 air bases distributed across each theater command.
Aerobatic display team
The August 1st (aerobatic team) is the first PLAAF aerobatics team. It was formed in 1962. Aircraft inventory of PLAAF August Aerobatic Team includes the J-10 and it has previously flown the J-5 and J-7. The Sky Wing and Red Falcon air demonstration teams, which operate Nanchang CJ-6 and Hongdu JL-8 respectively, were established in 2011.
Equipment
The People's Liberation Army Air Force operates a large and varied fleet of some 4,000 aircraft, of which around 2,566 are combat aircraft (fighter, attack, and bombers). According to FlightGlobal, China has the second-largest active combat aircraft fleet and the third-largest total aircraft fleet in the world.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, PLAAF combat pilots acquire an average of 100-150 flying hours annually. For a list of aircraft no longer flown by the People's Liberation Army Air Force, see; List of historic aircraft of the People's Liberation Army Air Force. For aircraft and equipment of the Airborne Corps, see People's Liberation Army Air Force Airborne Corps#Equipment.
Current inventory
Air defense
The People's Liberation Army Air Force operates a multi-layered, integrated air defense system combining radar stations, electronic warfare systems, early warning and surveillance zones, and air-missile defense systems of various ranges.
Chinese air defense systems are highly distributed and mobile, in order to improve survivability against SEAD missions.
See also
List of historic aircraft of the People's Liberation Army Air Force
People's Liberation Army Naval Air Force
People's Liberation Army Ground Force
List of aircraft produced by China
List of Chinese aircraft engines
People's Liberation Army Air Force Airborne Corps
References
Citations
Sources
Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, A Country Study: China, 1987
Further reading
Andreas Rupprecht and Tom Cooper: Modern Chinese Warplanes, Combat Aircraft and Units of the Chinese Air Force and Naval Aviation, Harpia Publishing (2012), ,
Gordon, Yefim and Komissarov, Dmitry. Chinese Aircraft. Hikoki Publications. Manchester. 2008.
External links
Articles on the Chinese military, from Sinodefence.com
Chinese Air Power
Regional Capability Growth on APA
The Sleeping Giant Awakens (Australian Aviation)
PLA Airbase Page on APA
PLA idag-PLAAF (Swedish)
USAF Air University, The PLAAF in 2010
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Military units and formations established in 1949
1949 establishments in China
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Spitalfields
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Spitalfields is a district in the East End of London and within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The area is formed around Commercial Street and includes the locale around Brick Lane, Christ Church, Toynbee Hall and Commercial Tavern. It has several markets, including Spitalfields Market, the historic Old Spitalfields Market, Brick Lane Market and Petticoat Lane Market. It was a Hamlet (autonomous area) of the large ancient parish of Stepney in Middlesex, and became an independent parish in 1729. Just outside the City of London, it formed part of the County of London from 1889 and was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney from 1900. It was abolished as a civil parish in 1921.
Origin and administration
Toponymy
The name Spitalfields appears in the form Spittellond in 1399; as The spitel Fyeld on the "Woodcut" map of London of c.1561; and as Spyttlefeildes, also in 1561. The land belonged to St Mary Spital, a priory or hospital (a lodging for travellers run by a religious order) erected on the east side of the Bishopsgate thoroughfare in 1197, from which its name is thought to derive ("spital" being a corruption of the word "hospital".) An alternative, and possibly earlier, name for the area was Lolsworth.
Administrative history
The area was a part of the Manor and Ancient Parish of Stepney before the Domesday Book of 1086.
Parish areas originally had only ecclesiastical (church) functions; but the monasteries which had provided extensive charitable work on a voluntary basis, were dissolved by Henry VIII, creating increased hardship. The government responded by making parish areas take on civil functions, primarily a new Poor Law intended to fill the gap left by monasteries.
Stepney was a very large and populous parish, and by the late 17th century it had devolved its civil parish functions to autonomous areas called Hamlets (in this context meaning territorial sub-divisions, rather than small villages), of which Spitalfields was one.
In 1729, the Hamlet of Spitalfields became an independent daughter parish. The area's parish church was Christ Church, Spitalfields, with St Stephen Spitalfields (demolished in 1930) added later.
In 1855, the parish became part of the Whitechapel District within the Metropolitan Board of Works area. Spitalfields Vestry nominated twelve members to the Whitechapel District Board of Works. The Board of Works was an unelected body, responsible for certain infrastructure functions.
Spitalfields became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney in 1900 and was abolished as a civil parish in 1921. It became part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in 1965.
The area was part of the historic (or ancient) county of Middlesex, but military and most (or all) civil county functions were managed more locally, by the Tower Division (also known as the Tower Hamlets), under the leadership of the Lord-Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets (the post was always filled by the Constable of the Tower of London).
The role of the Tower Division ended when Spitalfields became part of the new County of London in 1889. The County of London was replaced by Greater London in 1965.
Representation
Nearly all (except a tiny area north of the railway, in Weaver's Ward) of the district is part of the Spitalfields & Banglatown ward, which elects two councillors to Tower Hamlets Borough Council. Spitalfields is in the Bethnal Green and Bow constituency, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Rushanara Ali of the Labour Party.
The Spitalfields Neighbourhood Planning Forum, which is constitituted of Spitalfields residents, business operators, community organisations and other local interests, is intended to help local people influence neighbourhood planning policies.
History
Rome
The Romans had a cemetery to the east of the Bishopsgate thoroughfare, which roughly follows the line of Ermine Street: the main highway to the north from Londinium. The cemetery was noticed by the antiquarian John Stow in 1576 and was the focus of a major archaeological excavation in the 1990s, following the redevelopment of Spitalfields Market.
In 2013, lead isotope analysis of tooth enamel, by Janet Montgomery of Durham University, led to the identification of the first person from Rome known to have been buried in Britain. She was a 25-year-old woman who was buried in a lead-lined stone sarcophagus, with unique jet and intricate glass grave goods, around the middle of the 4th century A.D.
St Mary Spital
In 1197, a priory, The New Hospital of St Mary without Bishopsgate, latterly known as St Mary Spital, was founded by Walter Brunus and his wife Roisia, and built on the site of the cemetery. It was one of the biggest hospitals in medieval England and had a large cemetery with a mortuary chapel and stone charnel house. The chapel has been uncovered by archaeologists and preserved for public viewing. The priory and hospital were dissolved in 1539 under Henry VIII. At the time of the dissolution, the hospital had beds for 180 sick poor.
The inner precinct of priory hospital was adjacent to the area that later became the Hamlet and parish of Spitalfields, in the tiny extra-parochial area called the Liberty of Norton Folgate. Although the chapel and monastic buildings were mostly demolished in the time of Henry VIII, the Liberty remained an autonomous area outside of any parish. The adjacent outer precincts, to the south, were re-used for artillery practice by the gunners of the Tower of London. The area, known as the Old Artillery Ground was placed under the special jurisdiction of the Tower of London as one of its Tower Liberties.
Other parts of the priory area were used for residential purposes by London dwellers seeking a rural retreat and by the mid-17th century further development extended eastward into the erstwhile open farmland of the Spital Field.
Huguenots
Spitalfields consisted mainly of fields and nursery gardens until its development in the late 17th century. The main local industry at that time was weaving, and many of the weavers were Huguenot refugees from France. Spitalfields' historic association with the silk industry was established by French Protestant (Huguenot) refugees who settled in the area after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. By settling outside the bounds of the City of London, they hoped to avoid the restrictive legislation of the City guilds. The Huguenots brought with them little, apart from their skills, and an Order in Council of 16 April 1687 raised £200,000 to relieve their poverty. In December 1687, the first report of the committee set up to administer the funds reported that 13,050 French refugees were settled in London, primarily around Spitalfields, but also in the nearby settlements of Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, Whitechapel and Mile End New Town.
The late 17th and 18th centuries saw an estate of well-appointed terraced houses, built to accommodate the master weavers controlling the silk industry, and grand urban mansions built around the newly created Bishops Square which adjoins the short section of the main east–west street known as Spital Square. Christ Church, Spitalfields on Fournier Street, designed by the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, was built during the reign of Queen Anne to demonstrate the power of the established church to the dissenting Huguenots, who had built ten chapels in the area. More humble weavers dwellings were congregated in the Tenterground. The Spitalfields Mathematical Society was established in 1717. In 1846, it merged with the Royal Astronomical Society.
Spitalfields Market was established in 1638 when Charles I gave a licence for flesh, fowl and roots to be sold in what was then known as Spittle Fields. The market currently receives around 25,000 visitors every week.
Huguenots of Spitalfields is a registered charity promoting public understanding of the Huguenot heritage and culture in Spitalfields, the City of London and beyond. They arrange tours, talks, events and schools programmes to raise the Huguenot profile in Spitalfields and to raise funds for a permanent memorial to the Huguenots.
From the 1730s Irish weavers came, after a decline in the Irish linen industry, to take up work in the silk trade. The 18th century saw periodic crises in the silk industry, brought on by imports of French silk – in a lull between the wars between the two rivals; and imports of printed calicos. The depression in the trade and the prices paid to weavers led to protests. In 1769, the Spitalfield riots occurred when attempts were made to disperse protest meetings by weavers during the downturn in the market for silk. The riots ended in an Irish and a Huguenot weaver being hanged in front of the Salmon and Ball public house at Bethnal Green.
Price controls on amounts master weavers could pay journeymen for each piece were established, removing incentives to pay higher wages during good times. During bad times workers had no work. As the price was per piece, there was no incentive for using machinery, as the master would have to pay for the machine and still pay the same price per piece to journeymen. By 1822 labour rates were so above market labour rates, that much of the employment in silk manufacture had moved away. Remaining manufacture focussed on expensive fashion items, which required proximity to court and had higher margins.
In 1729, Spitalfields was detached from the parish of Stepney, and became an independent parish; by this time parish areas had both civil and ecclesiastical (church) functions. The area's parish church was Christ Church, Spitalfields, with St Stephen Spitalfields added later. The church of St Stephen Spitalfields was built in 1860 by public subscription but was demolished in 1930. The adjacent vicarage is all that remains.
Victorian era
By the Victorian era, the silk industry had entered a long decline and the old merchant dwellings had degenerated into multi-occupied slums. Spitalfields became a by-word for urban deprivation, and, by 1832, concern about a London cholera epidemic led The Poor Man's Guardian (18 February 1832) to write of Spitalfields:
The low houses are all huddled together in close and dark lanes and alleys, presenting at first sight an appearance of non-habitation, so dilapidated are the doors and windows:- in every room of the houses, whole families, parents, children and aged grandfathers swarm together.
In 1860, a treaty with France allowed the import of cheaper French silks. This left the many weavers in Spitalfields, as well as neighbouring Bethnal Green and Shoreditch, unemployed and indigent. New trades such as furniture and boot making came to the area, and the large windowed Huguenot houses were found suitable for tailoring, attracting a new population of Jewish refugees drawn to live and work in the textile industry.
By the later 19th century, inner Spitalfields became known as the worst criminal rookery in London and common lodging-houses in the Flower and Dean Street area were a focus for the activities of robbers and pimps. In 1881 Flower and Dean Street was described as being "perhaps the foulest and most dangerous street in the metropolis". Another claimant to the distinction of being the worst street in London was Dorset Street, which was highlighted by the brutal killing and mutilation of a young woman, Mary Jane Kelly, in her lodgings here by the serial killer, Jack the Ripper in the autumn of 1888. The murder was the climax of a series of murders that became known as the Whitechapel Murders. The renewed focus on the area's poverty helped prompt the decision to demolish some local slums in 1891–94. Deprivation continued and was brought to notice by social commentators such as Jack London in his The People of the Abyss (1903). He highlighted 'Itchy Park', next to Christ Church, Spitalfields, as a notorious rendezvous for homeless people.
Modern Spitalfields
In the late 20th century the Jewish presence diminished and was replaced by an influx of Bangladeshi immigrants, who also worked in the local textile industry and made Brick Lane the curry capital of London. By 1981, at least 60% of households were of minority ethnic origin.
Another development, from the 1960s onwards, has been a campaign to save the housing stock of old merchant terraces west of Brick Lane from demolition. Many have been conserved by the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust which has led to gentrification and a large increase in property prices.
In the 21st century, large office blocks were built between Bishopsgate and Spitalfields Market, affecting the character of the area. Conservationists secured the preservation of Old Spitalfields Market and the provision of shopping, leisure amenities and a plaza (urban square) beside the blocks, but permission was granted to developers, to demolish the Fruit and Wool exchange on the edge of old Spitalfields market, in order to erect office buildings.
Since 1998 the area has formed part of the Spitalfields and Banglatown electoral ward. The name reflecting the areas strong links with Bangladesh. In September 2015, a demonstration against gentrification in London took the form of a protest at Cereal Killer Cafe, a hipster café on Brick Lane which serves cereal.
Community
Spitalfields has a very strong sense of local community, with the Spitalfields Community Group aiming to represent the people who both live and work, this is to build a better sense of community as well as improve the quality of life of its members and their neighbours in Spitalfields. and the Spitalfields Music who strengthen the local community through musical events. The Spitalfields Housing Association also works closely with residents by providing good quality community services. A community garden, Nomadic Community Gardens, is a social project based in an area once an area fenced off and overgrown and is popular among a diverse range of people such as locals without gardens, and is made up of found materials, street art, sculpture and allotments. Nomadic Community Gardens is a temporary project or "meanwhile use" run by a private limited company on behalf of the property developer Londonewcastle, which leases the site to the garden operator for a peppercorn rent and provided start-up funding. Londonewcastle gained planning consent for a development of "affordable housing, townhouses and apartments" on the site in November 2015. Construction on the Fleet Street Hill Project was intended to commence in 2016 but, as of June 2019, no work has begun on the site.
Culture
Dennis Severs' House in Folgate Street is a "still-life drama" created by the Severs as an "historical imagination" of what life would have been like inside for a family of Huguenot silk weavers. In 2009, Raven Row, a non-profit contemporary art centre, opened to the public at 56 Artillery Lane. Constructed in a pair of 18th-century silk merchants' houses, onto which London practice 6a Architects added two contemporary galleries, it stands on the part of the street known until 1895 as Raven Row. Whitechapel Art Gallery is at the bottom of Brick Lane.
Amongst the many well known artists living in Spitalfields are Gilbert and George, Ricardo Cinalli, Tracey Emin and Stuart Brisley. TV presenter, architecture expert and Georgian fanatic Dan Cruickshank was an active campaigner for Spitalfields, and continues to live in the area. Writer Jeanette Winterson turned a derelict Georgian house into an organic food shop, Verde's, as part of the Slow Food movement.
Spitalfields figures in a number of works of literature, including A New Wonder, a Woman Never Vexed (performed 1610–14; printed 1632) by William Rowley, a dramatisation of the foundation of St Mary Spital; The People of the Abyss (1903), the journalistic memoir by Jack London; Hawksmoor (1985) by Peter Ackroyd; Rodinsky's Room (1999) by Iain Sinclair and Rachel Lichtenstein; Brick Lane (2003) by Monica Ali; and The Quincunx (1991) by Charles Palliser.
19th-century Spitalfields is the setting for the film From Hell, a fictional retelling of the story of Jack the Ripper.
In December 2009 an anonymous Spitalfields resident started a blog called Spitalfields Life, writing under the pseudonym "The Gentle Author", and promising to post 10,000 daily essays. , the writer had posted over 4,000 articles about life in Spitalfields, and the surrounding areas within walking distance.
Economy
The economic makeup of Spitalfields is primarily centred around its four marketplaces. Old Spitalfields Market is the main one where traders sell antiques, food and fashion items, while Petticoat Lane Market mainly sells general clothing.
Notable people
William Allen (1770–1843), scientist and philanthropist
Inga Beale (1963–) British businesswoman, the CEO of Lloyd's of London 2013-18. Beale is Lloyd's first female CEO in the insurance market's 325-year history.
Dan Cruickshank (1949–), art and architectural historian
Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654), botanist, herbalist, physician, and astrologer was born at the Red Lion Inn, when the area was still semi-rural.
Joan Dant (1631–1715), entrepreneur
Tracey Emin (1963–), artist, resides in Fournier Street.
Sandra Esqulant (1948–), landlady of The Golden Heart, is listed among the 100 most influential people in art.
Anna Maria Garthwaite (?1688-1763), designer of silk fabrics; blue plaque at 2 Princelet Street
Mark Gertler (1891–1939), painter, lesser member of the Bloomsbury Group, in love with Dora Carrington whom he met at the Slade School of Art. Born in Gun St of Polish Jewish parents.
Gilbert & George (1943–, 1942–), artists, reside in Fournier Street.
Samuel Gompers (1850–1924), founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), was born in Spitalfields in a Jewish family of cigarmakers originally from Amsterdam until emigration to New York in 1863.
Thomas Helwys (1575–1616), religious reformer who fled to Amsterdam in 1607/8, but returned in 1611 to found first Baptist congregation on British soil in Spitalfields. Died in prison for public advocacy of religious liberty for all, regardless of creed, even Jews, Muslims, and atheists.
Basil Henriques (1890–1961), for whom Henriques Street (formerly Berner Street) is named.
Jack the Ripper: all of his victims or presumed victims lived in Spitalfields and two (Chapman and Kelly) were murdered there (the others being murdered in nearby Whitechapel):
Annie Chapman (1841–1888), resided at a common lodging house at 35 Dorset Street. Her body was found at 29 Hanbury Street
Mary Jane Kelly (1863–1888), lived and was murdered at 13 Millers Court, just off Dorset Street.
Martha Tabram (1849–1888), resided at a common lodging house at 19 George Street.
Mary Ann Nichols (1845–1888), resided at a common lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street.
Elizabeth Stride (1843–1888), resided at a common lodging house at 32 Flower and Dean Street.
Catherine Eddowes (1842–1888), resided with her partner John Kelly at Cooney's common lodging house at 55 Flower and Dean Street.
Keira Knightley (1985– ), actress, lived for a while on Wilkes Street.
Joe Loss LVO OBE (1909–1990), born locally, founder of the Joe Loss Orchestra.
Wolf Mankowitz (1924–1998), writer, playwright and screenwriter, of Russian Jewish descent, was born in Fashion Street.
Keith Mansfield, writer and publisher, lives locally.
Samantha Morton, actor, lived on Wilkes Street.
John Nicolson, one time journalist and broadcaster and a former MP for the Scottish National Party (2015-2017); owns a house on Fournier Street which he has restored and renovated himself.
George Peabody (1795–1869), established the Peabody Donation Fund, which continues to this day, as the Peabody Trust, to provide good quality housing "for the deserving poor" in London: the fund's first block of dwellings opened in Commercial Street in 1864.
Sian Phillips, (1933–), actress
Jonathan Pryce, (1947– ), actor and singer
Lutfur Rahman, first directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets and former ward councillor
Raphael Samuel, historian, lived at 19 Elder Street from the early 1960s until his death in 1996.
Dennis Severs (1944–1999), lived at 18 Folgate Street 1979–1999.
Jack Sheppard (1702–1724), highwayman and multiple absconder, born in New Fashion Street, now known as White's Row.
Obadiah Shuttleworth (died 1734), musician
Sir Benjamin Truman (1699/1700–1780), brewer.
Arnold Wesker (1932–2016), playwright, author, poet, born in Mother Levy's Maternity Home, Underwood Rd. With his family took refuge during WW2 in "Mickey's Shelter" below the Fruit & Wool Exchange.
Jeanette Winterson (1959–), writer, lives on Brushfield Street where she also runs a delicatessen.
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), early feminist, born locally, possibly at 21 Hanbury Street.
Joe Wright (1972–), film director, bought a house on Wilkes Street but in 2013 sold it to actor Jonathan Pryce
Transport
Railway
Spitalfields has no connection to the London Underground. Historically it had a station on the Great Eastern Main Line called Bishopsgate (Low Level) that opened on the 4 November 1872, but closed on 22 May 1916. Shoreditch tube station, the northern terminus of the East London Line, technically lay within the boundaries of Spitalfields, but principally served Shoreditch: it closed in 2006. Liverpool Street station (mainline and underground), Aldgate East (underground) and Shoreditch High Street (London Overground) are all in close proximity to Spitalfields.
Road
The area is formed around Commercial Street (on the A1202 London Inner Ring Road).
See also
List of schools in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Old Truman Brewery – The Black Eagle Brewery on Brick Lane, and into surrounding streets.
Spitalfields riots
Spitalfields Festival
Stepney Historical Trust
References
Further reading
External links
London Metropolitan University East End Archive: The Paul Trevor Collection – photographs of the Spitalfields area from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Districts of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Areas of London
Former civil parishes in London
Bills of mortality parishes
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381465
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National%20Energy%20Program
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National Energy Program
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The National Energy Program (, NEP) was an energy policy of the Canadian federal government from 1980 to 1985. The economically nationalist policy sought to secure Canadian energy independence, though was strongly opposed by the private sector and the oil-producing Western Canadian provinces, most notably Alberta.
Created under the Liberal government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on October 28, 1980, following the two oil crises of the 1970s, the NEP had three main objectives: increase ownership of the oil industry by Canadians; price energy fairly for Canadian consumers; and provide Canadian energy self-sufficiency. The NEP was also designed to promote lower prices through price controls; promote exploration for oil in Canada; promote alternative energy sources; and increase federal government revenues from oil sales through a variety of taxes and revenue-sharing with the oil-producing Western Canadian provinces.
The NEP proved to be a highly controversial policy initiative and sparked intense opposition and anger in Western Canada, particularly in Alberta. The province's premier, Peter Lougheed, was a vocal opponent of the NEP on the grounds that it interfered with provincial jurisdiction and unfairly deprived Alberta of oil revenue. In 1981, Lougheed and Trudeau reached a revenue-sharing agreement. Opponents claim that due to the NEP, the unemployment rate in Alberta rose from 3.7 percent to 12.4 percent, the bankruptcy rate in Alberta rose by 150 percent, and Alberta's losses were estimated to be between $50 billion and $100 billion (though Alberta's unemployment rate, bankruptcy rate, and revenue losses were also affected by the early 1980s recession and a crash in oil prices).
The term "Western alienation" was coined as a result of the NEP. The policy was repealed by the newly-elected Progressive Conservative (PC) government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney on June 1, 1985. The NEP contributed to the creation and rise of the Western Canadian-based and right-wing populist Reform Party which made a major breakthrough in the 1993 federal election; the Reform Party merged with the PCs in 2003, becoming the Conservative Party which governed Canada from 2006 to 2015.
Background
In his preamble to the announcement of the National Energy Program, introduced as part of the October 1980 federal budget, Finance Minister Allan MacEachen echoed concerns by leaders of developed countries regarding the recession that followed both oil crises of the 1970s and the "deeply troubling air of uncertainty and anxiety" that was shared by Canadians. The Bank of Canada reported that economic problems had been accelerated and magnified. Inflation was most commonly between 9% and 10% annually, and prime interest rates were over 10%.
Global context
Historically, the US had been by far the world's largest oil producer, and the world oil market had been dominated by a small number of giant multinational (mostly-American) oil companies (the so-called "Seven Sisters of oil": Standard Oil of New Jersey, alias Exxon (US); Standard Oil of New York, alias Mobil (US/UK); Standard Oil of California, alias Chevron (US), Gulf Oil, now part of Chevron (US); Texaco, now part of Chevron (US); Anglo-Persian Oil Company, alias BP (UK); and Royal Dutch Shell, alias Shell (UK/Netherlands). During the late 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, and the early 1970s, the discovery and development of many giant oil and gas fields outside the US by those and other companies kept the world flooded with cheap oil. Meanwhile, global demand increased to take advantage of the increased global supply at lower prices. In particular, US oil consumption increased faster than production, and the country, which had been a net oil exporter, became a major oil importer.
In 1970, US oil production unexpectedly peaked and started to decline, which caused global oil markets to tighten rapidly as the US started to import more and more Arab oil. As the decade continued, global demand caught up with global supply, and two major oil price shocks occurred: the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 oil crisis. The first occurred after the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), whose membership is the Arab members of the similarly named Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), plus Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia, imposed an embargo on oil exports to the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Japan, and Canada in retaliation for supporting for Israel during the Yom Kippur War. US producers had been able to defeat the 1967 oil embargo by ramping up domestic production and flooding the world market with additional product at cut-rate prices, but declining domestic production and the ongoing rise in global demand prevented a similar response to the 1973 Arab embargo. The result was immediate shortages and lineups for gasoline in importing countries, particularly the US, which signalled the end of decades of cheap oil and a change in the balance of power from consuming countries, which now included the United States, to producing countries. On October 16, 1973, the Ministerial Committee of the Persian Gulf's OPEC membership announced an immediate rise in its posted price from $2.18 to $5.12 per barrel of oil. "Thus for the first time in oil history, the producing countries assumed power to consider and set the oil price unilaterally, and independently of the" Seven Sisters.
The Yom Kippur War ended in October, but the price of oil continued to increase, and by January 1974, it had quadrupled to US$12 a barrel. "The more than seven-fold increase in the oil price from $1.80/b in 1970 to $13.54/b in 1978 created profound and far-reaching changes in the world oil balance, as well as the prevailing relationships among major oil producers, principal oil importers, and the major oil companies... [and the] spectacular jump of the crude spot price to more than $US40/b following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, turned the global oil market into total disarray." The Norwegian economics historian Ola Honningdal Grytten described that period in the 1970s as one of a prolonged global recession and slow growth that affected most developed economies.
The 1979 oil crisis, precipitated by the Iranian Revolution and compounded by the Iran–Iraq War, was the second major market disturbance in the 1970s. "The curtailment of oil supplies and the skyrocketing of oil prices had far-reaching effects on producers, consumers, and the oil industry itself."
In his State of the Union Address in January 1980, US President Jimmy Carter described how his country's "excessive dependence on foreign oil is a clear and present danger," and he called for a "clear, comprehensive energy policy for the United States."
Canadian context
The Canadian petroleum industry arose in parallel with that of the US. The first oil well in North America was dug in Ontario in 1848 by using picks and shovels, one year before the first oil well in the United States had been drilled in Pennsylvania. By 1870, Canada had 100 oil refineries in operation and was exporting oil to Europe. However, the oil fields of Ontario were shallow and small, and oil production started to decline around 1900 while the automobile started to become popular. In contrast, US oil production grew rapidly after huge discoveries had been made in Texas, Oklahoma, California, and elsewhere. By the end of World War II, Canada imported 90% of its oil, mostly from the US.
The situation changed dramatically in 1947, when Imperial Oil drilled a well near Leduc, Alberta, to see what was causing peculiar anomalies on its newly introduced reflection seismology surveys. The peculiar anomalies turned out to be oil fields, and Leduc No. 1 was the discovery well for the first of many large oil fields. As a consequence of the large finds, cheap and plentiful Alberta oil produced a huge surplus of oil on the Canadian Prairies, which had no immediate market since the major oil markets were in Ontario and Quebec. In 1949, Imperial Oil applied to the federal government to build the Interprovincial Pipeline (IPL) to Lake Superior, which allowed it to supply the Midwestern United States. By 1956, the pipeline had been extended via Sarnia, Ontario, to Toronto; at , it became the longest oil pipeline in the world. The federal government gave approval to build a pipeline in Western Canada, and in 1953, the Transmountain Pipeline was built from Edmonton to Vancouver, British Columbia, with an extension to northwest Washington. The pipelines did more to improve the energy security of the United States than that of Canada since the Canadian government was more interested in Canada's trade balance than in military or energy security. The Canadian government assumed that Eastern Canada could always import enough oil to meet its needs and that imported oil would always be cheaper than domestic oil.
National Energy Board
The National Energy Board (NEB) was created in 1959 "to monitor and report on all federal matters of energy as well as regulate pipelines, energy imports and exports and utility rates and tariffs." The NEB regulated mostly the construction and the operation of oil and natural gas pipelines crossing provincial or international borders. The Board approved pipeline traffic, tolls, and tariffs under the authority of the National Energy Board Act.
From its introduction in 1961 to its end in September 1973, the National Oil Policy (NOP) was the cornerstone of Canadian energy policy. It "established a protected market for domestic oil west of the Ottawa Valley, which freed the industry from foreign competition," and the five eastern provinces, which included major refineries in Ontario and Quebec, continued to rely on foreign imports of crude oil, such as from Venezuela. In 1973, "the federal government announced the extension of the inter-provincial oil pipeline to Montreal (completed in 1976), froze prices of domestic crude and certain oil products, and sought to control export prices. The federal government announced this change in policy so that supply problems in the United States would not automatically raise prices for Canadian consumers."
After the first OPEC price shock in 1973, the federal government "formally broke the link between domestic prices and international prices. The objective of 'made-in-Canada' prices for crude oil was to protect Canadians across the country from the whims of the world oil market and to provide producers with enough incentives to develop new energy resources."
In 1981, the Edmonton economist Brian Scarfe claimed that the NEB's setting of the price of oil and natural gas in Canada meant that producers did not receive full world prices for the resource and that consumers were not charged world prices. He claimed that the subsidies had a number of side effects, including larger trade deficits, larger federal budget deficits, higher real interest rates, and higher inflation.
Petro-Canada
In 1975, in response to the world energy crisis, the federal government created Petro-Canada, a Canadian crown corporation that was national oil company. Petro-Canada was involved in the massive Hibernia oil find off Newfoundland and was a partner in the Syncrude oil sands venture in Fort McMurray, Alberta. The Alberta oil industry was then overwhelmingly owned by Americans, who were also the major importer of Albertan oil. The Petro-Canada Centre (1975–2009) was known in the oil patch as "Red Square" until its purchase by Suncor. The NEP included plans for a "greatly-expanded Petro-Canada."
Price controls
In 1974, Canada inaugurated its first system for pricing oil with three objectives: to regulate prices of domestic crude oil by federal-provincial agreements, to subsidize imported oil so that consumers in Eastern Canada would enjoy lower prices, and to control prices and quantities of crude oil and products in the exporting market. Synthetic crude oil (upgraded petroleum from oil sands) was exempted from the policy and was sold at the world price. The federal government levied a tax on all oil refined in Canada to pay for the difference between the price of synthetic and that of conventional crude oil.
The federal budget in October 1980 reflected the concern that Canada could "become increasingly dependent on insecure foreign supplies and, therefore, unnecessarily subject to the vagaries of the world oil market."
On 28 October 1980, Finance Minister Allan MacEachen introduced the National Energy Program but cautioned that things could get worse if there were "new shocks coming from the price of oil or food or if the upward momentum of costs and prices proves impervious to the economic climate I am seeking to create."
Goals
The NEP's goals were "security of supply and ultimate independence from the world oil market; opportunity for all Canadians to participate in the energy industry; particularly oil and gas, and to share in the benefits of its expansion; and fairness, with a pricing and revenue-sharing regime which recognizes the needs and rights of all Canadians."
The NEP had three main objectives: increase ownership of the oil industry by Canadians; price energy fairly for Canadian consumers; and provide Canadian energy self-sufficiency. The NEP was also designed to promote lower prices with price controls; promote exploration for oil in Canada; promote alternative energy sources; and increase federal government revenues from oil sales through a variety of taxes and revenue-sharing agreements.
The NEP's Petroleum Gas Revenue Tax (PGRT) instituted a double-taxation mechanism that did not apply to other commodities, such as gold and copper (see "Program details" item (c), below), "to redistribute revenue from the [oil] industry and lessen the cost of oil for Eastern Canada" in an attempt to insulate the Canadian economy from the shock of rising global oil prices (see "Program details" item (a), below). In 1981, Scarfe argued that by keeping domestic oil prices below world market prices, the NEP was essentially mandating provincial generosity and subsidizing all Canadian consumers of fuel, because of Alberta and the other oil-producing provinces (such as Newfoundland, which received funding by the NEP for the Hibernia project).
However, Marc Lalonde, the Minister of Energy Mines and Resources whose department oversaw development of the NEP would later say in 1986: "The major factor behind the NEP wasn't Canadianization or getting more from the industry or even self sufficiency," [...] "The determinant factor was the fiscal imbalance between the provinces and the federal government [...] "Our proposal was to increase Ottawa's share appreciably, so that the share of the producing provinces would decline significantly and the industry's share would decline somewhat."
Details
The NEP "had three principles: (1) security of supply and ultimate independence from the world market, (2) opportunity for all Canadians to participate in the energy industry, particularly oil and gas, and to share in the benefits of its expansion, and (3) fairness, with a pricing and revenue-sharing regime which recognizes the needs and rights of all Canadians."
"The main elements of the program included:
(a) a blended or 'made-in-Canada' price of oil, an average of the costs of imported and domestic oil, which will rise gradually and predictably but will remain well below world prices and will never be more than 85 per cent of the lower of the price of imported oil or of oil in the US, and which will be financed by a Petroleum Compensation Charge levied on refiners...;
(b) natural gas prices which will increase less quickly than oil prices, but which will include a new and rising federal tax on all natural gas and gas liquids;
(c) a petroleum and gas revenue tax of 8 per cent applied to net operating revenues before royalty and other expense deductions on all production of oil and natural gas in Canada...;
(d) the phasing out of the depletion allowances for oil and gas exploration and development, which will be replaced with a new system of direct incentive payments, structured to encourage investment by Canadian companies, with added incentives for exploration on Canada Lands (lands which the federal government held the mineral rights as opposed to private lands and lands which provinces held the mineral rights);
(e) a federal share of petroleum production income at the wellhead which will rise from about 10 per cent in recent years to 24 per cent over the 1980-83 period, with the share of the producing provinces falling from 45 to 43 per cent and that of the industry falling from 45 to 33 per cent over the same period;
(f) added incentives for energy conservation and energy conversion away from oil, particularly applicable to Eastern Canada, including the extension of the natural gas pipe-line system to Quebec City and the maritimes, with the additional transport charges being passed back to the producer; and
(g) a Canadian ownership levy to assist in financing the acquisition of the Canadian operations of one or more multinational oil companies, with the objective of achieving at least 50 per cent Canadian ownership of oil and gas production by 1990, Canadian control of a significant number of the major oil and gas corporations, and an early increase in the share of the oil and gas sector owned by the Government of Canada."
Impact on Alberta
Revenues
While the program increased domestic price controls, the emphasis on revenue sharing and incentives for oil exploration on federally owned lands was viewed critically by Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed. Lougheed fought the program vigorously in the courts and in public, where he actively stoked Alberta nationalism in a television address claiming the program would bring more "Ottawa" to the province. Prior to the announcement of the National Energy Program, Lougheed had threatened to reduce Alberta's production of oil and gas to counter any federal program to increase taxes. If Alberta reduced production, Central Canada refineries and other businesses would need to purchase foreign oil which would be heavily subsidized by the federal government, a cost that it could not afford to with a $13.7 billion deficit in 1980. Lougheed finally decided to exercise this authority to force Trudeau to concede some measures of the Program, and Lougheed announced on television a 60,000 barrel reduction to Alberta's production of crude oil to take place over nine months beginning in April 1981, and the suspension of two oil sands projects. Lougheed however pledged that he would not allow a national oil shortage to occur, and would suspend the cuts if a shortage occurred. The threat was successful as Trudeau and Lougheed signed "an oil and gas prices and revenue sharing" agreement in 1981:
Lougheed's success in the agreement was marked by a widely published photograph of a celebratory champagne toast with Trudeau and himself. Lougheed later admitted to regretting the toast.
Lougheed's battle with the National Energy Program corresponded with the 1980s oil glut where energy prices dropped dramatically due to falling demand. Lougheed was forced to lower royalty rates through the Oil and Gas Activity Program and focused the government's efforts on natural gas diversification to stem falling revenues and a declining economy.
Helliwell et al. (1983) reported that the early 1980s energy price declines prompted the federal and provincial governments to update their revenue-sharing agreements. The amended agreements allowed for $4.2 billion in higher revenues ($1.7 billion for the federal government and $1.2 billion each for the provincial governments and industry), which was 30% of the increase that would have been gained from going to world prices. According to Helliwell et al., the NEP made did not in fact cause industry to be significantly exposed to the declining global oil prices, but the largest part of direct revenue losses accrued to governments. Thus, industry operated throughout the period of the NEP under relatively-similar oil prices, the "made-in-Canada" oil price (see item (a) in National Energy Program Details, above).
In 1981, the Edmonton economist Scarfe argued that the greatest impact of the NEP was its failure to deliver the revenues that had been originally forecast in the 1980 federal budget. Introduced by Finance Minister Allan MacEachen, it projected a reduction of federal deficits from $14.2 billion in 1980 to $11.8 billion in fiscal 1984, primarily from substantial increases in revenues from the oil and gas sector, and the maintenance of expenditures. Scarfe speculated that the NEP would discourage large-scale oil investment projects and thus reduce these projected revenues. Federal deficits had been expected to decrease, primarily by substantial increases in revenues from oil and gas. Instead, by 1983, the Ministry of Finance had concluded that the federal government had established a structural deficit of $29.7 billion, an increase from 3.5% of GNP in 1980 to 6.2% of GNP in 1983.
Estimates have placed Alberta's losses between $50 billion and $100 billion because of the NEP. Alberta still initially enjoyed an economic surplus due to high oil prices, but the surplus was heavily reduced by the NEP, which, in turn, stymied many of Lougheed's policies for economic diversification to reduce Alberta's dependence on the cyclical energy industry, such as the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, and also left the province with an infrastructure deficit. In particular, the Alberta Heritage Fund was meant to save as much of the earnings during high oil prices to act as a "rainy day" cushion if oil prices collapsed because of the cyclical nature of the oil and gas industry. The NEP was one reason that the fund failed to grow to its full potential. In 2022, the Heritage Savings Trust Fund has $19B, a moderate increase on the $13B it had in 1986. This slow growth occurred despite some years when Alberta government had multi-billion-dollar surpluses.
GDP
Alberta's GDP was between $60 billion and $80 billion annually during the years of the NEP (1980-1986). It is unclear whether the estimates took into account the decline in world crude oil prices that began only a few months after the NEP had come into force, the graph of long-term oil prices shows that prices adjusted for inflation did not drop below pre-1980s levels until 1985. Since the program was cancelled in 1986, the NEP was active for five years with among the most expensive for oil prices on record, and the NEP prevented Alberta's economy from fully realising those prices.
Provincial per capita federal contributions
In inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars, the year the NEP took effect (1980) per capita had fiscal contributions by Alberta to the federal government increase 77% over 1979 levels from $6,578 in 1979 to $11,641 in 1980. In the five years prior to the NEP (1975–1979), the per capita contributions by Alberta had approximated the fluctuations in the price of oil (see graph Fluctuations: Oil Prices & Alberta Per Capita Federal Contributions 1975–1981). In 1980, however, the inflation-adjusted average price of oil was only 5% higher than the previous year, but the per capita contributions from Alberta rose 77% (see graph Fluctuations: Oil Prices & Alberta Per Capita Federal Contributions 1975–1981).
Again in inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars, the year the NEP was terminated (1986) had per capita contributions to the federal government by Alberta collapse to $680, a mere 10% of 1979 levels.
During the NEP years (1980–1985), only one other province was a net contributor per capita to the federal government: Saskatchewan, which also produces oil. In 1980 and 1981, Saskatchewan was a net per capita contributor to the federal government with a peak in 1981 at only $514, compared to Alberta's peak of $12,735 the same year, both values being 2004 inflation-adjusted dollars. Thus, during the NEP (1980 to 1985), Alberta was the sole overall net contributor to the federal government, and all other provinces enjoyed being net recipients.
Bankruptcies and unemployment
In 1982, during the severe global recession, there were over 30,000 consumer bankruptcies in Canada, a 33% increase over the previous year. The bankruptcy rate began to fall from 1983 to 1985, as the economy strengthened. From 1980 to 1985, bankruptcies per 1,000 businesses in Canada peaked at 50% above the 1980 rate. Meanwhile, the bankruptcy rate in Alberta rose by 150% after the NEP took effect.
Since bankruptcies and real estate prices did not fare as negatively in Central Canada as in the rest of Canada and in the United States, the NEP might have had a positive effect in Central Canada.
The unemployment rate in Alberta rose from 3.7 percent in September 1980 to 12.4 percent in 1984 following passage of the NEP.
Price of oil
Throughout the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s, the retail price of petroleum in Canada consistently remained close to the price of gasoline in the United States and was often lower than prices seen in the US, especially during the 1970s price spikes. The NEP, which raised the price of fuel in the West and coincided with a hike in provincial gas taxes in Ontario and Quebec, made the retail price of gasoline in Canada become noticeably higher than that of the US, a trend that has continued ever since.
Abolition
The rationale for the program weakened when world oil prices began a slow decline in the early 1980s and collapsed in late 1985 (see figure above, "Long-Term Oil Prices, 1861–2007"). A phased shutdown was commenced by Jean Chrétien, then Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.
In the 1984 election, the Progressive Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney was elected to a majority in the House of Commons with the support of Western Canada after he had campaigned against the NEP. However, Mulroney did not eliminate the last vestiges of the program until two-and-a half years later, when world oil prices had dropped below pre-1980s levels (as adjusted for inflation: see Long-Term Oil Prices, 1861–2007).
On June 1, 1985, after extensive discussions between the federal Government and the governments of the oil-producing provinces, the "Western Accord on Energy" was agreed. It provided for the full deregulation of oil prices and for allowing the market forces of international and local supply and demand determine prices. Included in the full deregulation of domestic oil prices, the Western Accord also "abolished import subsidies, the export tax on crude and oil products, and the petroleum compensation charge. It also phased out PIP grants and the PGRT. In addition, controls were lifted on oil exports."
Legacy and Western alienation
The NEP was extremely unpopular in Western Canada, especially in Alberta, where most of Canada's oil is produced. With natural resources falling constitutionally within the domain of provincial jurisdictions, many Albertans viewed the NEP as a detrimental intrusion by the federal government into the province's affairs. Edmonton economist Scarfe argued that for people in Western Canada, especially Alberta, the NEP was perceived to be at their expense in benefiting the eastern provinces.
Particularly vilified was Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, whose Liberals had no seat west of Manitoba. Ed Clark, a senior bureaucrat in the Trudeau Liberal government, helped to develop the National Energy Program and earned himself the moniker "Red Ed" in the Alberta oil industry. Shortly after Brian Mulroney had taken office, Clark was fired.
Petro-Canada, established in 1975, was responsible for implementing much of the Program. Petro-Canada was given the backronym "Pierre Elliott Trudeau Rips Off Canada" by opponents of the National Energy Program.
According to Mary Elizabeth Vicente, an Edmonton librarian who wrote an article on the National Energy Program in 2005, the popular western slogan during the NEP, appearing on many bumper stickers, was "Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark." Other bumpers stated "I'd rather push this thing a mile than buy gas from PetroCan."
McKenzie argued in 1981 that politically, the NEP heightened distrust of the federal government in Western Canada, especially in Alberta, where many believed the NEP to be an intrusion of the federal government into an area of provincial jurisdiction.
According to a National Post journalist,
See also
Energy policy of Canada
References
External links
Vicente, Mary Elizabeth. 2005. Political Issues - National Energy Program This short article was written byh an Edmonton librarian in 2005. No bibliography.
Breghat, Francois. 6 July 2002. “Energy Policy.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historical Foundation of Canada.
“Trudeau, Lougheed Attend Energy Conference.” Television News. Reporter: Don McNeill. CBC Television. CBC Archives. April 9, 1975. January 6, 2005.
“West Historically Exploited for Resources.” Radio Interview. John Crispo, interviewed. Sunday Magazine. CBC Radio. CBC Archives. December 9, 1973. January 6, 2005.
Federal departments and agencies of Canada
Economic history of Canada
History of Alberta
Energy in Canada
Energy policy
Petroleum politics
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount%20Kailash
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Mount Kailash
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Mount Kailash (also Kailasa; Kangrinboqê or Gang Rinpoche; ; ; , ), is a mountain in the Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It has an altitude of . It lies in the Kailash Range (Gangdisê Mountains) of the Transhimalaya, in the western part of the Tibetan Plateau. Mount Kailash is less than north of the western trijunction of the borders of China, India, and Nepal.
Mount Kailash is located close to Lake Manasarovar and Lake Rakshastal. The sources of four major Asian rivers lie close to this mountain and the two lakes. These rivers are the Indus, the Sutlej, the Brahmaputra, and the Karnali (a tributary of the Ganges, fed by Mabja Zangbo). Mount Kailash is considered sacred in four religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Bon.
A consistent influx of pilgrims hailing from India, Tibet, Nepal, and various other nations embark on a journey to venerate the mountain.
Etymology
The mountain is known as "" (; var. ) in Sanskrit. The name also could have been derived from the word "" (), which means "crystal".
In his Tibetan-English dictionary, Chandra (1902: p. 32) identifies the entry for 'kai la sha' () which is a loan word from Sanskrit.
The Tibetan name for the mountain is Gang Rinpoche (Tibetan: གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་; ). Gang or Kang is the Tibetan word for snow peak analogous to alp or hima; rinpoche is an honorific meaning "precious one" so the combined term can be translated "precious jewel of snows". Alice Albinia lists some of the names for the mountain, and its religious significance to various faiths:
Another local name for the mountain is Tisé mountain, which derives from ti tse in the Zhang-Zhung language, meaning "water peak" or "river peak", connoting the mountain's status as the source of the mythical Lion, Horse, Peacock and Elephant Rivers, and in fact the Indus, Yarlung Tsangpo/Dihang/Brahmaputra, Karnali and Sutlej all begin in the Kailash-Lake Manasarovara region.
Geology
The region around Mount Kailash and the Indus headwaters area is typified by wide-scale faulting of metamorphosed late-Cretaceous to mid-Cenozoic sedimentary rocks which have been intruded by igneous Cenozoic granitic rocks. Mount Kailash appears to be a metasedimentary roof pendant supported by a massive granite base. The Cenozoic rocks represent offshore marine limestones deposited before subduction of the Tethys oceanic crust. These sediments were deposited on the southern margin of the Asia block during subduction of the Tethys oceanic crust before the collision between the Indian and Asian continents.
Religious significance
In Hinduism
In Hinduism, it is traditionally recognized as the abode of Shiva, who resided there along with his consort goddess Parvati and their children, Ganesha and Kartikeya.
In the Uttara Kanda section of the epic Ramayana, it is said that Ravana attempted to uproot the Mount Kailash as retaliation to lord Shiva, who in turn, pressed his right big toe upon the mountain, trapping Ravana in between. This version of lord Shiva is also referred to as Ravananugraha, or favour form to Ravana while seated in mount Kailash.
According to the epic Mahabharata, it is said that the Pandava brothers, along with their wife Draupadi, trekked to the summit of Mount Kailash on their path to liberation, as it is considered to be a gateway to Heaven, also known as Swarga Loka.
One description in the Vishnu Purana of the mountain states that its four faces are made of crystal, ruby, gold, and lapis lazuli. It is a pillar of the world and is located at the heart of six mountain ranges symbolizing a lotus. The Vishnu Purana talks about Lord Shiva sitting in lotus position, engaged in deep meditation within the confines of a mountain, and fully immersed in a state of perpetual bliss.
In Jainism
According to Jain scriptures, Ashtapada is the site where the first Jain Tirthankara, Rishabhadeva attained moksha (liberation). In Jain tradition, it is believed that after Rishabhdeva attained nirvana, his son emperor Bharata Chakravartin had constructed three stupas and twenty four shrines of the 24 tirthankaras over there with their idols studded with precious stones and named it Sinhnishdha.
Nirvan Kand Bhashya also mentions of Ashtapada.(दोहा)
वीतराग वन्दौं सदा, भाव सहित सिर नाय |
कहूं काण्ड निर्वाण की, भाषा सुगम बनाये ||
(चौपाई)
अष्टापद आदीश्वर स्वामि, वासुपूज्य चम्पापुरि नामि |
नेमिनाथ स्वामी गिरनार, वन्दौं भाव भगति उर धार ||1||
चरम तीर्थकर चरम शरीर, पावापुरि स्वामि महावीर |
शिखर समेद जिनेसुर बीस, भावसहित वन्दौं निश दीस ||2||In Jain tradition, the 24th and last Tirthankara, Vardhamana Mahavira, was taken to the summit of Meru by Indra shortly after his birth, after putting his mother Queen Trishala into deep slumber. There he was bathed and anointed with precious unctions.
In Buddhism
Mount Kailash (Kailasa) is known as Mount Meru in Buddhist texts. It is central to its cosmology, and a major pilgrimage site for some Buddhist traditions.
Vajrayana Buddhists believe that Mount Kailash is the home of the buddha Cakrasaṃvara (also known as Demchok), who represents supreme bliss.
Numerous sites in the region are associated with Padmasambhava, whose tantric practices in holy sites around Tibet are credited with finally establishing Buddhism as the main religion of the country in the 7th–8th century CE.
It is said that Milarepa (), champion of Vajrayana, arrived in Tibet to challenge Naro Bönchung, champion of the Bön religion of Tibet. The two magicians engaged in a terrifying sorcerers' battle, but neither was able to gain a decisive advantage. Finally, it was agreed that whoever could reach the summit of Kailash most rapidly would be the victor. While Naro Bönchung sat on magic drum and soared up the slope, Milarepa's followers were dumbfounded to see him sitting still and meditating. Yet when Naro Bönchung was nearly at the top, Milarepa suddenly moved into action and overtook him by riding on sunlight, thus winning the contest. He did, however, fling a handful of snow on to the top of a nearby mountain, since known as Bönri, bequeathing it to the Bönpo and thereby ensuring continued Bönpo connections with the region.
Pilgrimage
This pilgrimage journey, called yatra, is different because there are no well built temples, shrines, or comfort facilities in the traversing path that leads to the mountain.
The history of the Kailash-Manasarovar pilgrimage
The history of the Mount Kailash pilgrimage is closely tied with the history of the pilgrimage to Lake Manasarovar. For this history, see the section 'History and texts' on the Lake Manasarovar page.
The Kailash parikrama, or kora
The Sanskrit word for circumambulation of a holy site is 'Parikrama', and the Tibetan word for the same act is 'kora'. Both words are widely used to describe the act of circumambulating Mount Kailash. Pilgrims of several religions believe that doing the parikrama/kora of Mount Kailash on foot is a spiritually beneficial practice that can bring various positive effects, such as the collection of meritorious karma, the cleansing of sins from one's consciousness, and good fortune. The circumambulation is made in a clockwise direction by Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains, while Bönpos circumambulate the mountain in a counterclockwise direction.
In Tibet, the Kailash parikrama/kora begins and ends at Darchen, at an elevation of , a small outpost that swells with pilgrims at certain times of the year. The path around Mount Kailash is long. Walking around the mountain has to be done on foot, pony or domestic yak, and takes some three days of trekking. The highest point on the pilgrimage is the Drölma pass at 5,650m (18,540 feet). One camps on two nights en route: firstlly, near the meadow of Dirapuk gompa, some before the pass, and secondly, after crossing the pass and going as far downhill as possible (while passing by Gauri Kund lake less than a hundred meters below the Drolma La pass). The second night halt is often at Zutulphuk.
Most pilgrims take three days to complete the pilgrimage. Some pilgrims, usually Tibetans or Nepali people from high altitude regions, do it in a single day. Some other pilgrims venture a very demanding regimen, performing body-length prostrations over the entire length of the circumambulation. The pilgrim bends down, kneels, prostrates full-length, makes a mark with her fingers, rises to her knees, prays, and then crawls forward on hands and knees to the mark made by her fingers before repeating the process. With this method, the pilgrimage takes at least three weeks to complete. Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist pilgrims often sing 'nyelu' songs while crossing the Dolma La pass. These Tibetan songs proclaim the timeless fraternity of all pilgrims who cross paths on a Kailash pilgrimage.
The mountain is located in a particularly remote and inhospitable area of the Tibetan Himalayas. A few modern amenities, such as benches, resting places, and refreshment kiosks, exist to aid the pilgrims in their devotion. For varied reasons for the different faiths that revere the mountain, setting foot on Mount Kailash's slopes and attempting to climb it is forbidden.
Mountaineering
In 1926, Hugh Ruttledge studied the north face, which he estimated was 6,000 feet (1,800 m) high and "utterly unclimbable" and thought about an ascent of the northeast ridge, but he ran out of time. Ruttledge had been exploring the area with Colonel R. C. Wilson, who was on the other side of the mountain with his Sherpa named Tseten. Wilson said that Tseten told him: Sahib, we can climb that!' ... as he too saw that this [the SE ridge] represented a feasible route to the summit." Wilson went on to explain that although he was serious about climbing Kailash, he ran into unexpected difficulties: "Just when I discovered an easy walk to the summit of the mountain, heavy snow began to fall, making the ascent impossible."
Herbert Tichy was in the area in 1936, attempting to climb Gurla Mandhata. When he asked one of the Garpons of Ngari whether Kailash was climbable, the Garpon replied: "Only a man entirely free of sin could climb Kailash. And he wouldn't have to actually scale the sheer walls of ice to do it – he'd just turn himself into a bird and fly to the summit."
Reinhold Messner was given the opportunity by the Chinese government to climb in the mid-1980s. But he declined, saying "If we conquer this mountain, then we conquer something in people's souls."
In 2001, reports emerged that the Chinese government had given permission for a Spanish team to climb the peak, which caused an international backlash. Chinese authorities disputed the reports, and stated that any climbing activities on Mount Kailash were strictly prohibited.
Access
Since the 1980s, the numbers of pilgrims going on a Kailash pilgrimage annually has grown considerably. In 2007, over 70,000 people visited the area around Mount Kailash and the two holy lakes nearby. Most of them were pilgrims, and these included about 18,000 foreign visitors (foreign here implying non-Tibetan/non-Chinese). In the years just before the COVID-19 pandemic, several thousand pilgrims from India were going to this pilgrimage every year, mostly through Nepal. While many more aspire to undertake this pilgrimage, it remains out of reach for most due to high expenses; the risks and difficulties posed by the remoteness of Mount Kailash and the high-altitude of the pilgrimage route, and the unpredictable closures of this pilgrimage due to adverse developments in the regional geopolitics.
Every year, Kailash pilgrimage is possible only between April and mid-October. April-June and September-October are recommended periods for the pilgrimage; in July and August, monsoonal rains can make the circumambulation somewhat challenging. Between late October and early April, the winter conditions can be extremely severe in this high, windswept corner of Tibet, and generally make the pilgrimage impossible.
For all foreigners, including pilgrims from India and Nepal, passports and specific Chinese visas valid for the Kailash pilgrimage are necessary.
Routes through India
Indian pilgrims have the option of going either through the annual Kailash pilgrimages organised by the Government of India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), or through private groups organised by various travel companies. For the pilgrimages organised by the Government of India, a person has to be an Indian citizen with a passport valid for at least six months as on September 1 of the current year, besides certain other conditions. The selection of candidates by the government is done through a "fair computer-generated, random, gender-balanced selection process", through which the selected candidates are also assigned either of the two routes to Kailash currently open through India: the Lipu Lekh pass in Uttarakhand and the Nathu La pass in Sikkim. No private travel companies are allowed to conduct the Kailash-Manasarovar pilgrimage via these two routes. In each batch of Kailash Manasarovar Yatra organised by the Government of India, an Indian government official accompanies the group as a Liaison Officer.
The Lipu Lekh route involves briefing and medical checks in Delhi, from there travel to the Lipu Lekh pass, and beyond that travel in Tibet for the Kailash-Manasarovar pilgrimage. Till recently, the Lipu Lekh route required 5-7 days of trekking along the Indian side of the Mahakali valley, from Narayan Ashram till the Lipu Lekh pass. Thereon, the travel to Taklakot and Darchen in Tibet would happen by bus or other vehicles. In 2020, a new motorable road was inaugurated to the Lipu Lekh pass through the Indian side of the Mahakali valley, removing the need to walk the Indian part of the Lipu Lekh route to Mount Kailash.
The Nathu La route involves briefing and medical checks in Delhi; then a flight from Delhi to Bagdogra; Bagdogra to Nathu La pass via Gangtok, and three days of road journeys in Tibet till arrival in Darchen on the third day.
Routes through Nepal
The groups organised by travel companies usually go through Nepal. People from all nationalities can go in these groups. Anyone who has the valid documents and can pay, can go with such groups. Generally, there are fewer medical requirements involved in going to Kailash-Manasarovar with private travel companies.
In recent years, the general route via Nepal has been the route through the Humla district in northwestern Nepal. This route involves three flights ahead of Kathmandu: Kathmandu-Nepalgunj, Nepalgunj-Simikot, and Simikot-Hilsa (Simikot-Hilsa by helicopter). From Hilsa, the group crosses into Tibet (China). Hilsa to Darchen can be done within a single day. But generally, groups acclimatize at Taklakot for a night, and also tend to stay at Chiu Gumba by the shores of Lake Manasarovar for a night, before arriving at Darchen.
There is also a possibility of viewing Mount Kailash from within Nepal. This is possible from the Lapcha La pass above the Limi valley, in district Humla. This route involves trekking from Simikot to Lapcha La, a journey that usually takes 4-5 days. This option has been becoming known as a means to get the 'darshan' of Kailash especially in times when entry into Tibet has become forbidden for any reason.
A second major route through Nepal, which actually used to be the main route to Kailash through Nepal till the April 2015 Nepal Earthquake, is the Tatopani-Zangmu route. It was closed for four years following extensive damage due to the 7.8 Richter-scale-intensity earthquake, till 2019. Zangmu to Darchen is a 3-4 day drive.
A third major route through Nepal is the Rasuwa-Gyirong route. Gyirong to Darchen is a three-day drive. This route is close to the Tatopani-Zangmu route, and became important especially in the period when the Tatopani-Zangmu route was closed for four years.
Routes through Tibet
For private travel companies, both in Nepal and in Tibet (China), another important route to Kailash is the one via Lhasa. In this one, pilgrims first arrive at Lhasa by road, flight or other means, and from there they make a four-day road journey to Lake Manasarovar or Darchen. Other than the Lipu Lekh route through India and the Humla route through Nepal, all the major routes to Kailash through Tibet - from Lhasa, Zangmu, Gyirong, and Nathu La - involve 3-4 days of long drives through the high-altitude Tibetan plateau and some mountain ranges on it, to reach to Darchen.
Climate change
Climate change due to global warming is happening three times faster on the Tibetan Plateau than anywhere else in the world. Mount Kailash is located in a mountain range upon the Tibetan Plateau, near the plateau's western edges. According to local observers, the land around Mount Kailash has been growing warmer in recent years; the pilgrimage season isn't as cold as it used to be. According to available data from the region, glaciers are retreating, lakes are shrinking, the amount of barren land is increasing, and the eventual thawing of the permafrost in this region may lead to uncertain effects on water resources and carbon cycles. The intergovernmental organisation ICIMOD is involved in ongoing efforts to generate knowledge on the ecological, social, and economic effects of climate change, and sustainable ways to cope with them, in the Chinese region around Mount Kailash and the bordering areas of Uttarakhand (India) and western Nepal, in a transboundary project called the Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative.
See also
Gurla Mandhata
Kawagarbo
Om Parvat
Adi Kailash
Kinnaur Kailash
Mani Mahesh Kailash
Shrikhand Kailash
Sacred mountains
Kailash: A Journal of Himalayan Studies
References
Bibliography
Albinia, Alice. (2008) Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River. First American Edition (2010) W. W. Norton & Company, New York.
Bubriski, Kevin and Abhimanyu Pandey. Kailash Yatra: a Long Walk to Mt Kailash through Humla. New Delhi: Penguin Random House, 2018
Nomachi, Kazuyoshi. Tibet. Boston: Shambhala, 1997.
Thurman, Robert and Tad Wise, Circling the Sacred Mountain: A Spiritual Adventure Through the Himalayas. New York: Bantam, 1999. — Tells the story of a Western Buddhist making the trek around Mount Kailash.
Snelling, John. (1990). The Sacred Mountain: The Complete Guide to Tibet's Mount Kailas. 1st edition 1983. Revised and enlarged edition, including: Kailas-Manasarovar Travellers' Guide. Forwards by H.H. the Dalai Lama of Tibet and Christmas Humphreys. East-West Publications, London and The Hague. .
(Elevation) Chinese Snow Map "Kangrinboqe", published by the Lanzhou Institute of Glaciology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Allen, Charles (1982) A Mountain in Tibet: The Search for Mount Kailas and the Sources of the Great Rivers of Asia. (London, André Deutsch).
Allen, Charles. (1999). The Search for Shangri-La: A Journey into Tibetan History. Little, Brown and Company. Reprint: Abacus, London. 2000. .
"A Tibetan Guide for Pilgrimage to Ti-se (Mount Kailas) and mTsho Ma-pham (Lake Manasarovar)." Toni Huber and Tsepak Rigzin. In: Sacred Spaces and Powerful Places in Tibetan Culture: A Collection of Essays. (1999) Edited by Toni Huber, pp. 125–153. The Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, H.P., India. .
Stein, R. A. (1961). Les tribus anciennes des marches Sino-Tibétaines: légendes, classifications et histoire. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris. (In French)
Johnson, Russell, and Moran, Kerry. (1989). The Sacred Mountain of Tibet: On Pilgrimage to Kailas. Park Street Press, Rochester, Vermont. .
Govinda, Lama Anagarika. (1966). The Way of the White Clouds: A Buddhist Pilgrim in Tibet. Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, Colorado. Reprint with foreword by Peter Matthiessen: Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boston, Massachusetts. 1988.
Thubron, Colin. (2011). "To a Mountain in Tibet." Chatto & Windus, London.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%20Dmowski
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Roman Dmowski
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Roman Stanisław Dmowski (Polish: , 9 August 1864 – 2 January 1939) was a Polish politician, statesman, and co-founder and chief ideologue of the National Democracy (abbreviated "ND": in Polish, "Endecja") political movement. He saw the Germanization of Polish territories controlled by the German Empire as the major threat to Polish culture and therefore advocated a degree of accommodation with another power that had partitioned Poland, the Russian Empire. He favoured the re-establishment of Polish independence by nonviolent means and supported policies favourable to the Polish middle class. While in Paris during World War I, he was a prominent spokesman for Polish aspirations to the Allies through his Polish National Committee. He was an instrumental figure in the postwar restoration of Poland's independent existence. Throughout most of his life, he was the chief ideological opponent of the Polish military and political leader Józef Piłsudski and of the latter's vision of Poland as a multinational federation against German and Russian imperialism.
Dmowski never wielded significant political power except for a brief period in 1923 as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nevertheless, he was one of the most influential Polish ideologues and politicians of his time. A controversial personality most of his life, Dmowski desired a homogeneous, Polish-speaking and Roman Catholic-practicing nation as opposed to Piłsudski's vision of Prometheism, which sought a multi-ethnic Poland reminiscent of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. As a result, his thinking marginalized other ethnic groups living in Poland, particularly those in the Kresy (which included Jews, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians), and he was regarded as anti-Semitic. He remains a key figure of Polish nationalism, and has been frequently referred to as "the father of Polish nationalism".
Early life
Dmowski was born on 9 August 1864 in Kamionek near Warsaw, in the Kingdom of Poland, which three years later became part of the Russian Empire (as Vistula Land). His father was a road construction worker and later an entrepreneur. Dmowski attended schools in Warsaw, studying biology and zoology at Warsaw University, from which he graduated in 1891. As a student he became active in the Polish Youth Association "Zet" (Związek Młodzieży Polskiej "Zet"), where he was active in opposing socialist activists. The Zet had links with the Liga Polska (Polish League), which Dmowski joined in 1889. A key concept of the League was Polskość (Polishness), as opposed to trójlojalizm (triple loyalty).
He also organized a student street demonstration on the 100th anniversary of the Polish Constitution of For this he was imprisoned by Russian Imperial authorities for five months in the Warsaw Citadel. He was then exiled to Libau and Mitau in Kurland (Latvia). After 1890 he was also developing as a writer and publicist, publishing political and literary criticism in Głos, where he became close friends with Jan Ludwik Popławski, who would be his mentor. After his release from exile, Dmowski became quite critical of the Liga Polska, accusing it of being controlled by Free Masons and being generally incompetent.
In April 1893 Dmowski co-founded the National League and became its first leader. The group differed from the Liga Polska as Dmowski insisted that there could be one Polish national identity, leading him to attack regionalism as a form of split loyalty that was weakening the Polish nation. The same concept also excluded minorities such as Jews from his projected Polish nation. In November 1893 he was sentenced to exile from the Vistula Land. Dmowski went to Jelgava, and soon afterward in early 1895 to Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (modern Lviv, Ukraine, Lwów in Polish), where together with Popławski he began to publish a new magazine, (All-Polish Review). In 1897, he co-founded the National-Democratic Party (Stronnictwo Narodowo-Demokratyczne or "Endecja"). The Endecja was to serve as a political party, a lobby group and an underground organization that would unite Poles who espoused Dmowski's views into a disciplined and committed political group. In 1899, Dmowski founded the Society for National Education as an ancillary group. From 1898 to 1900, he resided in France and Britain, and travelled to Brazil. In 1901 he took up residence in Kraków, then part of the Austrian partition of Poland. In 1903 he published a book, (Thoughts of a Modern Pole), one of the first if not the first nationalist manifesto in European history.
In Myśli nowoczesnego Polaka, Dmowski was harshly critical of the old Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for exalting the nobility and for its tolerance for minorities, which contradicted his principle of "healthy national egoism". He also rejected liberalism and socialism for putting the individual above the nation-state, which for Dmowski was the only unit that really mattered. Dmowski argued that the privileged status of the aristocracy in the old Commonwealth had hindered national development, and what was needed was a strong sense of nationality that would unite the nation into one. He also attacked the Romantic nationalism of the 19th century for viewing Poland as the "Christ of Nations", instead arguing for a hard-headed national egoism. Dmowski opposed revolutionary means of fighting, preferring political struggle, and aimed for independence through increased autonomy. After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Dmowski met with Colonel Akashi Motojiro, the Japanese military attache in Sweden and spy-master for Japanese intelligence activities, in Kraków in March 1904. Although reluctant to collaborate with the Japanese, Dmowski agreed to Akashi's proposal that Polish soldiers in the Russian Army in Manchuria might be encouraged to defect to the Imperial Japanese Army. He travelled to Tokyo to work out the details, and at the same time made a successful effort to prevent the Japanese from aiding a rival Polish political activist, Józef Piłsudski, who wanted assistance for a planned insurrection in Poland, an aspiration which Dmowski felt would be doomed to failure.
In 1905, Dmowski moved to Warsaw, back in the Russian partition of Poland, where he continued to play a growing role in the Endecja faction. During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Dmowski favoured co-operation with the Imperial Russian authorities and welcomed Nicholas II's October Manifesto of 1905 as a stepping stone on the road towards renewed Polish autonomy. During the revolt in Łódź in June 1905, the Endeks, acting under Dmowski's orders, opposed the uprising led by Piłsudski's Polish Socialist Party (PPS). During the course of the "June Days", as the Łódź uprising is known, a miniature civil war raged between Endecja and the PPS. As a result of the elections to the First Duma (legislative assembly in the late Russian Empire), which were boycotted by the PPS, the National Democrats won 34 of the 55 seats allotted to Poland. Dmowski and the Endecja saw the Duma as a way of improving Congress Poland's position within the Russian Empire as he considered guerrilla war to be impractical. Dmowski himself was elected a deputy to the Second and Third Dumas (beginning on 27 February 1907) and was president of the Polish caucus within it. He was seen as a conservative, and despite being a Polish caucus leader, he often had more influence on the Russian than the Polish deputies. Between October 1905 and early 1906, over 2000 Poles were killed by Russian police or military and an additional 1000 were sentenced to death. Even though Dmowski was often denounced as a sellout, he maintained that he was undertaking the only realistic course of action for Poland under the circumstances.
Over time, Dmowski became more receptive to Russian overtures, particularly neoslavism, warming up to the idea that Poland and Russia may have a common future, particularly due to Germany being their common enemy. In light of what he regarded as Russian cultural inferiority, Dmowski felt that a strong Russia was more acceptable than a strong Germany. In Dmowski's view, the Russian policy of Russification would not succeed in subjugating the Poles, while the Germans would be far more successful with their Germanisation policies. He explained those views in his book Niemcy, Rosja i kwestia Polska (Germany, Russia and the Polish Cause), published in 1908. This was not a universally popular attitude, and in 1909 Dmowski resigned his deputy mandate to focus on an internal political struggle within Endecja. He lost the election to the Fourth Duma in 1912 to a socialist politician, Eugeniusz Jagiełło from the Polish Socialist Party – Left, who won with the support of the Jewish vote. Dmowski viewed this as a personal insult; in exchange, he organized a successful boycott of Jewish businesses throughout much of Poland.
World War I
In 1914 Dmowski praised the Grand Duke Nicholas's Manifesto to the Polish Nation of 14 August, which vaguely assured the Tsar's Polish subjects that there would be greater autonomy for "Congress Poland" after the war and that the Austrian provinces of East and West Galicia, together with the Pomerania province of Prussia, would be annexed to the Kingdom of Poland when the German Empire and Austria-Hungary were defeated. However, subsequent attempts on the part of Dmowski to have the Russians make firmer commitments along the lines of the Grand Duke Nicholas's manifesto were met with elusive answers. Nonetheless, Dmowski's pro-Russian and anti-German propaganda succeeded in frustrating Piłsudski's plans of causing an anti-Russian uprising, and bolstered his position as an important Polish political figure on the international scene, especially with the Triple Entente. In November he became one of the active members of the Polish National Committee.
In 1915, Dmowski, increasingly convinced of Russia's impending defeat, decided that to support the cause of Polish independence he should go abroad to campaign on behalf of Poland in the capitals of the western Allies. During his lobbying efforts, his friends included such opinion makers as the British journalist Wickham Steed. In particular, Dmowski was very successful in France, where he made a very favourable impression on public opinion. He gave a series of lectures at Cambridge University, which impressed the local faculty enough that he was given an honorary doctorate. In August 1917, in Paris, he created a new Polish National Committee aimed at rebuilding a Polish state. That year he also published, at his own expense, Problems of Central and Eastern Europe, that he soon distributed among numerous English speaking diplomats. He was a vocal critic of Austro-Hungary, and campaigned for the creation of a number of Slavic states (including for the Czechs, as well as non-Slavic Hungarians and Romanians) in its place. Within the Polish political community, he opposed those who supported allying themselves with Germany and Austria-Hungary, including supporters of a vague German proposal for a Regency Kingdom of Poland, with undefined borders, that Germany promised to create after World War I (while in secret, actually planning to strip it of up to 30,000 square kilometres for German colonization after the removal of its Polish population).
In 1917 Dmowski laid out a plan for the borders of a re-created Polish state; it would include Greater Poland, Pomerania with Gdańsk, Upper Silesia, south strip of East Prussia and Cieszyn Silesia. In September that year, Dmowski's National Committee was recognized by the French as the legitimate government of Poland. The British and the Americans were less enthusiastic about Dmowski's National Committee, but likewise recognized it as Poland's government a year later. However, the Americans refused to provide backing for what they regarded as Dmowski's excessive territorial claims (Dmowski's Line). The American President Woodrow Wilson reported, "I saw Mr. Dmowski and Mr. Paderewski in Washington, and I asked them to define Poland for me, as they understood it, and they presented me with a map in which they claimed a large part of the earth."
In part, Wilson's objections stemmed from the dislike of Dmowski personally. One British diplomat stated, "He was a clever man, and clever men are distrusted; he was logical in his political theories and we hate logic; and he was persistent with a tenacity which was calculated to drive everybody mad." Another area of objection to Dmowski was with his antisemitic remarks, as in a speech he delivered at a dinner organized by the writer Gilbert Keith Chesterson, that began with the words, "My religion came from Jesus Christ, who was murdered by the Jews." When British Prime Minister David Lloyd George criticized Dmowski and the committee, Dmowski saw this as a result of Lloyd George's representation of Jewish interests. He refused to admit a single Polish Jew to the National Committee, despite support for such a proposal from Paderewski. A number of American and British Jewish organizations campaigned during the war against their governments recognizing the National Committee. Another leading critic of Dmowski was the historian Sir Lewis Namier, a Jew who served as the British Foreign Office's resident expert on Poland during the war, and who claimed to be personally offended by antisemitic remarks made by Dmowski. Namier fought hard against British recognition of Dmowski and "his chauvinist gang". In turn, Dmowski's experiences at that time convinced him of the existence of an international "Judeo-Masonic conspiracy, unfriendly towards Poland and intransigently hostile to his [Endecja] party".
Post-World War I
At the end of the World War, two governments claimed to be the legitimate governments of Poland: Dmowski's in Paris and Piłsudski's in Warsaw. To put an end to the rival claims of Piłsudski and Dmowski, the composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski met with both men and persuaded them to reluctantly join forces. Both men had something that the other needed. Piłsudski was in possession of Poland after the war, but as the Pole who had fought with the Austrians for the Central Powers against the Russians, he was distrusted by the Allies. Piłsudski's newly reborn Polish Army, formed from his Polish Legions, needed arms from the Allies, something that Dmowski was much better suited to persuade the Allies to deliver upon. Beyond that, the French were planning to send the Blue Army of General Józef Haller – loyal to Dmowski – back to Poland. The fear was that if Piłsudski and Dmowski did not put aside their differences, a civil war might break out between their partisans. Paderewski was successful in working out a compromise in which Dmowski and himself were to represent Poland at the Paris Peace Conference while Piłsudski was to serve as provisional president of Poland. Not all of Dmowski's supporters accepted this compromise, and on 5 January 1919, Dmowski's partisans (led by Marian Januszajtis-Żegota and Eustachy Sapieha) attempted a failed coup against Piłsudski.
As a Polish delegate at the Paris Peace Conference and a signatory of the Versailles Treaty, Dmowski exerted a substantial influence on the Treaty's favorable decisions regarding Poland. On 29 January 1919, Dmowski met with the Allies' Supreme War Council for the first time; his five-hour presentation there, delivered in English and French, was described as brilliant. At the meeting, Dmowski stated that he had little interest in laying claim to areas of Ukraine and Lithuania that were formerly part of Poland, but no longer had a Polish majority. At the same time Dmowski strongly pressed for the return of Polish territories with Polish-speaking majorities taken by Prussia from Poland in the 1790s, as well as for some territories beyond Poland's pre-1772 borders, such as southern East Prussia and Upper Silesia. Dmowski himself admitted that from a purely historical point of view, ethnic-linguistic considerations aside, the Polish claims to Silesia were not entirely strong, but he claimed it for Poland on economic grounds, especially the coal fields. Moreover, Dmowski claimed that German statistics had lied about the number of ethnic Poles living in eastern Germany and that "these Poles were some of the most educated and highly cultured in the nation, with a strong sense of nationality and men of progressive ideas". In addition, Dmowski, with the strong backing of the French, wanted to send the "Blue Army" to Poland via Danzig, Germany (modern Gdańsk, Poland); it was the intention of both Dmowski and the French that the Blue Army create a territorial fait accompli. This proposal created much opposition from the Germans, the British and the Americans, and finally the Blue Army was sent to Poland in April 1919 via land. Piłsudski was opposed to needlessly annoying the Allies, and it has been suggested that he did not care much about the Danzig issue.
In regard to Lithuania, Dmowski did not view Lithuanians as having a strong national identity, and viewed their social organization as tribal. Those areas of Lithuania that had either Polish majorities or minorities were claimed by Dmowski on the grounds of self-determination. In the areas with Polish minorities, the Poles would act as a civilizing influence; only the northern part of Lithuania, which had a solid Lithuanian majority, was Dmowski willing to concede to the Lithuanians. His initial plans for Lithuania involved giving it an autonomy within a Polish state. This caused Dmowski to have very acrimonious disputes with the Lithuanian delegation at Paris. With regard to the former Austrian province of East Galicia, Dmowski claimed that the local Ukrainians were quite incapable of ruling themselves and also required the civilizing influence of Polish leadership. In addition, Dmowski wished to acquire the oil fields of Galicia. His support for that was however more lackluster than that for other regions, and he opposed Piłsudski's proposal of an alliance or federation with Ukrainians. From the Allied powers only the French supported Polish claims to Galica wholeheartedly. In the end, it was the actual fighting on the ground in Galicia, and not the decisions of the diplomats in Paris, that decided that the region would be part of Poland. The French did not back Dmowski's aspirations in the Cieszyn Silesia region, and instead supported the claims of Czechoslovakia. Dmowski for a long time had praised the Czechs as model for national restoration in face of Germanization, and despite his dispute with Czech political leaders, his opinion of the Czech people as a whole remained positive.
Forever a political opponent of Piłsudski, Dmowski favored what he called a "national state", a state in which the citizens would speak Polish and be of the Roman Catholic faith. If Piłsudski's vision of Poland was based on the historical multiethnic state that had existed under the Jagiellonian dynasty, which he hoped to recreate with a multinational federation (Międzymorze federation), Dmowski's vision was the earlier Polish kingdom ruled by the Piast dynasty, ethnically and religiously homogeneous. Piłsudski believed in a wide definition of Polish citizenship in which peoples of different languages, cultures and faiths were to be united by a common loyalty to the reborn Polish state. Dmowski regarded Piłsudski's views as dangerous nonsense, and felt that the presence of large number of ethnic minorities would undermine the security of Polish state. At the Paris Peace Conference, he argued strenuously against the Minority Rights Treaty forced on Poland by the Allies.
Dmowski himself was disappointed with the Treaty of Versailles, partly because he was strongly opposed to the Minority Rights Treaty imposed on Poland and partly because he wanted the German-Polish border to be somewhat farther to the west than Versailles allowed. Both of these disappointments Dmowski blamed on what he claimed was the "international Jewish conspiracy". Throughout his life, Dmowski maintained that the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George had been bribed by a syndicate of German-Jewish financiers to give Poland what Dmowski considered to be an unfavorable frontier with Germany. His relations with Lloyd George were very poor. Dmowski found Lloyd George to be arrogant, unscrupulous and a consistent advocate of ruling against Polish claims to the West and the East. Dmowski was very offended by Lloyd George's ignorance of Polish affairs and in particular was enraged by his lack of knowledge about river traffic on the Vistula. Dmowski called Lloyd George "the agent of the Jews". Lloyd George in turn claimed in 1939 that "Poland had deserved its fate".
Later life
Dmowski was a deputy to the 1919 Legislative Sejm, but he attended only a single session, seeing the Sejm as too chaotic for him to exert much influence; he also spent much of that year either in Paris or recuperating from a lung infection, in Algeria. He reorganized endecja into a new party, Popular National Union (Związek Ludowo-Narodowy). During the Polish-Soviet War he was a member of the Council of National Defense and a vocal critic of Piłsudski's policies. In the aftermath of the war, Polish eastern borders were similar, if somewhat smaller, from what became known as Dmowski's Line.
When the time came to write a Polish constitution in the early 1920s, the National Democrats insisted upon a weak presidency and strong legislative branch. Dmowski was convinced that Piłsudski would become president and saw a weak executive mandate as the best way of crippling his rival. The constitution of 1921 did indeed outline a government with a weak executive branch. When Gabriel Narutowicz, a friend of Piłsudski, was elected president by the Sejm in 1922, he was seen by many among endecja as having been elected with the support of the parties representing the national minorities, with the notable backing of the Polish Jewish politician Yitzhak Gruenbaum. After Narutowicz's election, the National Democrats started a major campaign of vilification of the "Jewish president" elected by "foreigners". Subsequently, a fanatical National Democratic supporter, painter Eligiusz Niewiadomski assassinated Narutowicz.
He was a Minister of Foreign Affairs from October to December 1923 in the government of Wincenty Witos. That year he received the Order of Polonia Restituta from the government of Władysław Sikorski.
In 1926, in the aftermath of Piłsudski's May coup d'état, Dmowski founded the Camp of Great Poland (Obóz Wielkiej Polski), though he would find himself more of an ideologue than a leader, as he was displaced by new, younger politicians. In 1928 he founded the National Party (Stronnictwo Narodowe). He kept publishing newspaper articles, brochures and books. With declining health, he mostly retired from politics by 1930. In 1934, a section of the youth wing of the Endecja found Dmowski insufficiently hardline for their taste and broke away to found the more radical National Radical Camp (known by its Polish acronym as the ONR). His last major campaign was a series of political attacks on the alleged "Judeo-Masonic" associates of President Ignacy Mościcki.
Death
Weakening in health, Dmowski moved to the village of Drozdowo near Łomża, where he died on 2 January 1939 at the age of 74.
Dmowski was buried at the Bródno Cemetery in Warsaw in the family grave. His funeral was widely attended, with at least 100,000 attendees; the Piłsudski's legacy sanacja government snubbed him without any official representative attending.
Political outlook
Theorist of nationalism
From his early student years, Dmowski was opposed to socialism and suspicious of federalism; he desired Polish independence and a strong Polish state, and saw socialism and conciliatory federalist policies as prioritizing an international idea over the national one. Over the years he became an influential European nationalist thinker. Dmowski had a scientist's background and thus preferred logic and reason over emotion and passion. He once told famous pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski that music was "mere noise". Dmowski felt very strongly that Poles should abandon what he considered to be foolish romantic nationalism and useless gestures of defiance and should instead work hard at becoming businessmen and scientists. Dmowski was very much influenced by Social Darwinist theories, then popular in the Western world, and saw life as a merciless struggle between "strong" nations who dominated and "weak" nations who were dominated.
In his 1902 book Myśli nowoczesnego Polaka (Thoughts of a Modern Pole), Dmowski denounced all forms of Polish Romantic nationalism and traditional Polish values. He sharply criticized the idea of Poland as a spiritual concept and as a cultural idea. Instead Dmowski argued that Poland was merely a physical entity that needed to be brought into existence through pragmatic bargaining and negotiating, not via what Dmowski considered to be pointless revolts – doomed to failure before they even began – against the partitioning powers. For Dmowski, what the Poles needed was a "healthy national egoism" that would not be guided by what Dmowski regarded as the unrealistic political principles of Christianity. In the same book, Dmowski blamed the fall of the old Commonwealth on its tradition of tolerance. While at first critical of Christianity, Dmowski viewed some sects of Christianity as beneficial to certain nations, through not necessarily Poland. Later in 1927 he revised this earlier view and renounced his criticism of Catholicism, seeing it as an essential part of the Polish identity. Dmowski saw all minorities as weakening agents within the nation that needed to be purged. In his 1927 book Kościół, Naród I Państwo (Church, Nation and State), Dmowski wrote: "Catholicism is not a supplement to Polishness; it is somehow rooted in its very existence and to an important extent it even forms its existence. The attempt to separate Catholicism from Polishness in Poland, cutting off the nation from religion and Church, would mean destroying the very existence of the nation. The Polish State is a Catholic State. This is not because the vast majority of its inhabitants are Catholics or because of the percentage of Catholics. From our point of view, Poland is Catholic in the full sense of the word, because we are a national state, and our people is a Catholic people".
In the pre-war years, the history of Poland was contested terrain as different ideological forces pulled Polish nationalists in opposite directions, represented by Dmowski and Piłsudski. Throughout his career, Dmowski deeply disliked Piłsudski and much of what he stood for. Dmowski came from an impoverished urban background and had little fondness for Poland's traditional elitist social structure. Instead, Dmowski favored a modernizing program and felt Poles should stop looking back nostalgically at the old Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which Dmowski held in deep contempt and should instead embrace the "modern world". In particular, Dmowski despised the old Commonwealth for its multi-national structure and religious tolerance. He saw the ethnic minorities in Poland (Jews, Belarusians, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians) as a direct threat to the cultural identity, integrity and ethnic cohesion of Poland, directly in competition with the Polish petit bourgeoisie (small bourgeoisie, aka semi-autonomous peasantry) with which he identified. Dmowski argued that good citizens should only have one allegiance to the nation, and there is no middle ground. In his ideal view of Poland there would be no ethnic minorities; they would either be polonized or forced to emigrate. The success of his nationalistic ideas, also adopted and propagated by nationalists in other countries (such as Lithuania and Ukraine) contributed to the disappearance of the tolerant, multiethnic Polish-Lithuanian identity.
Dmowski admired Italian Fascism. In the summer of 1926 Dmowski wrote a series of articles admiring Mussolini and the Italian fascist model, and helped organize the Camp of Great Poland (OWP), a broad anti-Sanacja front modeled on Italian fascism that was known for its anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence. Later he nonetheless tried to ensure that OWM would not blindly imitate the Italian or German models.
Antisemitism
Dmowski often communicated his belief in an "international Jewish conspiracy" aimed against Poland. In his essay "Żydzi wobec wojny" (Jews on the War) written about World War I, Dmowski claimed that Zionism was only a cloak to disguise the Jewish ambition to rule the world. Dmowski asserted that once a Jewish state was established in Palestine, it would form "the operational basis for action throughout the world". In the same essay, Dmowski accused the Jews of being Poland's most dangerous enemy and of working hand in hand with the Germans to dismember Poland again. Dmowski believed that the 3,000,000 Polish Jews were far too numerous to be absorbed, and assimilated into the Polish Catholic culture. Dmowski had advocated emigration of the entire Jewish population of Poland as the solution to what he regarded as Poland's "Jewish problem", and over time came to argue for increasing harsh measures against the Jewish minority, though he never suggested killing Jews. He opposed physical violence, arguing for the boycotts of Jewish businesses instead, later supplemented with their separation in the cultural area (through policies such as numerus clausus). Dmowski made anti-Semitism a central element in Endecja's radical nationalist outlook. Endecja's crusade against Jewish cultural values gained mounting intensity in the antisemitism of the 1930s, but there were no major pogroms or violent attacks on the Jews in Poland until the German Nazis occupied Poland and made it their mission in 1939–1944. In his 1931 novel Dziedzictwo, Dmowski wrote: "A Jewish woman will always be a Jew, a Jewish man, a Jew. They have another skin, they smell differently, they carry the evil among the nations". In his 1938 essay Hitleryzm a Źydzi, Dmowski wrote: "The tool of the Jews was Wilson, who was concerned that the Allied troops did not cross the German border...Lloyd George stopped regions from becoming part of Poland as they were before: the great majority of our Upper Silesia, Malborg, Sztum and Kwidzyn, and also Gdansk. Lloyd George acted like an agent of the Jews, and nothing gave the impression that Wilson was any less dependent on them. The Jews, therefore, negotiated an agreement with German Freemasonry, who, in return for help at the conference on the border question, agreed to provide them with a leading position in the German Republic. Eventually, after the peace, the Jews worked for Germany and against Poland in England, American, and even in France, but especially stove so that Germany became less and less a German state and more a Jewish one".
For Dmowski, one of Poland's principal problems was that not enough Polish-speaking Catholics were middle-class, while too many ethnic Germans and Jews were. To remedy this perceived problem, he envisioned a policy of confiscating the wealth of Jews and ethnic Germans and redistributing it to Polish Catholics. Dmowski was never able to have this program passed into law by the Sejm, but the National Democrats did frequently organize "Buy Polish" boycott campaigns against German and Jewish shops. The first of Dmowski's antisemitic boycotts occurred in 1912 when he attempted to organize a total boycott of Jewish businesses in Warsaw as "punishment" for the defeat of some Endecja candidates in the elections for the Duma, which Dmowski blamed on Warsaw's Jewish population. Throughout his life, Dmowski associated Jews with Germans as Poland's principal enemies; the origins of this identification stemmed from Dmowski's deep anger over the forcible "Germanization" policies carried out by the German government against its Polish minority during the Imperial period, and over the fact that most Jews living in the disputed German/Polish territories had chosen to assimilate into German culture, not Polish culture. In Dmowski's opinion Jewish community was not attracted to the cause of Polish independence and was likely to ally itself with potential enemies of Polish state if it would benefit their status.
Dmowski was also a vocal opponent of freemasonry, as well as of feminism.
Recognition and legacy
Dmowski is considered one of the most influential conservative politicians in the history of modern Poland, although his legacy is controversial and he continues to be a highly polarizing figure. He has been called "the father of Polish nationalism" and the "icon of the contemporary Polish political right" who, as a signatory of the Treaty of Versailles, played a critical role in the restoration of Polish independence after World War I. Conversely, he has been described as the founder of contemporary Polish antisemitism and criticized for his disdain for women's rights. Dmowski's life and work has been subject to numerous academic articles and books. Andrzej Walicki in 1999 noted that main sources on Dmowski are Andrzej Micewski's Roman Dmowski (1971), Roman Wapiński's Roman Dmowski (1988) and Krzysztof Kawalec's Roman Dmowski (1996).
Suppressed in communist Poland, Dmowski's legacy has been more widely recognised since the fall of communism in 1989. A was named after him in 1992. In November 2006 a statue of Roman Dmowski was unveiled in Warsaw; it led to a series of protests from organizations which see Dmowski as a fascist and an enemy of progressive politics; due to similar protests plans to raise statues or memorials elsewhere have been delayed. The political commentator, Janusz Majcherek, wrote in 2005: "Instead of a modern Conservative Party, such as was able to modernize Britain or Spain, we find in Poland a cheap copy of the Endecja, in which an old-fashioned pre-war nationalism mingles with a pre-Vatican II Catholicism, united in its rejection of modernization and mistrust of the West". Both Jarosław Kaczyński and Lech Kaczyński have cited Dmowski as an inspiration. Lech, then the mayor of Warsaw, supported the erection of the Dmowski statue in 2006.
On 8 January 1999 he was honoured by the Polish Sejm with special legislation "for his achievement for the independence of Poland and expansion of Polish national consciousness". The document honours him also for founding Polish school of political realism and responsibility, shaping Polish (especially the Western) borders and "emphasizing the firm connection between Catholicism and Polishness for the survival of the Nation and the rebuilding of the State".
Dmowski was awarded several state awards: the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1923), Order of the Star of Romania and Order of Oranje-Nassau. He received honorary degrees from Cambridge University (1916) and the University of Poznań (1923). He refused other awards. On 11 November 2018 (100th anniversary of Polish Independence), he was posthumously awarded the Order of the White Eagle.
Selected works
Myśli nowoczesnego Polaka (Thoughts of a Modern Pole), 1902.
Niemcy, Rosja a sprawa polska (Germany, Russia and the Polish Cause), 1908. French translation published under the title: La question polonaise (Paris 1909).
Separatyzm Żydów i jego źródła (Separatism of Jews and its Sources), 1909.
Upadek myśli konserwatywnej w Polsce (The Decline of Conservative Thought in Poland), 1914.
Polityka polska i odbudowanie państwa (Polish Politics and the Rebuilding of the State), 1925.
Zagadnienie rządu (On Government), 1927.
Kościół, naród i państwo (The Church, Nation and State), 1927.
Świat powojenny i Polska (The World after War and Poland), 1931.
Przewrót (The Coup), 1934.
See also
History of Poland (1918-1939)
Poland in World War I
Dmowski's Line
References
Further reading
Cang, Joel: "The Opposition Parties in Poland and Their Attitude towards the Jews and the Jewish Question" Jewish Social Studies, Volume 1, Issue #2, 1939. pages 241–256
Dabrowski, Patrice M. "Uses and Abuses of the Polish Past by Józef Piłsudski and Roman Dmowski," The Polish Review (2011) 56#1 pp. 73–109 in JSTOR
Davies, Norman "Lloyd George and Poland, 1919–20," Journal of Contemporary History, (1971) 6#3 pp 132–54 in JSTOR
Fountain, Alvin Marcus Roman Dmowski: Party, Tactics, Ideology 1895–1907, Boulder: East European Monographs, 1980 .
Groth, Alexander J. "Dmowski, Piłsudski and Ethnic Conflict in Pre-1939 Poland," Canadian-American Slavic Studies (1969) 3#1 pp 69–91.
Komarnicki, Titus Rebirth of the Polish Republic: A Study in the Diplomatic History of Europe, 1914–1920, London, 1957.
Kossert, Andreas. "Founding Father of Modern Poland and Nationalistic Antisemite: Roman Dmowski," in In the Shadow of Hitler: Personalities of the Right in Central and Eastern Europe edited by Rebecca Haynes and Martyn Rady, (2011) pp 89–105
Lundgreen-Nielsen, K. The Polish Problem at the Paris Peace Conference: A Study in the Policies of the Great Powers and the Poles, 1918–1919: Odense, 1979.
Macmillan, Margaret Paris 1919 : Six Months That Changed The World, New York : Random House, 2003, 2002, 2001 , pp 207–28
Mendelsohn, Ezra. The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983 .
Porter, Brian. When Nationalism Began to Hate. Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland, (Oxford University Press, 2000).
Seitz, Richard George. "Dmowski, Piłsudski, and the Ideological Clash in the Second Polish Republic." PhD dissertation University of Washington., 1975.
Valasek, Paul S. Haller's Polish Army in France, Chicago : 2006 .
Walicki, Andrzej. "The Troubling Legacy of Roman Dmowski," East European Politics & Societies (2000) 14#1 pp 12–46. stresses xenophobia, anti-Semitism and role of Church
Wandycz, Piotr Stefan "Dmowski's Policy and the Paris Peace Conference: Success or Failure?" from The Reconstruction of Poland, 1914–23, edited by P. Latawski: London, 1992.
Wandycz, Piotr S. "Poland's Place in Europe in the Concepts of Piłsudski and Dmowski," East European Politics & Societies (1990) 4#3 pp 451–468.
Zamoyski, Adam The Polish Way A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and their Culture, London: John Murray Ltd, 1987 .
In Polish
External links
Website dedicated to Roman Dmowski
Roman Dmowski's funeral (video)
TVP Opole documentary about Roman Dmowski
1864 births
1939 deaths
Writers from Warsaw
Politicians from Warsaw Governorate
Polish Roman Catholics
National League (Poland) members
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004%20United%20States%20Senate%20elections
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2004 United States Senate elections
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The 2004 United States Senate elections were held on November 2, 2004, with all Class 3 Senate seats being contested. They coincided with the re-election of George W. Bush as president and the United States House elections, as well as many state and local elections. Senators who were elected in 1998, known as Senate Class 3, were seeking re-election or retiring in 2004.
Republicans won six seats but lost two themselves, giving them a net gain of four seats. Five of the six gains came from Southern states. Conservative Democrat Zell Miller of Georgia, who campaigned for President Bush, chose not to run for re-election and Republican Johnny Isakson won his seat; Democrat Fritz Hollings of South Carolina chose not to run for re-election and was succeeded by Republican Jim DeMint; Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards chose not to run for re-election and Republican Richard Burr won his North Carolina seat; Democrat Bob Graham of Florida chose not to run for re-election, and his seat went to Republican Mel Martinez; and Louisiana Democrat John Breaux chose not to run for re-election and Republican David Vitter won his seat.
In South Dakota, Republican John Thune defeated the incumbent Senate minority leader Tom Daschle, marking the first and only time since 1952 that a sitting party leader lost re-election, as well as the only time that person was the minority leader. Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois chose not to run for re-election and Democrat Barack Obama won in a landslide, becoming the Senate's only black member and only the third popularly elected since Reconstruction. Also, Republican Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado chose not to run for re-election and Democrat Ken Salazar won the open seat.
This was the third consecutive election cycle for Senate Class 3 where the Democrats either broke even or lost seats. This also marked the first time since 1980 in which a presidential candidate from either party won with coattails in the Senate. , these are the last elections held during a presidential election year in which the Republicans made a net gain of seats. Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, was first elected to the Senate from Illinois in this election.
Results summary
Summary of the 2004 United States Senate elections results
{| class=wikitable style=text-align:center
|-
! colspan=2 rowspan=2 | Parties
| style="background-color:" |
| style="background-color:" |
| style="background-color:" |
| style="background-color:" |
| style="background-color:" |
! rowspan=2 | Total
|-
! Democratic
! Republican
! Independent
! Libertarian
! Others
|-
! colspan=2 | Before these elections
! 48
! | 51
! 1
! —
! —
! 100
|-
! colspan=2 | End of this Congress (two months later)
! 48
! | 51
! 1
| —
| —
! 100
|-
! colspan=2 | Not Up
| 29
| | 36
! 1
| —
| —
! 66
|-
! colspan=2 | Up
| | 19
| 15
| —
| —
| —
! 34
|-
| colspan=99 |
|-
! rowspan=4 style="background:#ccc" | Incumbentretired
! Total before
| | 5
| 3
| —
| —
| —
! 8
|-
! Held by same party
| —
| | 1
| —
| —
| —
! 1
|-
! Replaced by other party
| colspan="2" | 2 Republicans replaced by 2 Democrats 5 Democrats replaced by 5 Republicans
| —
| —
| —
! 7
|-
! Result after
| 2
| | 6
| —
| —
| —
! 8
|-
! rowspan=6 style="background:#cccccc" | Incumbentran
! Total before
| | 14
| 12
| —
| —
| —
! 26
|-
! Won re-election
| | 13
| 12
| —
| —
| —
! 25
|-
! Lost re-election
| colspan=2 | 1 Democrat replaced by 1 Republican
| —
| —
| —
! 1
|-
! Lost renomination, held by same party
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
! 0
|-
! Lost renomination, and party lost
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
! 0
|-
! Result after
| 13
| 13
| —
| —
| —
! 26
|-
! colspan=2 | Net gain/loss
| 4
| | 4
| —
| —
| —
! 4
|-
! colspan=2 | Total elected
| 15
| | 19
| —
| —
| —
! 34
|-
| colspan=99 |
|-
! colspan=2 | Result
! 44
! | 55
! 1
! —
! —
! 100
|-
| colspan=99 |
|-
! rowspan=2 style="background:#cccccc" | Popularvote
! Votes
! | 44,754,618
| 39,920,562
| 186,231
| 754,861
| 2,481,075
! 88,097,347
|-
! Share
! | 50.80%
| 45.31%
| 0.21%
| 0.86%
| 2.82%
! 100%
|-
Sources:
Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Elections
United States Elections Project at George Mason University
Change in composition
Before the elections
After the elections
Gains and losses
Retirements
Three Republicans and five Democrats retired instead of seeking re-election.
Defeats
One Democrat sought re-election but lost in the general election.
Post-election changes
One Democrat resigned on January 17, 2006, and was replaced by a Democratic appointee.
Final pre-election predictions
Several sites and individuals publish predictions of competitive seats. These predictions look at factors such as the strength of the incumbent (if the incumbent is running for reelection) and the other candidates, and the state's partisan lean (reflected in part by the state's Cook Partisan Voting Index rating). The predictions assign ratings to each seat, indicating the predicted advantage that a party has in winning that seat.
Most election predictors used:
"tossup": no advantage
"tilt" (used by some predictors): advantage that is not quite as strong as "lean"
"lean": slight advantage
"likely" or "favored": significant, but surmountable, advantage
"safe" or "solid": near-certain chance of victory
Where a site gives a percentage probability as its primary indicator of expected outcome, the chart below classifies a race as follows:
Tossup: 50-55%
Tilt: 56-60%
Lean: 61-75%
Likely: 76-93%
Safe: 94-100%
Race summary
Special elections during the 108th Congress
There were no special elections during the 108th Congress.
Elections leading to the next Congress
In these general elections, the winners were elected for the term beginning January 3, 2005; ordered by state.
All of the elections involved the Class 3 seats.
Closest races
In seven races the margin of victory was under 10%.
Alabama
Incumbent Republican Richard Shelby won re-election to a fourth term over Democratic perennial candidate Wayne Sowell
Shelby, who switched parties ten years prior, had over $11 million cash on hand. Shelby was chairman of the Banking Committee. Wayne Sowell became the first black U.S. Senate nominee of a major party in Alabama.
Alaska
Incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski of Anchorage, sought election to her first full term after being appointed to serve out the rest of her father's unexpired term when he resigned in December 2002 to become Governor of Alaska. Her main challenger was Democratic former Governor Tony Knowles, her father's predecessor as governor. Murkowski won by a slight margin.
Although Alaska is heavily Republican, popular opinion had swung against the Murkowski family because of a tax increase passed by Governor Frank Murkowski, Lisa Murkowski's father. In addition, many voters disapproved of apparent nepotism in the appointment of Lisa Murkowski to the Senate. Knowles, who as mentioned above preceded Frank Murkowski as governor, had enlisted extensive out-of-state support for his bid to take over Lisa Murkowski's Senate seat. However, veteran Republican Senator Ted Stevens taped advertisements warning Alaskans that electing a Democrat could result in less federal dollars for Alaska.
Lisa Murkowski had very low approval ratings as senator due to her father, Frank Murkowski, who at the time was the Governor of Alaska with extremely low approval ratings himself. Former Governor Tony Knowles ran against Murkowski. He ran as a Democrat who supported drilling in ANWR, in contrast to most Democrats. Ted Stevens tried to "rescue" her campaign and help her maintain her seat.
Arizona
Incumbent Republican John McCain won re-election to a fourth term with his largest victory over Democratic teacher Stuart Starky.
Since 1998, McCain challenged Texas Governor George W. Bush in the presidential primary and despite winning the New Hampshire primary, he lost the nomination. Solidifying his image as a maverick, he voted against the Bush tax cuts. He supported limits on stem cell research. He had a lopsided favorable ratings of 39% to 9% unfavorable in the most recent The New York Times/CBS News poll.
Stuart Starky, an eighth-grade teacher in South Phoenix, was widely known as a long-shot challenger. Starky stated that "I truly believe he's going to run for president again." Starky was called by The Arizona Republic a "sacrificial lamb" put on ballot because there were no chances to beat McCain. During his campaign, he debated McCain twice, once in Tucson and once in Flagstaff. He was also featured on the cover of Teacher Magazine, dubbed the "Unsinkable Stu Starky." Starky was defeated in a landslide. But, despite the relatively low percentage, he gained the highest vote per dollar amount in the country, spending only about $15,000 for his campaign (Starky's campaign may have been aided by John Kerry running for president).
Arkansas
Incumbent Democrat Blanche Lincoln ran for re-election. Lincoln won re-election over Republican State Senator Jim Holt while President George W. Bush carried the state with almost the same margin of victory.
The Democratic Party held super-majority status in the Arkansas General Assembly. A majority of local and statewide offices were also held by Democrats. This was rare even for the time in the South, where a majority of statewide offices were and still are held by Republicans. Arkansas had the distinction in 1992 of being the only state in the country to give the majority of its vote to a single candidate in the presidential election—native son Bill Clinton—while every other state's electoral votes were won by pluralities of the vote among the three candidates. Arkansas had since become more reliably Republican in presidential elections. The state voted for George W. Bush over John Kerry in 2004. Lincoln won by 2% less than she had in 1998.
Democrats at the time had an overwhelming majority of registered voters, and the Democratic Party of Arkansas was more conservative than the national entity. Two of Arkansas' three Democratic Representatives at the time were members of the Blue Dog Coalition, which tends to be more pro-business, pro-military spending, and socially conservative than the Democratic mainstream.
Lincoln was a popular incumbent. In March, she had an approval rating of 55%. Lincoln calls herself an advocate for rural America, having grown up on a farm herself. Holt is from Northwest Arkansas, who also lives on a farm. Holt was widely perceived as a long shot. By the end of June, he only raised $29,000, while Lincoln had over $5 million cash on hand. Lincoln won re-election by over 11%.
California
Incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer defeated Republican former Secretary of State Bill Jones. Boxer's 6.96 million votes set the record for the most votes cast for one candidate in one state in one election, until it was surpassed by Senator Dianne Feinstein's 7.75 million votes in 2012.
Boxer originally had decided to retire in 2004 but changed her mind to "fight for the right to dissent" against conservatives like Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Jones was widely considered as the underdog. Jones got a major endorsement from the popular Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two major candidates had a debate. Pre-election polling had Boxer leading in double digits. But he never released a single TV ad. Boxer portrayed Jones as too conservative for California, citing his votes in the California Assembly (1982 to 1994) against gun control, increased minimum wage, support for offshore drilling, and a loosening of environmental regulations.
Jones raised about $700,000 more than Boxer during the third quarter, pulling in $2.5 million to Boxer's $1.8 million. But overall, Boxer has raised $16 million to Jones' $6.2 million. And Boxer has spent about $7 million on radio and television ads alone.
The election was not close, with Boxer winning by an authoritative 20 point margin. Jones only performed well in rural parts of the state. Boxer on the other hand won almost all major metropolitan areas in the state. The race was called right when the polls closed at 11:00 P.M. EST, and 7:00 P.M. PTZ. Jones conceded defeat to Boxer at 11:12 P.M. EST, and 7:12 PTZ.
Colorado
Incumbent Republican Ben Nighthorse Campbell decided to retire instead of seeking a third term. The Democratic Attorney General of Colorado Ken Salazar won the open seat.
Before Campbell's retirement, no prominent Democrat had entered the race, with educator Mike Miles and businessman Rutt Bridges pursuing the Democratic nomination. After Campbell's retirement, many expected popular Republican Governor Bill Owens to enter the race, however he declined to run. Campbell's retirement and Owens' decision not to run prompted a number of prominent Democrats to reexamine the race.
On March 10, the same day Owens announced he would not run, U.S. Congressman Mark Udall entered the race. The next day, state Attorney General Ken Salazar entered the race, leading Udall to immediately withdraw and endorse him. Salazar lost to Mike Miles at the State nominating convention. In spite of this loss, the national Democratic Party backed Salazar with contributions from the DSCC and promotion of Salazar as the only primary candidate.
The two candidates got into an ideological battle, as U.S. Representative Bob Schaffer attacked Pete Coors, former CEO and chairman of Coors Brewing Company, because his company had provided benefits to the partners of its gay and lesbian employees, in addition to promoting its beer in gay bars. Coors defended himself by saying that he was opposed to same-sex marriage, and supported a constitutional amendment to ban it, although he noted that he supported civil unions for gay couples. According to the Rocky Mountain News, Coors described his company's pro-LGBT practices as "good business, separate from politics." Coors defeated Schaffer with 61% of the vote in the primary, with many analysts citing his high name recognition in the state as a primary factor.
Pete Coors ran as a moderate conservative. However, Salazar was also a moderate and a highly popular State Attorney General. Coors is also a great-grandson of Adolph Coors, founder of the brewing company. His father is Joseph Coors, president of the company and founding member of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Salazar narrowly won the open seat. It was one of only two Democratic pickups in the 2004 Senate elections; Illinois was the other.
According to the non-partisan OpenSecrets, Coors gave his own campaign $1,213,657 and received individual donations of $60,550 from other Coors family members.
A state record of over $11 million was raised during the election.
Connecticut
Incumbent Democrat Chris Dodd won re-election for a fifth term, beating Republican Jack Orchulli, CEO and co-founder of a Michael Kors's apparel company
Chris Dodd was one of the most powerful senators in congress. In the election cycle, Dodd raised over $7 million. His top five contributors were Bear Stearns, Citigroup, National Westminster Bank, Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs.
Republican nominee, Jack Orchulli, ran as fiscal conservative and social moderate. He broke ranks with his party on gay marriage and abortion. That put him on the same side as most voters in the blue state of Connecticut. He often talked about a "broken education system." He argued that Dodd has not done anything in his 30 years in congress to fix such issues as traffic problems in Fairfield County.
Orchulli launched a statewide TV ad campaign in September, as he spent over $1.1 million and pledged to spend "whatever it takes" if polls show he is gaining ground on Dodd.
Florida
Incumbent Democrat Bob Graham retired after three terms. The primary elections were held on August 31, 2004. Republican Mel Martínez won the open seat, beating Democrat Betty Castor, former president of the University of South Florida, former Education Commissioner of Florida, and former state senator. Martínez, a former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, was supported by the Bush administration.
Until the spring of 2004, Castor's fundraising was much slower than her Democratic and Republican rivals. In the spring, the campaign hired fundraising staff from the defunct presidential campaigns of Howard Dean and Bob Graham, and subsequently posted much higher fundraising numbers over the summer. Online grassroots techniques devised for the Dean campaign (Castor became a Dean Dozen candidate in August) were one contributing factor: another was the support of EMILY's List, which named Castor as its highest-rated candidate for the 2004 election cycle, even when her support for banning intact dilation and extraction (D&X) abortions was not in line with the EMILY's List support for woman's issues. The latter was a source of criticism during the August primary heat - a complaint was filed by a Deutsch supporter with the Federal Election Commission accusing inappropriate coordination with EMILY's List. The complaint was dismissed by the Federal Election Commission in 2005.
Castor's handling of Sami Al-Arian became another source of criticism during the campaign. In June, The American Democracy Project, a 527 group founded by Bernie Friedman, began attacking Castor's handling of the incident, alleging that she had sufficient evidence to fire Al-Arian in the mid-1990s. Castor responded by stating that she never had sufficient evidence to fire Al-Arian, who was a tenured professor at the time. On June 29, Senator Graham, who had previously remained outside of the Al-Arian controversy, released a statement that "Betty Castor acted appropriately as President of the University of South Florida to deal with Sami Al-Arian": later, Graham and Senator Bill Nelson brokered an agreement between the Democratic candidates to refrain from negative campaigning against each other, although this agreement appeared to break down in the final weeks of the race, when Deutsch launched attack ads on television.
Despite these controversies, Castor won the Democratic nomination on August 31. She was defeated, however, by Republican candidate Mel Martínez in a close race on November 2, 2004. The overwhelming support for Martínez among Latinos effectively counterbalanced Castor's relatively high popularity among swing voters throughout the state.
There was some speculation that Castor would run for Governor of Florida in 2006 to replace Jeb Bush, who was ineligible for re-election due to term limits, but she announced in 2005 that she would not be a candidate.
Georgia
Incumbent Democrat Zell Miller retired. Democratic U.S. Representative Denise Majette became both the first African American and the first woman to be nominated for the U.S. Senate in Georgia. Republican U.S. Representative Johnny Isakson won the open seat.
The results were almost a complete reversal from the previous election in 2000.
Majette's announcement that she would seek to replace Miller also caught Democrats by surprise, as she was not on anyone's call list when Democrats began seeking a candidate to replace Miller. Further skepticism among Democrats about the viability of her candidacy surfaced when she announced that "God" had told her to run for the Senate. She received important endorsements from U.S. Senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, along with many others in Washington who campaigned and raised money for Majette. Her Senate campaign slogan was "I'll be nobody's Senator, but yours."
A number of factors led to Majette's loss. These include her late start, her valuable time and money spent in the runoff, larger conservative turnout from a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages (which Majette opposed), the popularity of President George W. Bush in Georgia, and her lack of experience (being a one-term congresswoman).
Hawaii
Incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye won re-election to an eighth term over Republican, Campbell Cavasso, a former state representative.
Inouye won every single county with at least 70% of the vote. His best performance was in Kauai County, where he won with an estimated 80%; also was Cavasso's weakest performance, getting just 16.5% of the vote there.
Idaho
Incumbent Republican Mike Crapo won a second term in a landslide after no one filed for the Democratic nomination. Democrat Scott McClure conducted a write-in campaign but only received 4,136 votes, or about 1% of those cast.
Crapo won every county with over 95% of the vote. His weakest performance by far was in Latah County, where he got 95.6% of the vote to McClure's 4.4%.
Illinois
Incumbent Republican Peter Fitzgerald decided to retire after one term. The Democratic and Republican primary elections were held in March, which included a total of 15 candidates who combined to spend a record total of over $60 million seeking the open seat.
State Senator and future President Barack Obama won the Democratic primary and Jack Ryan won the Republican primary. Ryan later withdrew from the race four days after the Chicago Tribune persuaded a California court to release child custody records. The Illinois Republican State Central Committee chose former Diplomat Alan Keyes to replace Ryan as the Republican candidate.
The election was the first for the U.S. Senate in which both major party candidates were African American. Obama's 43% margin of victory was the largest in the state history of U.S. Senate elections. The inequality in the candidates spending for the fall elections – $14,244,768 by Obama and $2,545,325 by Keyes – is also among the largest in history in both absolute and relative terms.
Fitzgerald's predecessor, Democrat Carol Moseley Braun, declined to run. Barack Obama, a member of the Illinois Senate since 1997 and an unsuccessful 2000 Democratic primary challenger to four-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush for Rush's U.S House seat, launched a campaign committee at the beginning of July 2002 to run for the U.S. Senate, 21 months before the March 2004 primary, and two months later had David Axelrod lined up to do his campaign media. Obama formally announced his candidacy on January 21, 2003, four days after former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun announced she would not seek a rematch with U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald.
On April 15, 2003, with six Democrats already running and three Republicans threatening to run against him, incumbent Fitzgerald announced he would not seek a second term in 2004, and three weeks later popular Republican former Governor Jim Edgar declined to run, leading to wide open Democratic and Republican primary races with 15 candidates, including 7 millionaires (triggering the first application of the Millionaires' Amendment of the 2002 McCain–Feingold Act), in the most expensive Senate primary in U.S. history.
Obama touted his legislative experience and early public opposition to the Iraq War to distinguish himself from his Democratic primary rivals. Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes won the endorsement of the AFL–CIO. Obama succeeded in obtaining the support of three of the state's largest and most active member unions: AFSCME, SEIU, and the Illinois Federation of Teachers. Hynes and multimillionaire former securities trader Blair Hull each won the endorsements of two of the nine Democratic Illinois members of the US House of Representatives. Obama had the endorsements of four: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis, Lane Evans, and Jan Schakowsky.
Obama surged into the lead after he finally began television advertising in Chicago in the final three weeks of the campaign, which was expanded to downstate Illinois during the last six days of the campaign. The ads included strong endorsements by the five largest newspapers in Illinois—the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, The Rockford Register Star, and Peoria Journal Star—and a testimonial by Sheila Simon that Obama was "cut from that same cloth" as her father, the late former U.S. Senator Paul Simon, who had planned to endorse and campaign for Obama before his unexpected death in December 2003.
On March 16, 2004, Obama won the Democratic primary by an unexpected landslide—receiving 53% of the vote, 29% ahead of his nearest Democratic rival, with a vote total that nearly equaled that of all eight Republican candidates combined—which overnight made him a rising star in the national Democratic Party, started speculation about a presidential future, and led to the reissue of his memoir, Dreams from My Father. The Democratic primary election, including seven candidates who combined to spend over $46 million, was the most expensive U.S. Senate primary election in history.
GOP frontrunner Jack Ryan had divorced actress Jeri Ryan in 1999, and the records of the divorce were sealed at their mutual request. Five years later, when Ryan's Senate campaign began, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate, sought to have the records released. On March 3, 2004, several of Ryan's GOP primary opponents urged Ryan to release the records. Both Ryan and his wife agreed to make their divorce records public, but not make the child custody records public, claiming that the custody records could be harmful to their son if released. Ryan went on to win the GOP primary on March 16, 2004, defeating his nearest competitor, Jim Oberweis, by twelve percentage points.
Ryan was a proponent of across-the-board tax cuts and tort reform, an effort to limit payout in medical malpractice lawsuits. He was also a proponent of school choice and supported vouchers for private school students.
Oberweis's 2004 campaign was notable for a television commercial where he flew in a helicopter over Chicago's Soldier Field, and claimed enough illegal immigrants came into America in a week (10,000 a day) to fill the stadium's 61,500 seats. Oberweis was also fined $21,000 by the Federal Election Commission for a commercial for his dairy that ran during his 2004 Senate campaign. The FEC ruled that the commercial wrongly benefited his campaign and constituted a corporate contribution, thus violating campaign law.
As a result of the GOP and Democratic primaries, Democrat Barack Obama was pitted against Republican Jack Ryan.
Ryan trailed Obama in early polls, after the media reported that Ryan had assigned Justin Warfel, a Ryan campaign worker, to track Obama's appearances. The tactic backfired when many people, including Ryan's supporters, criticized this activity. Ryan's spokesman apologized, and promised that Warfel would give Obama more space. Obama acknowledged that it is standard practice to film an opponent in public, and Obama said he was satisfied with Ryan's decision to have Warfel back off.
As the campaign progressed, the lawsuit brought by the Chicago Tribune to open child custody files from Ryan's divorce was still continuing. Barack Obama's backers emailed reporters about the divorce controversy, but refrained from on-the-record commentary. On March 29, 2004, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider ruled that several of the Ryans' divorce records should be opened to the public, and ruled that a court-appointed referee would later decide which custody files should remain sealed to protect the interests of Ryan's young child. A few days later, on April 2, 2004, Barack Obama changed his position about the Ryans' soon-to-be-released divorce records, and called on Democrats to not inject them into the campaign.
On June 22, 2004, after receiving the report from the court appointed referee, the judge released the files that were deemed consistent with the interests of Ryan's young child. In those files, Jeri Ryan alleged that Jack Ryan had taken her to sex clubs in several cities, intending for them to have sex in public.
The decision to release the files generated much controversy because it went against both parents' direct request, and because it reversed the earlier decision to seal the papers in the best interest of the child. Jim Oberweis, Ryan's defeated GOP opponent, commented that "these are allegations made in a divorce hearing, and we all know people tend to say things that aren't necessarily true in divorce proceedings when there is money involved and custody of children involved."
Although their sensational nature made the revelations fodder for tabloid and television programs specializing in such stories, the files were also newsworthy because of questions about whether Ryan had accurately described the documents to GOP party leaders. Prior to release of the documents, Ryan had told leading Republicans that five percent of the divorce file could cause problems for his campaign. But after the documents were released, GOP officials including state GOP Chair Judy Baar Topinka said they felt Ryan had misleadingly indicated the divorce records would not be embarrassing.
That charge of dishonesty led to intensifying calls for Ryan's withdrawal, though Topinka, who was considering running herself, said after the June 25 withdrawal that Ryan's "decision was a personal one" and that the state GOP had not pressured Ryan to drop out. Ryan's campaign ended less than a week after the custody records were opened, and Ryan officially filed the documentation to withdraw on July 29, 2004. Obama was left without an opponent.
The Illinois Republican State Central Committee chose former diplomat Alan Keyes to replace Ryan as the Republican candidate. Keyes, a conservative Republican from Maryland, faced an uphill battle. First, Keyes had few ties to Illinois political leaders. Second, the lack of an opponent allowed Obama to campaign throughout the more conservative downstate regions to build up name recognition. Third, Keyes was seen as a carpetbagger, only establishing legal residency in Calumet City, Illinois days before running.
The Chicago Tribune in an editorial, stated that "Mr. Keyes may have noticed a large body of water as he flew into O'Hare. That is called Lake Michigan." In 2000, Keyes attacked Hillary Clinton for running for US Senator from New York even though she had never lived there, calling her a carpetbagger. Keyes attacked Barack Obama for voting against a bill that would have outlawed a form of late-term abortion.
Obama ran the most successful Senate campaign in 2004, and was so far ahead in polls that he soon began to campaign outside of Illinois in support of other Democratic candidates. He gave large sums of campaign funds to other candidates and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and sent many of his volunteers to work on other races, including that of eventual three-term Congresswoman Melissa Bean who defeated then-Congressman Phil Crane in that year's election. Obama and Keyes differed on many issues including school vouchers and tax cuts, both of which Keyes supported and Obama opposed.
The Obama-Keyes race was one of the first to be called on Election Day, November 2, 2004.
At the start of Keyes's candidacy in August, Keyes had 24% support in the polls. He received 27% of the vote in the November general election to Obama's 70%.
Following the election, Keyes refused to call Obama to congratulate him. Media reports claimed that Keyes also failed to concede the race to Obama. Two days after the election, a Two days after the electionradio interviewer asked Keyes whether he had conceded the race. Keyes replied, "Of course I've conceded the race. I mean, I gave my speech to that effect."
On the radio program, Keyes explained that his refusal to congratulate Obama was "not anything personal," but was meant to make a statement against "extend[ing] false congratulations to the triumph of what we have declared to be across the line." He said that Obama's position on moral issues regarding life and the family had crossed that line. "I'm supposed to make a call that represents the congratulations toward the triumph of that which I believe ultimately stands for ... a culture evil enough to destroy the very soul and heart of my country? I can't do this. And I will not make a false gesture," Keyes said.
Indiana
Incumbent Democrat Evan Bayh won re-election to a second term, beating Republican Marvin Scott, a professor at Butler University.
In September, Bayh had $6.5 million cash on hand. Scott's strategy of trying to paint Bayh as too liberal failed to gain traction.
Bayh was viewed early in 2004 as a serious vice presidential candidate for John Kerry. Bayh was on the final shortlist for a Kerry running mate, but North Carolina Senator John Edwards was chosen as Kerry's running mate.
Bayh won 86 of Indiana's counties compared to 6 for Scott.
Iowa
Incumbent Republican Chuck Grassley won a fifth term, beating former Democratic Iowa State Senator Arthur A. Small. Though this election coincided with the highly competitive presidential election in Iowa, Grassley was in little danger of losing his seat and defeated Small handily.
Kansas
Incumbent Republican Sam Brownback won re-election to a second term over Democratic railroad engineer Lee Jones.
Though Robert Conroy won the Democratic nomination, he dropped out of the race shortly after becoming the nominee, noting that he expected Jones to win and was tired of campaigning. The Kansas Democratic Party selected Lee Jones as the replacement candidate.
Brownback raised $2.5 million for his re-election campaign, while Jones raised only $90,000. Kansas last elected a Democratic senator in 1932. Brownback was very popular in the state.
Kentucky
Incumbent Republican Jim Bunning won re-election to a second term. Democratic primary front runner Paul E. Patton, the governor, saw his career implode in a scandal over an extramarital affair. Eventually, the Democrats settled on Daniel Mongiardo, a relatively unknown doctor and state senator from Hazard, Kentucky.
During his re-election bid in 2004, controversy erupted when Bunning described Mongiardo as looking "like one of Saddam Hussein's sons." Bunning apologized, then later went on to declare that Mongiardo's "thugs" had assaulted his wife.
Bunning had an estimated $4 million campaign war chest, while Mongiardo had only $600,000. The Democrats began increasing financial support to Mongiardo when it became apparent that Bunning's bizarre behavior was costing him votes, purchasing more than $800,000 worth of additional television airtime on his behalf.
The November 2 election was one of the closest in Kentucky history. The race turned out to be very close, with Mongiardo leading with as many as 80% of the returns coming in. However, Bunning eventually won by just over one percentage point. Some analysts felt that because of President George Bush's 20% margin of victory in the state, Bunning was able to effectively ride the President's coattails to victory.
Louisiana
Incumbent Democrat John Breaux retired. Republican U.S. Representative David Vitter won the jungle primary over Democratic U.S. Representative Chris John with 51% of the vote and avoided a runoff.
Breaux endorsed Chris John prior to the jungle primary.
During the campaign, Vitter was accused by a member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee of having had a lengthy affair with a prostitute in New Orleans. Vitter responded that the allegation was "absolutely and completely untrue" and that it was "just crass Louisiana politics." The allegation later turned out to be true.
Vitter won the Louisiana jungle primary with 51% of the vote, avoiding the need for a runoff. John received 29.2% of the vote and Kennedy (no relation to the Massachusetts Kennedys), took 14.9%.
Vitter won at least a plurality in 56 of Louisiana's 64 parishes. John carried nine parishes, all but two of which (Iberville and Orleans) are part of the House district he represented.
Kennedy changed parties and ran as Republican in 2008 against Louisiana's senior senator, Democrat Mary Landrieu. Landrieu was re-elected. Kennedy succeeded Vitter when he won the 2016 election for the seat over Democrat Foster Campbell.
Vitter was the first Republican in Louisiana to be popularly elected as a U.S. Senator. The previous Republican Senator, William Pitt Kellogg, was chosen by the state legislature in 1876, in accordance with the process used before the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution went into effect in 1914.
Maryland
Incumbent Democrat Barbara Mikulski won re-election to a fourth term over Republican State Senator E. J. Pipkin.
Missouri
Incumbent Republican Kit Bond won re-election to a fourth term over Nancy Farmer, State Treasurer of Missouri and former Missouri State Representative
Nevada
Incumbent Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate Minority Whip, won re-election to a fourth term over Republican anti-gay marriage activist Richard Ziser.
New Hampshire
Incumbent Republican Judd Gregg won re-election to his third term, easily beating Democratic activist Doris Haddock.
New York
Incumbent Democrat Chuck Schumer won re-election to his second term, easily beating Republican Howard Mills.
North Carolina
Incumbent Democrat John Edwards decided to retire from the Senate, ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic Party presidential nomination, and became his party's vice presidential nominee. Republican Richard Burr won the open seat.
Erskine Bowles won the Democratic Party's nomination unopposed. He had been the party's nominee for the state's other Senate seat in 2002.
Both major-party candidates engaged in negative campaign tactics, with Bowles' campaign attacking Burr for special interest donations and his positions on trade legislation, and Burr's campaign attacking Bowles for his connections to the Clinton administration. Both attacks had basis in reality: Burr's campaign raised funds from numerous political action committees and at least 72 of the 100 largest Fortune 500 companies, while Bowles departed from the Clinton administration in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Burr won the election by 4%. He joined the Senate in January 2005. Bowles went on to become the president of the UNC system.
North Dakota
Incumbent Democrat Byron Dorgan won re-election to a third term over Republican attorney Mike Liffrig
Ohio
Incumbent Republican George Voinovich won re-election to a second term over Democrat Eric Fingerhut, state senator and former U.S. Representative from Ohio's 19th congressional district.
A popular U.S. Senator, Voinovich was the heavy favorite to win the election. He had over $9 million in the bank, while his opponent barely had $1.5 million. Fingerhut's campaign was overshadowed by the possible campaign of Democrat and former mayor of Cincinnati Jerry Springer, who eventually declined to run.
Voinovich was considered a moderate on some issues. He supported gun control and amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Surprisingly, Voinovich's biggest advantage was getting support from the most Democratic-leaning county in the state, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Kerry carried it with almost 67% of the vote, by far his best performance in the state in 2004. It is the home of Cleveland and it is also most populous county in the state. Voinovich was a former mayor of Cleveland. In addition, he catered to Cleveland's large Jewish population by visiting Israel six times as a first-term U.S. Senator. He also consistently voted for aid to Israel through foreign appropriations bills. He's supported resolutions reaffirming Israel's right to self-defense and condemned Palestinian terrorist attacks. In addition, Fingerhut's home base was in the Cleveland area, and therefore he had to cut in through the incumbent's home base in order to even make the election close.
In a September University of Cincinnati poll, the incumbent lead 64% to 34%. In an October ABC News poll, Voinovich was winning 60% to 35%. He led across almost all demographic groups Only among Democrats, non-whites, liberals, and those who pick health care as #1 issue favor Fingerhut. It should be noted that the election coincided with the presidential election, where Ohio was a swing state. 27% of Voinovich's supporters preferred U.S. Senator John Kerry for president.
Oklahoma
Incumbent Republican Don Nickles decided to retire instead of seeking a fifth term. Republican nominee Tom Coburn won the open seat, beating Brad Carson, a Democratic U.S. Representative
Kirk Humphreys, the former mayor of Oklahoma City, ran for the United States Senate with institutional conservative support, namely from Senators Don Nickles and Jim Inhofe, as well as former Congressman J. C. Watts. However, Coburn received support from the Club for Growth and conservative activists within Oklahoma. Humphreys noted, "[Coburn is] kind of a cult hero in the conservative portion of our party, not just in Oklahoma. You can't get right of the guy." Much of Coburn's celebrity within the Republican Party came from his tenure in Congress, where he battled House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who he argued was moving the party to the center of the political spectrum due to their excessive federal spending. Coburn's maverick nature culminated itself in 2000 when he backed conservative activist Alan Keyes for President rather than George W. Bush or John McCain.
Ultimately, Coburn triumphed over Humphreys, Anthony, and Hunt in the primary, winning every county in Oklahoma except for tiny Harmon County.
Carson and Coburn engaged each other head-on in one of the year's most brutal Senate contests. Coburn and the National Republican Senatorial Committee attacked Carson for being too liberal for Oklahoma and for being a vote in lockstep with John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Ted Kennedy. To drive the point home, one television advertisement aired by the Coburn campaign accused Carson of being "dangerously liberal" and not supporting the War on Terrorism. Coburn was aided in this effort by the fact that the Kerry campaign did not contest the state of Oklahoma and that incumbent President George W. Bush was expected to win Oklahoma comfortably. This was compounded by the fact that Vice-President Dick Cheney campaigned for Coburn and appeared in several television advertisements for him. Carson countered by emphasizing his Stilwell roots and his moderation, specifically, bringing attention to the fact that he fought for greater governmental oversight of nursing home care for the elderly. Carson responded to the attacks against him by countering that his opponent had committed Medicaid fraud years prior, in an event that reportedly left a woman sterilized without her consent. Ultimately, however, Carson was not able to overcome Oklahoma's conservative nature and Senator Kerry's abysmal performance in Oklahoma, and he was defeated by Coburn by 11.5%. As of 2022, the result remains the closest the Democrats have come to winning a Senate election in Oklahoma since Republican Don Nickles was first elected to the Senate by 8.7% in 1980.
Oregon
Incumbent Democrat Ron Wyden won re-election to a second full term over Republican rancher Al King,
Pennsylvania
Incumbent Republican Arlen Specter won re-election to a fifth term.
Democrats had difficulty recruiting top tier candidates against the popular Specter. Among the Democrats to decline to run for the nomination were Treasurer (and former Republican) Barbara Hafer, Public Utilities Commissioner John Hanger, real estate mogul Howard Hanna, State Representative (and also former Republican) John Lawless, and State Senator (and future Congresswoman) Allyson Schwartz.
Congressman Hoeffel ended up running unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Software businessman Charlie Crystle was considered a strong possible candidate, but he dropped out before the election.
Specter faced a primary challenge from U.S. Representative Pat Toomey. Despite the state Republican Party's strong history of embracing a moderate philosophy, the influence of conservatism among rank-and-file members had been steadily growing for decades; because of his liberal social views, Specter was often considered to be a "Republican in Name Only" by the right. Although Specter had a huge fundraising advantage, Toomey was aided by $2 million of advertising from the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee that focuses on fiscal issues and targets moderate Republican incumbents. Toomey criticized Specter as a spendthrift on economic policy and as out of touch with his own party on social issues. Although Toomey had difficulty with name recognition early in the campaign, he built huge momentum over the final weeks preceding the primary, and Specter appeared to have transitioned from having a comfortable lead to being behind his challenger
Specter received a huge boost from the vocal support of President George W. Bush; most of the state's Republican establishment also closed ranks behind Specter. This included Pennsylvania's other U.S. Senator, Rick Santorum, who was noted for his social conservative views. Many Republicans at the state and national level feared that if Toomey beat Specter, he wouldn't be able to defend the seat against his Democratic opponent.
For Democrats, hope of winning the election centered on Toomey's defeat of Specter. However, after the challenge from the right failed, enthusiasm from the party establishment waned and Hoeffel had difficulty matching the name recognition and fundraising power of his opponent Despite contempt from conservatives, Specter enjoyed high levels of support from independent voters and, as in previous elections, a surprisingly large crossover from Democratic voters. Even in the areas in which Toomey performed best in the Republican primary (mainly the state's conservative, rural center), Specter performed well. Except for his large margin of victory in almost uniformly Democratic Philadelphia, Hoeffel was crushed at the polls; his only other wins came by close margins in three metro Pittsburgh counties; although President Bush proved to be unpopular in the state, voters were not willing to abandon Specter over party affiliation. Toomey would go on to elect in the U.S. Senate in 2010.
South Carolina
Incumbent Democrat Fritz Hollings decided to retire. Jim DeMint, a Republican U.S. Representative won the open seat over Democrat Inez Tenenbaum, the South Carolina Superintendent of Education.
The Senate election two years earlier in 2002 did not have a primary election because the South Carolina Republicans were more preoccupied with the gubernatorial contest, despite having the first open senate seat in 40 years. The retirement of Democratic Senator Fritz Hollings gave the Republicans an opportunity to pick up the seat and with no other interesting positions up for election in 2004, a crowded field developed in the Republican primary. Furthermore, the Republicans were motivated by having President Bush at the top of the ticket enabling them to ride his coattails to victory.
Former Governor David Beasley, from the Pee Dee, entered the race and quickly emerged as the frontrunner because of his support from the evangelical voters. However, during his term as governor from 1994 to 1998 he had greatly angered the electorate by proposing to remove the Confederate Naval Jack from the dome of the statehouse and by being against the adoption of a state lottery to provide for college scholarships. Both positions led to the loss of his re-election in 1998 and the issues continued to trouble him in the Senate race.
The battle for second place in the primary was between Upstate congressman, Jim DeMint, and Charleston developer Thomas Ravenel. DeMint was able to squeak out a second-place finish because Charlie Condon, a former Attorney General of South Carolina, split the Lowcountry vote with Ravenel thus providing DeMint the margin he needed. In addition, while many voters were attracted to the Ravenel campaign and felt that he had a future in politics, they believed that he should set his sights on a less high-profile office first before trying to become senator. Resigned to defeat, Ravenel endorsed DeMint in the runoff election.
In the runoff election on June 22, 2004, DeMint scored a surprising victory over Beasley. Ravenel's endorsement of DeMint proved crucial as the Lowcountry counties heavily went for the Representative from the Upstate. Also, Beasley had burnt too many bridges while governor and was unable to increase his share of the vote in the runoff.
DeMint entered the general election campaign severely weakened from the primary fight, having spent most of his campaign funds. He stressed to the voters that he would follow conservative principles and provide an important Republican vote in the closely divided Senate. Democrats fared poorly in statewide elections in South Carolina, so Tenenbaum tried to make the race about issues rather than party identification. She attacked DeMint's support of the FairTax proposal because it would increase the sales tax by 23%. The election victory by DeMint merely cemented South Carolina's shift to the Republican column as the best candidate the Democrats could offer was soundly defeated by the typical 10 point margin.
Nwangaza ran under the Independence Party in Aiken and Calhoun counties; her totals are combined.
South Dakota
In the 2004 congressional elections, Daschle lost his seat to Republican challenger and former U.S. Representative John Thune in a bitterly contested battle. Thune prevailed by a narrow 50.6–49.4% margin, of 4,508 votes. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist visited South Dakota to campaign for Thune, breaking an unwritten tradition that one party's leader in the Senate would not campaign directly for the other's defeat. Daschle's loss resulted in the first defeat of a Senate floor leader since 1952 when Arizona Senator Ernest McFarland lost his seat to Barry Goldwater. Daschle's Senate term expired on January 3, 2005.
Throughout the campaign, Thune, along with Frist, President Bush, and Vice President Cheney, frequently accused Daschle of being the "chief obstructionist" of Bush's agenda and charged him with using filibusters to block confirmation of several of Bush's nominees to the federal judiciary. Thune also used moral values such as issues surrounding same-sex marriage and abortion to convince South Dakota voters that Daschle's positions on such topics were out-of-sync with the state's residents. The Republican candidate also drove home his strong support for the President while blasting Daschle for his vehement opposition to Bush. He attempted to sway voters by remembering that Bush won South Dakota in a landslide in 2000 and had a very high job-approval rating among South Dakotans. His opponent, the Minority Leader, repeatedly argued that he was funneling money into South Dakota for vital federal highway and water pet projects.
Daschle responded to Thune's claim that he was a partisan anti-Bush obstructionist by pointing to his action just nine days after the September 11 attacks when he hugged President Bush on the Senate floor following Bush's address to Congress and the nation. He also hit back by alleging that Thune wanted to "rubber stamp what the administration is doing." Daschle's use of the video of his embrace of Bush forced the Republican National Committee to demand that the ad be pulled, claiming that it suggests that Bush endorses Daschle. Shortly following the airing of the ad, in a nationally televised debate on NBC's Meet the Press, Thune accused Daschle of "emboldening the enemy" in his skepticism of the Iraq War.
Daschle also noticeably relied very heavily on the power of incumbency to win a fourth term. Some also argued that Stephanie Herseth's election to the state's only House seat hurt Daschle, as voters may not have been comfortable sending an all-Democratic delegation to Congress for the first time in many decades. Accusations that Daschle was possibly considering no longer being an official resident of South Dakota was believed to have offended voters there. Others have analyzed that Daschle's lengthy consideration and eventual rejection of a potential run for the presidency in 2004 took a toll on South Dakotans, who felt betrayed and used by Daschle as a result.
When the race began in early 2004, Daschle led by 7 points in January and February. By May, his lead minimized to just 2 points and into the summer polls showed a varying number of trends: either Daschle held a slim 1- to 2-point lead or Thune held a slim 1- to 2-point lead or the race was tied right down the middle. Throughout September, Daschle led Thune by margins of 2 to 5 percent while during the entire month of October into the November 2 election, most polls showed that Thune and Daschle were dead even, usually tied 49–49 among likely voters. Some polls showed either Thune or Daschle leading by extremely slim margins.
Thune was an aide to former Senator James Abdnor, the man Daschle defeated in 1986 to gain his seat in the Senate.
Daschle spent a great deal of time and energy campaigning for his fellow Democrat Tim Johnson in 2002, who barely defeated Thune by 524 votes. He argued that by re-electing Johnson, South Dakota would be better off because Johnson would help to keep Daschle Majority Leader. However, in the end, while Johnson won, other states voted for enough Republicans that Daschle was no longer majority leader. Furthermore, Thune's whisker-close defeat in 2002 freed him up to run against Daschle in 2004. Had Daschle not put his considerable weight to re-electing Johnson, it seems very likely that Thune would have beaten Johnson, leaving Daschle without a strong challenger for the upcoming election and making his re-election a certainty.
Utah
Incumbent Republican Bob Bennett won re-election to a third term easily beating Democrat Paul Van Dam, former Attorney General of Utah and former Salt Lake County District Attorney
Vermont
Incumbent Democrat Patrick Leahy won re-election to a sixth term.
Washington
Incumbent Democrat Patty Murray won re-election. She became only the fourth Washington senator to win 3 consecutive terms, just after fellow Democrats Warren G. Magnuson and Scoop Jackson.
Term limits became an issue in the campaign, as Democrats seized on Nethercutt's broken term-limits pledge that he had made when he unseated Speaker Tom Foley in 1994. Nethercutt was also hampered by his lack of name recognition in the more densely populated western part of the state, home to two-thirds of the state's population. Washington has not elected a senator from east of the Cascades since Miles Poindexter in 1916. Other important issues included national security and the war in Iraq. Nethercutt supported the invasion of Iraq, while Murray opposed it. Nethercutt was a heavy underdog from the start, and his campaign never gained much traction. In November, he lost by 12 points, receiving 43 percent of the vote to Murray's 55 percent.
Wisconsin
Incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold won re-election to a third term.
Republican Tim Michels, businessman and army veteran insisted he has more real world experience than Feingold, someone he called an "extreme liberal" who's out of touch with Wisconsin voters. Feingold attacked back by saying that any Republican would be a rubber stamp for President Bush. The incumbent had $2.2 million in the bank, while Michels had already spent $1 million in the primary and had only about $150,000 left.
When the NRSC was finally convinced in October that Michels had a shot, they pledged $600,000 for him.
On October 1, a poll showed Feingold leading 52% to 39%. In mid October, another poll showed Feingold winning 48% to 43%. A poll at the end of the month showed him leading 51% to 36%.
See also
2004 United States elections
2004 United States gubernatorial elections
2004 United States presidential election
2004 United States House of Representatives elections
108th United States Congress
109th United States Congress
Notes
References
List of the most expensive senatorial races, via Opensecrets.org
Election results, via CNN
United States Election 2004 Web Archive from the U.S. Library of Congress
Elections Division from the Louisiana Secretary of State
2004 North Dakota U.S. Senate Election results
JoinCalifornia 2004 General Election
SmartVoter.org page on the California Senate race.
Final results from the Secretary of State of California. Wayback Machine
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