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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallid%20sturgeon
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Pallid sturgeon
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The pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) is an endangered species of ray-finned fish, endemic to the waters of the Missouri and lower Mississippi river basins of the United States. It may have even reached the St. Croix River before colonization.
Named for its pale coloration, it is closely related to the relatively common shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus), but is much larger, averaging between in length and in weight at maturity. This species takes 15 years to mature and spawns infrequently, but can live up to a century. A member of the sturgeon family, Acipenseridae, which originated during the Cretaceous period 70 million years ago, the pallid sturgeon has changed little since then.
In 1990, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service placed the pallid sturgeon on its endangered species list because few young individuals had been observed in the preceding decade and sightings had greatly diminished; the species is now rarely seen in the wild. It was the first fish species in the Missouri River drainage area to be listed as endangered, and a loss of its habitat is thought to be responsible for its decline. The vast majority of the Missouri River drainage system has been channeled and dammed, reducing the gravel deposits and slow-moving side channels that are its favored spawning areas. Until the middle of the 20th century, pallid sturgeon were common and anglers found catching such a large fish in fresh water a rewarding experience. The species is considered to be good-tasting, and its eggs have been used as caviar, although less commonly than those of many other sturgeon.
Efforts to prevent the species from becoming extinct have had modest success. Pallid sturgeon are actively being raised in a dozen hatcheries and the offspring are being released back to the wild every year. To better understand pallid sturgeon behavior, researchers have implanted radio transmitters to track their movements and help identify possible spawning areas. Federal and state agencies are working together to improve habitat by restoring spawning areas since restoration of these areas is required if the species is to survive in the wild.
Taxonomy and etymology
Taxonomists S. A. Forbes and R. E. Richardson classified the pallid sturgeon in 1905, grouping it in the genus Parascaphirhynchus and the family Acipenseridae, which includes all sturgeon worldwide. Its closest relatives are the shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus), which is still relatively common, and the critically endangered Alabama sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus suttkusi), which may soon become extinct. These three species belong to the subfamily Scaphirhynchinae, which has only one other genus, Pseudoscaphirhynchus, represented by three species found in west-central Asia.
The word pallid means "deficient in color", and compared to other species of sturgeon, the pallid is noticeably paler. The scientific name for the fish is derived from Scaphirhynchus, a Greek word meaning "spade snout" and albus which is Latin for "white".
Biology
DNA studies
To better protect the pallid sturgeon from extinction, research on its DNA and that of other closely related species was conducted to assess the differences within various populations of pallid sturgeon, and the differences between pallid and shovelnose sturgeon. Early DNA research indicated that pallid sturgeon and shovelnose sturgeon were a single species. However, a 2000 study comparing DNA sequences in the three members of the genus Scaphirhynchus(pallid, shovelnose, and Alabama sturgeon) showed that the three are distinct species. Between 2001 and 2006, several studies examined two populations of pallid sturgeon located in the upper Great Plains section of the Missouri River and compared them to a southern population located in the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana. These DNA studies concluded that the northern populations of pallid sturgeon are reproductively isolated and are genetically distinct from the Atchafalaya population. However, the genetic variability among pallid sturgeon was found to be far less than that between them and the shovelnose sturgeon.
Another reason for DNA testing was to determine the rates of hybridization between pallid and shovelnose sturgeon. The southern populations have more hybrids than are found in the middle sections of the Missouri River basin, while the northernmost populations have had few reports of hybrids. Hybrids are most common in the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana, and DNA sequencing in these hybrids showed a genetic distinction from pallid sturgeon, but based on the genetic markers assessed, they were genetically indistinguishable from shovelnose sturgeon. Because of this ability of two species to hybridize, some biologists have expressed concern that it is a violation of the Endangered Species Act to protect one species that may not be genetically isolated from another. It is not known if the hybrids are able to reproduce or not, although they appear to be the result of pallid sturgeon eggs being fertilized by shovelnose sturgeon males.
Physical characteristics
The pallid sturgeon is one of the largest freshwater fish species in North America. They are generally between in length and weigh as much as . The species is ancient and has remained virtually unchanged for 70 million years, since the Cretaceous period. The pallid sturgeon has a distinctive appearance that has been referred to as "primitive", "dinosaur-like" and even "ugly". Although visually similar, the shovelnose sturgeon is much smaller and usually weighs no more than . Pallid sturgeon are much paler in coloration with grayish white backs and sides, while shovelnose sturgeon are brown. Pallid sturgeon turn whiter as they age and younger specimens are easily confused with adult shovelnose sturgeon since they are similar in color. Like the shovelnose sturgeon, their tails are heterocercal, with the top tail fin being longer than the bottom fin, though this is more pronounced in pallid sturgeon.
As with other sturgeon, pallid sturgeon lack the scales or bones found in more "modern" species of fish. Instead, they have cartilaginous skeletons with five rows of thick cartilage plates that extend along their sides, undersides, and backs, as well as over most of the head. These thick cartilage plates are covered by the skin and serve as a protective armor. The bony cartilage also extends along the backside, from the dorsal fin to the tail.
The pallid sturgeon's snout and head are longer than that of the shovelnose sturgeon. In both species, the mouth is located well back from the tip of the snout. Lacking teeth, they use their extendable mouths to suck up small fish, mollusks, and other food sources from river bottoms. Both species also have four barbels which descend from the snout near the front of the mouth. The barbels are believed to be sensory features to locate food sources. On pallid sturgeon, the two inner barbels are about half as long as the outer ones, while on the shovelnose sturgeon, all four barbels are the same length. The inner barbels of the pallid sturgeon are positioned in front of the outer ones, but those on the shovelnose sturgeon are all located in essentially a straight line. The length and positioning of the barbels is one of the best ways to distinguish the two species.
Reproduction and lifecycle
Pallid sturgeon have a long lifespan, living in excess of 50 and perhaps as long as 100 years. They lack bones and scales, which makes it more difficult to establish their age and determine exactly how long they live. As is true for many long-lived species, pallid sturgeon reach reproductive maturity relatively late. Males reach sexual maturity between the ages of 5 and 7 years, while females are believed to become capable of reproduction when they are at least 15 years old. One study of nine females indicated that they begin egg development between the ages of 9 and 12 years, but do not reach reproductive maturity until they are 15 years old. Reproduction does not take place every year; the average interval between spawnings is three years, although other studies suggest an interval as long as 10 years. Spawning usually takes place May to July.
Prior to the construction of dams on the Missouri, pallid sturgeon migrated hundreds of miles upstream to spawn, and sought out rocky or hard surfaces to deposit hundreds of thousands of eggs. One female pallid sturgeon caught in the upper Missouri River was estimated to be carrying 170,000 eggs, representing over 11 percent of its total body weight. After fertilization, pallid sturgeon eggs hatch in 5 to 8 days, after which the larvae drift back downstream for several weeks. As the larvae develop tails, they seek out slower-moving waterways and slowly mature over a period of a dozen years. The rate of survival to maturity for pallid sturgeon larvae is extremely low, and of the hundreds of thousands of eggs spawned, only a few live to adulthood.
For several decades, no natural reproduction of pallid sturgeon was observed, since all the fish that had been captured were older specimens. In the late 1990s, young pallid sturgeon were discovered living in a restored riparian area of the lower Missouri River. This was the first documented example of wild spawned pallid sturgeon in 50 years. In 2007, two female pallid sturgeon were also reported to have spawned in the Missouri National Recreational River area located downstream from Gavins Point Dam on the Missouri River.
Ecology
Distribution
The pallid sturgeon's historical range spanned the entire Missouri River and into the Mississippi River. Historically, the species was rare to nonexistent in the upper Mississippi, probably due to a lack of proper habitat. Currently, the species is considered imperiled throughout its entire range. As of 2008, pallid sturgeon can still be found throughout their original range, but their population numbers have severely declined from the mid-20th century. The Missouri and Mississippi rivers from Montana to Louisiana, as well as the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana, continue to harbor an aging population of pallid sturgeon. Pallid sturgeon have never been very common; as early as 1905 when the species was first identified, they represented only one in five of all sturgeon in the lower Missouri River and as few as one in 500 where the Illinois River meets the Mississippi. Between 1985 and 2000, the ratio of pallid sturgeon to all sturgeon netted declined from one in about 400 to one in nearly 650. A 1996 study concluded that between 6,000 and 21,000 pallid sturgeon remained in their natural habitat at that time.
Six areas were studied for wild pallid sturgeon population estimates and recovery recommendations by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) between 1990, when the species was declared endangered, and 2006. The USFWS has referred to these six areas of wild population studies as "recovery priority management areas" (RPMAs). In the northernmost region of the study, known as RPMA 1, located between the Marias River in Montana and the western reaches of Fort Peck Reservoir, only 45 wild (nonhatchery) individuals remain. Of these, no juveniles were observed and the population was declining. In RPMA 2, located between Fort Peck Dam, the headwaters of Lake Sakakawea, and the lower Yellowstone River up to the confluence of the Tongue River, Montana, only 136 wild specimens remain. In RPMA 3, stretching from upstream of the Niobrara River to Lewis and Clark Lake along the Missouri River, no native populations were recorded. All collected specimens appeared to be hatchery-raised. However, these specimens were apparently maturing and adjusting well to this section of the river. Recovery priority management area 4 extends from Gavins Point Dam to the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. This region also includes the Platte River. Here, at least 100 unique nonhatchery specimens were collected during the study period. Evidence also indicates some wild reproduction is going on in this region. In RPMA 5, between the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, several hundred specimens were documented. Again, some evidence suggests natural reproduction is occurring, as demonstrated by the recovery of a few examples of immature, nonhatchery-raised individuals. The Atchafalaya River basin is designated as RPMA 6 and the findings there were similar to those in RPMAs 4 and 5, but with greater numbers of unique individuals, near 500 in total.
Habitat
Pallid sturgeon prefer moderate to swift river currents and most captured specimens have been recovered in rivers and streams in which the current averages between . They also prefer turbid waterways and water depths between . The species is more commonly found where sandy substrates are plentiful, but also lives in predominately rocky waterways. Pallid sturgeon prefer swift river currents more often than do shovelnose sturgeon.
In a study based in Montana and North Dakota conducted on both the pallid and shovelnose sturgeon, both species were fitted with radio transmitters so researchers could track their swimming habits. Pallid sturgeon were found to prefer wider river channels, midchannel sandbars, and numerous islands, and were most commonly recorded in water depths between . The study also showed that the pallid sturgeon moved as much as per day and up to . Pallid sturgeon are believed to have preferred the muddy and generally warmer waters that existed prior to Missouri River dam construction.
Food preferences
Pallid sturgeon are generally bottom feeders, skimming the sandy reaches of the various rivers and streams in their habitat. Though little is known about the precise eating habits of the species, they are thought to be opportunistic feeders. One study which examined the contents from the stomachs of juvenile pallid sturgeon revealed that their diets were seasonally dependent. Various insects were consumed during some seasons and various fish species during others. These results support the description of the pallid sturgeon's eating habits as opportunistic. Fish is a more important dietary staple for pallid sturgeon than it is for shovelnose sturgeon. In one study comparing dietary tendencies between adult shovelnose sturgeon and immature pallid sturgeon, the pallid sturgeon was found to consume far greater numbers of small fish such as cyprinids (minnows). In another study conducted in the upper Missouri River region, an examination of the stomach contents of hatchery-reared pallid sturgeon showed that 82% of the wet weight was small fish and the balance was mosquito-like insects, mayflies, and caddis flies and small amounts of detritus and plant material.
Conservation
Though never believed to be common, pallid sturgeon populations rapidly declined during the late 20th century and the species was listed as endangered on September 6, 1990. The U.S. government and most of the states with pallid sturgeon populations have commenced restoration efforts to save the species from extinction. Wild reproduction of pallid sturgeon is rare to nonexistent in most areas; therefore, human intervention is needed to ensure the survival of the species. Pallid sturgeon were previously considered a prized trophy game fish species, until their numbers declined and they were placed on the endangered species list. All captured pallid sturgeon must now be released back to the wild. The species was known for being very palatable and the roe from females was used as caviar.
The route and the environmental characteristics of Missouri River in the northern Great Plains states of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Montana have been significantly altered. The resultant changes to the Missouri River in the upper Great Plains from channelization and impoundment prevent upstream migration. The reduced water flow rates and sediment loads have brought an end to the seasonal flooding of the flood plains in the region. Since the construction of the Fort Peck Dam in Montana in 1937, and subsequent damming and channelization, the Missouri River has lost over 90% of its wetland and sandbar ecosystems. More than of the Missouri River have been altered and only that stretch of the river above Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana remains relatively unchanged. These alterations of the river have had a detrimental impact on a number of native fish species. In the 13 U.S. states where the pallid sturgeon is found, only a few other fish species are listed as critically endangered. Although substantial efforts are being implemented to ensure the survival of this species, the rarity of self-sustaining populations of pallid sturgeon ensures that it will remain federally protected for many decades.
Species preservation efforts
Two populations of pallid sturgeon in the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers of Montana are both at risk of extinction, and current projections are that wild pallid sturgeon populations in Montana will be extinct by 2018. Though a vigorous stocking effort was implemented in 1996, until pallid sturgeon females reach reproductive maturity sometime after they are 15 years of age, recovery efforts in Montana will not be readily measurable. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has been conducting spring pulse water releases from the Tiber Dam every four to five years to try to recreate a semblance of an annual spring flood to restore and rejuvenate downstream floodplains. These pulse releases are done in an effort to restore suitable habitat for numerous fish species.
In Nebraska, a small number of pallid sturgeon have been captured along the lower reaches of the Platte River. Unlike most rivers in the Mississippi-Missouri River System, the Platte River has only a few dams and they are well upstream from its confluence with the Missouri River. The lower Platte River is shallow with numerous sand bars and small islands. Though pallid sturgeon prefer more turbulent and deeper rivers than the Platte, between 1979 and 2003, over a dozen pallid sturgeon, including some from hatcheries, have been captured from the Platte River. A number of these pallid sturgeon have been fitted with radio transmitters which track their return to the Platte River when water levels and turbidity conditions are favorable. Coinciding with the majority of the pallid sturgeon that have been captured, the period that is generally most favorable is during the spring and early summer. By midsummer, a reduction in water levels and turbidity on the Platte River encourages pallid sturgeon to return to the Missouri River.
The lower reaches of the Platte River, a more than stretch from the Elkhorn River to its confluence with the Missouri River, has suitable spawning habitat for pallid sturgeon, although no conclusive evidence has been found that spawning is occurring in this region. Along with the lower Yellowstone River, the lower Platte River was identified as one of the best of the remaining regions with the potential for the natural spawning.
In Missouri, at the Lisbon Bottoms section of the Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, wild pallid sturgeon larvae were collected in 1998. These nonhatchery-raised larvae were the first recovered on the lower Missouri River in the previous 50 years. The recovery was made along a side channel of the Missouri River that had been developed to provide suitable habitat for pallid sturgeon and other fish spawning. The side channel was apparently being used by the larva pallid sturgeon for protection from the swifter currents of the Missouri River.
In 2007, the USFWS concluded that hatchery-based reproduction efforts should be continued, along with monitoring of any population changes, to determine the effectiveness of human intervention. The 2007 findings also emphasized the need to determine the most likely areas of spawning, to identify any parasite or disease that may be impacting the reproductive capabilities of pallid sturgeon, and to examine engineering possibilities that may permit recreation of suitable habitats without reducing the USFWS's ability to protect people from harmful and destructive flooding, and to maintain its ability to provide adequate water impoundment for irrigation and recreation purposes.
References
External links
Pallid Sturgeon Recovery Plan (10mb file)
Revised Recovery Plan for the Pallid Sturgeon
Pallid Sturgeon project in the Middle Mississippi River
Running out of time NYTimes, 2015
Endemic fish of the United States
Scaphirhynchus
Articles containing video clips
ESA endangered species
Fish described in 1905
Freshwater fish of North America
Taxa named by Stephen Alfred Forbes
Taxa named by Robert Earl Richardson
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H5N1%20vaccine%20clinical%20trials
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H5N1 vaccine clinical trials
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H5N1 clinical trials are clinical trials concerning H5N1 vaccines, which are intended to provide immunization to influenza A virus subtype H5N1. They are intended to discover pharmacological effects and identify any adverse reactions the vaccines may achieve in humans.
Current status of H5N1 candidate vaccines
Candidate vaccines were developed in the United States and the United Kingdom during 2003 for protection against the strain that was isolated from humans in Hong Kong in February 2003 but the 2003 strain died out in 2004 making the vaccine of little use. In April 2004, WHO made an H5N1 prototype seed strain available to manufacturers. In August 2006, WHO changed the prototype strains and now offers three new prototype strains which represent three of the six subclades of the clade 2 virus which have been responsible for many of the human cases that have occurred since 2005.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded H5N1 vaccine contracts to Aventis Pasteur (now Sanofi Pasteur) of Swiftwater, Pennsylvania, and to Chiron Corporation of Emeryville, California. Each manufacturer is using established techniques in which the virus is grown in eggs and then inactivated and further purified before being formulated into vaccines.
"A universal influenza vaccine could provide protection against all types of influenza and would eliminate the need to develop individual vaccines to specific H and N virus types. Such a vaccine would not need to be reengineered each year and could protect against an emergent pandemic strain. Developing a universal vaccine requires that researchers identify conserved regions of the influenza virus that do not exhibit antigenic variability by strain or over time. A universal vaccine, ACAM-FLU-A, is being developed by the British company Acambis and is being researched by others as well. Acambis (meanwhile also acquired by Sanofi Pasteur) announced in early August 2005 that it has had successful results in animal testing. The vaccine focuses on the M2 viral protein, which does not change, rather than the surface hemagglutinin and neuraminidase proteins targeted by traditional flu vaccines. The universal vaccine is made through bacterial fermentation technology, which would greatly speed up the rate of production over that possible with culture in chicken eggs, plus the vaccine could be produced constantly, since its formulation would not change. Still, such a vaccine is years away from full testing, approval, and use." As of July 2007, phase I clinical trials on humans are underway in which a vaccine that focuses on the M2 viral protein "is being administered to a small group of healthy people in order to verify the safety of the product and to provide an initial insight into the vaccine’s effect on the human immune system." (See also Universal flu vaccines) The current development state of ACAM-FLU-A is unclear.
In June 2006, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began enrolling participants in a Phase 1 H5N1 study of an intranasal influenza vaccine candidate based on MedImmune's live, attenuated vaccine technology.
Oct 2010 Inovio starts a phase I clinical trial of its H5N1 vaccine (VGX-3400X).
Oct 2012 Novavax, Inc. pandemic influenza vaccine Phase I trials meet primary objectives.
Approved human H5N1 vaccines
On April 17, 2007 the US FDA approved "Influenza Virus Vaccine, H5N1" by manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur Inc for manufacture at its Swiftwater, PA facility.
In March 2006, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány reported that Omninvest developed a vaccine to protect humans against the H5N1 influenza strain. The vaccine was approved by the country's national pharmaceutical institute for commercial production.
Results of trials
Early results from H5N1 clinical trials showed poor immunogenicity compared to the 15-mcg dose that induces immunity in a seasonal flu vaccine. Trials in 2006 and 2007 using two 30-mcg doses produced unacceptable results while a 2006 trial using two doses of 90 mcg each achieved acceptable levels of protection. Current flu vaccine manufacturing plants can not produce enough pandemic flu vaccine at this high dose level.
"Adjuvanted vaccines appear to hold the greatest promise for solving the grave supply-demand imbalance in pandemic influenza vaccine development. They come with obstacles—immunologic, regulatory, and commercial—but they also have generated more excitement than any other type of vaccine thus far. [In August 2007], scientists working with a GlaxoSmithKline formula published a trial of a two-dose regimen of an inactivated split-virus vaccine adjuvanted with a proprietary oil-in-water emulsion; after the second injection, even the lowest dose of 3.8 mcg exceeded EU criteria for immune response (see Bibliography: Leroux-Roels 2007). And in September, Sanofi Pasteur reported in a press release that an inactivated vaccine adjuvanted with the company's own proprietary formula induced EU-accepted levels of protection after two doses of 1.9 mcg."
The "GlaxoSmithKline-backed team that described an acceptable immune response after two adjuvanted 3.8-microgram (mcg) doses found that three fourths of their subjects were protected not only against the clade 1 Vietnam virus on which the vaccine was based, but against a drifted clade 2 virus from Indonesia as well [...] To achieve prepandemic vaccines, researchers would have to ascertain the right dose and dose interval, determine how long priming lasts, and solve the puzzle of measuring primed immunity. Further, regulatory authorities would have to determine the trial design that could deliver those answers, the public discussion that would be necessary for prepandemic vaccines to be accepted, and the safety data that would need to be gathered once the vaccines went into use".
Individual studies
Revaccination - January 2006
Study completion: January 2006
The purpose of this study is to determine whether having received an H5 vaccine in the past primes the immune system to respond rapidly to another dose of H5 vaccine. Subjects who participate in this study will have participated in a previous vaccine study (involving the A/Hong/Kong/97 virus) during the fall of 1998 at the University of Rochester.
A/H5N1 in adult - February 2006
Study start: April 2005; Study completion: February 2006
The purpose of this study is to determine the dose-related safety of flu vaccine in healthy adults. To determine the dose-related effectiveness of flu vaccine in healthy adults approximately 1 month following receipt of 2 doses of vaccine. To provide information for the selection of the best dose levels for further studies.
H5 booster after two doses - June 2006
Study start: October 2005; Study completion: June 2006
The purpose of this study is to determine whether a third dose of vaccines containing A/Vietnam/1203/04 provides more immunity than two doses. Subjects who participate in this study, will have participated in DMID protocol 04-063 involving the A/Vietnam/1203/04. In this study, each subject will be asked to receive a third dose of the H5 vaccine at the same level administered in protocol 04-063.
H5 in the elderly - August 2006
Study start: October 2005; Study completion: August 2006
This study is intended to examine the safety and dose-related immunogenicity of three dosage levels of the Influenza A/H5N1 vaccine, as compared to saline placebo, given intramuscularly to healthy elderly adults approximately 4 weeks apart.
H5 in healthy adults - November 2006
Study start: March 2006; Expected completion: November 2006
This randomized, controlled, double-blinded, dose-ranging, Phase I-II study in 600 healthy adults, 18 to 49 years old, is designed to investigate the safety, reactogenicity, and dose-related immunogenicity of an investigational inactivated influenza A/H5N1 virus vaccine when given alone or combined with aluminum hydroxide. A secondary goal is to guide selection of vaccine dosage levels for expanded Phase II trials based on reactogenicity and immunogenicity profiles. This dose optimization will be applied to both younger and older subject populations in subsequent studies. Subjects who meet the entry criteria for the study will be enrolled at one of up to 5 study sites and will be randomized into 8 groups to receive two doses of influenza A/H5N1 vaccine containing 3.75, 7.5, 15, or 45 mcg of HA with or without aluminum hydroxide adjuvant by IM injection (N= 60 or 120/vaccine dose group).
Bird flu - November 2006
Study start: March 2006; Study completion: November 2006
This study is designed to gather critical information on the safety, tolerability, and the immunogenicity (capability of inducing an immune response) of A/H5N1 virus vaccine in healthy adults. Up to 280 healthy adults, aged 18 to 64, will participate in the study. Each subject will participate for 7 months and will be randomly placed in one of several different study groups receiving a different dose of vaccine, vaccine plus adjuvant, or placebo. All subjects will receive two injections of their assigned study product, about 28 days apart, in their muscle tissue. Subjects will keep a journal of their temperature and any adverse effects between study visits. A small amount of blood will also be drawn before the first injection, 7 days after each injection, and 6 months after the second injection.
Pandemic flu - January 2007
Study start: October 2005; Study completion: January 2007
This Australian study will test the safety and immunogenicity of an H5N1 pandemic influenza vaccine in healthy adults.
Children - February 2007
Study start: January 2006; Study completion: February 2007
This is a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, staged, dose-ranging, Phase I/II study to evaluate the safety, reactogenicity, and immunogenicity of 2 doses of an IM inactivated influenza A/H5N1 vaccine in healthy children, aged 2 through 9 years. This study is designed to investigate the safety, tolerability, and dose-related immunogenicity of an investigational inactivated influenza A/H5N1 vaccine. A secondary goal is to identify an optimal dosage level of the vaccine that generates an acceptable immunogenic response, while maintaining an adequate safety profile.
Sources
Further reading
CIDRAP article NOVAVAX reports good preliminary phase 1 findings for H5N1 vaccine published Oct 19, 2012
"NOVAVAX, a pharmaceutical company in Rockville, Md., announced this week that in preliminary results of two phase 1 clinical trials, its H5N1 avian influenza vaccine candidate was found to be safe and effective. The company conducted the trials under its contract with the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). The goal was to test the virus-like particle (VLP) H5N1 vaccine at different dose levels with and without 1 of 2 undisclosed adjuvants. The two trials involved 666 healthy adults who received an intramuscular vaccine or placebo at day 0 and day 21. In findings after the first 42 days, adjuvanted vaccines provoked strong immune responses (seroconverion and seroprotection rates of 86% to 100%) based on hemagglutination inhibition assay (HAI) at all doses tested. The unadjuvanted vaccine at the 45-microgram dose yielded more than 82% seroconversion and seroprotection in both trials. No serious adverse events were observed. The patients who received the adjuvanted vaccines showed signs of protection against a different H5N1 strain. Gregory Glenn, MD, Novavax's senior vice president and chief medical officer, said the results give the company enough data to advance to later-stage testing."
CIDRAP article Sanofi reports results for H5N1 vaccine with adjuvant published May 12, 2006
"In a human trial in France, an experimental H5N1 avian influenza vaccine with an adjuvant showed modestly better performance at a lower dose compared with a similar H5N1 vaccine that was tested earlier in the United States. The new study, published in this week’s The Lancet, showed an immune response in 67% of patients receiving two doses of 30 micrograms (mcg) of the vaccine plus an adjuvant. An accompanying commentary, however, pointed out several obstacles that need to be addressed before an effective vaccine can be mass-produced. The vaccine is manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur, a subsidiary of France-based Sanofi Aventis. It is an inactivated, split-virion strain of H5N1 known as Vietnam/1194/2004."
CIDRAP article Glaxo says its H5N1 vaccine works at low dose published July 26, 2006
"An H5N1 avian influenza vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) triggered a good immune response in human volunteers at a much lower dose than other H5N1 vaccines reported so far, which means that hundreds of millions of doses could be produced by next year, the company announced today. In a clinical trial, 80% of volunteers who received two vaccine doses containing 3.8 mcg of antigen with an adjuvant (a chemical that stimulates the immune system) had a strong immune response, the British-based company said in a news release. A typical dose of seasonal flu vaccine is 15 mcg. "This is the first time such a low dose of H5N1 vaccine has been able to stimulate this level of strong immune response," GSK Chief Executive Officer J.P. Garnier said in the news release. By comparison, an H5N1 vaccine developed by Sanofi Pasteur induced a good immune response in 67% of volunteers who received two 30-mcg doses with an adjuvant, according to findings reported in May. The US government is stockpiling the Sanofi vaccine. Garnier called the GSK vaccine a breakthrough because, with the effectiveness of the low dose, a given amount of antigen will go much further than it would otherwise. "The meaning of this is that we are going to be in a position, starting later this year, to produce hundreds of millions of doses of an effective pandemic vaccine, so this is a big breakthrough," Garnier said on BBC Radio, as reported today by Agence France-Presse (AFP). The GSK vaccine was made from an inactivated H5N1 virus collected in Vietnam in 2004, according to Jennifer Armstrong, a GSK spokeswoman in Philadelphia."
CIDRAP article Chinese report results for whole-virus H5N1 vaccine published September 7, 2006
"In a human trial in China, a whole-virus H5N1 avian influenza vaccine generated an immune response with a relatively low dose of antigen, suggesting that it could be used to immunize more people than may be possible with some other vaccines under development. The study, published online today in The Lancet, showed an adequate immune response in 78% of volunteers after two 10-microgram (mcg) doses of the vaccine plus an aluminum hydroxide (alum) adjuvant. That exceeds the European Union's requirement of an acceptable response (a hemagglutinin-inhibition titer of 40 or more) in 70% of volunteers. The vaccine is made by Sinovac Biotech in Beijing, China, from an inactivated strain of H5N1 known as Vietnam/1194/2004."
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) news article NIAID DNA Vaccine for H5N1 Avian Influenza Enters Human Trial published January 2, 2007
"The first human trial of a DNA vaccine designed to prevent H5N1 avian influenza infection began on December 21, 2006, when the vaccine was administered to the first volunteer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD. Scientists from the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the NIH Institutes, designed the vaccine. The vaccine does not contain any infectious material from the influenza virus. Unlike conventional flu vaccines, which are developed by growing the influenza virus in hens' eggs and then administered as a weakened or killed form of the virus, DNA-based vaccines contain only portions of the influenza virus' genetic material. Once inside the body, the DNA instructs human cells to make proteins that act as a vaccine against the virus. VRC Director Gary Nabel, M.D., Ph.D., together with a team of scientists from the VRC recognized the potential for employing new vaccine technology against influenza, a disease for which effective vaccines have long been made, but for which the reliability of supply and manufacturing capacity has been problematic. Dr. Nabel and his colleagues previously have shown the DNA vaccine approach to be effective against influenza viruses in animal models, including highly pathogenic viruses such as the H5N1 strain and the H1N1 virus that caused the deadly 1918 pandemic. The DNA vaccine used in this study is similar to other investigational vaccines evaluated by the VRC that hold promise for controlling other viruses, such as HIV, Ebola, SARS and West Nile. [...] The study will enroll 45 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 60. Fifteen will receive placebo injections and 30 will receive three injections of the investigational vaccine over 2 months and will be followed for 1 year. Volunteers will not be exposed to influenza virus. [...] The candidate vaccine, synthesized using a modified version of the hemagglutinin (H) gene from the H5N1 influenza virus, was manufactured at the VRC Vaccine Pilot Plant. This is the first VRC candidate vaccine manufactured at the VRC Vaccine Pilot Plant. The candidate vaccine went from the research bench into clinical trials in less than 6 months."
Clinical trials
clinical trials
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books%20and%20publishing%20in%20Pakistan
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Books and publishing in Pakistan
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The publishing industry in Pakistan is hampered both by a low literacy rate (65%).
Urdu books
Urdu fiction does date back to prior to pre-independence times when pioneers like Mirza Haadi Ruswa wrote Umrao Jaan Ada. These writers wrote not only to entertain, but to educate the masses, and to revive the culture in Indo-Pak at a time when the society was greatly overshadowed by British values. One recent name in fiction is that of Saadat Nasreen who published her first collection of short stories last year.
Humour is a popular form of fiction. Shafiq Ur Rehman has contributed to this colourful genre of literature.
Translations of major works of English and other languages into Urdu have begun to appear in the market, which range from popular titles like Shakespeare to present age fiction like Harry Potter.
Poetry
Poetry is one of the richest and oldest forms of Urdu literature and Mir Taqi Mir, Ghalib, Allama Iqbal and others had already created a name for themselves before independence. More recently there have been notable poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ahmed Faraz, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Parveen Shakir and Jaun Elia.
Poets in the sub-continent, particularly in Pakistan, have focused on a wide range of topics from social awareness, to politics, to religion and even romance.
Children’s literature
A colorful bookshelf full of books is an ideal part of any child's library. Urdu offers a range of books for children from folk tales to poetry to novels and short stories. Recently there has been a trend of writing awareness books of children on issues like health, the environment, and even child abuse. These have received wide appreciation due to their content and good quality printing with illustrations. One popular series is the Mina series initiated by UNICEF.
Other NGOs are also working on such books for children.
Regional books
Saraiki
A large number books are printed in the Saraiki language.
Sindhi
Sindhi is one of the most ancient languages among the regional languages of Pakistan and Sub-continent. The first translation of the Quran was into Sindhi. It has a rich literature ranging from religion, philosophy, medicine, Sociology, Logic, literature, history, politics and culture.
Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, a writer of Sindhi poetry, is widely read and understood by people all over the world. He wrote Shah jo Risalo. Other popular poets are Sachal Sarmast, and Shaikh Ayaz.
Jamal Abro, Ghulam Rabbani Agro, Ali Baba, Naseem Kharal and Syed Irfan Ali Shah write short stories.
Sindhi Adabi Board, Sindhi Language Authority, Institute of Sindhology, have been involved in publishing many original and translated works into Sindhi. Amongst the works translated is Dry Leaves from Young Egypt by Eastwick in 1973.
Punjabi
Among Pakistan's several regional languages, Punjabi is the closest to Urdu. Many singers have adopted Punjabi to add 'spice' to their songs. This have contributed tremendously to the genre of Punjabi poetry. Punjabi literature however, was not as developed as the Sindhi literature. The roots of Punjabi prose can safely be traced back to Baba Nanak's Janam Sakhis, but the lack of attention paid to the medium hampered its growth.
The literary scene was dominated by Urdu even until the 50s and no one paid a second thought to a group of people publishing Punjabi books and taking out a magazine. The Punjabi language publishing world has expanded, however. Last year the Lehran Adabi Board published a book Lehran Behran, which is a collection of critical articles on Punjabi language and literature.
Pashto
Early Pashto writers, after independence, were 'passive nationalists, progressive nationalists, radical nationalists and Marxists. Except the passive nationalists, almost all of them were politically motivated.'
Pashto literature developed within the Pashto struggle for freedom from what they saw as oppression by the ruling class, and this was clearly reflected in their writings. Pashto writing has moved towards objectivism to subjectivism. The quality of books has also improved considerably.
Balochi
Poetry is the only form of literature in the language which has seen some activity lately. Poetry was and still is a major part of Balochi literature, with a rich history of 600 years.
Mullah Fazul
Book Name
"Shah Lachahkaar" (The Great Poet)
The poetry of classic poet Mullah Fazul was born in house of Chawash Jangiyan Rind in the end of eighteenth century. His family migrated from western Balochistan and settled in Qassmi Chat, Mand Kech Mekran. He and his brother Mulla Qassim a renounce poet of Balochi Language were both widely known for their intelligence from early age. In addition to Balochi they had command of the Arabic and Persian Languages.
The great contribution of Mulla Fazul are simply indistinguishable from evolution of the Balochi Language and the Balochi literature. He introduced numerous innovations such as change of thematic structure in poetry and Language. As known by many, Balochi poetry concentrated on narrative structure or storytelling. However, he introduced many themes that were foreign to this structure such as the social conditions of his people and ballads of patriotism and of the homeland. His departure from the conventional structure also resulted in him introducing new connotations to many classical Balochi words. It is attributed to him to perseverance and the evolution of the Balochi language to this very day. On 30 May 1854 at the age of eighty this popularly loved Baloch poet died. He left behind a wealth of literature to his beloved nation: he was buried in Mand, Balochistan.
Munir Ahmad Badini
90 novels were published in Balochi Language since 10 years,
Most recent novel is "Bahisht-e-Doza" and it is 1200 pages long.
English books
Fiction
It is very difficult to categorize writers in this genre. There are a few very good novel and short story writers who have won accolades not only nationally but also internationally, but it seems hard to draw the line between Pakistani and non-Pakistani writers here. The main problem being the fact that most of these writers are although born in Pakistan but they never really lived here and hence have no contact with their origins.
Zulfikar Ghose's Murder of Aziz Khan was the first cohesive modern English language novel published in 1967. The plot no doubt was purely a Pakistani theme but the fact remains that Ghose never really did live here and the rest of his novels were set in South America.
In 1980, renowned novelist, Bapsi Sidhwa published her first novel, The Crow Eaters, from England. Ms. Sidhwa is thus far considered to be amongst the best-known authors of Pakistani origin.
Some of the best English literature came from expatriate Pakistanis in the West. One such author, Hanif Kureishi, wrote a haunting memoir, The Rainbow Sign (1986), trying to bring together the two worlds he lived in. Another, Aamer Hussein, wrote a series of acclaimed short story collections.
English literature grew rapidly over the next few years and several writers came on the scene and won international awards.
Adam ZameenZad, Hanif Kureishi, Nadeem Aslam and Bapsi Sidhwa all received several awards for their writings.
In recent years, there has been a crop of younger writers. Amongst them are Bina Shah, Kamila Shamsie, Uzma Aslam Khan and Sehba Sarwar, all who have proved to be authors extraordinary.
Most of these writers, explore the issue of identity for expatriates, for Muslim women, and other social issues. Bina Shah's 786 Cyber Café, for example delves into the lives of three young Pakistani men and a young woman confused about her priorities. Then there is Kamila Shamsie's Kartography, which details the life in Karachi with the protagonists belonging to the elite section of the society. Although it is a riveting tale, it hardly depicts the life in Karachi. Or maybe it does, but then that only a very small faction of our society so full of other social evils.
Since 2000, Uzma Aslam Khan, Mohsin Hamid, Saad Ashraf, Sorayya Khan and Feryal Ali Gauhar have published several consummate new novels. Mohsin Hamid's Moth Smoke was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and won other awards.
Coming to the present era, in 2004, novels of Nadeem Aslam and Suhyal Saadi, two Pakistani-British authors, were long listed for the 2006 IMPAC Dublin Award. They have also won several other prestigious awards.
Kamila Shamsie's Broken Verses has also been long listed for the 2006 Prince Maurice Award.
A number of poetry collections were also published last year. Pakistani- British, Moniza Ali published her fifth poetry collection How the Stone Found its Voice. The first part of her collection reflects the event after the 9/11 and its effects.
There was also a collection of Faiz's poems published by OUP under the title of Culture and Identity: Selected English Writings of Faiz. In 2007, Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist was also published, exploring the effects of 9/11 on a Pakistani man in New York.
Non-fiction
Last year saw a number of good autobiographies like Salma Ahmad's Cutting Free, Rao Rashid's Roller Coaster: My Early Years, Shaukat Mirza's From Exxon to Engro and several others.
Then there was a reprint of Tariq Ali's Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties, Nehru and the Gandhis: An Indian Dynasty.
Another exciting series is that of the historical reprints by Mohatta Palace on Karachi.
In Travelogues there was Salman Rashid's Jhelum: City of Visata.
Previously religious books were published only in Urdu, but in the last few years the trend has changed and now a number of publishers are taking up the task of either translating major works of religion from Urdu to English or are publishing original pieces. One such place is Darussalam which is quite well known for its excellent content and quality.
Children’s books
Although there is a treasure trove of children's books in Urdu, Pakistan fails to provide a good bookshelf of English fiction for children. There have been attempts, but the market is full of international authors like Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and the popular Sweet Valley, R.L Stine, Famous Five, Hardy Boys series.
Very recently, Mahnaz Malik, a Pakistani born British, published her first story book for children, which serves as a fund raiser project for The Citizen's Foundation. Mo's Star, illustrated by Cora Lynn Deibler and published by Oxford University Press, is the colorful story of a young penguin reaching out for the stars. The book was received with much appreciation from home and abroad, and was unveiled in a colorful launch ceremony held in a local hotel.
Printing and Publishing industry
Very close to the literary scene is the printing and publishing industry as the books are nothing if they do not get a publisher or a printer. Like every other thing in the region, the printing industry is with its own sets of problems the initial ones being the unfavorable socio-economic conditions, lack of mass education and the development of local languages. Given these conditions, the establishment of the publishing industry in present-day Pakistan can be traced back to the nineteenth century. Still, the subject matter of the books dealt mainly with religious or philosophical themes and was also very restrained.
World War I bought newer printing methods, and with these improved printing methods the industry moved a step further towards development. Press now ventured into the realms of subjects as diverse as philosophy, Islamic thought and literary criticism. Even more encouraging was the fact that quality books were being translated from other languages into Urdu where there was a lack expertise. These included chemistry, physics, economics, and political science and commerce books.
Another important milestone was the introduction of the printing of modern novels and short stories. Russian, French and Bengali novels were also translated to add flavor to the local literature.
World War II also bought a significant change in the industry. The printing methods were further improved and the publication industry saw a boost in sales and production with the rising literacy rates and the political awareness in the masses.
Since World War II, the publishing industry has been steadily growing despite the many hurdles like the low purchasing power of the masses and the lack of facilities.
The principle centers of publishing are Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Lahore stands out with its numerous publishing houses and has been the hub of the industry from the pre-independence era. Even now, getting a book published from Lahore is much easier than elsewhere.
Pakistan's publishing industry also has a lucrative market for Urdu and religious books abroad. A considerable number of books and periodicals are exported to countries like Malaysia, East Africa and the Middle East. Also, a very large number of books is imported in Pakistan mainly from UK and USA. The Inter-Media Growth program of Pakistan and USA have signed an agreement whereby Pakistan can import books and still pay for them in its local currency.
Emerging trends
Time and technological advancements play a pivotal role in shaping the trends over the passage of time. As Pakistan too enters the digital age, traditional distinctions in media become blurred. This can be negative as well as positive. It can be seen as furthering the book culture but it can also at the same time be seen as the force behind loosening the bond between the book and its reader.
E-books
The biggest contribution of the internet in the book industry would be to digitize books and grant them a wider readership. A number of online websites have sprung up in the last few decades. Quite a lot of these sites are free and others charge a very nominal fee and provide unlimited access to ebooks. They can either be downloaded or read on screen. These obviously have become popular because of easy accessibility and the low cost.
In Pakistan where a huge majority of people cannot afford the expensive original foreign titles, websites like Project Gutenberg provide an opportunity to familiarize with foreign literature. Even some Urdu websites have started to offer online versions of books for foreign readers. This helps in promoting one's culture as well as to help the expatriate Pakistanis.
Online book stores
Closely related to e-books are the online book stores, another wonder of the internet. An extension of the traditional book stores, online book stores give the option to search and read reviews of books, browse through categories, view the covers, author information, reader ratings and then order these books online. Although they are not free and even charge a shipping fee, its very convenient to search and order books online saving the hassle. Critics however say that it deprives one of having the pleasure of going through new books at a store and discovering exciting new books.
Reading clubs
Though not a new phenomenon, reading clubs are a breath of fresh air into the dying book culture. There are a number of book clubs/reading clubs online and offline. People sit and discuss their favorite books or simply talk about what they are reading these days.
Book fairs
The first International Book Fair was held in Karachi and Lahore last year at the expo centre and it was well received by the public at large despite the fact that all the books were originals and were highly priced. People thronged the premises even if they did not buy much. The sad thing to note was that the Indian publishers had a very impressive collection of reference books on various subjects, while one finds it very difficult to find books on those topics by Pakistani publishers.
Then there are also the annual book fairs held at various places especially in schools, colleges and universities.
Among weekly affairs, the Koocha-e-Saqafat and Frere Hall book fairs are worth a visit. They have a huge collection of books on a wide range of topics. They are usually second hand or reprinted, although it's a clear violation of the copyright law but a large number of Karachiites gather at the spot for book hunting.
Urdu Bazaar at Lahore is the largest market of Paper print, books and stationery in Pakistan. Old Anarkali, Nisbat Road, Mall Road, Nila Gumbad, Lohari gate etc. have numerous small and large bookshops selling new and old (used) books. More than half of the books in Pakistan are printed from Lahore.
Mobile bookshops
The concept of a Mobile Bookshop was first used by the Welcome Book port some years back. Recently, Oxford started its own mobile book shop and it has been touring the city for quite some time now. Set on a truck, with the back converted into a small book shop with shelves and a counter set snugly at the end, the book shop attracted people outside various schools and universities.
Literary Festivals
There are three major literary festivals that take place in Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi. The Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) is a major literary event for publishers, booksellers, authors, and readers. Founded by Razi Ahmed in 2012, the LLF "aims to bring together, discuss, and celebrate the diverse and pluralistic literary traditions of Lahore." It has attracted the likes of Mohsin Hamid, Ayesha Jalal, Bapsi Sidhwa, and C.M.Naim. The LLF has also conducted events in New York, in partnership with the Asia Society, and in London. The Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) and Islamabad Literature Festival (ILF) are founded by Ameena Saiyid and Asif Farrukhi, and produced by Oxford University Press. The KLF began in 2010, while the ILF was started in 2013. Much like the LLF, both KLF and ILF attract attention of authors, academics, and publishers. Famous attendees include Intizar Hussain, Amjad Islam Amjad, Kamila Shamsie, Zehra Nigah, and Zia Mohyeddin.
Six literary prizes are awarded at the KLF:
KLF Coca-Cola prize
KLF Peace prize
KLF Embassy of France prize
KLF Urdu prize
KLF Fiction prize
Italy Reads Pakistan award
Issues
Copyright infringement of books in Pakistan
The Copyright Ordinance of 1962 came into force in 1967 in Pakistan and has been in effect since then. A number of conditions are given in the ordinance which determines when a work is in violation of copyright.
Pakistan is also a member of Berne Convention on copyright as well as the Universal Copyright Convention.
The boom in the education industry created a vast market for text books, both for school and post-school levels. Where the primary sector is largely catered to by the local textbook boards, there is a serious dearth for books on professional subjects like medical, engineering or business. Thus increased the demand for foreign books. Due to import limitations the prices of these books were totally out of reach of an average Pakistani student. The National Book Foundation was set up to reprint and translate foreign titles with the permission of the original publisher. This was to make the prices affordable and within reach. But even this effort was not as successful as hoped because most of the reprinted titles were either obsolete or were very old editions.
People who recognized this vacuum began a successful industry of illegally copied books. Almost all major tiles were reprinted illegally and were sold at a fraction of the original price. Not only were text books copied and distributed but the recent years have seen a number of local and international fiction works being leaked before the release of original titles in paper back.
The release of the Harry Potter books can be taken as a classic example of this case. The book was all set to be released on 12 August and there was a huge hype surrounding its release. Almost all major book stores throughout the world had millions of books booked prior to the release. Even in Pakistan, a couple of leading bookstores were providing the facility of pre-ordering the book and getting a nominal discount.
The trend of illegally reproducing books is not limited to international bestsellers. Usually one does not find unlicensed versions of books by Pakistani authors so easily but there is a market for such books as well. Tehmina Durrani's My Feudal Lord, Bapsi Sidhwa's An American Brat, are only but two examples.
When asked about the situation, Bapsi Sidhwa, a leading Pakistani English prose writer, says "Piracy is a problem because of the steep prices. However some pirates are developing a conscience and assigning my previously pirated books to publishers. They have made a packet off me, but so long as books are read, I don't mind as much as I should. If we have more publishers and a larger reading public, the prices could be better controlled".
There have been numerous raids on Urdu Bazaar shops for selling infringed books but this has done little to deter their suppliers.
Incentives for writers
Those who do not reproduce work and are genuinely interested are hardly encouraged.
How many good writers will actually venture into the field when the encouragement they get is only meager at best? The government, the NGOs and the intellectuals hardly ever take the initiative to encourage young and budding writers of the country. This results in most of the young authors getting their works published under foreign publishers. At least they get the recognition they warrant in foreign waters. Yet, there are a few committed souls who work tirelessly to make a place for themselves in the literature-deprived country.
Decline in reading habits
There has been a visible decline in reading habits in last few decades. This can be attributed to a number of factors like television, internet and other means of entertainment. However, major factor is the increasing high retail prices beyond the buying power of general public.
References
Additional material
See also
Pakistani fiction in English
Pakistani poetry
Pakistani literature
References
Prof Gillani Kamran, Pakistani literature-evolution and trends
Pakistani writers in English: A question of identity
Copyright and book piracy: A country report on Pakistan by M.H. Mirza
Publishing Industry in Pakistan by Zafar Mansoor
External links
Pakistani literature
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geronimo%3A%20An%20American%20Legend
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Geronimo: An American Legend
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Geronimo: An American Legend is a 1993 historical Western film starring Wes Studi, Jason Patric, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, and Matt Damon in an early role. The film, which was directed by Walter Hill, is based on a screenplay by John Milius. It is a fictionalized account of the Apache Wars and how First Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood convinced Apache leader Geronimo to surrender in 1886.
Plot
The film loosely follows the events leading up to the surrender of Geronimo in 1886. A respected healer, Geronimo and his fellow Apache reluctantly agree to settle on a reservation established by the American government in accordance with the Indian Removal Act. The tribe does its best to assimilate, but many Apache struggle to abandon their traditional way of life while the government fails to honor its promise to keep American settlers from encroaching on tribal lands.
Geronimo finally commits himself to armed resistance when soldiers of the U.S. Cavalry accompanied by Indian fighter Al Sieber slaughter a holy man and his band of Apache after discovering them practicing their "heathen" faith in secret. Geronimo forms a ragtag militia, who humiliate the army by evading capture time and time again while carrying out well-planned guerilla attacks. The plot centers upon Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood, a West Point graduate charged with capturing Geronimo with the assistance of Sieber and Britton Davis, an ambitious but inexperienced cavalryman.
Gatewood is torn between his grudging respect for Geronimo and his duty to his country. His superior, Brigadier General George Crook, has nothing but admiration for Geronimo and contempt for the self-serving actions of his government. Geronimo eventually surrenders to Crook but later escapes, this time persuading more than half the reservation to join him. Crook later resigns in disgrace and is replaced by Nelson A. Miles. The new commander orders that the remaining Apache be punished as a message to Geronimo's followers. He also decides that Gatewood and his fellow officers should be removed from the field and replaced with men loyal to him.
General Miles, realizing that in spite of his tactics he too is not any closer to capturing Geronimo, approaches Gatewood with an offer: use his relationship with Geronimo to find the warrior and convince him to surrender. He orders Gatewood to offer Geronimo a sentence of two years' imprisonment in Florida with the offer of fresh land in Arizona and two mules for every warrior who surrenders. Gatewood retorts to Miles that they both know the government has no intention of honoring this agreement. Miles offers Gatewood 100 men to take into the field, but the younger officer counters with a request for one Apache scout and three men of his choosing.
Gatewood, Sieber, Davis, and the Apache Chato set off to find Geronimo but instead discover a village of slaughtered Apache. Gatewood tasks Sieber and Chato with finding the scalp hunters responsible. They stop at a saloon where the hunters are dealing with a Comanchero interested in buying the scalps. When the hunters try to take Chato's scalp as well, Gatewood arrives and attempts to intervene and offers them money to return to Texas. The hunters mock Gatewood as a coward and an Indian lover and a shoot-out ensues. Sieber is shot and mortally wounded, his last words pointing to his surprise at dying in the act of trying to save an Apache.
Gatewood, Davis, and Chato carry on the hunt for Geronimo and finally reach his camp. Geronimo asks Gatewood if the young officer will break his word like those who came before him. Gatewood decides to be honest and tells Geronimo what Miles will do to the surviving Apache should he continue fighting. Faced with the grave reality, Geronimo makes peace with Gatewood and surrenders along with his men to General Miles. Miles then arranges for Gatewood, who he considers to be insubordinate and an embarrassment to the army, to spend the rest of his career in a dull, dead-end post commanding a garrison in rural Wyoming.
The final ignominy befalls Chato and the other Apache scouts, who are disarmed at gunpoint and thrown into prison. Davis, angered by what he regards as a betrayal of everything he believed in, confronts Miles. The general dismisses him, remarking that Davis is a foolish idealist and even questioning his integrity by implying that anyone who takes the word of a "savage" over a white man is not a true American. Davis decides to resign rather than continue to serve under Miles. Chato approaches Geronimo and tells him he was right to fight the white man. Geronimo counsels his remaining renegades to not fall out with one another as there are so few of them remaining. He warns them of what lies ahead. Geronimo lives on for another twenty-two years, never allowed to return home and forced to endure the humiliation of being displayed as a living trophy of American conquest while the Apache are left to fall into poverty and dependence on the government for their survival.
Cast
Wes Studi as Geronimo
Jason Patric as 1st Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood
Robert Duvall as Chief of Scouts Al Sieber
Gene Hackman as Brigadier General George Crook
Matt Damon as 2nd Lieutenant Britton Davis
Pato Hoffmann as The Dreamer
Rodney A. Grant as Mangas
Kevin Tighe as Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles
Steve Reevis as Chato
Carlos Palomino as Sergeant Turkey
Victor Aaron as Ulzana
Stuart Proud Eagle Grant as Sergeant Dutchy
Scott Wilson as Redondo
Stephen McHattie as Schoonover
John Finn as Captain Hentig
Lee de Broux as City Marshal Joe Hawkins
Rino Thunder as Old Nana
Production
Development – Carolco
Walter Hill had a development deal at Carolco. They approached him wanting to make a Western that focused on an Indian and Hill was enthusiastic. He initially considering doing a movie on Crazy Horse "but for various reasons I thought it was a little too difficult."
Eventually Geronimo was selected. ""I've been reading the history of the West for my entire life", Hill says, "and I felt the Geronimo story had never really been told."
John Milius was hired to write a draft. He was working on it in 1989. Larry Gross wrote a diary on the filming of Geronimo. He recalls reading Milius' script in 1988 when Hill was working on Johnny Handsome.
"I like Geronimo just as he was, a human predator", said Milius.
"Geronimo was a man who saw the history of his people wiped out", added Milius. "I love the Apaches and Geronimo was the ultimate Apache. But Geronimo was more than an Apache he was the essence of a misfit rebel and he would never give up. He was a troublemaker and I understand that. Even among his own people he was a trouble maker."
Hill said the title of the film should have been The Geronimo War. "The conception was you make the film from the last time he came in and broke off and was sent away", he said. "The last time he broke off the reservations. This had been a recurring pattern. I thought that would be more accurate."
"We had a really good script, but I couldn't make any headway with it", said Hill later.
Development – Columbia
In 1992 the movie was transferred from Carolco to Columbia. Westerns were experiencing a revival in popularity in the wake of the success of Dances with Wolves, Last of the Mohicans and Unforgiven. ""All of these Westerns are riding the backs of those", said Hill (other Westerns which would come out around this time included Tombstone, Wyatt Earp, The Quick and the Dead, Bad Girls, Maverick and Lightning Jack).
According to Hill, Milius' screenplay was more inclusive of Geronimo's early years and Milius was reluctant to revise it so he had it rewritten by himself and Larry Gross. Gross worked on the project from six to eight months in 1992.
"This movie certainly presents a heroic view of Geronimo", said Hill. "At the same time, it suggests that the times were complicated ... The audience doesn't go to a movie for a history lesson; it wants entertainment. At the same time, they don't want something that trashes history; so it's a delicate line."
"Movies tend to develop a life of their own", added Hill. "We had to deal with Geronimo a lot better than what our original intention was. The more we found out, the more interesting the story became."
Among the changes were removing a sequence (based on historical fact) where Geromino surrendered to General Crook in Mexico in March 1886, pledging to return under escort to Arizona, where he would be disarmed and sent to exile in Florida; two nights later Geronimo got drunk and took off into the mountains again, going on a five month rampage until he surrendered once more. Milius said he thought the script was changed because "We don't want to see our heroes getting drunk and running off. We want to see them as wonderful freedom fighters." "History is fascinating, but history is not a good dramatist", said Hill.
The film's narrator, Second Lt. Britton Davis, was a real officer who participated in these events. In 1929 he published a memoir of the time called The Truth About Geronimo. The narration uses many quotations from Davis that featured in his memoir, like his description of the endless search for Geronimo's camp: "At times it seemed we were chasing a spirit more than a man." However it did not include Davis's personal assessment of Geronimo: "This Indian was a thoroughly vicious, intractable and treacherous man. His only redeeming traits were courage and determination. His word, no matter how earnestly pledged, was worthless."
"It's like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid", said Hill. "These characters are real, but certainly we're allowing legend to serve the truth. If I was doing this as a PBS documentary, I would do it a lot differently."
For instance, the script used the Turkey Creek massacre as the reason for Geronimo going off the reservation when it happened five years earlier. "No, it's not accurate", admitted Hill. "Is it authentic? Yes, it is."
"I don't think I ever had a movie where I was so concerned about trying to be fair", said Hill. "Usually you're just trying to be dramatic and you've got good guys and bad guys. In this movie, you try to valorize both sides. At the same time you have to be rigorous enough to say that both sides did terrible things; they did heroic things, they did terrible things. To suggest that there were only terrible things is wrong and to suggest that it was only heroic was wrong, too. At the same time you're trying to make it a theatrical two-hour movie."
Hill thought the cavalry officers "were the most sympathetic to the Indians of the Southwest. They knew them and understood that what was happening was a tragedy. They understood that the imposition of the reserve system was going to have tragic consequences. Yet, they were the ones being asked to carry out this policy. They were the ones being asked to fight, so there was this kind of conflict between feelings and duty."
The film greenlit by Columbia's head of production Mark Canton, whose brother Neil was the producer.
Casting
Hill says when he started pushing the script there was pressure to cast a white actor in the lead. He said, "The first thing I heard was, 'Why can't we have X or Y Caucasian put on makeup and play Geronimo? If you do that, we'll make the movie.' I said, 'You can't do that.' They wouldn't think of having a Caucasian actor play a black leader. The implications are just staggering ... That kind of casting became unthinkable after Dances With Wolves. When the script got active again last fall, there was no question that we would have an Indian actor in the lead."
Wes Studi was cast in the lead after impressing in The Last of the Mohicans (1992). The other star attached early on was Jason Patric, who Gross described as "a young actor everybody in Hollywood believes in, but who does few pictures and has never had a hit." He was cast in February 1993.
Gross says that although Studi and Patric were cast, "Columbia found ways of not letting Walter start the picture ... there is endless talk about casting and the script."
In April 1993 Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall committed to the film, making it seem more likely that it would get made. On 27 April 1993, Gross wrote in his diary, "more than any movie Walter has done in the 11 years I've known him, and certainly more than on our three previous films together, he not only knows how to make this film, but is including far more of himself – his heart and soul and his convictions about life, so to speak." Gross added that "I think his inclinations and dispositions match the story and the material. His instincts will serve him. Walter deeply loves these nineteenth century people in a way I'm not sure he ever loves his modern characters. And his aesthetic commitments to reticence and suggestion in characterisation is truer to these people than in some other cases."
The part of Al Sieber was expanded when Robert Duvall was cast in the role. Under the deal, Duvall's production company, Butcher's Run Films, signed an arrangement with Columbia.
Duvall later called the film "a paid vacation", adding that he loved the role of Sieber. "He was one of the top Indian scouts and an interesting enough guy that you could do a whole movie about him, because he could out-track, out-scout, out-ride and out-hunt most Indians. They both feared him and liked him."
Gross said "I can truthfully say that we've had fewer bad suggestions from the studio on this film than on any I've worked on."
An original draft of the script included scenes with Mrs. Gatewood, but these were cut out for budgetary reasons.
Shooting
Filming started in May 1993. The film was shot in Utah, Tucson, Arizona, and Culver City, California. Filming locations in Utah include Professor Valley, Onion Creek, Potash, Dead Horse Point, Needles Overlook, Bates Ranch, Lawson Ranch, and Ruby Ranch Road.
On 9 May, Gross wrote that "Walter has some leeriness about Jason Patric's proclivity for a lot of takes." He also wrote that "grappling with Jason's angst and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of his acting method is Walter's biggest 'problem' on the movie – and also, of course, his richest creative opportunity. Jason's potential is so enormous that it is frustrating not to have full, unstopped access to it. The name we can't but help invoke in comparison is Brando."
Gross says there were some concerns from the studio that the Indians were not sympathetic enough. "But we're not telling the story of the spiritual Sioux", wrote Gross. "We're telling the story of the Apache; the Spartans, not the Athenians. Their art was war."
The character of Sieber was meant to ride off into the sunset at the end of the movie but during filming Hill felt that the running time was going to be too long and so decided to kill off the character. "If I'd known I was going to die I might not have done the movie", said Duvall. "I've died nine times in films." Gross says the scene where Sieber runs into the bounty hunters was Hill's homage to Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian.
Gross says that Walter Hill put a dance scene in the movie because John Ford once gave him advice that "you have to put songs and musical numbers in these things."
Hill shot the film with an unusual combination of a wide screen and long, telescopic lenses to produce huge landscape filled with small, but carefully defined, human figures."I also thought – this is a little more metephysical, I suppose — that somehow looking back it would all look a little more dreamlike", Hill said. "With this kind of tobacco look that we use – I used tobacco filters a lot – I thought that it might seem like you were watching something that was actually taking place 100 years ago."
Reception
Walter Hill later expressed dissatisfaction with the title:
It should have been called The Geronimo War ... It's as much about the Army as it is Geronimo. That came out of my reading of historical accounts, and realizing that so much of what we think we know about the Indian campaigns is wrong. The Army is generally depicted as the enemy of the Apache, but in many cases, the people who were most sympathetic to their plight were those soldiers.
Another film on Geronimo came out around the same time, a made-for-TV movie show on Ted Turner's movie channel. It was produced by Norman Jewison who said "We've got a subject whose life was full enough to warrant several films."
Awards
The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound (Chris Carpenter, Doug Hemphill, Bill W. Benton and Lee Orloff), but lost to Jurassic Park.
Critical
The film received mixed reviews from critics but was praised by Native American groups. Philip French of London's Observer called it one of the greatest Westerns of all time. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 50% with an average score of 6.3/10 based on 22 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads: "Geronimo: An American Legend fails to stir the soul, though its sweeping visuals and historical ambitions mark an intelligent change of pace for director Walter Hill.
Box office
On 17 December 1993 Gross wrote in his diary that "the opening numbers are not good and I feel the dull roar of Geronimo not making money at the box office."
The film was a box office bomb, earning only $18 million on a $35 million budget . The movie dropped to number 7 the following week.
According to one pair of writers:
The film was no Dances with Wolves. It cost about $50 million, boasted no major stars, no love story, and a meandering storyline. It was hard to see how the studio ever expected to make its money back – and it didn't come close. Columbia had not shown Geronimo to Jason Patric ... before the premiere at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Theater in Beverly Hills. That turned out to be a mistake. Patric was so dismayed by the way the film turned out that he ran out of the theater and into his limo. He had himself driven around for a while as he raged abot the sheer awfulness of the movie. Then he pulled himself together and went back to the premiere. Geronimo lost $40 million – far more than Last Action Hero – without a fraction of the fanfare.
Hill blamed this poor reception on the screening of the TV movie. Hill said, "I don't think there are a hell of a lot of movies where you can take basically the same story, show it to 50 million people and bring yours out a week later and think that you're going to do great. What can you say, `My Geronimo has better locations?' "
The film was admired by Quentin Tarantino who said "I thought with Geronimo he [Hill] went to a really fantastic place. Everybody talked about how boring it was. But I didn't. I thought he made a really great classic Western and America just wasn't worthy of the privilege."
See also
Geronimo (1993 TV film)
References
External links
Britton Davis, "The Truth About Geronimo", 1929
Review of film at Variety''
1993 films
1993 Western (genre) films
American Western (genre) films
Revisionist Western (genre) films
Films about Native Americans
Apache Wars films
Cultural depictions of Geronimo
1930s English-language films
Columbia Pictures films
Films scored by Ry Cooder
Films set in the 1880s
Films set in Arizona
Films shot in Arizona
Films shot in California
Films shot in Utah
Films directed by Walter Hill
Films with screenplays by John Milius
Films produced by Walter Hill
1993 drama films
1990s English-language films
1990s American films
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Deal%20%282003%20film%29
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The Deal (2003 film)
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The Deal is a 2003 British television film that depicts the Blair–Brown deal, a well-documented pact that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown made, whereby Brown would not stand in the 1994 Labour leadership election so that Blair could have a clear run at becoming leader of the party and later Prime Minister. The film begins in 1983, as Blair and Brown are first elected to Parliament, and ends in 1994 at the Granita restaurant—the location of the supposed agreement—with a brief epilogue following the leadership contest.
The film was directed by Stephen Frears from a script by Peter Morgan, based in part upon The Rivals by James Naughtie, and stars David Morrissey and Michael Sheen as Brown and Blair respectively. It was first proposed by Morgan in late 2002 and was taken on by Granada Television for ITV. After Frears agreed to direct, and the cast were signed on, ITV pulled out of it over fears that the political sensitivity could affect its corporate merger. Channel 4 picked up the production and filming was carried out for five weeks in May 2003. The film was broadcast on 28 September 2003, the weekend prior to the Labour Party's annual party conference.
The film was critically praised. Morrissey received considerable praise, winning a Royal Television Society award for playing Brown, and Frears was nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Television Movie/Serial by the Directors Guild of Great Britain. The film also nominated for an International Emmy for Best TV Movie/Miniseries. In 2006, Sheen later reunited with Morgan, Frears, and producer Christine Langan to reprise his role as Blair in The Queen, which depicts the death of Princess Diana on 31 August 1997. In 2010, Sheen reprised his role once again in The Special Relationship, that chronicles the "special relationship" between Blair and US President Bill Clinton up until the inauguration of Clinton's successor George W. Bush, and was broadcast on BBC Two in the United Kingdom and HBO in North America.
Plot
In the prologue, opening in medias res, shows Gordon Brown (David Morrissey) taking a telephone call from Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) to arrange a meeting at the Granita restaurant in Islington.
The narrative shifts to 1983; in the wake of the Falklands War, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative government enjoy huge public popularity as the general election approaches, while Labour's left-wing election manifesto loses them key voters. Whilst the Conservatives win a landslide victory, building upon their existing majority, Brown is elected as the new Member of Parliament for Dunfermline East in Scotland. In London, he is shown to his office in the Houses of Parliament. John Smith (Frank Kelly), a senior Labour MP, introduces Brown to Blair, his new office-mate and the new MP for Sedgefield. Blair makes pleasantries with Brown and, though Brown is not initially impressed, the two become friends. Smith soon introduces the pair to Peter Mandelson (Paul Rhys), Neil Kinnock's director of communications. Shortly afterwards, Kinnock appoints Blair to be an assistant Treasury spokesman. Brown turns down a promotion to the Scottish Office, hoping a better position will come along. He and Blair discuss their political futures and both agree that, of the two, Brown would make a better leader of the party.
Labour is unable to make significant dents in the Conservative majority at the 1987 general election, with the Tories dropping by only 0.2% in the national share of the vote compared to 1983. Kinnock promotes Smith to Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, with Brown as his "number two". Three years later, Thatcher resigns as Prime Minister, having been toppled from within the Conservative Party, and Brown asserts his view that a Labour victory in the next election will be possible. Despite contrary predictions, the Conservatives led by John Major win the 1992 general election and secure the most votes ever recorded for a political party in British history. Blair tells Brown that a new approach is needed, and that Brown should stand for the party leadership. Brown refuses to stand against Smith, his friend and mentor. Mandelson privately suggests to Brown that Blair should stand as leader but Brown ridicules the idea. Smith is elected and, over the next two years, Labour gains support as scandals rock the government – but both Blair and Brown are concerned that Smith's "one more heave" strategy of allowing Conservative unpopularity to hand the next election victory to Labour is not radical enough. Blair, as Shadow Home Secretary, pledges to be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" in the wake of the murder of James Bulger. During a late-night conversation about the future direction of the party, Smith tells a clearly irritated Brown that he sees Blair as his natural successor.
A year later, Smith suffers a fatal heart attack. Blair, encouraged by his wife Cherie (Elizabeth Berrington), decides to stand in the leadership contest. He later meets with Mandelson to tell him that he has received support from key Labour frontbenchers. Previously a supporter of Brown, Mandelson switches his allegiance to Blair. Brown is furious that Blair has gone back on what he perceives as having been an unwritten understanding between the two that Brown was the stronger candidate for the leadership, but Blair is incredulous – believing that the circumstances have changed enormously in the intervening years. Smith's funeral passes, and Blair's camp is sure that Brown will run. Charlie Whelan (Dexter Fletcher) and Ed Balls (Matt Blair) advise Brown that he will receive support from significant trade unions. Blair decides to arrange a meeting with Brown. At Granita, Blair tells Brown that he will run for the leadership, and in return offers Brown unprecedented power as his Chancellor should they win the next election, also offering Brown sweeping control of social policy. Brown asks what Blair's plan is should Labour win a second term in office, and Blair responds that he would not make the same mistake as Margaret Thatcher and "go on too long," agreeing to offer his support to Brown as his successor. Brown agrees and Mandelson prepares a statement from him, but discards Brown's alterations. The leadership contest is won by Blair.
Production
Writing
The film was commissioned in 2002 by ITV's head of drama Nick Elliott, who encouraged Peter Morgan to put aside any other projects and start work on a script as soon as possible. Granada was initially sceptical of producing it; the company's executive chairman and chief executive—Charles Allen and Simon Shaps respectively—believed that Blair would be forced to resign as Prime Minister over the impending war in Iraq, consequently leaving the story outdated. The project was believed to be "too cerebral" and attempts were made to persuade Morgan to develop a television series to replace Cold Feet, another Granada production. John Whiston and Andy Harries convinced Allen and Shaps otherwise, citing Granada's history of producing ground-breaking drama and film as reasons for why The Deal should be made. ITV's director of channels, David Liddiment, who supported the production, resigned in December 2002 and was replaced by Nigel Pickard, who shared the concerns of Allen and Shaps. Peter Morgan wrote his first script draft in the three weeks preceding Christmas 2002. Recent events such as the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak and the contention surrounding the September Dossier made him believe that the perceived adversity between Brown and Blair was no longer in the public consciousness. His opinion was changed when he watched the 2002 Labour Party Conference and saw a "thunderous expression" on Brown's face as Bill Clinton praised Blair in his speech; Morgan realised that the rivalry was not over. This draft was extremely sympathetic to Brown, focusing on what Morgan called "Gordon's heartbreak". Subsequent rewrites toned down this approach, though Brown still remained the "main character".
The relationship between Brown and Blair as depicted in the script was based on that between Aaron Altman and Tom Grunick, the characters portrayed by Albert Brooks and William Hurt in Broadcast News. Morgan wanted to set the entire film in the 12 days following the death of John Smith, but the time frame was widened because the Labour Party's disastrous result at the 1992 general election was "absolutely crucial" to the relationship and motives of the main characters; Morgan had to show the moment Blair decided to aim to become leader of the party. Morgan and the producers engaged in a lengthy research process during script writing and editing, interviewing 40 to 50 of Brown and Blair's closest friends and advisors, as well as aides involved in the 1992 and 1997 elections. Significantly, many of the facts in the film are based on the first three chapters of James Naughtie's book The Rivals: The Intimate Portrait of a Political Marriage. The film briefly adopted The Rivals as a working title, but soon reverted to The Deal. Another title considered by Frears was Bambi and Stalin, based on a line in a speech given by Blair in 1995.
Scenes set in the House of Commons chamber and committee rooms use the actual words as recorded in Hansard. In other scenes Morgan utilised dramatic licence, conceding that there was no evidence to suggest that any of the lines spoken elsewhere in the film were ever said in real life. The relationship between Brown and Blair received many thematic analogies; Morgan likened Brown's story to a "tragedy of an over-qualified Scot, who the Labour Party probably rightly felt at the time that it could not have as its leader." Despite the quote at the head of the film referring to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Frears wryly likened Brown and Blair to Beavis and Butt-head. Producer Christine Langan alluded to both Shakespearean and Biblical themes, painting Brown and Blair as Cain and Abel.
Casting
At the time of commissioning, Douglas Henshall and Daniel Craig were considered for the parts of Brown and Blair respectively, though David Morrissey and Michael Sheen were eventually announced as the leads in March 2003. Morrissey gained two stone for his role and had his hair permed and dyed. He researched Brown's background by travelling to Kirkcaldy—where Brown grew up—and reviewing numerous biographies and information about the Treasury. In comparison to his preparation for the BBC thriller State of Play, Morrissey discovered that no politicians wanted to help him with his research, so he turned to journalists Jon Snow and Simon Hoggart. Director Stephen Frears was unfamiliar with his previous work and had to be convinced by other production staff to cast him.
Sheen worked with an accent coach to effectively mimic Blair's speech style, although he and Morrissey avoided doing simple impersonations of the men they played. Sheen cited Will Smith's title performance of Ali as a basis for his part; despite playing a real-life figure, he treated the role as if it were any other character. Sheen had made his film debut in Frears' Mary Reilly (1996), and although he was unsure whether his minor role had "burned into [Frears'] brain", Frears confirmed that he had remembered Sheen from that. Frears' casting director approached Sheen in the audience of a play, inviting him to appear in "a love story about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown". An informal meeting was scheduled between Frears and Sheen, at the end of which Sheen was cast as Blair.
Paul Rhys studied Donald Macintyre's 1999 biography of Peter Mandelson and gained an appreciation of the politician's work on the Northern Ireland peace process, and of his sexuality. Rhys portrayed Mandelson with a "myopic loyalty" and identified him as "remain[ing] preposterously loyal to Blair" after his defection from Kinnock and Brown. The representation of Mandelson was compared to both Iago and Pandarus. Other people associated with Blair and Brown who appear in the film are Anji Hunter, Blair's assistant (played by Glenna Morrison), journalist Sheena McDonald (played by Valerie Edmond), and Sue Nye, Brown's assistant (played by Joanna Scanlan).
Filming
In March 2003, shortly before filming began, ITV abandoned its plan to screen the film, citing fears that such a politically sensitive film could affect the Granada-Carlton corporate merger, which was due to go before the government's Competition Commission. Within 24 hours, Channel 4 backed the production. A £2 million budget was assigned to the film. Filming was postponed until May to accommodate Sheen's rehearsal schedule for the play Caligula. Frears ended shooting at 6 p.m. each day, so Sheen could leave the set-in time to appear in the play at the Donmar Warehouse. The shoot was scheduled for five weeks. Set design was carried out by Michael Pickwood, a longtime production designer for Granada.
The Blairs' house in Sedgefield, Myrobella, was "played" by a house formerly owned by Lord Hailsham, Kettlethorpe Hall in Lincolnshire. The Maughan Library was used as the Houses of Parliament, along with the real-life scene in London. The scene in which John Smith eats with Brown was filmed on Blackfriars Bridge on the River Thames. The prologue and climactic scene in the Granita restaurant were shot on location in the restaurant itself.
Certain personal effects of the characters that were familiar to the public were added to the sets. Frears subdued Berrington's performance to avoid portraying Cherie as too much of a Lady Macbeth figure; in the scene where Cherie encourages Blair to stand for the leadership, Frears had Berrington stand with her back towards the camera. Editing and post-production went on until September. Some historical events—such as the Sheffield Rally and footage of the 1997 general election—were too costly to refilm so archive footage was used instead. Adam Curtis assisted in the editing of the archive footage.
Release
After John Yorke recommissioned the film for Channel 4, it was scheduled as part of a "Tony Blair season". The Deal aired on 28 September 2003, the day before the Labour Party Conference began in Bournemouth. Despite heavy media attention, the broadcast was seen by only 1.5 million viewers.
The film received a screening at the San Francisco Film Festival on 5 May 2007, following an interview with Peter Morgan. International rights for North America and Australasia were purchased from Channel 4 International by The Weinstein Company in 2007, who sold it to American cable network HBO. HBO screened The Deal on 8 November 2007. Channel 4 released it on region 2 DVD on 19 May 2008 under its 4dvd brand. Genius Products, an imprint of The Weinstein Company, released The Deal on region 1 DVD on 29 July 2008. The region 1 edition features an audio commentary by Morgan and Langan, and an interview with Frears.
The ending of the film was changed for the American release; a closing caption that had read "Gordon is still waiting [for the leadership]" was replaced by one that says that Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, thirteen years after the Granita meeting. Despite these changes, the copyright date on the film remains 2003. HBO promoted it as "a new movie... from the makers of The Queen" and the DVD was marketed as "The Prequel to The Queen", even though the film was made and originally released before The Queen.
Reception
Reviews of the film following a press screening were generally positive. The Guardian published a number of reviews by politicians and political aides; Charlie Whelan called it "enjoyable, if not entirely accurate", complaining that he was portrayed unsympathetically in comparison to Peter Mandelson—"the Prince of Darkness". Whelan was highly complementary of Morrissey's performance, but criticised Morgan's script for portraying Brown as he was publicly perceived. Michael Portillo, the Secretary of State for Defence during the time that Blair was Leader of the Opposition, wrote a positive account of the film, using his review as a platform to recall the events surrounding the 1992 general election. Tim Allan, Blair's deputy press secretary for four years, called it "cracking stuff", highlighting the leads' performances and the fact-based nature of the script.
Mark Davies, the political reporter for BBC News Online, criticised the script's bias towards Brown and Sheen's apparently negative performance; "Michael Sheen at first plays Blair in the style of Spitting Images David Steel puppet: bounding along next to his far superior colleague like an over-eager puppy. The actor later transforms Blair into something more sinister and cynical […] Think Rik Mayall's Alan B'stard." As with other critics, Davies admired Morrissey's performance, singling out the actor's grasp of Brown's physical tics. For the Daily Express, James Rampton singled out the balance of drama and humour. Upon broadcast in the United States—and in retrospect of The Queen—The Boston Globes Matthew Gilbert called it "tightly written and effectively acted, and yet it still plays more like a docudramatic re-creation than a Shakespearean glimpse at brotherly tension." Of Morrissey, Gilbert wrote "He brings depth to Brown, a Scot, as a moody, private workaholic whose passion is in ideas and not in performing to the public."
The drama won the British Academy Television Award for Best Single Drama and Morrissey won the RTS Programme Award for Male Actor. It was nominated in the RTS category for Best Single Drama and the International Emmy Award category for Best TV Movie or Miniseries. Frears was nominated in the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Television Movie/Serial category at the inaugural Directors Guild of Great Britain awards.
Follow-ups
The Queen (2006)
Frears had a clause in his contract that allowed him to direct any sequels. The success of The Deal prompted the production team to consider a new film, possibly surrounding Britain's commitment to the war in Iraq. In 2004, production was announced that the first follow-up would be produced for a theatrical film release in 2006, The Queen; that dramatises the weeks following the death of Princess Diana on 31 August 1997. Langan described the film as not being a direct sequel, only that it reunited the same creative team.
The Special Relationship (2010)
A second follow-up was written by Morgan, The Special Relationship chronicles the "special relationship" between Blair and US President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. The film was first proposed by Morgan as the third chapter in a "Blair trilogy", shortly after The Queen was released and Blair's resignation, and would have covered Blair's special relationship with Clinton and also George W. Bush. There was early speculation that Left Bank Pictures and BBC Films would be involved in production, as Morgan had "promised" the script to Christine Langan and Andy Harries. By December 2008, it had been announced that Kathleen Kennedy would be producing and Morgan would be directing. In March 2009, it was announced that Dennis Quaid would play the role of Clinton and Hope Davis would portray his wife Hillary. Morgan pulled out of directing the film in June 2009 and was replaced by Richard Loncraine. Filming on location in London ran from 20 July to 4 September 2009. The film, a Rainmark Films production for HBO Films and BBC Films was first broadcast on the HBO networks in North America on 29 May 2010.
Possible Brown film
In a radio interview with Kate Silverton in August 2010, Andy Harries spoke of early plans for a television film about "the Brown exit", though explained that such a film was "two or three years away".
See also
Cultural depictions of Tony Blair
References
Further reading
Colwill, Richard (29 September 2003). "The Deal: review of newspaper reviews". Times Online (Times Newspapers).
External links
The Deal at Channel4.com
The Deal on 4oD (available within the United Kingdom only)
2003 biographical drama films
2003 television films
2003 films
2003 in British politics
2003 in British television
British biographical drama films
British political drama films
2000s political drama films
Channel 4 television dramas
Channel 4 television films
Television series by ITV Studios
Films set in 1983
Films set in 1987
Films set in 1990
Films set in 1992
Films set in 1993
Films set in 1994
Films about prime ministers of the United Kingdom
Films directed by Stephen Frears
Films with screenplays by Peter Morgan
Cultural depictions of Tony Blair
Cultural depictions of Gordon Brown
Television shows produced by Granada Television
English-language television shows
2000s British films
British drama television films
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenape%20High%20School
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Lenape High School
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Lenape High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school located in Medford Township in Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is the oldest of the four high schools that comprise the Lenape Regional High School District, which serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from Evesham Township, Medford Lakes, Medford Township, Mount Laurel Township, Shamong Township, Southampton Township, Tabernacle Township and Woodland Township. Since opening in 1958, the school has served students from Mount Laurel Township. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools since 1963.
As of the 2021–22 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,924 students and 162.6 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 11.8:1. There were 192 students (10.0% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 66 (3.4% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
History
After the regional district was formed in 1955, a plot covering in Medford was selected in June 1956 as a site for the school, which was estimated to cost $2 million (equivalent to $ million in ). Lenape High School opened in September 1958, before which students from Medford, Medford Lakes and Tabernacle Township had attended Rancocas Valley Regional High School. Starting with 548 students in freshman and sophomore classes, the school grew quickly and now consists of two buildings, Lenape High School North and Lenape High School South. Lenape draws its student body from Mount Laurel. The school has two sides, North and South.
Students, starting in the fall 2008, attended classes based on the letter of the day. Days could range from A-E, and each student's schedule may be different for each letter. This allowed students never to miss too many classes. For example, in past years, students with lab days on Fridays would have fewer lab days when it would be a three-day weekend because school was not in session on Friday. With the letter days, students schedules rotate and eliminate this issue by having a student have lab on a specific letter day.
The current system that the high school employs is not much different from the letter schedule, but is significantly shortened. This is similar to the college system and helps prepare those for college. The school now relies upon a 4-day schedule with a total of eight periods, two of which are dropped every day. This way, a student's schedule rotates through four different options, having class periods 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the morning block, and having periods 5, 6, 7 and 8 in the afternoon, leaving out a morning and afternoon class each day. Every student, regardless of grade, also attends lunch at the same time, which is commonly known as Lunch and Learn. This time is not only utilized for lunch and social purposes, but for kids to receive extra help during their lunch from teachers who are available or meet with clubs and other activities. Each class is approximately one hour long.
Awards, recognition and rankings
The school was the 79th-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 339 schools statewide in New Jersey Monthly magazine's September 2014 cover story on the state's "Top Public High Schools", using a new ranking methodology. The school had been ranked 143rd in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 122nd in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 120th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 134th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state.
Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 128th out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (an increase of 6 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (84.3%) and language arts literacy (95.4%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).
Athletics
The Lenape High School Indians compete in the Olympic Conference, which is comprised of public and private high schools in Burlington and Camden counties and operates under the supervision of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA). With 1,437 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2019–20 school year as Group IV South for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 1,060 to 5,049 students in that grade range. The football team competes in the American Division of the 94-team West Jersey Football League superconference and was classified by the NJSIAA as Group V South for football for 2022–2024, which included schools with 1,315 to 2,466 students. Lenape High School also has a separate club ultimate and ice hockey teams. The ice hockey team is member of the South Jersey High School Ice Hockey League.
The softball team won the South II state sectional title in 1972, the South sectional title in 1973-1975, was overall state champion in 1974 (defeating Westfield High School in the finals) and won the Group IV state title in 1981 (vs. Eastside High School). The 1981 team finished the season with a 21-2 record after winning the Group IV state title with a 5-4 one-hitter against Eastside in the championship game. The 1974 team finished the season 15-1 after winning the overall state championship against runner-up Westfield.
The girls bowling team was overall state champion in 1980 (as co-champion with South Plainfield High School) and 1982. The 1980 team was tied for first place with 2,424 pins with South Plainfield. The 1982 team won the state title outright with a total of 2,590 pins, 44 ahead of Toms River High School North in second place.
The girls' lacrosse team won the overall state championship in 1981 (defeating Collingswood High School in the tournament final), and won the Group IV title in both 2007 (vs. Montclair High School) and 2014 (vs. Ridge High School); the program's three grouptitles are tied for tenth in the state. The team won the 2007 Group IV state championship with an 11–7 win against Montclair in the championship game.
The wrestling team won the South Jersey Group IV state sectional championship in 1986, 1987 and 1989
The girls' gymnastics team has won the team state championship in 1987, 1988 and 1990; the three titles are the most of any public school in the state.
The boys soccer team won the Group IV state championship in 1996, against Randolph High School in the finals of the tournament.
The boys track team won the indoor relay state championship in Group IV in 1998 (as co-champion).The girls team won the Group IV title in 2008, 2011 and 2012.
The boys track team won the Group IV indoor track state championship in 1999 (as co-champion) and 2000. The girls team won the Group IV state title in 2008.
The field hockey team won the Central Jersey Group IV state championship in 2000, 2003, 2017 and 2019. Lenape won the 2003 Central Jersey Group IV sectional championship in field hockey, edging Cherokee High School 2–1 in the tournament final.
The boys track team won the Group IV spring / outdoor track state championship in 2000.
The boys basketball team won the Group IV state championship in 2004 (defeating runner-up Plainfield High School in the final game of the tournament) and 2009 (vs. Paterson Eastside) The 2004 boys' basketball won the South Jersey, Group IV championship, defeating Atlantic City High School 66–51. The team moved on to win the 2004 Group IV state championship with a 63-46 win over Plainfield High School. The 2009 boys' basketball team won the NJSIAA South Group IV title and went on to win the program's second Group IV state championship by defeating Eastside High School (of Paterson) by a score of 68–48 at Rutgers University.
The girls soccer team won the Group IV state championship in 2007 (defeating Bridgewater-Raritan High School in the finals of the tournament), 2008 (vs. Ridge High School), 2009 (vs. Westfield High School), 2020 (vs. Livingston High School) and 2011 (vs. Ridge). The program's five state titles are tied for tenth-most in the state and the five consecutive titles are the second-longest streak. The girls' soccer team won the South Jersey Group IV title in 2004 with a 3–1 win over Washington Township High School. In 2007, the team won the South, Group IV state sectional championship with a 3–2 win over Toms River High School North in the tournament final. The team moved on to win the 2007 Group IV state championship with a 3–0 win over Bridgewater-Raritan in the playoff finals at The College of New Jersey to finish the season with a 22-2-1 record. Lenape girls soccer team won the 2008–09 state championship against Ridge High School, 1–0 to top off a perfect season at 25–0–0. The team won their third consecutive state championship with a 1–0 win over Westfield High School in the 2009–10 season. The team won their fourth consecutive state championship in the 2010–11 season, the first Group IV team to achieve this accomplishment, with a 5-2 win over Livingston High School. Lenape girls soccer is led by Coaches Kevin Meder and Tony Guerrara.
The 2008 Lenape boys' bowling squad featured one of the best individual seasons in high school bowling history. Class of 2011 member Anthony Scerati averaged 235.67 during the season, which included a perfect 300 game, and an 803 series. Anthony also took the singles title at the Holiday tournament, firing a 772 series.
The girls spring track team was the Group IV state champion in 2015.
The girls basketball team won the 2016 Group IV state championship with a win against runner-up John F. Kennedy High School (Paterson) in the finals of the tournament. The 2016 team won the program's first state title with a 50-35 win against J.F.K High School (Paterson).
The football team won the South Jersey Group V state sectional championship in 2017. In fall 1996, the Lenape football team pulled off the biggest upset in South Jersey football history by defeating Washington Township High School, the top-ranked team in South Jersey and top five in the state, coming back from 14-2 to win 21-14. In the fall of 1997 Lenape won the Olympic Conference in football and spent most of the season ranked #1 in South Jersey. The team won its first state sectional title, defeating Rancocas Valley Regional High School in the 2017 South Jersey Group V state sectional championship game on a field goal scored with five seconds on the clock to give top-seeded Lenape the 10-7 win over the Rancocas Valley Regional High School, the tournament's second seed.
Extracurricular activities
Lenape High School has participated at the Princeton Model Congress, a four-day conference with over 50 schools from around the country. The team placed first at Princeton Model Congress four of the past six years. They brought home the James Madison Award in the most recent 2006 Princeton Model Congress.
Lenape is known for its academic / scientific clubs; Math Team, Science League, and Knowledge Bowl. Science League competes in the New Jersey Science League. Last year the Earth Science team brought home a plaque for ninth place in the state. The Science League also competes in the Merck State Science Day. Knowledge Bowl consists of two "A" teams composed of Juniors and Seniors, and one "B" team of the two other classes. The team competes in the Gateway Toyota tournament at Monsignor Donovan High School, NORJAC, which is at Leonia High School, the Burlington County Academic Tournament, which is usually held at Cherokee High School, as well as the Allentown tournament, held in Allentown, New Jersey. Last year, the B team brought home second place and the Gateway Toyota, second at the BCAT, and first at the Allentown Tournament. In November 2010, Lenape placed first in the Gateway Toyota Academic Tournament. Later, that December, Lenape placed third in the NORJAC tournament.
The STORM Robotics Team is a collection of FIRST teams. FIRST Robotics Competition Team 2729, FIRST Tech Challenge Team 4390, and FIRST Tech Challenge Team 7433 are open for anyone to join from Lenape High School or its sister school Cherokee High School. Founded in the 2009 season, the team has made it to the FIRST Championship three times (2008-2009, 2012-2013, 2017–2018) and received the Highest Rookie Seed award in the 2008-2009 season. At the Washington DC Competition STORM received the Rookie AllStar award. In 2011 the FRC team won the "AutoDesk Excellence in 3D Animation" award' at the New Jersey Regional Competition. In 2013 the FRC team won the "Engineer Excellence Award" at that years Hatboro competition, the "District's Chairman Award" at the Lenape competition, along with being the winners for the district at the Lenape competition, and the Mid-Atlantic Robotics Region Champion, finally rounding out the year as the 15th seed in the FIRST Championship's Galileo Division. In 2018 the team won the "Engineering Inspiration Award" at the Westtown competition, as well as the runner up equivalent at the Mid-Atlantic District Championship. The team rounded out the year as the 20th seed in the FIRST Championship's Daly Division, as well as the Gracious Professionalism award in that same division.
In addition the school allows any club to be created as long as the student with the idea finds an interest and a teacher to supervise.
Marching band
The Lenape High School Marching Band has won multiple championships in State and National competitions. In 2004, they were United States Scholastic Band Association (USSBA) group 2A All-States champions, and in 2005 they were Cavalcade of Bands American A Champions. In 2006, they placed third in the state in group 2A at USSBA state championships and third with best color guard at USSBA all-states championships. Their 2007 show was "Four Seasons" which went undefeated within the Group 2A class in the USSBA circuit, with a 92.0 championship winning performance. In 2008, they once again, became the Group II A Class All-States Champions with a score of 94.1, with their show entitled "I Write the Songs," a tribute to Barry Manilow. In 2009 the band won the New Jersey 2A state championships, capturing their first state championship in the USSBA circuit, and went on to place second at All-States Championships. In 2010, the marching band held on to their title as NJ State Champions in the USSBA circuit's 2A group with their show "It's About Time." Due to scheduling conflicts with the All States Championships for 2A, the band opted to move up a group to 3A and performed in Allentown where they came in at a respectable fifth place and took the High Visual award. In 2011, with their show "True Colors", the marching band finished an undefeated season by retaining their title as USSBA Group 2A NJ State Champions for the third consecutive year, and by winning the USSBA Group 2A National Championship with the highest score in the band's history 96.413. The band continued the championship streak by winning the 2012 USBands Group 2 Open New Jersey State Title with their "World Tour" show before going on to place second at the National Championship. In 2013, the band placed second at the New Jersey State and National Championships. In 2014, with "It's A Jungle Out There" show, the band completed an undefeated season with the USBands Group 2 OPEN New Jersey state championship and the National Title with a new best high score of 96.425. "Lenape High School marching band wins fourth straight New Jersey State Band title", South Jersey Local News, December 12, 2012. Accessed May 26, 2013. "Lenape High School's marching band continued its winning streak on Sat., Nov. 10, in Washington Township, capturing the New Jersey State Band title for the fourth straight year. In 2015, with "Desert Winds", Lenape won the USBands Group 2 Open New Jersey State Title and placed second at the National Championships. In 2016, with "Bon Appetit!", Lenape won the USBands Group 2 Open New Jersey State Title.. In 2017, Lenape's marching band again won the USBands Group 2 Open New Jersey State Title with their show "Abracadabra." The band won New Jersey State Titles in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022 along with the 2022 Group I OPEN USBands National Championship.
In addition to competitions, the band performs at school football games, the Medford Halloween Parade, Mount Laurel Day, and the Vincentown Memorial Day Parade and has performed in the Miss America Parade since 2014.
The Lenape Marching Band also had previously won Class I Championships in 1993 and 1994 and Class II Championships in 1996 and 1997 as part of the Eastern Marching Band Association.
Administration
The school's principal is Anthony Cattani. His administration team includes seven assistant principals.
Notable alumni
Chris DeStefano, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter, record producer and multi instrumentalist.
Christina Foggie (born 1992), professional basketball player drafted in 2014 by the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA.
Darlene Hill (born 1989, class of 2007), retired artistic gymnast.
Lauren Pfeiffer (born 1987), field hockey player who represented the United States in international competition.
Scott Schoeneweis (born 1973), relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.
Slushii (born 1997), disc jockey and electronic music producer.
Jason Thompson (born 1986), 12th pick in the 2008 NBA draft after basketball career at Rider University.
Ryan Thompson (born 1988), professional basketball player and younger brother of Jason.
Kenie Wright (born 1997), soccer player who plays as a midfielder for Sky Blue FC in the NWSL.
Other schools in the district
Other schools in the district (with 2020–21 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics) are:
Cherokee High School - located in Evesham Township, with 2,165 students from Evesham Township
Seneca High School – located in Tabernacle Township, with 1,026 students from Shamong, Southampton Tabernacle and Woodland Townships
Shawnee High School – located in Medford Township, with 1,500 students from Medford Lakes and Medford Township
References
External links
Lenape High School website
Lenape Regional High School District
Data for the Lenape Regional High School District, National Center for Education Statistics
Lenape High School Official Alumni Site
South Jersey Sports: Lenape HS
1958 establishments in New Jersey
Educational institutions established in 1958
Medford, New Jersey
Mount Laurel, New Jersey
Public high schools in Burlington County, New Jersey
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%20military%20administration%20in%20occupied%20France%20during%20World%20War%20II
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German military administration in occupied France during World War II
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The Military Administration in France (; ) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zone in areas of northern and western France. This so-called was established in June 1940, and renamed ("north zone") in November 1942, when the previously unoccupied zone in the south known as ("free zone") was also occupied and renamed ("south zone").
Its role in France was partly governed by the conditions set by the Second Armistice at after the success of the leading to the Fall of France; at the time both French and Germans thought the occupation would be temporary and last only until Britain came to terms, which was believed to be imminent. For instance, France agreed that its soldiers would remain prisoners of war until the cessation of all hostilities.
The "French State" () replaced the French Third Republic that had dissolved in defeat. Though nominally extending its sovereignty over the whole country, it was in practice limited in exercising its authority to the free zone. As Paris was located in the occupied zone, its government was seated in the spa town of Vichy in , and therefore it was more commonly known as Vichy France.
While the Vichy government was nominally in charge of all of France, the military administration in the occupied zone was a Nazi dictatorship. Nazi rule was extended to the free zone when it was invaded by Germany and Italy during on 11 November 1942 in response to Operation Torch, the Allied landings in French North Africa on 8 November 1942. The Vichy government remained in existence, even though its authority was now severely curtailed.
The German military administration in France ended with the Liberation of France after the Normandy and Provence landings. It formally existed from May 1940 to December 1944, though most of its territory had been liberated by the Allies by the end of summer 1944.
Occupation zones
Alsace-Lorraine had been annexed after the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 by the German Empire and returned to France after the First World War. It was re-annexed by the Third Reich (thus subjecting their male population to German military conscription.) The departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais were attached to the military administration in Belgium and Northern France, which was also responsible for civilian affairs in the wide zone interdite along the Atlantic coast. Another "forbidden zone" were areas in north-eastern France, corresponding to Lorraine and roughly about half each of Franche-Comté, Champagne and Picardie. War refugees were prohibited from returning to their homes, and it was intended for German settlers and annexation in the coming Nazi New Order (Neue Ordnung).
The occupied zone (, , ) consisted of the rest of northern and western France, including the two forbidden zones.
The southern part of France, except for the western half of Aquitaine along the Atlantic coast, became the zone libre ("free zone"), where the Vichy regime remained sovereign as an independent state, though under heavy German influence due to the restrictions of the Armistice (including a heavy tribute) and economical dependency on Germany. It constituted a land area of 246,618 square kilometres, approximately 45 percent of France, and included approximately 33 percent of the total French labor force. The demarcation line between the free zone and the occupied zone was a de facto border, necessitating special authorisation and a laissez-passer from the German authorities to cross.
These restrictions remained in place after Vichy was occupied and the zone renamed zone sud ("south zone"), and also placed under military administration in November 1942.
The Italian occupation zone consisted of small areas along the Alps border, and a demilitarised zone along the same. It was expanded to all territory on the left bank of the Rhône river after its invasion together with Germany of Vichy France on 11 November 1942, except for areas around Lyon and Marseille, which were added to Germany's zone sud, and Corsica.
The Italian occupation zone was also occupied by Germany and added to the zone sud after Italy's surrender in September 1943, except for Corsica, which was liberated by the landings of Free French forces and local Italian troops that became co-belligerents of the Allies.
Administrative structure
After Germany and France agreed on an armistice following the defeats of May and June, Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and General Charles Huntzinger, representatives of the Third Reich and of the French government of Marshal Philippe Pétain respectively, signed it on 22 June 1940 at the Rethondes clearing in Compiègne Forest. As it was done at the same place and in the same railroad carriage where the armistice ending the First World War when Germany surrendered, it is known as the Second Compiègne armistice.
France was roughly divided into an occupied northern zone and an unoccupied southern zone, according to the armistice convention "in order to protect the interests of the German Reich". The French colonial empire remained under the authority of Marshal Pétain's Vichy regime. French sovereignty was to be exercised over the whole of French territory, including the occupied zone, Alsace and Moselle, but the third article of the armistice stipulated that French authorities in the occupied zone would have to obey the military administration and that Germany would exercise rights of an occupying power within it:
In the occupied region of France, the German Reich exercises all of the rights of an occupying power. The French government undertakes to facilitate in every way possible the implementation of these rights, and to provide the assistance of the French administrative services to that end. The French government will immediately direct all officials and administrators of the occupied territory to comply with the regulations of, and to collaborate fully with, the German military authorities.
The military administration was responsible for civil affairs in occupied France. It was divided into Kommandanturen (singular Kommandantur), in decreasing hierarchical order Oberfeldkommandanturen, Feldkommandanturen, Kreiskommandanturen, and Ortskommandanturen. German naval affairs in France were coordinated through a central office known as the Höheres Kommando der Marinedienststellen in Groß-Paris (Supreme Command for Naval Services in the Greater Paris Area) who in turn answered to a senior commander for all of France known as the Admiral Frankreich. After Case Anton, the "Admiral Frankreich" naval command was broken apart into smaller offices which answered directly to the operational command of Navy Group West.
Collaboration
In order to suppress partisans and resistance fighters, the military administration cooperated closely with the Gestapo, the Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence service of the SS, and the Sicherheitspolizei, its security police. It also had at its disposal the support of the French authorities and police forces, who had to cooperate per the conditions set in the armistice, to round up Jews, anti-fascists and other dissidents, and vanish them into Nacht und Nebel, "Night and Fog". It also had the help of collaborationists French auxiliaries like the Milice, the Franc-Gardes and the Legionary Order Service. The two main collaborationist political parties were the French Popular Party (PPF) and the National Popular Rally (RNP), each with 20,000 to 30,000 members.
The Milice participated with Lyon Gestapo head Klaus Barbie in seizing members of the resistance and minorities including Jews for shipment to detention centres, such as the Drancy deportation camp, en route to Auschwitz, and other German concentration camps, including Dachau and Buchenwald.
Some Frenchmen also volunteered directly in German forces to fight for Germany and/or against Bolsheviks, such as the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism. Volunteers from this and other outfits later constituted the cadre of the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French).
Stanley Hoffmann in 1974, and after him, other historians such as Robert Paxton and Jean-Pierre Azéma have used the term collaborationnistes to refer to fascists and Nazi sympathisers who, for ideological reasons, wished a reinforced collaboration with Hitler's Germany, in contrast to "collaborators", people who merely cooperated out of self-interest. Examples of these are PPF leader Jacques Doriot, writer Robert Brasillach or Marcel Déat. A principal motivation and ideological foundation among collaborationnistes was anti-communism.
Occupation forces
The Wehrmacht maintained a varying number of divisions in France. 100,000 Germans were in the whole of the German-zone in France in December 1941. When the bulk of the Wehrmacht was fighting on the eastern front, German units were rotated to France to rest and refit. The number of troops increased when the threat of Allied invasion began looming large, with the Dieppe raid marking its real beginning. The actions of Canadian and British Commandos against German troops brought Hitler to condemn them as irregular warfare. In his Commando Order he denied them lawful combatant status, and ordered them to be handed over to the SS security service when captured and liable to be summarily executed. As the war went on, garrisoning the Atlantic Wall and suppressing the resistance became heavier and heavier duties.
Some notable units and formations stationed in France during the occupation:
1940: Luftflotte 2, Luftflotte 3 operated from airfields in northern France during the Battle of Britain. Luftflotte 3 stayed there to defend against the allied strategic bombings until it had to retreat in 1944.
1941: Battlecruisers and . The battleship Bismarck was sunk while trying to reach French Atlantic harbors after its commissioning.
1942: 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, 4th SS Police Regiment
1943: At the height of the battle of the Atlantic, between 60 and over a 100 German U-boats were stationed in submarine pens in French Atlantic ports such as La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Saint-Nazaire, Brest, and Lorient.
1944: 157th Mountain (Reserve) Division, Panzer Lehr, XIXth Army, 716th Static Infantry Division, 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend.
Anti-partisan actions
The "Appeal of 18 June" by de Gaulle's Free France government in exile in London had little immediate effect, and few joined its French Forces of the Interior beyond those that had already gone into exile to join the Free French. After the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the French communist party, hitherto under orders from the Comintern to remain passive against the German occupiers, began to mount actions against them. De Gaulle sent Jean Moulin back to France as his formal link to the irregulars throughout the occupied country to coordinate the eight major Résistance groups into one organisation. Moulin got their agreement to form the National Council of the Resistance ().
Moulin was eventually captured, and died under brutal torture by the Gestapo, possibly by Klaus Barbie himself. The resistance intensified after it became clear the tide of war had shifted after the Reich's defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943 and, by 1944, large remote areas were out of the German military's control and free zones for the maquisards, so-called after the maquis shrubland that provided ideal terrain for guerrilla warfare.
The most important anti-partisan action was the Battle of Vercors. The most infamous one was the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre. Other notable atrocities committed were the Tulle massacre, the Le Paradis massacre, the Maillé massacre, and the Ascq massacre. Large maquis where significant military operations were conducted included the maquis du Vercors, the maquis du Limousin, the maquis des Glières, the maquis du Mont Mouchet, and the maquis de Saint-Marcel. Major round-up operations included the Round up of Marseille and the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup.
Although the majority of the French population did not take part in active resistance, many resisted passively through acts such as listening to the banned BBC's Radio Londres, or giving collateral or material aid to Resistance members. Others assisted in the escape of downed US or British airmen who eventually found their way back to Britain, often through Spain.
By the eve of the liberation, numerous factions of nationalists, anarchists, communists, socialists and others, counting between 100,000 and up to 400,000 combatants, were actively fighting the occupation forces. Supported by the Special Operations Executive and the Office of Strategic Services that air-dropped weapons and supplies, as well as infiltrating agents like Nancy Wake who provided tactical advice and specialist skills like radio operation and demolition, they systematically sabotaged railway lines, destroyed bridges, cut German supply lines, and provided general intelligence to the allied forces. German anti-partisan operations claimed around 13,000-16,000 French victims, including 4,000 to 5,000 innocent civilians.
At the end of the war, some 580,000 French had died (40,000 of these by the western Allied forces during the bombardments of the first 48 hours of Operation Overlord). Military deaths were 92,000 in 1939–40. Some 58,000 were killed in action from 1940 to 1945 fighting in the Free French forces. Some 40,000 malgré-nous ("against our will"), citizens of re-annexed Alsace-Lorraine drafted into the Wehrmacht, became casualties. Civilian casualties amounted to around 150,000 (60,000 by aerial bombing, 60,000 in the resistance, and 30,000 murdered by German occupation forces). Prisoners of war and deportee totals were around 1.9 million. Of this, around 240,000 died in captivity. An estimated 40,000 were prisoners of war, 100,000 racial deportees, 60,000 political prisoners and 40,000 died as slave labourers.
Propaganda
Military propaganda for European countries under occupation was headquartered in Potsdam. There was one Propaganda battalion in each occupied country, headquartered in the main town or capital. This was further subdivided at the regional level.
Headquarters for France was at the Hotel Majestic in Paris, with propaganda sections () in Bordeaux, Dijon, and other towns.
A ("propaganda squadron") was a service charged by the German authorities with the propaganda and control of the French press and of publishing during the Occupation of France. Sections (, "squadron") in each important town.
After their victory in June 1940, the occupation authorities first relied on the German embassy in Paris (Hôtel Beauharnais) to monitor publications, shows, and radio broadcasts. They then set up the (France Propaganda Department), which developed Nazi propaganda and censorship services called Propagandastaffel in the various regions of France.
Each Propagandastaffel was led by a commander and employed some thirty people. There were (special directors) in charge of particular areas: censorship of shows and plays, publishing and press, cinematographic works, and public advertising and speeches. The directors, chosen for their skills in civil matters, wore military dress and were subject to military regulation.
Civilians
The census for 1 April 1941 show 25,071,255 inhabitants in the occupied zone (with 14.2m in the unoccupied zone). This does not include the 1,600,000 prisoners of war, nor the 60,000 French workers in Germany or the departments of Alsace-Lorraine.
Daily life
The life of the French during the German occupation was marked, from the beginning, by endemic shortages. They are explained by several factors:
One of the conditions of the armistice was to pay the costs of the 300,000-strong occupying German army, which amounted to 20 million Reichsmark per day. The artificial exchange rate of the German currency against the French franc was consequently established as 1 RM to 20 FF. This allowed German requisitions and purchases to be made into a form of organised plunder and resulted in endemic food shortages and malnutrition, particularly amongst children, the elderly, and the more vulnerable sections of French society such as the working urban class of the cities.
The disorganisation of transport, except for the railway system which relied on French domestic coal supplies.
The cutting off of international trade and the Allied blockade, restricting imports into the country.
The extreme shortage of petrol and diesel fuel. France had no indigenous oil production and all imports had stopped.
Labour shortages, particularly in the countryside, due to the large number of French prisoners of war held in Germany, and the Service du travail obligatoire.
Ersatz, or makeshift substitutes, took the place of many products that were in short supply; wood gas generators on trucks and automobiles burned charcoal or wood pellets as a substitute to gasoline, and wooden soles for shoes were used instead of leather. Soap was rare and made in some households from fats and caustic soda. Coffee was replaced by toasted barley mixed with chicory, and sugar with saccharin.
The Germans seized about 80 percent of the French food production, which caused severe disruption to the household economy of the French people. French farm production fell in half because of lack of fuel, fertilizer and workers; even so the Germans seized half the meat, 20 percent of the produce, and 80 percent of the Champagne. Supply problems quickly affected French stores which lacked most items.
Faced with these difficulties in everyday life, the government answered by rationing, and creating food charts and tickets which were to be exchanged for bread, meat, butter and cooking oil. The rationing system was stringent but badly managed, leading to malnourishment, black markets, and hostility to state management of the food supply. The official ration provided starvation level diets of 1,300 or fewer calories a day, supplemented by home gardens and, especially, black market purchases.
Hunger prevailed, especially affecting youth in urban areas. The queues lengthened in front of shops. In the absence of meat and other foods including potatoes, people ate unusual vegetables, such as Swedish turnip and Jerusalem artichoke. Food shortages were most acute in the large cities. In the more remote country villages, however, clandestine slaughtering, vegetable gardens and the availability of milk products permitted better survival.
Some people benefited from the black market, where food was sold without tickets at very high prices. Farmers diverted especially meat to the black market, which meant that much less for the open market. Counterfeit food tickets were also in circulation. Direct buying from farmers in the countryside and barter against cigarettes were also frequent practices during this period. These activities were strictly forbidden, however, and thus carried out at the risk of confiscation and fines.
During the day, numerous regulations, censorship and propaganda made the occupation increasingly unbearable. At night, inhabitants had to abide a curfew and it was forbidden to go out during the night without an Ausweis. They had to close their shutters or windows and turn off any light, to prevent Allied aircraft using city lights for navigation. The experience of the Occupation was a deeply psychologically disorienting one for the French as what was once familiar and safe suddenly become strange and threatening. Many Parisians could not get over the shock experienced when they first saw the huge swastika flags draped over the Hôtel de Ville and flying on top of the Eiffel Tower. The British historian Ian Ousby wrote:
Even today, when people who are not French or did not live through the Occupation look at photos of German soldiers marching down the Champs Élysées or of Gothic-lettered German signposts outside the great landmarks of Paris, they can still feel a slight shock of disbelief. The scenes look not just unreal, but almost deliberately surreal, as if the unexpected conjunction of German and French, French and German, was the result of a Dada prank and not the sober record of history. This shock is merely a distant echo of what the French underwent in 1940: seeing a familiar landscape transformed by the addition of the unfamiliar, living among everyday sights suddenly made bizarre, no longer feeling at home in places they had known all their lives.
Ousby wrote that by the end of summer of 1940: "And so the alien presence, increasingly hated and feared in private, could seem so permanent that, in the public places where daily life went on, it was taken for granted". At the same time France was also marked by disappearances as buildings were renamed, books banned, art was stolen to be taken to Germany and as time went on, people started to vanish.
With nearly inhabitants killed and tons of bombs dropped, France was, after Germany, the second most severely bomb-devastated country on the Western Front of World War II. Allied bombings were particularly intense before and during Operation Overlord in 1944.
The Allies' Transportation Plan aiming at the systematic destruction of French railway marshalling yards and railway bridges, in 1944, also took a heavy toll on civilian lives. For example, the 26 May 1944 bombing hit railway targets in and around five cities in south-eastern France, causing over 2,500 civilian deaths.
Crossing the ligne de démarcation between the north zone and the south zone also required an Ausweis, which was difficult to acquire. People could write only to their family members, and this was only permissible using a pre-filled card where the sender checked off the appropriate words (e.g. 'in good health', 'wounded', 'dead', 'prisoner'). The occupied zone was on German time, which was one hour ahead of the unoccupied zone. Other policies implemented in the occupied zone but not in the free zone were a curfew from 10 p.m to 5 a.m, a ban on American films, the suppression of displaying the French flag and singing the Marseillaise, and the banning of Vichy paramilitary organizations and the Veterans' Legion.
Schoolchildren were made to sing "Maréchal, nous voilà !" ("Marshall, here we are!"). The portrait of Marshal Philippe Pétain adorned the walls of classrooms, thus creating a personality cult. Propaganda was present in education to train the young people with the ideas of the new Vichy regime. However, there was no resumption in ideology as in other occupied countries, for example in Poland, where the teaching elite was liquidated. Teachers were not imprisoned and the programs were not modified overall. In the private Catholic sector, many school directors hid Jewish children (thus saving their life) and provided education for them until the Liberation.
Nightlife in Paris
One month after the occupation, the bi-monthly soldiers' magazine (The German Guide to Paris) was first published by the Paris Kommandantur, and became a success. Further guides, such as the Guide aryien, counted e.g. the Moulin Rouge among the must-see locations in Paris. Famous clubs such as the Folies-Belleville or Bobino were also among the sought-after venues. A wide array of German units were rotated to France to rest and refit; the Germans used the motto "Jeder einmal in Paris" ("everyone once in Paris") and provided to the city for their troops. Various famous artists, such as Yves Montand or later Les Compagnons de la chanson, started their careers during the occupation. Edith Piaf lived above L'Étoile de Kléber, a famous bordello on the Rue Lauriston, which was near the Carlingue headquarters and was often frequented by German troops. The curfew in Paris was not upheld as strictly as in other cities.
The Django Reinhardt song "Nuages", performed by Reinhardt and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France in the Salle Pleyel, gained notoriety among both French and German fans. Jean Reinhardt was even invited to play for the . The use and abuse of Paris in the visitations of German forces during the Second World War led to a backlash; the intensive prostitution during the occupation made way for the Loi de Marthe Richard in 1946, which closed the bordellos and reduced raunchy stage shows to mere dancing events.
Oppression
During the German occupation, a forced labour policy, called Service du Travail Obligatoire ("Obligatory work service, STO"), consisted of the requisition and transfer of hundreds of thousands of French workers to Germany against their will, for the German war effort. In addition to work camps for factories, agriculture, and railroads, forced labour was used for V-1 launch sites and other military facilities targeted by the Allies in Operation Crossbow. Beginning in 1942, many refused to be drafted to factories and farms in Germany by the STO, going underground to avoid imprisonment and subsequent deportation to Germany. For the most part, those "work dodgers" (réfractaires) became maquisards.
There were German reprisals against civilians in occupied countries; in France, the Nazis built an execution chamber in the cellars of the former Ministry of Aviation building in Paris.
Many Jews were victims of the Holocaust in France. Approximately 49 concentration camps were in use in France during the occupation, the largest of them at Drancy. In the occupied zone, as of 1942, Jews were required to wear the yellow badge and were only allowed to ride in the last carriage of the Paris Métro. 13,152 Jews residing in the Paris region were victims of a mass arrest by pro-Nazi French authorities on 16 and 17 July 1942, known as the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, and were transported to Auschwitz where they were killed.
Overall, according to a detailed count drawn under Serge Klarsfeld, slightly below 77,500 of the Jews residing in France died during the war, overwhelmingly after being deported to death camps. Out of a Jewish population in France in 1940 of 350,000, this means that somewhat less than a quarter died. While horrific, the mortality rate was lower than in other occupied countries (e.g. 75 percent in the Netherlands) and, because the majority of the Jews were recent immigrants to France (mostly exiles from Germany), more Jews lived in France at the end of the occupation than did approximately 10 years earlier when Hitler formally came to power.
Aftermath
The Liberation of France was the result of the Allied operations Overlord and Dragoon in the summer of 1944. Most of France was liberated by September 1944. Some of the heavily fortified French Atlantic coast submarine bases remained stay-behind "fortresses" until the German capitulation in May 1945. The Free French exile government declared the establishment of a provisional French Republic, ensuring continuity with the defunct Third Republic. It set about raising new troops to participate in the advance to the Rhine and the invasion of Germany, using the French Forces of the Interior as military cadres and manpower pools of experienced fighters to allow a very large and rapid expansion of the French Liberation Army (Armée française de la Libération). Thanks to Lend-Lease, it was well equipped and well supplied despite the economic disruption brought by the occupation, and it grew from 500,000 men in the summer of 1944 to more than 1.3 million by V-E day, making it the fourth largest Allied army in Europe.
The French 2nd Armored Division, tip of the spear of the Free French forces that had participated in the Normandy Campaign and had liberated Paris on 25 August 1944, went on to liberate Strasbourg on 22 November 1944, thus fulfilling the Oath of Kufra made by General Leclerc almost four years earlier. The unit under his command, barely above company-size when it had captured the Italian fort, had grown into a full-strength armoured division.
The spearhead of the Free French First Army, that had landed in Provence on 15 August 1944, was the I Corps. Its leading unit, the French 1st Armored Division, was the first Western Allied unit to reach the Rhône (25 August 1944), the Rhine (19 November 1944) and the Danube (21 April 1945). On 22 April 1945, it captured the Sigmaringen enclave in Baden-Württemberg, where the last Vichy regime exiles, including Marshal Pétain, were hosted by the Germans in one of the ancestral castles of the Hohenzollern dynasty.
Collaborators were put on trial in legal purges (épuration légale), and a number were executed for high treason, among them Pierre Laval, Vichy's prime minister in 1942–44. Marshal Pétain, "Chief of the French State" and Verdun hero, was also condemned to death (14 August 1945), but his sentence was commuted to life three days later.
Thousands of collaborators were summarily executed by local Resistance forces in so-called "savage purges" (épuration sauvage).
See also
Hôtel Terminus
Paris in World War II
Collaborationism in France during the Second World War, book by Bertram M. Gordon
Notes
Further reading
Isabelle von Bueltzingsloewen, (ed) (2005). "Morts d'inanition": Famine et exclusions en France sous l'Occupation. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
Robert Gildea (2002). Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation 1940–1945. London: Macmillan.
Gerhard Hirschfeld & Patrick Marsh (eds) (1989). Collaboration in France: Politics and Culture during the Nazi Occupation 1940-1944. Berg Pub,
Julian T. Jackson (2001). France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shtasel, Rebecca. "Workers’ resilience in occupied France: workers in Le Havre, 1941–1942." French History 34.2 (2020): 235-252.
External links
Cliotexte: sources on collaboration and resistance
Cliotexte: daily life under occupation
NAZI diplomacy: Vichy, 1940
An Unwelcome Visitor is a webpage relating Hitler's triumphal tour of Paris.
France
France
Jewish French history
Military history of France during World War II
Vichy France
France
Axis powers
1940 establishments in France
1944 disestablishments in France
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Bangladesh%20tropical%20cyclones
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List of Bangladesh tropical cyclones
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Present day Bangladesh, due to its unique geographic location, suffers from devastating tropical cyclones frequently. The funnel-shaped northern portion of the Bay of Bengal amplifies the storm surge of landfalling tropical cyclones, affecting thousands of people. Some of the most devastating natural disasters in recorded history with high casualties were tropical cyclones that hit the region now comprising present-day Bangladesh. Among them, the 1970 Bhola cyclone alone claimed approximately 300,000 to 500,000 lives, making it the deadliest tropical cyclone on record.
History
Tropical cyclones affecting Bangladesh have killed about 1.54 million people in the Bengal region.
Bangladesh Space Research and Remote Sensing Organisation (SPARRSO), a government agency under the Ministry of Defence provides storm predictions and early warnings using feeds from NASA and NOAA's satellites. The warnings are usually given in a scale of 10, with 10 being used for the deadliest storms.
A detailed program for storm prevention was outlined by the government following the cyclone of 1991. A Comprehensive Cyclone Preparedness Programme (CPP) is jointly planned, operated, and managed by the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief and the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society; a volunteer force of more than 32,000 are trained to help in warning and evacuation in the coastal areas. Around 2,500 cyclone shelters have been constructed in the coastal regions. The shelters are built on elevated platforms and serve the dual role of schools or community centers during normal weather. In Patenga, Chittagong, the coast has been heavily protected with concrete levees. Also, afforestation has been initiated in the coastal regions to create a green belt.
Storms
Historical record
Source: SMRC-No.1 – The impact of tropical cyclones on the coastal regions of SAARC countries and their influence in the region, SAARC Meteorological Research Center (SMRC),1998
This is a partial list of the tropical cyclones in Bangladesh or the historical region of Bengal of pre-partitioned India in general. Some of the years and dates may be slightly incorrect. Most of the figures have been taken from Banglapedia.
Modern records
1584: A five-hour hurricane and thunderstorm destroyed houses and boats in the coast near Bakerganj (in present-day Patuakhali and Barisal Districts). Only Hindu temples with a strong foundation were spared. Total casualty: about 200,000.
1585: A tropical storm hit the eastern side of Bakerganj (now Barisal) near the mouth of the Meghna River estuary, causing devastation of crops. Casualty: unknown.
November 1797: A severe cyclone destroyed most of the houses in the Chittagong region. Two ships sank in Chittagong Port.
May 1822: A cyclone, accompanied by storm surge and tidal bores hit Barisal, Hatiya Island and Noakhali. Casualty: 40,000 people.
October 1831 Barisal: Casualty: unknown.
October 1872: A cyclone hit Cox's Bazar. Casualty: unknown.
31 October 1876: 1876 Bangladesh cyclone with a storm-surge of 12.2 metres (40 ft) hit Meghna River estuary near Chittagong, Barisal, and Noakhali. Casualty: about 200,000. The storm also caused epidemic and famine, and vast property damage.
24 October 1897 Chittagong: A tropical cyclone accompanied by storm surge hit the area hard, especially near the Kutubdia island. Casualty: 14,000. The resulting epidemic of Cholera killed another 18,000.
May 1898 Teknaf: Tropical cyclone with storm surge. Casualty: unknown.
November 1904 Sonadia: cyclonic storm; 143 killed and fishing fleet wrecked.
16 October 1909 Khulna: A tropical cyclone accompanied by storm surge. Casualty: 698 people and 70,654 cattle.
October 1913 Muktagachha upazila (Mymensingh District): A tropical cyclone, having moved inland destroyed villages. Casualty: 500 people.
24 September 1917 Khulna. A tropical cyclone. Casualty: 432 people and 28,029 cattle.
May 1941: A cyclonic storm accompanied by storm-surge hit Eastern Meghna River estuary. Casualty: unknown.
October 1942: A severe cyclonic storm hit The Sundarbans. Casualty: unknown.
17–19 May 1948: A cyclonic storm hit the deltan between Chittagong and Noakhali. Casualty: approximately 1,200 people and 20,000 cattle.
16–19 May 1958: A cyclonic storm accompanied by storm surge hit east and west Meghna River estuary, east of Barisal and Noakhali. Casualty: 870 people and 14,500. Also standing crops were destroyed.
21–24 October 1958: A cyclonic storm struck Chittagong coast. Effect: Approx. 100,000 families were rendered homeless.
9–10 October 1960: A severe cyclonic storm hit Eastern Meghna River estuary near Noakhali, Bakerganj, Faridpur and Patuakhali. The storm had wind speeds of up to 201 km/hour. The maximum storm surge was 3.05 metres. It caused devastating damage in Char Jabbar, Char Amina, Char Bhatia, Ramgati, Hatiya and Noakhali. Casualty: 3,000 people. Other effects: 62,725 houses destroyed. Crops on 94,000 acres (380 km2) of land were destroyed.
30–31 October 1960: A severe cyclonic storm hit Chittagong, Noakhali, Bakerganj, Faridpur, Patuakhali and eastern Meghna estuary, with winds speed up to 210 km/h. The storm surge reached a height of 4.5–6.1 m. Casualty: about 10,000 people, 27,793 cattle . Losses: 568,161 houses destroyed (including 70% houses in Hatiya). Also, two large ocean-going ships ran aground in the shore, and 5–7 vessels capsized in Karnaphuli River.
9 May 1961: A severe cyclonic storm hit Bagerhat and Khulna. It had wind speeds of up to 161 km/h. The storm surge reached 2.44–3.05 m. Casualty: 11,468 people (mostly in Char Alexander), 25,000 cattle. Damages: The railway tracks between Noakhali and Harinarayanpur were damaged.
26–30 October 1962: A severe cyclone hit Feni. Maximum windspeed was 161 km/h. The storm surge was 2.5–3.0 m. Casualty: about 1,000 people, many domestic cattle.
28–29 May 1963: A severe cyclonic storm devastated Chittagong, Noakhali, Cox's Bazar and coastal islands of Sandwip, Kutubdia, Hatiya and Maheshkhali. The storm surge reached 4.3–5.2 m in Chittagong. Maximum windspeed was up to 203 km/h and at Cox's Bazar 164 km/h. Casualty: 11,520 people, 32,617 cattle. Damages: 376,332 houses, 4,787 boats, and standing crops.
11–12 May 1965: A strong cyclone hit Barisal and Bakerganj. The windspeed reached a maximum of 162 km/h. The storm surge was 3.7 m. Casualty:19,279 people (out of that, 16,456 in Barisal).
14–15 December 1965: A strong cyclone hit the coast near Cox's Bazar and Patuakhali. The storm surge rose up to 4.7–6.1 m. The windspeed was up to 210 km/h in Cox's Bazar. Casualty" 873 people. Damage: 40,000 salt beds destroyed.
1 October 1966: A cyclone hit Sandwip, Bakerganj, Khulna, Chittagong, Noakhali and Comilla. Maximum strong surge was 4.7–9.1 m. The maximum wind speed was 146 km/h. Total people affected: 1.5 million people. Casualty: 850 people, 65,000 cattle.
7–13 November: The 1970 Bhola cyclone hit the entire coast of Bangladesh (then East Pakistan). Most affected were Chittagong, Barguna, Khepupara, Patuakhali, north of Char Burhanuddin, Char Tazumuddin and south of Maijdi, Haringhata. The official death toll was 500,000 but the number is likely to be higher. Damages include destruction of approximately 20,000 fishing boats, and also property and crops. Total loss of cattle reached more than one million. More than 400,000 houses and 3,500 educational institutions were destroyed. Maximum windspeed reached about 222 km/h. Maximum storm surge was about 10.6 m.
5–6 November 1971: A cyclone hit coastal areas of Chittagong.
28–30 November 1971: A cyclonic storm hit the coast near the Sundarbans. Maximum wind speed was 97–113 km/h. The storm surge reached 1 m. Low-lying areas of Khulna town inundated.
6–9 December 1973: The coastal areas near the Sundarbans were hit by a cyclone, accompanied by storm surge. Coastal areas near Patuakhali and nearby islands were submerged under the tidal bore.
13–15 August 1974: A cyclonic storm hit Khulna. Maximum wind speed reached 80.5 km/h. Casualty:600 people.
24–28 November 1974: A cyclone struck the coastal areas near Cox's Bazar and Chittagong, including the offshore islands. Maximum wind speed reached 161 km/h. The storm surge was up to 2.8–5.2 m. Casualty: 200 people, 1000 cattle. Damages: 2,300 houses destroyed.
9–12 May 1975: A strong cyclone pummeled Bhola, Cox's Bazar and Khulna. Maximum wind speed was 96.5 to 112.6 km/h. Casualty: 5 people.
9–12 May 1977: Khulna, Noakhali, Patuakhali, Barisal, Chittagong and offshore islands were hit by a cyclone. Maximum wind speed was up to 112.63 km/h.
14–15 October 1983: A strong cyclone hit the coastal islands and chars near Chittagong and Noakhali. Maximum wind speed reached 122 km/h: Casualty: 43 people. 6 fishing boats and a trawler lost, more than 150 fishermen and 100 fishing boats went missing Damages: 20% of the aman rice crops in the affected regions were destroyed.
5–9 November 1983: A cyclone hit Chittagong, Cox's Bazar coast near Kutubdia, St Martin's Island, Teknaf, Ukhia, Moipong, Sonadia, Barisal, Patuakhali and Noakhali. The maximum wind speed reached 136 km/h. The storm surge was 1.52 m. Casualty:300 fishermen with 50 boats missing. Damages:2,000 houses destroyed.
24–25 May 1985: A severe cyclone hit Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Noakhali and coastal islands (Sandwip, Hatiya, and Urirchar). Maximum wind speed at Chittagong was 154 km/h, at Sandwip was 140 km/h, at Cox's Bazar was 100 km/h. The storm surge reached a height of 3.0–4.6 m. Casualty:11,069 people, 135,033 cattle. Damages: 94,379 houses and 74 km of road, and embankments destroyed.
8–9 November 1986: A severe cyclonic storm hit the coastal island and chars near Chittagong, Barisal, Patuakhali and Noakhali. Maximum windspeed was 110 km/h at Chittagong and 90 km/h at Khulna. Casualty: 14 people. Damages: 972 km2 of paddy fields were inundated; Schools, mosques, warehouses, hospitals, houses and buildings were destroyed at Amtali upazila in Barguna District.
24–30 November 1988: A severe cyclonic storm Cyclone 04B struck Jessore, Kushtia, Faridpur and coastal islands of Barisal and Khulna. The maximum windspeed was 162 km/h. The storm was accompanied by a storm surge of 4.5 m at Mongla Port. Casualty: 5,708 people, and numerous wild animals at The Sundarbans (deer 15,000, royal Bengal tiger 9), cattle 65,000. Total damage to crops reached Taka 9.41 billion.
18 December 1990: The remnant tropical depression of Severe Cyclonic Storm BOB 09/04B made landfall on 18 December near Cox's Bazar, however, there were no reports of any impact in association with the system.
29–30 April 1991: The 1991 Bangladesh cyclone hit Bangladesh late 29 April night. The storm originated in the Indian Ocean and reached the Bay of Bengal coast after 20 days. The diameter of the storm was close to 600 km. The maximum wind speed (observed at Sandwip) reached 225 km/h. At other places, the maximum wind speed was reported as follows: Chittagong 160 km/h, Khepupara (Kalapara) 180 km/h, Kutubdia 180 km/h, Cox's Bazar 185 km/h, and Bhola 178 km/h. (The NOAA-11 satellite estimated the maximum wind speed to be about 240 km/h at 1.38 pm on 29 April). The storm made landfall near the coast north of Chittagong port during the night of the 29 April. The maximum storm surge height reached about 5 to 8 m. Casualty: 150,000 people, 70,000 cattle. Damages: loss of property was estimated at about Tk 60 billion.
31 May-2 June 1991: A cyclone hit the coastal islands and chars near Patuakhali, Barisal, Noakhali and Chittagong. Maximum wind speed reached 110 km/h. The storm surge was 1.9 m.
29 April-3 May 1994: A severe cyclonic storm hit the coastal islands near Cox's Bazar. Maximum windspeed reached 210 km/h. Casualty: 400 people, 8,000 cattle.
21–25 November 1995: A severe cyclonic storm hit the coastal islands near Cox's Bazar. The maximum wind speed was up to 210 km/h. Casualty: 650 people, 17,000 cattle.
16–19 May 1997: May 1997 Bangladesh cyclone hit the coastal islands and chars near Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Noakhali and Bhola districts. The maximum wind speed was 225 km/hour, and the storm surge reached 3.05 metres. Casualty: 126 people.
25–27 September 1997: A severe cyclonic storm hit coastal islands near Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Noakhali and Bhola. It had wind speeds of up to 150 km/hour, and a storm surge of 1.83 to 3.05 metres.
16–20 May 1998 A severe cyclonic storm with windspeed of 150 km/hour struck coastal islands near Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, and Noakhali. The storm surge was from 1.83 to 2.44 metres.
19–22 November 1998: A cyclonic storm, with wind speeds up to 90 km/hour, and a storm surge of 1.22 to 2.44 metres hit coastal islands and sand shoals near Khulna, Barisal, and Patuakhali.
14–15 May 2007: Cyclone Akash struck about 115 km south of Chittagong with wind speeds up to 120 km/hour. 14 people were killed and damages amounted to US$982 million.
15 November 2007: cyclone Sidr with wind speeds up to 260 km/hour, made landfall on southern Bangladesh, causing over 3,500 deaths and severe damage.
26–27 October 2008: Cyclone Rashmi made landfall on the Bangladesh coast late on 26 October with wind speeds up to 85 km/hour, 15 people were killed and thousands of homes were also damaged.
19–21 April 2009: Cyclone Bijli attacked weakly in Bangladesh and not so severe damages were recorded except some houses and crop fields losses.
27–29 May 2009: A severe Cyclone Aila attacked offshore 15 districts of south-western part of Bangladesh with wind speeds up to 120 km/hour; about 150 persons killed, 2 lac houses and 3 lac acres of cultivated land and crops losses.
16–17 May 2013: Cyclone Viyaru, formerly known as Cyclonic Storm Mahasen, hit near Chittagong with wind speeds up to 85 km/hour. 17 people died, and nearly 1.3 million were affected across the country. Losses to crops exceeded US$35.3 million.
29 July 2015: Cyclone Komen with wind speeds up to 75 km/hour, Komen made landfall near Chittagong. About 510,000 houses in the country were damaged or destroyed, and many residents lost their source of income as 667,221 acres (270,000 ha) of crop fields were damaged. The floods killed 132 people, of which at least 39 were directly related to Komen.
21 May 2016: Cyclone Roanu made landfall near Chittagong killing 26 people in Bangladesh. It has wind speeds up to 100 km/hour. Around 40,000 homesteads and business houses were damaged. Food storage, seasonal crops were damaged. Livestock, including fish and shrimp firms were swept away.
20 August 2016: The remnants of Tropical Storm Dianmu affected Bangladesh, no damage or death were reported.
29–31 May 2017: Cyclone Mora with wind speeds up to 110 km/hour, made landfall near Chittagong. A total of 500,000 people managed to move out of coastal areas before the storm made landfall on 31 May. A multitude of tropical cyclone warnings and watches were issued for much of southern Bangladesh and the districts of Northeast India. Strong winds and storm surge battered buildings and destroyed farmlands across Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, and Rangamati, with at least 20,000 houses damaged in refugee camps for Rohingya Muslims displaced by conflict in neighbouring Myanmar. As of 31 May, eighteen people were reported to be killed across Bangladesh, mostly due to falling trees and drowning.
4 May 2019: Cyclone Fani moved into Bangladesh after making landfall in Odisha. It killed 17 people in ten districts of Bangladesh. It destroyed about 63,000 ha (160,000 acres) of farmland in 35 districts of the country, the agricultural loss were at ৳385 million (US$4.6 million). Total damage in Bangladesh were up to ৳5.36 billion (US$63.6 million).
9 November 2019: Cyclones Matmo and Bulbul made landfall near West Bengal, and crossed into Bangladesh. It caused severe flooding and storm surge in the country, with approximately 72,000 metric tons of crops being lost, with a total value of Tk 2.6 billion (US$31 million).
20 May 2020: Cyclone Amphan moved into Bangladesh after making landfall in nearby West Bengal.
26 May 2021: Cyclone Yaas hit Bangladesh after causing a lot of damages and destructions in India. Before hitting, strong tidal waves damaged many coastal structures, dames and jetties.
24 October: Cyclone Sitrang made landfall near Bhola killing 35 people in Bangladesh. It had wind speeds up to 85 km/hour.
See also
List of notable tropical cyclones
List of disasters in Bangladesh by death toll
References
Bangladesh
Tropical cyclones
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishfaq%20Ahmad%20Khan
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Ishfaq Ahmad Khan
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Ishfaq Ahmad Khan (3 November 1930 – 18 January 2018) , was a Pakistani nuclear physicist, emeritus professor of high-energy physics at the National Centre for Physics, and former science advisor to the Government of Pakistan.
A versatile theoretical physicist, Ahmad made significant contributions in the theoretical development of the applications and concepts involving the particle physics, and its relative extension to the quantum electrodynamics, while working as senior research scientist at the CERN in the 1960s and 1970s. Joining the PAEC in the late 1950s, Ahmad served as the director of the Nuclear Physics Division at the secret Pinstech Institute which developed the first designs of atomic bombs, a clandestine project during the post-1971 war. There, he played an influential role in leading the physics and mathematical calculations in the critical mass of the weapons, and did theoretical work on the implosion method used in the weapons.
Since the 1960s and onwards, he has been a high-ranking official at the IAEA as part of the Pakistan Government's official mission, working to make the peaceful use of nuclear power for the industrial development. Having chaired the PAEC from 1991 until 2001, he has been affiliated with the Pakistan Government as a Science adviser to the prime minister on strategic and scientific programs, with the status of Minister of State. A vehement supporter for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, he earned public and international fame in May 1998 when he oversaw and directed PAEC to perform country's first public atomic tests (see Chagai-I and Chagai-II) in a secret weapon-testing laboratories in Balochistan Province of Pakistan. He died on 18 January 2018, aged 87 in Lahore.
Biography
Early life and education
Ahmad was born in Gurdaspur, Punjab in India on 3 November 1930 into a Kakazai family that had long been settled in Punjab. Ahmad obtained his early education in Jalandhar, later schooling in Lyallpur, and Lahore before enrolling in the Punjab University in Lahore to study Physics, and earned his undergraduate, BSc degree, in Physics in 1949.
After entering in the post graduate school at the Punjab University, Ahmad obtained his MSc degree, in 1951, after submitting his master's thesis on nuclear physics, which was supervised by R. M. Chaudhry. With his master's degree, he obtained Honours diploma and secured a gold medallion for the recognition of his work in physics. He taught various undergraduate physics laboratory courses at the Government College University while working on fundamental concepts in nuclear physics with his university mentor. In 1954, he won the scholarship under the Colombo Plan fellowship program and went to Quebec, Canada for his doctorate studies.
Ahmad attended the doctorate school at the Université de Montréal and did a two-year-long course in Particle physics and engaged his research on theoretical physics. In 1959, Ahmad obtained D.Sc. in physics after submitting his doctoral works on concepts on advancing on particle physics. His theses were written in fluent French and English language, and he reluctantly returned to Pakistan under the terms of Colombo Plan contract. His DSc theses were supervised by Pierre Demers and covered a wide range of research in the study of elementary particles by using the deployment of special fine grain nuclear emulsion (AgBr). During his long doctoral studies, Ahmad studied nuclear reaction at the Montreal Laboratory with supervisors and scientists role in the Manhattan Project. Upon his return to Pakistan, he joined the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) as a senior scientist.
Academia and CERN
In 1952, Ahmad served as a visiting professor of mathematics at the Government College University, before accepting the professorship of mathematics at the University of Paris in 1959. He engaged his research in theoretical physics and obtained a one-year-long research fellowship at the Niels Bohr Institute for Theoretical Physics. In 1962–64, he accepted the professorship in physics at the University of Montreal and the University of Ottawa. In Ottawa, he carried out pioneering research in particle resonance and published important publications in theoretical physics.
Ahmad also performed experiments on nuclear physics at the Meuse Underground Laboratories of France. In 1965, Ahmad published a research report on absorption of Pion's cross sections and the range of complex atom's energy of the pion particle. He recalled his Cern experience in 1994:
In the 1990s, Ahmad played a pivotal role in building closer relations with the CERN, and lobbied tirelessly for PAEC to reach an agreement with CERN. In 1997, Ahmad, as chair of PAEC, signed an agreement with CERN in the up gradation of the CMS detector and the financial contribution worth one million SFr for the construction of eight magnetic rings for the detector. This was followed by in 1998, Ishfaq Ahmad, as PAEC chairman, reached another contract with CERN. The signing of the agreement was followed by the state visit of CERN's director Christopher Llewellyn Smith with whom Ahmad signed a collaborative agreement that provided an entry point for Pakistani's scientist (respectively PAEC) into the CMS collaboration.
In 2000, another treaty between PAEC and CERN was signed that covered the construction of the resistive plate chambers required for the CMS muon system. In Press Conference with Luciano Maiani, Ahmad quoted: "I very much hope and wish that these developments may eventually lead to Pakistan becoming an associate member of CERN."
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission
In 1960, Ahmad joined the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) as senior scientist and was allowed to proceed abroad for post-doctoral work at several of the world's most renowned research institutions. Ahmad published papers in physics at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen; also at the University of Montreal in Canada as well as the University of Paris – Sorbonne in France. Finally, he settled down for work at the Lahore Centre of the PAEC (PAEC) in 1965. Ahmad held the post of Senior Scientific Officer until 1966. From 1969 until 1971, Ahmad was the director of the Atomic Energy Centre in Lahore; and then served as secretary of PAEC from 1967 till 1969. In 1971, Ahmad became director of the Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology in Nilore until 1976. In 1976, he became a Science Member of PAEC, raised to the position of Senior Member in 1988. He became Chairman of the Commission in 1991 and remained its Chairman from 13 March 1991 to 19 December 2001.
While he was Chairman PAEC, Ahmad has been heading the country's delegation at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria.
At IAEA, he was always very keen for getting technical support and the breaking of the isololation of scientists from third world. On his persuasion IAEA's technical assistance program was adapted to cater for special needs of the developing countries. In this regard a Standing Advisory Group on Technical Assistance and Cooperation (SAGTAC) was established; Ahmad served as the first Chairman of the Group.
1971 war and atomic bomb project
After the 1971 war with India, the government sent Ishfaq Ahmad to the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH). When Munir Ahmad Khan became the chairman of PAEC and was put in charge of secret atomic bomb project, Munir Khan appointed Ahmad as the director of PINSTECH, where he remained up to 1976. Ahmad served as the director of the Nuclear Physics Division at the secret Pinstech Institute which developed the first designs of atomic bombs, a clandestine project during the post-1971 war. There, he played an influential role in leading the physics and mathematical calculations in the critical mass of the weapons, and did preliminary theoretical work on the implosion method used in the weapons.
As early as in 1976, Ahmad, in a seismic team led by geophysicist Ahsan Mubarak conducted a three-dimensional geometrical survey and made several reconnaissance tours of the suitable areas in Balochistan. After a one-year-long survey, the team found a mountain which matched their specifications. The 185-meter high-rise granite mountain was founded in the Ras Koh region of the Chagai Division of Balochistan, which at their highest point rise to a height of 3,009 metres. Ahmad had long noted that the underground weapon-testing laboratories in the mountain should be "bone dry" and capable of withstanding a ~20 kilotonne nuclear force from the inside. Within a week, further test experiments were conducted to measure the water content of the mountains and the surrounding area and to measure the capability of the mountain's rock to withstand a nuclear test. Once this was confirmed, Ishfaq Ahmed finalised the work on a three-dimensional survey of the area.
In 1976, PAEC succeeded in producing the first local 10kg of Yellowcake and later on produced the 239Pu, the weapon grade plutonium in 1983, which was later tested with the nuclear device.
At PINSTECH, Ahmad produced the first Photographic plate to identify the fissile matter in natural uranium when it is explored. However, due to its classified research, the knowledge of such detector is completely classified. The NPD developed the Thermoluminescent Dosimeter to measure the detection of alpha particles emitted in the decay of radon and thoron gases. Ahmad collaborating with Hameed Ahmad Khan —director of Radiation Physics Division – in the development of CR-39, a type of particle detector. Ahmad gained expertise in nuclear emulsion and developed a first classified nuclear emulsion that provided information about the mass, charge and velocity of the particles producing the track.
A first device was physically manufactured by 1983, and transported to Sargodha air force base for a first test. On 11 March 1983, a first cold test, codename Kirana-I, of a device was secretly carried out at the weapon-testing laboratories built inside the Central Ammunition Depot (CAD) of Sargodha AFB. The test was overseen and conducted by a small team of scientists led by Ahmad, while calculations on quantum oscillator was conducted by Theoretical physics group. Other invitees and attendees included the Munir Ahmad Khan, Samar Mubarakmand, and Masud Ahmad of PAEC whilst others were high-ranking civilians officials of elite civil bureaucracy and the active-duty officer of the Pakistan military.
Chagai tests
In 1991, Ahmad was officially approved as the chairman of PAEC by the prime minister of Pakistan after Munir Khan retired. During this time, he had been a senior scientist and acted as official science advisor to the government of Pakistan on many occasions. In 1998, Ahmad visited Canada to deliver lecture on quantum physics at the Montreal Laboratory when the news of surprise nuclear tests, codename Pokhran-II, of India reached to him. On 16 May 1998, Ahmad cut short his trip and returned to Pakistan to attend meeting with Prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and arranged his meeting with Prime minister on 17 May 1998. The message was bestowed to him by the Joint Headquarters at Rawalpindi, informing him to remain on stand-by a meeting with the Prime Minister. After commencing the meeting with the Prime minister, Ahmad received green signal from the government of Pakistan to conduct country's first test as a suitable reply to Indian nuclear aggression.
Ahmad personally supervised the test preparations as he also suggests the codenames of the tests. On 28 May 1998, the PAEC, sided by KRL and corps of engineers, performed the first nuclear tests, codename Chagai-I which was followed by Chagai-II two days later, in May 1998. Evidently, the fission devices were had contained the boosted-fission HEU nuclear process, that came from the KRL. But, on 30 May, the second test, codename Chagai-II, was performed completely under the command and control management of the PAEC. The fission devices, on a second test, were reportedly had contained the weapon grade plutonium, producing around at ~20kt of nuclear force. All together, the superposition of sum of the forces and the total blast yield was ranged at the nearly ~40kt of nuclear force, according to the PAEC scientific data.
Later work and activism
Earthquake studies and climate change
After retiring from the PAEC in 2001, Ahmad developed interests in seismology and the climate change, and helped founded the Global Change Impact Studies Centre and the Centre for Earthquake Studies (CES), both initially attached to the National Centre for Physics (NCP) in Islamabad. Ahmad served as elected President of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences and is the lifetime Chairman of the Board of Governors of the National Centre for Physics (NCP)— a research institute established on the pattern of International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) at Trieste, Italy.
He also put Pakistan on the governing Council of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria, which conducts policy related research using mathematical modeling and simulation tools.
Global Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC)
Ishfaq Ahmad's efforts led to the creation of the Global Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC) in Islamabad where, for the first time, research on policy issues related to climate change is being undertaken in Pakistan. The centre, an autonomous organisation under the federal govt, works in collaboration with national institutions such as Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), WAPDA and PCRWR etc. The centre has also established collaborative relationship with international institutions, most importantly The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy. GCISC, with Arshad M Khan as its executive director, also serves as the secretariat of the prime minister's Committee on Climate Change.
Centre for Earthquake Studies (CES)
After 8 October 2005, Kashmir earthquake, the Government has decided to establish a Centre for Earthquake studies in Islamabad, under the technical direction of Ishfaq Ahmad.
The centre under the directorship of Mr. Shahid Ashraf and Ahsan Mubarak started work in collaboration with world leading scientists such as Elchin Khalilov of Azerbaijan. The centre conducts research using a Gravitational Wave Recorder housed at the National Centre for Physics, Islamabad.
Advocacy for Nuclear power
Ishfaq Ahmad is internationally known for his long-standing public advocacy for the nuclear power plants for the industrial and socio-economic growth. On international forums, Ahmad deterred the international pressure mounted on Pakistan after conducting its tests, instead highlighted the achievements gained by Pakistan on its nuclear power infrastructure in the country as well as the need of Pakistan's usage of nuclear power for its economical growth. In 2012, Ahmad lobbied for the HMC-3 consortium to be listed as first commercial nuclear power corporation and helped the consortium to acquire its first license to manufacture nuclear materials for industrial power plants.
State honours, awards and recognition
In 1989, Ishfaq Ahmad was bestowed with first state honour, Sitara-e-Imtiaz by Benazir Bhutto; and Hilal-e-Imtiaz in 1995. In 1998, Ahmad received the highest state honour, Nishan-e-Imtiaz, given to any national of Pakistan, for his services to the country in a graceful state ceremony. The same year, he was awarded gold medallion by the Institute of Leadership and Management in Lahore.
Nishan-i-Imitiaz (1998)
Hilal-i-Imtiaz (1995)
Sitara-i-Imtiaz (1989)
Gold Medal, Pakistan Academy of Sciences (1998)
Gold Medal, Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) (1998)
Gold Medal, Society of Engineering, Materials and Metallurgical Engineering (SEMME), Karachi, (1998)
Gold Medal, Geological Society of Punjab, (1998)
Doctorate of Science Honoris Causa, UET Lahore, 2000.
Who's who in atom, American Institute of Physics (1969)
Fellowships
Elected President of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences (2007)
Board of Directors of the Abdus Salam Centre for Solid State Physics, Government College University, Lahore, 2006–present.
Board of Governors of the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI) (2002)
Chairman and Board of Governors, Riazuddin National Centre for Physics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad (2001)
Fellow of the Islamic World Academy of Sciences (2000)
Fellow of the Nuclear Society of Pakistan (1997)
Elected fellow of the Pakistan Nuclear Society (1993)
Honorary Fellow of the International Nuclear Energy Academy (INEA)
Honorary Member of World Innovation Foundation (WIF), UK (2006)
Board of Governors of the Government College University, Lahore (1989–1996)
Fellow of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences (1983)
Fellow at Niels Bohr Institute of Theoretical Physics, Copenhagen, Denmark (1961–1962)
Member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Member of the Board of Physics Olympiad of Pakistan.
An honorary Council Member of International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).
Publications
Thesis
D.Sc. Thesis (UQAM): Structure and Identification of trajectories in fine grain ionographic emulsions, under the direction of Pierre Demers, Faculty of Science, University of Montreal, Canada, 1958.
Research papers
Trajectories structure in fine-grained emulsions, Ann. ACFAS, 23, 111–112, 1957. (http://er.uqam.ca/nobel/c3410/PierreDemersBibl1950-9.html)
Structure des trajectoires dans les émulsions à grain fin, avec Ishfaq Ahmad, 1er Colloque International de Photographie Corpusculaire. Strasbourg, 1957
Identification of particles in the fine grain emulsions with Ishfaq Ahmad and Jean-Louis Meunier, 1er Colloque International de Photographie Corpusculaire. Strasbourg, 1957
Photometric analysis of the trajectories in ionographic detectors, 25th ACFAS, Univ. Laval, Quebec, Nov.3,1957.Ann.ACFAS,24, 119, 1958.
An optical model of the granular structure of trajectories, 2nd Symposium photography corpuscular Montreal 1958. ACFAS, 26th Congress, University of Ottawa, 31 Oct.- 2 Nov. 1958.
6. L'INFLUENCE DU DÉVELOPPEMENT SUR LA STRUCTURE DES TRAJECTOIRES ET SUR LE VOILE DANS LES ÉMULSIONS À GRAINS FINS, Canadian Journal of Physics, 1959, 37(12). pp. 1548–1552. (http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/p59-171)
The ionographic detector considered a pulse source, PC II, PUM, 314- 316, 1959.
Influence du diamètre moyen des grains vierges dans une émulsion
nucléaire sur la structure des lacunes. Ahmad Ishfaq and Max Morand.
Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences, France,
1959, Vol. 1–3 (T248, part 1), pp. 1798–1800
(http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k32002/f1836.image).
Influence of the gelatin on the granular size distribution of silver bromide during the production of ionographic emulsions, PC III, PUM, 128–134, 1964. (http://er.uqam.ca/nobel/c3410/PierreDemersBibl1960-9.html)
Ionographic emulsion made with a mixture of polyvinyl alcohol and albumin, ACFAS, 32nd Congress, Univ. Ottawa, Ontario, 6–8 Nov. 1964.
1964, Ann. ACFAS, 31, 76–7, 1965.
Ionographic emulsions loaded with diamond powder, ACFAS, 32nd Congress, Univ. Ottawa, Ontario, 6 to 8 November,
(3,3) Resonance in the Nucleus – Progress of Theoretical Physics, Journal of the Physical Society of Japan. Vol 35 (3), 1966 (http://ptp.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/3/566.full.pdf).
13. The role of pre-irradiation annealing in changing the track development characteristics of glass track detectors. Nuclear Instruments and Methods, Vol.131(1), 1975, pp. 89–92.
'Seasoning' of latent damage trails in lunar samples, Nature 254, 1975, pp 126–127.
Anisotropy in the track development properties of various crystallographic planes of natural quartz crystals, Radiation Effects, Vol. 30(3), 1976, pp 159–165.
The use of Alpha Sensitive Plastic Films (ASPF) for uranium/thorium exploration and prospecting. Radiation Physics and Chemistry, Vol. 11(6), 1978, pp 295–297.
The measurement of radon and thoron by solid state nuclear track detectors, Radiation Effects, Vol. 35 (1–2), 1978, pp 35–43.
Track structure and identification of particles in nuclear emulsions. Nuclear Instruments and Methods, Vol. 173(1), 1980, pp 15–20.
Some important considerations in the use of solid state nuclear track detectors for radon gas concentration measurements. Nuclear Instruments and Methods, Volume 173 (1), 1980, pp 183–189.
Field experience about the use of alpha sensitive plastic films for uranium exploration. Nuclear Instruments and Methods, Volume 173(1), 1980, Pages 191–196
CERN and Pakistan: a personal perspective, 2003 (http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/28934).
Managing nuclear knowledge in a developing country: Pakistan's perspective. Int. J. Nuclear Knowledge Management. Vol 1(1–2), 2004, pp 90–97.
MANAGING NUCLEAR KNOWLEDGE: ROLE OF IAEA AND ITS TECHNICAL COOPERATION PROGRAMME, International Conference on Nuclear Knowledge Management Strategies, Information Management and Human Resource Development, 7–10 September 2004, Sacley, France. (http://www.iaea.org/km/cnkm/presentations/ahmadpakistan.pdf)
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND THE CHALLENGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE, International Conference on Environment: Survival and Sustainability.
19–24 February 2007, Cyprus (https://www.springer.com/environment/sustainable+development/book/978-3-540-95990-8).
Books
See also
Munir Ahmad Khan
Abdus Salam
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
Montreal Laboratory
Nimra Ahmed Khan
References
Further reading
External links
Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed* Ishfaq Ahmad Minister of State
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1930 births
2018 deaths
People associated with CERN
Fellows of Pakistan Academy of Sciences
Academic staff of the Government College University, Lahore
International Atomic Energy Agency officials
University of the Punjab alumni
Université de Montréal alumni
Nuclear physicists
20th-century Pakistani engineers
Academic staff of Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Pakistani nuclear physicists
Pakistani physicists
Pakistani textbook writers
People associated with nuclear power
People from Gurdaspur
Scientists from Lahore
Project-706
Academic staff of Quaid-i-Azam University
Recipients of Hilal-i-Imtiaz
Recipients of Nishan-e-Imtiaz
Recipients of Sitara-i-Imtiaz
Theoretical physicists
Academic staff of the University of Paris
Chairpersons of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission
Nuclear weapons scientists and engineers
Presidents of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny%20Bassler
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Johnny Bassler
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John Landis Bassler (June 3, 1895 – June 29, 1979) was an American professional baseball player and coach. He played as a catcher in professional baseball for 26 seasons between 1911 and 1937, including nine seasons in Major League Baseball with the Cleveland Naps in 1913 and 1914 and the Detroit Tigers from 1921 to 1927. Bassler was one of the 1920s Tigers who benefited from the hitting instruction of Ty Cobb.
Bassler had a career batting average of .304 and an on-base percentage of .416 in his nine major league seasons. His on-base percentage ranks as the second highest in major league history for a catcher. His .346 batting average in 1924 was the highest by a catcher to that point in American League history and one of the highest by any major league catcher since 1912 (Joe Mauer in 2009 hit .365) He finished in the top seven in the voting for the American League Most Valuable Player award three straight years: sixth in 1922, seventh in 1923, and fifth in 1924. Baseball historian, Bill James, ranked Bassler 47th all-time among major league catchers in his book, The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract.
Bassler also played 15 seasons in the Pacific Coast League (PCL) with the Los Angeles Angels (1915–1917, 1919), Seattle Rainiers (1920), Hollywood Stars (1928–1935), and Seattle Indians (1936–1937). He appeared in 1,525 games in the PCL, compiling a .321 batting average in those games. In 1943, he was one of the inaugural inductees into the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame. After his playing career ended, Bassler lived in Southern California.
Early life
Bassler was born in 1895 in Mechanics Grove, Pennsylvania. He was one of 13 children born to a Mennonite family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His father Jacob Bassler (born 1866) was a Pennsylvania native who worked in a paper mill in 1900 and as a motorman on a street car in 1910. His mother Fianna Bassler (born 1868) was also a Pennsylvania native. By 1920, Bassler's family had moved to 2434 Bundy Drive in West Los Angeles, where his father was working as a motorman for the electric railroad.
Professional baseball
Minor leagues
Bassler began playing professional baseball in 1911 at age 15 for Sunbury in the Susquehanna League. He next played in 1912 for the York White Roses in the Tri-State League.
Cleveland Naps
After completing the 1912 season in the Tri-State League, Bassler traveled to California to play winter league baseball. There he played on the same team as Cleveland Naps shortstop, Ivy Olson. Olson persuaded Bassler to join the Naps for spring training camp in 1913. Bassler made his major league debut for the Cleveland Naps on July 11, 1913, one month after his 18th birthday. He appeared in only one game for the Naps in 1913 – going hitless in two plate appearances and committing an error. In 1914, Bassler played in 43 games, 18 as the Naps' starting catcher. Though he compiled a .182 batting average he drew 15 bases on balls in 94 plate appearances to boost his on-base percentage to .323.
Pacific Coast League
Bassler returned to West Coast and played for the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League from 1915 to 1917 and again in 1919. He missed the 1918 season due to military service during the United States' participation in World War I.
Detroit Tigers
1921 season
In January 1921, the Los Angeles Angels traded Bassler to the Detroit Tigers in exchange for Oscar Stanage, two infielders and a pitcher. The Tigers made the deal on the recommendation of Ty Cobb. He remained with the Tigers for seven years.
In 1921, his first season with the Tigers, Bassler appeared in 119 games, including 111 as the team's starting catcher. He compiled a .307 batting average. He also drew 58 bases on balls for a .401 on-base percentage. He also ranked among the American League's leading catchers with a 5.11 range factor rating per nine innings (first), 433 putouts (fifth), 113 assists (fourth), and a .975 fielding percentage (fifth). After the 1921 season, Cobb opined that Bassler was smart, diagnosed plays quickly, and had a good arm, and predicted that Bassler would be the premier catcher in the American League in 1922.
The entire Detroit lineup hit remarkably well in 1921. Harry Heilmann and Ty Cobb finished first and second in batting average, and the team finished the season with a batting average of .316, the highest in American League history and second highest in major league history. However, true to the baseball adage that good pitching beats good hitting, the 1921 Tigers lacked good pitching and finished in sixth place, 27 games behind the pennant-winning Yankees.
1922 season
In 1922, Basser appeared in 121 games, 113 as the Tigers' starting catcher. He compiled a .323 batting average, and his .422 on-base percentage was seventh best in the American League. He also ranked among the league leaders with a 31.0 at bats to strikeout ratio (eighth). Defensively, he continued to rank among the league's leading catchers with 12 double plays turned (fourth), a 4.53 range factor rating per game, 113 assists (fifth), and a .980 fielding percentage (fifth). However, he also led the league with 73 stolen bases allowed and ranked third with 11 errors. He ranked sixth in the voting for the 1922 American League Most Valuable Player award.
1923 season
In 1923, Bassler appeared in a career-high 135 games, 121 as the starting catcher, and compiled a .298 batting average. Offensively, he ranked among the American League leaders with a .414 on-base percentage (eighth), 76 bases on balls (ninth), and 29.5 at bats per strikeout. Defensively, he led the league's catchers with 84 runners caught stealing and a 59.6% success rating in catching base runners trying to steal a base. He ranked second in the league with a .988 fielding percentage and 133 assists and ranked fifth with a career-high 447 putouts. He ranked seventh in the voting for the 1923 American League Most Valuable Player award. Between the 1923 and 1924 seasons, Harry Bullion of the Detroit Free Press wrote that Bassler, like Cobb, was a student of the game.
During the 1923 season, Bassler was part of one of the great trick plays in baseball history. When Babe Ruth came to bat, player-manager Ty Cobb whistled a signal to Bassler and pitcher Hooks Dauss from center field, directing them to give Ruth an intentional walk. When Dauss threw a strike past Ruth, Cobb ran to the infield, yelling at Dauss and Bassler for disobeying his order. When Dauss then threw a second strike past Ruth, Cobb raced in again, stomped around and pulled both Dauss and Bassler from the game. After warming up, the relief pitcher fired a third strike past an unsuspecting Ruth. Cobb reportedly doubled up in laughter, calling it a "once in a lifetime setup play."
1924 season
Bassler had his best season in 1924. In his fourth season as the Tigers' starting catcher, he appeared in 122 games, including 116 as a starter at catcher. He compiled a career-high .346 batting average that was the fifth highest in the American League and a .441 on-base percentage that was the second highest in the league trailing only Babe Ruth. Bassler's .346 batting average in 1924 was the highest by a catcher to that point in American League history. It was also the highest by any major league catcher since Chief Meyers hit .358 in 1912. Playing at a position where the emphasis was on defense rather than offense, Bassler was the leading batter on a 1924 Detroit team that included four Hall of Famers and American League batting champions: Ty Cobb (12 batting titles), Harry Heilmann (four batting titles), Heinie Manush (1926 batting title), and Charlie Gehringer (1937 batting title). He also had another strong defensive season, ranking among the league's leading catchers with 103 assists (third), 11 double plays turned (third), a .979 fielding percentage (fourth), and 402 putouts (fifth). In the voting for the 1924 American League MVP, he finished fifth behind pitchers Walter Johnson and Herb Pennock, second baseman Eddie Collins, and outfielder Charlie Jamieson.
Bassler later credited his improved batting in 1924 to his teammate Bobby Veach. Bassler recalled:"I was a dead left-field hitter and all a good pitcher had to do was shoot me a fast high ball, inside, and I'd pop up. I found Veach used a little fuller swing than I against this delivery, always keeping his wrist behind the point of contact with the ball. About the middle of 1924, after experimenting, I landed upon the combination of a big-handled bat of light Cuban wood and a full swing patterned after Veach. Then suddenly they began to line into right and center for me."
1925–1927
In 1925, Bassler remained the Tigers' primary catcher, but his batting average dropped 67 points from .346 to .279. In 1926, he shared the catcher position with Clyde Manion and Larry Woodall, with Bassler and Manion each starting 57 games and Woodall 41. He again shared the job with Woodall starting 70 games at catcher and Bassler starting 59 games. Bassler compiled batting averages of .305 and .285 in 1926 and 1927. He appeared in his final major league game on September 30, 1927, at age 32.
Career accomplishments
Bassler was a capable player both on offense and defense. His notable career accomplishments include the following:
Bassler finished in the top seven in the American League Most Valuable Player voting three straight years: sixth in 1922, seventh in 1923, and fifth in 1924.
Bassler's .346 batting average in 1924 was the highest by a catcher to that point in American League history and the highest by any major league catcher since 1912. His 1924 average led a Detroit team that included Hall of Fame batsmen Ty Cobb, Harry Heilmann, Heinie Manush, and Charlie Gehringer.
Bassler compiled a .416 on-base percentage over the course of his career. He had an on-base percentage over .400 in all seven years he played for the Tigers. The only major league catcher with a higher career on-base percentage is Mickey Cochrane at .419. Bassler's 1924 on-base percentage of .441 was second behind Babe Ruth. His .406 on-base percentage in his years with the Tigers ranks third in franchise history, behind Ty Cobb and Hank Greenberg.
Bassler had a good batting eye. He walked 437 times in his major league career, while striking out only 81 times. That is a ratio of 5.4 walks per strikeout – one of the highest in major league history. The only two American League players known to have a higher walk per strikeout ratio are Joe Sewell and Tris Speaker.
Bassler was also among the American League leaders in at bats per strikeout four straight years from 1922 to 1925. His 1925 total of 57.3 at bats per strikeout was a career high.
In The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, released in 2001, baseball analyst Bill James rated Bassler as the 47th best catcher of all time. James wrote that, "if his major league career wasn't so short he would rank among the top 20 catchers of all time."
Bassler was also a solid defensive catcher in his years with the Detroit Tigers. In 1923, his .988 fielding percentage (eight errors in 128 games) was twelve points higher than the league average of .975. Bassler was known for his strong throwing arm. In his prime years from 1921 to 1925, Bassler had 462 assists in 482 games. In 1923, he had 133 assists in 128 games as a catcher. He also had 14 double plays in 118 games in 1925. The weakest area of Bassler's game was power. In 2,319 career at bats, Bassler hit one home run.
Return to the Pacific Coast League
In 1928, the Tigers sold the 32-year-old Bassler to the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League (PCL). Bassler played for the Stars from 1928 to 1935 and appeared in 867 games for the club. In 1930, he hit .365 and led the Stars to the PCL pennant. He hit .354 in 1931 and .336 in 1933. According to Bill James, "the PCL didn't record walks, but it would be a safe guess that he wasn't walking any less often." In his book, The Hollywood Stars, Richard E. Beverage wrote that Bassler was "one of the greatest catchers in minor league history."
On March 30, 1935, Bassler collapsed with what was originally reported to be a stomach hemorrhage while in the dugout during a spring game for the Stars against the Chicago Cubs. His diagnosis was later reported as a heart attack, and he announced his retirement from baseball in the summer of 1935.
Bassler made a comeback with the Seattle Indians of the PCL in 1936. He compiled a .354 batting average in 111 games and 260 at bats during the 1936 season. On May 25, 1937, he was hired as the manager of the Seattle club. He also appeared in 56 games as a player for Seattle in 1937, compiling a .313 batting average. Bill Klepper, the Seattle team owner, had financial problems. On the last day of the 1937 season, pitcher Dick Barrett needed two victories to reach 20 and earn a $500 bonus. He beat Sacramento 4–1 in the first game of a doubleheader. Between games, federal and state tax agents seized the gate receipts for money due on admission taxes. Klepper told Bassler to pitch Marion Oppelt in the second game. Bassler started Barrett anyway. Barrett went all the way and got his 20th win, 11–2. The next morning, September 20, 1937, Klepper fired Bassler for insubordination.
Over the course of 15 seasons, Bassler appeared in 1,525 games in the PCL, compiled .321 batting average with 1,353 hits, 533 runs scored, and 198 doubles. In 1943, he was one of the inaugural inductees into the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame.
Major league coach
On November 28, 1937, Bassler was hired as a coach and chief assistant to newly hired Cleveland Indians manager Ossie Vitt, a former Detroit teammate of Bassler. Bassler remained with Cleveland from 1938 to 1940. He has been credited with helping Bob Feller, who had won no more than nine games in his first two major league seasons. In three years working with Bassler, Feller won 68 games and led the American League in wins and strikeouts in both 1939 and 1940.
During the 1940 season, Bassler was the second in command under Vitt. Vitt was a tough man to get along with and became embroiled in a player revolt by the 1940 team that became known as the "Cleveland Crybabies." In his autobiography, Feller wrote that the players decided to stop dealing with Vitt and work instead with Bassler. "We decided to go around Vitt. We worked with his coaches, mostly with his number two man, Johnny Bassler. We were doing what people in a lot of organizations with management problems do: ignore the top guy and work with the second in command."
On December 7, 1940, Bassler was hired as a coach for the St. Louis Browns and was given the responsibility of working with the pitchers. He was released by the Browns on June 6, 1941, after spending less than one season with the club.
Family and later years
Bassler was married to Margaret Bassler. They had four children, Barbara (born c. 1922), Sally (born c. 1925), John (born c. 1929), and James (born 1933). During and after his playing career was over, Bassler lived in Santa Monica, California, and later in Malibu, California.
After retiring from baseball, and during the offseason during his years in baseball, Bassler spent much of his time hooking rugs. Bassler would take old silk stockings and dye them in pots on the stove. He would then cut them in strips and hook them into silk rugs. In the 1940s, Bassler bought in Latigo Canyon in Malibu for $75 an acre; he drove to the property on weekends and planted plants. He also built a house on the property, using discarded tile from a Malibu tile company and wood from the demolition of the Venice Pier. Bassler also collected materials from his job at the Twentieth Century Fox movie lot in Century City. According to his son, the studio job was "mainly to get building supplies." After a project, the sets would be torn down and burned. Bassler saw an opportunity to obtain materials from discarded sets to help build his house in Latigo Canyon. Bassler's son joked that their house went up bit by bit with pieces from Hollywood sets, including the front door from a Gene Tierney film Leave Her to Heaven, and the back of the house (in Chinese style) from Gregory Peck's The Keys of the Kingdom.
Bassler coached Bob Feller before he entered the military during World War II, and the two became friends. When Feller got out of the military, Bassler took him on a tour of the studio. Alfred Hitchcock knew of Feller and let him sit in on the shooting of the film Lifeboat.
Bassler died in 1979 in Santa Monica at age 84. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica.
His youngest child, James Bassler, became a renowned weaver and fiber artist and a professor at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture.
References
External links
1895 births
1979 deaths
Baseball players from Pennsylvania
Major League Baseball catchers
Cleveland Naps players
Detroit Tigers players
Sportspeople from Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Cleveland Indians coaches
St. Louis Browns coaches
Minor league baseball managers
Toledo Mud Hens players
Los Angeles Angels (minor league) players
Cleveland Spiders (minor league) players
Seattle Rainiers players
Hollywood Stars players
Seattle Indians players
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxilia
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Auxilia
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The (, lit. "auxiliaries") were introduced as non-citizen troops attached to the citizen legions by Augustus after his reorganisation of the Imperial Roman army from 27 BC. By the 2nd century, the Auxilia contained the same number of infantry as the legions and, in addition, provided almost all of the Roman army's cavalry (especially light cavalry and archers) and more specialised troops. The auxilia thus represented three-fifths of Rome's regular land forces at that time. Like their legionary counterparts, auxiliary recruits were mostly volunteers, not conscripts.
The Auxilia were mainly recruited from the peregrini, free provincial subjects who did not hold Roman citizenship and constituted the vast majority of the population in the 1st and 2nd centuries (c. 90% in the early 1st century). In contrast to the legions, which only admitted Roman citizens, members of the Auxilia could be recruited from territories outside of Roman control.
Reliance on the various contingents of non-Italic troops, especially cavalry, increased when the Roman Republic employed them in increasing numbers to support its legions after 200 BC. The Julio-Claudian period (27 BC–68 AD) saw the transformation of the Auxilia from motley levies to a standing corps with standardised structure, equipment and conditions of service. By the end of the period, there were no significant differences between legionaries and auxiliaries in terms of training, and thus, combat capability.
Auxiliary regiments were often stationed in provinces other than that in which they were originally raised, for reasons of security and to foster the process of Romanization in the provinces. The regimental names of many auxiliary units persisted into the 4th century, but by then the units in question were different in size, structure, and quality from their predecessors.
Historical development
Background: Roman Republic (to 30 BC)
The mainstay of the Roman republic's war machine was the manipular legion, a heavy infantry unit suitable for close-quarter engagements on more or less any terrain, which was probably adopted sometime during the Samnite Wars (343–290 BC). Despite its formidable strength, the legion had a number of deficiencies, especially a lack of cavalry. Around 200 BC, a legion of 4,200 infantry had a cavalry arm of only 300 horse (just 7% of the total force). This was because the class of citizens who could afford to pay for their own horse and equipment – the equestrian order, the second rank in Roman society, after the senatorial order – was relatively small. In addition, the legion lacked missile forces such as slingers and archers. Until 200 BC, the bulk of a Roman army's cavalry was provided by Rome's regular Italian allies (socii), commonly known as the "Latin" allies, which made up the Roman military confederation. This was Rome's defence system until the Social War of 91–88 BC. The Italian forces were organised into alae (literally: "wings", because they were generally posted on the flanks of the Roman line of battle). An allied ala, commanded by 3 Roman praefecti sociorum, was similar or slightly larger in infantry size (4–5,000 men) to a legion, but contained a more substantial cavalry contingent: 900 horse, three times the legionary contingent. Since a pre-Social War consular army always contained an equal number of legions and alae, 75% of its cavalry was provided by the Latin allies. The overall cavalry element, c. 12% of the total force (2,400 out of a normal consular army of approximately 20,000 total effectives), was greater than in most peninsular Italian forces, but well below the overall 21% cavalry component that was typical of the Principate army (80,000 cavalry out of 380,000 total effectives in the early 2nd century).
The Roman/Latin cavalry was sufficient while Rome was in conflict with other states in the mountainous Italian peninsula, which also disposed of limited cavalry resources. But, as Rome was confronted by external enemies that deployed far more powerful cavalry elements, such as the Gauls and the Carthaginians, the Roman deficiency in cavalry numbers could be a serious liability, which in the Second Punic War (218–202 BC) resulted in crushing defeats. Hannibal's major victories at the Trebia and at Cannae, were owed to his Spanish and Gallic heavy cavalry, which far outnumbered the Roman and Latin levies, and to his Numidians, light, fast cavalry which the Romans wholly lacked. The decisive Roman victory at Zama in 202 BC, which ended the war, owed much to the Numidian cavalry provided by king Massinissa, which outnumbered the Roman/Latin cavalry fielded by 2 to 1. From then, Roman armies were always accompanied by large numbers of non-Italian cavalry: Numidian light cavalry and, later, Gallic heavy cavalry. For example, Caesar relied heavily on Gallic and German cavalry for his Conquest of Gaul (58–51 BC).
As the role of native cavalry grew, that of Roman/Latin cavalry diminished. In the early 1st century BC, Roman cavalry was phased out altogether. After the Social War, the socii were all granted Roman citizenship, the Latin alae abolished, and the socii recruited into the legions. Furthermore, Roman equestrians were no longer required to perform cavalry service after this time. The late Republican legion was thus probably bereft of cavalry (a tiny cavalry force of 120 men was probably added back to the legion under Augustus).
By the outbreak of the Second Punic War, the Romans were remedying the legions' other deficiencies by using non-Italian specialised troops. Livy reports Hiero of Syracuse offering to supply Rome with archers and slingers in 217 BC. From 200 BC onwards, specialist troops were hired as mercenaries on a regular basis: sagittarii (archers) from Crete, and funditores (slingers) from the Balearic Isles almost always accompanied Roman legions in campaigns all over the Mediterranean.
The other main sources of non-Italian troops in the late Republic were subject provincials, allied cities and Rome's amici (satellite kings). During the late Republic, non-Italian units were led by their own native chiefs, and their internal organisation was left to their own commanders. The units varied widely in dress, equipment, and weapons. They were normally raised for specific campaigns and often disbanded soon afterwards, in a similar manner to the earlier socii militia legions.
Foundation of the auxilia under Augustus (30 BC–14 AD)
It appears that not all indigenous units were disbanded at the end of the civil war period (31 BC). Some of the more experienced units were kept in existence to complement the legions, and became the core of the standing auxiliary forces that developed in the Julio-Claudian period. During the early part of Augustus' rule (27 BC onwards), the corps of regular Auxilia was created. It was clearly inspired by the Latin forces of the pre-Social War Republic, as a corps of non-citizen troops parallel to the legions. But there were fundamental differences, the same as between Republican and Augustan legions. The Latin forces of the Republic were made up of part-time conscripts in units that would be raised and disbanded for and after particular campaigns. The Augustan Auxilia were mainly volunteer professionals serving in permanent units.
The unit structure of the Auxilia also differed from the Latin alae, which were like legions with a larger cavalry arm. However, Augustus organised the Auxilia into regiments the size of cohorts (a tenth the size of legions), due to the much greater flexibility of the smaller unit size. Further, the regiments were of three types: ala (cavalry), cohors (peditata) (infantry) and cohors equitata (mixed cavalry/infantry).
The evidence for the size of the Augustus' new units is not clearcut, with our most precise evidence dating to the 2nd century, by which time the unit strengths may have changed. Cohortes were likely modelled on legionary cohorts i.e. six centuriae of about 80 men each (total about 480 men). Alae were divided into turmae (squadrons) of 30 (or 32) men, each under a decurio (literally: "leader of ten"). This title derives from the old Roman cavalry of the pre-Social War republic, in which each turma was under the command of three decuriones. Cohortes equitatae were infantry cohortes with a cavalry contingent of four turmae attached.
Auxiliary regiments were now led by a praefectus (prefect), who could be either a native nobleman, who would probably be granted Roman citizenship for the purpose (e.g. the famous German war leader Arminius gained Roman citizenship probably by serving as an auxiliary prefect before turning against Rome); or a Roman, either of knightly rank, or a senior centurion.
At the start of Augustus' sole rule (30 BC), the original core auxiliary units in the West were composed of warlike tribesmen from the Gallic provinces (especially Gallia Belgica, which then included the regions later separated to form the provinces Germania Inferior and Germania Superior), and from the Balkan provinces (Dalmatia and Illyricum). By 19 BC, the Cantabrian and Asturian Wars were concluded, leading to the annexation of northern Hispania and Lusitania. Judging by the names of attested auxiliary regiments, these parts of the Iberian peninsula soon became a major source of recruits. Then the Danubian regions were annexed: Raetia (annexed 15 BC), Noricum (16 BC), Pannonia (9 BC) and Moesia (6 AD), becoming, with Illyricum, the Principate's most important source of auxiliary recruits for its entire duration. In the East, where the Syrians already provided the bulk of the Roman army's archers, Augustus annexed Galatia (25 BC) and Judaea: the former, a region in central Anatolia with a Celtic-speaking people, became an important source of recruits. In N. Africa, Egypt, Cyrene, and Numidia (25 BC) were added to the empire. Numidia (modern day Eastern Algeria) was home to the Numidians/Moors, the ancestors of today's Berber people. Their light cavalry (equites Maurorum) was highly prized and had alternately fought and assisted the Romans for well over two centuries: they now started to be recruited into the regular Auxilia. Even more Mauri units were formed after the annexation of Mauretania (NW Algeria, Morocco), the rest of the Berber homeland, in 44 AD by emperor Claudius (ruled 41–54).
Recruitment was thus heavy throughout the Augustan period, with a steady increase in the number of units formed. By AD 23, the Roman historian Tacitus records that there were roughly the same numbers of auxiliaries in service as there were legionaries. Since at this time there were 25 legions of c. 5,000 men each, the Auxilia thus amounted to c. 125,000 men, implying c. 250 auxiliary regiments.
Illyrian revolt (6–9 AD)
During the early Julio-Claudian period, many auxiliary regiments raised in frontier provinces were stationed in or near their home provinces, except during periods of major crises such as the Cantabrian Wars, when they were deployed temporarily in theatre. This carried the obvious risk if their own tribe or ethnic group rebelled against Rome (or attacked the Roman frontier from outside the Empire), auxiliary troops could be tempted to make common cause with them. The Romans would then be faced by an enemy that included units fully equipped and trained by themselves, thus losing their usual tactical advantages over tribal foes.
The German leader Arminius is the classic example at an individual level: after several years of serving in Rome's forces as prefect of an auxiliary unit, he used the military training and experience he had gained to lead a confederacy of German tribes against Rome, culminating in the destruction of three Roman legions in the Teutoberg Forest in 9 AD, and the abandonment of Augustus' strategy of annexing Germany as far as the Elbe river. (This strategy was never revived by later emperors).
At a collective level, the risk was even greater, as the hugely dangerous Illyrian revolt proved. The central Illyrian tribes were tough and spartan shepherds of the Bosnian mountains and excellent soldier-material. Their territory formed part of the strategic province of Illyricum, recently expanded to include the territory of the Pannonii, Celticised Illyrian tribes based on the west bank of the Danube who were subjugated by Rome in 12–9 BC (the Bellum Pannonicum). By the start of the Common Era, they were an important recruitment base for the auxilia. But discontent was festering among the Illyrian tribes, largely due to what they saw as the rapacity of Roman tax officials. In AD 6, several regiments of Dalmatae, a warlike Illyrian tribe, were ordered to report to a designated location to prepare to join Augustus' stepson and senior military commander Tiberius in a war against the Germans. Instead, they mutinied at the assembly point, and defeated a Roman force sent against them. The Dalmatae were soon joined by the Breuci, another Illyrian tribe that supplied several auxiliary regiments. They gave battle to a second Roman force from Moesia. They lost, but inflicted heavy casualties. The rebels were now joined by a large number of other Illyrian tribes. The Dalmatae attacked the port of Salona and overran the Adriatic coast, defeating a Roman force and exposing the Roman heartland of Italy to the fear of a rebel invasion.
Augustus ordered Tiberius to break off operations in Germany and move his main army to Illyricum. When it became clear that even Tiberius' forces were insufficient, Augustus was obliged to raise a second task force under Tiberius' nephew Germanicus, resorting to the compulsory purchase and emancipation of thousands of slaves to find enough troops, for the first time since the aftermath of the Battle of Cannae over two centuries earlier. The Romans had now deployed no less than 15 legions and an equivalent number of auxilia. This amounts to a total of c. 150,000 men, including at least 50 auxiliary cohorts composed, exceptionally, of Roman citizens. These were men whose status or background was regarded by Augustus as unsuitable for recruitment into the legions: either natural-born citizens of the lowest category, including vagrants and convicted criminals, or the freed slaves (Roman law accorded citizenship to the freed slaves of Roman citizens). These special units were accorded the title civium Romanorum ("of Roman citizens"), or c.R. for short. After the Illyrian revolt, these cohorts remained in being and recruited non-citizens like other auxiliary units, but retained their prestigious c.R. title. In addition, the regular forces were assisted by a large number of allied troops from neighbouring Thrace deployed by their king Rhoemetalces I, a Roman amicus (puppet king).
The Romans faced further reverses on the battlefield and a savage guerrilla war in the Bosnian mountains. It took them three years of hard fighting to quell the revolt, which was described by the Roman historian Suetonius, writing in c. AD 100, as the most difficult conflict faced by Rome since the Punic Wars over two centuries earlier. Tiberius finally succeeded in quelling the revolt in 9 AD. This was apparently lucky timing for the Romans: that same year Arminius destroyed Varus' three legions in Germany. The Roman high command had no doubt that Arminius would have formed a grand alliance with the Illyrians.
Despite the gravity of this rebellion, the Illyrians went on, alongside their neighbours the Thracians, to become the backbone of the Roman army. By the 2nd century, with roughly half the Roman army deployed on the Danube frontier, the auxilia and legions alike were dominated by Illyrian recruits. In the 3rd century, Illyrians largely replaced Italians in the senior officer echelons of praefecti of auxiliary regiments and tribuni militum of legions. Finally, from AD 268 to 379, virtually all emperors, including Diocletian and Constantine the Great, were Romanised Illyrians from the provinces of Dalmatia, Moesia Superior and Pannonia. These were members of a military aristocracy, outstanding soldiers who saved the empire from collapse in the turbulent late 3rd century.
Later Julio-Claudians (14–68 AD)
Significant development of the Auxilia appears to have taken place during the rule of the emperor Claudius (41–54 AD).
A minimum term of service of 25 years was established, at the end of which the retiring auxiliary soldier, and all his children, were awarded Roman citizenship. This is deduced from the fact that the first known Roman military diplomas date from the time of Claudius. This was a folding bronze tablet engraved with the details of the soldier's service record, which he could use to prove his citizenship. Claudius also decreed that prefects of auxiliary regiments must all be of equestrian rank, thus excluding centurions from such commands. The fact that auxiliary commanders were now all of the same social rank as most tribuni militum, (military tribunes, a legion's senior staff officers, all of whom only one, the tribunus laticlavius, was of the higher senatorial rank), probably indicates that auxilia now enjoyed greater prestige. Indigenous chiefs continued to command some auxiliary regiments, and were probably granted equestrian rank for the purpose. It is also likely that auxiliary pay was standardised at this time, but we only have estimates for the Julio-Claudian period.
Auxiliary uniform, armour, weapons and equipment were probably standardised by the end of the Julio-Claudian period. Auxiliary equipment was broadly similar to that of the legions (see Section 2.1 below for possible differences in armour). By 68 AD, there was little difference between most auxiliary infantry and their legionary counterparts in equipment, training and fighting capability. The main difference was that auxilia contained combat cavalry, both heavy and light, and other specialized units that legions lacked.
Claudius annexed to the empire three regions that became important sources of auxiliary recruits: Britannia (43 AD), and the former client kingdoms of Mauretania (44) and Thracia (46). The latter became as important as Illyria as a source of auxiliary recruits, especially cavalry and archers. Britain in mid-2nd century contained the largest number of auxiliary regiments in any single province: about 60 out of about 400 (15%). By the rule of Nero (54–68), auxiliary numbers may have reached, by one estimate, about 200,000 men, implying about 400 regiments.
Revolt of the Batavi (69–70 AD)
The Batavi, a Germanic tribe, inhabited the region today known as Gelderland (Netherlands), in the Rhine river delta, then known as the Insula Batavorum ("Island of the Batavi", because surrounded by branches of the Rhine), part of the Roman province of Germania Inferior. They were a warlike people, skilled horsemen, boatmen and swimmers. In return for the unusual privilege of exemption from tributum (direct taxes on land and heads normally exacted from peregrini), they supplied a disproportionate number of recruits to the Julio-Claudian auxilia: one ala and eight cohortes. They also provided most of Augustus' elite personal bodyguard unit (the Germani corpore custodes), which continued in service until 68 AD. The Batavi auxilia amounted to about 5,000 men, implying that during the entire Julio-Claudian period, over 50% of all Batavi males reaching military age (16 years) may have enlisted in the auxilia. Thus the Batavi, although just 0.05% of the total population of the empire of c. 70 million in 23 AD, supplied about 4% of the total auxilia i.e. 80 times their proportionate share. They were regarded by the Romans as the very best (fortissimi, validissimi) of their auxiliary, and indeed all, their forces. In Roman service, both their cavalry and infantry had perfected a technique for swimming across rivers wearing full armour and weapons.
Julius Civilis (literally: "Julius the Citizen", clearly a Latin name adopted on gaining Roman citizenship, not his native one) was a hereditary prince of the Batavi and the prefect of a Batavi cohort. A veteran of 25 years' service, he had distinguished himself by service in Britain, where he and the eight Batavi cohorts had played a crucial role in both the Roman invasion in 43 AD and the subsequent subjugation of southern Britain.
By 69, however, Civilis, the Batavi regiments and the Batavi people had become utterly disaffected with Rome. After the Batavi regiments were withdrawn from Britain to Italy in 66, Civilis and his brother (also a prefect) were arrested by the governor of Germania Inferior on a fabricated accusation of sedition. The governor ordered his brother's execution, while Civilis, who as a Roman citizen had the right to appeal to the emperor, was sent to Rome in chains for judgement by Nero. He was released by Nero's overthrower and successor, Galba, but the latter also disbanded the imperial bodyguard unit for their loyalty to Nero. This alienated several hundred crack Batavi troops, and indeed the whole Batavi nation who regarded it as a grave insult. At the same time, relations collapsed between the Batavi cohorts and the legion to which they had been attached since the invasion of Britain 25 years earlier (XIV Gemina). Their mutual hatred erupted in open fighting on at least two occasions.
At this juncture, the Roman empire was convulsed by its first major civil war since the Battle of Actium exactly a century earlier: the Year of the Four Emperors (69–70 AD). The governor of Germania Inferior, ordered to raise more troops, outraged the Batavi by attempting to conscript more Batavi than the maximum stipulated in their treaty. The brutality and corruption of the Roman recruiting-centurions (including incidents of sexual assault on Batavi young men) brought already deep discontent in the Batavi homeland to the boil.
Civilis now led his people in open revolt. Initially, he claimed he was supporting the bid for power of Vespasian, the general in command of the legions in Syria, whom Civilis had probably befriended when both were involved in the Roman invasion of Britain 25 years earlier (Vespasian was then commander of the legion II Augusta). But the uprising soon became a bid for independence. Civilis exploited the fact that some legions were absent from the Rhine area due to the civil war, and the rest under-strength. In addition, the Roman commanders and their rank-and-file soldiers were divided by loyalty to rival emperors. Civilis quickly won the support of the Batavi's neighbours and kinsmen, the Cananefates, who in turn won over the Frisii. First the rebel allies captured two Roman forts in their territory, and a cohort of Tungri defected to Civilis. Then two legions sent against Civilis were defeated when their companion Batavi ala defected to his side. The Classis Germanica (Rhine flotilla), largely manned by Batavi, was seized by Civilis. Most importantly, the 8 Batavi cohorts stationed at Mainz with XIV Gemina mutinied and joined him, defeating at Bonn a Roman force that attempted to block their return to their homeland. By now, Civilis commanded at least 12 regiments (6,000 men) of Roman-trained and equipped auxiliary troops, as well as a much larger number of tribal levies. A number of German tribes from beyond the Rhine joined his cause. Several other German and Gallic units sent against him deserted, as the revolt spread to the rest of Gallia Belgica, including the Tungri, Lingones and Treviri tribes. He was able to destroy the two remaining legions in Germania Inferior, (V Alaudae and XV Primigenia).
By this stage, Rome's entire position on the Rhine and even in Gaul was imperiled. Their civil war over, the Romans mustered a huge task force of eight legions (five dispatched from Italy, two from Spain and one from Britain) to deal with Civilis. Its commander Petillius Cerialis had to fight two difficult battles, at Trier and Xanten, before he could overrun the Batavi's homeland. Tacitus' surviving narrative breaks off as he describes a meeting on an island in the Rhine delta between Civilis and Cerialis to discuss peace terms. We do not know the outcome of this meeting or Civilis' ultimate fate. But, in view of his former friendship with Vespasian, who had already offered him a pardon, and the fact that the Romans still needed the Batavi levies, it is likely that the terms were lenient by Roman standards.
Petilius Cerialis took a number of reconstituted Batavi units with him to Britain, and the Batavi regiments continued to serve with special distinction in Britain and elsewhere for the rest of the 1st century and beyond. Even as late as 395, units with the Batavi name, although long since composed of recruits from all over the empire, were still classified as elite palatini, e.g. the equites Batavi seniores (cavalry) and auxilium Batavi seniores (infantry).
Flavian era (69–96 AD)
The revolt of the Batavi appears to have led to a significant change in the Roman government's policy on deployment of Auxilia. The revolt proved that in times of civil strife, when legions were far from their bases campaigning for rival claimants to the imperial throne, it was dangerous to leave provinces exclusively in the hands of auxiliary regiments recruited from the indigenous nation. During the Julio-Claudian period, auxiliary regiments had often been deployed away from their original home province. But in the Flavian period (69–96), this appears to have become standard policy. Thus in AD 70, five reconstituted Batavi regiments (one ala and four cohortes) were transferred to Britain under Petillius Cerialis, who had suppressed the Civilis revolt and then embarked on the governorship of the island. The great majority of regiments probably founded in the 1st century were stationed away from their province of origin in the second e.g. of 13 British regiments recorded in the mid-2nd century, none were stationed in Britain. Furthermore, it appears that in the Flavian era native noblemen were no longer permitted to command auxiliary units from their own tribe.
After a prolonged period in a foreign province a regiment would become assimilated, since the majority of its new recruits would be drawn from the province in which it was stationed, or neighbouring provinces. Those same "British" units, mostly based on the Danube frontier, would by c. 150, after almost a century away from their home island, be largely composed of Illyrian, Thracian and Dacian recruits. However, there is evidence that a few regiments at least continued to draw some recruits from their original home provinces in the 2nd century e.g. Batavi units stationed in Britain.
The Flavian period also saw the first formation of large, double-size units, both infantry and cavalry, of a nominal strength of 1,000 men (cohors/ala milliaria), though they were actually mostly smaller (720 for an ala milliaria and 800 for a cohors milliaria). These were the mirror image of the double-strength first cohorts of legions also introduced at this time. Such units remained a minority of the Auxilia: in the mid-2nd century, they constituted 13% of units, containing 20% of total manpower.
Later Principate (97–284)
In 106 AD, emperor Trajan finally defeated the Dacian kingdom of Decebalus and annexed it as the Roman province of Dacia Traiana. By the mid-2nd century, there were 44 auxiliary regiments stationed there, about 10% of the total auxilia. In Britain, there were 60. Together, these two provinces contained about a quarter of the total auxiliary regiments.
There is considerable scholarly dispute about the precise size of the auxilia during the imperial era, even during the corp's best-documented period, the rule of Trajan's successor, Hadrian (117–138). This is evident if one compares calculations by Spaul (2000) and Holder (2003):
NOTE: Manpower figures exclude officers (centurions and decurions), which would have numbered about 3,500 men overall.
In addition, Holder believes that a further 14 cohortes, which are attested under Trajan, immediately before Hadrian's rule, but not during or after it, probably continued in existence, giving a total of 381 units and 225,000 effectives. The discrepancy between the two scholars is due to: (i) Interpretation of units with the same name and number, but attested in different provinces in the same period. Spaul tends to take a more cautious approach and to assume such are the same unit moving base frequently, while Holder tends to regard them as separate units which acquired the same number due to duplicated (or even triplicated) seriation. (ii) Assumptions about how many cohortes were equitatae. Spaul accepts only those cohortes specifically attested as equitatae i.e., about 40% of recorded units. Holder estimates that at least 70% of cohortes contained cavalry contingents by the early 2nd century
Even according to the more conservative estimate, the auxilia were by this time significantly larger than the legions, which contained c. 155,000 effectives (28 legions of 5,500 men each) at this time, of which just 3,360 were cavalry. (For a detailed breakdown, see section 4: Auxilia deployment in the 2nd century, below).
During the second half of the 2nd century, the Roman army underwent considerable further expansion, with the addition of five new legions (27,500 men) to a Principate peak of 33. A matching number of auxilia (i.e. c. 50 regiments, although only the names of around 25–30 have survived in the epigraphic record) were probably added, possibly reaching a peak of c. 440 regiments and around 250,000 effectives by the end of Septimius Severus's rule (211 AD).
The likely growth of the Roman auxilia may be summarised as follows:
NOTE: Regular land forces only. Excludes citizen-militias, barbarian foederati, and Roman navy effectives
During the 2nd century, some units with the new names numerus ("group") and vexillatio ("detachment") appear in the diploma record. Their size is uncertain, but was likely smaller than the regular alae and cohortes, as originally they were probably detachments from the latter, acquiring independent status after long-term separation. As these units are mentioned in diplomas, they were presumably part of the regular auxiliary organisation. But numeri was also a generic term used for barbarian units outside the regular auxilia. (see section 2.4 Irregular units, below).
In 212, the constitutio Antoniniana (Antonine decree) of emperor Caracalla granted Roman citizenship to all the free inhabitants of the Empire – the peregrini – thus abolishing their second-class status. But there is no evidence that the citizens-only rule for legions was also abolished at this time. The legions simply gained a much wider recruitment base, as they were now able to recruit any male free resident of the empire. Auxiliary units were now recruited mainly from Roman citizens, but probably continued to recruit non-citizen barbari from outside the Empire's borders. However, the citizens-only rule for legions appears to have been dropped some time during the 3rd century, as by the 4th-century Romans and barbarians are found serving together in all units.
In the mid to late 3rd century, the army was afflicted by a combination of military disasters and of pestilence, the so-called Crisis of the Third Century. In 251–271, Gaul, the Alpine regions and Italy, the Balkans and the East were simultaneously overrun by Alamanni, Sarmatians, Goths and Persians respectively. At the same time, the Roman army was struggling with the effects of a devastating pandemic, probably of smallpox: the Plague of Cyprian, which began in 251 and was still raging in 270, when it claimed the life of emperor Claudius II Gothicus. The evidence for an earlier pandemic, the Antonine Plague (also smallpox) indicates a mortality of 15–30% in the empire as a whole. The armies would likely have suffered deaths at the top end of the range, due to their close concentration of individuals and frequent movements across the empire. This probably led to a steep decline in military numbers, which only recovered at the end of the century under Diocletian (r. 284–305).
The recruitment shortfall caused by the crisis seems to have led to recruitment of barbarians to the auxilia on a much greater scale than previously. By the 4th century, it has been estimated that some 25% of regular army recruits were barbarian-born. In the elite palatini regiments, anywhere between a third and a half of recruits may have been barbarian. This is likely a much greater proportion of foreigners than joined the auxilia in the 1st and 2nd centuries. In the 3rd century, a small number of regular auxiliary units appear in the record that, for the first time, bear the names of barbarian tribes from outside the empire e.g. the ala I Sarmatarum attested in 3rd-century Britain. This was probably an offshoot of the 5,500 surrendered Sarmatian horsemen posted on Hadrian's Wall by emperor Marcus Aurelius in c. 175. This unit may be an early example of a novel process whereby irregular units of barbari (foederati) were transformed into regular auxilia. This process intensified in the 4th century: the Notitia Dignitatum, a key document on the late Roman army, lists a large number of regular units with barbarian names.
4th century
In the 4th century, the Roman army underwent a radical restructuring. In the rule of Diocletian (284–305), the traditional Principate formations of legiones, alae and cohortes appear to have been broken up into smaller units, many of which bore a variety of new names. Under Constantine I (r. 312–337) it appears that military units were classified into three grades based on strategic role and to some extent quality: palatini, elite units normally part of the exercitus praesentales (imperial escort armies); comitatenses, higher-grade interception forces based in frontier provinces; and limitanei, lower-grade border troops. (See Late Roman army).
The old Principate auxilia regiments provided the basis for units at all three grades. The Notitia Dignitatum lists about 70 alae and cohortes that retained their 2nd-century names, mostly limitanei. But traces of other auxilia regiments can be found in the praesentales and comitatenses armies. For example, many of the new-style auxilia palatina infantry regiments, considered among the best units in the army, were probably formed from old-style auxiliary cohortes, which they appear to closely resemble.
The late 4th-century writer on military affairs Vegetius complains of contemporary young men joining the "auxilia" in preference to the "legions" to avoid the latter's tougher training and duties. But it is unclear what types of units he was referring to. It is possible that those older terms were still popularly used (misleadingly) to mean limitanei and comitatenses respectively. In any event, his quote in no way describes accurately the Principate auxilia, many of which were of very high quality.
Unit types and structure
Regular unit types
The following table sets out the official, or establishment, strength of auxiliary units in the 2nd century. The real strength of a unit would fluctuate continually, but would likely have been somewhat less than the establishment most of the time.
* tribunus militum in original c.R. cohortes
** praefectus in Batavi and Tungri cohortes milliariae
NOTE: Opinion is divided about the size of an ala turma, between 30 and 32 men. 30 was the size of a turma in the Republican cavalry and in the cohors equitata of the Principate auxilia. Against this is a statement by Arrian that an ala was 512 strong. This would make an ala turma 32 men strong.
Cohortes
These all-infantry units were modeled on the cohorts of the legions, with the same officers and sub-units. They were typically considered to be more of a light infantry than proper legionaries. Some auxiliaries may however have been equipped with the lorica segmentata, the most sophisticated legionary body-armour, although scholars dispute this. Besides this possibility, monuments (like on Trajan's Column) show auxiliaries wearing chain mail armor, which length and form varied over the first and second century. They wore helmets similar to those of the Legion. Yet they seem to be simplified versions that where further improved over the same timeframe. They were equipped with a sword, a dagger and one or more spears or javelins. This spear might have been a lancea, which can be used as a javelin as well as a thrusting spear. Based on archeological evidences auxiliaries probably had additional lighter javelins to their lancea. The shield of the auxiliaries was oval.
There is no evidence that auxiliary infantry fought in a looser order than legionaries. It appears that in a set-piece battle-line, auxiliary infantry would normally be stationed on the flanks, with legionary infantry holding the centre e.g. as in the Battle of Watling Street (AD 60), the final defeat of the rebel Britons under queen Boudicca. This was a tradition inherited from the Republic, when the precursors of auxiliary cohortes, the Latin alae, occupied the same position in the line. The flanks of the line required equal, if not greater, skill to hold as the centre.
Alae
During the Principate period of the Roman Empire (30 BC – AD 284), the all-mounted Alae ("wings") contained the elite cavalry of the army. They were specially trained in elaborate manoeuvres, such as those displayed to the emperor Hadrian during a documented inspection in Numidia. They were best-suited for large-scale operations and battle, during which they acted as the primary cavalry escort for the legions, which had almost no cavalry of their own. Roman alares were normally armoured, with mail or scale body armour, a cavalry version of the infantry helmet (with more protective features, such as completely covered ears) and oval shield or hexagonal. Their weapons could be a lance, javelins, or bow and arrow but all Roman horseman had a sword called a (spatha) and the ubiquitous pugio. The elite status of an alaris is shown by the fact that he received 20% more pay than his counterpart in an auxiliary cohort or a legionary infantryman.
The favored sources of recruitment for the cavalry of the auxilia were Gauls, Germans, Iberians and Thracians. All of these peoples had long-established skills and experience of fighting from horseback – in contrast to the Romans themselves. The alae were better paid and mounted than the more numerous horsemen of the cohortes equitatae (see below).
Cohortes equitatae
These were cohortes with a cavalry contingent attached. There is evidence that their numbers expanded with the passage of time. Only about 40% of attested cohortes are specifically attested as equitatae in inscriptions, which is probably the original Augustan proportion. A study of units stationed in Syria in the mid-2nd century found that many units that did not carry the equitata title did in fact contain cavalrymen e.g. by discovery of a tombstone of a cavalryman attached to the cohort. This implies that by that time, at least 70% of cohortes were probably equitatae. The addition of cavalry to a cohort obviously enabled it to carry out a wider range of independent operations. A cohors equitata was in effect a self-contained mini-army.
The traditional view of equites cohortales (the cavalry arm of cohortes equitatae), as expounded by G.L. Cheesman, was that they were just a mounted infantry with poor-quality horses. They would use their mounts simply to reach the battlefield and then would dismount to fight. This view is today discredited. Although it is clear that equites cohortales did not match equites alares (ala cavalrymen) in quality (hence their lower pay), the evidence is that they fought as cavalry in the same way as the alares and often alongside them. Their armour and weapons were the same as for the alares.
Nevertheless, non-combat roles of the equites cohortales differed significantly from the alares. Non-combat roles such as despatch-riders (dispositi) were generally filled by cohort cavalry.
Auxiliary specialised units
In the Republican period, the standard trio of specialised auxilia were Balearic slingers, Cretan archers and Numidian light cavalry. These functions, plus some new ones, continued in the 2nd-century auxilia.
Heavily-armoured lancers
Equites cataphractarii, or simply cataphractarii for short, were the heavily armoured cavalry of the Roman army. Based on Sarmatian and Parthian models, they were also known as contarii and clibanarii, although it is unclear whether these terms were interchangeable or whether they denoted variations in equipment or role. Together with new units of light mounted archers, the cataphractarii were designed to counter Parthian (and, in Pannonia, Sarmatian) battle tactics. Parthian armies consisted largely of cavalry. Their standard tactic was to use light mounted archers to weaken and break up the Roman infantry line, and then to rout it with a charge by the cataphractarii concentrated on the weakest point. The only special heavy cavalry units to appear in the 2nd-century record are: ala I Ulpia contariorum and ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum cataphractaria stationed in Pannonia and Moesia Inferior respectively in the 2nd century.
Light cavalry
From the Second Punic War until the 3rd century AD, the bulk of Rome's light cavalry (apart from mounted archers from Syria) was provided by the inhabitants of the provinces of Africa and Mauretania Caesariensis, the Numidae or Mauri (from whom derives the English term "Moors"), who were the ancestors of the Berber people of modern Algeria and Morocco. They were known as the equites Maurorum or Numidarum ("Moorish or Numidian cavalry"). On Trajan's Column, Mauri horsemen, depicted with long hair in dreadlocks, are shown riding their small but resilient horses bare-back and unbridled, with a simple braided rope round their mount's neck for control. They wear no body or head armour, carrying only a small, round leather shield. Their weaponry cannot be discerned due to stone erosion, but is known from Livy to have consisted of several short javelins. Exceptionally fast and maneuverable, Numidian cavalry would harass the enemy by hit-and-run attacks, riding up and loosing volleys of javelins, then scattering faster than any opposing cavalry could pursue. They were superbly suited to scouting, harassment, ambush and pursuit. It is unclear what proportion of the Numidian cavalry were regular auxilia units as opposed to irregular foederati units.
In the 3rd century, new formations of light cavalry appear, apparently recruited from the Danubian provinces: the equites Dalmatae ("Dalmatian cavalry"). Little is known about these, but they were prominent in the 4th century, with several units listed in the Notitia Dignitatum.
Camel troops
A unit of dromedarii ("camel-mounted troops") is attested from the 2nd century, the ala I Ulpia dromedariorum milliaria in Syria.
Archers
A substantial number of auxiliary regiments (32, or about 1 in 12 in the 2nd century) were denoted sagittariorum, or archer-units (from sagittarii lit. "arrow-men", from sagitta = "arrow"). These 32 units (of which 4 were double-strength) had a total official strength of 17,600 men. All three types of auxiliary regiment (ala, cohors and cohors equitata) could be denoted sagittariorum. Although these units evidently specialised in archery, it is uncertain from the available evidence whether all sagittariorum personnel were archers, or simply a higher proportion than in ordinary units. At the same time, ordinary regiments probably also possessed some archers, otherwise their capacity for independent operations would have been unduly constrained. Bas-reliefs appear to show personnel in ordinary units employing bows.
From about 218 BC onwards, the archers of the Roman army of the mid-Republic were virtually all mercenaries from the island of Crete, which boasted a long specialist tradition. During the late Republic (88–30 BC) and the Augustan period, Crete was gradually eclipsed by men from other, much more populous, regions subjugated by the Romans with strong archery traditions. These included Thrace, Anatolia and, above all, Syria. Of the 32 sagittarii units attested in the mid-2nd century, 13 have Syrian names, 7 Thracian, 5 from Anatolia, 1 from Crete and the remaining 6 of other or uncertain origin.
Three distinct types of archers are shown on Trajan's Column: (a) with scalar cuirass, conical steel helmet and cloak; (b) without armour, with cloth conical cap and long tunic; or (c) equipped in the same way as general auxiliary foot-soldiers (apart from carrying bows instead of javelins). The first type were probably Syrian or Anatolian units; the third type probably Thracian. The standard bow used by Roman auxilia was the recurved composite bow, a sophisticated, compact and powerful weapon.
Slingers
From about 218 BC onwards, the Republican army's slingers were exclusively mercenaries from the Balearic Islands, which had nurtured a strong indigenous tradition of slinging from prehistoric times. As a result, in classical Latin, Baleares (literally "inhabitants of the Balearic Islands") became an alternative word for "slingers" (funditores, from funda = "sling"). Because of this, it is uncertain whether most of the imperial army's slingers continued to be drawn from the Balearics themselves, or, like archers, derived mainly from other regions.
Independent slinger units are not attested in the epigraphic record of the Principate. However, slingers are portrayed on Trajan's Column. They are shown unarmoured, wearing a short tunic. They carry a cloth bag, slung in front, to hold their shot (glandes).
Scouts/numeri
Exploratores ('reconnaissance troops', from explorare = "to scout"). Two examples include numeri exploratorum attested to in the 3rd century in Britain: Habitanco and Bremenio (both names of forts). It is possible, however, that more than 20 such units served in Britain. The literal translation of numeri is 'numbers' and it was often used in the context of a generic title for any unit that was not of a standard size or structure. From the 2nd century onward they served as frontier guards, often supplied by the Sarmatians and the Germans. Little else is known about such units.
Irregular allied forces
Throughout the Principate period, there is evidence of ethnic units of barbari outside the normal auxilia organisation fighting alongside Roman troops. To an extent, these units were simply a continuation of the old client-king levies of the late Republic: ad hoc bodies of troops supplied by Rome's puppet petty-kings on the imperial borders for particular campaigns. Some clearly remained in Roman service beyond the campaigns, keeping their own native leadership, attire and equipment and structure. These units were known to the Romans as socii ("allies"), symmachiarii (from symmachoi, Greek for "allies") or foederati ("treaty troops" from foedus, "treaty"). One estimate puts the number of foederati in the time of Trajan at about 11,000, divided into about 40 numeri (units) of about 300 men each. The purpose of employing foederati units was to use their specialist fighting skills. Many of these would have been troops of Numidian cavalry (see light cavalry above).
The foederati make their first official appearance on Trajan's Column, where they are portrayed in a standardised manner, with long hair and beards, barefoot, stripped to the waist, wearing long trousers held up by wide belts and wielding clubs. In reality, several different tribes supported the Romans in the Dacian wars. Their attire and weapons would have varied widely. The Column stereotypes them with the appearance of a single tribe, probably the most outlandish-looking, to differentiate them clearly from the regular auxilia. Judging by the frequency of their appearance in the Column's battle scenes, the foederati were important contributors to the Roman operations in Dacia. Another example of foederati are the 5,500 captured Sarmatian cavalrymen sent by Emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180) to garrison a fort on Hadrian's Wall after their defeat in the Marcomannic Wars.
Recruitment, ranks and pay
The evidence for auxiliary ranks and pay is scant: even less exists than the patchy evidence for their legionary counterparts. There seems to be some consensus, however, that the auxiliary was paid one third of what a legionary received: 300 sesterces a year (400 after the reign of the emperor Commodus). Both auxiliaries and seamen received the viaticum of 300 sesterces, although the various sources differ as to whether auxiliaries and sailors received the retirement bonus known as the honesta missio, or honorable discharge.
The available data may be broken down and summarised as follows:
Rankers (caligati)
At the bottom end of the rank pyramid, rankers were known as caligati (lit: "sandal men" from the caligae or hob-nailed sandals worn by soldiers). Depending on the type of regiment they belonged to, they held the official ranks of pedes (foot soldier in a cohors), eques (cavalryman in a cohors equitata) and gregalis (ala cavalryman).
During the Principate, recruitment into the legions was restricted to Roman citizens only. This rule, which derived from the pre-Social War Republican army, was strictly enforced. The few exceptions recorded, such as during emergencies and for the illegitimate sons of legionaries, do not warrant the suggestion that the rule was routinely ignored.
In the 1st century, the vast majority of auxiliary common soldiers were recruited from the Roman peregrini (second-class citizens). In the Julio-Claudian era, conscription of peregrini seems to have been practiced alongside voluntary recruitment, probably in the form of a fixed proportion of men reaching military age in each tribe being drafted. From the Flavian era onwards, the auxilia were an all-volunteer force. Although recruits as young as 14 are recorded, the majority of recruits (66%) were from the 18–23 age group.
When it was first raised, an auxiliary regiment would have been recruited from the native tribe or people whose name it bore. In the early Julio-Claudian period, it seems that efforts were made to preserve the ethnic integrity of units, even when the regiment was posted in a faraway province. But in the later part of the period, recruitment in the region where the regiment was posted increased and became predominant from the Flavian era onwards. The regiment would thus lose its original ethnic identity. The unit's name would thus become a mere curiosity devoid of meaning, although some of its members might inherit foreign names from their veteran ancestors. This view has to be qualified, however, as evidence from military diplomas and other inscriptions shows that some units continued to recruit in their original home areas e.g. Batavi units stationed in Britain, where some units had an international membership. It also appears that the Danubian provinces (Raetia, Pannonia, Moesia, Dacia) remained key recruiting grounds for units stationed all over the empire.
It appears that Roman citizens were also regularly recruited to the auxilia. Most likely, the majority of citizen recruits to auxiliary regiments were the sons of auxiliary veterans who were enfranchised on their fathers' discharge. Many such may have preferred to join their fathers' old regiments, which were a kind of extended family to them, rather than join a much larger, unfamiliar legion. There are also instances of legionaries transferring to the auxilia (to a higher rank). The incidence of citizens in the auxilia would thus have grown steadily over time until, after the grant of citizenship to all peregrini in 212, auxiliary regiments became predominantly, if not exclusively, citizen units.
Less clearcut is the question of whether the regular auxilia recruited barbari (barbarians, as the Romans called people living outside the empire's borders). Although there is little evidence of it before the 3rd century, the consensus is that auxilia recruited barbarians throughout their history. In the 3rd century, a few auxilia units of clearly barbarian origin start to appear in the record e.g. Ala I Sarmatarum, cuneus Frisiorum and numerus Hnaufridi in Britain.
There existed a hierarchy of pay between types of auxiliary, with cavalry higher paid than infantry. One recent estimate is that in the time of Augustus, the annual pay structure was: eques alaris (gregalis) 263 denarii, eques cohortalis 225, and cohors infantryman 188. The same differentials (of about 20% between grades) seem to have existed at the time of Domitian (r. 81–96). However, Goldsworthy points out that the common assumption that rates of pay were universal across provinces and units is unproven. Pay may have varied according to the origin of the unit.
The remuneration of an auxiliary pedes cohortalis may be compared to a legionary's as follows:
Gross salary was subject to deductions for food, clothing, boots and hay (probably for the company mules). It is unclear whether the cost of armour and weapons was also deducted, or borne by the army. Deductions left the soldier with a net salary of 78 denarii. This sum was sufficient, on the basis of the food deduction, to amply feed an adult for a year. In 84 AD Domitian increased basic legionary pay by 33% (from 225 to 300 denarii): a similar increase was presumably accorded to auxiliaries, boosting their net income to 140 denarii, i.e. more than two food allowances. It was entirely disposable, as the soldier was exempt from the poll tax (capitatio), did not pay rent (he was housed in fort barracks) and his food, clothing and equipment were already deducted. It should be borne in mind that most recruits came from peasant families living at subsistence level. To such persons, any disposable income would appear attractive. It could be spent on leisure activities, sent to relatives or simply saved for retirement.
There is no evidence that auxiliaries received the substantial cash bonuses (donativum) handed to legionaries on the accession of a new emperor and other occasions. Although irregular, these payments (each worth 75 denarii to a common legionary) averaged once every 7.5 years in the early 1st century and every three years later. Duncan-Jones has suggested that donativa may have been paid to auxiliaries also from the time of Hadrian onwards, on the grounds that the total amount of donative to the military increased sharply at that time. A very valuable benefit paid to legionaries was the discharge bonus (praemia) paid on completion of the full 25 years' service. At 3,000 denarii, this was equivalent to ten years' gross salary for a common legionary after the pay increase of 84 AD. It would enable him to purchase a substantial plot of land. Again, there is no indication that auxiliaries were paid a discharge bonus. For auxiliaries, the discharge bonus was the grant of Roman citizenship, which carried important tax exemptions. However, Duncan-Jones argues that the fact that service in the auxilia was competitive with the legions (deduced from the many Roman citizens that joined the auxilia) that a discharge bonus may have been paid.
Junior officers (principales)
Below centurion/decurion rank, junior officers in the Roman army were known as principales. An auxiliary cohort's ranks appear the same as in a legionary centuria. These were, in ascending order: tesserarius ("officer of the watch"), signifer (standard-bearer for the centuria), optio (centurion's deputy) and vexillarius (standard-bearer for the whole regiment, from vexillum). In the turmae of cohortes equitatae (and of alae?), the decurion's second-in-command was probably known as a curator, responsible for horses and caparison. As in the legions, the principales, together with some regimental specialists, were classified in two pay-scales: sesquiplicarii ("one-and-a-half-pay men") and duplicarii ("double-pay men"). These ranks are probably most closely resembled by the modern ranks of corporal and sergeant respectively.
Besides combat effectives, regiments also contained specialists, the most senior of whom were sesquiplicarii or duplicarii, the rest common soldiers with the status of milities immunes ("exempt soldiers" i.e. exempt from normal duties). Ranking specialists included the medicus (regimental doctor), veterinarius (veterinary doctor, in charge of the care of horses, pack animals and livestock), custos armorum (keeper of the armoury), and the cornicularius (clerk in charge of all the regiment's records and paperwork).
Senior officers
The limited evidence on auxiliary centuriones and decuriones is that such officers could be directly commissioned as well as promoted from the ranks. Many appear to have come from provincial aristocracies. Those rising from the ranks could be promotions from the legions as well as from the regiment's own ranks. In the Julio-Claudian period auxiliary centuriones and decuriones were a roughly equal split between citizens and peregrini, though later citizens became predominant due to the spread of citizenship among military families. Because centuriones and decuriones often rose from the ranks, they have often been compared to warrant officers such as sergeants-major in modern armies. However, centurions' social role was much wider than a modern warrant-officer. In addition to their military duties, centurions performed a wide range of administrative tasks, which was necessary in the absence of an adequate bureaucracy to support provincial governors. They were also relatively wealthy, due to their high salaries (see table above). However, most of the surviving evidence concerns legionary centurions and it is uncertain whether their auxiliary counterparts shared their high status and non-military role.
There is little evidence about the pay-scales of auxiliary centuriones and decuriones, but these are also believed to have amounted to several times that of a miles.
Unlike a legatus legionis (who had an officer staff of 6 tribuni militum and one praefectus castrorum), an auxiliary praefectus does not appear to have enjoyed the support of purely staff officers. The possible exception is an attested beneficiarius ("deputy"), who may have been the praefectus' second-in-command, if this title was a regular rank and not simply an ad hoc appointment for a specific task. Also attached to the praefectus were the regiment's vexillarius (standard-bearer for the whole unit) and cornucen (horn-blower).
Commanders
From a survey by Devijver of persons whose origin can be determined, it appears that during the 1st century, the large majority (65%) of auxiliary prefects were of Italian origin. The Italian proportion dropped steadily, to 38% in the 2nd century, and 21% in the 3rd century. From the time of emperor Claudius (r. 41–54) only Roman knights were eligible to hold command of an auxiliary regiment. This status could be obtained either by birth (i.e. if the person was the son of a hereditary Roman knight; or by attaining the property qualification (100,000 denarii, the equivalent of 400 years' gross salary for an auxiliary alaris); or by military promotion: the latter were the chief centurions of legions (centurio primus pilus) who would normally be elevated to equestrian rank by the emperor after completing their single-year term as primuspilus.
Equestrians by birth would normally begin their military careers at c. 30 years of age. An axillary had to do 25 years of service before joining the army. Commands were held in a set sequence, each held for 3–4 years: prefect of an auxiliary cohors, tribunus militum in a legion and finally prefect of an auxiliary ala. In Hadrian's time, a fourth command was added, for exceptionally able officers, of prefect of an ala milliaria. Like officers senatorial rank, hereditary equestrians held civilian posts before and after their decade of military service, whereas non-hereditary officers tended to remain in the army, commanding various units in various provinces. By the 3rd century, most auxiliary prefects had exclusively military careers.
The pay of a praefectus of an auxiliary regiment in the early 2nd century has been estimated at over 50 times that of a miles (common soldier). (This compares to a full colonel in the British Army, who is currently paid about five times a private's salary). The reason for the huge gap between the top and the bottom of the pyramid is that Roman society was far more hierarchical than a modern one. A praefectus was not just a senior officer. He was also a Roman citizen (which most of his men were not) and, as a member of the equestrian order, an aristocrat. The social gulf between the praefectus and a peregrinus soldier was thus immense, and the pay differential reflected that fact.
Names, titles and decorations
Regimental names
The nomenclature of the great majority of regiments followed a standard configuration: unit type, followed by serial number, followed by name of the peregrini tribe (or nation) from whom the regiment was originally raised, in the genitive plural case e.g. cohors III Batavorum ("3rd Cohort of Batavi"); cohors I Brittonum ("1st Cohort of Britons"). Some regiments combine the names of two peregrini tribes, most likely after the merger of two previously separate regiments e.g. ala I Pannoniorum et Gallorum ("1st Wing of Pannonii and Gauls"). A minority of regiments are named after an individual, mostly after the first prefect of the regiment, e.g. ala Sulpicia (presumably named after a prefect whose middle (gens) name was Sulpicius). The latter is also an example of a regiment that did not have a serial number.
Titles
Regiments were often rewarded for meritorious service by the grant of an honorific title. The most sought-after was the prestigious c.R. (civium Romanorum = "of Roman citizens") title. In the latter case, all the regiment's members at the time, but not their successors, would be granted Roman citizenship. But the regiment would retain the c.R. title in perpetuity. Another common title was the gens name of the emperor making the award (or founding the regiment) e.g. Ulpia: the gens name of Trajan (Marcus Ulpius Traianus r.98–117). Other titles were similar to those given to the legions e.g. pia fidelis (p.f. = "dutiful and loyal").
Decorations
The Roman army awarded a variety of individual decorations (dona) for valour to its legionaries. Hasta pura was a miniature spear; phalerae were large medal-like bronze or silver discs worn on the cuirass; armillae were bracelets worn on the wrist; and torques were worn round the neck, or on the cuirass. The highest awards were the coronae ("crowns"), of which the most prestigious was the corona civica, a crown made of oak-leaves awarded for saving the life of a Roman citizen in battle. The most valuable award was the corona muralis, a crown made of gold awarded to the first man to scale an enemy rampart. This was awarded rarely, as such a man hardly ever survived.
There is no evidence that auxiliary common soldiers received individual decorations, although auxiliary officers did. Instead, the whole regiment was honoured by a title reflecting the type of award e.g. torquata (awarded a torque) or armillata (awarded bracelets). Some regiments would, in the course of time, accumulate a long list of titles and decorations e.g. cohors I Brittonum Ulpia torquata pia fidelis c.R..
Deployment in the 2nd century
Notes: (1) Table excludes about 2,000 officers (centurions and above). (2) Auxiliary cavalry nos. assumes 70% of cohortes were equitatae
Analysis
The table shows the importance of auxiliary troops in the 2nd century, when they outnumbered legionaries by 1.5 to 1.
The table shows that legions did not have a standard complement of auxiliary regiments and that there was no fixed ratio of auxiliary regiments to legions in each province. The ratio varied from six regiments per legion in Cappadocia to 40 per legion in Mauretania.
Overall, cavalry represented about 20% (including the small contingents of legionary cavalry) of the total army effectives. But there were variations: in Mauretania the cavalry proportion was 28%.
The figures show the massive deployments in Britannia and Dacia. Together, these two provinces account for 27% of the total auxilia corps.
See also
Imperial Roman army
Roman auxiliaries in Britain
Structural history of the Roman military
Veteran (Roman history)
Citations
References
Ancient
Arrian Acies contra Alanos (early 2nd century)
Dio Cassius Roman History (mid-3rd century)
Suetonius De vita Caesarum (early 2nd century)
Tacitus Agricola (end of 1st century)
Tacitus Annales (end of 1st century)
Tacitus Historiae (end of 1st century)
Vegetius De re militari (late 4th century)
Modern
External links
Roman Military Diplomas Online
Batavian auxiliaries re-enactors
List of auxiliary units in Britain
Vindolanda Tablets Online
Roman auxiliaries
Military units and formations of the Roman Empire
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Beauty%20Stone
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The Beauty Stone
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The Beauty Stone is an opera, billed as a "romantic musical drama" in three acts, composed by Arthur Sullivan to a libretto by Arthur Wing Pinero and J. Comyns Carr. The medieval Faustian story concerns an ugly, crippled girl, who dreams of being beautiful and meeting a handsome prince. The Devil offers her a magical stone that confers perfect beauty to anyone who wears it. The stone is passed from one character to another, but eventually the prince recognizes the girl's beautiful soul, the stone is discarded, and the disappointed Devil leaves the town.
It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 28 May 1898, closing on 16 July 1898 after a run of just 50 performances, making it the least successful of Sullivan's operas. Reviewers criticised the lyrics and lengthy dialogue scenes and the lack of humour in the story. Savoy audiences, accustomed to more comic and satiric pieces, did not find the opera attractive. The cast of The Beauty Stone included Savoy regulars Walter Passmore, Rosina Brandram, Ruth Vincent, Emmie Owen and Henry Lytton, as well as opera singer Pauline Joran.
The opera was revived by the Carl Rosa Opera Company in 1901–02 on tour in a cut version.
Background
When the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership collapsed after the production of The Gondoliers in 1889, their producer Richard D'Oyly Carte struggled to find successful new works to show at the Savoy Theatre. Carte produced Sullivan's grand opera, Ivanhoe at another theatre, and afterwards, he turned to Sullivan to create more comic operas for the Savoy. With Sydney Grundy, Sullivan wrote the nostalgic and sentimental Haddon Hall (1892) then, reunited with W. S. Gilbert, he produced Utopia, Limited (1893). He next returned, with his earlier collaborator F. C. Burnand, with The Chieftain (1894) and collaborated for the last time with Gilbert on The Grand Duke (1896). None of these had proved to be more than modestly successful, and Carte's other new pieces for the Savoy in the 1890s had done no better. Following the success of Sullivan's ballet Victoria and Merrie England in 1897, Carte asked Sullivan to work on another new opera for the Savoy.
Carte assembled a high quality team for The Beauty Stone, hoping for a hit. J. Comyns Carr had earlier written the text for Henry Irving's grand production of the King Arthur legend, for which Sullivan had provided the incidental music score in 1895. Sullivan had in the past considered the idea of an opera on the same subject and was pleased when Carr offered him a similarly romantic work with a medieval setting. The eponymous beauty stone was a magical item that would transform its holder's appearance but would have unanticipated consequences. Sullivan seemed not to notice that this major element of the plot was simply a variant of the "magic lozenge" plot that Gilbert had so often proposed to the composer, and that he had repeatedly rejected. A. W. Pinero was at the height of his career in 1898, having produced several enduring successes in the 1890s, including The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893) and The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith (1895), and the same year as The Beauty Stone he would produce Trelawny of the 'Wells' (1898). One of the most important, prolific and popular British playwrights, Pinero was later knighted for his services to dramatic authorship. Carr conceived of the basic idea of the libretto, that true beauty is an inner quality. Carr confined himself to writing the lyrics, however, and Pinero was brought in to work out the plot and write the dialogue. Having brought together three such eminent talents, Carte had high expectations, and there was much anticipation in the press.
The Beauty Stone was conceived as a musical drama different in style from the productions that had preceded it at the Savoy Theatre. Sullivan's intention was to create a work halfway between the romantic flights of his grand opera Ivanhoe and the familiar humour of the earlier Savoy operas. The composer, however, soon found that Carr's lyrics were unwieldy and difficult to set to music. In mid-December 1897, he wrote in his diary that his collaborators were difficult; when he asked for changes in the construction of the piece, they refused to make the alterations. He was forced to involve Helen Carte to mediate the disagreements with his collaborators. Even so, Sullivan continued to be disappointed in what he had to work with. In February 1898, he wrote in his diary: "[H]eartbreaking to have to try to make a musical piece out of such badly constructed (for music) mess of involved sentences." Nevertheless, after working further with Carr in March, he was able to work out the key difficulties, and his struggles with the complexity of the lyrics seems to have inspired some of Sullivan's longest melodic lines and interesting musical settings. Rehearsals began early in April 1898.
Moreover, the Savoy was not the right place to produce such a drama, because its audience was used to seeing comic operas focused on wit, humour and Gilbertian satire. To provide them with a mostly dark-toned romantic piece consisting of pseudo-medieval dialogue (and too much of it), lengthy grand-operatic musical numbers and a serious exploration of complex characters turned out to be a grave mistake. In addition, The Beauty Stone is a very long piece – it played for nearly four hours on opening night; several items were cut soon after opening night, but the cuts did not improve matters. At the same time, competition from the new theatrical art form of George Edwardes-style musical comedy produced at other London theatres offered lighthearted entertainment choices to the Savoy audience, with catchy tunes, dancing and witty banter. For a modern audience, however, there is much to admire about The Beauty Stone. Pinero's book, though overly long, contains vivid characters with psychological depth that Sullivan was able to develop more fully than in his shorter comic operas. The complex way in which these characters react to the beauty stone makes this plot device different from the way Gilbert treated his magic lozenges and gave Sullivan a chance to employ rich musical portraits of yearning, despair, love and beauty.
Production, reception and aftermath
The Beauty Stone premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 28 May 1898. Sullivan conducted the premiere, as he always did with his operas. It closed on 16 July 1898 after a run of just 50 performances, making it the least successful of Sullivan's operas. In contrast, the most successful shows that opened in London in 1898 had far longer runs: The Belle of New York (697 performances); A Greek Slave (349 performances); and A Runaway Girl (593 performances). The cast of The Beauty Stone included Savoy regulars Walter Passmore, Rosina Brandram, Ruth Vincent, Emmie Owen and Henry Lytton. Some of the music is more challenging than the typical Savoy Opera, and so Sullivan insisted on casting several opera singers, including Covent Garden opera soprano Pauline Joran as Saida (at an increased salary), and the size of the chorus was increased. Choreography was by John D'Auban. Costumes by Percy Anderson and sets by William Telbin, Jr. (d. 1931) were universally praised by the critics.
Savoy Theatre audiences were not enthusiastic about the piece. "The Savoy is in the minds of the public so essentially identified with a light after-dinner entertainment that romantic opera is not to the taste of its patrons". Reviewers noted that the opera was "mounted with the artistic finish, completeness, and liberality customary at this popular theatre. Sir Arthur has had to deal with a subject differing widely from those which, at the Savoy, his dainty and humorous muse is so thoroughly identified. This, and the inferiority of the lyrics … must be taken into account. … Speaking for ourselves, we confess freely to disappointment." They found it too long, disjointed and dull, disliked the pseudo-archaic dialogue and nearly all condemned the lyrics. They noted its lack of humour and the satire for which Savoy pieces had been famous. A few critics found much to like in the story, and many praised most of the cast (except for Philip and Guntran) and Sullivan's music, or at least some of it.
In The Saturday Review, Max Beerbohm wrote, "Lyrics written by gentlemen who have had no experience in the difficult art of writing words for music, and sung in a theatre which one associates with Mr. W. S. Gilbert, are not likely to charm the most amenable audience." He said of Carr and Pinero, "I am sure that the indisputable dulness of their Beauty Stone comes, mainly, from their pseudo-archaic manner." Pinero commented, many years later: "I doubt whether any of us had much faith in The Beauty Stone, as likely to attract the Savoy public in large numbers, but we – Sullivan, Carr and I – did what we wanted to do; and, though it doesn't pay the butcher's bill, there lies the artist's reward." Sullivan disagreed, hoping "that one day The Beauty Stone may be revived, with about half the libretto ruthlessly cut away".
The opera was revived on tour by the Carl Rosa Opera Company in 1901–02, which drastically cut the dialogue, reducing the running time of the piece to about 2½ hours. When Sullivan died, his autograph scores passed to his nephew, Herbert Sullivan, and then to Herbert's widow. After her death, the collection was broken up and sold by auction at Sotheby's in London on 13 June 1966. Some items were sold for considerable sums (the score of Trial by Jury sold for £9,000), but the manuscript of The Beauty Stone sold for a mere £110 to a dealer and eventually was acquired by the collector Colin Prestige. Upon his death, almost forty years later, the manuscript was bequeathed to Oriel College, Oxford, and in December 2005 scholars from the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society were able to examine the manuscript, along with other Sullivan autograph manuscripts. They discovered, at the back of The Beauty Stone, the items that had been cut after opening night, which were completely unknown to that time. Since then, these items have been performed in concert and included on the 2013 Chandos recording, although no full professional productions of the opera have been given since Carl Rosa's over a century ago.
Roles and original cast
Philip, Lord of Mirlemont (tenor) – George Devoll
Guntran of Beaugrant (baritone or bass-baritone) – Edwin Isham
Simon Limal (a Weaver) (baritone) – Henry Lytton
Nicholas Dircks (Burgomaster of Mirlemont) (bass-baritone) – Jones Hewson
Peppin (a dwarf) (non-singing) – D'Arcy Kelway
A Seneschal (non-singing) – Leonard Russell
A Lad of the Town (non-singing) – Charles Childerstone
Baldwyn of Ath (non-singing) – J. W. Foster
The Lords of Serault (tenor), Velaines (baritone) and St. Sauveur (bass) – Cory James, N. Gordon and J. Ruff
The Devil (baritone) – Walter Passmore
Laine (the Weaver's daughter) (soprano) – Ruth Vincent
Joan (the Weaver's wife) (contralto) – Rosina Brandram
Jacqueline (mezzo-soprano) – Emmie Owen
Loyse, from St. Denis (soprano) – Madge Moyse
Isabeau, from Florennes (mezzo-soprano) – Minnie Pryce
Blanche, from Bovigny (mezzo-soprano) – Ethel Jackson
A Shrewish Girl (non-singing) – Mildred Baker
A Matron (non-singing) – Ethel Wilson
Saida (soprano) – Pauline Joran
Synopsis
The story is laid in the Flemish town of Mirlemont in the beginning of the 15th century.
Act I
Scene 1
The scene takes place at the home of Simon Limal, a weaver. It is a sombre, wretched-looking dwelling. Simon and his wife, Joan, sing a duet about their dreary lives. Joan has sent their daughter, Laine, into the town to buy bread and draw water. Simon fears that Laine, who is ugly and crippled, will be mocked by the town folk. On her way home, Laine is accosted by townsfolk, who try to force her to kiss a dwarf. They all burst into Simon's home. Laine's water pitcher is broken, but Jacqueline rescues her from further harm.
Philip, Lord of Mirlemont, has announced a beauty contest, which is to be held in the market-place later that day, and has drawn beautiful girls from many adjoining towns. Laine dreams of getting a close look at the gallant Philip and his companion, Saida, but her mother discourages her. When her parents leave, Laine sings a prayer to the Virgin Mary: she wishes for beauty, so that she can experience love; otherwise, she wishes to die.
The Devil arrives, although she mistakes him for a holy friar. He offers his sympathy, and says that he has an answer to her prayers in the form of a magical stone that confers perfect beauty to anyone who wears it. Laine's parents return. Though initially surprised to find a stranger in their midst, they too believe that the Devil is a holy man. The Devil further explains the stone's magical powers. Simon eagerly accepts the stone and gives it to Laine, who goes to her chamber to put it on. Joan fears that the stone may bring bad luck with it. The Devil explains that he has often given the stone away, but it always comes back. However, all of their doubts are overlooked when Laine re-enters, wondrously beautiful.
Scene 2
In the market-place of Mirlemont, the people of the town gather for the beauty contest. A competitor crowned with lilies enters with her supporters, but most of the townspeople doubt that she will win.
The Devil, now posing as a nobleman, has a letter of introduction to Lord Philip, which he presents to Guntran, Philip's loyal friend. Guntran complains that Philip is distracted by the pursuit of beauty, and is not sufficiently attentive to warfare. The Devil comments that Mirlemont is a more "vastly interesting" place than he had expected. He recruits Jacqueline, disguising her as a boy, Jacques, to serve as his page.
Philip and his entourage enter for the beauty contest. Several maidens vie for his attention, but he is not impressed with any of them. The Devil suggests that, as there is "so little beauty" in Mirlemont, the Prince should instead order the ugliest man, the dwarf Peppin, to marry the ugliest woman. The Burgomaster suggests the weaver's daughter, Laine. The chorus call for Laine, but when she enters, she is now transcendently beautiful. Philip is entranced, but the rest of the townsfolk suspect she is a witch. Philip is convinced that anyone so beautiful must be innocent, and he anoints her as fairest of the fair.
Act II
Scene 1
In a hall in Castle Mirlemont, Philip plays cards with a party of knights and ladies. A messenger from the Duke of Burgundy arrives, requesting Philip's presence in battle, but Philip refuses, saying that he is no longer a man of war. Saida, Philip's former favourite, tells the Devil that Laine must be burned at the stake for witchcraft. The Devil advises her that she should instead try to learn for herself the mysterious secret behind Laine's sudden transformation. Saida dances for Philip. She briefly recaptures his attention, but he transfers it immediately to Laine when she enters, now richly dressed in fine robes.
Philip is enchanted by Laine's beauty. She explains that a holy man is responsible for the miracle, but her parents have forbidden her from saying any more. Philip insists that he loves her. She suspects that his attentions are fleeting, but says that she loves him in return. Laine's elderly parents, Simon and Joan, arrive at the castle, seeking to join their daughter. The Devil tells Philip that he will get rid of them, and he leads them away. He has guards beat them and drive them from the castle. Doubting Philip's honour, Laine asks to leave, but Philip locks the doors. Laine begs to be released, saying that she no longer wishes to be beautiful. Philip relents, and she rushes out. Encouraged by the Devil, Saida follows her, hoping to acquire Laine's magical beauty.
Knights en route to battle arrive at Philip's castle for a brief rest, but Philip refuses to greet them. Guntran is disgusted at Philip's lack of interest, recalling heroic deeds of Philip's youth. The knights urge Philip to join the battle, and when he refuses, Guntran names Philip as a coward. Stirred by this, Philip changes his mind and says that he will join the battle after all.
Scene 2
Back in the weaver's home, Joan and Simon have escaped the ruffians that chased them from Philip's castle. Laine returns. She is still in her rich clothes, but she has decided to relinquish the stone that has made her beautiful. She removes it from her neck, throws it on the ground, and hurries into her bed-chamber.
Joan and Simon debate what to do with the stone. Joan fears that it brings evil to those to wear it, but she puts the stone around Simon's neck. He is transformed into a handsome, younger man. Saida and the Devil arrive, looking for the stone. When they see Simon, the Devil realizes what has happened. He encourages Saida to seduce him, so that she may gain the stone for herself.
Scene 3
In an open field near the Gate of Mirlemont, the Devil interrogates Jacqueline, whom he has directed to spy on Simon and Saida. She says that she observed the two of them walking arm in arm in a meadow, with Saida trying desperately, but unsuccessfully, to coax the secret from him. When Saida arrives, the Devil encourages her to take Simon to the castle and continue her seduction. While Simon and Saida are together, they encounter Joan and Laine, but he will have nothing to do with them.
To the sound of trumpets, Philip enters, dressed for battle. He announces that he has wearied of beauty, and is going to war. Joan and Laine beg Philip to intercede with Saida, whom they believe has abducted Simon. Philip dismisses their tale as gossip, and does not recognize Laine, who is once again ugly and crippled. The townsfolk raise Philip on their shoulders, and they go off to battle, leaving Laine trampled and senseless.
Act III
Scene 1
On a terrace in the castle, with the voice of Laine heard singing dolefully in the distance, Saida enters with Simon. He is enchanted with her, but he is still unwilling to confess the secret. When he hears Laine singing again, he is overcome with guilt. A servant announces that Philip has been victorious in battle. Simon presumes that he will be expelled from the castle, but Saida promises to keep him there. At last, Simon tells her the secret of the stone.
The Devil enters with Jacqueline. He frets that Saida needs to extract the stone from Simon before Lord Philip returns. In the meantime, he orders Jacqueline to sing a song. When she admits that she is in love with him, he dismisses her from service, saying that she is no longer of any use. Saida comes in and stands boldly facing the Devil; having taken the stone from Simon, she is now restored to youthful beauty. After she sings a triumphant aria, Simon follows, once again a bent old man. She crassly orders him to leave, and the Devil threatens him with a charge of witchcraft should he complain.
Philip and Guntran return from the war. Philip has fought heroically, but has lost his eyesight, and is now blind. Although Saida is now the most beautiful maid in Mirlemont, he is unable to see her. Laine's voice is heard once again outside, and Philip asks to speak with her. Saida warns that she is a cripple once again, but Philip replies that her soul is beautiful. The defeated Saida throws the stone away, and the Devil picks it up, noting ruefully that the stone always comes back.
Scene 2
At the market-place, the townsfolk assemble once again to greet the victorious Philip. Simon, who is once again dressed in rags, is reunited with Joan. Jacqueline enters in a daze and runs into the Devil, who is once again dressed as a holy friar. She has no memory of her week of service to the Devil, and she asks for the friar's blessing.
Philip enters and announces that he has chosen Laine, "the humblest among you," as his betrothed. "Though heaven hath set a veil upon these eyes," he says, "love's one star ... Shows clear the way that leads me to thy heart." The Devil quits the town, disappointed that his joke did not turn out as he had intended.
Musical numbers
Act I
Introduction (instrumental)
Scene 1
No 1. "Click, clack" – Duet (Simon and Joan)
No 2. "Hobble, hobble, now we've caught her" (Simon, Joan, Chorus)
No 2a. "Maidens and men of Mirlemont town" (Soprano chorus)
No 3. "Dear Mary mother" – Prayer (Laine)
No 4. "Who stands within?" – Quartet (Laine, Joan, Simon, The Devil)
No 5. "Since it dwelt in that rock" – Recit and Song (The Devil)
No 5a. Appearance of Laine (instrumental)
Scene 2
No 5b. After The Devil's song (instrumental)
No 6. "The bells are ringing o'er Mirlemont Town" (Chorus)
No 7. "My name is Crazy Jacqueline" – Duet (Jacqueline, The Devil)
No 7a. Entrance of the Burgomaster and Crowd (Chorus)
No 8. "Know ye all, both great and small" (Saida, Competitors, Philip, Nicholas, The Devil, Chorus)
No 9. Finale Act I
– "Go, bring forth old Simon's daughter" (Company)
– "O turn thine eyes away" (Saida)
Act II
Scene 1
No 10. "With cards and dice" (Chorus)
No 10a. Lute music
No 11. "Though she should dance" – Scene with Eastern maidens (Saida, Philip, Chorus)
No 12. "I love thee" – Duet (Laine, Philip)
No 13. "I'll tell them what thou wast" (Laine, Saida, Philip, The Devil, Guntran, Three Lords, Chorus of Men)
Scene 2
No 13a. (instrumental)
No 14. "Look yon" – Trio (Laine, Joan, Simon)
No 15. "I would see a maid" – Duet (Simon and Joan)
No 16. "Haste thee! haste thee!" – Quintet (Simon, Joan, Saida, Laine, The Devil)
Scene 3
No 17. "Up and Down" – Duet (Jacqueline, The Devil)
No 18. Finale Act II – "There he stands" (Company)
Act III
Scene
No 19. Part 1 – "An hour agone 'twas the moon that shone" (Laine)
No 19. Part 2 – "The white moon lay on the ruined hay" (Laine)
No 20. "Why dost thou sigh and moan?" (Jacqueline)
No 21. "Mine, mine at last!" (Saida)
No 21a. Offstage song – "With roses red they crowned her head" (Laine)
No 22. "So all is lost for ever!" – Scena (Saida, The Devil)
Scene 2
No 22a. (instrumental)
No 23. "O'er Mirlemont City the banners are flying" (Chorus and dance)
No 23a. Exit of Guntran and crowd
No 24. Finale Act III – "Hail to the lord of our land" (Company)
Recordings
The Beauty Stone received its first recording in 1983 by Edinburgh's The Prince Consort, which was remastered and released by Pearl in 2003. In 2013, a fully professional recording of the complete score, including all the material cut after the premiere performance, was made at Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, Wales, by the record company Chandos. The 2-CD set was released on 4 November 2013 and is also available as a digital download. Rory Macdonald conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and BBC National Chorus of Wales, and principals include Elin Manahan Thomas (Laine), Toby Spence (Philip), Rebecca Evans (Saida), Alan Opie (The Devil), Stephen Gadd (Simon) and Richard Suart (Nicholas). A reviewer for MusicWeb International wrote: "This is subtle music that genuinely explores emotional depths and allows characters to develop. ... It is not exaggerating to suggest that it is a masterwork. ... [T]he sound quality of this recording is excellent. ... The singing is unbeatable, with all the soloists entering into the spirit of the story. What impressed me most was the orchestra".
Notes
References
Rowell, George. Sullivan, Pinero, and The Beauty Stone, Sir Arthur Sullivan Society magazine No. 21 (Autumn 1985).
Further reading
Bernasconi, John G. (ed). The Beauty Stone: Percy Anderson’s Costume Designs for the 1898 D’Oyly Carte production of Sullivan’s opera, at the Savoy Theatre, University of Hull Art Collection Exhibition Catalogue, 26 October – 20 November 1992.
Bridgeman, Cunningham and François Cellier. Gilbert, Sullivan, and D’Oyly Carte. 2nd Ed. London: Pitman & Sons, 1927.
Dunhill, Thomas F. Sullivan’s Comic Operas. London: Edward Arnold and Co., 1928.
Eden, David. The Beauty Stone. Sir Arthur Sullivan Society magazine, No 13, Autumn 1982.
Hyman, Alan. Sullivan and his Satellites: A Survey of English Operettas 1800–1914. London: Chappell & Co. Limited, 1978.
Joseph, Tony. The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company 1875 – 1982. Bristol: Bunthorne Books, 1994.
Sullivan, Herbert and Newman Flower. Sir Arthur Sullivan. London: Cassell & Company, Ltd, 1927.
Wearing, J. P. (ed). The Collected Letters of Sir Arthur Pinero. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1974.
Young, Percy. Sir Arthur Sullivan. London: J M Dent & Sons, 1971.
External links
The Beauty Stone at The Gilbert & Sullivan Archive
Review of The Beauty Stone
List of shows opening in London in 1898
Samples of the music
Libretto
Vocal score at IMSLP
Programme from the original production
Operas by Arthur Sullivan
English-language operas
English comic operas
1898 operas
Operas
Operas set in Belgium
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine%20Nelson
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Christine Nelson
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Christine "Spike" Nelson is a fictional character from the Degrassi teen drama franchise. Portrayed by Amanda Stepto, Spike appeared throughout Degrassi Junior High (1987–89), Degrassi High (1989–91), and the first nine seasons of Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001–10). Starting as an unnamed extra before being given a name and storyline, Spike's character largely revolves around her teenage pregnancy and motherhood.
She becomes pregnant in the first season of Degrassi Junior High, and the second season shows the pregnancy's impact on her relationships and education; her relationship with boyfriend Shane McKay (Bill Parrott) is strained, and the PTA has her removed from Degrassi for setting a "bad example". After giving birth to Emma by the third season, Spike is supported with monthly child support payments, which stop when Shane withholds one to attend a concert where he falls off a bridge, landing him in a coma. By Degrassi High, Spike unsuccessfully tries to re-enter the dating scene. In Degrassi: The Next Generation, of which Emma (Miriam McDonald) is a central character, Spike appears in a recurring role and plays a primary role in a number of two-part episodes, including one revisiting Shane. She marries former classmate Snake (Stefan Brogren) and has a second child, though their marriage is briefly marred by Snake's infidelity in season five. Her role gradually recedes until her last appearance in Degrassi Takes Manhattan in 2010. A novel focused on Spike was published by James Lorimer & Co in December 1988, exploring her storyline and background in further detail.
She was one of the first major pregnant teenagers on television. "It's Late", the episode that began her pregnancy storyline, won an International Emmy, the award of which inspired the name of Spike's daughter. Like her co-stars, Amanda Stepto's public image was directly affected by her portrayal of Spike, as she was often conflated with the character and mistaken as being legitimately pregnant. The character's large spiked hair, which was Stepto's own, became considered a "trademark" of both the character and the actress. Several episodes about her pregnancy were banned from airing on the BBC in the United Kingdom, where Degrassi Junior High experienced its highest viewership. Amanda Stepto earned recognition from critics and scholars for her portrayal of Spike. In 1990, along with her co-stars, she was nominated for the Young Artist Award for Outstanding Young Ensemble Cast for Degrassi Junior High. In 1992, she was nominated for the Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role for Degrassi High.
Spike was one of the show's most popular characters, and her storyline was key to the franchise's later developments. She appears in a total of 113 episodes throughout the franchise.
Concept and casting
Audition
Amanda Stepto noticed an audition for Degrassi Junior High when she was attending the Etobicoke School of the Arts, where she minored in drama. Identifying with the punk rock movement, Stepto had large spiked hair. In a 2016 podcast interview, Stepto explained that it was based on the style of Colin Abrahall, the vocalist of the UK82 band GBH. She was not a professional actress at the time and did not have either a resume or professional headshots, and was instead required to send in a photo to Playing With Time, the production company of the series. She recalled that an argument ensued between her and her parents, who felt her large spiked hair was unsuitable for television. Stepto refused to change her hair, telling her parents; "This is my hair! If they [Playing With Time] don't like me, fuck them!".
She was ultimately accepted and underwent the first series of acting workshops. Stepto was the only student at the school to audition for the show. Recalling this, Stepto later said: "A year later, everyone else was sorry they didn't". Initially, she auditioned for the role of provocatively dressed Stephanie Kaye, which later went to Nicole Stoffman. Show co-creator Linda Schuyler later recalled: "We said to each other afterwards, "Oh my—that girl is not Stephanie Kaye, but we need her in our show!"". The role was explicitly created for Stepto. In 2019, she recalled making approximately $50 daily for her role in Degrassi Junior High, as actors were paid based on how many lines they would have per episode.
According to Stepto, Neil Hope, who played Derek "Wheels" Wheeler, began calling her "Spike" on set, which also inspired the character's name. The cast was forbidden from wearing predominantly black clothing, which, according to Stepto, "ruled out like 99% percent of my wardrobe". Instead, she wore various T-shirts of punk rock and new wave bands that she liked. Like the rest of the characters on the series, Spike's experiences were loosely or directly based on Stepto's own experiences.
Development
Linda Schuyler said in 2015 that it was her idea to tackle teenage pregnancy during Degrassi Junior High. Schuyler told Kevin Smith in a radio interview that year that she had a teenage pregnancy in her family, and spoke of the common practice at the time in which pregnant teens were sent to maternity homes, something Schuyler found problematic. The storyline which would be later given to Spike was developed from research on teenage pregnancy by writer Loretta Castellarin, who later co-authored the Spike's companion novel.
Stephanie Kaye was considered for the storyline, however due to the nature of the character, it was decided against by the writers; Stepto explained: "You can't just say the promiscuous girls get pregnant.". Spike was chosen because she was seen as a "nice, quiet character that everybody liked", and would not be expected to be in such a situation. With Spike, the writers sought to demonstrate that "just because someone's 14 and gets pregnant doesn't mean that she's a slut."
In an episode of Degrassi Talks, Stepto noted that she initially thought the plotline was unrealistic in the context of the wealth of information on sexually transmitted diseases and contraception. Toronto Star's Catherine Dunphy noted that during the initial readthrough of "It's Late", the episode that began her pregnancy storyline, Stepto's castmates "snickered". Promoting the series, Stepto recalled receiving very little sex education during her time in Grade 8, the same grade her character became pregnant, stating that it consisted of one single gym class of "diagrams and filling in the blanks", and spoke of what she perceived as a more widespread apathy toward the subject by educators. Spike's decision to keep her baby was influenced by an increasing trend in pregnant teenagers keeping theirs. Conversely, Stepto would say in contemporary interviews that she would have had an abortion had she been in her character's situation, which she said would greatly surprise interviewers.
Stepto compared playing Spike to being her biological mother. In 1992, she named the first-season episode "Parent's Night" as her most important episode. In the episode, which immediately follows "It's Late", Spike, who is contemplating giving her baby up for adoption, seeks the advice of Wheels, who is adopted himself. Speaking on the filming of the scene, Stepto said that she felt as if she was in "the body of my biological mother talking to me". In 1988, Stepto stated to Montreal Gazette the impact that playing the role would have on her: "Spike made me realize I shouldn't hate my own mother for what she did especially when I realized I was really playing her." Other aspects from Stepto that were translated to the character included her support for animal rights, and the scrutiny that she experienced in public due to her spiked hairstyle.
Departure
Stepto last appeared as Spike in the 2010 television movie Degrassi Takes Manhattan. After season 7 of The Next Generation, Stepto was not billed in the opening credits, and the character's role was diminished significantly. An official reason for Spike's departure was not announced. At the 2022 Toronto Comicon, when asked by co-star Pat Mastroianni her thoughts on adult Spike, Stepto opined that she realized her character was ultimately meant to have a supporting role, but that she felt the lack of screen time for Spike compared to the rest of the family, was "kinda weird", especially as there continued to be scenes in the Nelson-Simpson house where she is not present.
Characterization
Spike is characterized as a normally-behaved teenage girl with a "gentle" personality whose fashion incorporates elements of punk rock, including large spiked hair (which evolves into a "mall hair" style by Degrassi High), as well as other types of clothing such as plaid skirts, oversized sweaters and ruffled blouses. She is typically polite, but confrontational and resentful when concerning her pregnancy and motherhood. She has been described as a "petite punk rocker", "seemingly cool but naive" and a "sullen girl". As opposed to her more stoic friend Liz O'Rourke, she appears to be against violence, at one point dissuading Liz from vandalizing a diner. Her personal life is explored occasionally throughout Junior High. She is shown to live alone with her mother in an apartment complex. It is mentioned in "It's Late" that her mother gave birth to Spike when she was seventeen, and a comment made by her mother in the second-season episode Dinner And A Show ("Typical male, gets off scot free") implies that the father may have abandoned her.
Amanda Stepto expressed some critical observations about her character's personality during and after the series' run. During Degrassi Junior High's run, Stepto observed that her character seemed very unhappy; when interviewed in 1990, Stepto stated that Spike was "always sad or depressed" and "sort of boring", but acknowledged her character's struggles contributing to her behavior. In 2005, she would remark that she and her character shared some similarities, including her support for animal rights, but sans the pregnancy. Interviewed by CBC's Switchback, Stepto was asked whether she was like her character in real life. She responded: "My character's much more depressing than I am, because of, you know, what she has to cope with.". However, she further stated: "It's really interesting because you learn a lot about what other people go through if they were under that same stress". Speaking to the Canadian Press in December 1988, she spoke of plotlines that she wanted for Spike, including one where she runs away to "get away from it all". She also expressed a want for "an episode where I'm laughing. I'm always asking, 'Can't I smile?'". Despite these reservations, Stepto commented that her character as portrayed in the novelization, which she described as "much more cocky", more closely resembled her real-life personality.
Speaking of her character in Next Generation in 2005, Stepto felt her character had become "boring" and "a bit dull" in the newer series, as opposed to her style in the previous series. She noted that her character "makes these yuppie dinners all the time", but felt that she was still "fashionable". Stepto also stated that she still had input into her wardrobe, particularly wearing clothing from Canadian designers.
Role in Degrassi
Degrassi Junior High
Spike is occasionally seen as a background extra in the early episodes of the series, with a supporting role in the eighth episode, where she is first credited. In the episode, she and Voula Grivogiannis (Niki Kemeny) try and support the ailing father of their friend Lorraine "L.D." Delacorte (Amanda Cook), who has a fear of hospitals. The character's storyline begins in the episode "It's Late", where after a sexual encounter with Shane McKay (Bill Parrott), she becomes pregnant. This development causes their relationship to deteriorate, with the former now having to deal with the consequences of teenage pregnancy, and the latter fearing the reaction of his conservative parents (his father being a minister). Despite looking to prove himself to Spike, Shane ultimately shows a fleeting interest in the baby, exacerbated by the actions of his parents. At one point, Spike is advised in counseling to take care of an egg as if it were a baby and allows Shane to care for it himself, but he succumbs to peer pressure and throws it around at a party, causing Spike to lose trust in him. The reactions of her peers to her pregnancy are explored somewhat through the second season. Kathleen Mead (Rebecca Haines-Saah) advocates putting Spike in a home, which Melanie Brodie (Sara Ballingall) and her other friends disagree with, arguing that it wasn't entirely Spike's fault. Eventually, she is labelled by several parents as a "bad example" and forced to be removed from Degrassi, despite the protests of Caitlin Ryan (Stacie Mistysyn). She later returns for the school dance at the end of the season, six weeks due; she goes into premature labor.
Between the second and third seasons, Emma almost dies in the hospital as a result of her premature birth, which involved over twelve hours of labor. When school returns, Spike refuses to let Shane see Emma, feeling he is unreliable. However, she begins to slightly warm up to him when he begins to give her part of his allowance for child support. Although she is reluctant, she eventually lets Shane hold Emma. Later, a friend persuades him to withhold payment to attend a punk rock concert, where he is later found unconscious at the bottom of a bridge causing him neurological damage, and making him estranged completely from Spike and Emma. When her other daycare arrangements begin to unravel, Spike attempts to get a job, but this is hampered by her hairstyle, for which she is mocked by the owner of a diner. By the season finale, her grades are failing and Ms. Avery (Michelle Goodeve), who delivers her report card to her mother's salon, suggests she take correspondence courses. Spike initially balks at the idea of having a future and blames Emma for her troubles, prompting Ms. Avery to tell her to count her blessings and appreciate having her baby, as not everyone is as lucky to have one. Later, at the school dance just prior to a fire, Spike approaches Ms. Avery and agrees to the correspondence courses.
Spike appears in a total of 37 episodes of Degrassi Junior High. She is in Grade 8 for the first two seasons, and in Grade 9 for the third.
Degrassi High
In Degrassi High, Spike takes Emma to a daycare that is nearby the high school. In the premiere episode "A New Start", she is sought for advice by Heather Farrell (Maureen Deiseach), whose twin sister Erica (Angela Deiseach) had gotten pregnant following a summer romance; Spike tells her that keeping Emma felt right for her, but that it did not mean that it was the right choice overall. She later meets a Grade 11 Irish student named Patrick (Vincent Walsh) who happens to wear the same Pogues T-shirt as her. Despite a fledgling relationship, which includes a song he writes for her, Spike begins to avoid him as it becomes more serious, but he sits her down and tells her to take it easy, in a speech he claimed took half a night to write. The two date for some time until breaking up off-screen in season 2, when Spike decides she could not commit to a relationship. The two are last seen together arguing in the school library over Patrick's decision to date Liz.
After Liz's date with Tim O'Connor (Keith White) goes wrong when he kisses her good night, reawakening her memories of childhood sexual abuse, Spike attempts to talk to her in the library about it. When she tells Liz it's okay to kiss somebody you like goodnight, Liz retorts, "Yeah, it's easy to see why you got pregnant.", to which Spike responds, "What sort of cheap shot was that?". Nonetheless, she still attempts to get Liz to talk to her, to no avail. Liz later meets Spike at her house as she is playing with Emma and confides her childhood abuse to her.
Later on, after the suicide of Claude Tanner (David-Armin Parcells) in the lead-up to a talent show, Spike suggests to hold the show but as a benefit, with the proceeds going to Claude's family or a charity, a proposal which is unanimously agreed upon by the other students. Later on, in the lead-up to the school semi-formal dance, she develops romantic feelings towards Archie "Snake" Simpson (Stefan Brogren) but is unrequited as he is taking Michelle Accette (Maureen McKay). Post-graduation, Spike is working at a one-hour photo lab with Tessa Campanelli (Kristen Bourne), but several months later is attending university while Emma is attending junior kindergarten, joking to Caitlin they are a "mother-daughter student team".
She appears in a total of 25 episodes of Degrassi High. She is in Grade 10 for the first season and in Grade 11 for the second. She finishes Grade 12 by the beginning of School's Out.
Interim
Events in Spike's life that occurred between the end of Degrassi High and The Next Generation are explored in the latter series. Sometime when Emma is a toddler, Spike takes Emma to visit Shane at a sanitarium in Stouffville, Ontario. However, Shane's instability frightens Spike and she decides to remove Shane from their lives out of concern for Emma's safety. She does not provide Shane with their new address nor photographs of Emma as she grows up. She does not talk about Shane to Emma, except for his name. Emma's lone memory of the sanitarium visit leads her to believe that Shane was a doctor.
The Next Generation
Spike has a recurring role in Degrassi: The Next Generation, as Emma (now played by Miriam McDonald, as opposed to several unrelated infants in the previous series) is a central character. She is one of the four characters from Degrassi Classic to have a recurring role in the newer series. While she appears frequently in the first two seasons, Stepto is not credited in the opening sequence until the third season, and appears in the opening until the eighth season. By the events of Next Generation, Spike bought out her mother's beauty salon and took up a career as a hairdresser. In the show's second season, she begins a romantic relationship with Snake. This initially disgusts Emma, as Snake is her teacher in her Media Immersion class, but she later accepts it. In the lead-up to their wedding, Spike gets pregnant again, which becomes a center of conflict as Snake had previously stated he did not want another child, but the two reconcile just before the wedding and arrive there in casual clothing. Instead of changing her last name, she adopts his surname after hers. When Emma's then-boyfriend Sean Cameron (Daniel Clark), a troubled boy, eats at the Nelson-Simpson house for dinner one night, Spike offers him leftovers, which causes him to misinterpret her offer as looking down at him and he leaves to attend a party. When Emma finds Sean after being kicked out of the party, she calls Spike to pick them up despite the embarrassed Sean insisting her not to.
The season 3 premiere Father Figure revisits the story of Shane McKay. After finding his photo in a yearbook, Emma and Craig Manning (Jake Epstein) skip school to go to Stouffville to find Shane, discovering him in an institution and causing Emma to resent Spike for allegedly lying to her, and (incorrectly assuming) allowing Shane to be committed. Craig criticizes Emma's resentment of Spike and states that she might have an explanation, and brings up that at least she has two fathers, whereas he has none. Snake explains the real story to Emma at school. Shane later visits the Nelson-Simpson residence to Spike's surprise. Noticing that he's no longer a part of their lives, he has a meltdown and smashes her and Snake's wedding picture, before throwing and kicking over furniture. He also takes the home phone, preventing Spike from calling anyone, and also preventing her from fleeing. In shock at the destruction, and fighting Shane for the phone, Spike suddenly goes into labor. Emma, coming home from school, discovers the scene and warns Shane to stop, or she will never speak to him again. While in labor, Spike apologizes to Emma for keeping Shane a secret. After giving birth (with the help of Liz O'Rourke as a midwife and with Shane as a witness), she names the baby, a boy, Jack.
In the episode Accidents Will Happen, a pregnant Manny Santos (Cassie Steele) seeks Spike for advice. She states that she stayed at home while her peers went to university or traveled, and tells Manny that ultimately, it's the woman's decision. Despite Spike's support of Manny, Emma becomes angry at her when she decides to have an abortion. In the show's fifth season, after Emma catches Snake kissing principal Daphne Hatzilakos, an angered Spike kicks him out of the house, and she falls into a depression. As time goes on, she reveals she is having a difficult time dealing with the separation, especially when a male stripper invited by Caitlin to cheer Spike up resembles Snake. After a failed attempt by Emma and Manny to reconcile the two with a dinner, Snake is successfully able to be allowed back by singing Spike their favorite song at the shopping mall. When Spike allows him back, the crowd at the mall erupts in applause.
In the seventh season, when Snake is falsely accused of rape by Darcy Edwards (Shenae Grimes) and is suspended due to the allegations, Snake starts drinking, which prompts Spike to leave with Jack and stay with her mother. She returns several episodes later, just after Sean returns from fighting in Afghanistan to stay at the Nelson-Simpson residence. She appears less frequently during the later seasons as Emma's class is phased out, and she last appears in Degrassi Takes Manhattan, where she and Snake attend Emma and Spinner Mason's wedding. She is seen in pictures on Snake's desk in the later seasons, and her pregnancy with Emma is mentioned by Snake to Clare Edwards (Aislinn Paul), a student also dealing with teenage pregnancy.
She appears in a total of 51 episodes of The Next Generation.
Novelization
A tie-in mass-market paperback novelization of Spike's story, written by Loretta Castellarin and Ken Roberts, was released in December 1988 and reprinted with an updated cover in 2006. The novel is in first-person and explores her character in greater detail, providing exposition to the relationship between Spike and Shane as well as her home life. The novel is based on the episodes "It's Late", "Eggbert", "Censored", "Pass Tense", and "Seasons Greetings".
In the book, Spike details her first interaction with Shane, at a soccer game. Their relationship develops over time, culminating in a sexual encounter at Lucy Fernandez's party. The prejudices Spike experiences as a pregnant teenager are also further addressed; for example, a petition calling for her removal from school is signed by over 300 parents, and Spike is suggested to hire a lawyer as her removal may potentially be unconstitutional. In addition, Spike's mother, portrayed as caring and supportive in the television series, is ultimately unwilling to support her daughter and lashes out at her when she decides to keep the baby rather than put it up for adoption.
Reception and impact
Critical reception
Spike was one of the most popular classic Degrassi characters, and her teenage pregnancy storyline received critical praise. Amanda Stepto was acclaimed for her portrayal, and the character has been cited as a "fan favourite" by the Vancouver Sun and a "trailblazer" by women's magazine Chatelaine. Ian Warden of The Canberra Times described Spike as a "lynchpin" of the series. Stepto was frequently recognized and mobbed by fans. Linda Schuyler claimed in 2022 that Spike was the first primetime depiction of teen pregnancy in which the baby was kept. In his book TV North, Peter Kenter stated that her storylines "struck a chord" with viewers.Yardbarker ranked Spike at #7 on their "25 best 'Degrassi' characters" list. Writer Jeff Mezydlo remarked that despite the challenges she faced, Spike "proved to be a good example of fictional perseverance", and that the inclusion of her daughter in Degrassi: The Next Generation "opened the Degrassi door to a new generation of fans and took the franchise's popularity to greater heights". Kelly Martinez of BuzzFeed opined that the show "handled Spike's whole parenthood arc very well", noting how multiple options were presented for the pregnant Spike, and how they "ultimately didn't sugarcoat how difficult raising Emma really was for Spike." In the 2020 book Women and Popular Culture in Canada, Christine Mazumdar observed Stepto's "honest portrayal" of Spike and asserts that the character's storyline "revolutionized" how teen pregnancy was portrayed on television, as the consequences are felt throughout the years and decades since.
For her role, Stepto received two nominations. In 1990, along with her co-stars, she was nominated for the Young Artist Award for Outstanding Young Ensemble Cast for Degrassi Junior High. In 1992, she was nominated for the Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role for Degrassi High.
Impact on Stepto's public image
Amanda Stepto's real life image was directly impacted by the role. Her "outrageously-coiffed" punk hairstyle, which she had developed years prior to Degrassi, came to be viewed as a trademark of both her and her character. Reporting in December 1988, the Canadian Press remarked that she was recognized as "the pregnant 14-year-old student with the weird haircut". Critic Bob Remington quipped that Spike's hair resembled a "science experiment in electromagnetism". According to Stepto, the fame and recognition she received caused her confusion in dealing with public scrutiny, which she already had been experiencing prior to the show because of her hairstyle. In 2012, she recalled: "I was always being stared at because of my hair, and then as the show became more popular, I realized I couldn't tell people to fuck off and stop staring at me—they were staring at me because I was on the show." She also recalled receiving threats of violence from other punk girls, whose boyfriends were attracted to her.
In addition, she was mistaken by fans as being pregnant in real life and would be sent clothing and stuffed toys. She would also often be sent letters praising, defending and criticizing her character, and from other teenage mothers, who sought her advice. Stepto said in 1988: "Someone will come up to me and tell me everything that happened to them [...] and what can I say? They just think I went through the same thing. But I didn't. It was my character." However, she also commented that she wasn't bothered by the confusion. Stepto was often recognized and mobbed in public as a result of her character's popularity. Because of the popularity of her character, Stepto was chosen as a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood in Alberta in 1992, and she gave talks at schools across the province during the summer of 1993.
British Broadcasting Corporation controversy
In the United Kingdom, where Degrassi Junior High experienced its highest viewership, the BBC withheld "It's Late" along with several other episodes. This decision came shortly before Amanda Stepto arrived in the UK for a promotional tour in May 1988. Stepto criticized the ban in the British press. Speaking to the Daily Mirror, she said the ban was "kinda silly" and explained that the show intended to educate about the subject and not advocate it. Years later, she said that the British press had tried to make her "talk shit" about the BBC. "It's Late" was later shown on the DEF II programming strand on October 3, 1988.
Influence on future series
Spike is often described as one of the most important characters in Degrassi due to the inclusion of her daughter, Emma, in the revival series Degrassi: The Next Generation. Yardbarker's Mezydlo stated that it "can be argued that Spike is the most important character in the history of the Degrassi franchise". Degrassi: The Next Generation originated in 1999 as an unrelated teen series named Ready, Willing, and Wired, to be produced by Epitome Pictures. However, writer Yan Moore realized that Emma Nelson would be attending junior high school, and the show was re-tooled (with the original ideas mostly retained) as a revival of Degrassi. Adamo Ruggiero, who portrayed Marco Del Rossi in Degrassi: The Next Generation, told Miriam McDonald who portrayed Emma; "I'm so grateful Spike kept you. Because we would not have Degrassi, like we would not have this. [...] Let's all thank Spike."
Legacy
American ska punk band Skankin' Pickle released a song in tribute to her character, "I'm In Love with A Girl Named Spike", on their 1994 album Sing Along With Skankin' Pickle; Louder Sound's Mike Rampton named the song in his list of the ten greatest ska punk songs by seemingly forgotten bands. Frontman and Asian Man Records founder Mike Park is a fan of the Degrassi series and has admitted an affection for Stepto and her character, and co-hosts a podcast named after the song. In an episode of the Comedy Central series Tosh.0, a segment focuses on a math teacher who has an unhealthy obsession with Stepto and her Degrassi character and frequently makes musical tribute videos to her. Later in the segment, he is greeted at his door by a man who recites, in song, a restraining order against him.
See also
Emma Nelson - Spike's daughter and central character of Degrassi: The Next Generation
Notes
References
Citations
Episodes
Sources
Further reading
External links
Archived bio of Christine "Spike" Nelson from Degrassi.ca
Archived interview of Amanda Stepto from Degrassi.ca
Fictional adolescents
Degrassi Junior High characters
Degrassi: The Next Generation characters
Fictional hairdressers
Fictional teenage parents
Teenage pregnancy in television
Television characters introduced in 1987
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent%20Hill%3A%20Homecoming
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Silent Hill: Homecoming
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Silent Hill: Homecoming is a 2008 survival horror game developed by Double Helix Games and published by Konami Digital Entertainment. The sixth installment in the Silent Hill series, Homecoming follows the journey of Alex Shepherd, a soldier returning from war, to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen, where he finds the town in disarray, and his younger brother missing. As he continues on his search to find his younger brother, he discovers more about the Order, a cult, as well as the town's history, and his own past.
The game was released on September 30, 2008, in North America for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and the Microsoft Windows version was released in North America on November 6, 2008, exclusively through Valve's Steam digital content delivery service. Versions were simultaneously released in Europe, including a retail Microsoft Windows version, on February 27, 2009. The Japanese release was cancelled. On July 25, 2018, the game alongside Silent Hill HD Collection became backward compatible on Xbox One.
Gameplay
The player assumes the role of Alex Shepherd, a Special Forces soldier who returns home from an overseas tour of duty to find that his father and younger brother are missing, and that his mother has gone into catatonia. Alex begins to search for his brother, leading him to Silent Hill after searching his hometown of Shepherd's Glen.
Overall gameplay is similar to past entries in the series. The player, as Alex, explores the various environments and locales, searching for clues to advance the plot, such as photographs, drawings and other items which are placed inside Alex's journal, which the player may read at any time. To assist the player, Alex will turn his head towards items and clues to inform the player that the object may be picked up; other recurring items include weapons and ammunition, which give off a glow as a visual cue to the player, and health drinks. Puzzle elements also play a part in the game, and Alex's journal may refer to photographs and other items that can help the player decipher such puzzles as keypad entries. For the first time in the series, the player may select responses when engaging in dialogue with other characters encountered in the game, which in turn may affect how the player sees the plot unfold.
In addition to exploration, combat is another major element to the gameplay, and the player must fight the various monsters that appear. In contrast to the more naïve everyman protagonists of previous games, combat in Homecoming takes into account Alex's experience as a soldier. The player is able to perform light and heavy attacks, or mix them to perform combinations, and may also perform a variety of finishing moves to ensure that the monsters are dead, a gameplay mechanic first featured in a rudimentary form in Silent Hill: Origins. Attacking enemies also leaves wounds in them that match the motion carried out by Alex in inflicting the attack. In terms of controlling Alex, the player may also perform new maneuvers such as targeting the enemy before attacking them, dodging enemy attacks, and performing counter-attacks. As well as melee weapons, pistols, rifles and shotguns are available as firearms, which can be upgraded to stronger versions later in the game: firearm handling is also rendered in a more realistic manner, with Alex having to shoulder long guns and suffering aim effects like recoil. In addition to the changes in combat, and unlike previous entries in the series, the player is also able to fully control and rotate the camera as they choose; one analog stick controls player movement, and the other controls the camera.
Plot
At the start of the game, the player controls Alex through a nightmare concerning his younger brother, Josh, before Alex wakes up in the cab of a truck driven by Travis Grady, the protagonist from Silent Hill: Origins, who gives him a ride to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen. The town, named for a distant ancestor who helped found it, is covered in fog and deserted. At home, he finds his mother in a catatonic state, murmuring about his father leaving to find Josh; promising to find Josh, Alex leaves.
Alex soon discovers that many more people have gone missing in Shepherd's Glen since he left, when he finds his childhood friend Elle Holloway pinning "missing" signs to a board outside the police department. As Alex explores the town, he witnesses the separate deaths of Mayor Bartlett and Dr. Fitch by monsters in the Otherworld, both of whom have a child who is missing. Back in Shepherd's Glen, Alex allies himself with Deputy Wheeler in the police department. Alex eventually learns that his father was involved in the secrets of the town and had left to attempt to resolve the town's problems, but before Alex is able to get answers from his mother at home, he is knocked unconscious as The Order—a religious cult from Silent Hill which has been taking people from the town— kidnaps his mother.
Alex, Elle, and Wheeler take a boat across Toluca Lake to find Alex's father in Silent Hill but are intercepted by the Order. Elle and Wheeler are taken to Silent Hill's penitentiary, where Alex attempts to rescue them. He finds his mother bound; the player must make a decision regarding whether to kill her out of mercy or not, which will affect the outcome of the game. After rescuing Elle's mother, Judge Holloway, and separating from Wheeler once more, Alex finds the Order's church, where he secretly listens to his father in the confessional; the player may choose to forgive him, again affecting the outcome of the game. Alex later runs into his father, who reveals that Alex was never a soldier and has been in a mental hospital since "the accident" occurred. He begs forgiveness before he is killed by a monster called the Bogeyman (resembling Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2).
Continuing to the Order's underground facility, Alex is captured by Judge Holloway, who reveals that everything that has happened is due to a broken pact. 150 years ago, the four founding families broke away from Silent Hill's Order to move to Shepherd's Glen. They were allowed to do so on the condition that once every 50 years they would sacrifice one of their children in a preordained fashion. On this occasion, while Joey Bartlett, Scarlett Fitch and Nora Holloway were successfully sacrificed by their parents, the Shepherd sacrifice failed, and as a result, the Order had been reformed to try to appease their god. Judge Holloway tries to kill Alex, who kills her in self-defense. Alex rescues Elle from the facility and, after finding Wheeler injured and allowing the player to choose whether to save him—once more affecting the game's ending—continues on alone to find Josh.
Realizing he was the intended sacrifice, Alex experiences a flashback showing Josh's true fate. When Alex was younger, he had taken Josh rowing out on the lake, where Josh showed Alex a ring, which his father had chosen to give to him instead of Alex. Out of jealousy, Alex struggled with Josh to try to take the ring, and as they fought Josh accidentally fell into the lake and drowned. His father retrieved the body and explained that Alex had "ruined it for all of us", since he had chosen Alex, and not Josh; unable to accept Josh's death, Alex was then sent to the mental hospital (and not enlisting to the military as he initially believed), and with Josh instead of Alex sacrificed, the Order's pact was broken. After fighting the final boss, the manifestation of Josh's spirit, Alex finally has the chance to apologize and states that he never wanted Josh's death. Alex leaves the family ring and their father's angle-head army flashlight on Josh's body and exits the chamber.
There are five endings available, which depend on the player's actions during the game, including whether the player kills Alex's mother, forgives Alex's father, and saves Deputy Wheeler. These range from the single positive ending to the game—where Alex comes to terms with his past actions and reunites with Elle to leave Shepherd's Glen—to three other endings: Alex getting drowned by his father, waking up in the hospital and receiving a shock treatment, or being turned into a Bogeyman. There is also a joke ending, where both Alex and Elle are abducted by a UFO while Wheeler witnesses. In addition to these endings, if the player collects all of Josh's pictures or clears the game on the "hard" difficulty, a first-person post-credits scene is played where Alex finds Josh sitting on the bottom bunk of his bed and Josh takes a picture of Alex with a camera.
Development
Chief designer of Silent Hill: Homecoming, Masashi Tsuboyama, announced the game's development in a 2004 interview with Eurogamer, in which he also debunked previous internet rumors that it was to be called Shadows of the Past. No information was initially imparted about the platform the game would appear on, other than it would be appearing on the next generation of consoles, which had yet to be released. Around two years later, an interview with composer Akira Yamaoka revealed more information; he hinted that they had hoped to carry on "plans of the earlier Silent Hill platforms", and that the team were creating a title with the idea of "fear in daylight", with similar psychological roots to Silent Hill 2. The suggestion that the story and gameplay would be more like that of the second entry in the series in the way the player is directed, and in the character's behavior, was reaffirmed in a later interview, along with the idea of creating the game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms.
However, most of the ideas previously hinted at were not found in subsequent information releases. At E3 2007, a new teaser trailer was displayed by Konami that revealed the title of the game to be Silent Hill V, and that the game would be released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Further to this trailer, Konami executives also revealed that the developer would not in fact be Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo as in previous iterations, but that, like Silent Hill: Origins, it would be developed by a Western developer, The Collective. The Collective had merged with Backbone Entertainment in 2005 to form Foundation 9 Entertainment, and Foundation 9 then merged The Collective with Shiny Entertainment to create Double Helix Games. The team had been working on the production of Harker, another survival horror title, but this was placed on indefinite hiatus during Homecoming'''s production.
Double Helix drew inspiration not only from past installments in the game series but also from the first Silent Hill movie adaptation; this is most evident in the transition from the normal world to the Otherworld, whose "ripping" effect almost matches that found in the movie. Other similarities from the same source includes the reaction of nurses to light, the bug-like creatures seen in the movie, and the Pyramid Head rendition, known as the "Bogeyman" in this game. Homages to previous games in the series include a reference to the long-running joke of the lead character placing their hand in a toilet bowl to retrieve items. Lead designer Jason Allen described the intentions of the development team to be to maintain the depth of storytelling and atmosphere of the series whilst making combat more intuitive and less frustrating. The script, in-game journal entries, and instruction manual were written by Patrick J. Doody and Chris Valenziano, based on the story and the summary of events provided by lead designer Jason Allen, lead artist Brian Horton, and lead level designer Daniel Jacobs.
Music
Despite the change in development team, Akira Yamaoka returned from past installments in the series to create both music and sound effects for the game. It was the first game in the series to use surround sound. Yamaoka wrote 70 minutes of music for the game, and insisted on working with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn to provide vocals, as fan reaction to her voice on previous Silent Hill titles has been favorable. Homecomings soundtrack was released on November 24, 2008. McGlynn provided vocals for four tracks.
CensorshipHomecoming had difficulties in passing censors in some countries before it could go on sale. The Australian classification board, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC), refused to classify the game, due to "impact violence and excessive blood effects". The objectionable scenes included various body parts being drilled into, as well as the bisection of a character by an enemy. This had the effect of banning the game for sale in the country, and representatives for publisher Atari mentioned that they would be asking Konami to tone down the violence to allow the game to receive the needed MA15+ rating for its sale to be permitted in early 2009.
The German version of the game was also postponed to 2009 for cuts to be made to pass the German censors after the uncensored version was rejected by the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle. The game was re-submitted after being altered in the same way as the Australian version and received the rating keine Jugendfreigabe (meaning 18+).
On November 19, 2010, the Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main confiscated all Xbox 360 versions imported from the UK (thus being uncensored) for violation of § 131 StGB (representation of violence), effectively banning it from sale within Germany.
ReleaseHomecoming was released in North America on September 30, 2008, for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. In North America, Central America and South America, the PC version is only available via the Steam content delivery network. It was intended to launch on the same date as the console versions, but was delayed, finally becoming available on Steam on November 6, 2008. A European release on all platforms was intended for the same month, but was delayed to February 2009. In contrast to the American regions, a PC retail release on DVD was made available in Europe.
ReceptionHomecomings average at Metacritic is 71 out of 100 for the PS3 version, 70 out of 100 for the Xbox 360 version and 64 out of 100 for the PC version. As the second external developer working on a Silent Hill entry, and the first for a home console iteration, Double Helix were under scrutiny from reviewers and Silent Hill fans to see how a Western developer would handle the franchise; many reviewers found the change in developer to be a positive move overall, while some, acknowledging faults in the final product, expressed interest in seeing further Silent Hill games from the same developer. In contrast, Zero Punctuation commented that the game was as an example of Japanese franchises being downgraded by Westernization, particularly in the different approaches taken to induce fear in the player.
Praise was given to the graphics and environments, described as "fantastic", with Shepherd's Glen in particular being "rendered brilliantly", and "the upgraded visuals bestow a filmic quality to everything and the world's eerie transformations look better than ever". Surprise was expressed at the darkness of the game, with the flashlight seemingly having less effect than in previous games, and making some markers, such as doors, hard to spot.
The music, written by series regular Akira Yamaoka, and the ambient audio, were received well, being "atmospheric, moody and beautifully presented"; combined with "an amazing score", the audio goes "a long way toward establishing the expected Silent Hill mood", though some concern was expressed that the music was "somewhat misplaced" and did not fit in so well. Voice acting, which has traditionally been seen as one of the series' weaker points, was evaluated as better than the series' usual attempts, but occasionally "flat" when more emotion was needed.
The game's plot received a largely mixed reception. While some reviewers graded it positively, describing it as "intriguing and disturbing", it was also noted that it "isn't particularly original, and there are no great surprises", even though it "still makes for a very involving journey into the macabre". Several reviewers likened the story to a subplot of the main Silent Hill mythos which, while able to "stand on its own", "barely mentions certain characters which fairly dominate the backstory of previous SH games". Some critics expressed disappointment at the predictability of the main twist in the story regarding Alex's predicament, while others found it "genuinely shocking". Croshaw's Zero Punctuation review was generally negative, stating that while the level design, story and combat were all competent, the game had little to do with what he liked about the Silent Hill'' series and would have been better served as a completely different franchise.
References
External links
2008 video games
Censored video games
Double Helix Games games
Fiction with unreliable narrators
Filicide in fiction
Fratricide in fiction
2000s horror video games
Konami games
Video games about mental health
PlayStation 3 games
Psychological horror games
Silent Hill games
Single-player video games
Survival video games
Video games scored by Akira Yamaoka
Video games set in Maine
Video games set in abandoned buildings and structures
Video games about cults
Video games developed in the United States
Windows games
Xbox 360 games
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%20Security%20Disability%20Insurance
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Social Security Disability Insurance
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Social Security Disability Insurance (SSD or SSDI) is a payroll tax-funded federal insurance program of the United States government. It is managed by the Social Security Administration and designed to provide monthly benefits to people who have a medically determinable disability (physical or mental) that restricts their ability to be employed. SSDI does not provide partial or temporary benefits but rather pays only full benefits and only pays benefits in cases in which the disability is "expected to last at least one year or result in death." Relative to disability programs in other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the SSDI program in the United States has strict requirements regarding eligibility.
SSDI is distinct from Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Unlike SSDI (as well as Social Security retirement benefits) where payment is based on contribution credits earned through previous work and therefore treated as an insurance benefit without reference to other income or assets, SSI is a means-tested program in the United States for disabled children, disabled adults, and the elderly who have income and resources below administratively mandated thresholds. A legitimately disabled person (a finding based on legal and medical justification) of any income level can receive SSDI. ('Disability' under SSDI is measured by a different standard than under the Americans with Disabilities Act.)
Informal names for SSDI include Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) and Title II disability benefits. These names come from the chapter title of the governing section of the Social Security Act. The original Social Security Act of August 1935 did not include SSDI. Rather, SSDI was put into effect in July 1956 after two decades of policy debates.
Beneficiaries
Number and Trends
At the end of 2020, there were 9.7 million Americans receiving benefits from the SSDI program. This included 8.2 million disabled workers, 1.4 million children of disabled workers, and 0.1 million spouses of disabled workers. Children and spouses are sometimes referred to as auxiliary beneficiaries because they receive benefits based on their relationship to a disabled worker, not because they are necessarily disabled.
The number of beneficiaries grew rapidly between 1990 and 2010 before leveling off and then declining in recent years. Two schools of thought developed to explain the rapid growth in the program during the 1990s and early 2000s. According to David Autor and Mark Duggan, policy changes and earnings patterns were responsible for the growth. With regard to policy, Autor and Duggan argue an SSDI reform act loosened the disability screening process, leading to more SSDI awards and shifting their composition towards claimants with low-mortality disorders such as mental illness and back pain. With regard to earnings patterns, Autor and Duggan argue SSDI benefits rose in value relative to what recipients would have earned from employment, prompting greater numbers of individuals to seek benefits. The second school of thought on program growth in the 1990s and early 2000s emphasized demographic factors such as population growth, aging of the baby boom generation into their disability-prone years, growth in women's labor force participation, and the increase in Social Security's full retirement age from 65 to 66.
The number of disabled workers peaked in 2014 at 9.0 million and has declined in each year since, reaching 8.2 million individuals in 2020.
The rapid program growth in the 1990s and early 2000s prompted concerns that the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund would be depleted in 2015. In response, Congress temporarily reallocated some payroll taxes dedicated to the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund to the DI Trust Fund. Most recent analysis indicates that the DI Trust Fund is not projected to become depleted until 2057. - sooner than the projected depletion year of 2065 found in the 2020 report.
In addition to disabled workers, the Social Security program also pays benefits to disabled widow(er)s and disabled adult children. These beneficiaries are often analyzed along with disabled workers because the same definition of disability is used in the eligibility process. However, disabled widow(er) benefits are paid out of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund and disabled adult children may be paid out of the OASI or DI Trust Fund depending on whether the adult child qualifies because a parent is deceased or retired or whether a parent is disabled. In 2019, there were 1.14 million disabled adult children and 0.25 million disabled widow(er)s receiving benefits.
Characteristics
Social Security disability beneficiaries have high poverty rates relative to other Social Security beneficiaries. About 24 percent of disabled workers have family income below the official poverty level in the United States compared to only 7.1 percent of retired workers (the largest group of Social Security beneficiaries). About 31 percent of disabled widow(er) beneficiaries and 36 percent of disabled adult children are poor. In total, 2.4 million disabled worker, widow(er), and adult child beneficiaries are poor. In addition, about 38 percent of Social Security disability beneficiaries experience material hardship, defined as having low or very low food security or an inability to pay utility bills or housing costs.
About 72 percent of Social Security disabled workers are between the ages of 50 and 66 and about 28 percent are under the age 50 (at Social Security's "full retirement age" (currently age 66), the Social Security Administration reclassifies disabled workers as retired workers). Twenty-four percent of disabled workers are African American.
As expected from a program that is restricted to persons with severe disabilities, Social Security disability beneficiaries, relative to the general working age population in the United States, have very high rates of health problems and very high rates of hospitalization and medical visits.
The work capacity of Social Security disability beneficiaries has been the subject of several studies and policy debates. Some have argued, despite their impairments, many disabled beneficiaries could return to work whereas others have argued the work capacity of Social Security disability beneficiaries is very limited due to the wide distribution of severe health problems among the population.
Monthly benefit amounts
In 2019, the average monthly benefit amount paid to disabled workers was about $1,260. Approximately 36 percent of disabled workers received a monthly benefit that was under $1,000.
The monthly benefit amount a disabled worker receives depends on the person's earnings in Social Security covered employment prior to becoming disabled. For each disabled worker, a Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) is computed that depends on the worker's past earnings, wage growth in the economy prior to the worker's disability onset, and a benefit formula that gives greater relative weight to low earners. The disabled worker receives a benefit equal to 100 percent of the PIA. An eligible spouse or child can receive 50 percent of the PIA as a benefit amount but total payments to a family are subject to a maximum.
Monthly benefits in the Social Security program have three general features. They replace a larger share of past earnings for low earners and they are increased with price inflation once a person is on the benefit rolls. Initial benefits are computed using wage indexing, which allows for initial benefits to reflect wage growth in the economy that occurred during the worker's career.
Monthly benefit amounts for disabled adult children depend on the earnings in Social Security covered employment of the retired, disabled, or deceased parent and amounts for disabled widow(er)s depend on the earnings of the deceased spouse.
Application, Initial Determination, and Appeals
Application
An application must be filed with the Social Security Administration (SSA) before an individual can receive SSDI. Individuals can apply for SSDI by:
Calling SSA's national toll-free number (1-800-772-1213) or
Contacting a local Social Security office or
Submitting an online application
SSA will determine whether the applicant is "insured" for Social Security disability benefits. Generally, this depends on whether the applicant has worked "long enough – and recently enough - and paid Social Security taxes" on earnings. With regard to disabled widow(er) or disabled adult child Social Security benefits, however, the applicant does not have to be insured based on the individual's own employment history. Rather, in those cases, the deceased spouse or the parent of the disabled adult child must have worked in Social Security employment and achieved the required insured status.
SSA will also determine whether the individual is performing substantial gainful activity, which means earning above certain levels. If the individual is performing substantial gainful activity, then the application for disability is denied.
If the applicant is found to be insured for Social Security benefits and not performing substantial gainful activity, SSA will send the application to the Disability Determination Service (DDS) agency in the applicant's state. The state DDS, which is under contract with SSA, will make a determination of whether the individual is disabled or not. The state DDS must follow federal rules regarding the definition of disability under the Social Security Act when making this determination.
Initial Determination
The decision about disability is based on a sequential evaluation of medical and other evidence. The sequence for adults is:
1. Is the applicant performing substantial gainful activity? If yes, deny. If no, continue to next sequence.
2. Is the applicant's impairment severe? If no, deny. If yes, continue to next sequence.
3. Does the impairment meet or equal the severity of impairments in the Listing of Impairments? If yes, allow the claim. If no, continue to next sequence.
4. Is the applicant able to perform past work? If yes, deny. If no continue to next sequence.
5. Is the applicant able to perform any work in the economy? If yes, deny. If no allow the claim.
Medical evidence that demonstrates the applicant's inability to work is required. The DDS may require the applicant to visit a third-party physician for medical documentation, often to supplement the evidence treating sources do not supply. The applicant may meet a SSA medical listing for their condition (step 3 of the sequential evaluation) and be awarded benefits. If their condition does not meet the requirements of a listing, their residual functional capacity (RFC) is considered, along with their age, past relevant work, and education, in determining their ability to perform either their past work, or other work generally available in the national economy. The RFC is an assessment of an individual's work capacity given their impairments.
Determination of RFC—made in step 4 of the sequential evaluation process—often constitutes the bulk of the SSDI application and appeal process. An RFC is assessed in accordance with Title 20 of the Code of Federal Regulations, part 404, section 1545 and is generally based upon the opinions of treating and examining physicians, if available.
RFC is classified according to the five exertional levels of work defined in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, which are: Sedentary, Light, Medium, Heavy, and Very Heavy. For example, an individual's RFC may indicate, at most, the individual can perform medium work, given the individual's impairments. If the RFC of an individual equals or exceeds the job requirements of the individual's previous work, the claim is denied on the basis that the individual can return to former work. If the individual's RFC is less than the requirements of former work then the RFC is applied against a vocational grid that considers the individual's age, education and transferability of formerly learned and used skills. The vocational grid then guides whether an allowance or denial of benefits should occur.
Appeals
In fiscal year 2020, state DDSs denied 61 percent of initial claims. SSA provides for three levels of administrative appeal if an applicant is initially denied by a state DDS. At the first level, the applicant may request a reconsideration of the initial decision. In the reconsideration, a different DDS examiner will review the case. If the claim is denied at this stage, the applicant can request a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). ALJs are not state employees but rather federal employees of the Social Security Administration. If the claim is denied at this stage, the applicant can request a review of the case by the Appeals Council of the Social Security Administration. Administrative appeals are non-adversarial and new evidence can be submitted by the applicant.
After an applicant has exhausted the administrative appeals process, the individual may appeal the case to the federal courts. Federal court findings may pertain to the individual case, but may also result in required changes in SSA's policies and procedures if the court concludes those policies and procedures do not conform to federal law or the U.S. Constitution.
Legal representation
Applicants may hire a lawyer or non-attorney representative to help them apply or appeal. There are two primary types of organizations: companies with trained specialists experienced in handling SSDI applications and appeals in some or any local community across the country and law firms which specialize in disability-related cases.
Most SSDI applicants—about 90 percent according to the SSA—have a disability representative for their appeal. An August 2010 report by the Office of Inspector General for the Social Security Administration indicated that many people submitting an initial disability application for SSDI might benefit from using a third-party disability representative when they first apply for benefits. It indicated that having a disability representative earlier in the process significantly improves the chances of those with four major types of disabilities getting approved for SSDI.
The fee that a representative can charge for SSDI representation is set by law and is limited to 25 percent of the retroactive SSDI benefits awarded. While some representatives may charge fees for costs related to the claim, such as photocopy and medical record collection expenses, the vast majority of disability attorneys and representatives do not charge a fee unless they win the case. Prior to 1991, Social Security Administration regulations required attorneys and representatives to submit a "Fee Petition" itemizing time spent on the matter. The SSDI applicant had the opportunity to agree or object to the fee requested, and the social security decision-maker often approved less than the full fee amount requested by the attorney/representative.
In 1991, the Social Security Administration implemented the "Fee Agreement" process. If the attorney/representative contract limited the fee to no more than $4000, a detailed review and approval of time spent on the case via the "Fee Petition" process was no longer required. Social security regulations require that the fee agreement conform to specific standards. This attorney fee cap for the "Fee Agreement" process was increased to $6000 effective June 22, 2009. Because of the reduced administrative burden afforded by the "fee Agreement" process, and the time delay for approving and disbursing fees under the "Fee Petition" process, the majority of disability lawyers and representative primarily use the "Fee Agreement" process.
If an SSDI applicant is approved quickly and does not receive a retroactive award, the SSA must review and approve the fee a representative will charge the individual. Disability representatives do not charge a fee if they are unsuccessful in obtaining a claimant's disability benefit.
Representatives may decline to represent an applicant if, after reviewing the situation, they do not believe the applicant is likely to meet the requirements for SSDI. Most representatives provide this screening at no cost. Typical reasons individuals do not meet the requirements are that the representative feels the disability is not severe enough or the applicant does not have a sufficient work history (and did not pay enough into FICA - the Federal Insurance Contributions Act).
Wait time for decisions and hearings
The amount of time it takes for an application to be approved or denied varies, depending on whether it is an initial decision or a decision based on an appeal. In fiscal year 2019, it took an average of 120 days for SSA to make an initial determination on a disability claim. The figure increased following the COVID-19 pandemic and, for months in fiscal year 2021, the average wait time for an initial decision is 165 days.
The high number of cases and long wait times for a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge has drawn significant attention from Congress in recent years. Congress provided additional funding for this workload and the number of cases and wait times have declined. In fiscal year 2020, the average wait time for a hearing was 386 days (down from 605 days in fiscal year 2017).
For some cases, SSA will expedite disability determinations. These include Quick Disability Determination (QDD) and Compassionate Allowance cases. These are cases where statistical models or medical diagnoses indicate the person has an extremely severe medical condition. These cases can often be processed in under 30 days. Additionally, many cases involving military veterans are expedited.
Congressional concern over wait times has focused, to some extent, on the number of individuals who die or become bankrupt while waiting for a disability determination. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that from fiscal year 2014 through fiscal year 2019, about 48,000 individuals filed for bankruptcy while awaiting a final decision on their disability appeal and, for fiscal year 2008 through fiscal year 2019, about 110,000 individuals died prior to receiving a final decision regarding their appeal.
Likelihood of receiving benefits
Considering all levels of adjudication, about 4 in 10 SSDI applicants are awarded benefits. Slightly more than 50 percent of applicants who meet technical requirements of eligibility are determined to be medically eligible.
The number of cases and percentage allowed at each stage of adjudication for all types of disability cases in fiscal year 2020 are as follows:
Denied Applicants
One study found that 12.4 million Americans or about 6.2 percent of the U.S. population ages 18–66 are denied SSDI applicants. The study also found these individuals had high rates of health problems and a high rate of hospitalization compared to the general population. About 52 percent of denied applicants reported difficulty standing for one hour compared to about 5 percent for the general population. About 21 percent of denied applicants were hospitalized during the year compared to about 6 percent for the general population. Denied applicants had a high poverty rate (38 percent) and a high rate of material hardship (43 percent). Material hardship was measured as having low or very low food security or an inability to pay utility or housing costs.
A baseline study of denied SSDI and SSI applicants who sought benefits on the basis of mental impairments found denied applicants had low-income and had "multiple mental health and general medical conditions, low quality of life, and low functional ability." The baseline population is composed of individuals who are part of the Social Security Administration's Supported Employment Demonstration. The goal of the demonstration is to test whether employment support and health interventions can improve outcomes for denied applicants.
Payee assignment
Generally, the person qualifying for benefits is determined to be capable of managing their own financial affairs, and the benefits are disbursed directly to them. In the case of persons who have a diagnosed mental impairment which interferes with their ability to manage their own finances, the Social Security Administration may require that the person assign someone to be their representative payee. This person will receive the benefits on behalf of the disabled individual, and disburse them directly to payers such as landlords, or to the disabled person, while providing money management assistance (help with purchasing items, limiting spending money, etc.). The representative payee often does not charge a fee for this service, especially if it is a friend or relative. Social service agencies who are assigned as payee are not prohibited from charging a fee, although the maximum fee is set by Social Security. The fee is the same for ALL recipients, except it can be larger for those with severe substance abuse problems (Social Security determines when a higher fee can be charged, not the representative payee.) Some states and counties have representative payee agencies (also called substitute payee programs) which receive the benefits on behalf of the disabled person's social worker, and disburse the benefits per the social worker's instructions. A payee can be very helpful in the instance of homeless individuals who need assistance paying down debts (like utility bills) and saving for housing.
About 10 percent of disabled worker beneficiaries have representative payees and about 5 percent of disabled widow(er)s have representative payees. The figure is much higher for disabled adult children, with about 73 percent of these Social Security beneficiaries having representative payees.
Regulatory changes
The "treating physician rule" gave "controlling weight" to determinations of the treating physicians. The rule was established in 1991 by the Social Security Administration (SSA) under the influence of federal courts and a law passed by Congress after the SSA was scrutinized in the 1980s for controversially relying largely on its own medical examiners. Prior to the codified rule, federal courts had imposed a similar rule through a common law, but it was inconsistent.
On January 18, 2017, the Social Security Administration published final rules titled "Revisions to Rules Regarding the Evaluation of Medical Evidence" regarding the "treating physician rule". These new rules regarding the assessment of medical opinions in a SSDI case apply to cases filed after March 27, 2017. While these new rules expand the definition of what SSA considers to be an "acceptable medical source" for disability claim medical opinions to include nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and others, they also have effectively abolished the "treating physician rule" by eliminating the requirement that a treating physician opinion be granted "controlling weight".
A regulation implemented by SSA in 2020 removed the inability to speak English as an educational factor to be considered in SSI and Social Security disability determination. The regulation is projected to "result in a reduction of about 6,500 OASDI [Social Security] beneficiary awards per year and 4,000 SSI recipient awards per year on average over the period FY 2019–28, with a corresponding reduction of $4.6 billion in OASDI benefit payments and $0.8 billion in Federal SSI payments over the same period." SSA argued communicating in English is no longer "a reliable indicator of an individual's educational attainment or the vocational impact of an individual's education." Disability advocates, however, questioned the validity of this argument and provided comments arguing against the regulation.
Related programs
Regardless of a person's age, after receiving SSDI benefits for 24 months, they are eligible for Medicare, including Part A (hospital benefits), Part B (medical benefits), and Part D (drug benefits). The date of Medicare eligibility is measured from the date of eligibility for SSDI (generally 6 months after the start of disability), not the date when the first SSDI payment was received.
Individuals receiving SSDI may qualify for Supplemental Security Income if they have limited income and resources. For example, a disabled individual who worked in Social Security covered employment and who has limited income and resources may receive a Social Security disability benefit (due to employment prior to disability) and a partial SSI benefit (due to limited income and resources). The Social Security Administration, which administers both SSDI and SSI, uses the same definition of disability for adults in each program.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) uses a different definition of disability than the Social Security program, but individuals may qualify for benefits under each program depending on the severity of the disability. While the Social Security Administration does not use VA disability ratings per se, it will examine VA medical records as part of the applicant's medical information. In addition, individuals who are rated 100 percent disabled by the VA will receive fast-track review of their cases by SSA if they apply for SSDI.
The Ticket to Work program is administered by SSA and provides free employment support services to SSDI recipients seeking to return to the workforce.
While not part of SSDI, some individuals hold disability insurance coverage obtained through an employer or through the private insurance markets. Five states (California, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Hawaii) operate programs that provide temporary disability benefits.
Impact
According to a 2021 study, which used variation induced by an age-based eligibility rule as a way to draw causal inferences, SSDI substantially reduced the financial distress of disabled individuals. The study finds that SSDI "reduces the likelihood of bankruptcy by 20 percent, foreclosure by 33 percent, and home sale by 15 percent."
References
Further reading
Social Security Disability Starter Kit
B.E.S.T The Benefit Eligibility Screening Tool
Social Security and the "D" in OASDI: The History of a Federal Program Insuring Earners Against Disability
External links
Disability Programs; Social Security Administration
Press release on new Social Security Disability determination process
2011 Red Book "A Summary Guide To Employment Support For Persons With Disabilities Under The Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income Programs"
Social Security Administration Listing of Impairments
Social Security Disability Research & Information
SSDI Research Guide
Social security in the United States
Disability law in the United States
Federal assistance in the United States
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Families%20in%20the%20Oireachtas
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Families in the Oireachtas
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There is a tradition in Irish politics of having family members succeed each other, frequently in the same parliamentary seat. This article lists families where two or more members of that family have been members (TD or Senator) of either of the houses of the Oireachtas (Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann) or of the European Parliament. It also includes members of the Oireachtas who had a relation who served in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922) for an Irish constituency. It does not include people who have served only on local councils.
For the purposes of this list, a "family" has been defined as a group of people where each person has one of the following relationships to at least one of the other people listed:
son, daughter, grandson or granddaughter
father, mother, grandfather or grandmother
nephew, niece, grandnephew or grandniece
uncle, aunt, great uncle or great aunt
sibling or first cousin
spouse (husband or wife)
connected by marriage ("-in-law" relationships)
The list has been indexed against the name of the first family member to enter the Oireachtas.
A
Theresa Ahearn (1951–2000): FG TD Tipperary South 1989–2000
her son Garret Ahearn: FG Senator 2020–
Bertie Ahern (born 1951): FF TD Dublin Central 1977–2011
his brother Noel Ahern (born 1944): FF TD Dublin North-West 1992–2011
Kit Ahern (1915–2007): FF Senator 1965–1977, FF TD Kerry North 1977–1981
her cousin Ned O'Sullivan (born 1950): FF Senator 2007–
Ernest Alton (1873–1952): Ind TD Dublin University 1922–1937, Ind Senator 1938–1943
his nephew Bryan Alton (1919–1991): Ind Senator 1965–1973
David Andrews (born 1935): FF TD Dún Laoghaire 1965–2002 (son of Todd Andrews, an FF founder)
his son Barry Andrews (born 1967): FF TD Dún Laoghaire 2002–2011, MEP Dublin 2020–
his brother Niall Andrews (1937–2006): FF TD Dublin South 1977–1987, MEP Dublin 1984–2004
Niall's son Chris Andrews (born 1964): FF TD Dublin South-East 2007–2011, SF TD Dublin Bay South 2020–
Seán Ardagh (1947–2016): FF TD Dublin South-Central 1997–2011
his daughter Catherine Ardagh (born 1982): FF Senator 2016–
Bob Aylward (1911–1974): FF Senator 1973–1974
his son Liam Aylward (born 1952): FF TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1977–2007, MEP East 2004–2014
his son Bobby Aylward (1955–2022): FF TD Carlow–Kilkenny 2007–2011, 2015–2020
B
Anthony Barry (1901–1983): FG TD/Senator Cork Borough 1954–1965
his son Peter Barry (1928–2016): FG TD Cork City South-East/Cork City/Cork South-Central 1969–1997
Peter's daughter Deirdre Clune (born 1959): FG TD Cork South-Central 1997–2002, 2007–2011, Senator 2011–2014, MEP South 2014–
Richard Barry (1919–2013): FG TD Cork East/Cork North-East 1953–1981
his daughter Myra Barry (born 1957): FG TD Cork North-East/Cork East 1979–1987
Patrick Belton (1884–1945): FF TD Dublin County 1927, CnaG/FG TD Dublin North 1933–1937, FG TD Dublin County 1938–1943
his son Richard Belton (1913–1974): FG Senator 1969–1973
his daughter Avril Doyle (born 1949): FG TD/Senator Wexford 1982–2002, MEP Leinster/East 1999–2009
his son Jack Belton (died 1963): FG TD Dublin North-East 1948–1963
his son Paddy Belton (1926–1987): FG TD Dublin North-East 1963–1977
his nephew Luke Belton (1918–2006): FG TD/Senator Dublin North-Central/Dublin Finglas 1965–1987
his nephew Louis Belton (born 1943): FG TD/Senator Longford–Westmeath/Longford–Roscommon 1989–2002
Thomas Westropp Bennett (1867–1962): CnaG/FG Senator 1922–1936
his brother George C. Bennett (1877–1963): CnaG/FG TD Limerick 1927–1948 and Senator 1948–1951
Sir Edward Coey Bigger (1861–1942): Ind Senator 1925–1936
his son Joseph Warwick Bigger (1891–1951): Ind Senator 1944–1951
Neal Blaney (1889–1948): FF TD Donegal 1927–1937, Donegal East 1937–1938 and 1943–1948, FF Senator 1938–1943
Neal's son Neil Blaney (1922–1995): FF/IFF TD Donegal East/Donegal North-East/Donegal 1948–1995, IFF MEP Connacht–Ulster 1979–1984, 1989–1994
Neal's son Harry Blaney (1928–2013): IFF TD Donegal North-East 1997–2002
Harry's son Niall Blaney (born 1974): IFF/FF TD Donegal North-East 2002–2011, FF Senator 2020–
Harry Boland (1887–1922): SF TD South Roscommon 1918–1922
his brother Gerald Boland (1885–1973): FF TD/Senator Roscommon 1923–1961
Gerald's son Kevin Boland (1917–2001): FF TD Dublin County 1957–1970
John Boland, see Crowley
Philip Brady (1893–1995): FF TD Dublin South-Central 1951–1977
his son Gerard Brady (1936–2020): FF TD Dublin Rathmines West/Dublin South-East 1977–1992
Thomas Brennan (1886–1953): FF TD Wicklow 1944–1954
his son Paudge Brennan (1922–1998): FF TD Wicklow 1954–1973, 1981–1982, 1982–1987, Senator 1982
Martin Brennan (1903–1956): FF TD Sligo 1938–1948
his nephew Matt Brennan (born 1936): FF TD Sligo–Leitrim 1982–2002
Robert Briscoe (1894–1969): FF TD Dublin South/Dublin South-West 1927–1965
his son Ben Briscoe (1934–2023): FF TD Dublin 1965–2002
John Browne (1936–2019): FG Senator 1983–1987, TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1989–2002
his son Fergal Browne (born 1973): FG Senator 2002–2007
Seán Browne (1916–1996): FF TD Wexford 1957–1961, 1969–1981, 1982
his nephew John Browne (born 1948): FF TD Wexford 1982–2016
John's son James Browne (born 1975): FF TD Wexford 2016–
Cathal Brugha (1874–1922): SF TD County Waterford 1918–1922
his wife Caitlín Brugha (1879–1959): SF TD Waterford 1923–1927
his son Ruairí Brugha (1917–2006): FF TD Dublin County South 1973–1977, Senator 1969–1973, 1977–1981, MEP 1977–1979
Ruairí's father-in-law Terence MacSwiney (1879–1920): SF TD Cork Mid 1918–1920
Terence's sister Mary MacSwiney (1872–1942): SF TD Cork Borough 1921–1927
Terence's brother Seán MacSwiney (1878–1942): SF TD Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West 1921–1922
John Bruton (born 1947): FG TD Meath 1969–2004
his brother Richard Bruton (born 1953): FG Senator 1981–1982, TD Dublin North-Central 1982–
Patrick Burke (1904–1985): FF TD Dublin County/Dublin County North 1944–1973
his son Ray Burke (born 1943): FF TD Dublin County North/Dublin North 1973–1997
James Burke (died 1964): FG TD Roscommon 1951–1964
his wife Joan Burke (1928–2016): FG TD Roscommon 1964–1981
John Butler (1891–1968): Lab TD Waterford–Tipperary East 1922–1923, Waterford 1923–1927, Senator 1938–1965
his son Pierce Butler (1922–1999): FG Senator 1969–1983
Alfie Byrne (1882–1956): IPP MP Dublin Harbour 1915–1918, Ind TD Dublin Mid/Dublin North 1922–1928, Ind Senator 1928–1931, Ind TD Dublin North/Dublin North-East 1932–1956
his son A. P. Byrne (1913–1952): Ind TD Dublin North-West 1937–1944, 1948–1952
his son Thomas Byrne (1917–1978): Ind TD Dublin North-West 1952–1961
his son Patrick Byrne (1925–2021): Ind TD Dublin North-East 1956–1957, FG TD Dublin North-East 1957–1969
C
Johnny Callanan (1910–1982): FF TD Clare–South Galway/Galway/Galway East 1973–1982
his nephew Joe Callanan (born 1949): FF TD Galway East 2002–2007
Phelim Calleary (1895–1974): FF TD Mayo North 1952–1969
his son Seán Calleary (1931–2018): FF TD Mayo 1973–1992
Seán's son Dara Calleary (born 1973): FF TD Mayo 2007–
Seán Canney (born 1960): Ind TD Galway East 2016–
his brother-in-law Paddy McHugh (born 1953): Ind TD Galway East 2002–2007
Donal Carey (born 1937): FG TD Clare 1982–2002
his son Joe Carey (born 1975): FG TD Clare 2007–
Frank Chambers (born 1949): FF Senator 1997–2002
his niece Lisa Chambers (born 1986): FF TD Mayo 2016–2020, Senator 2020–
Erskine Childers (1870–1922): SF TD Kildare–Wicklow 1921–1922
his double first cousin Robert Childers Barton (1881–1975): SF TD Wicklow West 1919–1921, SF TD Kildare–Wicklow 1921–1923
Erskine's son Erskine H. Childers (1905–1974): FF TD Wicklow 1938–1973, President 1973–1974
Erskine H.'s daughter Nessa Childers (born 1956): Lab/Ind MEP East 2009–2014, Ind MEP Dublin 2014–2019
Paddy Clohessy (1908–1971): FF TD Limerick East 1957–1969
his nephew Peadar Clohessy (1933–2014): FF/PD TD Limerick East 1981–1982, 1987–1997
James Coburn (1882–1953): NLP/Ind/FG TD Louth 1927–1953
his son George Coburn (1920–2009): FG TD Louth 1953–1961
James Colbert (1890–1970): Republican/FF TD Limerick 1923–1933
his first cousin Michael Colbert (1899–1959): FF TD Limerick/Limerick West 1937–1938, 1944–1948, 1955–1957, FF Senator 1938–1944
John James Cole (1874–1959): Ind TD Cavan 1923–1927, 1927–1932, 1937–1944
his brother Thomas Loftus Cole (1877–1961): Unionist MP Belfast East 1945–1950
his son John Copeland Cole (died 1987): Ind Senator 1957–1969
Harry Colley (1891–1972): FF TD Dublin North-East 1944–1957
his son George Colley (1925–1983): FF TD Dublin North-East/Dublin North-Central/Dublin Clontarf/Dublin Central 1961–1983
George's daughter Anne Colley (born 1951): PD TD Dublin South 1987–1989
James Collins (1900–1967): FF TD Limerick 1948–1967
his son Gerry Collins (born 1938): FF TD Limerick 1967–1997, MEP Munster 1994–2004
his son Michael Collins (1940–2022): FF TD Limerick West 1997–2007
his grandson Niall Collins (born 1973): FF TD Limerick West 2007–
Michael Collins (1890–1922): SF TD Cork South 1918–1921, Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West 1921–1922
his cousin Gearóid O'Sullivan (1891–1948): SF TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1921–1923, CnaG TD Dublin County 1927–1937
his sister Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll (1876–1945): CnaG TD Dublin North 1923–1933
his nephew Seán Collins (1918–1975): FG TD Cork South-West 1948–1957, 1961–1969
his grandniece Nora Owen (born 1945): FG TD Dublin North 1981–1987, 1989–2002
his grandniece Mary Banotti (born 1939): FG MEP Dublin 1984–2004
John Conlan (1928–2004): FG Senator 1965–1969, TD Monaghan/Cavan–Monaghan 1969–1987
Seán Conlan (born 1975): FG/Ind TD Cavan–Monaghan 2011–2016
Paul Connaughton Snr (born 1944): FG Senator 1977–1981, TD Galway East 1981–2011
his son Paul Connaughton Jnr (born 1982): FG TD Galway East 2011–2016
Johnny Connor (1899–1955): CnaP TD Kerry North 1954–1955
his daughter Kathleen O'Connor (1934–2017): CnaP TD Kerry North 1956–1957
Joseph Connolly (1885–1961): FF Senator 1928–1936
his nephew Con Lehane (1912–1983): CnaP TD Dublin South-Central 1948–1951
Roddy Connolly (1901–1980): Lab TD Louth 1943–1944, 1948–1951, Senator 1975–1977 (Son of James Connolly)
his sister Nora Connolly O'Brien (1893–1981): Senator 1957–1969
Fintan Coogan Snr (1910–1984): FG TD Galway West 1954–1977
his son Fintan Coogan Jnr (born 1944): FG TD Galway West 1982–1987, Senator 1997–2002
Richard Corish (1886–1945): Lab TD Wexford 1921–1945
his son Brendan Corish (1918–1990): Lab TD Wexford 1945–1982
W. T. Cosgrave (1880–1965): SF/CnaG/FG TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1919–1927, Cork Borough 1927–1944
his brother Philip Cosgrave (1884–1923): SF/CnaG TD Dublin North-West 1921–1923: Dublin South 1923
his son Liam Cosgrave (1920–2017): FG TD Dublin County 1943–1948, Dún Laoghaire 1948–1981
Liam's son Liam T. Cosgrave (born 1956): FG TD Dún Laoghaire 1981–1987, FG Senator 1989–2002
Michael Joe Cosgrave (1938–2022): FG TD Dublin Clontarf 1977–1981, Dublin North-East 1981–1992, 1997–2002
his daughter Niamh Cosgrave (born 1964): FG Senator 1997
John A. Costello (1891–1976): FG TD Dublin Townships 1933–1943, 1944–1969
his son Declan Costello (1926–2011): FG TD Dublin North-West 1951–1969, Dublin South-West 1973–1977
his son-in-law Alexis FitzGerald Snr (1916–1985): FG Senator 1969–1981
Alexis Snr's nephew Alexis FitzGerald Jnr (1945–2015): FG Senator 1981–1982, 1982–1987, FG TD Dublin South-East 1982
Alexis Jnr's wife Mary Flaherty (born 1953): FG TD Dublin North-West 1981–1997
Clement Coughlan (1942–1983): FF TD Donegal South-West 1980–1983
his brother Cathal Coughlan (1937–1986): FF TD Donegal South-West 1983–1986
Cathal's daughter Mary Coughlan (born 1965): FF TD Donegal South-West 1987–2011
Hugh Coveney (1935–1998): FG TD Cork South-Central 1981–1998
his son Simon Coveney (born 1972): FG TD Cork South-Central 1998–, MEP South 2004–2007
Bernard Cowen (1932–1984): FF TD Laois–Offaly 1969–1984
his son Brian Cowen (born 1960): FF TD Laois–Offaly 1984–2011
his son Barry Cowen (born 1967): FF TD Laois–Offaly 2011–2016, 2020–, Offaly 2016–2020
Donal Creed (1924–2017): FG TD Cork North-West 1965–1989, MEP 1973–1977
his son Michael Creed (born 1963): FG TD Cork North-West 1989–2002, 2007–
Patrick Crotty (1902–1970): FG TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1948–1969
his son Kieran Crotty (1930–2022): FG TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1969–1989
Frederick Crowley (1880–1945): FF TD Kerry South 1927–1945
his wife Honor Crowley (1903–1966): FF TD Kerry South 1945–1966 (Daughter of John Boland IPP MP South Kerry 1900–1918)
Flor Crowley (1934–1997): FF TD Cork Mid/Cork South-West 1965–1977, 1981–1982, Senator 1977–1981, 1982–1983
his son Brian Crowley (born 1964): FF Senator 1992–1994, MEP Munster/South 1994–2019
Cruise O'Brien, see Sheehy
Austin Currie (1939–2021): MP (NI) East Tyrone 1964–1972, FG TD Dublin West 1989–2002
his daughter Emer Currie (born 1979): FG Senator 2020–
David Cullinane (born 1974): SF Senator 2011–2016, TD Waterford 2016–
his ex-wife Kathleen Funchion (born 1981): SF TD Carlow–Kilkenny 2016–
D
Michael D'Arcy (born 1934): FG TD Wexford 1977–1987, 1989–1992, 1997–2002
his son Michael W. D'Arcy (born 1970): FG TD Wexford 2007–2011, 2016–2020, Senator 2011–2016, 2020
Michael Davern (1900–1973): FF TD Tipperary South 1948–1965
his son Don Davern (1935–1968): FF TD Tipperary South 1965–1968
his son Noel Davern (1945–2013): FF TD Tipperary South 1969–1981, 1987–2007, MEP Munster 1979–1984
Michael Davitt (1846–1906): MP County Meath 1882, Anti-Parnellite MP North Meath 1892, Anti-Parnellite MP North East Cork Feb–May 1893, Anti-Parnellite MP South Mayo 1895–1899
his son Robert Davitt (1899–1981): CnaG TD Meath 1933–1937
Dan Desmond (1913–1964): Lab TD Cork South-East, 1948–1964
his wife Eileen Desmond (1932–2005): Lab TD Cork South-Central 1965–1987, MEP Munster 1979–1981
Éamon de Valera (1882–1975): FF TD Clare 1919–1959, President 1959–1973, (also FF MP Parliament of Northern Ireland 1921–1937)
his son Vivion de Valera (1910–1982): FF TD Dublin North-West 1944–1981
his granddaughter Síle de Valera (born 1954): FF TD Dublin County Mid 1977–1981, Clare 1987–2007, MEP Dublin 1979–1984
his grandson Éamon Ó Cuív (born 1950): FF Senator 1989–1992, FF TD Galway West 1992–
Austin Deasy (1936–2017): FG TD Waterford 1977–2002
his son John Deasy (born 1967): FG TD Waterford 2002–2020
James Devins (1873–1922): SF TD Sligo–Mayo East 1921–1922
his grandson Jimmy Devins (born 1948): FF TD Sligo–North Leitrim 2002–2011
John Dillon (1851–1927): IPP MP East Mayo 1880–1918
his son James Dillon (1902–1986): NCP TD Donegal 1932–1937, FG TD Monaghan 1937–1969
John Dinneen (1867–1942): FP TD Cork East 1922–1927
his nephew Liam Ahern (1916–1974): FF Senator 1957–1973, FF TD Cork North-East 1973–1974
Liam's son Michael Ahern (born 1949): FF TD Cork East 1982–2011
Sir Maurice Dockrell (1850–1929): IUA MP Dublin Rathmines 1918–1922
Maurice's son Henry Morgan Dockrell (1880–1955): FG TD Dublin County 1932–1948
Henry's son Maurice E. Dockrell (1908–1986): FG TD Dublin South/Dublin South-Central/Dublin Central 1943–1977
Henry's son Percy Dockrell (1914–1979): FG TD Dún Laoghaire 1951–1957, 1961–1977
Charles Dolan (1881–1963): IPP MP North Leitrim 1906–1908
his brother James Dolan (1884–1955): SF/CnaG TD Leitrim 1918–1921, Leitrim–Roscommon North 1921–1923, Leitrim–Sligo 1923–1932, 1933–1937
Michael Donnellan (1900–1964): CnaT TD Galway 1938–1964
his son John Donnellan (born 1937): FG TD Galway 1964–1989
James G. Douglas (1887–1954): Ind Senator 1922–1943, 1944–1954
his son John Douglas (1912–1982): Ind Senator 1954–1957
James Charles Dowdall (1873–1939): Ind/FF Senator 1922–1936
his wife Jane Dowdall (1899–1974): FF Senator 1951–1961
his brother Thomas Dowdall (1872–1942): FF TD Cork Borough 1932–1942
E
Tom Enright (born 1940): FG TD Laois–Offaly 1969–1992, 1997–2002, FG Senator 1993–1997
his daughter Olwyn Enright (born 1974): FG TD Laois–Offaly 2002–2011
her husband Joe McHugh (born 1971): FG Senator 2002–2007, FG TD Donegal North-East/Donegal 2007–
Esmonde, see Grattan
James Everett (1890–1967): Lab TD Wicklow 1923–1967
his nephew Liam Kavanagh (1935–2021): Lab TD Wicklow 1969–1997, MEP Leinster 1973–1981
F
Thomas Finlay (1893–1932): CnaG TD Dublin County 1930–1932
his son Thomas Finlay (1922–2017): FG TD Dublin South-Central 1954–1957
Desmond FitzGerald (1888–1947): CnaG TD 1919–1937, Senator 1938–1943
his son Garret FitzGerald (1926–2011): FG Senator 1965–1969, FG TD Dublin South-East 1969–1992
Garret's daughter-in-law Eithne FitzGerald (born 1950): Lab TD Dublin South 1992–1997
Dermot Fitzpatrick (1940–2022): FF TD Dublin Central 1987–1992, 2002–2007; FF Senator 1997–2002
his daughter Mary Fitzpatrick (born 1969): FF Senator 2020–
Oliver J. Flanagan (1920–1987): FG TD Laois–Offaly 1943–1987
his son Charles Flanagan (born 1956): FG TD Laois–Offaly 1987–2002, 2007–
Pádraig Flynn (born 1939): FF TD Mayo West 1977–1993
his daughter Beverley Flynn (born 1966): FF/Ind TD Mayo 1997–2011
Denis Foley (1934–2013): FF/Ind TD Kerry North 1981–1987, 1992–2002
his daughter Norma Foley (born 1970): FF TD Kerry 2020–
Johnny Fox (1948–1995): Ind TD Wicklow 1992–1995
his daughter Mildred Fox (born 1971): Ind TD Wicklow 1995–2007
Seán French (1889–1937): FF TD Cork Borough 1927–1932
his son Seán French (1931–2011): FF TD Cork Borough/Cork City North-West/Cork City/Cork North-Central 1967–1982
Funchion, see Cullinane
G
John Galvin (1907–1963): FF TD Cork Borough 1956–1963
his wife Sheila Galvin (1914–1983): FF TD Cork Borough 1964–1965
Johnny Geoghegan (1913–1975): FF TD Galway West 1954–1975
his daughter Máire Geoghegan-Quinn (born 1950): FF TD Galway West 1975–1997
Seán Gibbons (1883–1952): CnaG TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1923–1924, FF TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1932–1937, FF Senator 1938–1951
his nephew Jim Gibbons (1924–1997): FF TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1957–1981, 1982, MEP 1973–1977
Jim's son Martin Gibbons (born 1953): PD TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1987–1989
Jim's son Jim Gibbons Jnr (born 1954): PD Senator 1997–2002
T. P. Gill (1858–1931): IPP/INF MP South Louth 1885–1892
his nephew Tomás Mac Giolla (1924–2010): WP TD Dublin West 1982–1992
James Grattan (died 1766) MP Dublin City 1761–1766
his son Henry Grattan (1746–1820) Irish Patriot Party MP Charlemont 1775–1790, Dublin City 1790–1797, Dublin City 1806–1820
his son Henry Grattan (1789–1859) Whig MP Dublin City 1826–1830, Repeal Association MP Meath 1831–1852
his son-in-law Sir John Esmonde (1826–1876) Liberal MP County Waterford 1852–1877
his son Sir Thomas Esmonde (1862–1935): IPP MP 1885–1918, Ind Senator 1922–1934
Sir Thomas's cousin John Joseph Esmonde (1862–1915): IPP MP North Tipperary 1910–1915
Sir Thomas's son Sir Osmond Esmonde (1896–1936): CnaG TD Wexford 1923–1936
John Joseph's son Sir John Lymbrick Esmonde (1893–1958): FG TD Wexford 1937–1951
Sir John Lymbrick's brother Sir Anthony Esmonde (1899–1981): FG TD Wexford 1951–1973
Sir Anthony's son Sir John Grattan Esmonde (1928–1987): FG TD Wexford 1973–1977
Patrick Guiney (1867–1913): All-for-Ireland League MP North Cork 1910–1913
his brother John Guiney (1868–1931): All-for-Ireland League MP North Cork 1913–1918
their nephew Philip Burton (1908–1995): Fine Gael TD Cork North-East 1961–1969, Senator 1973–1977
Richard Samuel Guinness (1797–1857) Irish Conservative Party MP Kinsale 1847–1848
his cousin Sir Benjamin Guinness (1798–1868): Con MP Dublin City 1865–1868
his son Sir Arthur Guinness (1840–1915): Con MP Dublin City 1868–1870, 1874–1880
his great-nephew Henry Guinness (1858–1945): Ind Senator 1922–1934
Henry's nephew Henry Eustace Guinness (1897–1972): Ind Senator 1954–1957
Henry's cousin Benjamin Guinness (1937–1992): FG Senator 1973–1977
H
Sean Hales (1880–1922): SF TD Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West 1921–1922
his brother Tom Hales (1892–1966): FF TD Cork West 1933–1937
Des Hanafin (1930–2017): FF Senator 1965–1993, 1997–2002
his daughter Mary Hanafin (born 1959): FF TD Dún Laoghaire 1997–2011
his son John Hanafin (born 1960): FF Senator 2002–2011
Haughey, see Lemass
Healy, see Sullivan
Jackie Healy-Rae (1931–2014): Ind TD Kerry South 1997–2011
his son Michael Healy-Rae (born 1967): Ind TD Kerry South 2011–2016, Kerry 2016–
his son Danny Healy-Rae (born 1954): Ind TD Kerry 2016–
Michael Herbert (1925–2006): FF TD 1969–1981, MEP 1973–1979
his brother Tony Herbert (1920–2014): FF Senator 1977–1981, 1982–1983
Sir William Hickie (1865–1950): Senator 1925–1936
his grandnephew Maurice O'Connell (born 1936): Senator 1981–1983
Michael D. Higgins (born 1941): Lab Senator 1973–1977, 1983–1987; Lab TD Galway West 1981–1982, 1987–2011; President 2011–
his daughter Alice-Mary Higgins (born 1975): Ind Senator 2016–
Patrick Hillery (1923–2008) FF TD Clare (1951–1973); President 1976–1990
His nephew Brian Hillery (1937–2021) FF Senator 1977–1982, 1983–1987, 1992–1994; FF TD Dún Laoghaire 1987–1992
Michael Hilliard (1903–1982): FF TD Meath–Westmeath 1943–1948, Meath 1948–1973, MEP 1973
his son Colm Hilliard (1936–2002): FF TD Meath 1982–1997
Hogan, see Sullivan
T. V. Honan (1878–1954): FF Senator 1934–1936, 1938–1954
his son Dermot Honan (died 1986): FF Senator 1965–1973
Dermot's wife Tras Honan (born 1930): FF Senator 1977–1992
Tras's sister Carrie Acheson (1934–2023): FF TD Tipperary South 1981–Feb. 1982
John Horgan (1876–1955): NLP TD Cork Borough 1927
his grandson Seán O'Leary (1941–2006): FG Senator 1981–1982, 1983–1987
Ralph Howard (1877–1946): Ind Senator 1922–1928
his daughter-in-law Eleanor Butler (1914–1997): Lab Senator 1948–1951
K
William Kenneally (1899–1964): FF TD Waterford 1952–1961
his son Billy Kenneally (1925–2009): FF TD Waterford 1965–1982, Senator 1982–1983
his grandson Brendan Kenneally (born 1955): FF TD Waterford 1989–2002, 2007–2011, Senator 2002–2007
Paddy Keaveney (1929–1995): IFF TD Donegal North-East 1976–1977
his daughter Cecilia Keaveney (born 1968): FF TD Donegal North-East 1996–2007, FF Senator 2007–2011
Thomas Kennedy (died 1947): Lab Senator 1934–1936, 1943–1948
his son Fintan Kennedy (died 1984): Lab Senator 1969–1981
Henry Kenny (1913–1975): FG TD Mayo South 1954–1969, Mayo West 1969–1975
his son Enda Kenny (born 1951): FG TD Mayo West 1975–1997, Mayo 1997–2020
David Kent (1867–1930): SF TD Cork East/Cork East and North East 1918–1927
his brother William Kent (1873–1956): FF TD Cork East 1927–1932, NCP/FG TD Cork East 1933–1937
Mark Killilea Snr (1897–1970): FF TD Galway/Galway East/Galway North 1927–1932, 1933–1961, FF Senator 1961–1969
his son Mark Killilea Jnr (1939–2018): FF TD 1977–1982, FF Senator 1969–1977, 1982–1987, MEP 1987–1999
Michael F. Kitt (1914–1974): FF TD 1948–1951, 1957–1975
Michael F.'s son Michael P. Kitt (born 1950): FF TD Galway North-East 1973–1977, Galway East 1981–2002, 2007–2016, FF Senator 1977–1981, 2002–2007
Michael F.'s son Tom Kitt (born 1952): FF TD 1987–2011
Michael F.'s daughter Áine Brady (born 1954): FF TD Kildare North 2007–2011
her husband Gerry Brady (born 1948): FF TD Kildare 1982
L
James Larkin (1874–1947): IWL TD Dublin North 1927, Ind TD Dublin North-East 1937–1938, Lab TD Dublin North-East 1943–1944
James Snr's son James Larkin Jnr (1904–1969): Lab TD Dublin South 1943–1948, Dublin South-Central 1948–1954
James Snr's son Denis Larkin (1908–1987): Lab TD Dublin North-East 1954–1961, 1965–1969
Hugh Law (1818–1883): Liberal MP Londonderry 1874–1881
his son Hugh Law (1872–1943): IPP MP West Donegal 1902–1918, CnaG TD Donegal 1927–1932
Patsy Lawlor (1933–1997): FG Senator 1981–1983
her son Anthony Lawlor (born 1959): FG TD Kildare North 2011–2016, Senator 2018–
Seán Lemass (1899–1971): FF TD Dublin 1924–1969
his son Noel Lemass (1929–1976): FF TD Dublin South-West 1956–1976
Noel's wife Eileen Lemass (born 1932): FF TD Dublin South-West 1977–1987, MEP Dublin 1984–1989
Seán's son-in-law Charles Haughey (1925–2006): FF TD Dublin North-East/Dublin Artane/Dublin North-Central 1957–1992
Charles' son Seán Haughey (born 1961): FF Senator 1987–1992, FF TD Dublin North-Central 1992–2011, Dublin Bay North 2016–
Seán's grandson Seán O'Connor (born 1960): FF Senator 1982
Brian Lenihan Snr (1930–1995): FF Senator 1957–1961, 1973–1977, FF TD Roscommon 1961–1969, Roscommon–Leitrim 1969–1973, Dublin West 1977–1997, MEP 1973–1977
Brian Snr's father Patrick Lenihan (1902–1970): FF TD Longford–Westmeath 1965–1970
Brian Snr's sister Mary O'Rourke (born 1937): FF Senator 1981–1982, 2002–2007, FF TD Longford–Westmeath 1982–1997, 2007–2011, Westmeath 1997–2002
Brian Snr's son Brian Lenihan Jnr (1959–2011): FF Dublin West 1996–2011
Brian Snr's son Conor Lenihan (born 1963): FF TD Dublin South-West 1997–2011
Jimmy Leonard (1927–2022): FF TD Cavan–Monaghan 1973–1981, Feb 1982–1997, Senator 1981–1982
his daughter Ann Leonard (born 1969): FF Senator 1997–2002
Patrick Little (1884–1963): FF TD Waterford 1927–1954
his grandnephew Ciarán Cuffe (born 1963): GP TD Dún Laoghaire 2002–2011
James B. Lynch (died 1954): FF TD Dublin South 1932–1948 Senator 1951–1954
his wife Celia Lynch (1908–1989): FF TD Dublin South-Central, Dublin North-Central 1954–1977
Kathleen Lynch (born 1953): DL/Lab TD Cork North-Central 1994–1997, 2002–2016
her brother-in-law Ciarán Lynch (born 1964): Lab TD Cork South-Central 2007–2016
M
Mary McAleese (born 1951): President of Ireland 1997–2011
her husband Martin McAleese (born 1951): Ind Senator 2011–2013
Timothy McAuliffe (1909–1985): Lab Senator 1961–1969, 1973–1983
his daughter Helena McAuliffe-Ennis (born 1951): Lab (then PD) Senator 1983–1987
Joseph MacBride (1860–1938): SF TD Mayo West 1919–1921, Mayo North and West 1921–1923, CnaG TD Mayo South 1923–1927
his nephew Seán MacBride (1904–1988): CnaP TD Dublin County 1947–1948, Dublin South-West 1948–1957
MacEntee, see Sheehy
Shane McEntee (1956–2012): FG TD Meath 2005–2007, Meath East 2007–2012
his daughter Helen McEntee (born 1986): FG TD Meath East 2013–
Tom McEllistrim (1894–1973): FF TD Kerry/Kerry North 1923–1969
his son Tom McEllistrim (1926–2000): FF TD Kerry North 1969–1987, Senator 1987–1989, 1989–1992
his grandson Tom McEllistrim (born 1968): FF TD Kerry North 2002–2011
Nicky McFadden (1962–2014): FG Senator 2007–2011, TD Longford–Westmeath 2011–2014
her sister Gabrielle McFadden (born 1967): FG TD Longford–Westmeath 2014–2016, Senator 2016–2020
Brendan McGahon (1936–2017): FG TD Louth 1982–2002
his nephew John McGahon (born 1990): FG Senator 2020–
Patrick McGilligan (1847–1917): INF MP South Fermanagh 1892–1895
his son Patrick McGilligan (1889–1979): CnaG/FG TD NUI/Dublin North-West 1923–1965
Gerrard McGowan (died 1971): Lab TD Dublin County 1937–1938
his nephew Jim Glennon (born 1953): FF Senator 2000–2002, TD Dublin North 2002–2007
Joseph McGrath (1888–1966): CnaG TD Dublin (St. James's)/Dublin North-West/Mayo North 1919–1927
his son Patrick McGrath (1927–2001): Ind Senator 1973–1977
McHugh see Canney and Enright
Joseph McLoughlin (1916–1991): FG TD Sligo–Leitrim 1969–1977
his nephew Tony McLoughlin (born 1949): FG TD Sligo–North Leitrim 2011–2020
Eoin MacNeill (1867–1945): SF/CnaG TD National University of Ireland 1919–1927
his brother James McNeill (1869–1938); 2nd Governor-General of the Irish Free State 1928–1932
his son-in-law Michael Tierney (1894–1975): CnaG TD Mayo North 1925–1927, NUI 1927–1932, Senator 1938–1944
his grandson Michael McDowell (born 1951): PD TD Dublin South-East 1987–1989, 1992–1997, 2002–2007; Ind Sen 2016–
Ray MacSharry (born 1938): FF TD Sligo–Leitrim 1969–1988, MEP Connacht–Ulster 1984–1989
his son Marc MacSharry (born 1973): FF Senator 2002–2016, TD Sligo–Leitrim 2016–
MacSwiney see Brugha
Seán Maloney (born 1945): Lab Senator 1993–1997
his brother Eamonn Maloney (born 1953): Lab/Ind TD Dublin South-West 2011–2016
Tadhg Manley (1893–1976): FG TD Cork South 1954–1961
his nephew Liam Burke (1928–2005): FG TD Cork City 1969–1977, 1979–1981, TD Cork North-Central 1981–1989, 1992–2002
John Mannion Snr (1907–1978): FG TD Galway West 1951–1954, Senator 1954–1957, 1961–1969
his son John Mannion Jnr (1944–2006): FG TD Galway West 1977–1981, Senator 1969–1977, 1981–1983
Catherine Martin (born 1972): GP TD Dublin Rathdown 2016–
her husband Francis Noel Duffy (born 1971): GP TD Dublin South-West 2020–
her brother Vincent P. Martin (born 1968): GP Senator 2020–
Con Meaney (1890–1970): FF TD Cork North 1937–1943, Cork Mid 1961–1965
his son Thomas Meaney (1931–2022): FF TD Cork Mid/Cork North-West 1961–1982
Liam Mellows (1892–1922): SF TD Galway East, Meath North 1918–1922, Galway 1921–1922
his brother Barney Mellows (1896–1942): SF TD Galway 1923–1927
Matthew Minch (1857–1921): INF/IPP MP South Kildare 1892–1903
his son Sydney Minch (1893–1970): CnaG TD Kildare 1932–1937, Carlow–Kildare 1937–1938
Jim Mitchell (1946–2002): FG TD Dublin Ballyfermot/Dublin West/Dublin Central 1977–2002
his brother Gay Mitchell (born 1951): FG TD Dublin South-Central 1981–2007, MEP Dublin 2004–2014
Joe Mooney (1916–1988): FF Senator 1961–1965
his son Paschal Mooney (born 1947): FF Senator 1987–2007, 2010–2016
Donal Moynihan (1941–2022): FF TD Cork North-West 1982–1989, 1992–2007
his son Aindrias Moynihan (born 1967): FF TD Cork North-West 2016–
Michael Moynihan (1917–2001): Lab TD Kerry South 1981–1992
his daughter Breeda Moynihan-Cronin (born 1953): Lab TD Kerry South 1992–2007
Eugene Mullen (1898–1953): FF TD Mayo South June–Sept 1927
his brother Thomas Mullen (1896–1966): FF TD Dublin County 1938–1943
Rónán Mullen (born 1970): Ind Senator 2007–
his first cousin Michael Mullins (born 1953): FG Senator 2011–2016
Michael Pat Murphy (1919–2000): Lab TD Cork South-West 1951–1981
his son-in-law John O'Donoghue (born 1956): FF TD Kerry South 1987–2011
Timothy J. Murphy (1893–1949): Lab TD Cork West 1923–1949
his son William J. Murphy (1928–2018): Lab TD Cork West 1949–1951
N
Liam Naughten (1944–1996): FG Senator 1981–1982, 1989–1996, FG TD Roscommon 1982–1989
his son Denis Naughten (born 1973): FG Senator 1997, FG TD Longford–Roscommon 1997–2007, Roscommon–South Leitrim 2007–2016, Ind TD Roscommon–Galway 2016–
Dan Neville (born 1946): FG Senator 1989–1997, FG TD Limerick West 1997–2011, Limerick 2011–2016
his son Tom Neville (born 1975): FG TD Limerick County 2016–2020
Tom Nolan (1921–1992): FF TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1965–1982, MEP 1973–1979
his son M. J. Nolan (born 1951): FF TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1982–2011
William Norton: (1900–1963): Lab TD Dublin County 1923–1927, Kildare/Carlow–Kildare/Kildare 1932–1963
his son Patrick Norton (born 1928): Lab TD Kildare 1965–1969, Senator 1969–1973
O
Mary Ann O'Brien (born 1960): Ind Senator 2011–2016
her first cousin-in-law John Magnier (born 1948): Ind Senator 1987–1989
Richard O'Connell (1892–1964): CnaG TD Limerick 1923–1932
his nephew Tom O'Donnell (1926–2020): FG TD Limerick East 1961–1987, MEP Munster 1979–1989
Tom's nephew Kieran O'Donnell (born 1963): FG TD Limerick East/Limerick City 2007–2016, 2020–, Senator 2016–2020
O'Connor, see Connor
O'Higgins, see Sullivan
Ned O'Keeffe (born 1942): FF TD Cork East 1982–2011
his son Kevin O'Keeffe (born 1964): FF TD Cork East 2016–2020
Pierce Mahony (1792–1853): Repeal MP Kinsale 1837
his grandson Pierce O'Mahony (1850–1930): IPP MP North Meath 1886–1892
his son Dermot O'Mahony (1881–1960): CnaG TD Wicklow 1927–1938
Donogh O'Malley (1921–1968): FF TD Limerick East 1954–1968
his nephew Desmond O'Malley (1939–2021): FF/PD TD Limerick East 1968–2002
Desmond's daughter Fiona O'Malley (born 1968): PD TD Dún Laoghaire 2002–2007, Senator 2007–2011
Donogh's first cousin's son Patrick O'Malley (1943–2021): PD TD Dublin West 1987–1989
Patrick's first cousin Tim O'Malley (born 1944): PD TD Limerick East 2002–2007
John Ormonde (1905–1981): FF TD Waterford 1947–1965, Senator 1965–1969
his son Donal Ormonde (born 1943): FF TD Waterford 1982–1987, Senator 1989–1993
Christy O'Sullivan (born 1948): FF TD Cork South-West 2007–2011
his son Christopher O'Sullivan (born 1982): FF TD Cork South-West 2020–
John M. O'Sullivan (1891–1948): FG TD Kerry/Kerry North 1923–1943
his brother Timothy O'Sullivan (1879–1950): IPP MP East Kerry 1910–1918
their cousin Eugene O'Sullivan (1879–1942): IPP MP East Kerry 1910
Timothy O'Sullivan (1899–1971): FF TD Cork West 1937–1954, Senator 1957–1959
his niece Peggy Farrell (1920–2003): FF Senator 1969–1973
P
James Pattison (1886–1963): Lab TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1933–1957
his son Séamus Pattison (1936–2018): Lab TD Carlow–Kilkenny 1961–2007, MEP Leinster 1981–1984
Margaret Pearse (1857–1932): SF TD Dublin County 1921–1922 (mother of Patrick Pearse)
her daughter Margaret Mary Pearse (1878–1968): FF TD Dublin County 1932–1937, Senator 1938–1968
Paddy Power (1928–2013): FF TD Kildare 1969–1989, MEP 1977–1979
his son Seán Power (born 1960): FF TD Kildare/Kildare South 1989–2011
Patrick Power (1850–1913): IPP/INF MP County Waterford 1884–1895, East Waterford 1895–1913
his nephew Pierce McCan (1882–1919): SF MP/TD Tipperary East 1918–1919
Q
Ruairi Quinn (born 1946): Lab TD/Senator Dublin South-East 1977–1981, 1982–2016
his first cousin Feargal Quinn (1936–2019): Ind Senator 1993–2016
R
Michael Reddy (died 1919): IPP MP Birr 1900–1918
his grandnephew Anthony Millar (1934–1993): FF TD Galway South and Galway East 1958–1969
Millar's uncle Patrick Beegan (1895–1958): FF TD Galway constituencies 1932–1958
John Edward Redmond (1806–1865): Lib MP City of Wexford 1859–1865
his nephew William Archer Redmond (1825–1880): IPP MP Wexford 1872–1880
William's son Willie Redmond (1861–1917): IPP MP Wexford Borough 1883–1885, Fermanagh North 1885–1892, Clare East 1892–1917
William's son John Redmond (1856–1918): IPP MP New Ross 1881–1885, North Wexford 1885–1891, Waterford City 1891–1918
John's son William Redmond (1886–1932): IPP/NLP/CnaG TD Waterford 1918–1932
William's wife Bridget Redmond (1904–1952): CnaG/FG TD Waterford 1933–1952
Patrick Reynolds (1887–1932): CnaG TD Leitrim–Sligo 1927–1932
his wife Mary Reynolds (1889–1974): FG TD Leitrim–Sligo 1932–1961
Their son Patrick J. Reynolds (1920–2003): FG TD Roscommon 1961–1969, Roscommon–Leitrim 1973–1977, Senator 1969–1973, 1977–1987
Patrick J.'s son Gerry Reynolds (born 1961): FG TD Sligo–Leitrim 1989–1992 and 1997–2002, Senator 1987–1989 and 1993–1997
Eamon Rice (1873–1937): FF TD Monaghan 1932–1937
his wife Bridget Rice (1885–1967): FF TD Monaghan 1938–1954
Martin Roddy (1883–1948): CnaG/FG TD Leitrim–Sligo 1925–1938, 1943–1948
his brother Joseph Roddy (1897–1965): FG TD Sligo–Leitrim 1948–1957, Senator 1957–1961
John N. Ross (1920–2011): Ind Senator 1961–1965
his son Shane Ross (born 1949): Ind Senator 1981–2011, Ind TD Dublin South 2011–2020
James Ryan (1892–1970): SF TD 1918–1922, Republican TD 1923–1926, FF TD 1926–1965
his son Eoin Ryan Snr (1920–2001): FF Senator 1957–1987
his grandson Eoin Ryan Jnr (born 1953): FF Senator, TD Dublin South-East 1992–2007, MEP Dublin 2004–2009
his brother-in-law Seán T. O'Kelly (1882–1966): SF/Republican TD 1918–1932, President 1945–1959
his brother-in-law Richard Mulcahy (1886–1971): SF/CnaG/FG TD and Senator 1918–1961
his brother-in-law Denis McCullough (1883–1968): CnaG TD 1924–1927
Patrick Ryan (1898–1944): Republican TD Tipperary 1923–1927
his brother Martin Ryan (1900–1943): FF TD Tipperary 1933–1943
Martin's wife Mary Ryan (1898–1981): FF TD Tipperary 1944–1961
Seán Ryan (born 1943): Lab TD Dublin North 1989–1997, 1998–2007
his brother Brendan Ryan (born 1953): Lab Senator 2007–2011, TD Dublin North 2011–2020
S
David Sheehy (1844–1932): IPP MP South Galway 1885–1900, South Meath 1903–1918
his son-in-law Tom Kettle (1880–1916): IPP MP East Tyrone 1906–1910
his grandson Owen Sheehy-Skeffington (1909–1970): Ind Senator 1954–1957, 1965–1970
his grandson Conor Cruise O'Brien (1917–2008): Lab TD Dublin North-East 1969–1977, Senator 1977–1979, MEP 1973
O'Brien's father-in-law Seán MacEntee (1889–1984): SF TD Monaghan 1919–1922, FF TD Dublin County/Townships/South East 1927–1969
Joe Sherlock (1930–2007): SFWP TD Cork East 1981–1982, WP TD 1987–1992, Lab TD 2002–2007, Seanad 1993–1997
his son Seán Sherlock (born 1972): Lab TD Cork East 2007–
Patrick Smith (1901–1982): SF TD Cavan 1923–1927, FF TD Cavan 1927–1977
his grandniece Niamh Smyth (born 1978): FF TD Cavan–Monaghan 2016–
Dan Spring (1910–1988): Lab TD Kerry North 1943–1981
his son Dick Spring (born 1950): Lab TD Kerry North 1981–2002
Dick's nephew Arthur Spring (born 1976): Lab TD Kerry North–West Limerick 2011–2016
Timothy Sullivan (1827–1914): Home Rule/IPP MP Westmeath 1880–1885, Dublin College Green 1885–1892, West Donegal 1892–1900
his brother Alexander Sullivan (1829–1884): Lib/IPP MP County Louth 1874–1880, County Meath 1880–1882
his nephew Tim Healy (1855–1931): IPP MP Wexford 1880–1883, Monaghan 1883–1885, South Londonderry 1885–1886, North Longford 1886–1892, North Louth 1892–1910 (1st Governor-General of the Irish Free State 1922–1928)
Tim Healy's brother Thomas Joseph Healy (1854–1925): IPP MP North Wexford 1892–1900
Tim Healy's brother Maurice Healy (1859–1923): IPP MP Cork City 1885–1900 and 1909–1910, North East Cork 1910–1918
Timothy Sullivan's grandson Kevin O'Higgins (1892–1927): CnaG TD Laois–Offaly 1918–1927
Kevin's brother Thomas F. O'Higgins (1890–1953): CnaG/FG TD Dublin, Laois–Offaly, Cork 1929–1953
Thomas's son Tom O'Higgins (1916–2003): FG TD Laois–Offaly, 1943–1973
Thomas's son Michael O'Higgins (1917–2005): FG TD Dublin South-West, Wicklow 1948–1969
Michael's wife Brigid Hogan O'Higgins (1932–2022): FG TD Galway 1957–1977
her father Patrick Hogan (1891–1936): FG TD Galway 1921–1936
Kevin's grandson Chris O'Malley (born 1959): FG MEP Munster 1986–1989
Chris' wife Aideen Hayden (born 1959): Lab Senator 2011–2016
John Sweetman (1844–1936): IPP MP East Wicklow 1892–1895
his cousin Roger Sweetman (1874–1954): SF TD Wexford North 1919–1921
Roger's son Edmund Sweetman (1912–1968): FG Senator 1948–1951
Roger's nephew Gerard Sweetman (1908–1970): FG Senator 1943–1948, TD Kildare 1948–1970
T
Frank Taylor (1914–1998): FG TD Clare 1969–1981
his daughter Madeleine Taylor-Quinn (born 1951): FG TD Clare 1981–1982, 1982–1992, FG Senator 1982, 1993–2002
Godfrey Timmins (1927–2001): FG TD Wicklow 1965–1997
his son Billy Timmins (born 1959): FG/Ind/Renua TD Wicklow 1997–2016
James Tunney (1892–1964): Lab TD Dublin County 1943–1944, Senator 1938–1943, 1944–1961
his son Jim Tunney (1924–2002): FF TD Dublin North-West/Dublin Finglas 1969–1992
U
Pat Upton (1944–1999): Lab Senator 1989–1992, Lab TD Dublin South-Central 1992–1999
his sister Mary Upton (born 1946): Lab TD Dublin South-Central 1999–2011
W
Jack Wall (born 1945): Lab Senator 1993–1997, TD Kildare South 1997–2016
his son Mark Wall (born 1970): Lab Senator 2020–
John Wilson (1923–2007): FF TD Cavan 1973–1977, Cavan–Monaghan 1977–1992
his nephew Diarmuid Wilson (born 1965): FF Senator 2002–
Y
W. B. Yeats (1865–1939): Ind Senator 1922–1928
his son Michael Yeats (1921–2007): FF Senator 1951–1977, MEP 1973–1979
See also
List of Irish politicians
List of female members of Dáil Éireann
List of female members of Seanad Éireann
Records of members of the Oireachtas
Widow's succession
Notes
References
Sources
ElectionsIreland.org
Oireachtas members database
Oireachtas
Lists of Irish parliamentarians
Political families of Ireland
Members of the Oireachtas
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West%20Side%20Elevated%20Highway
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West Side Elevated Highway
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The West Side Elevated Highway (West Side Highway or Miller Highway, named for Julius Miller, Manhattan borough president from 1922 to 1930) was an elevated section of New York State Route 9A (NY 9A) running along the Hudson River in the New York City borough of Manhattan to the tip of the island. It was an elevated highway, one of the first urban freeways in the world, and served as a prototype for urban freeways elsewhere, including Boston's Central Artery.
Built between 1929 and 1951, the highway had narrow confines—which could not accommodate trucks—and sharp S exit ramps that made it obsolete almost immediately. Maintenance was minimal, and the use of corrosive salts to de-ice the highway in winter accelerated its decay. When chunks of its facade began to fall off due to lack of maintenance, and a truck and car fell through it at 14th Street in 1973, the highway was shut down, and a debate began over whether to renovate it or dismantle it. Attitudes to urban planning had changed in the intervening decades, and the decision was made not to repair the decaying structure.
The need to replace the deteriorating highway was recognized in the 1950s. Plans were drafted, but not executed. By 1971, a plan evolved for the elevated highway to be replaced by an underground interstate-quality highway, which came to be called Westway. It received approval from many levels of government, from the city to the federal, but was scuttled in 1985 owing to environmental issues. In the time between the closure of the elevated highway and the completion of its dismantling, while debate about Westway was proceeding, remaining sections of the old highway structure began to be unofficially utilized as an elevated urban park, for jogging and bicycling.
By 1989, the old elevated highway structure was totally dismantled except for a small portion from 59th Street to 72nd Street, which, in effect, became the southern extension of the Henry Hudson Parkway. Eventually, a grade-level six lane "urban boulevard" was built, which is generally referred to as the West Side Highway, although the elements of it use the names of the surface streets which existed before the elevated highway was built: West Street, Eleventh Avenue and Twelfth Avenue. It connects to the remaining elevated structure via a ramp at 57th Street.
Early planning
Death Avenue
Before the West Side Highway was built, the road along the Hudson River was busy, with significant cross traffic going to docks and ferries. At 22nd Street, most traffic continued north along Eleventh Avenue, along which the New York Central Railroad (NYCRR)'s West Side Line ran; it was known by many as "Death Avenue" for the many crashes caused by trains and automobiles colliding.
The first official proposal for an elevated highway along Manhattan's west side was made by Police Commissioner Richard Edward Enright on January 12, 1924, in a letter to the New York City Board of Estimate. The highway was to be 100 feet (30 m) wide, running north from the Battery to 72nd Street at Riverside Drive, West End Avenue, or Amsterdam Avenue. According to Enright, "During business hours West Street [was] the most congested thoroughfare in the city. Vast quantities of the city's foodstuffs [were] handled in the territory adjacent to West Street." He cited traffic congestion as an extra cost of doing business and a blockage for fire engines.
Plans for the new highway
Double-decker railroad/highway proposal
On February 2, 1925, it was announced that the railroad would build a combined double-decker elevated highway and freight railroad (with the highway above the railroad) for $24 million at no cost to the city. At the time, Eleventh Avenue was popularly known as "Death Avenue" owing to the dangers of the surface line. The elevated structure would eliminate 106 grade crossings over 84 blocks. The proposal came about after six months of negotiations between Manhattan Borough President Julius Miller and the NYCRR. The planned highway would no longer go to the Battery, instead ending at Canal Street, meeting the Holland Tunnel (which would open to traffic on November 13, 1927). The northern terminus was set at 72nd Street and Riverside Drive. Ramps were planned at Canal Street, 23rd Street, Riverside Drive, and at least two other locations.
The Port of New York Authority opposed the plan, preferring a more forward-looking comprehensive freight distribution plan. They attacked Miller as trying to push the plan through without input from the Port Authority. The Port Authority wanted a system of inland terminals and belt-line railroads. According to Port Authority Chairman Julian Gregory, it was almost certain that NYCRR would not go along with the Port Authority plan. It was also believed that giving NYCRR elevated tracks on the west side would allow the railroad to monopolize freight and raise prices. The Port Authority believed it was primarily a freight problem, but NYCRR and New York City considered it to be a grade-crossing elimination project.
Miller responded by arguing that something had to be done right away. He said that if the Port Authority could put forward a comprehensive plan within five years, he would put his full support behind it. He also pointed out that his plan was only one part of his "comprehensive plan for the relief of traffic congestion"; he had already widened many avenues and removed several Midtown elevated railroad spurs. He said the plan would not give the NYCRR any rights they did not already have; it was merely a relocation of existing tracks. The tracks had been on the surface for 55 years despite legal action taken against them, and Miller claimed they would be there for another 50 if nothing were done. Miller also received a letter from NYCRR Vice President Ira Place, stating that the railroad would reduce freight rates if the new elevated structure were built.
Miller's elevated single-deck highway
On January 20, 1926, borough president Miller sent a plan for an $11 million elevated highway to be built completely on city property to the Board of Estimate. The elevated railroad was removed from the plan, since NYCRR had come up with a separate project for partially elevating and depressing their railroad (now known as the High Line). According to Miller, there were questions over who would own and maintain the dual structure. There were also objections to its height of 40 feet (12 m) and its placement at the east building line of the existing surface roads. The elevated highway was to connect to a planned parkway (now the Henry Hudson Parkway) at 72nd Street, forming a highway free from cross traffic stretching from Canal Street to 129th Street. The elevated road was to be 60 feet (18 m) wide, wide enough for six lanes of traffic; the existing surface road would carry local traffic beneath the highway. Ramps would be provided at Canal Street, Christopher Street, 14th Street, 23rd Street, 34th Street, 42nd Street, and 57th Street. Slow-moving traffic would use the left lanes, due to the left-hand ramps. This contrasts with the current method of using the left lane for passing and putting ramps on the right side, and to the method popular around the 1950s of putting ramps on whichever side was easier. The highway would "carry buses that will make both its conveniences and its beauties available to the general public", according to Miller. He suggested Hudson River Boulevard for the name of the highway.
On April 24, 1925, Governor Al Smith signed a bill authorizing the construction of the highway. Funds for the $11 million highway were to be procured by property assessments along the route; this was considered reasonable due to advantages gained from the highway by those living along the route. The road was to be , five feet wider than Fifth Avenue, with a speed limit of at least , and would be off the ground. It would be built of steel, with a cement face. A three-foot (1 m) sidewalk would be built for pedestrians, although the highway was intended mainly for motor vehicles. Two-block-long ramps would be provided with easy grades for entering and exiting the highway. Trucks would be allowed on the highway.
The Board of Estimate approved the highway, now costing $13.5 million on June 14, 1926. It was to be built so a second deck could be added at a later time for about $9 million if traffic warranted. Controller Charles W. Berry questioned the proposal until he realized the money would come from tax assessments, at which time he agreed with the project.
On November 10, 1926, the Sinking Fund Commission voted to give the city title to the waterfront property along the proposed highway. The highway plan was linked to a plan by the city for more piers for ocean steamships; since the highway required land takings between 47th Street and 51st Street, it was easier to combine the projects and prevent additional expense.
On February 17, 1927, the Board of Estimate adopted the final plans for the highway, setting a hearing date of March 24. It was split into two sections, Section one went from Canal Street to 59th Street. Section two was to carry the road over the NYCRR's 60th Street Yard from 59th Street to 72nd Street. Section two was approved by the Board of Estimate on August 16, 1928; section one was postponed until September 27 due to objections. On October 18, the Board of Estimate approved section one. The highway was advocated by most business interests, including the Downtown League, the Fifth Avenue Association, the West End Association, and eleven other organizations. They cited increasing traffic and the need of a bypass route to support the highway, which would cost little in comparison to its benefits. Miller spoke at a meeting of the Market and Business Men's Association of the Greenwich and Chelsea Districts on October 30, 1928, detailing plans for the highway. It was announced that between 90 and 100 meat and poultry dealers in the West Washington Market and the Gansevoort Market would be evicted to make way for the highway.
Minor changes to the highway were approved on January 10, 1929, in response to several objections. The alignment in the Chelsea district was slightly modified to avoid proposed piers, and the path through the markets was realigned to pass over a corner of the property. In addition, the 14th Street ramps were moved to the area between 19th Street and 23rd Street, where they would spare many markets at 14th Street. In addition, the West Washington Market would no longer be demolished, and instead the highway would graze the roofs of some of the stores.
Exotic alternatives
An alternate plan was put forth by John Hencken, an engineer, and approved by Ernest P. Goodrich, consulting engineer to the Regional Plan of New York and its Environs. A linear corridor would be built from the Battery to Yonkers. A freight railroad would lie underground. On ground level would be roads alongside the corridor and an indoor enclosed sidewalk. The mezzanine, between the first and second floors, would be occupied by office space. The second floor would carry a "continuous noiseless moving platform system for passenger service", with adjacent belts moving at various speeds, for a maximum of 21 miles per hour (34 km/h) in the middle. This service would be free, and would be a substitute for new subways in the corridor. Above the second floor would be about ten stories of apartments, offices, businesses, and other uses appropriate for the neighborhoods; these would be the main source of revenue to pay for the project. A high-speed motor parkway, open to passenger cars only, would lie on top. Cars would reach the upper level via ramps at both ends and elevators at convenient intervals.
Dr. Benjamin Battin, a professor at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, had a similar plan for an eight-story high boulevard. The street level and first floor would be connected to the Hudson River piers. The second and third stories would carry electric passenger trains, with the second floor carrying northbound traffic and southbound traffic using the third floor. A public garage would occupy the fourth and fifth floors, helping to pay off the bonds for the project. The sixth and seventh floors would carry one-way passenger car traffic, permitting speeds of up to . A reversible roadway, carrying cars in the direction of rush hour traffic, would occupy the eighth and ninth (top) levels. Ramps to the upper car levels would be provided every 15
to 20 blocks.
Art Society objections
The plan was criticized by Thomas Adams, Regional Plan Association director, at the 1927 meeting of the Municipal Art Society. He disapproved of its ugliness and noise, and suggested simply clearing obstructions to the existing surface road to speed traffic. Adams instead supported a comprehensive regional plan for development in the Hudson Valley. The Fine Arts Federation also opposed the highway, saying that elevated structures were unsightly, and that if the existing street were cleared a new highway might not be required.
The City Club and New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker objected to the highway on the grounds that it would block waterfront-bound freight traffic. They believed that the plans should wait until the surface railroad tracks were removed in the area, at which point the elevated highway might not be necessary. Parallels were drawn with elevated passenger railroads, which were being torn down at the time; Henry Curran of the City Club called elevated structures "a misfit in New York". The City Club also objected to more passenger cars in downtown Manhattan.
Concerns were raised by the Women's League for the Protection of Riverside Park, which opposed routing trucks through Riverside Park, which would contain a parkway extending from the north end of the planned elevated highway. The League emphasized that commercial traffic should be banned north of 72nd Street (as it currently is on the Henry Hudson Parkway).
Construction
Primarily, the Miller Highway consisted of six lanes, supported above the street level on steel columns, which were located at regular intervals (~80 feet) at the outer edges and center of the roadway. Longitudinal strength girders ran between the support columns along the direction of the roadway. The longitudinal girders supported the industrial looking balustrades and the median. Lateral strength girders ran between the support columns across the roadway, and was the location of the expansion joints. Smaller longitudinal and transverse floorbeams formed a lattice structure between major girders to support the road deck. The road deck consisted of reinforced concrete, on top of which the paved surface would sit. Originally this was Belgian block, and was eventually substituted or paved over with asphalt as construction materials matured. Drainage was provided at the expansion joints (on the older sections) or grated channels along the edge of the road (newest sections), with rainwater and snowmelt being plumbed to the street through scuppers and downspouts located at the main support columns. It was not uncommon during the life of the highway that it would be supporting not only traffic, but 6 to 8 inches of standing water. The high impermeable balustrades, the undersized scuppers, the use of salt to de-ice the highway, and the lack of drain cleaning / maintenance were all ingredients which contributed to the structure's demise.
Canal to 22nd Streets (1929–1930)
Construction on the first 1.5-mile (2.5 km) section, from Canal Street to 22nd Street, was started on May 24, 1929, and the road was officially opened on November 13, 1930, with some inaugural vehicles using the highway as early as October 28. Traffic was not permitted on the structure until November 17 due to unanticipated delays in cosmetic work. A speed limit of 35 miles per hour (55 km/h) was set by Police Commissioner Edward Mulrooney, and trucks were temporarily banned. On the first Sunday the road was in operation, the northbound roadway was backed up for a mile approaching the north end at 23rd Street. The northbound offramp at 23rd Street, unlike the temporary southbound onramp, was built as a permanent single lane ramp, since in the future most traffic would continue along the not-yet-finished elevated highway. Suggested fixes included a new temporary ramp to 25th Street and conversion of the temporary southbound onramp to two-way traffic. The second Sunday the road was open, rain cut down on the traffic, but police had orders to open the permanent ramp eventually intended for a northbound onramp to exiting northbound traffic if traffic conditions warranted.
A temporary wide elevated street was proposed by the city between 29th Street and 37th Street to bypass the New York Central Railroad's 30th Street Yard, to provide relief before the permanent highway was finished. It appears that this temporary viaduct was not built.
The original southern terminal for the elevated highway was six lanes wide and was made of stone, complete with winged ornaments and art-deco statuettes.
59th to 72nd Streets (1930–1932)
The section from 59th Street to 72nd Street was begun in September 1930, and opened to traffic on March 9, 1932. The original configuration fed directly into 72nd Street, with a 90-degree turn in the road. Once the northern extension as a parkway was built, northbound traffic would turn right directly to and from 72nd Street. A southbound left-hand entrance ramp was provided at 72nd Street, with a direct ramp from Riverside Drive (later closed), and a southbound right-hand exit ramp to 70th Street was started, but never completed. Today, the only movement remaining is a northbound entrance to the highway from 72nd Street.
The highway from 59th to 72nd Streets is the only elevated section that remains today, although it conflicts with plans for the Riverside South development project and neighborhood. A covered, at-grade replacement road to facilitate a southward expansion of Riverside Park was approved by the Federal Highway Administration in 2001. In June 2006, the developer began construction of a tunnel between 61st and 65th streets for the relocated highway. However, the rest of the tunnel remains unfinished.
22nd to 38th Streets (1932–1933)
Construction of the elevated highway between 22nd Street and 38th Street was begun on June 21, 1932. The road was opened on January 5, 1933, just before Eleventh Avenue was closed for reconstruction of the NYCRR's 30th Street Yard.
38th to 46th Streets (1933–1934)
Construction on the highway between 38th Street and 46th Street was begun in late 1933. This section eliminated a busy intersection at 42nd Street, where streetcars and automobiles crossed the corridor to reach the ferry to Weehawken, New Jersey. This link was opened to traffic on August 30, 1934.
When the new city piers at 48th Street, 50th Street, and 52nd Street were being planned in late 1934, direct connections between the elevated highway and the second levels of the piers were proposed. Manhattan Borough President Samuel Levy quickly spoke against these connections, citing interference with southbound traffic on the highway. The plan, which had been proposed at the request of several cruise lines, was rejected.
In 1935, the 34th Street–Midtown Association proposed a new ramp for the highway at 34th Street, having elected new directors for the purpose. This ramp would rise above the elevated railroad and highway, splitting into a northbound onramp and a southbound offramp, both on the right side of the highway. It was hoped that the ramp would help businesses in the area and provide better access to the proposed 38th Street Tunnel (now the Lincoln Tunnel) to New Jersey. The ramp was never built.
46th to 59th Streets (1936–1937)
Construction on the final section of the originally planned highway, from 46th Street to 59th Street, was begun on February 13, 1936. It was opened to traffic on February 9, 1937, thus completing the elevated highway from Canal Street to 72nd Street.
Duane to Canal Streets (1938–1939)
On August 23, 1934, Governor Herbert Lehman signed a bill authorizing construction of a southern extension of the elevated highway from Canal Street to the Battery. However, this segment was opposed by the communities along the route since it might "result in a waste of tax funds". Construction on the first section of this, from Duane Street to Canal Street, was begun on January 24, 1938. Unlike previous sections of highway, which used granite blocks as a surface, concrete was used on the new section. The road was opened to traffic on February 4, 1939. A steel superstructure consisting of an arched bridge was built at Canal Street because the Holland Tunnel below ground restricted locations of bridge supports.
Barclay to Duane Streets (1947–1948)
After an extended break due to World War II, construction on the final section of the southern extension, from Carlisle Street to Barclay Street, was begun on April 21, 1947. This section was expanded to reach Duane Street in the north, and was opened on November 29, 1948.
Battery Underpass to Barclay Street (1950–1951)
The southern end was connected to the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel on May 25, 1950. A four-lane tunnel under Battery Park, the Battery Park Underpass, taking traffic to the South Street Elevated Highway opened on April 10, 1951.
Closure and demolition
1973 collapse
On December 15, 1973, an section of the northbound lanes between Little West 12th Street and Gansevoort Street collapsed under the weight of a dump truck, which was thought to carry over of asphalt for ongoing repairs of the highway. The joints between transverse stringers holding up this section of roadway and the eastern main girder (holding the decorative friezes), failed. A four-door sedan followed the truck through the hole; neither driver was seriously injured. It took hours to back all the traffic off the span trapped behind the collapse. It was later learned that the truck was actually carrying of asphalt, and was overloaded. Blame was assigned to the trucking company, Edenwald Construction Corp. of Whitestone, Queens, but they were still awarded a no-bid contract to clean up the mess. The day after, both directions were closed indefinitely south of 18th Street. This not only closed off the oldest section (between Canal Street and 18th Street), but also the newest sections (south of Canal Street), because ramps south of the collapse only permitted northbound entrances and southbound exits. The southernmost northbound exit was at 23rd Street.
The highway was indefinitely closed south of 18th Street. The northbound lanes were also closed from 18th to 48th Street, while southbound traffic between 42nd Street and 18th Street was reduced to one lane. Eventually inspections revealed that the highway south of 46th Street was not structurally sound, and had to be closed to vehicular traffic. The ramps to/from 46th Street were configured as the temporary southern terminal for northbound traffic on the highway, and the ramps to/from 57th Street were configured as the temporary southern terminal for southbound traffic. The segment north of 57th Street carried traffic over the Penn Central Rail yards, and could not be closed as there were no surface streets on which to reroute traffic. This section of Miller Highway remained in use into the 1980s, and has been since rebuilt.
Rehabilitation proposals
After the cleanup of the collapsed section at Gansevoort Street, the highway remained standing but closed to traffic while its fate was decided.
The City performed a preliminary survey of the highway after the collapse, and confirmed extreme structural deterioration of connections between the longitudinal girders and transverse floor beams. The City had not inspected this structure since its opening, and hired Hardesty and Hanover, Consulting Engineers, to perform a full inspection of the roadway in 1974. A four-volume report was delivered to the City, stating that:
Public officials anticipated its early demise as far back as the mid-1950s.
The use of salts to melt ice and snow, combined with heavy traffic and poor drainage, corroded and eroded the deck, of which portions had fallen down into West Street before the major December 1973 collapse.
The structure south of 46th Street should be closed to vehicular traffic until a decision is made to demolish or repair / rehabilitate the structure.
Restoration of the structure was feasible, but cost-prohibitive. The Chief Engineer of the New York Highway Department estimated a $58 million cost to partially rehabilitate the structure. Hardesty and Hanover estimated it would cost $66 million (1976 dollars) for a new road deck, median, lighting, painting, and steel repairs. A New York City Highway Department representative estimated that a complete rehabilitation, including modernization, was estimated to cost $88 million. The last option was Westway.
The City chose not to pursue rehabilitation of the existing structure because of its level of deterioration. Officials considered five options, including building a six-lane interstate highway, as well as constructing a surface highway that would cost only 20 to 25 percent as much. In March 1975, officials announced an agreement to build an interstate highway between the Battery Tunnel and the Lincoln Tunnel, taking advantage of funding and financing from the Federal Highway Trust Fund. Although ninety percent of the interstate highway's cost would have been eligible for federal funding, there was still disagreement over the proposal.
Demolition
The City elected to leave the structure standing, as there was no money available to demolish the structure. Portions were demolished when they became a threat to people or property at ground level or non-city money became available. Federal Westway money was used for the demolition of the elevated structure from 42nd Street south to the Battery and to pave surface streets as a temporary roadway while the battle over Westway continued. The portion of the highway adjacent to the collapse (Jane Street north to 26th Street) came down first, in 1977, and the portion between 26th and 42nd Streets was demolished between November 1981 and the summer of 1982. The highway from Jane Street south to Spring Street was torn down between the spring and fall of 1981, and the highway from Spring Street south to the Battery was torn down between the summer of 1981 and the spring of 1982.
The segment from 43rd to 59th Streets was left standing, since it was thought that it could be refurbished and integrated into an extension of Westway. The remaining highway would be funded separately, as interstate funds could not be used to connect an interstate highway to a limited-use facility (in this case, the Henry Hudson Parkway). Ramp and lane improvements were made in 1981, permanently closing the highway south of 59th Street. Previously, northbound traffic could enter the highway at 43rd Street and southbound traffic was directed off the highway at 59th Street. The city demolished the 43rd-59th Street portion by October 1989.
Rehabilitation of the elevated structure between 59th Street and 72nd Street was completed in 1995. The only remaining section of the Miller Highway, with lampposts, is an abandoned southbound exit-ramp stub just north of 72nd Street.
Exit list
In popular culture
The West Side Elevated (Miller) Highway makes appearances in the following films and television shows:
Saturday Night Live. The closing scene of "La Dolce Gilda" (1978) in the segment Schiller's Reel was filmed on the closed uptown lanes of the Miller Highway at 23rd Street. The Starrett–Lehigh Building is clearly visible.
The Ultimate Warrior. The closed highway (and the asymmetrical ramps south of 23rd Street), along with portions uptown near the Passenger Ship Terminal, are used during the opening and closing credits to show a dystopian New York of the future.
Wolfen
Taxi Driver The highway can be seen, with traffic flowing on it, in an early scene.
The Hustler. Arthur's Pool Hall was located on Twelfth Avenue, adjacent to the highway.
West Side Story. During the film's opening fly-over scenes, after the title card, the highway is visible next to the .
Maude. The first travel shot (when "Starring BEATRICE ARTHUR" appears on-screen) during the opening credits sequence was filmed on the highway.
The American Friend (1979). After the hit, the scene switches from the Paris Métro to the West Side Highway (about 1hr 4 minutes into film).
Eyes of Laura Mars (1978). Some scenes were filmed next to the West Side Highway opposite the 1970s 'Ramrod' gay bar, in the area in front of and inside the old Pier 45.
References
External links
History and photos of the former Highway
1929 establishments in New York City
1973 disestablishments in New York (state)
Bridge disasters in the United States
Buildings and structures completed in the 20th century
Buildings and structures demolished in the 20th century
Demolished highways in the United States
Expressways in New York City
Historic American Engineering Record in New York City
Steel bridges in the United States
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International%20Committee%20of%20the%20Red%20Cross
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International Committee of the Red Cross
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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; ) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signatories) to the Geneva Convention of 1949 and its Additional Protocols of 1977 (Protocol I, Protocol II) and 2005 have given the ICRC a mandate to protect victims of international and internal armed conflicts. Such victims include war wounded persons, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants.
The ICRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, along with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and 191 National Societies. It is the oldest and most honoured organization within the movement and one of the most widely recognized organizations in the world, having won three Nobel Peace Prizes (in 1917, 1944, and 1963).
History
Solferino, Henry Dunant and the foundation of the ICRC
Up until the middle of the 19th century, there were no organized and well-established army nursing systems for casualties and no safe and protected institutions to accommodate and treat those who were wounded on the battlefield. In June 1859, the Swiss businessman Henry Dunant travelled to Italy to meet French emperor Napoléon III with the intention of discussing difficulties in conducting business in Algeria, at that time occupied by France. When he arrived in the small Italian town of Solferino on the evening of 24 June, he witnessed the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino, an engagement in the Second Italian War of Independence. In a single day, about 40,000 soldiers on both sides died or were left wounded on the field. Henry Dunant was shocked by the terrible aftermath of the battle, the suffering of the wounded soldiers, and the near-total lack of medical attendance and basic care. He completely abandoned the original intent of his trip and for several days he devoted himself to helping with the treatment and care for the wounded. He succeeded in organizing an overwhelming level of relief assistance by motivating the local population to aid without discrimination. Back in his home in Geneva, he decided to write a book titled A Memory of Solferino which he published with his own money in 1862. He sent copies of the book to leading political and military figures throughout Europe. In addition to penning a vivid description of his experiences in Solferino in 1859, he explicitly advocated the formation of national voluntary relief organizations to help nurse wounded soldiers in the case of war. In addition, he called for the development of international treaties to guarantee the neutrality and protection of those wounded on the battlefield as well as medics and field hospitals.
On 9 February 1863, the Geneva Society for Public Welfare held a meeting where it was decided to give serious consideration to the suggestions made in Dunant's book and appointed five of its members to form a Sub-committee charged with the preparation of a Memorandum on these matters for submission to the Welfare Congress to be held in Berlin in September 1863. The members of this Sub-committee, aside from Dunant himself, were Gustave Moynier, lawyer and chairman of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare; physician Louis Appia, who had significant experience working as a field surgeon; Appia's friend and colleague Théodore Maunoir, from the Geneva Hygiene and Health Commission; and Guillaume-Henri Dufour, a Swiss Army general of great renown.
Eight days later, on 17 February 1863, the five men held the first meeting of the Sub-committee and decided the Sub-committee should declare itself constituted a "Permanent International Committee", which would thus continue to exist as an "International Committee for Relief of Wounded in the event of War" after its mandate from the Geneva Society for Public Welfare had expired.
Among other activities, the Committee organized an international conference in Geneva in October (26–29) 1863 to develop possible measures to improve medical services on the battlefield. The conference was attended by 36 individuals: eighteen official delegates from national governments, six delegates from other non-governmental organizations, seven non-official foreign delegates, and the five members of the committee. The states and kingdoms represented by official delegates were Grand Duchy of Baden, Kingdom of Bavaria, Second French Empire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Kingdom of Hanover, Grand Duchy of Hesse, Kingdom of Italy, Kingdom of the Netherlands, Austrian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, Russian Empire, Kingdom of Saxony, United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, and Spanish Empire. Among the proposals written in the final resolutions of the conference, adopted on 29 October 1863, were:
The foundation of national relief societies for wounded soldiers;
Neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers;
The utilization of volunteer forces for relief assistance on the battlefield;
The organization of additional conferences to enact these concepts in legally binding international treaties; and
The introduction of a common distinctive protection symbol for medical personnel in the field, namely a white armlet bearing a red cross, honouring the history of neutrality of Switzerland and of its own Swiss organizers by reversing the Swiss flag's colours.
Only one year later, the Swiss government invited the governments of all European countries, as well as the United States, Brazil, and Mexico, to attend an official diplomatic conference. Sixteen countries sent a total of twenty-six delegates to Geneva. On 22 August 1864, the conference adopted the first Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field". Representatives of 12 states and kingdoms signed the convention:
The convention contained ten articles, establishing for the first time legally binding rules guaranteeing neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers, field medical personnel, and specific humanitarian institutions in an armed conflict. Furthermore, the convention defined two specific requirements for recognition of a national relief society by the International Committee:
The national society must be recognized by its own national government as a relief society according to the convention, and
The national government of the respective country must be a state party to the Geneva Convention.
Directly following the establishment of the Geneva Convention, the first national societies were founded in Belgium, Denmark, France, Oldenburg, Prussia, Spain, and Württemberg. Also in 1864, Louis Appia and Charles van de Velde, a captain of the Dutch Army, became the first independent and neutral delegates to work under the symbol of the Red Cross in an armed conflict. Three years later in 1867, the first International Conference of National Aid Societies for the Nursing of the War Wounded was convened.
Also in 1867, Henry Dunant was forced to declare bankruptcy due to business failures in Algeria, partly because he had neglected his business interests during his tireless activities for the International Committee. The controversy surrounding Dunant's business dealings and the resulting negative public opinion, combined with an ongoing conflict with Gustave Moynier, led to Dunant's expulsion from his position as a member and secretary. He was charged with fraudulent bankruptcy and a warrant for his arrest was issued. Thus, he was forced to leave Geneva and never returned to his home city.
In the following years, national societies were founded in nearly every country in Europe. The project resonated well with patriotic sentiments that were on the rise in the late-nineteenth-century, and national societies were often encouraged as signifiers of national moral superiority. In 1876, the committee adopted the name "International Committee of the Red Cross" (ICRC), which is still its official designation today. Five years later, the American Red Cross was founded through the efforts of Clara Barton. More and more countries signed the Geneva Convention and began to respect it in practice during armed conflicts. In a rather short period of time, the Red Cross gained huge momentum as an internationally respected movement, and the national societies became increasingly popular as a venue for volunteer work.
When the first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1901, the Norwegian Nobel Committee opted to give it jointly to Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy, a leading international pacifist. More significant than the honour of the prize itself, the official congratulation from the International Committee of the Red Cross marked the overdue rehabilitation of Henry Dunant and represented a tribute to his key role in the formation of the Red Cross. Dunant died nine years later in the small Swiss health resort of Heiden. Only two months earlier his long-standing adversary Gustave Moynier had also died, leaving a mark in the history of the committee as its longest-serving President ever.
In 1906, the 1864 Geneva Convention was revised for the first time. One year later, the Hague Convention X, adopted at the Second International Peace Conference in The Hague, extended the scope of the Geneva Convention to naval warfare. Shortly before the beginning of the First World War in 1914, 50 years after the foundation of the ICRC and the adoption of the first Geneva Convention, there were already 45 national relief societies throughout the world. The movement had extended itself beyond Europe and North America to Central and South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Uruguay, Venezuela), Asia (the Republic of China, Japan, Korea, Siam), and Africa (South Africa).
World War I
With the outbreak of World War I, the ICRC found itself confronted with enormous challenges which it could only handle by working closely with the national Red Cross societies. Red Cross nurses from around the world, including the United States and Japan, came to support the medical services of the armed forces of the European countries involved in the war. On 15 October 1914, immediately after the start of the war, the ICRC set up its International Prisoners-of-War (POW) Agency, which had about 1,200 mostly volunteer staff members by the end of 1914. By the end of the war, the Agency had transferred about 20 million letters and messages, 1.9 million parcels, and about 18 million Swiss francs in monetary donations to POWs of all affected countries. Furthermore, due to the intervention of the Agency, about 200,000 prisoners were exchanged between the warring parties, released from captivity and returned to their home country. The organizational card index of the Agency accumulated about 7 million records from 1914 to 1923, each card representing an individual prisoner or missing person. The card index led to the identification of about 2 million POWs and the ability to contact their families, as part of the Restoring Family Links effort of the organization. The complete index is on loan today from the ICRC to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva. The right to access the index is still strictly restricted to the ICRC.
During the entire war, the ICRC monitored warring parties' compliance with the Geneva Conventions of the 1907 revision and forwarded complaints about violations to the respective country. When chemical weapons were used in this war for the first time in history, the ICRC vigorously protested against this new type of warfare. Even without having a mandate from the Geneva Conventions, the ICRC tried to ameliorate the suffering of civil populations. In territories that were officially designated as "occupied territories," the ICRC could assist the civilian population on the basis of the Hague Convention's "Laws and Customs of War on Land" of 1907. This convention was also the legal basis for the ICRC's work for prisoners of war. In addition to the work of the International Prisoner-of-War Agency as described above this included inspection visits to POW camps. A total of 524 camps throughout Europe were visited by 41 delegates from the ICRC until the end of the war.
Between 1916 and 1918, the ICRC published a number of postcards with scenes from the POW camps. The pictures showed the prisoners in day-to-day activities such as the distribution of letters from home. The intention of the ICRC was to provide the families of the prisoners with some hope and solace and to alleviate their uncertainties about the fate of their loved ones. After the end of the war, the ICRC organized the return of about 420,000 prisoners to their home countries. In 1920, the task of repatriation was handed over to the newly founded League of Nations, which appointed the Norwegian diplomat and scientist Fridtjof Nansen as its "High Commissioner for Repatriation of the War Prisoners". His legal mandate was later extended to support and care for war refugees and displaced persons when his office became that of the League of Nations "High Commissioner for Refugees". Nansen, who invented the Nansen passport for stateless refugees and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922, appointed two delegates from the ICRC as his deputies.
A year before the end of the war, the ICRC received the 1917 Nobel Peace Prize for its outstanding wartime work. It was the only Nobel Peace Prize awarded in the period from 1914 to 1918. In 1923, the Committee adopted a change in its policy regarding the selection of new members. Until then, only citizens from the city of Geneva could serve in the committee. This limitation was expanded to include Swiss citizens. As a direct consequence of World War I, an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention was adopted in 1925 which outlawed the use of suffocating or poisonous gases and biological agents as weapons. Four years later, the original Convention was revised and the second Geneva Convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" was established. The events of World War I and the respective activities of the ICRC significantly increased the reputation and authority of the Committee among the international community and led to an extension of its competencies.
As early as in 1934, a draft proposal for an additional convention for the protection of the civil population during an armed conflict was adopted by the International Red Cross Conference. Unfortunately, most governments had little interest in implementing this convention, and it was thus prevented from entering into force before the beginning of World War II.
Chaco War
In the Interwar period, Bolivia and Paraguay were disputing possession of the Gran Chaco - a desert region between the two countries. The dispute escalated into a full-scale conflict in 1932. During the war the ICRC visited 18,000 Bolivian prisoners of war and 2,500 Paraguayan detainees. With the help of the ICRC both countries made improvements to the conditions of the detainees.
World War II
The most reliable primary source on the role of the Red Cross during World War II are the three volumes of the "Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its activities during the second world war (September 1, 1939 – June 30, 1947)" written by the International Committee of the Red Cross itself. The report can be read online.
The legal basis of the work of the ICRC during World War II was the Geneva Conventions (1929) revision, as well as the Convention relating to the International Status of Refugees, of 28 October 1933. The activities of the committee were similar to those during World War I: visiting and monitoring POW camps, organizing relief assistance for civilian populations, and administering the exchange of messages regarding prisoners and missing persons. By the end of the war, 179 delegates had conducted 12,750 visits to POW camps in 41 countries. The Central Information Agency on Prisoners-of-War (Zentralauskunftsstelle für Kriegsgefangene) had a staff of 3,000, the card index tracking prisoners contained 45 million cards, and 120 million messages were exchanged by the Agency. Moreover, two other main parties to the conflict, the Soviet Union and Japan, were not party to the 1929 Geneva Conventions and were not legally required to follow the rules of the conventions.
During the war, the ICRC failed to obtain an agreement with Nazi Germany about the treatment of detainees in concentration camps, and it eventually abandoned applying pressure to avoid disrupting its work with POWs. The ICRC also failed to develop a response to reliable information about the extermination camps and the mass killing of European Jews. This is still considered the greatest failure of the ICRC in its history. After November 1943, the ICRC achieved permission to send parcels to concentration camp detainees with known names and locations. Because the notices of receipt for these parcels were often signed by other inmates, the ICRC managed to register the identities of about 105,000 detainees in the concentration camps and delivered about 1.1 million parcels, primarily to the camps Dachau, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen.
Swiss historian Jean-Claude Favez, who conducted an 8-year review of the Red Cross records, says that even though the Red Cross knew by November 1942 about the Nazi's annihilation plans for the Jews – and even discussed it with U.S. officials – the group did nothing to inform the public, maintaining silence even in the face of pleas by Jewish groups.
Because the Red Cross was based in Geneva and largely funded by the Swiss government, it was very sensitive to Swiss wartime attitudes and policies. In October 1942, the Swiss government and the Red Cross' board of members vetoed a proposal by several Red Cross board members to condemn the persecution of civilians by the Nazis. For the rest of the war, the Red Cross took its cues from Switzerland in avoiding acts of opposition or confrontation with the Nazis.
On 12 March 1945, ICRC President Jacob Burckhardt received a message from SS General Ernst Kaltenbrunner accepting the ICRC's demand to allow delegates to visit the concentration camps. This agreement was bound by the condition that these delegates would have to stay in the camps until the end of the war. Ten delegates, among them Louis Haefliger (Mauthausen Camp), Paul Dunant (Theresienstadt Camp) and Victor Maurer (Dachau Camp), accepted the assignment and visited the camps.
In 1944, the ICRC received its second Nobel Peace Prize. As in World War I, it received the only Peace Prize awarded during the main period of war, 1939 to 1945. At the end of the war, the ICRC worked with national Red Cross societies to organize relief assistance to those countries most severely affected. In 1948, the Committee published a report reviewing its war-era activities from 1 September 1939 to 30 June 1947. Since January 1996, the ICRC archive for this period has been open to academic and public research.
Rest of the 20th century
In December 1948 the ICRC was invited, along with the IFRC and AFSC, by the United Nations to take part in a $32 million emergency relief programme working with Palestinian refugees. The ICRC was given responsibility for the areas that are now the West Bank and Israel.
On 12 August 1949, further revisions to the existing two Geneva Conventions were adopted. An additional convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea", now called the second Geneva Convention, was brought under the Geneva Convention umbrella as a successor to the 1907 Hague Convention X. The 1929 Geneva convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" may have been the second Geneva Convention from a historical point of view (because it was actually formulated in Geneva), but after 1949 it came to be called the third Convention because it came later chronologically than the Hague Convention. Reacting to the experience of World War II, the Fourth Geneva Convention, a new Convention "relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War," was established. Also, the additional protocols of 8 June 1977 were intended to make the conventions apply to internal conflicts such as civil wars. Today, the four conventions and their added protocols contain more than 600 articles, a remarkable expansion when compared to the mere 10 articles in the first 1864 convention.
In celebration of its centennial in 1963, the ICRC, together with the League of Red Cross Societies, received its third Nobel Peace Prize. Since 1993, non-Swiss individuals have been allowed to serve as Committee delegates abroad, a task which was previously restricted to Swiss citizens. Indeed, since then, the share of staff without Swiss citizenship has increased to about 35%.
On 16 October 1990, the UN General Assembly decided to grant the ICRC observer status for its assembly sessions and sub-committee meetings, the first observer status given to a private organization. The resolution was jointly proposed by 138 member states and introduced by the Italian ambassador, Vieri Traxler, in memory of the organization's origins in the Battle of Solferino. An agreement with the Swiss government signed on 19 March 1993, affirmed the already long-standing policy of full independence of the committee from any possible interference by Switzerland. The agreement protects the full sanctity of all ICRC property in Switzerland including its headquarters and archive, grants members and staff legal immunity, exempts the ICRC from all taxes and fees, guarantees the protected and duty-free transfer of goods, services, and money, provides the ICRC with secure communication privileges at the same level as foreign embassies, and simplifies Committee travel in and out of Switzerland.
The ICRC continued its activities throughout the 1990s. It broke its customary media silence when it denounced the Rwandan genocide in 1994. It struggled to prevent the crimes that happened in and around Srebrenica in 1995 but admitted, "We must acknowledge that despite our efforts to help thousands of civilians forcibly expelled from the town and despite the dedication of our colleagues on the spot, the ICRC's impact on the unfolding of the tragedy was extremely limited." It went public once again in 2007 to decry "major human rights abuses" by Burma's military government including forced labour, starvation, and murder of men, women, and children.
The Holocaust memorial
By taking part in the 1995 ceremony to commemorate the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, the President of the ICRC, Cornelio Sommaruga, sought to show that the organization was fully aware of the gravity of The Holocaust and the need to keep the memory of it alive, so as to prevent any repetition of it. He paid tribute to all those who had suffered or lost their lives during the war and publicly regretted the past mistakes and shortcomings of the Red Cross with regard to the victims of the concentration camps.
In 2002, an ICRC official outlined some of the lessons the organization has learned from the failure:
from a legal point of view, the work that led to the adoption of the Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war;
from an ethical point of view, the adoption of the declaration of the Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, building on the distinguished work of Max Huber and Jean Pictet, to prevent any more abuses such as those that occurred within the movement after Hitler rose to power in 1933;
on a political level, the ICRC's relationship with Switzerland was redesigned to ensure its independence;
with a view to keeping memories alive, the ICRC accepted, in 1955, to take over the direction of the International Tracing Service where records from concentration camps are maintained;
finally, to establish the historical facts of the case, the ICRC invited Jean-Claude Favez to carry out an independent investigation of its activities on behalf of the victims of Nazi persecution, and gave him unfettered access to the ICRC archives relating to this period; out of concern for transparency, the ICRC also decided to give all other historians access to its archives dating back more than 50 years; having gone over the conclusions of Favez's work, the ICRC acknowledged its past failings and expressed its regrets in this regard.
In an official statement made on 27 January 2005, the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the ICRC stated:
Auschwitz also represents the greatest failure in the history of the ICRC, aggravated by its lack of decisiveness in taking steps to aid the victims of Nazi persecution. This failure will remain part of the ICRC's memory, as will the courageous acts of individual ICRC delegates at the time.
Rules for cyberwarfare
On 4 October 2023 the committee issued a set of rules for civilian hackers to abide by.
Staff fatalities
At the end of the Cold War, the ICRC's work actually became more dangerous. In the 1990s, more delegates lost their lives than at any point in its history, especially when working in local and internal armed conflicts. These incidents often demonstrated a lack of respect for the rules of the Geneva Conventions and their protection symbols. Among the slain delegates were:
Richard Heider. He was killed on 9 June 1942 in Greece.
Matthaeus Vischer. He was killed on 20 December 1943 in Indonesia.
Johann Jovanovits. He was killed on 4 February 1946 in Germany.
Otto Anderegg. He was killed on 16 May 1946 in Indonesia.
Charles Huber. He was killed on 19 November 1946 in Germany.
Georges Olivet. He was killed on 13 December 1961 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Robert Carlsson. He was killed on 30 July 1968 in Nigeria.
Dragan Hercog. He was killed on 30 July 1968 in Nigeria.
Jacob Sturzenegger. He was killed on 12 March 1975 in Viet Nam.
Louis Gaulis. He was killed on 29 March 1978 in Lebanon.
Alain Bieri, André Tieche, Charles Chatora. They were killed on 18 March 1978 in Zimbabwe.
Christine Rieben. She was killed on 17 January 1980 in Uganda.
Jürg Baumann. He was killed on 21 September 1980 in Sudan.
André Redard. He was killed on 12 May 1982 in Angola.
Alain Jossi. He was killed on 28 October 1984 in Ethiopia.
Michel Zufferey. He was killed on 5 January 1985 in Sudan.
Marc Blaser. He was killed on 16 December 1985 in Angola.
Catherine Chappuis, Nuno Ferreira. They were killed on 14 October 1987 in Angola.
Pernette Zehnder. She was killed on 18 October 1987 in Lebanon.
Juanito Patong, Walter Berweger. They were killed on 19 January 1990 in the Philippines.
Mohammad Zamany. He was killed on 16 August 1990 in Afghanistan.
Yar Faqir. He was killed on 1 September 1990 in Afghanistan.
Peter Altwegg. He was killed on 6 October 1990 in Somalia.
Rais Khan, Mostu Khan. They were killed on 9 July 1991 in Afghanistan.
Anthony Arulanthu. He was killed on 24 October 1991 in Sri Lanka.
Wim Van-Boxelaere. He was killed on 14 December 1991 in Somalia.
Jón Karlsson. He was killed on 22 April 1992 in Afghanistan.
Frédéric Maurice. He died on 19 May 1992 at the age of 39, one day after a Red Cross transport he was escorting was attacked in the former Yugoslavian city of Sarajevo.
Solomon Jarboe. He was killed on 26 August 1992 in Liberia.
Kurt Lustenberger. He was killed on 14 January 1993 in Somalia.
Sarah Leomy, Suzanne Buser. They were killed on 27 August 1993 in Sierra Leone.
Michel Kuhn. He was killed on 28 August 1993 in Tajikistan.
Antoine Munderere. He was killed on 13 October 1993 in Rwanda.
Angela Gago-Gallego, Julia Narrea. They were killed on 25 February 1994 in Peru.
Kiew Sambath. He was killed on 11 April 1994 in Cambodia.
Rodrigues Cambiote. He was killed on 13 August 1994 in Angola.
Fernanda Calado (Spain), Ingeborg Foss (Norway), Nancy Malloy (Canada), Gunnhild Myklebust (Norway), Sheryl Thayer (New Zealand), and Hans Elkerbout (Netherlands). They were shot at point-blank range while sleeping in the early hours of 17 December 1996 in the ICRC field hospital in the Chechen city of Nowije Atagi near Grozny. Their murderers have never been caught and there was no apparent motive for the killings.
Rita Fox (Switzerland), Véronique Saro (Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire), Julio Delgado (Colombia), Unen Ufoirworth (DR Congo), Aduwe Boboli (DR Congo), and Jean Molokabonge (DR Congo). On 26 April 2001, they were en route with two cars on a relief mission in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo when they came under fatal fire from unknown attackers.
Ricardo Munguia (El Salvador). He was working as a water engineer in Afghanistan and travelling from Kandahar to Tirin Kot with local colleagues on 27 March 2003 when their car was stopped by unknown armed men. He was killed execution-style at point-blank range while his colleagues were allowed to escape. He was 39 years old. The killing prompted the ICRC to temporarily suspend operations across Afghanistan. Thereby the assumption that ICRC's reputation for neutrality and effective work in Afghanistan over the past thirty years would protect its delegates was shattered.
Vatche Arslanian (Canada). Since 2001, he worked as a logistics coordinator for the ICRC mission in Iraq. He died when he was travelling through Baghdad together with members of the Iraqi Red Crescent. Their car accidentally came into the crossfire of fighting in the city.
Nadisha Yasassri Ranmuthu (Sri Lanka). He was killed by unknown attackers on 22 July 2003, when his car was fired upon near the city of Hilla in the south of Baghdad.
Emmerich Pregetter (Austria). He was an ICRC Logistics Specialist who was killed by a swarm of bees on 11 August 2008. Emmerich was participating in a field trip along with the ICRC Water and Habitat team on a convoy which was delivering construction material for reconstruction of a rural surgical health clinic in the area of Jebel Marra, West Darfur, Sudan.
Kristofer Scott. He was killed on 25 January 2011 in Liberia.
Khalil Dale. He was killed on 29 April 2012 in Pakistan.
Hussein Saleh. He was killed on 20 June 2012 in Yemen.
Abdul Bashir-Khan. He was killed on 29 May 2013 in Afghanistan.
Dieudonné Ruhamanyi, Pascal Barholere. They were killed on 20 November 2013 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Siradjou Mamadou. He was killed on 8 March 2014 in the Central African Republic.
Michael Greub. He was killed on 4 June 2014 in Libya.
Laurent Du Pasquier (Switzerland). He was an Administration and Finance Manager in the city of Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine. He was killed by a shell which landed close to the ICRC's office on 2 October 2014. He was 38 years old.
Hamadoun Daou. He was killed on 30 March 2015 in Mali.
Mohammed Al-Hakami, Abdulkarem Ghazi. They were killed on 2 September 2015 in Yemen.
Alexis Marboua. He was killed on 12 October 2016 in the Central African Republic.
Emmanuel Lukudu, Ghulam Maqsood, Ghulam Rasoul, Ghulam Mortaza, Ahmad Khalid, Najibullah Sahebzada, Sayed Shah-Agha. They were killed on 8 February 2017 in Afghanistan.
Lorena Enebral-Perez. She was a physiotherapy specialist and requested a mission in Afghanistan where she could focus on children with disabilities. On 11 September 2017, while working at the ICRC's physical rehabilitation centre in Mazar-i-Sharif, Lorena was shot by a patient in a wheelchair. She was 38 years old.
Atteyipe Youssouf. He was killed on 4 November 2017 in the Central African Republic.
Hanna Lahoud. He was killed on 21 April 2018 in Yemen.
Saifura Hussaini. She was killed on 16 September 2019 in Nigeria.
Hauwa Liman. She was killed on 16 October 2019 in Nigeria.
Saidi Kayiranga, Ahmed Wazir, Hamid Al-Qadami, John Kaka. They were killed on 20 March 2020 in South Sudan.
Diomede Nzobambona. He was killed on 23 August 2021 in Cameroon.
In 2011, ICRC launched the Health Care In Danger campaign to highlight risks to humanitarian healthcare workers.
Characteristics
The original motto of the International Committee of the Red Cross was Inter Arma Caritas ("Amidst War, Charity"). It has preserved this motto while other Red Cross organizations have adopted others. Due to Geneva's location in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, the ICRC is also known under its initial French name Comité international de la Croix-Rouge (CICR). However, the ICRC has three official languages (English, French and Spanish). The official symbol of the ICRC is the Red Cross on white background (the inverse of the Swiss flag) with the words "COMITE INTERNATIONAL GENEVE" circling the cross.
Under the Geneva Convention, the red cross, red crescent and red crystal emblems provide protection for military medical services and relief workers in armed conflicts and is to be placed on humanitarian and medical vehicles and buildings. The original emblem that has a red cross on a white background is the exact reverse of the flag of neutral Switzerland. It was later supplemented by two others which are the Red Crescent, and the Red Crystal. The Red Crescent was adopted by the Ottoman Empire during the Russo-Turkish war and the Red Crystal by the governments in 2005, as an additional emblem devoid of any national, political or religious connotation.
Mission
The official mission statement says that: "The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral, and independent organization whose exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of war and internal violence and to provide them with assistance." It also conducts and coordinates international relief and works to promote and strengthen international humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles. The core tasks of the committee, which are derived from the Geneva Conventions and its own statutes are:
to monitor compliance of warring parties with the Geneva Conventions
to organize nursing and care for those who are wounded on the battlefield
to supervise the treatment of prisoners of war and make confidential interventions with detaining authorities
to help with the search for missing persons in an armed conflict (tracing service)
to organize protection and care for civil populations
to act as a neutral intermediary between warring parties
The ICRC drew up seven fundamental principles in 1965 that were adopted by the entire Red Cross Movement. They are humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, volunteerism, unity, and universality.
Legal status
The ICRC is the only institution explicitly named in international humanitarian law as a controlling authority. The legal mandate of the ICRC stems from the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, as well as its own Statutes. The ICRC also undertakes tasks that are not specifically mandated by law, such as visiting political prisoners outside of conflict and providing relief in natural disasters.
The ICRC is a private Swiss association that has enjoyed various degrees of special privileges and legal immunities within the territory of Switzerland for many years. On 19 March 1993, a legal foundation for this special treatment was created by a formal agreement between the Swiss government and the ICRC. This agreement protects the full sanctity of all ICRC property in Switzerland including its headquarters and archive, grants members and staff legal immunity, exempts the ICRC from all taxes and fees, guarantees protected and duty-free transfer of goods, services, and money, provides the ICRC with secure communication privileges at the same level as foreign embassies, and simplifies Committee travel in and out of Switzerland. On the other hand, Switzerland does not recognize ICRC-issued passports.
Contrary to popular belief, the ICRC is not a sovereign entity like the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The ICRC limits its membership to Swiss nationals only, and also it does not have a policy of open and unrestricted membership for individuals as its new members are selected by the Committee itself (a process called cooptation). However, since the early 1990s, the ICRC employs persons from all over the world to serve in its field mission and at Headquarters. In 2007, almost half of ICRC staff was non-Swiss. The ICRC has special privileges and legal immunities in many countries, based on national law in these countries, based on agreements between the ICRC and the respective governments, or, in some cases, based on international jurisprudence (such as the right of ICRC delegates not to bear witness in front of international tribunals).
Legal basis
The ICRC's operations are generally based on international humanitarian law, primarily comprising the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, their two Additional Protocols of 1977 and Additional Protocol III of 2005, the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and the resolutions of the International Conferences of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.
International humanitarian law is founded upon the Geneva conventions, the first of which was signed in 1864 by 16 countries. The First Geneva Convention of 1949 covers the protection for the wounded and sick of armed conflict on land. The Second Geneva Convention asks for the protection and care for the wounded, sick and shipwrecked of armed conflict at sea. The Third Geneva Convention concerns the treatment of prisoners of war. The Fourth Geneva Convention concerns the protection of civilians in time of war. In addition, there are many more customary international laws that come into effect when necessary.
Funding and financial matters
The 2023 budget of the ICRC amounts to 2.5 billion Swiss francs. Most of that money comes from states, including Switzerland in its capacity as the depositary state of the Geneva Conventions, from national Red Cross societies, the signatory states of the Geneva Conventions, and from international organizations like the European Union. All payments to the ICRC are voluntary and are received as donations based on two types of appeals issued by the committee: an annual Headquarters Appeal to cover its internal costs and Emergency Appeals for its individual missions. In 2023, Ukraine is the ICRC's biggest humanitarian operation (at 316.5 million Swiss francs), followed by Afghanistan (218 million francs) and Syria (171.7 million francs).
In 2021, the top donors (>10 million Swiss Francs) to the ICRC were: the United States (544) followed by Germany (247), Switzerland (156), the United Kingdom (153), the European Commission (129), Sweden (93), Norway (87), Canada (66), Japan (51), the Netherlands (46), France (45), Australia (35), Denmark (26), Belgium (25), Ireland (18), Austria (17), Luxembourg (14), Finland (13), Spain (12), Italy (12), and New Zealand (10). The ICRC budget is becoming increasingly fragile due to its over-reliance on European and North American governments, little private contributions and very little funding from BRICS countries. By way of example, in 2021, the United States provided the ICRC over 544 million Swiss Francs, while the Russian Federation provided 1 million, China 710,000, South Africa 225,106 and Brasil made no contribution.
In March 2023, the ICRC had reported a serious decline in contributions and announced cuts of CHF430 million for 2023 and 2024 with a resulting lay-off of 1,800 jobs at the headquarters and in delegations worldwide. The overall budget has almost doubled in ten years from CHF1.18 billion in 2012. But fewer donations in 2022 had put serious financial pressures on the world’s leading international NGO that also supports the fair treatment of POWs during global conflicts. The recent overrepresentation of the Ukrainian conflict in the international press had reduced the influx of donations to the international Red Cross. In May 2023, with a generous support by the Canton of Geneva, the ICRC is receiving 40 million CHF in additional donations to support its crucial and life-saving activities on all continents.
Responsibilities within the movement
The ICRC is responsible for legally recognizing a relief society as an official national Red Cross or Red Crescent society and thus accepting it into the movement. The exact rules for recognition are defined in the statutes of the movement. After recognition by the ICRC, a national society is admitted as a member to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (the Federation, or IFRC). The ICRC and the Federation cooperate with the individual national societies in their international missions, especially with human, material, and financial resources and organizing on-site logistics. According to the 1997 Seville Agreement, the ICRC is the lead Red Cross agency in conflicts while other organizations within the movement take the lead in non-war situations. National societies will be given the lead especially when a conflict is happening within their own country.
Organization
The ICRC is headquartered in the Swiss city of Geneva and has external offices called Delegations (or in rare cases, “missions”) in about eighty countries. Each delegation is under the responsibility of a Head of delegation who is the official representative of the ICRC in the country. Of its 3,000 professional employees, roughly 1,000 work in its Geneva headquarters and 2,000 expatriates work in the field. About half of the field workers serve as delegates managing ICRC operations, while the other half are specialists such as doctors, agronomists, engineers, or interpreters. In the delegations, the international staff are assisted by some 15,000 national employees, bringing the total staff under the authority of the ICRC to roughly 18,000. Delegations also often work closely with the National Red Cross Societies of the countries where they are based, and thus can call on the volunteers of the National Red Cross to assist in some of the ICRC's operations.
The organizational structure of the ICRC is not well understood by outsiders. This is partly because of organizational secrecy, but also because the structure itself has been prone to frequent change. The Assembly and Presidency are two long-standing institutions, but the Assembly Council and Directorate were created only in the latter part of the twentieth century. Decisions are often made in a collective way, so authority and power relationships are not set in stone. Today, the leading organs are the Directorate and the Assembly.
Directorate
The Directorate is the executive body of the ICRC. It attends to the daily management of the ICRC, whereas the Assembly sets policy. The Directorate consists of a Director-General and five directors in the areas of "Operations", "Human Resources", "Financial Resources and Logistics ", "Communication and Information Management", and "International Law and Cooperation within the Movement". The members of the Directorate are appointed by the Assembly to serve for four years. The Director-General has assumed more personal responsibility in recent years, much like a CEO, where he was formerly more of a first among equals at the Directorate.
Assembly
The Assembly (also called the committee) convenes on a regular basis and is responsible for defining aims, guidelines, and strategies and for supervising the financial matters of the committee. The Assembly has a membership of a maximum of twenty-five Swiss citizens. Members must speak the house language of French, but many also speak English and German as well. These Assembly members are co-opted for a period of four years, and there is no limit to the number of terms an individual member can serve. A three-quarters majority vote from all members is required for re-election after the third term, which acts as a motivation for members to remain active and productive.
In the early years, every Committee member was Genevan, Protestant, white, and male. The first woman, the historian and legal scholar Renée-Marguerite Cramer (1887-1963), was co-opted in 1918, but resigned already in 1922 when she moved to Germany. She was succeeded by the nurse and suffragette Pauline Chaponnière-Chaix (1850-1934). The third female member was the music educator Suzanne Ferrière (1886-1970) in 1925, followed by the nurses Lucie Odier (1886-1984) in 1930 and Renée Bordier (1902-2000) in 1938.
In recent decades, several women have attained the Vice Presidency, and the female proportion after the Cold War has been about 15%. The first non-Genevans were admitted in 1923, and one Jew has served in the Assembly.
While the rest of the Red Cross Movement may be multi-national, the Committee believes that its mono-national nature is an asset because the nationality in question is Swiss. Thanks to permanent Swiss neutrality, conflicting parties can be sure that no one from "the enemy" will be setting policy in Geneva. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 showed that even Red Cross actors (in this case National Societies) can be so bound by nationalism that they are unable to sustain neutral humanitarianism.
Assembly Council
Furthermore, the Assembly elects a five-member Assembly Council that constitutes an especially active core of the Assembly. The Council meets at least ten times per year and has the authority to decide on behalf of the full Assembly in some matters. The council is also responsible for organizing the Assembly meetings and for facilitating communication between the Assembly and the Directorate. The Assembly Council normally includes the President, two Vice Presidents and two elected members. While one of the Vice Presidents is elected for a four-year term, the other is appointed permanently, his tenure ending by retirement from the vice presidency or from the committee. Currently Olivier Vodoz and Christine Beerli are the Vice Presidents.
In 2019, Christine Beerli retired and Gilles Carbonnier was appointed vice-president.
The President
The Assembly also selects, for a term of four years, one individual to act as President of the ICRC. The President is both a member of the Assembly and the leader of the ICRC, and has always been included on the Council since its formation. The President automatically becomes a member of both the Council and the Assembly, but does not necessarily come from within the ICRC. There is a strong faction within the Assembly that wants to reach outside the organization to select a President from Swiss government or professional circles (such as banking or medicine). In fact, the four most recent Presidents were all previously officials for the Swiss government. The President's influence and role are not well-defined, and change depending upon the times and each President's personal style.
From 2000 to 2012, the President of the ICRC was Jakob Kellenberger, a reclusive man who rarely made diplomatic appearances, but was quite skilled in personal negotiation and comfortable with the dynamics of the Assembly. Since July 2012, the President has been Peter Maurer, a Swiss citizen who is a former Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He was appointed by the Assembly for a renewable four-year term.
Mirjana Spoljaric Egger took over the office from Peter Maurer on 1 October 2022, becoming the first woman to serve in this position.
The Presidents of the ICRC have been:
1863–1864: Henri Dufour
1864–1910: Gustave Moynier
1910–1928: Gustave Ador
1928–1944: Max Huber
1945–1948: Carl Jacob Burckhardt
1948–1955:
1955–1964: Leopold Boissier
1964–1969: Samuel Gonard
1969–1973: Marcel Naville
1973–1976:
1976–1987: Alexandre Hay
1987–1999: Cornelio Sommaruga
2000–2012: Jakob Kellenberger
2012–2022: Peter Maurer
2022–present: Mirjana Spoljaric Egger
Staff
As the ICRC has grown and become more directly involved in conflicts, it has seen an increase in professional staff rather than volunteers over the years. The ICRC had only twelve employees in 1914 and 1,900 in the Second World War complemented its 1,800 volunteers. The number of paid staff dropped off after both wars, but has increased once again in the last few decades, averaging 500 field staff in the 1980s and over a thousand in the 1990s. Beginning in the 1970s, the ICRC became more systematic in training to develop a more professional staff. The ICRC offers attractive careers for university graduates, especially in Switzerland, but the workload as an ICRC employee is demanding. 15% of the staff leaves each year and 75% of employees stay less than three years. The ICRC staff is multi-national and averaged about 50% non-Swiss citizens in 2004. The ICRC's international staff are assisted in their work by some 15,000 national employees hired in the countries where the delegations are based.
The ICRC worldwide
The ICRC operates in over 80 countries with a total number of 18,000 employed people worldwide. The extensive network of ICRC missions and delegations can help to relieve nations affected by conflict and violence. Over the past few years, the ICRC's largest operations have typically been in Yemen, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Iraq and more recently, Ethiopia.
Relationships within the movement
By virtue of its age and its special position under international humanitarian law, the ICRC is the lead agency in the Red Cross Movement, but it has weathered some power struggles within the movement. The ICRC has come into conflict with the Federation and certain national societies at various times. The American Red Cross threatened to supplant the ICRC with its creation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies as "a real international Red Cross" after the First World War. Elements of the Swedish Red Cross desired to supplant the Swiss authority of the ICRC after WWII. Over time the Swedish sentiments subsided, and the IFRC grew to work more harmoniously with the ICRC after years of organizational discord. Currently, the IFRC's Movement Cooperation division organizes interaction and cooperation with the ICRC.
In 1997, the ICRC and the IFRC signed the Seville Agreement which further defined the responsibilities of both organizations within the movement. According to the agreement, the Federation is the lead agency of the movement in any emergency situation which does not take place as part of an armed conflict.
Acceptance of Magen David Adom
From its inception in 1930 until 2006, the Magen David Adom organization, the Israeli equivalent to the Red Cross, was not accepted as part of the Federation, as it used the Star of David, which the ICRC refused to recognize as an acceptable symbol. This meant that although Arab ambulances would be protected by the ICRC, Israeli ambulances would not. In May 2000, Bernadine Healy, the President of the American Red Cross, wrote: "The international committee's feared proliferation of symbols is a pitiful fig leaf, used for decades as the reason for excluding the Magen David Adom – the Shield (or Star) of David." In protest over the ICRC's perceived anti-Israel discrimination, the ARC withdrew its financial support. In 2005, at a meeting of nations party to the Geneva convention, the ICRC adopted the new Red Crystal. Magen David Adom then centred the Star of David sign inside the newly accepted signage, and in 2006 was accepted as a full member. Yonatan Yagodovsky, director of MDA's fundraising department, said in an article published in October 2011 that "MDA will continue to use its emblem and logo, and no one ever asked us to take it off."
International relationships
The ICRC prefers to engage states directly and relies on low-key and confidential negotiations to lobby for access to prisoners of war and improvement in their treatment. Its findings are not available to the general public but are shared only with the relevant government. This is in contrast to related organizations like Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International who are more willing to expose abuses and apply public pressure to governments. The ICRC reasons that this approach allows it greater access and cooperation from governments in the long run.
When granted only partial access, the ICRC takes what it can get and keeps discreetly lobbying for greater access. In the era of apartheid South Africa, it was granted access to prisoners like Nelson Mandela serving sentences, but not to those under interrogation and awaiting trial. After his release, Mandela publicly praised the Red Cross.
The presence of respectable aid organizations can make weak regimes appear more legitimate, according to Fiona Terry, head of ICRC's operational research centre. Terry contends that "this is particularly true of [the] ICRC, whose mandate, reputation, and discretion imbue its presence with a particularly affirming quality." Recognizing this power, the ICRC can pressure weak governments to change their behaviour by threatening to withdraw. As mentioned above, Nelson Mandela acknowledged that the ICRC compelled better treatment of prisoners and had leverage over his South African captors because "avoiding international condemnation was the authorities' main goal."
Awards
References
Bibliography
Books
Forsythe, David P. and B. Rieffer-Flanagan. The International Committee of the Red Cross- A Neutral Humanitarian Actor (Routledge, 2007)
Forsythe, David P. The Humanitarians. The International Committee of the Red Cross. (2nd ed. Cambridge UP, 2005),
Dunant, Henry. A Memory of Solferino. ICRC, Geneva 1986,
Haug, Hans. Humanity for all: the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva in association with Paul Haupt Publishers, Bern 1993,
Willemin, Georges and Roger Heacock: International Organization and the Evolution of World Society. Volume 2: The International Committee of the Red Cross. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Boston 1984,
Pierre Boissier: History of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Volume I: From Solferino to Tsushima. Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva 1985,
André Durand: History of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Volume II: From Sarajevo to Hiroshima. Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva 1984,
International Committee of the Red Cross: Handbook of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. 13th edition, ICRC, Geneva 1994,
Hutchinson, John F. Champions of Charity: War and the Rise of the Red Cross. Westview Press, Boulder 1997,
Moorehead, Caroline. Dunant's dream: War, Switzerland and the history of the Red Cross. HarperCollins, London 1998, (Hardcover edition); HarperCollins, London 1999, (Paperback edition)
François Bugnion: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the protection of war victims. ICRC & Macmillan (ref. 0503), Geneva 2003,
Angela Bennett: The Geneva Convention: The Hidden Origins of the Red Cross. Sutton Publishing, Gloucestershire 2005,
Dominique-D. Junod : "The Imperiled Red Cross and the Palestine Eretz Yisrael Conflict: The Influence of Institutional Concerns on A Humanitarian Operation." 344 pages. Kegan Paul International. @ The Graduate Institute of International Studies Geneva. , 1995.
Dromi, Shai M. Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Making of the Humanitarian NGO Sector (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2020) .
Articles
François Bugnion: The emblem of the Red Cross: a brief history. ICRC (ref. 0316), Geneva 1977
Jean-Philippe Lavoyer, Louis Maresca: The Role of the ICRC in the Development of International Humanitarian Law. In: International Negotiation. 4(3)/1999. Brill Academic Publishers, p. 503–527, ISSN 1382-340X
Neville Wylie: The Sound of Silence: The History of the International Committee of the Red Cross as Past and Present. In: Diplomacy and Statecraft. 13(4)/2002. Routledge/ Taylor & Francis, p. 186–204, ISSN 0959-2296
David P. Forsythe: "The International Committee of the Red Cross and International Humanitarian Law." In: Humanitäres Völkerrecht – Informationsschriften. The Journal of International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict. 2/2003, German Red Cross and Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict, p. 64–77, ISSN 0937-5414
François Bugnion: Towards a comprehensive Solution to the Question of the Emblem. Revised third edition. ICRC (ref. 0778), Geneva 2005
International Committee of the Red Cross: "Discover the ICRC", ICRC, Geneva, 2007, 2nd edition, 53 pp.
International Review of the Red Cross An unrivalled source of international research, analysis and debate on all aspects of humanitarian law, in armed conflict and other situations of collective violence.
External links
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Rules of war (in a nutshell)- vidéo
Legacy Dr. Cornelio Sommaruga, President of the ICRC from 1987 to 1999, donated four hours of high-definition audiovisual life story interviews to Legacy. The ICRC audiovisual library houses copies of these interviews.
Organizations established in 1863
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
United Nations General Assembly observers
Organizations awarded Nobel Peace Prizes
Swiss Nobel laureates
Nobel laureates with multiple Nobel awards
Organisations based in Geneva
Human rights organisations based in Switzerland
1863 establishments in Switzerland
Henry Dunant
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston%20University%20Housing%20System
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Boston University Housing System
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The Boston University housing system is the 2nd-largest of any private university in the United States, with 76% of the undergraduate population living on campus. On-campus housing at BU is an unusually diverse melange, ranging from individual 19th-century brownstone town houses and apartment buildings acquired by the school to large-scale high-rises built in the 60s and 2000s.
Though originally a commuter school, the University now guarantees the option of on-campus housing for four years for all undergraduate students. This is a challenge considering the size of BU's undergraduate population and its urban setting. BU has met this goal every year, often by using area hotels, though since fall 2009, with the completion of its new 960-bed 26-story dorm, the school says it has accommodated all students who wish to live on campus without using hotel space.
Housing versus Residence Life
Boston University operates residences collaboratively through Residence Life and Housing. While the two areas work collaboratively, each department reports to different areas of University leadership. Housing reports to the Vice President of Auxiliary Services and is centered on providing operational and occupancy management. Meanwhile, Residence Life is structured under the Associate Provost and Dean of Students and is centered on providing day-to-day student service, support, and programs based out of local Residence Life offices located near or within each residence.
Housing
Boston University Housing is based at 25 Buick St, and employs a number of full and part-time staff, as well as students who manage the many components that support Housing at Boston University.
Housing is responsible for the areas of Residential Safety, housing assignments, room changes, mail, keys (in coordination with local Residence Life offices), university-provided furnishings, appliances in university-owned residences, and the Terrier Card Office. Boston University Housing also works collaboratively with other departments across campus, such as Facilities Management & Planning, and within Auxiliary Services to coordinate laundry, vending, rentals, summer storage, dining services, vending services, and events & conferences.
Residence life
The Residence Life team delivers a range of programs and services to students, including specialty communities, Residence Hall Associations, the Faculty-in-Residence program, crisis intervention, conflict mediation, enforcement of residential rules and regulations, and information about campus resources.
Residence Life is one of the few departments at the University with an on-call system that allows staff to be available to assist students, parents, and members of the University community 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year.
Live-in Professional Staff
Residence Life employs 27 live-in workers at the "administrator" and "senior staff" level in the following roles:
Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Residence Life
Senior Associate Director of Residence Life
Associate Director of Residence Life for Administration
Associate Director of Residence Life for Student and Staff Development
Assistant Director of Residence Life for Lower Bay State Road
Assistant Director of Residence Life for South Campus
Assistant Director of Residence Life for Upper Bay State Road
Assistant Director of Residence Life for Upper Commonwealth Avenue
Assistant Director of Residence Life for Warren Towers
Assistant Director of Residence Life for West Campus
Residence Hall or Area Directors
Housing selection
Every spring, returning students who have submitted a housing guarantee payment for the ensuing academic year are entered into a lottery to determine their priority in selecting housing. Priority is assigned within classes, with seniors receiving the lowest (best) numbers, and second-semester freshmen the highest. This means the "worst" senior number is always better than the best junior number, et cetera. Entering freshmen and transfer students are allocated student accommodation bostonhttps://www.universityliving.com/united-states/city/boston based on an online housing questionnaire.
Dining services
Boston University requires that all students living in dormitories be enrolled in a year-long meal plan. The plans offer differing ratios of meals and dining points, depending on which is chosen. Meals are used to gain access to one of the university's three residential dining service locations on an all-you-can-eat basis (at West Campus, Warren Towers, and Marciano Commons) and dining points can be used at designated eateries around campus on a cash basis. A Kosher plan exists which can be used at the Kosher dining hall at the Hillel House.
Combined with housing costs, meal plans can cause room and board to be quite expensive. This has created a high demand for on-campus apartment housing, as the University does not require residents with access to a kitchen to purchase a plan (although they may if they so choose). However, the higher price of such housing often offsets any savings. In addition, the main dining halls offer large selections for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and "late night".
Large dormitories
Myles Standish Hall
BU's first large dormitory was a former hotel. The Myles Standish Hotel in Kenmore Square was built in 1925 and was purchased by BU in 1949. Today Myles Standish Hall and the attached Myles Annex (a separate building purchased for housing in 1980 after the closure of Graham Junior College) together house over 730 students.
Myles is configured as a semi-suite residence. The typical suite consists of 2 single rooms and 1 double occupancy room sharing a bathroom. Common areas include group study rooms, music practice rooms, a community kitchen and a games room.
Kilachand Hall
Kilachand Hall, previously named Shelton Hall, was built as a Sheraton Hotels and Resorts-branded hotel in 1923 and bought by BU and converted to dorm space in 1954. Playwright Eugene O'Neill died in suite 401 on the 4th floor of Kilachand Hall. In his honor, the 4th floor was named a specialty housing area called the Writer's Corridor. It is said that this corridor is haunted by the playwright. The building houses 418 residents. The ninth floor consists of a study lounge that provides an impressive view of Cambridge and the Charles River. The Kilachand Hall dining hall was closed after the 2011–2012 year when a larger dining hall called Marciano Commons opened across the street.
Towers
The Towers is one of the three Boston University dormitories traditionally intended for freshmen and sophomores, the others being Warren Towers and West Campus. The building comprises two towers, each nine floors high and linked at ground level by a single story structure housing common facilities. It is located on the eastern end of campus, next to Wheelock College of Education and Human Development and behind the Questrom School of Business. It appeared in the movie 21 as the dormitory which housed MIT student Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess).
Warren Towers
Warren Towers, the largest dorm on campus, about 600 students in each of its three towers. Access to the building is via escalator to the fourth floor, where the building's dining hall and other amenities are located. The floors 5–18 are residential floors. The first three floors and basement house a University parking garage and street-level retail establishments.
Warren Towers is a mostly first-year student residence, though there is also significant retention of sophomores. The majority of rooms are identical double-occupancy floorplans, the exception being single rooms, the occasional quad, and the corner doubles. Corner doubles are almost twice the size of a standard double room and are coveted by those residents selecting housing in Warren.
West Campus
At the western edge of campus surrounding BU's Nickerson Field is West Campus, with three high-rises each housing well over 600 residents. They are named Claflin, Sleeper, and Rich Hall after BU's founders. Residents of West generally prefer it over other locations and cite its "campusy" feel and proximity to the Student Village complex and other athletic facilities. Student athletes are abundant here, for that reason. CGS, CFA, and SHA students also tend to prefer living at West Campus, as it is the closest dormitory style residence to those three schools.
All the buildings provide students with a study room.
Danielsen Hall
Often forgotten, Danielsen Hall actually demarcates the BU campus’ easternmost limit, at its 512 Beacon Street address. Danielsen residents eat at Marciano Commons, or another dining location. However, the dorm does have a kitchen located in the basement. Danielsen, while a bit of a distance from central campus, has the advantage of being closer to the city. Newbury Street, for example is just a few blocks away. The Boston University Shuttle (BUS) picks up in front of Danielsen regularly, making the distance to campus much more tolerable.
Small dormitories, apartments, and suite style
Bay State Road
Once an up-and-coming neighborhood of affluent Boston Brahmins, the majority of Bay State Road is now owned by Boston University for housing and office use. Due to their small size, the brownstones on Bay State are inherently suited for use as specialty housing, and many are used in this fashion.
When used as a dormitory, most of the Bay State Road residences are divided into double and triple rooms with some singles. Floors also consist of less than 10 students. Most houses have floors that share a bathroom, a room for the resident assistant on the ground floor, and laundry facilities in the basement. Some rooms have private bathrooms. While some of the houses are rather well-worn, BU has undertaken a project that each summer renovates selected residences to restore the Bay State Road houses to their 19th-century appearance and ambience.
South Campus
South Campus is a student residential area south of Commonwealth Avenue and separated from the main campus by the Massachusetts Turnpike. Some of the larger buildings in that area have been converted into dormitories, while the rest of the South campus buildings are apartments. All were originally constructed as commercial apartment buildings and later purchased by the University. Aside from the characteristic red plaques at their entrances, South Campus buildings are indistinguishable from the other private residences in the area. Since there are no central dining facilities in the South Campus area, students from these dormitories can dine at Warren Towers or other facilities on the main campus.
10 Buick Street
Boston University's principal apartment-style housing area is officially called 10 Buick Street, a part of the John Hancock Student Village project which includes the adjacent Fitness and Recreation Center and the Agganis Arena. Students most commonly refer to this residence as the "Student Village", or "StuVi" (pronounced stoo-vee) for short. The apartments at 10 Buick Street are open to juniors and seniors only, and house more than 800 students in apartments. Each apartment has either two or four private bedrooms, one or two common bathrooms (one for doubles, two for quads), a common living room, and a common kitchen.
The building has two towers that are connected up to the ninth floor and rise separately to 18 floors in West Tower and 15 floors in East tower. The West Tower has apartments on floors 1–17, the 18th floor is the Student Atrium with views of Boston and the Charles River. The East Tower has residences on floors 2–15, with the 1st floor being a marketplace. The 10 Buick Street Market and Cafe has a soup & salad bar, a small selection of household items, drinks and snacks, as well as sandwiches and bagels. The basement has a laundry, mailboxes, a study lounge, as well as study and music rooms.
In 2003, the director of the student village began publishing a monthly newsletter for residents called The Villager. In 2004, the publication was redesigned to include recipes, a quiz, and an advice column. Since August 2004, The Villager has been printed bi-weekly. Ten Buick Street is the only on-campus residence at Boston University to feature a publication of this type.
33 Harry Agganis Way
Boston University's newest residence, which opened in the fall of 2009, accommodates 960 residents in two towers. The 26-story tower houses juniors and seniors in an apartment-style setting. These apartments are two-bedroom apartments for two students, or four-bedroom apartments for four students. All apartments have one bathroom, one living room, and one kitchen. The 19-story tower houses sophomores, juniors and seniors residing in suite (dormitory-style) settings. The suites house eight students each; half of the residents reside in four single bedrooms, while the other half occupy two double bedrooms. Each suite has two bathrooms and one living room.
1019 Commonwealth Avenue
Located across the street from West Campus, 1019 is suite-style housing without kitchens. Thus, residents eat at the West Campus dining hall. The suites have three double rooms which share a bathroom and common room. During the summer, Boston University sometimes uses 1019 as temporary lodging for conference attendees and other visitors.
Fenway Campus
Boston University's Fenway Campus is located in the Riverway area near South Campus. The campus is composed of multiple undergraduate and graduate residences: Riverway House, Pilgrim House, and Campus Center & Student Residence. These residences include dorm-style and suite-style rooms with single, double, triple, and quadruple occupancy. They also offer study lounges, laundry rooms, vending machines, internet access, and a dining hall (located at Campus Center Student Residence).
Other housing locations
Aside from these main residential areas, smaller residential dormitories are scattered along Commonwealth Avenue between main school buildings, including 722-728 Commonwealth Avenue, located across from CVS on St. Mary's street.
Hotels: The Hyatt and Holiday Inn Brookline
Due to housing capacity shortages, many incoming students are temporarily housed in hotels during the fall semester. These hotels include the Hyatt Regency Cambridge on the opposite bank of the Charles, and the Holiday Inn Brookline, both a manageable walk to main campus with free shuttle bus service provided to students in the Hyatt.
575 Commonwealth Avenue
One of the hotels frequently used in this way was the former Howard Johnson's hotel at 575 Commonwealth Avenue, next to the Questrom School of Business' Rafik Hariri Building. In 2001, the University closed the hotel (which it owned) and converted the building into a full-time dormitory, now known as 575 Commonwealth Avenue. Rooms are commonly divided into triples, although there are a few doubles and singles. Every room comes with its own bathroom and air conditioning, a luxury not present in most rooms on campus. This 8-story building, not including the basement, includes the first floor lobby, 6 floors for bedroom dorms, and an eight floor study area. The first floor lobby also has two lounge areas, where students can choose to study or hang out by playing pool or watching TV. Students lovingly refer to it as either 575 or the HoJo.
Capacity problems
Between 2002 and 2008, The University was criticized for overbooking its housing for the fall semester as a result of its large student population and its guarantee of on-campus housing for four years. As a result, many freshmen were moved to nearby hotels to accommodate the overflow. BU's Daily Free Press published several articles relating to the university's inability to provide "acceptable housing" for its students. With the opening of StuVi-II in Fall 2009, the school's 960-bed 19 and 26 story towers, BU said it would be able to house the nearly 80 percent of its 16,000 undergraduates who want to live on campus without using hotels.
In the past, the Boston University Office of Housing was criticized for reserving a certain percentage of each dormitory for underclasses. This caused complaints from upperclassmen who were relegated to living in substandard housing due to spots in prime housing being taken by freshmen and sophomores, squeezing the upperclassmen out of the already crowded, at the time, housing system. Additionally, some freshmen placed into predominantly upperclassmen dorms are unsatisfied with their assignments because of the difficulty of engaging with other underclassmen in these locations.
References
External links
Boston University Office of Housing official site
Boston University Dining Services official site
Dorm Reviews by Students for Boston University of DormSplash
Dormitories reviews & ratings submitted by BU students
Dorm info posted by the Residence Hall Associations, with pictures, pros, cons
Housing System
Lists of university and college residences in the United States
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20pre-Columbian%20inventions%20and%20innovations%20of%20Indigenous%20Americans
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List of pre-Columbian inventions and innovations of Indigenous Americans
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This is an alphabetic list of Pre-columbian achievements in science and technology made by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas during the 15,000 years that they have inhabited the Americas.
A
Abacus – The Aztec and Maya of Mesoamerica performed arithmetic operations using an abacus. It served as a more accurate and faster alternative to a written solution or relying on memory. Archaeologists have recorded the Mesoamerican abacus, or Nepohualtzintzin, as being present in Mesoamerica from at least between 900 and 1000 CE.
Abstract art – Abstract art was used by nearly all societies of North and South America. Members of European art world believed tribal art was "primitive" until the 1890s when it served as inspiration for the modern American abstract art movement. See also Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Adobe – Adobe was used by the peoples from South America, Mesoamerica, and up to Southwestern tribes of the U.S. It is estimated that it was developed around the year 3000 BCE.
Alcoholic beverages - Several fermented beverages were produced by Native Americans, such as Pulque, Tepache, Agave wine and Cauim. Some of these beverages have gained popularity in modern times, particularly in Mexico.
Almanacs – Almanacs were invented independently by the Maya peoples. Their culture arose, and presumably began using almanacs, around 3,500 years ago, while Europeans are known to have created written almanacs only after 1150 CE. Almanacs are books containing meteorological and astronomical information, which the Maya used in various aspects of their life.
Alpacas – The Andean civilizations were among the first to domesticate alpacas.
Ammassalik wooden maps – The Greenlandic Inuit carved wooden maps that represented coastlines.
American football – The Iroquois claim to have played football. While no specification is made as to whether this is meant to be American football or soccer. Soccer is said to have been invented in Asia.
Anesthetics – Indigenous peoples used coca, peyote, datura and other plants for partial or total loss of sensation or consciousness during surgery. Western doctors had effective anesthetics only after the mid-19th century. Before this, they either had to perform surgery while the patient dealt with the pain or they needed to knock the patient out unconscious.
Apartment blocks – The Ancestral Pueblo people and other tribes which once thrived in the present day Southwest of the US, developed complex multistory apartment complexes, some of which are still in use today. Pueblo communities in present-day New Mexico continue to reside in some of these ancient multistory apartment complexes–which were constructed by their ancestors many centuries ago–even before the first apartments were built in the United States during the 18th century. Pueblo Bonito, one of the seminal archaeological sites today, is an example of this indigenous multistory apartment complex construction from the Anasazi and Hohokam time periods; approximately dating back one thousand years ago.
Art to be viewed from space – The Nazca Lines were created by the ancient Nazca culture in modern-day Peru. The Nazca built these artworks, which could only be viewed from the sky or from space. It was as if the Nazca were building monuments, which only their gods could view from up in the sky. Some of these artworks, otherwise known as the Nazca Lines, could only be viewed from the sky and each one of these works of Nazca art spans several miles across in size and dimension in the Sechura Desert.
Aqueducts – The ancient Andean cultures, such as Chimu, Moche and Nazca, lived in dry environments, yet they sustained large scale agriculture consisting of a wide variety of crops by employing aqueducts connecting various freshwater sources, such as mountain streams and lakes to their agricultural fields which were sometimes injecting pressure with the aid of puquios (wind-based water pumps). The Inca later expanded on these previously constructed aqueducts and built a more complex and large aqueduct system in the Inca Empire. The Mesoamerican Aztecs also constructed complex, dual-pipe aqueducts to supply their vast city of Tenochtitlan.
Aspirin – Indigenous Americans have been using willow tree bark for thousands of years to reduce fever and pain as were the peoples of Assyria, Sumer, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. When chemists analyzed willows in the last century, they discovered salicylic acid; the basis of the modern drug aspirin.
Asymmetric warfare – Araucanian leaders such as Lautaro developed effective military tactics to counter the Spanish invasion, winning the Arauco War. These tactics consisted in a combination of espionage, cattle raiding, and using attack waves in the battlefield to exhaust the enemy.
Astronomy – Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Maya and Aztec, were able to accurately predict astronomical events, like eclipses, hundreds of years into the future.
Atlatl – Paleo-Indians (Beringian Diaspora) from over 11,500 years ago had developed a highly developed spear thrower in the form of the atlatl to hunt woolly mammoths, giant sloths, mastodon, muskox (euceratherium), giant beaver, early caribou, steppe bison, saber-toothed cat, and other Pleistocene animals. Using the atlatl, these ancient Paleo-Indians were able to traverse much of the Americas from Alaska, down to Mexico, Central America, South America, and, finally, all the way south into Chile as they hunted and followed these Pleistocene megafauna within a short 3,000 year time period–from about 14,500 years ago to about 11,500 years ago.
Avocado – Indigenous Americans were the first to domesticate and cultivate avocados.
B
Balls, rubber – the Olmec produced rubber balls around 1700 BCE. They were the first people to develop and play with rubber balls as well as manufacture other objects of rubber.
Baby bottle Indigenous people's used the stomach of large prey and would attach a quill on the end to act as a nipple creating a type of baby bottle.
Beans – most commonly eaten beans today were originally cultivated in the Americas by indigenous Americans. Beans (Phaseolus), along with squash and maize, formed the "Three Sister (crops)" which were grown by many pre-Columbian American cultures, tribes, nations, and civilizations.
Board games – various indigenous cultures had board games, among these can be found: Komikan (South America), Patolli (Mesoamerica), Tukvnanawopi (Hopi culture), etc.
Bolas – bolas are a type of throwing weapon made of weights on the ends of interconnected cords and were initially used to capture animals via the entanglement of their legs. Bolas were used in the Andes and Patagonia where indigenous peoples–particularly the Tehuelche–used them to catch 200-pound guanaco and ñandú.
Bottle gourds – the ancient Mexicans learned to first cultivate bottle gourds around 8,000 BCE. Indigenous peoples grew bottle gourds for use as bowls, scoops, colanders, ladles, spoons, canteens, and dippers. Larger gourds were used as cooking vessels. The indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands hung bottle gourds on poles in their cornfields to serve as habitats for insect-eating birds (a form of biological pest control, which they developed). Indigenous Americans in northern Peru also used bottle gourds as floats for fishing nets.
Bulletproof vest – Ichcahuipilli, was a military armor used by various Mesoamerican cultures. It consisted of a layered cotton shirt, at least 2 inches thick, hardened with brine and other substances. It was originally intended to protect the wearer against projectiles and other weaponry, such as spears, arrows, and obsidian swords, but later was discovered to be capable of stopping musket shots.
Bunk bed – the Iroquoian longhouses housed several families together. The concept of bunk beds was developed by these Native American peoples, since these longhouses included several bed combinations which featured one bed built on top of another, akin to bunk beds in modern times.
C
Calendars – calendars were developed by indigenous Americans throughout North America, Mesoamerica, and South America. They are known to have been in use since 600 BCE. Some calendars were so precise, that by the 5th century BCE, they were only 19 minutes off.
Canals – the Aztecs constructed great canals used for transporting food, cargo, and relaying people to the chinampas (floating gardens used for growing food) in their great metropolis of Tenochtitlan.
Canoe – many indigenous nations–including the Caribs, Cree, Iroquois, and others–had developed many distinct forms, styles, and types of canoes over the millennia.
Cassava – the first cultivation of cassava took place in southern Brazil and eastern Bolivia 8,000-10,000 years ago.
Causeway – the Aztec built many giant causeways that connected the mainland to their capital city of Tenochtitlan, located in the heart of the Aztec Empire. The causeways served as arteries used for transporting food, goods, people, captive warriors, and wastes during the heyday of the Aztec Empire in the 14th century to the 16th century.
Chaps – these appear to have been first used as a sort of leather armor to protect the legs from injury during guerrilla attacks by east coast native peoples. Some of these peoples ended up migrating to Texas shortly before the Texas Revolution, where it appears that others discovered that wearing chaps over pants reduced chafing on long horseback rides. It came to be later adopted by US, Mexican, and indigenous horse-riding cultures.
Chewing gum – Native Americans in New England introduced the settlers to chewing gum made from the spruce tree. The Mayans, on the other hand, were the first people to use latex gum; better known to them as chicle.
Chinampa – floating gardens, which were highly productive areas used for farming and growing food, were constructed by the Aztecs to provide food and sustenance to their 250,000 inhabits in the city of Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs used the chinampas in and around Tenochtitlan to grow corn, squash, beans, tomato, avocado, chilli peppers, and a plethora of other food products to feed the burgeoning population of their great metropolis.
Chocolate – the Maya civilization was the first to drink cocoa. This tradition was later passed on to the Aztecs, who called the beverage xocalatl. Indigenous people in Mesoamerica introduced it to the Spanish and Portuguese, but they kept the beloved xocalatl from the rest of Europe for nearly a century.
Chunkey – a Native American game where a person rolls a hoop covered in a leather strap framework and tries to hit it with spears or arrows. This may have inspired the sport of skeet shooting.
Compass (possibly) – the Olmecs are known to have knowledge of magnetism. The discovery of a hematite artifact has led many experts to believe that Olmec invented the compass 1,000 years before the Chinese did, although some still are not convinced.
Compulsory education – the Aztec Triple Alliance, which ruled from 1428 to 1521 CE, is considered to be the first state to implement a system of universal compulsory education.
Corn (maize) – the domestication of maize, now cultivated throughout the world, is one of the most influential technological contributions of Indigenous Americans.
Corn beer – brewed in the Andes, it is of pre-Incan origin from the Wari culture.
Cornmeal – an unsoaked meal (coarse flour) ground from dried maize. It is a common staple food, and is ground to fine, medium, and coarse consistencies.
Cranberries – Native Americans were the first to domesticate and grow cranberries in the north east coast of the United States.
D
Dams – the Aztec in Tenochtitlan constructed great dams during the heyday of the Aztec Empire. Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, was first built on a small island that was located in the western section of Lake Texcoco in 1325 CE. The Aztec created various large artificial islands around the small island using a system that was similar to building the chinampas (floating gardens in the lake that was used to grow food for the cities' population). To provide drinking water to the cities' population of over a quarter of a million inhabitants, the Aztec built a system of dams that separated the salty waters of the lake from the rainwater that was accumulated during periods of heavy rains. The Aztec also used the dam to control the level of water in the lake and prevent their city from being flooded during times of heavy rains. To prevent flooding, the Aztec constructed an inner system of channels that helped to control the water level and held the level steady during flooding and periods of intense rains. Hernán Cortés, and the other Spanish conquistadors, destroyed these engineering marvels that the Aztec had developed during the previous 200 years.
Dog breeds – Native American dogs believed to have been bred by indigenous Americans are the xochiocoyotl (coyote), xoloitzcuintli (known as xolo or Mexican hairless), chihuahua, Peruvian Hairless Dog, the Carolina Dog, Canadian Eskimo Dog, and the Alaskan Malamute.
E
Electroplating – the Moche independently developed electroplating technology without any Old World influences. The Moche used electricity derived from chemicals to gild copper with a thin layer of gold. In order to start the electroplating process, the Moche first concocted a very corrosive and a highly acidic liquid solution in which they dissolved small traces of gold. Copper inserted into the resulting acidic solution acted both as a cathode and an anode, generating the electric current needed to start the electroplating process. The gold ions in the solution were attracted to the copper anode and cathode and formed a thin layer over the copper, giving the latter the appearance of a solid gold object, even though gold only coated the outermost layer of the copper object. The Moche then allowed the acidic solution to boil slowly, causing a very thin layer/coating of gold to permanently coat the copper anode and cathode. This battery-less electroplating technique was developed around 500 CE by the Moche, a thousand years before Europeans invented the same process.
Embalming – Egyptians are known for mummification, which began around 6000 BCE to 600 CE. In what is now Chile, however, the Chinchorro peoples are known to have been embalming and mummifying their dead since around 5000 BCE. Embalming is using preservatives to prevent decay of the body. Many other indigenous American peoples further perfected the art of embalming and mummification including the skilled Moche peoples in present-day Peru.
Ephedra – the Aztecs used ephedra in order to treat common colds. Unlike the Chinese version of the ephedra, the New World ephedra that was used by the indigenous Americans contained milder alkaloids.
F
Freeze-drying – the Andean civilizations learned to freeze dry potatoes (chuño) and other food items, so that the resultant dehydrated powder could be stored for years and then later transported across vast distances to feed countless hungry peoples. The Spanish conquistadors used this Andean invented freeze-drying technique to transport several tonnes of dehydrated potatoes across the Atlantic Ocean back to Europe to feed hungry Europeans.
G
Green bean – this, as well as other varieties, were first farmed in South America and migrated to North America where it was adopted by Europeans.
Guinea pigs – indigenous South Americans had domesticated the guinea pig as a food source around 9000 to 6000 BCE. The Inca people took guinea pig farming to new heights.
H
Hammocks – hammocks were commonly used in the Caribbean, South and Central America at first contact with Europeans. The Spanish liked the comfortable way of sleeping and adopted them. Europeans eventually used them as the primary way of sleeping on ships.
Harpoons – the Inuit had developed the harpoon independent of any Old World influences, in order to hunt seals, walrus, and whales. The Inuit of West Greenland called the harpoon maupok. Harpoons enabled the Inuit to hunt large marine mammals from a distance in the umiak and kayak in the open Arctic Ocean.
Hominy – this is a specialized corn dish known by many North American native people. Today, it is most commonly seen in the Southern United States.
Hockey – both field hockey and ice hockey are based on a game called shinny. This indigenous stickball game was played throughout North America well before the European arrival.
I
Igloos – built by the Inuit, igloos were constructed for many centuries as a form of protection and shelter to house people from the harsh Arctic weather. While the temperature outside an igloo may have been , the temperature within an igloo was stable ranging from when warmed by body heat. The Central Inuit in Northern Canada (especially those, who lived around the Davis Strait), lined the inside living area of an igloo with animal skin and hides. This assisted in increasing the temperature within an igloo from around to , thereby insuring a more comfortable existence for the inhabitants of the igloo from the fierce cold outside. With the addition of a kudlik the temperature could be raised even more.
Inca road systems – the Inca built one of the most extensive road systems in the ancient world. The Incas built upon the roads, which were originally constructed by previous Andean civilizations such as the Chimu, Nazca, Wari, Moche, and others. The Inca also further refined and expanded upon the earlier innovations and systems laid in place by previous Indigenous cultures. The Incan road system, at its peak, spanned over and crisscrossed mountains, rivers, deserts, rainforests, and plains. The road system connected the empire from the Andes mountain in Colombia all through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northeastern Argentina, and present-day northern Chile. The Inca roads were used to transport food, goods, people, and armies, while Inca officials frequently relayed messages using the roads across the vast stretches of the Inca Empire. In areas, where rivers blocked the directions of the roads, the Inca constructed elaborate and complex rope bridges.
Inuit snow goggles – the Inuit made snow goggles which protected their eyes against the harsh winds in the Arctic regions of North America, long before sunglasses became available to modern Europeans.
J
Jerky – indigenous Americans were the first to develop jerky from smoked bison meat.
K
Kayak – originally developed by the Inuit, Yupik, and Aleut to hunt on inland lakes, rivers and coastal waters of the Arctic Ocean, North Atlantic, Bering Sea and North Pacific oceans.
L
Lasso – the Lenape and early settlers allegedly record the use of the lasso as a sort of snare to trap large game. The Lenape eventually brought this to Texas, where it came to be implemented by the American and Mexican cowboy cultures.
Lacrosse – lacrosse may have developed as early as 1100 CE among indigenous peoples on the North American continent.
Llamas – indigenous people from Peru domesticated llamas in around 5000 BCE.
M
Maize – first cultivated in present-day Mexico several thousand years ago, corn is currently the most cultivated grain in the world with the US being the largest cultivator of maize followed by mainland China. Over 700 million tons of maize are grown worldwide annually today in order to feed people and animals. In addition, ethanol extracted from corn is also used to fuel engines in millions of vehicles, thousands of planes, and other engines throughout the world.
Manioc – Native Americans were the first peoples in the world to cultivate manioc.
Maple syrup and maple sugar – indigenous Americans were the first to extract the sap from maple trees and convert the sap into maple syrup and maple sugar.
Martial arts - several Native American groups have developed styles of martial arts, such as the Apache style of Chulukua and the Mapuche style of Kollellaullin.
Mathematics – the Olmec and the Maya–who succeeded the Olmec–independently developed the concept of zero (independent of the ancient Hindus in India) in mathematics. The ancient Mexicans also developed complex arithmetic functions and operations such as additions, subtractions, divisions, and multiplications. The development of mathematics by the Mexicans assisted them in making sense of the universe, cosmos, astronomy, architecture, and pre-Columbian calendars that were so essential in maintaining a connection between them and the gods and heavens.
Metallurgy in pre-Columbian America – many pre-Columbian cultures, especially the Moche in the Andean regions were skilled metallurgists. Indigenous Americans mastered smelting, soldering, annealing, electroplating, sintering, alloying, low-wax casting, and many other metallurgical techniques independent of any Old World influences. The Moche were skilled in hammering and shaping gold, silver, copper, and bronze into intricate ornamental objects and chisels, while the later Incas developed more utilitarian objects using these metals and alloys. Metallurgical techniques later diffused from the Andean region of South America to Colombia and then later to Mesoamerica, where local artists and metallurgists developed even more unique techniques using a wide range of material, including alloys of copper-silver, copper-arsenic, copper-tin and copper-arsenic-tin.
Moccasins – highly comfortable shoes used by indigenous Americans to travel vast distances. These shoes were often made of leather and were highly comfortable to wear. In addition, the moccasins could withstand the rugged terrain over which Native Americans traversed.
Muscovy duck – indigenous peoples were the first in the world to domesticate the Muscovy duck.
N
Neotropic cormorant - the Uru people domesticated the neotropic cormorant.
Nixtamalization – the process originated in Mesoamerica, with the earliest evidence of its presence found in Guatemala's southern coast with equipment dated to 1200-1500 BCE.
O
Observatories, astronomical – Andean and Mesoamerican astronomers constructed towers to observe the movements of the planets and other astronomical features and events. Although culture groups throughout the world have observed the planets and stars and recorded their movements, the stone structures of the Mesoamerican and Andean culture groups are significant because they show the emphasis these early astronomers placed on making clear and accurate observations. In the U.S., the Anasazi built structures with windows aligned for the observation of celestial events. The most notable example of Maya astronomical observatories is Caracol, in Chichén Itzá. In 1975, archaeoastronomers Anthony F. Aveni and Horst Hartung surveyed the site and suggested that ancient Maya astronomers used the structure to observe the planet Venus. The Maya, as well as other Mesoamerican culture groups, used Venus to set times for ceremonies and as a divination tool.
P
Painting – Classic period Maya paintings, found in the archaeological sites of Cacaxtla and Bonampak, are some of the most refined paintings ever to come out of the ancient Americas. Besides the Maya, other indigenous civilizations were also known for their wall paintings, including the Aztec and the Navajo, who developed the art of sand painting.
Palaces – indigenous American civilizations such as the Olmecs, Mayans, Zapotecs, Aztecs, Mixtecs, Moche, Toltecs, Inca, Chimú, Nazca and many more built elaborate palaces. The Mayan palace in Palenque is one of the best examples of Mayan palace architecture.
Papaya – indigenous people residing around the Caribbean Sea and Mexico, such as the Mayans, domesticated papayas.
Paper - the Maya used bark to make a type of bark paper called amate. Although it was extensively used during the Triple Alliance, its production was mostly banned by the Spanish after the conquest
Parkas – the Inuit in the Arctic were the first peoples in the world to develop parkas. Parkas are great insulators, which protected the Inuit against the harsh Arctic winter. The pocket of air that was located within sewed caribou fur in a parka, protected a person against the brutal Arctic winter.
Peanuts – indigenous Americans were the first peoples in the world to cultivate peanuts.
Peanut butter – the Inca and Aztec processed ground roasted peanuts into a paste similar to peanut butter.
Pemmican – indigenous Americans were the first to develop pemmican as a nutritious and high-energy food.
Pepper – Mesoamericans were the first to cultivate peppers, including chili peppers of all types and sweet red, green, yellow, and all other colorful hues of non-chilli peppers.
Petroleum use – Native Americans in present-day Pennsylvania, the Iroquois, lit petroleum which seeped from underground to fire ceremonial fires. In addition, they also used petroleum to cover their bodies against insect bites and as a form of jelly to prevent their skins from drying out.
Peyote – indigenous people realized the antibiotic property of peyote and used the extract to treat fevers and enhance the energy in their bodies and treatment as an anesthetic.
Pineapple – indigenous people residing in what is now Brazil and the Paraná River valley of Paraguay were the first to cultivate the pineapple. From there, pineapple cultivation spread to Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean. Indigenous Americans used the pineapple as a source of food.
Planned city construction – ancient cities in Mexico–such as Teotihuacan and the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan–incorporated planned city design, including streets laid out in a grid pattern.
Plumbing – the Maya have been found to be the earliest inventors of plumbing in Mesoamerica, with the earliest example of a pressurized water system being constructed in 750 CE—or earlier. This pressurized water system was located in the Maya site of Palenque, where public baths and toilets were accessible to the residents of the ancient city.
Popcorn
Potato – first cultivated in the Andean regions of South America by Andeans. It was principally cultivated in Peru and Bolivia.
Pot roast – in one of the Lakota legends recorded in Lakota mythology, the character Wohpe is seen creating a dish in exactly the same manner as we make pot roasts today—sealing a large chunk of meat and vegetables in a bag and steaming it in a pot.
Pottery – many indigenous American cultures and peoples independently invented and then refined pottery in the Americas into fine works of art, as well for utilitarian usage. The Moche and Maya were some of the best potters from the ancient Americas, and their work still inspires awe amongst us for the level of artistry, creativity, and sophistication, which such highly prized works of arts involved. The Navajo are also very skilled developers of pottery and their works in the present time are highly detailed and much prized. Many other indigenous American cultures also developed their own pottery styles during the pre-Columbian time periods and continued to refine their artwork into the modern era.
Pumpkins – indigenous Americans were the first to domesticate and grow pumpkins.
Puna ibis - the Puna ibis was domesticated by the Uru people.
Puquios
Pyramids – advanced civilizations in Mexico, such as the Toltecs, Olmecs, Zapotecs, Aztecs, Mayans, Mixtecs, developed their own myriad styles of pyramids, usually step pyramid, which served for ceremonial/religious and administrative functions. In Mesoamerica, the largest pyramid in the world—The Great Pyramid of Cholula—began to be constructed by the inhabitants of Cholula in the 3rd century BCE. In the Andean regions, the Moches, and some ancient Peruvians also constructed gigantic pyramids as well without any influence from Old World civilizations.
Q
Quinoa – first grown and cultivated in the Andes. This is a food grain which the indigenous Americans first developed and the grain is considered to be one of the most nutritious items there is.
Quinine – a muscle relaxant, which has been used for many centuries by the Quechua people in the Andes area of South America. The medicine was used by many Andean people to prevent shivering due to cold in the low-temperature areas in the high Andes mountains of Peru. The ancient Peruvians would mix the ground bark of cinchona trees with water to eliminate the bark's bitter taste, and then drink the resultant tonic water to soothe their nerves and senses.
Quipu – quipus were developed by the ancient Andeans. Quipus mimic an accounting, record-keeping, and communication system that uses knots and strings in order to record valuable information related to population, economic data, food grain supplies, calendars, events, etc.
R
Rubber – the indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica were the first peoples in the world to extract the sap from rubber trees and then use it to make clothes, rubber balls to be played in ceremonial ball games, and many other utilitarian uses. Indigenous peoples, especially those who lived in the Amazon rainforest found many other uses for rubber. The science and technique of extracting sap from rubber trees and then using the sap to make goods made of rubber then spread to the high civilizations of the Andes and elsewhere in the Americas.
Rubber balloons – the Olmec were the first people to use rubber balloons. Their civilization arose in 1700 BCE in the Yucatán Peninsula.
Reed boats – a balsa was a boat that was constructed by pre-Columbian South Americans from woven reeds of totora bullrush. These reed boats varied in size from that of a small canoe used for navigation, transportation, and for small-scale fishing to large ships of up to in length, which were used for war, transportation, bulk goods hauling, and transporting royalty and nobility. They are still used today on Lake Titicaca in Peru and Bolivia by the indigenous peoples living along the banks of the lake.
S
Salsa – one of several sauces typical of Mexican cuisine.
Sauna – the temazcal was a sweat lodge used by many cultures in Mesoamerica and the Great Plains.
Smoking pipe – indigenous Americans invented the smoking pipe and in particular the ceremonial pipe a type of tobacco pipe. This was an unknown concept to Europeans and the idea was adopted by them and was shortly thereafter brought to the Chinese.
Snowshoes – invented and then used first in the Americas by the indigenous tribes, which resided in the cold areas of North America in order to travel across a snow-laden landscape, especially during the long winter months, that gripped all of the region.
Spinning top – known from Mesoamerican times. A device used as a toy and made out of wood.
Spruce beer – a beverage made using pine needles. Also called pine beer and nettle beer, it was most likely originally brewed by First Nations, and predates the arrival of Europeans.
Squash – the people of southern Mexico were the first to grow squash. Squash along with maize (corn) and beans represented the three sister crops of the ancient Mesoamericans.
Sundials – the Inca and other pre-Columbian Americans constructed elaborate sundials for both ceremonial and religious purposes, but also for record-keeping.
Sunflower – indigenous Americans were the first peoples in the world to cultivate the common sunflower.
Suspension bridge – the ancient Maya constructed a suspension bridge over the Usumacinta River in Yaxchilan. This Maya Bridge at Yaxchilan would have been one of the longest bridges in use in the ancient past. The bridge was constructed in the 7th century CE and was a very long suspension bridge with a relatively level pathway.
Syringe – indigenous American medicine men used syringes and hypodermic needles made from materials fashioned from hollow bird bones and animal bladders to inject medicine into sick patients and treat the illness of the patients.
T
Tamales – although largely associated with Mexico, and its indigenous Mesoamerican origin, records from the Iroquoian people show that they too made such a dish.
Taxation – the Inca had a sophisticated taxation system, the mit'a, using quipus (knotted strings) as recording devices. Quipus were transported through the Inca road network messengers (chaskis) and administered by the quipu authorities (quipucamayoc).
Tipi – a cone-shaped, portable dwelling popularized by Plains Indians (Native Americans and First Nations) of the Great Plains and the Canadian Prairies. Tipis were warm, durable, comfortable, and could be easily disassembled and packed. A settlement could be ready to move in about one hour.
Tlingit armor – Tlingit armor was worn by coastal Indigenous nations in Alaska and British Columbia. Tlingit warriors wore battle helmets depicting either crest animals or ancestors, along with wooden visors, thick leather tunics, and body armor covered with wooden slats or coins. This battle attire combines technology, ingenuity, and symbolic power and protection.
Tobacco – tobacco was used in the Americas for many centuries prior to the arrival of white Europeans. Consumed in high doses, tobacco can become highly hallucinogenic and was accordingly used by many indigenous peoples in the Americas to inspire dreams and dreamtime. Tobacco was also often consumed as a medicine amongst some tribes, although this was strictly practiced by experienced shamans and medicine men. Eastern tribes in the mainland US also traded tobacco as a trade item in exchange for food, clothing, beads, and salt, and would often smoke tobacco during sacred and ritualized ceremonies using pipes. Tobacco was considered to be a gift from the gods and it was believed that the exhaled tobacco smoke generated from smoking a pipe would carry one's thoughts and prayers to the creator up above in the heavens.
Toboggan – the Innu and the Cree nations of Canada developed a sled in the form of the toboggan. These sleds were used to transport people and cargo across the snow using dogs as draft animals. Sled dogs such as Huskies were used to pull the dog sled along the harsh Canadian winter snows.
Toggling harpoon – first used by the Red Paint People of the North American east coast, they were later used by the Thule.
Tomato – indigenous Americans were the first peoples in the world to domesticate and cultivate the tomato by 500 BCE. The tomato was an essential ingredient that formed the basis of many indigenous foods including tamales, tostado, soups, and salads.
Tomahawk - created originally by the Algonquian people before the arrival of Europeans, the Tomahawk would then later spread from the Algonquian culture to tribes in the South and Great Plains.
Tortillas – this staple food well known today was used throughout Mesoamerican and Southwestern US cultures. Although they were mainly made of corn, squash and amaranth were also popular. The tortillas were wrapped around different fillings such as avocado. Today this has resulted in the creation of the modern taco, burrito, and enchilada.
Tug of war – the Iroquois claim tug of war was once related to a sort of celebratory ritual they used to practice. The Mohave people occasionally used tug-of-war matches as means of settling disputes.
Turkey – approximately 2,000 years ago, ancient Mesoamericans domesticated the turkey during the Late Preclassic period—from 300 BCE to 100 CE.
U
Urbanization - The Moche of Peru built dense housing at city centers, and included grid arrangements in road layouts.
Ulu – a multi-purpose knife normally used by Inuit, Yupik and Aleut women
Umbrellas – independent of the ancient Chinese (who had also invented the umbrellas on their own), the Maya and the Inca had invented circular umbrellas, which were made from bird feathers.
V
Vanilla – the Totonac are believed to had been the first to extract vanilla from the pods of vanilla orchids and use it as a flavor enhancer.
Vulcanization – the Olmec people of Veracruz, Mexico treated the sap from rubber trees with chemicals and shaped the resulting rubber into a myriad of products such as balls, sandals, balloons, rubber syringes, etc. centuries before Charles Goodyear re-invented the process during the 19th century.
W
Water gun – some of the first water guns were more of a syringe-type device. The missionary Eugene Buechel recorded the Lakota peoples as making such toys for their children out of log rounds. However, whether or not they actually invented the device is up for debate.
Whaling – indigenous peoples, such as the Inuit, have been whaling for many centuries using boats as part of a subsistence economy. Their whaling tradition in the Arctic region predates European colonization of the Americas.
Wheel and axle – Mesoamericans invented wheels but only used these as toys. The oldest wheeled figure to have been uncovered in Mesoamerica is a crowned, dog-like figure in Tres Zapotes, Veracruz, dated ca. 100-200 CE. The most common examples of the Mesoamerican wheel and axle are Aztec clay wheeled toys.
Whoopee cushion – natives of the great plains were known to use animal bladders as whoopee cushions to play practical jokes on each other. They were so popular, a common Lakota myth actually depicts a sorcerer using an animal bladder to put a spell of flatulence on a girl who spurned him.
Wigwam – a wigwam, wickiup, or wetu is a domed room-dwelling formerly used by certain Native American and First Nations tribes, and still used for ceremonial purposes. The wigwam is not to be confused with the Plains tipi, which has a very different construction, structure, and use.
Writing system – many indigenous American cultures, such as the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Zapotec, and Toltec, developed writing systems. Other native peoples to the north—mainly Algonquians—had organized pictographing, a common precursor of writing.
X
Y
Yam – indigenous Americans in the Guyana region of South America domesticated the most important New World yam: D. Trifada
Yucca – the plant was cultivated throughout the Americas, and is mostly distributed in coastal lowlands and dry beach scrub of coastal areas.
Z
Zero – the Olmec independently invented the concept of zero. The second earliest found instance of the use of zero—in Mesoamerica—has been dated to 32 BCE by the Epi-Olmec culture. This date has been arrived at based on the Long Count date on Stela C at Tres Zapotes. The symbol used for "zero" is a shell glyph, which is seen on the stone carving. Although the Olmec didn't leave behind any statues or reliefs with a "zero" glyph, the use of the Long Count calendar requires the knowledge of this concept since it is based on a (vigesimal) place-value number system.
See also
List of pre-Columbian cultures
Domesticated plants of Mesoamerica
Agriculture in Mesoamerica
Mesoamerican cuisine
Mesoamerican diet and subsistence
Mesoamerican architecture
Indigenous music of North America
Painting in the Americas before European colonization
Mesoamerican chronology
Notes
References
Keoke/Porterfield. Encyclopedia Of American Indian Contributions To The World.New York, NY: Facts On File, 2002.
Inventions and innovations
Americas Indigenous peoples
Native American-related lists
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hargrave%20Military%20Academy
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Hargrave Military Academy
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Hargrave Military Academy (HMA) is a private, all-male, military boarding school located in the town of Chatham, Virginia. Hargrave is affiliated with the Baptist General Association of Virginia emphasizing Christian values that focuses on a college and military preparatory program. The school serves boys from around the world for grade 7 through post-graduate (PG). Hargrave was named a National School of Character in 2016. Hargrave is accredited by the Virginia Association of Independent Schools and nationally by AdvancEd, and is a member of the Association of Military Colleges and Schools of the United States and the National Association of Independent Schools. The school's campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
History
Hargrave Military Academy was founded in 1909 by T. Ryland Sanford and J. Hunt Hargrave as the Chatham Training School (CTS). In 1925, in honor of Hargrave, CTS was renamed to Hargrave Military Academy (HMA). The renaming of the school was part of the school's evolution into a military high school in the early twenties. HMA has been approved for JROTC numerous times since then, but many in the Hargrave community, most notably the Board of Trustees, feared that the addition of that program would put too much emphasis on military studies and reduce the emphasis on academics. HMA has consistently operated independent of JROTC, however, including by utilizing its own uniforms, cadet rank structure, and chain of command.
On February 20, 1950, a fire destroyed Hargrave Hall and Founders Hall. No cadets or faculty were harmed, but Sanford Hall was the only building that remained unscathed. After an assembly before Colonel Camden in the Sanford Hall auditorium, a two-week vacation was declared. This was to allow time for Hargrave staff to work out a way to continue the regular academic schedule.
The first African-American cadets were admitted to Hargrave in summer 1971 after the board of trustees passed a resolution that Hargrave would not consider race, color, or country of origin in its admission or employment policy and Colonel Vernon T. Lankford signed the Civil Rights Agreement. Andrew Ballen became the first black battalion commander in 1991.
With enrollment at 586 for the 1970-1971 academic year, the Hargrave Corps of Cadets was organized into two battalions led by a Corps Commander with the rank of cadet colonel. Since 1971, the HMA Corps of Cadets has remained as a single battalion; its commander is a Cadet Lieutenant Colonel. Female cadets were admitted for the first time in the 1975-1976 year, and Geri Lou Huizinga and Lynn Emerson became the first women to graduate from HMA in 1976. Hargrave made the transition back to an all-male school in the early 2000s; the last female cadets graduated in 2009.
In 1981, the school presented for the first time the General Douglas MacArthur Award; the first cadet to receive it was Henry A. Haymes. That same year, school officials turned down the request to film on campus by the producers of the movie Taps, due to disagreements with film's plot and opposition to the producers’ request to erect a wall around the front of the campus.
A four-week summer program began in 2009. In September, Hargrave celebrated the school's 100th founders day under the leadership of Colonel Wheeler L. Baker. In 2021, a Hargrave graduate made history as the Honorable Sloan D. Gibson, HMA Class of 1971, returned as the first alumnus to serve as President of Hargrave.
Organization
Hargrave Military Academy is governed by a board of trustees. Many members of the board are alumni and community leaders. HMA created a charitable foundation to allow philanthropists an opportunity to make gifts to the school.
Presidents of HMA:
Headmaster Charles R. Warren (1909–1911)
Rev. T. Ryland Sanford (1911–1918)
Col. Aubrey H. Camden (1918–1951)
Col. Joseph Hathaway Cosby (1951–1970)
Col. Vernon Thomas Lankford Sr. (1970–1987)
Col. Michael Bruce Colegrove (1987–1989)
Col. Andrew W. Todd (1989–1990)
Col. Thomas N. Cunningham (1990–1997)
Col. John W. Ripley, USMC (ret.) (1997–1999)
Dr. Wheeler L. Baker, Col. USMC (ret.) (1999–2011)
Brig. Gen. Doyle Broome, USA (ret.) (2011–2017)
Dr. Wheeler L. Baker, Col. USMC (ret.) (2017–2018)
Col. Michael Allen Brown, USMC (ret.) (2018–2021)
The Honorable Sloan D. Gibson, former Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (2021–2022)
Eric F. Peterson (2022–Present)
Teachings and curriculum
One of Hargrave Military Academy's four pillars is academic excellence. Both Standard and Advanced High School Diplomas are offered to graduating cadets, as well as dual-enrollment classes through Danville Community College, Liberty University, and Richard Bland College. In addition to the 7–12 grade middle and high school, a one-year postgraduate program is also offered. Eligible students can enroll in a variety of honors and AP classes. Cadets have the opportunity to make academic honor rolls every grading period, consisting of the Dean's List and President's List. Post-Graduate students are eligible for the President's Commendation list.
Hargrave utilizes an "Enhanced Learning Through Technology" program, providing internet access in every room on campus. Cadets have the ability to work on class material, study, and contact their instructors at any time, from any place on campus.
In 2003, and 2011 Hargrave completed two upgrades to the academic space, including four laboratory areas, a new art studio, a college lecture-style learning center called the DLC (distance learning center), a "leadership center" and a greatly expanded video production classroom where cadets produce weekly announcement videos. Also, Hargrave's campus contains a refurbished auditorium.
Cadet technology resources require a personal computer for every student, while Hargrave provides access to Google Drive. An SAT prep program, and a variety of computer-based teaching applications in mathematics, English and psychology are all parts of Hargrave's academic approach.
Hargrave's library contains more than 14,000 reference and book volumes and a computer network. Through the network, Cadets can access 44 reference and research databases online, 19 reference eBooks in the virtual library, access the Atomic Learning Tutor for software programs, and access subject specific learning programs, such as Boxer Math. Hargrave also utilizes Blackboard, a class teaching program.
Colin Powell Center for Leadership & Ethics
Hargrave Military Academy offers a General Colin Powell Center for Leadership & Ethics; that was established to provide Cadets with a challenging, progressive and structured leadership education. Hargrave Cadets are taught to lead in an academic environment and through practical application by applying learned leadership techniques in day-to-day situations.
Cadets are given the opportunity to enroll in a formal Leadership and Ethics Class (a ½ credit class of 18 weeks in length). The curriculum includes an investigation of the foundations of leadership such as Leadership Traits, Leadership Principles, Leadership Styles and Ethical Behavior. During their sophomore year, Cadets begin to assume positions as small unit leaders (squad leaders) which permits practical application of the leadership principles learned in the classroom. Upon completion of this Leadership 1 course, cadets can enroll in Leadership 2, which goes into more detail on the leadership traits, principles, and techniques encouraged by General Colin Powell.
Cadets who complete the requirements of the Colin Powell Leadership Program may apply for the Colin Powell Leadership Medal; an honor only select Cadets achieve. If they are accepted, Cadets will earn the Colin Powell Leadership Medal, and, upon graduation, a Certificate in Leadership Studies along with their Hargrave Military Academy Diploma.
Military structure
According to its website, "Hargrave's military program is designed to present an environment in which a Cadet may gain a sense of humor, commitment, and fidelity. The daily exposure of a military environment assists Cadets in developing self-discipline, character, ethics, team building, and leadership." Military aspects include the wearing of uniforms, a military-style organization of personnel, ranks, and a chain of command. Hargrave issues its own dress uniforms and PTG, but provides cadets with US Army style army combat uniforms.
Corps of Cadets
The Corps of Cadets consists of a battalion divided into four companies: Alpha, Bravo, Delta, and Band. Every six weeks grading period, an "Honor Company" is chosen. The honor company is the company with the best overall academic and military performance. For winning, they eat first at mess, and display a streamer on their guidon.
The rank structure at Hargrave is similar to that of the United States Army, and includes the rank of Basic Cadet.
After attending Non-Commissioned Officers (SNCO) School prior to the beginning of the academic year, cadets can obtain NCO ranks and positions. One cadet is appointed to the rank of Command Sergeant Major, serving on Battalion staff as the highest-ranking NCO.
The week before the start of their senior year, cadets have the option of attending Officer Candidate School (OCS), which allows them to obtain commissioned officer ranks. The OCS Completion Ribbon is awarded to those cadets who finish OCS. A cadet officer can hold many leadership positions ranging from auxiliary to Battalion Commander. The corps is run by the cadet officers and is supervised by the military faculty members. The Battalion Commander is the commanding officer of the corps. The Battalion XO is the second highest position in the Corps of Cadets whose primary job is to manage the Battalion Staff. The Battalion Staff is responsible for all operations throughout the Corps. Blouse rank insignia on HMA dress uniforms is similar to those used at West Point, with large yellow and black edged stripes.
Discipline
Notable at Hargrave is the notorious Bullring, a square painted on cement in the middle of campus. Cadets who violate any of the rules and regulations may be sent to the Bullring to walk tours. One hour of walking around the Bullring in uniform makes up a single tour. Cadets may also be briefly subject to PT in the bullring for minor infractions.
Honor system
The honor code prohibits cadets from lying, cheating, or stealing. Any cadet that violates, or is accused of violating, any part of the honor code may be sent to the Honor Council which consists of a panel of cadets that are appointed by school officials, where, if found guilty, may be subject to sanctions based on the severity of the incident.
Athletics
Varsity
Hargrave fields many varsity athletic teams, including football, basketball, baseball, wrestling, soccer, golf, tennis, lacrosse, cross country, track and field, and swimming.
Post-graduate basketball
The Tigers have won three National Prep Championships since a formal tournament began in the mid 2000’s. The program has produced hundreds of players that went on to play NCAA Division 1 basketball, and 26 that have gone on to play in the National Basketball Association. The program has also been a breeding ground for college coaches, as many former head coaches and assistants have ascended through the ranks at the NCAA Division 1 level. The Hargrave Military Academy basketball program was named “Program of the Decade” by RealGM in 2012 after a study showing that Hargrave produced more successful college basketball players than any other prep school or high school in the nation. The program was also featured on a season 2 episode of CNN's Inside Man.
Clubs and organizations
There are many clubs and organizations that cadets can participate in while attending Hargrave, including:
National Beta Club
Boy Scouts
Key Club
Spanish Club
Speech and Debate
Robotics
Drama
Choir
Band
Camden Rifles drill team
The Highlanders (Bagpipes)
Scuba
Fellowship of Christian Athletes
Airsoft club
Chess club
Drone club
Mountain Bike club
Fencing
Jiu Jitsu
Boxing
Archery
Skeet Shooting
Pickle Ball
Computer Programming Club
Young Life
Notable alumni
Politics, military, and business
Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV (1972) – former commander of United States Army North (5th Army), current President of Georgia Military College.
Walter Davis (1938) – former CEO of Occidental Petroleum
Walter B. Jones (1961) – U.S. Representative for
Herbert Lee King (1990) - current President of Lees-McRae College
Sloan D. Gibson (1971) — U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, President of Hargrave Military Academy (2021-present)
Literature, television and arts
Andrew Ballen (1991) – A&R executive, entrepreneur and TV personality in mainland China
Tom Robbins – Novelist, short story writer, essayist
Sean Rankine (1992) - Executive Producer, This Way Out Media Inc.
Baseball
Jon Nunnally (1990) – Major League Baseball player
Taylor Sanford (1925) – head coach of 1955 College World Series champion Wake Forest
Basketball
Larry Brown '59, former head coach of the Charlotte Bobcats, New York Knicks, Detroit Pistons, Philadelphia 76ers, Indiana Pacers, Los Angeles Clippers, San Antonio Spurs, New Jersey Nets, Denver Nuggets
Kęstutis Marčiulionis '96, former player for Delaware who most recently played professionally with Volukte Kaunas. Won a bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics with Lithuania.
Korleone Young ‘98, Detroit Pistons
Lonny Baxter ‘98, Chicago Bulls
Anthony Grundy ‘98, Atlanta Hawks
Ronald Blackshear '99, former player for Temple and Marshall. Last played professionally for CSU Atlassib Sibiu.
Josh Howard ‘99, Dallas Mavericks
David West ‘99, Golden State Warriors
James Thomas ‘00, Philadelphia 76ers
Tony Bobbitt ‘00, Los Angeles Lakers
Brian Chase ‘00, Los Angeles Lakers
A. W. Hamilton '00, Head coach of the Eastern Kentucky Colonels
Ricky Shields '01 , former player for Rutgers. Last played for Mitteldeutscher BC.
Sharrod Ford ‘01, Phoenix Suns
James White ‘01, New York Knicks
Tim Smith '02, former player for East Tennessee State. Last played professionally for BSC Raiffeisen Panthers Fürstenfeld.
Stanley Burrell '04, former player for Xavier and last played Czarni Słupsk.
Lorrenzo Wade '04, former player for Louisville and San Diego State. Last played professionally for the Delaware 87ers of the NBA G League.
Joe Alexander ‘05, Milwaukee Bucks
Sam Young ‘05, Indiana Pacers
Ángel Daniel Vassallo '05, former player for Virginia Tech and currently playing professionally with Leones de Ponce. Member of the Puerto Rico national basketball team.
Armon Bassett '06, former player for Indiana and Ohio. Last played professionally for Ironi Ramat Gan
Vernon Macklin ’06 , Detroit Pistons
Tyler Smith '06, former player for Iowa and Tennessee. Last played for Elitzur Eito Ashkelon of the Israeli National League.
Marreese Speights ‘06, Orlando Magic
Jeff Allen '07, former player for Virginia Tech. First player in ACC history to record 1,500 career points, 1,000 rebounds, 200 steals and 150 blocked shots.
Jordan Crawford ‘07, Boston Celtics
Mike Scott ‘07, Atlanta Hawks
Dee Bost ‘08, Portland Trail Blazers
Tommy Brenton '08, former player for Stony Brook. Last played professionally for Link Tochigi Brex. 2013 Lefty Driesell Award winner.
Anthony Grundy '08, former player for NC State. Last played professionally for Hacettepe University.
Eshaunte Jones '08, former player for Nebraska and Northern Kentucky.
Damier Pitts '08, former player for Marshall and current professional player for Godel Rabotnički.
Maurice Creek '09, former player for Indiana and George Washington and current professional player for Prometey Kamianske of the Ukrainian Basketball SuperLeague
Luke Hancock ‘09, Memphis Grizzlies
Lorenzo Brown ‘10, basketball player in the Israeli Basketball Premier League, formerly in the NBA
J.J. Mann '10, former player for Belmont and current professional player for Okapi Aalstar
PJ Hairston ‘11, Charlotte Hornets
Dez Wells ‘11, Washington Wizards
Montrezl Harrell ‘12, Los Angeles Clippers
Codi Miller-McIntyre '12, former player for Wake Forest and current professional player for KK Cedevita Olimpija.
Ryan Taylor '12, former player for Marshall and former professional player for Íþróttafélag Reykjavíkur.
Shannon Evans '13, former player for Arizona State and Buffalo and current professional player for Atomerőmű SE
Anton Gill '13, former player for Louisville and Nebraska. Current professional player in Iraq.
Terry Rozier ‘13, Charlotte Hornets
Donte Grantham ‘14, Los Angeles Clippers
Jon Davis ‘15, Orlando Magic
Hassani Gravett ’15, Orlando Magic
Naji Marshall '17, New Orleans Pelicans
Football
Branden Albert – National Football League player for the Miami Dolphins
Curtis Brinkley – NFL player
Ahmad Brooks – NFL player for the San Francisco 49ers
Zach Brown – NFL player for the Buffalo Bills
Martavis Bryant – NFL wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers
Quinton Coples – NFL player for the New York Jets
Ego Ferguson Jr. – NFL player
Jared Gaither – NFL player who last played for the San Diego Chargers
Laurence Gibson (2008) – NFL player
Charles Grant (2002) – NFL defensive end
Vidal Hazelton (2006) – CFL player for Edmonton Eskimos
Anthony Hill – NFL player
Torry Holt (1995) – NFL player, 7-time Pro Bowler and a member of the Super Bowl XXXIV champion St. Louis Rams
John Jerry – NFL player for the New York Giants
Brandon Lang – football player who last played for the Ottawa Redblacks
Solomon Page (1995) – NFL player
Jerrell Powe – NFL player for the Houston Texans
Justin Senior – Kansas City Chiefs offensive tackle
Jyles Tucker (1903) – NFL player
DJ Ware – NFL player who last played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Muhammad Wilkerson – NFL player for the Green Bay Packers
Keiland Williams – Former NFL Player
NASCAR
Ward Burton (1982) – NASCAR driver, 2002 Daytona 500 winner
Notable attendees
Joe Alexander (born 1986) - American-Israeli basketball player in the Israel Basketball Premier League
Tarell Basham – NFL defensive end for Cincinnati Bengals
Leonard Floyd – NFL linebacker for Chicago Bears
Montrezl Harrell – NBA player for Los Angeles Lakers
Shaq Lawson – NFL defensive end for Buffalo Bills
Evan Marriott
Jarran Reed – NFL defensive tackle for Seattle Seahawks
Isaiah Swann (born 1985), professional basketball player
Cordrea Tankersley – NFL cornerback for Miami Dolphins
Mike Tyson – NFL cornerback for Seattle Seahawks
Stephen Wallace (2000–2001) – NASCAR driver
Lee Weiss, J.D. (Victory Records) Save The Lost Boys (2013–present) – [Front man] Founder
Further reading
Fifty Years of Christian Education In a Baptist School: A Historical Record of Hargrave Military Academy 1909–1959, 1959, by COL Aubrey H. Camden
From Ashes to Excellence 1950–1970, 1984, by COL Joseph H. Cosby
Years of Change; Years of Growth: A History of Hargrave Military Academy 1970–2003, 2004, by Mary M. Tallent
References
External links
Hargrave Military Academy
Military high schools in the United States
Schools in Pittsylvania County, Virginia
Private high schools in Virginia
Private middle schools in Virginia
Educational institutions established in 1909
Universities and colleges affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention
Baptist Christianity in Virginia
1909 establishments in Virginia
Boarding schools in Virginia
Boys' schools in the United States
National Register of Historic Places in Pittsylvania County, Virginia
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune%20tolerance
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Immune tolerance
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Immune tolerance, or immunological tolerance, or immunotolerance, is a state of unresponsiveness of the immune system to substances or tissue that would otherwise have the capacity to elicit an immune response in a given organism. It is induced by prior exposure to that specific antigen and contrasts with conventional immune-mediated elimination of foreign antigens (see Immune response). Tolerance is classified into central tolerance or peripheral tolerance depending on where the state is originally induced—in the thymus and bone marrow (central) or in other tissues and lymph nodes (peripheral). The mechanisms by which these forms of tolerance are established are distinct, but the resulting effect is similar.
Immune tolerance is important for normal physiology. Central tolerance is the main way the immune system learns to discriminate self from non-self. Peripheral tolerance is key to preventing over-reactivity of the immune system to various environmental entities (allergens, gut microbes, etc.). Deficits in central or peripheral tolerance also cause autoimmune disease, resulting in syndromes such as systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 1 (APS-1), and immunodysregulation polyendocrinopathy enteropathy X-linked syndrome (IPEX), and potentially contribute to asthma, allergy, and inflammatory bowel disease. And immune tolerance in pregnancy is what allows a mother animal to gestate a genetically distinct offspring with an alloimmune response muted enough to prevent miscarriage.
Tolerance, however, also has its negative tradeoffs. It allows for some pathogenic microbes to successfully infect a host and avoid elimination. In addition, inducing peripheral tolerance in the local microenvironment is a common survival strategy for a number of tumors that prevents their elimination by the host immune system.
Historical background
The phenomenon of immune tolerance was first described by Ray D. Owen in 1945, who noted that dizygotic twin cattle sharing a common placenta also shared a stable mixture of each other's red blood cells (though not necessarily 50/50), and retained that mixture throughout life. Although Owen did not use the term immune tolerance, his study showed the body could be tolerant of these foreign tissues. This observation was experimentally validated by Leslie Brent, Rupert E. Billingham and Peter Medawar in 1953, who showed by injecting foreign cells into fetal or neonatal mice, they could become accepting of future grafts from the same foreign donor. However, they were not thinking of the immunological consequences of their work at the time: as Medawar explains:
"We did not set out with the idea in mind of studying the immunological consequences of the phenomenon described by Owen; on the contrary, we had been goaded by Dr. H.P. Donald into trying to devise a foolproof method of distinguishing monozygotic from dizygotic twins... ."
However, these discoveries, and the host of allograft experiments and observations of twin chimerism they inspired, were seminal for the theories of immune tolerance formulated by Sir Frank McFarlane Burnet and Frank Fenner, who were the first to propose the deletion of self-reactive lymphocytes to establish tolerance, now termed clonal deletion. Burnet and Medawar were ultimately credited for "the discovery of acquired immune tolerance" and shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1960.
Definitions and usage
In their Nobel Lecture, Medawar and Burnet define immune tolerance as "a state of indifference or non-reactivity towards a substance that would normally be expected to excite an immunological response." Other more recent definitions have remained more or less the same. The 8th edition of Janeway's Immunobiology defines tolerance as "immunologically unresponsive…to another's tissues.".
Immune tolerance encompasses the range of physiological mechanisms by which the body reduces or eliminates an immune response to particular agents. It is used to describe the phenomenon underlying discrimination of self from non-self, suppressing allergic responses, allowing chronic infection instead of rejection and elimination, and preventing attack of fetuses by the maternal immune system.
Typically, a change in the host, not the antigen, is implied. Though some pathogens can evolve to become less virulent in host-pathogen coevolution, tolerance does not refer to the change in the pathogen but can be used to describe the changes in host physiology. Immune tolerance also does not usually refer to artificially induced immunosuppression by corticosteroids, lymphotoxic chemotherapy agents, sublethal irradiation, etc. Nor does it refer to other types of non-reactivity such as immunological paralysis. In the latter two cases, the host's physiology is handicapped but not fundamentally changed.
Immune tolerance is formally differentiated into central or peripheral; however, alternative terms such as "natural" or "acquired" tolerance have at times been used to refer to establishment of tolerance by physiological means or by artificial, experimental, or pharmacological means. These two methods of categorization are sometimes confused, but are not equivalent—central or peripheral tolerance may be present naturally or induced experimentally. This difference is important to keep in mind.
Central tolerance
Central tolerance refers to the tolerance established by deleting autoreactive lymphocyte clones before they develop into fully immunocompetent cells. It occurs during lymphocyte development in the thymus and bone marrow for T and B lymphocytes, respectively. In these tissues, maturing lymphocytes are exposed to self-antigens presented by medullary thymic epithelial cells and thymic dendritic cells, or bone marrow cells. Self-antigens are present due to endogenous expression, importation of antigen from peripheral sites via circulating blood, and in the case of thymic stromal cells, expression of proteins of other non-thymic tissues by the action of the transcription factor AIRE.
Those lymphocytes that have receptors that bind strongly to self-antigens are removed by induction of apoptosis of the autoreactive cells, or by induction of anergy, a state of non-activity. Weakly autoreactive B cells may also remain in a state of immunological ignorance where they simply do not respond to stimulation of their B cell receptor. Some weakly self-recognizing T cells are alternatively differentiated into natural regulatory T cells (nTreg cells), which act as sentinels in the periphery to calm down potential instances of T cell autoreactivity (see peripheral tolerance below).
The deletion threshold is much more stringent for T cells than for B cells since T cells alone can cause direct tissue damage. Furthermore, it is more advantageous for the organism to let its B cells recognize a wider variety of antigen so it can produce antibodies against a greater diversity of pathogens. Since the B cells can only be fully activated after confirmation by more self-restricted T cells that recognize the same antigen, autoreactivity is held in check.
This process of negative selection ensures that T and B cells that could initiate a potent immune response to the host's own tissues are eliminated while preserving the ability to recognize foreign antigens. It is the step in lymphocyte education that is key for preventing autoimmunity (entire process detailed here). Lymphocyte development and education is most active in fetal development but continues throughout life as immature lymphocytes are generated, slowing as the thymus degenerates and the bone marrow shrinks in adult life.
Peripheral tolerance
Peripheral tolerance develops after T and B cells mature and enter the peripheral tissues and lymph nodes. It is established by a number of partly overlapping mechanisms that mostly involve control at the level of T cells, especially CD4+ helper T cells, which orchestrate immune responses and give B cells the confirmatory signals they need in order to produce antibodies.
Inappropriate reactivity toward normal self-antigen that was not eliminated in the thymus can occur, since the T cells that leave the thymus are relatively but not completely safe. Some will have receptors (TCRs) that can respond to self-antigens that:
are present in such high concentration outside the thymus that they can bind to "weak" receptors.
the T cell did not encounter in the thymus (such as, tissue-specific molecules like those in the islets of Langerhans, brain, or spinal cord not expressed by AIRE in thymic tissues).
Those self-reactive T cells that escape intrathymic negative selection in the thymus can inflict cell injury unless they are deleted or effectively muzzled in the peripheral tissue chiefly by nTreg cells (see central tolerance above).
Appropriate reactivity toward certain antigens can also be quieted by induction of tolerance after repeated exposure, or exposure in a certain context. In these cases, there is a differentiation of naïve CD4+ helper T cells into induced Treg cells (iTreg cells) in the peripheral tissue or nearby lymphoid tissue (lymph nodes, mucosal-associated lymphoid tissue, etc.). This differentiation is mediated by IL-2 produced upon T cell activation, and TGF-β from any of a variety of sources, including tolerizing dendritic cells (DCs), other antigen presenting cells, or in certain conditions surrounding tissue.
Treg cells are not the only cells that mediate peripheral tolerance. Other regulatory immune cells include T cell subsets similar to but phenotypically distinct from Treg cells, including TR1 cells that make IL-10 but do not express Foxp3, TGF-β-secreting TH3 cells, as well as other less well-characterized cells that help establish a local tolerogenic environment. B cells also express CD22, a non-specific inhibitor receptor that dampens B cell receptor activation. A subset of B regulatory cells that makes IL-10 and TGF-β also exists. Some DCs can make Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) that depletes the amino acid tryptophan needed by T cells to proliferate and thus reduce responsiveness. DCs also have the capacity to directly induce anergy in T cells that recognize antigen expressed at high levels and thus presented at steady-state by DCs. In addition, FasL expression by immune privileged tissues can result in activation-induced cell death of T cells.
nTreg vs. iTreg cells
The involvement of T cells, later classified as Treg cells, in immune tolerance was recognized in 1995 when animal models showed that CD4+ CD25+ T cells were necessary and sufficient for the prevention of autoimmunity in mice and rats. Initial observations showed removal of the thymus of a newborn mouse resulted in autoimmunity, which could be rescued by transplantation of CD4+ T cells. A more specific depletion and reconstitution experiment established the phenotype of these cells as CD4+ and CD25+. Later in 2003, experiments showed that Treg cells were characterized by the expression of the Foxp3 transcription factor, which is responsible for the suppressive phenotype of these cells.
It was assumed that, since the presence of the Treg cells originally characterized was dependent on the neonatal thymus, these cells were thymically derived. By the mid-2000s, however, evidence was accruing of conversion of naïve CD4+ T cells to Treg cells outside of the thymus. These were later defined as induced or iTreg cells to contrast them with thymus-derived nTreg cells.
Both types of Treg cells quieten autoreactive T cell signaling and proliferation by cell-contact-dependent and -independent mechanisms including:
Contact-dependent:
Granzyme or perforin secretion upon contact
Upregulation of cAMP after contact, inducing anergy (reduced proliferation and IL-2 signaling)
Interaction with B7 on T cells
Downregulation of CD80/CD86 costimultory molecules on antigen presenting cells upon interaction with CTLA-4 or lymphocyte function-associated antigen 1 (LFA-1)
Contact-independent
Secretion of TGF-β, which sensitizes cells to suppression and promotes Treg-like cell differentiation
Secretion of IL-10
Cytokine absorption leading to cytokine deprivation-mediated apoptosis
nTreg cells and iTreg cells, however, have a few important distinguishing characteristics that suggest they have different physiological roles:
nTreg cells develop in the thymus; iTreg cells develop outside the thymus in chronically inflamed tissue, lymph nodes, spleen, and gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT).
nTreg cells develop from Foxp3- CD25+ CD4+ cells while iTreg cells develop from Foxp3+ CD25- CD4- cells (both become Foxp3+ CD25+CD4+).
nTreg cells, when activated, require CD28 costimulation, while iTreg cells require CTLA-4 costimulation.
nTreg cells are specific, modestly, for self-antigen while iTreg cells recognize allergens, commensal bacteria, tumor antigens, alloantigens, and self-antigens in inflamed tissue.
Tolerance in physiology and medicine
Allograft tolerance
Immune recognition of non-self-antigens typically complicates transplantation and engrafting of foreign tissue from an organism of the same species (allografts), resulting in graft reaction. However, there are two general cases in which an allograft may be accepted. One is when cells or tissue are grafted to an immune-privileged site that is sequestered from immune surveillance (like in the eye or testes) or has strong molecular signals in place to prevent dangerous inflammation (like in the brain). The second is when a state of tolerance has been induced, either by previous exposure to the antigen of the donor in a manner that causes immune tolerance rather than sensitization in the recipient, or after chronic rejection. Long-term exposure to a foreign antigen from fetal development or birth may result in establishment of central tolerance, as was observed in Medawar's mouse-allograft experiments. In usual transplant cases, however, such early prior exposure is not possible. Nonetheless, a few patients can still develop allograft tolerance upon cessation of all exogenous immunosuppressive therapy, a condition referred to as operational tolerance. CD4+ Foxp3+ Treg cells, as well as CD8+ CD28- regulatory T cells that dampen cytotoxic responses to grafted organs, are thought to play a role. In addition, genes involved in NK cell and γδT cell function associated with tolerance have been implicated for liver transplant patients. The unique gene signatures of these patients implies their physiology may be predisposed toward immune tolerance.
Fetal development
The fetus has a different genetic makeup than the mother, as it also translates its father's genes, and is thus perceived as foreign by the maternal immune system. Women who have borne multiple children by the same father typically have antibodies against the father's red blood cell and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins. However, the fetus usually is not rejected by the mother, making it essentially a physiologically tolerated allograft. It is thought that the placental tissues which interface with maternal tissues not only try to escape immunological recognition by downregulating identifying MHC proteins but also actively induce a marked peripheral tolerance. Placental trophoblast cells express a unique Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA-G) that inhibits attack by maternal NK cells. These cells also express IDO, which represses maternal T cell responses by amino acid starvation. Maternal T cells specific for paternal antigens are also suppressed by tolerogenic DCs and activated iTregs or cross-reacting nTregs. Some maternal Treg cells also release soluble fibrinogen-like proteins 2 (sFGL2), which suppresses the function of DCs and macrophages involved in inflammation and antigen presentation to reactive T cells These mechanisms altogether establish an immune-privileged state in the placenta that protects the fetus. A break in this peripheral tolerance results in miscarriage and fetal loss. (for more information, see Immune tolerance in pregnancy).
The microbiome
The skin and digestive tract of humans and many other organisms is colonized with an ecosystem of microorganisms that is referred to as the microbiome. Though in mammals a number of defenses exist to keep the microbiota at a safe distance, including a constant sampling and presentation of microbial antigens by local DCs, most organisms do not react against commensal microorganisms and tolerate their presence. Reactions are mounted, however, to pathogenic microbes and microbes that breach physiological barriers(epithelium barriers). Peripheral mucosal immune tolerance, in particular, mediated by iTreg cells and tolerogenic antigen-presenting cells, is thought to be responsible for this phenomenon. In particular, specialized gut CD103+ DCs that produce both TGF-β and retinoic acid efficiently promotes the differentiation of iTreg cells in the gut lymphoid tissue. Foxp3- TR1 cells that make IL-10 are also enriched in the intestinal lining. Break in this tolerance is thought to underlie the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
Oral tolerance and hypersensitivity
Oral tolerance refers to a specific type of peripheral tolerance induced by antigens given by mouth and exposed to the gut mucosa and its associated lymphoid tissues. The hypo-responsiveness induced by oral exposure is systemic and can reduce hypersensitivity reactions in certain cases. Records from 1829 indicate that American Indians would reduce contact hypersensitivity from poison ivy by consuming leaves of related Rhus species; however, contemporary attempts to use oral tolerance to ameliorate autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and other hypersensitivity reactions have been mixed. The systemic effects of oral tolerance may be explained by the extensive recirculation of immune cells primed in one mucosal tissue in another mucosal tissue, allowing extension of mucosal immunity. The same probably occurs for cells mediating mucosal immune tolerance.
Oral tolerance may depend on the same mechanisms of peripheral tolerance that limit inflammation to bacterial antigens in the microbiome since both involve the gut-associated lymphoid tissue. It may also have evolved to prevent hypersensitivity reactions to food proteins. It is of immense immunological importance, since it is a continuous natural immunologic event driven by exogenous antigen.
Allergy and hypersensitivity reactions in general are traditionally thought of as misguided or excessive reactions by the immune system, possibly due to broken or underdeveloped mechanisms of peripheral tolerance. Usually, Treg cells, TR1, and Th3 cells at mucosal surfaces suppress type 2 CD4 helper cells, mast cells, and eosinophils, which mediate allergic response. Deficits in Treg cells or their localization to mucosa have been implicated in asthma and atopic dermatitis. Attempts have been made to reduce hypersensitivity reactions by oral tolerance and other means of repeated exposure. Repeated administration of the allergen in slowly increasing doses, subcutaneously or sublingually appears to be effective for allergic rhinitis. Repeated administration of antibiotics, which can form haptens to cause allergic reactions, can also reduce antibiotic allergies in children.
The tumor microenvironment
Immune tolerance is an important means by which growing tumors, which have mutated proteins and altered antigen expression, prevent elimination by the host immune system. It is well recognized that tumors are a complex and dynamic population of cells composed of transformed cells as well as stromal cells, blood vessels, tissue macrophages, and other immune infiltrates. These cells and their interactions all contribute to the changing tumor microenvironment, which the tumor largely manipulates to be immunotolerant so as to avoid elimination. There is an accumulation of metabolic enzymes that suppress T cell proliferation and activation, including IDO and arginase, and high expression of tolerance-inducing ligands like FasL, PD-1, CTLA-4, and B7. Pharmacologic monoclonal antibodies targeted against some of these ligands has been effective in treating cancer. Tumor-derived vesicles known as exosomes have also been implicated promoting differentiation of iTreg cells and myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), which also induce peripheral tolerance. In addition to promoting immune tolerance, other aspects of the microenvironment aid in immune evasion and induction of tumor-promoting inflammation.
Evolution
Though the exact evolutionary rationale behind the development of immunological tolerance is not completely known, it is thought to allow organisms to adapt to antigenic stimuli that will consistently be present instead of expending considerable resources fighting it off repeatedly. Tolerance in general can be thought of as an alternative defense strategy that focuses on minimizing impact of an invader on host fitness, instead of on destroying and eliminating the invader. Such efforts may have a prohibitive cost on host fitness. In plants, where the concept was originally used, tolerance is defined as a reaction norm of host fitness over a range of parasite burdens, and can be measured from the slope of the line fitting these data. Immune tolerance may constitute one aspect of this defense strategy, though other types of tissue tolerance have been described.
The advantages of immune tolerance, in particular, may be seen in experiments with mice infected with malaria, in which more tolerant mice have higher fitness at greater pathogen burdens. In addition, development of immune tolerance would have allowed organisms to reap the benefits of having a robust commensal microbiome, such as increased nutrient absorption and decreased colonization by pathogenic bacteria.
Though it seems that the existence of tolerance is mostly adaptive, allowing an adjustment of the immune response to a level appropriate for the given stressor, it comes with important evolutionary disadvantages. Some infectious microbes take advantage of existing mechanisms of tolerance to avoid detection and/or elimination by the host immune system. Induction of regulatory T cells, for instance, has been noted in infections with Helicobacter pylori, Listeria monocytogenes, Brugia malayi, and other worms and parasites. Another important disadvantage of the existence of tolerance may be susceptibility to cancer progression. Treg cells inhibit anti-tumor NK cells. The injection of Treg cells specific for a tumor antigen also can reverse experimentally-mediated tumor rejection based on that same antigen. The prior existence of immune tolerance mechanisms due to selection for its fitness benefits facilitates its utilization in tumor growth.
Tradeoffs between immune tolerance and resistance
Immune tolerance contrasts with resistance. Upon exposure to a foreign antigen, either the antigen is eliminated by the standard immune response (resistance), or the immune system adapts to the pathogen, promoting immune tolerance instead.
Resistance typically protects the host at the expense of the parasite, while tolerance reduces harm to the host without having any direct negative effects on the parasite. Each strategy has its unique costs and benefits for host fitness:
Evolution works to optimize host fitness, so whether elimination or tolerance occurs depends on which would benefit the organism most in a given scenario. If the antigen is from a rare, dangerous invader, the costs of tolerating its presence are high and it is more beneficial to the host to eliminate it. Conversely, if experience (of the organism or its ancestors) has shown that the antigen is innocuous, then it would be more beneficial to tolerate the presence of the antigen rather than pay the costs of inflammation.
Despite having mechanisms for both immune resistance and tolerance, any one organism may be overall more skewed toward a tolerant or resistant phenotype depending on individual variation in both traits due to genetic and environmental factors. In mice infected with malaria, different genetic strains of mice fall neatly along a spectrum of being more tolerant but less resistant or more resistant but less tolerant. Patients with autoimmune diseases also often have a unique gene signature and certain environmental risk factors that predispose them to disease. This may have implications for current efforts to identify why certain individuals may be disposed to or protected against autoimmunity, allergy, inflammatory bowel disease, and other such diseases.
See also
Evolutionary medicine § tradeoffs
Immunotherapy
Infectious tolerance
Mithridatism
Plant tolerance to herbivory
References
External links
Immune Tolerance Network
International Conference on Immune Tolerance
Immunology
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feinberg%20School%20of%20Medicine
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Feinberg School of Medicine
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Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is the medical school of Northwestern University and is located in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1859, Feinberg offers a full-time Doctor of Medicine degree program, multiple dual degree programs, graduate medical education, and continuing medical education.
Through clinical affiliates Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, and the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago). Feinberg and its clinical affiliates are together an $11 billion academic medical enterprise. The school has about 4,830 faculty members.
Academic Medical Center
The Feinberg School of Medicine is part of the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. Other McGaw members include:
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago)
Jesse Brown VA Medical Center (formerly VA Chicago Health Care System)
Feinberg medical students and McGaw residents receive their clinical training at these hospitals, where nearly all the attending staff members have faculty appointments at the Feinberg School of Medicine. Residents also train at affiliates such as John H. Stroger Jr Hospital of Cook County, Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital, Swedish Covenant Hospital, MacNeal Hospital, and Methodist Hospital in Gary, Indiana.
The medical school's primary teaching hospital is Northwestern Memorial Hospital, a modern hospital that was completed in 1999.
Education
The Feinberg School of Medicine is home to 631 medical students. The class of students who graduated in 2023 are the 164th graduating class. For the 2023 entering class, 7,836 people applied for 145 seats. The median undergraduate GPA and MCAT score for successful applicants are 3.92 and 520, respectively.
For medical students, the school offers four-year dual degree programs, which combine the Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree with a Master of Public Health (MPH), a Master of Arts in Medical Humanities and Bioethics (MA), a Master of Science in Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety (MS), or a Master of Business Administration (MBA). Students electing to pursue the additional degrees enroll in evening classes and graduate with both degrees. Two MD/PhD programs are offered, one in combination with Northwestern University's Graduate School (Medical Scientist Training Program) and one with the university's Institute for Neuroscience.
The school also offers graduate degree programs, some in combination with other Northwestern University professional schools:
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in basic science programs such as Biological Sciences and Clinical Psychology, and public health programs such as Health and Biomedical Informatics, Health Services and Outcomes Research, Epidemiology, and Translational Outcomes Science
Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT)
Master of Medical Science (MMSc) in Physician Assistant Studies
Master of Public Health (MPH)
Master of Science (MS) in programs such as Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Clinical Investigation, Genetic Counseling, Regulatory Compliance, or Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety
Master of Medical Informatics (MMI)
Master of Prosthetics and Orthotics (MPO)
Additionally, the school offers a BS/MD degree through the Honors Program in Medical Education (HPME), a seven-year combined undergraduate and medical school program.
Research
According to public financial data for Feinberg, support for competitive research grants from all external sources totaled $706 million in academic year 2022–2023. In 2022, Feinberg ranked 15th for NIH funding among American medical schools. The medical school houses more than 35 Core Facilities, including a Bioinformatics Consulting Core, Genomics Core and Human Embryonic and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Core.
Faculty in the Research program at Feinberg study and mentor in a range of areas, including cancer biology, cell biology, chemical biology, drug discovery, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, genetics, genomics, medical biology, immunology, microbial pathogenesis, neuroscience, pharmacology, structural biology, biochemistry, epigenetics, epidemiology, behavioral sciences, preventive medicine, epidemiology, health outcomes, quality improvement, and translational sciences.
Recent Growth
In June 2019, the university opened a $560 million, 625,000 square-foot biomedical research building on the Chicago campus. The new building, the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Biomedical Research Center, is connected to the existing Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center. A second phase of build out will eventually total 1.2 million square feet in the new building when complete. Additionally, more than 250,000 square feet of space in existing campus buildings has been converted to new laboratory space.
Nobel Laureates
John Eccles, an Australian neurophysiologist and philosopher, received the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Andrew Huxley and Alan Lloyd Hodgkin for their fundamental work on the synapse. Eccles was a professor at Feinberg from 1966 to 1968.
Robert Furchgott, a graduate of the class of 1940, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1998 for his co-discovery of the role of nitric oxide as a signaling molecule.
Ferid Murad, an American pharmacologist and cell biologist, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1998, along with Robert F. Furchgott and Louis J. Ignarro, for demonstrating that nitroglycerin and related drugs worked by releasing nitric oxide into the body, which relaxed smooth muscle by elevating intracellular cyclic GMP. Murad was an adjunct professor at Feinberg from 1988 to 1998.
Rankings
In 2023, Feinberg was ranked 13th among American medical research schools by U.S. News & World Report. The school is ranked 15th in the National Institutes of Health funding rankings among all American Medical Schools.
The school's major affiliated teaching hospitals rank in U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals 2022-2023 as follows:
Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, ranked first in the nation for physical medicine and rehabilitation hospitals
Northwestern Memorial Hospital, ranked ninth in the nation of America's Best Hospitals
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, nationally ranked in 10 specialties
History
Hosmer Johnson, Nathan Smith Davis, Ralph Isham, Edmund Andrews, David Rutter and William Byford co-founded the medical department of Lind University on October 11, 1859. It was renamed the Chicago Medical College in 1863, and affiliated with Northwestern University in 1870.
The Woman's Medical College of Chicago, established in 1870 as the Woman's Hospital Medical College, became affiliated with Northwestern in 1892 as Northwestern University Woman's Medical School. The college closed in 1902 as other schools in Chicago and the nation began accepting women.
In 1906, the Chicago Medical College was renamed Northwestern University Medical School. It had occupied buildings on the near south side of Chicago from 1863 until the Montgomery Ward Memorial Building was constructed in Streeterville in 1926.
Northwestern University Medical School was renamed the Feinberg School of Medicine in 2002, reflecting a $75 million donation from the Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation. Reuben Feinberg started to donate to the university after being hospitalized at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for a heart attack. The first donation, in 1988, was for $17 million to establish the Feinberg Cardiovascular Research Institute. A $10 million donation was subsequently sent in 1996 to establish the Frances Evelyn Feinberg Clinical Neurosciences Institute.
In 2012, Feinberg's entering medical students began a new curriculum, organized into three phases and emphasizing integration of four main curricular elements: science in medicine, clinical medicine, health & society, and professional development. The goal was to build a more learner-centered educational program that (1) fully integrates scientific principles in a clinical context; (2) stimulates inquiry and investigation; (3) has an assessment system that comprehensively evaluates student achievement in each of the core competencies; (4) reinforces a culture of learning, teamwork, and excellence; (5) is flexible and able to meet the unique needs of individual students as they learn and differentiate.
On September 1, 2013, Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation, the medical school's physician's group, joined Northwestern Memorial HealthCare (NMHC), the health system that includes Northwestern Memorial Hospital, forming a new physician's group called Northwestern Medical Group. Together, NMHC and Feinberg jointly share the brand "Northwestern Medicine."
On May 8, 2015, exactly 90 years after Northwestern University first broke ground on its Chicago campus, Feinberg broke ground on the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Biomedical Research Center. The building opened in June 2019 and added more than 625,000 square feet and 12 stories of research space to the downtown campus.
Notable alumni
Nicholas Senn, Class of 1868, an early surgeon-scientist and founder of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States. He was a former president of the American Medical Association in 1897.
Mary Harris Thompson, Class of 1870, ad eundem, first female surgeon in Chicago and first female surgeon at Cook County Hospital. Founder of the Mary Thompson Hospital
James R. Walker, Class of 1873, joined the United States Indian Service and spent his professional life caring for and describing the society and norms of the Lakota, becoming an early scholar of Indian life as reported in his book The Sun Dance and Other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota.
Sarah Hackett Stevenson, Class of 1874, the first female member of the American Medical Association (AMA), head of the Illinois State Medical Society's committee on progress in physiology, and a leader and advocate for the emancipation of women and for the equal treatment of men and women.
Roswell Park, Class of 1876, surgeon for whom Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, is named
Franklin H. Martin, Class of 1880, former Director-General of the American College of Surgeons and founding editor of Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics
John Addison Fordyce, Class of 1881, American dermatologist whose name is associated with Fordyce's spot, Angiokeratoma of Fordyce, Brooke–Fordyce trichoepithelioma, Fordyce's disease, Fordyce's lesion, and Fox–Fordyce disease
Daniel Hale Williams, Class of 1883, performed the first successful pericardial heart surgery in America; only African-American charter member of the American College of Surgeons
Charles Horace Mayo, Class of 1888, founder of Mayo Clinic
Carlos Montezuma, Class of 1889, one of the first Native Americans to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree from any school, and founder of the Society of American Indians
Joseph Bolivar DeLee, Class of 1891, an American physician who became known as the father of modern obstetrics. DeLee founded the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, where he introduced the first portable infant incubator.
Anne Hazen McFarland, Class of 1891 Woman's Medical College, physician specializing in neurology, medical journal editor
Isaac Arthur Abt, Class of 1891, among the first American physicians to specialize in pediatrics, author of the major pediatric textbook of the first decades of the 20th century
George E. Hoyt, Class of 1892, member of the Wisconsin State Assembly and the Wisconsin State Senate
George Jewett, Class of 1893, first African-American medical student who simultaneously played collegiate football in the Big 10. In his honor, the George Jewett Trophy is a rivalry trophy awarded each time Northwestern plays Michigan in football.
A. Wilberforce Williams, class of 1894, African American doctor and journalist
Emma Ann Reynolds, Class of 1895, superintendent of training at Provident Hospital Training School for Nurses, physician in residence at Paul Quinn College, and the first African American woman to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree from Northwestern University
Howard T. Ricketts, Class of 1897, discovered bacteria of the genus Rickettsia, and identified the cause and methods of transmission of rocky mountain spotted fever
Henry Stanley Plummer, Class of 1898, internist, endocrinologist and one of the founding partners of the Mayo Clinic. Considered to be the architect of the modern medical practice. The Plummer Building on the Mayo Clinic campus was named after him, as were Plummer-Vinson Syndrome and Plummer's nails.
Allen B. Kanavel, Class of 1899, founder, regent, and president of the American College of Surgeons, internationally recognized as founder of modern hand and peripheral nerve surgery
Julius Hess, Class of 1899, a pediatrician considered the father of American neonatology. In 1922, he published the first textbook on prematurity and birth defects, and started the first premature infant station in the United States.
Clifford G. Grulee, a pediatrician and founding member of the American Academy of Pediatrics
Loyal E. Davis, Class of 1918, American neurosurgeon, Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Northwestern University Medical School, President of the American College of Surgeons, and adoptive father of former First Lady of the United States Nancy Reagan
Theodore K. Lawless, Class of 1919, African-American dermatologist and philanthropist; advanced the treatment of leprosy and syphilis
Arthur Falls, Class of 1925, African-American physician and activist who played a major role in desegregation of Chicago's health facilities
Alfred Bitini Xuma, Class of 1926, surgeon in Johannesburg and later president (1940–49) of the African National Congress, preceding Nelson Mandela. The first black South African to graduate from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (1932)
William F. Windle, Class of 1926, 1968 winner of the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for work on brain development and injury
Eric Oldberg, Class of 1927, neurosurgeon, co-discoverer of cholecystokinin, director of neurological surgery at the University of Illinois School of Medicine (1936-1971), director of the Chicago Board of Health (1960-1979)
J. Roscoe Miller, Class of 1930, president, Northwestern University 1949–1969; dean, Northwestern University Medical School, 1941-1949
William S. Kroger, Class of 1931, pioneer in the use of hypnosis in medicine and co-founder and founder of medical societies and academies dedicated to furthering psychosomatic medicine and medical hypnosis.
Kenneth Gieser, Class of 1934, co-founder of the Christian Medical Society, now Christian Medical and Dental Associations.
Roger W. Robinson, Class of 1935, a cardiologist who recognized the role of cholesterol and diet in atherosclerotic heart disease and later demonstrated that heparin prevents arterial clots.
George Peterson, Class of 1935, co-founder of the Christian Medical Society, now Christian Medical and Dental Associations.
John Patrick Spiegel, Class of 1939, American psychiatrist, and expert on violence and combat stress and the 103rd president of the American Psychiatric Association.
Robert F. Furchgott, Class of 1940, 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his co-discovery of nitric oxide
Cheddi Jagan, Class of 1946: President of Guyana from 1992 to 1997
Arthur DeBoer, class of 1946, American cardiologist and first in Chicago to use cardiopulmonary bypass in heart surgery
Ralph S. Paffenbarger, Class of 1947, epidemiologist, leader of the College Alumni Health Study in the 1960s, which established the health benefits of exercise, considered the father of the modern fitness movement
Quentin D. Young, Class of 1947, leader in public health policy and medical and social justice issues; founded Physicians for a National Health Program and co-founded the Medical Committee for Human Rights,
Kermit E. Krantz, Class of 1948, Distinguished University Professor of Medicine, University of Kansas. Developed the Marshall-Marchetti-Krantz (MMK) and invented the expandable tampon. Namesake of the Arey/Krantz Museum of Anatomy at the Feinberg School of Medicine.
John A. D. Cooper, Class of 1951, first president of the Association of American Medical Colleges
Thomas E. Starzl, Class of 1952, performed the first successful liver transplant in 1967 and received the National Medal of Science in 2004
Robert M. Blizzard, Class of 1952, pediatric endocrinologist and pioneer of growth hormone therapy
Robert A. Kyle, Class of 1952, hematologist who developed our modern understanding of amyloidosis and various monoclonal gammopathies
Joseph P. Kerwin, first physician in space, flew on three skylab missions and later served as director of Space and Life Sciences at NASA
Edmond I. Eger II, MD, Class of 1955, developed the potency concept of minimum alveolar concentration for anesthetic gasses. He also identified opportunities for new drugs to be used as anesthesia, including isoflurane, sevoflurane, and desflurane.
Alan R. Nelson, Class of 1958, president of the American Medical Association (1989–90) and the World Medical Association (1991–92)
Robert Michels, Class of 1958, a psychiatrist who became chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Weill-Cornell Medical College in 1974, served as Chairman of the Payne-Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in Manhattan for 17 years, and then served as Dean and Provost at Cornell from 1991 to 1996
Myles Cunningham, Class of 1958, president of the American Cancer Society, 1997
Sandra F. Olson, Class of 1963, GME 1969, first woman president of American Academy of Neurology, the Illinois State Medical Society, the Chicago Medical Society, and the Chicago Neurological Society
Irun Cohen, Class of 1963, immunologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.
Joseph Silva, Class of 1966, dean, University of California–Davis School of Medicine, 1997-2005
Eugene A. Bauer, Class of 1967, vice president for medical affairs and dean, Stanford University School of Medicine, 1995-2001
Robert F. Spetzler, Class of 1971, J.N. Harber Chairman Emeritus of Neurological Surgery and director emeritus of the Barrow Neurological Institute
Jay Perman, Class of 1972, president, University of Maryland, Baltimore, 2010 – present, dean, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, 2004-2010
C. Richard Schlegel, Class of 1972, developed the dominant patent for a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV) (administered as Gardasil) to prevent cervical cancer
David J. Skorton, Class of 1974, president of the University of Iowa 2003–2006, president of Cornell University 2006–2015, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 2015–2019 and president and CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges 2019–present.
John R. Lumpkin, Class of 1974, country's first African-American emergency room physician and authority on public health issues affecting patient care
Joseph A. Walder, Class of 1975, founder and CEO of Integrated DNA Technologies, the largest supplier of custom nucleic acids in the United States
Francisco González-Scarano, Class of 1975, neurologist working on the neurotropism of viruses, and former dean of the University of Texas School of Medicine at San Antonio, Texas
Diane E. Meier, Class of 1977, American geriatrician, MacArthur Fellow, and internationally recognized expert on palliative medicine
Janet Woodcock, Class of 1977, served as interim Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) at the FDA
Sandra Carson, Class of 1977, principal investigator of the first artificial human ovary and former president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine
Michael Mulholland, Class of 1978, Michigan Medical School Senior Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs, Executive Director of the University of Michigan Medical Group, and Surgeon-in-Chief at University Hospital
Steven J. Corwin, Class of 1979, president and CEO of The New York and Presbyterian Hospital
Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, Class of 1979, former executive vice president for medical affairs, University of Michigan; CEO, University of Michigan Health System, president of Oakland University
Andrew E. Senyei, Class of 1979, inventor, venture capitalist, and entrepreneur, founder of biotech and genetics companies
Deborah Asnis, Class of 1981, infectious disease specialist, discovered and reported first human cases of West Nile virus in the United States.
David J. Smith, Class of 1981, Read Admiral, joint staff surgeon/chief medical advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; United States delegate to the North American Treaty Organization Council of Medical Directors
Boris Lushniak, Class of 1981, Rear Admiral, deputy U.S. Surgeon General
Michael Parmacek, Class of 1981, chair of the Department of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Catherine R. Lucey, Class of 1982, American internist, geriatrician, and medical educator, UCSF Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
James P. Kelly, Class of 1983, director, National Intrepid Center of Excellence
David M. Holtzman,A Class of 1985, is a distinguished neurologist known for discovering how apoE4 contributes to Alzheimer's Disease and how synaptic activity and sleep modulates the levels of amyloid beta and tau proteins in the brain.
Peter G. Traber, Class of 1984, president, Baylor College of Medicine, 2003-2008
Michael Barratt, Class of 1985, NASA mission specialist, 2000–present; member International Space Station Expeditions 19 and 20, 2009; on final flight of Discovery 2011 STS 133.
Harold Paz, GME 1985 and 1986, vice president and dean, Penn State Hershey Medical College
Amy Wagner, clase of 1996, neuroscientist.
Debi Thomas, Class of 1997: 1988 Olympic Figure Skating Bronze Medalist and orthopedic surgeon
Melissa L. Gilliam, GME 1999, American pediatric and adolescent gynecologist, and Executive President and Provost of The Ohio State University
References
External links
Feinberg School of Medicine
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Northwestern University
Universities and colleges established in 1859
Medical schools in Illinois
1859 establishments in Illinois
Streeterville, Chicago
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar%20eclipse
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Solar eclipse
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A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of the Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs approximately every six months, during the eclipse season in its new moon phase, when the Moon's orbital plane is closest to the plane of the Earth's orbit. In a total eclipse, the disk of the Sun is fully obscured by the Moon. In partial and annular eclipses, only part of the Sun is obscured. Unlike a lunar eclipse, which may be viewed from anywhere on the night side of Earth, a solar eclipse can only be viewed from a relatively small area of the world. As such, although total solar eclipses occur somewhere on Earth every 18 months on average, they recur at any given place only once every 360 to 410 years.
If the Moon were in a perfectly circular orbit and in the same orbital plane as Earth, there would be total solar eclipses once a month, at every new moon. Instead, because the Moon's orbit is tilted at about 5 degrees to Earth's orbit, its shadow usually misses Earth. Solar (and lunar) eclipses therefore happen only during eclipse seasons, resulting in at least two, and up to five, solar eclipses each year, no more than two of which can be total. Total eclipses are more rare because they require a more precise alignment between the centers of the Sun and Moon, and because the Moon's apparent size in the sky is sometimes too small to fully cover the Sun.
An eclipse is a natural phenomenon. In some ancient and modern cultures, solar eclipses were attributed to supernatural causes or regarded as bad omens. Astronomers' predictions of eclipses began in China as early as the 4th century BC; eclipses hundreds of years into the future may now be predicted with high accuracy.
Looking directly at the Sun can lead to permanent eye damage, so special eye protection or indirect viewing techniques are used when viewing a solar eclipse. Only the total phase of a total solar eclipse is safe to view without protection. Enthusiasts known as eclipse chasers or umbraphiles travel to remote locations to see solar eclipses.
Types
There are four types of solar eclipses:
A total eclipse occurs in average every 18 months when the dark silhouette of the Moon completely obscures the intensely bright light of the Sun, allowing the much fainter solar corona to be visible. During any one eclipse, totality occurs at best only in a narrow track on the surface of Earth. This narrow track is called the path of totality.
An annular eclipse occurs once every one or two years when the Sun and Moon are exactly in line with the Earth, but the apparent size of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun. Hence the Sun appears as a very bright ring, or annulus, surrounding the dark disk of the Moon.
A hybrid eclipse (also called annular/total eclipse) shifts between a total and annular eclipse. At certain points on the surface of Earth, it appears as a total eclipse, whereas at other points it appears as annular. Hybrid eclipses are comparatively rare.
A partial eclipse occurs about twice a year, when the Sun and Moon are not exactly in line with the Earth and the Moon only partially obscures the Sun. This phenomenon can usually be seen from a large part of the Earth outside of the track of an annular or total eclipse. However, some eclipses can be seen only as a partial eclipse, because the umbra passes above the Earth's polar regions and never intersects the Earth's surface. Partial eclipses are virtually unnoticeable in terms of the Sun's brightness, as it takes well over 90% coverage to notice any darkening at all. Even at 99%, it would be no darker than civil twilight.
The Sun's distance from Earth is about 400 times the Moon's distance, and the Sun's diameter is about 400 times the Moon's diameter. Because these ratios are approximately the same, the Sun and the Moon as seen from Earth appear to be approximately the same size: about 0.5 degree of arc in angular measure.
The Moon's orbit around the Earth is slightly elliptical, as is the Earth's orbit around the Sun. The apparent sizes of the Sun and Moon therefore vary. The magnitude of an eclipse is the ratio of the apparent size of the Moon to the apparent size of the Sun during an eclipse. An eclipse that occurs when the Moon is near its closest distance to Earth (i.e., near its perigee) can be a total eclipse because the Moon will appear to be large enough to completely cover the Sun's bright disk or photosphere; a total eclipse has a magnitude greater than or equal to 1.000. Conversely, an eclipse that occurs when the Moon is near its farthest distance from Earth (i.e., near its apogee) can be only an annular eclipse because the Moon will appear to be slightly smaller than the Sun; the magnitude of an annular eclipse is less than 1.
A hybrid eclipse occurs when the magnitude of an eclipse changes during the event from less to greater than one, so the eclipse appears to be total at locations nearer the midpoint, and annular at other locations nearer the beginning and end, since the sides of the Earth are slightly further away from the Moon. These eclipses are extremely narrow in their path width and relatively short in their duration at any point compared with fully total eclipses; the 2023 April 20 hybrid eclipse's totality is over a minute in duration at various points along the path of totality. Like a focal point, the width and duration of totality and annularity are near zero at the points where the changes between the two occur.
Because the Earth's orbit around the Sun is also elliptical, the Earth's distance from the Sun similarly varies throughout the year. This affects the apparent size of the Sun in the same way, but not as much as does the Moon's varying distance from Earth. When Earth approaches its farthest distance from the Sun in early July, a total eclipse is somewhat more likely, whereas conditions favour an annular eclipse when Earth approaches its closest distance to the Sun in early January.
Terminology for central eclipse
Central eclipse is often used as a generic term for a total, annular, or hybrid eclipse. This is, however, not completely correct: the definition of a central eclipse is an eclipse during which the central line of the umbra touches the Earth's surface. It is possible, though extremely rare, that part of the umbra intersects with the Earth (thus creating an annular or total eclipse), but not its central line. This is then called a non-central total or annular eclipse. Gamma is a measure of how centrally the shadow strikes. The last (umbral yet) non-central solar eclipse was on April 29, 2014. This was an annular eclipse. The next non-central total solar eclipse will be on April 9, 2043.
The visual phases observed during a total eclipse are called:
First contact—when the Moon's limb (edge) is exactly tangential to the Sun's limb.
Second contact—starting with Baily's Beads (caused by light shining through valleys on the Moon's surface) and the diamond ring effect. Almost the entire disk is covered.
Totality—the Moon obscures the entire disk of the Sun and only the solar corona is visible.
Third contact—when the first bright light becomes visible and the Moon's shadow is moving away from the observer. Again a diamond ring may be observed.
Fourth contact—when the trailing edge of the Moon ceases to overlap with the solar disk and the eclipse ends.
Predictions
Geometry
The diagrams to the right show the alignment of the Sun, Moon, and Earth during a solar eclipse. The dark gray region between the Moon and Earth is the umbra, where the Sun is completely obscured by the Moon. The small area where the umbra touches Earth's surface is where a total eclipse can be seen. The larger light gray area is the penumbra, in which a partial eclipse can be seen. An observer in the antumbra, the area of shadow beyond the umbra, will see an annular eclipse.
The Moon's orbit around the Earth is inclined at an angle of just over 5 degrees to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun (the ecliptic). Because of this, at the time of a new moon, the Moon will usually pass to the north or south of the Sun. A solar eclipse can occur only when a new moon occurs close to one of the points (known as nodes) where the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic.
As noted above, the Moon's orbit is also elliptical. The Moon's distance from the Earth can vary by about 6% from its average value. Therefore, the Moon's apparent size varies with its distance from the Earth, and it is this effect that leads to the difference between total and annular eclipses. The distance of the Earth from the Sun also varies during the year, but this is a smaller effect. On average, the Moon appears to be slightly smaller than the Sun as seen from the Earth, so the majority (about 60%) of central eclipses are annular. It is only when the Moon is closer to the Earth than average (near its perigee) that a total eclipse occurs.
The Moon orbits the Earth in approximately 27.3 days, relative to a fixed frame of reference. This is known as the sidereal month. However, during one sidereal month, Earth has revolved part way around the Sun, making the average time between one new moon and the next longer than the sidereal month: it is approximately 29.5 days. This is known as the synodic month and corresponds to what is commonly called the lunar month.
The Moon crosses from south to north of the ecliptic at its ascending node, and vice versa at its descending node. However, the nodes of the Moon's orbit are gradually moving in a retrograde motion, due to the action of the Sun's gravity on the Moon's motion, and they make a complete circuit every 18.6 years. This regression means that the time between each passage of the Moon through the ascending node is slightly shorter than the sidereal month. This period is called the nodical or draconic month.
Finally, the Moon's perigee is moving forwards or precessing in its orbit and makes a complete circuit in 8.85 years. The time between one perigee and the next is slightly longer than the sidereal month and known as the anomalistic month.
The Moon's orbit intersects with the ecliptic at the two nodes that are 180 degrees apart. Therefore, the new moon occurs close to the nodes at two periods of the year approximately six months (173.3 days) apart, known as eclipse seasons, and there will always be at least one solar eclipse during these periods. Sometimes the new moon occurs close enough to a node during two consecutive months to eclipse the Sun on both occasions in two partial eclipses. This means that, in any given year, there will always be at least two solar eclipses, and there can be as many as five.
Eclipses can occur only when the Sun is within about 15 to 18 degrees of a node, (10 to 12 degrees for central eclipses). This is referred to as an eclipse limit, and is given in ranges because the apparent sizes and speeds of the Sun and Moon vary throughout the year. In the time it takes for the Moon to return to a node (draconic month), the apparent position of the Sun has moved about 29 degrees, relative to the nodes. Since the eclipse limit creates a window of opportunity of up to 36 degrees (24 degrees for central eclipses), it is possible for partial eclipses (or rarely a partial and a central eclipse) to occur in consecutive months.
Path
During a central eclipse, the Moon's umbra (or antumbra, in the case of an annular eclipse) moves rapidly from west to east across the Earth. The Earth is also rotating from west to east, at about 28 km/min at the Equator, but as the Moon is moving in the same direction as the Earth's rotation at about 61 km/min, the umbra almost always appears to move in a roughly west–east direction across a map of the Earth at the speed of the Moon's orbital velocity minus the Earth's rotational velocity.
The width of the track of a central eclipse varies according to the relative apparent diameters of the Sun and Moon. In the most favourable circumstances, when a total eclipse occurs very close to perigee, the track can be up to wide and the duration of totality may be over 7 minutes. Outside of the central track, a partial eclipse is seen over a much larger area of the Earth. Typically, the umbra is 100–160 km wide, while the penumbral diameter is in excess of 6400 km.
Besselian elements are used to predict whether an eclipse will be partial, annular, or total (or annular/total), and what the eclipse circumstances will be at any given location.
Calculations with Besselian elements can determine the exact shape of the umbra's shadow on the Earth's surface. But at what longitudes on the Earth's surface the shadow will fall, is a function of the Earth's rotation, and on how much that rotation has slowed down over time. A number called ΔT is used in eclipse prediction to take this slowing into account. As the Earth slows, ΔT increases. ΔT for dates in the future can only be roughly estimated because the Earth's rotation is slowing irregularly. This means that, although it is possible to predict that there will be a total eclipse on a certain date in the far future, it is not possible to predict in the far future exactly at what longitudes that eclipse will be total. Historical records of eclipses allow estimates of past values of ΔT and so of the Earth's rotation.
Duration
The following factors determine the duration of a total solar eclipse (in order of decreasing importance):
The Moon being almost exactly at perigee (making its angular diameter as large as possible).
The Earth being very near aphelion (furthest away from the Sun in its elliptical orbit, making its angular diameter nearly as small as possible).
The midpoint of the eclipse being very close to the Earth's equator, where the rotational velocity is greatest and is closest to the speed of the lunar shadow moving over Earth's surface.
The vector of the eclipse path at the midpoint of the eclipse aligning with the vector of the Earth's rotation (i.e. not diagonal but due east).
The midpoint of the eclipse being near the subsolar point (the part of the Earth closest to the Sun).
The longest eclipse that has been calculated thus far is the eclipse of July 16, 2186 (with a maximum duration of 7 minutes 29 seconds over northern Guyana).
Occurrence and cycles
Total solar eclipses are rare events. Although they occur somewhere on Earth every 18 months on average, it is estimated that they recur at any given place only once every 360 to 410 years, on average. The total eclipse lasts for only a maximum of a few minutes at any location, because the Moon's umbra moves eastward at over 1700 km/h. Totality currently can never last more than 7 min 32 s. This value changes over the millennia and is currently decreasing. By the 8th millennium, the longest theoretically possible total eclipse will be less than 7 min 2 s. The last time an eclipse longer than 7 minutes occurred was June 30, 1973 (7 min 3 sec). Observers aboard a Concorde supersonic aircraft were able to stretch totality for this eclipse to about 74 minutes by flying along the path of the Moon's umbra. The next total eclipse exceeding seven minutes in duration will not occur until June 25, 2150. The longest total solar eclipse during the 11,000 year period from 3000 BC to at least 8000 AD will occur on July 16, 2186, when totality will last 7 min 29 s. For comparison, the longest total eclipse of the 20th century at 7 min 8 s occurred on June 20, 1955, and there will be no total solar eclipses over 7 min in duration in the 21st century.
It is possible to predict other eclipses using eclipse cycles. The saros is probably the best known and one of the most accurate. A saros lasts 6,585.3 days (a little over 18 years), which means that, after this period, a practically identical eclipse will occur. The most notable difference will be a westward shift of about 120° in longitude (due to the 0.3 days) and a little in latitude (north-south for odd-numbered cycles, the reverse for even-numbered ones). A saros series always starts with a partial eclipse near one of Earth's polar regions, then shifts over the globe through a series of annular or total eclipses, and ends with a partial eclipse at the opposite polar region. A saros series lasts 1226 to 1550 years and 69 to 87 eclipses, with about 40 to 60 of them being central.
Frequency per year
Between two and five solar eclipses occur every year, with at least one per eclipse season. Since the Gregorian calendar was instituted in 1582, years that have had five solar eclipses were 1693, 1758, 1805, 1823, 1870, and 1935. The next occurrence will be 2206. On average, there are about 240 solar eclipses each century.
Final totality
Total solar eclipses are seen on Earth because of a fortuitous combination of circumstances. Even on Earth, the diversity of eclipses familiar to people today is a temporary (on a geological time scale) phenomenon. Hundreds of millions of years in the past, the Moon was closer to the Earth and therefore apparently larger, so every solar eclipse was total or partial, and there were no annular eclipses. Due to tidal acceleration, the orbit of the Moon around the Earth becomes approximately 3.8 cm more distant each year. Millions of years in the future, the Moon will be too far away to fully occlude the Sun, and no total eclipses will occur. In the same timeframe, the Sun may become brighter, making it appear larger in size. Estimates of the time when the Moon will be unable to occlude the entire Sun when viewed from the Earth range between 650 million and 1.4 billion years in the future.
Historical eclipses
Historical eclipses are a very valuable resource for historians, in that they allow a few historical events to be dated precisely, from which other dates and ancient calendars may be deduced. A solar eclipse of June 15, 763 BC mentioned in an Assyrian text is important for the chronology of the ancient Near East. There have been other claims to date earlier eclipses. The legendary Chinese king Zhong Kang supposedly beheaded two astronomers, Hsi and Ho, who failed to predict an eclipse 4,000 years ago. Perhaps the earliest still-unproven claim is that of archaeologist Bruce Masse, who putatively links an eclipse that occurred on May 10, 2807, BC with a possible meteor impact in the Indian Ocean on the basis of several ancient flood myths that mention a total solar eclipse. The earliest preserved depiction of a partial solar eclipse from 1143 BCE might be the one in tomb KV9 of Ramses V and Ramses VI.
Eclipses have been interpreted as omens, or portents. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that Thales of Miletus predicted an eclipse that occurred during a battle between the Medes and the Lydians. Both sides put down their weapons and declared peace as a result of the eclipse. The exact eclipse involved remains uncertain, although the issue has been studied by hundreds of ancient and modern authorities. One likely candidate took place on May 28, 585 BC, probably near the Halys river in Asia Minor. An eclipse recorded by Herodotus before Xerxes departed for his expedition against Greece, which is traditionally dated to 480 BC, was matched by John Russell Hind to an annular eclipse of the Sun at Sardis on February 17, 478 BC. Alternatively, a partial eclipse was visible from Persia on October 2, 480 BC. Herodotus also reports a solar eclipse at Sparta during the Second Persian invasion of Greece. The date of the eclipse (August 1, 477 BC) does not match exactly the conventional dates for the invasion accepted by historians.
Chinese records of eclipses begin at around 720 BC. The 4th century BC astronomer Shi Shen described the prediction of eclipses by using the relative positions of the Moon and Sun.
Attempts have been made to establish the exact date of Good Friday by assuming that the darkness described at Jesus's crucifixion was a solar eclipse. This research has not yielded conclusive results, and Good Friday is recorded as being at Passover, which is held at the time of a full moon. Further, the darkness lasted from the sixth hour to the ninth, or three hours, which is much, much longer than the eight-minute upper limit for any solar eclipse's totality. Contemporary chronicles wrote about an eclipse at the beginning of May 664 that coincided with the beginning of the plague of 664 in the British isles. In the Western hemisphere, there are few reliable records of eclipses before AD 800, until the advent of Arab and monastic observations in the early medieval period. The Cairo astronomer Ibn Yunus wrote that the calculation of eclipses was one of the many things that connect astronomy with the Islamic law, because it allowed knowing when a special prayer can be made. The first recorded observation of the corona was made in Constantinople in AD 968.The first known telescopic observation of a total solar eclipse was made in France in 1706. Nine years later, English astronomer Edmund Halley accurately predicted and observed the solar eclipse of May 3, 1715. By the mid-19th century, scientific understanding of the Sun was improving through observations of the Sun's corona during solar eclipses. The corona was identified as part of the Sun's atmosphere in 1842, and the first photograph (or daguerreotype) of a total eclipse was taken of the solar eclipse of July 28, 1851. Spectroscope observations were made of the solar eclipse of August 18, 1868, which helped to determine the chemical composition of the Sun.
John Fiske summed up myths about the solar eclipse like this in his 1872 book Myth and Myth-Makers,
Viewing
Looking directly at the photosphere of the Sun (the bright disk of the Sun itself), even for just a few seconds, can cause permanent damage to the retina of the eye, because of the intense visible and invisible radiation that the photosphere emits. This damage can result in impairment of vision, up to and including blindness. The retina has no sensitivity to pain, and the effects of retinal damage may not appear for hours, so there is no warning that injury is occurring.
Under normal conditions, the Sun is so bright that it is difficult to stare at it directly. However, during an eclipse, with so much of the Sun covered, it is easier and more tempting to stare at it. Looking at the Sun during an eclipse is as dangerous as looking at it outside an eclipse, except during the brief period of totality, when the Sun's disk is completely covered (totality occurs only during a total eclipse and only very briefly; it does not occur during a partial or annular eclipse). Viewing the Sun's disk through any kind of optical aid (binoculars, a telescope, or even an optical camera viewfinder) is extremely hazardous and can cause irreversible eye damage within a fraction of a second.
Partial and annular eclipses
Viewing the Sun during partial and annular eclipses (and during total eclipses outside the brief period of totality) requires special eye protection, or indirect viewing methods if eye damage is to be avoided. The Sun's disk can be viewed using appropriate filtration to block the harmful part of the Sun's radiation. Sunglasses do not make viewing the Sun safe. Only properly designed and certified solar filters should be used for direct viewing of the Sun's disk. Especially, self-made filters using common objects such as a floppy disk removed from its case, a Compact Disc, a black colour slide film, smoked glass, etc. must be avoided.
The safest way to view the Sun's disk is by indirect projection. This can be done by projecting an image of the disk onto a white piece of paper or card using a pair of binoculars (with one of the lenses covered), a telescope, or another piece of cardboard with a small hole in it (about 1 mm diameter), often called a pinhole camera. The projected image of the Sun can then be safely viewed; this technique can be used to observe sunspots, as well as eclipses. Care must be taken, however, to ensure that no one looks through the projector (telescope, pinhole, etc.) directly. A kitchen colander with small holes can also be used to project multiple images of the partially eclipsed Sun onto the ground or a viewing screen. Viewing the Sun's disk on a video display screen (provided by a video camera or digital camera) is safe, although the camera itself may be damaged by direct exposure to the Sun. The optical viewfinders provided with some video and digital cameras are not safe. Securely mounting #14 welder's glass in front of the lens and viewfinder protects the equipment and makes viewing possible. Professional workmanship is essential because of the dire consequences any gaps or detaching mountings will have. In the partial eclipse path, one will not be able to see the corona or nearly complete darkening of the sky. However, depending on how much of the Sun's disk is obscured, some darkening may be noticeable. If three-quarters or more of the Sun is obscured, then an effect can be observed by which the daylight appears to be dim, as if the sky were overcast, yet objects still cast sharp shadows.
Totality
When the shrinking visible part of the photosphere becomes very small, Baily's beads will occur. These are caused by the sunlight still being able to reach the Earth through lunar valleys. Totality then begins with the diamond ring effect, the last bright flash of sunlight.
It is safe to observe the total phase of a solar eclipse directly only when the Sun's photosphere is completely covered by the Moon, and not before or after totality. During this period, the Sun is too dim to be seen through filters. The Sun's faint corona will be visible, and the chromosphere, solar prominences, and possibly even a solar flare may be seen. At the end of totality, the same effects will occur in reverse order, and on the opposite side of the Moon.
Eclipse chasing
A dedicated group of eclipse chasers have pursued the observation of solar eclipses when they occur around the Earth. A person who chases eclipses is known as an umbraphile, meaning shadow lover. Umbraphiles travel for eclipses and use various tools to help view the sun including solar viewing glasses, also known as eclipse glasses, as well as telescopes.
Photography
Photographing an eclipse is possible with fairly common camera equipment. In order for the disk of the Sun/Moon to be easily visible, a fairly high magnification long focus lens is needed (at least 200 mm for a 35 mm camera), and for the disk to fill most of the frame, a longer lens is needed (over 500 mm). As with viewing the Sun directly, looking at it through the optical viewfinder of a camera can produce damage to the retina, so care is recommended. Solar filters are required for digital photography even if an optical viewfinder is not used. Using a camera's live view feature or an electronic viewfinder is safe for the human eye, but the Sun's rays could potentially irreparably damage digital image sensors unless the lens is covered by a properly designed solar filter.
Other observations
A total solar eclipse provides a rare opportunity to observe the corona (the outer layer of the Sun's atmosphere). Normally this is not visible because the photosphere is much brighter than the corona. According to the point reached in the solar cycle, the corona may appear small and symmetric, or large and fuzzy. It is very hard to predict this in advance.
As the light filters through leaves of trees during a partial eclipse, the overlapping leaves create natural pinholes, displaying mini eclipses on the ground.
Phenomena associated with eclipses include shadow bands (also known as flying shadows), which are similar to shadows on the bottom of a swimming pool. They occur only just prior to and after totality, when a narrow solar crescent acts as an anisotropic light source.
1919 observations
The observation of a total solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, helped to confirm Einstein's theory of general relativity. By comparing the apparent distance between stars in the constellation Taurus, with and without the Sun between them, Arthur Eddington stated that the theoretical predictions about gravitational lenses were confirmed. The observation with the Sun between the stars was possible only during totality since the stars are then visible. Though Eddington's observations were near the experimental limits of accuracy at the time, work in the later half of the 20th century confirmed his results.
Gravity anomalies
There is a long history of observations of gravity-related phenomena during solar eclipses, especially during the period of totality. In 1954, and again in 1959, Maurice Allais reported observations of strange and unexplained movement during solar eclipses. The reality of this phenomenon, named the Allais effect, has remained controversial. Similarly, in 1970, Saxl and Allen observed the sudden change in motion of a torsion pendulum; this phenomenon is called the Saxl effect.
Observation during the 1997 solar eclipse by Wang et al. suggested a possible gravitational shielding effect, which generated debate. In 2002, Wang and a collaborator published detailed data analysis, which suggested that the phenomenon still remains unexplained.
Eclipses and transits
In principle, the simultaneous occurrence of a solar eclipse and a transit of a planet is possible. But these events are extremely rare because of their short durations. The next anticipated simultaneous occurrence of a solar eclipse and a transit of Mercury will be on July 5, 6757, and a solar eclipse and a transit of Venus is expected on April 5, 15232.
More common, but still infrequent, is a conjunction of a planet (especially, but not only, Mercury or Venus) at the time of a total solar eclipse, in which event the planet will be visible very near the eclipsed Sun, when without the eclipse it would have been lost in the Sun's glare. At one time, some scientists hypothesized that there may be a planet (often given the name Vulcan) even closer to the Sun than Mercury; the only way to confirm its existence would have been to observe it in transit or during a total solar eclipse. No such planet was ever found, and general relativity has since explained the observations that led astronomers to suggest that Vulcan might exist.
Artificial satellites
Artificial satellites can also pass in front of the Sun as seen from the Earth, but none is large enough to cause an eclipse. At the altitude of the International Space Station, for example, an object would need to be about across to blot the Sun out entirely. These transits are difficult to watch because the zone of visibility is very small. The satellite passes over the face of the Sun in about a second, typically. As with a transit of a planet, it will not get dark.
Observations of eclipses from spacecraft or artificial satellites orbiting above the Earth's atmosphere are not subject to weather conditions. The crew of Gemini 12 observed a total solar eclipse from space in 1966. The partial phase of the 1999 total eclipse was visible from Mir.
Impact
The solar eclipse of March 20, 2015, was the first occurrence of an eclipse estimated to potentially have a significant impact on the power system, with the electricity sector taking measures to mitigate any impact. The continental Europe and Great Britain synchronous areas were estimated to have about 90 gigawatts of solar power and it was estimated that production would temporarily decrease by up to 34 GW compared to a clear sky day.
Eclipses may cause the temperature to decrease by 3 °C, with wind power potentially decreasing as winds are reduced by 0.7 m/s.
In addition to the drop in light level and air temperature, animals change their behavior during totality. For example, birds and squirrels return to their nests and crickets chirp.
Recent and forthcoming solar eclipses
Eclipses occur only in the eclipse season, when the Sun is close to either the ascending or descending node of the Moon. Each eclipse is separated by one, five or six lunations (synodic months), and the midpoint of each season is separated by 173.3 days, which is the mean time for the Sun to travel from one node to the next. The period is a little less than half a calendar year because the lunar nodes slowly regress. Because 223 synodic months is roughly equal to 239 anomalistic months and 242 draconic months, eclipses with similar geometry recur 223 synodic months (about 6,585.3 days) apart. This period (18 years 11.3 days) is a saros. Because 223 synodic months is not identical to 239 anomalistic months or 242 draconic months, saros cycles do not endlessly repeat. Each cycle begins with the Moon's shadow crossing the Earth near the north or south pole, and subsequent events progress toward the other pole until the Moon's shadow misses the Earth and the series ends. Saros cycles are numbered; currently, cycles 117 to 156 are active.
1997–2000
2000–2003
2004–2007
2008–2011
2011–2014
2015–2018
2018–2021
2022–2025
2026–2029
See also
Lists of solar eclipses
List of films featuring eclipses
Apollo–Soyuz: First joint U.S.–Soviet space flight. Mission included an arranged eclipse of the Sun by the Apollo module to allow instruments on the Soyuz to take photographs of the solar corona.
Eclipse chasing: Travel to eclipse locations for study and enjoyment
Occultation: Generic term for occlusion of an object by another object that passes between it and the observer, thus revealing (for example) the presence of an exoplanet orbiting a distant star by eclipsing it as seen from Earth
Solar eclipses in fiction
Solar eclipses on the Moon: Eclipse of the Sun by planet Earth, as seen from the Moon
Lunar eclipse: Solar eclipse of the Moon, as seen from Earth; the shadow cast on the Moon by that eclipse
Transit of Venus: Passage of the planet Venus between the Sun and the Earth, as seen from Earth. Technically a partial eclipse.
Transit of Deimos from Mars: Passage of the Martian moon Deimos between the Sun and Mars, as seen from Mars
Transit of Phobos from Mars: Passage of the Martian moon Phobos between the Sun and Mars, as seen from Mars
Footnotes
Notes
References
External links
NASA Eclipse Web Site, with information on future eclipses and eye safety information
NASA Eclipse Web Site (older version)
Eclipsewise, Fred Espenak's new eclipse site
Andrew Lowe's Eclipse Page, with maps and circumstances for 5000 years of solar eclipses
A Guide to Eclipse Activities for Educators, Explaining eclipses in educational settings
Detailed eclipse explanations and predictions, Hermit Eclipse
Eclipse Photography, Prof. Miroslav Druckmüller
Animated maps of August 21, 2017 solar eclipses, Larry Koehn
Five Millennium (−1999 to +3000) Canon of Solar Eclipses Database, Xavier M. Jubier
Animated explanation of the mechanics of a solar eclipse , University of South Wales
Eclipse Image Gallery , The World at Night
Ring of Fire Eclipse: 2012, Photos
Solar eclipse photographs taken from the Lick Observatory from the Lick Observatory Records Digital Archive, UC Santa Cruz Library’s Digital Collections
Total Solar Eclipse Shadow on Earth March 09 2016 CIMSSSatelite
List of all solar eclipses
National Geographic Solar Eclipse 101 video
Eclipses
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette%20Falls%20Locks
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Willamette Falls Locks
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The Willamette Falls Locks are a lock system on the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Opened in 1873 and closed since 2011, they allowed boat traffic on the Willamette to navigate beyond Willamette Falls and the T.W. Sullivan Dam. Since their closure in 2011, the locks have been classified to be in a "non-operational status." In 2023, work began to repair the locks, which are expected to reopen in 2026.
Located in the Portland metropolitan area, the four inter-connected locks are 25 miles upriver from the Columbia River at West Linn, just across the Willamette River from Oregon City. The locks were operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and served primarily pleasure boats. Passage through the locks was free for both commercial and recreational vessels. The locks were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and designated as an Oregon Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1991.
The locks comprise seven gates in four chambers which lift up to elevation change (depending on tides and river flow) with a usable width of . The system is long, and can accommodate vessels up to long. Each of the four concrete constructed chambers are .
Preparations for construction
The canal and locks were built from 1870 to 1872. Much legal, organizational, and financial work had to be done before construction could begin. The Willamette Falls Canal and Locks Company (later renamed Portland General Electric) was formed in 1868 to build a navigation route around the falls. This company was incorporated by a special act of the legislature. At that time, all transshipment of freight across the Willamette Falls was controlled by the People's Transportation Company, often referred to as the P.T. Co. Ownership of this key point in the river gave the P.T. Co. the ability to quell all competition for shipping on the Willamette River. The canal and locks were built in part to break the market domination of the P.T. Co. over riverine transport on the Willamette.
Incorporation of canal and locks company
The Wallamet Falls Canal and Locks Company, with authorized capital of $300,000, was incorporated on September 14, 1868 by N. Haun, Samuel L. Stephens, of Clackamas County, and experienced steamboat captain Ephraim W. Baughman (1835–1921) to "locate and construct a canal and suitable boat locks at the falls of the Willamette River, on the west side of said falls".
Government subsidy
On October 26, 1868, the Oregon legislature approved a law entitled "an Act to appropriate funds for the construction of a Steamboat Canal at Wallamet Falls." The law stated it was "of great importance to the people of Oregon" that a canal and locks be built on the west side of Willamette Falls and that the rates for carriage of freight on the Willamette River be reduced by this construction", and so it granted the company a subsidy of $150,000, to be paid in six annual installments of $25,000, starting on the date the canal and looks were completed, with the money to come from lands donated to the state of Oregon by the United States for internal improvement.
As condition precedent to receipt of the funds, by January 1, 1871, the company was to expend at least $100,000 and complete construction, on the west side of the falls, a functioning canal, "constructed chiefly of cut stone, cement and iron, and otherwise built in a durable and permanent manner" with locks not less than long and wide." Upon completion, a commission appointed by the governor was to inspect the works to determine if they were constructed in compliance with the law, and if not, no subsidy would be paid.
Toll authority
The company could charge tolls, for the first ten years after completion, of no more than seventy-five cents per ton for all freight, and twenty cents per passenger. After ten years, maximum tolls would fall to fifty cents per ton of freight and ten cents per passenger. Twenty years after completion, the State of Oregon would have an option to buy canal at its actual value. The company was also required to pay 10% of the net profit from tolls to the state for the first ten years, and 5% thereafter.
Investors sought
In early 1869, the company sought investors by publishing a prospectus, which among other claims, predicted that 60,000 tons of freight and 20,000 passengers would pass through the canal and locks every year, which turned out to be an overstatement by a factor of several hundred percent. The company was also reported to have sent an agent east to negotiate financing.
Condemnation actions
In March 1869, the company's attorney, Septimus Huelat, brought condemnation actions in Clackamas County Circuit Court, to acquire, in Linn City, a strip of land about long and wide By 1869 Linn City was a settlement in name only, as the actual town, located on the west side of the river just below the falls, had been washed away by a flood in December 1861.
Legislative action
The deadline set by the legislature in the 1868 legislation proved to be impossible to meet. The subsidy was too small to attract investors. New legislation was approved in 1870. The 1870 law was substantially similar to the 1868 legislation, except that it increased the subsidy to $200,000, in the form of bonds payable in gold issued by the state of Oregon, to be issued upon posting of a surety bond in the amount of $300,000. The state-issued bonds were to fall due on January 1, 1881. Maximum tolls chargeable were in all circumstances to fifty cents per ton of freight and ten cents per passenger. The deadline for completion was rolled back to January 1, 1873.
Further corporate action
At the December 1870 annual meeting, Bernard Goldsmith and Joseph Teal, both of Portland, Orlando Humason and Jason K. Kelly, both of The Dalles, John F. Miller, of Salem, and David P. Thompson, of Oregon City were elected directors, who then on December 8, 1871, appointed company officers: Bernard Goldsmith, president; John F. Miller, vice-president; Joseph Teal, treasurer; and Septimus Huelat, from Oregon City, attorney and secretary. On February 3, 1871, supplemental articles of incorporation were filed, giving the company broadly expanded authority to collect tolls, deal in water rights and real property, and own and operate industries and steamboats.
The $200,000 in state-issued bonds were augmented by an additional $200,000 in bonds issued by the company. Both bond issues were sold at a discount, the state bonds at 80% and the private bonds at 77.5%, and the proceeds, of $315,500, were used to build the locks and canal.
Design
The initial design, in January 1869, was reported to have been for a canal was 2,500 feet long, and 40 feet wide, with three locks about 200 feet long. However, bids were solicited in early 1871, based on plans and specifications of Calvin Brown, which called for four locks, each 160 feet long, with the canal about 2,900 long, and a wooden wall the whole length of the canal, with the locks themselves built of masonry.
Isaac W. Smith took over as chief engineer in February 1871, before construction began. Smith recommended that the wooden wall be replaced with one built of stone, that the length of all locks be increased to 210 feet, and that a fifth lock, known as the "guard" lock, 1200 feet along the canal from the fourth lock. The contracts were let out on this basis.
However, after carrying out only a small part of the work on the new basis, the contractors were unable to complete it. In December 1871, Smith reported to the company's board of directors that he had incorrectly calculated the quantity and cost of the rock that could be obtained near the work, and that stone walls could not be completed by the project deadline of January 1, 1873.
By May 31, 1872, Smith had switched back to a timber wall, heavily bolted with iron and weighed down with stone. The switch was claimed to have saved from $75,000 to $100,000 from the construction costs, but it was criticized at the time as not being in compliance with the standards established by the state for the construction of the canal.
Cost
Various statements have been published as to the costs of the works. In 1893, a committee of the state legislature, in studying whether the state should purchase the locks, found that between $300,000 and $325,000 had been expended on construction. A study conducted in 1899 by the Corps of Engineers found an original incorporator of the company who stated that the total cost of the lock construction was $339,000, of which $35,000 was used to acquire the right of way, and a further $20,000 was used for "political extras", leaving the actual cost of construction as $284,000.
Construction
Bids
On January 18, the company, from its headquarters at 93 Front Street, in Portland, called for sealed bids from contractors, with bidding to close at noon on March 1, 1871.
Capt. Isaac W. Smith was the chief superintendent. E.G. Tilton was the chief Engineer; Tilton's assistant was J.A. Lessourd, who superintended the construction of the gates and the iron and wood work. Major King was the secretary for the project. A.H. Jordas, an engineer and architect from San Francisco, became one of the contractors and went on to supervise the work.
The targeted completion date was December 1, 1872. The contractors were under heavy bond to finish the work by that time. Monthly payments to the contractors were based on the estimates of the supervising engineer, who lived at the works. The company held back 20% of the contract price as security for completion. Up to October 1872, the total cost of the work was estimated to have been $450,000, with about $50,000 more needed to be expended before completion.
Blasting
Blasting holes in the rock were cut by then-new steam-driven diamond-tipped drills manufactured by Severance & Holt, and mounted on small cars allowing them to be moved about the work as needed. Rather than reduce the rock to powder, as on previous designs, these drills cut a ring into the rock about 2 inches in diameter, with the remaining portion of the rock, called the core, passing out through a water-cooled iron tube. Twenty to thirty holes were drilled on a daily basis. Each drill could bore five to seven feet per hour. Blasting had to be done carefully so as not to make the spoil too small, as the broken rock was intended to be used for the stonework.
A temporary dam was projected to be needed across the upper end of the works. As of September 1871, two steam derricks and two blacksmith's shops were employed on the works. Gates were to be set in the eastern wall of the canal to allow use of the river's water by industries to be located along the canal.
Dissipation of funds
In November 1871, one of the contractors, a Mr. Jordan, disappeared, leaving unpaid debts to various creditors of about $28,000 or more, as well as unpaid wages of $6,000. The company agreed to pay the wage claims. Isaac W. Smith took over Jordan's place, with the objective to speed construction as fast as weather permitted, and put an additional workforce in the spring if 1872 to meet the company's deadline as set by the state.
Workforce
Between 300 and 500 men worked on the project. About 100 men worked at night for most of the time. As of September 1871, the contractor was reported to have difficulty obtaining laborers and stonemasons, with only about 100 then being employed, with openings for 100 to 150 more. Reportedly that the "site of the works is healthy" and laborers would be paid wages equivalent to $2 per day in coin, with stonemasons receiving more.
Masons and stone-cutters were paid from $5 to $6 per day, carpenters from $3 to $3.50 per day, and laborers received $2.50 per day. The monthly payroll was $50,000. On July 27, 1872, the Morning Oregonian reported that "sixty Chinamen are now employed at the locks at Linn City." The successful completion of the project was reported to have been "secured by treating the men kindly and considerately and paying them liberally and promptly." Additionally, it was reported that "the full pay of every man was never a minute behind time."
Excavation
Excavation consisted of of rock, of loose rock, and of earth. Masonry installed comprised of first class work, of second class, and of third class. There was a gulch north (downstream) of the guard lock, which was filled in with cubic yards of stone or 40,000 tons.
Exclusive of the foundation walls and fenders, the project consisted of of masonry, of timber walls above the guard lock, and of timber walls below the guard lock.
Explosives used during construction included 18,000 pounds of giant powder and 10,000 pounds of black powder. Materials used in construction were 5,123 pounds of cement, 1,326,000 board feet of lumber, 180,700 pounds of iron for the gates, 71,000 pounds of iron for bolts for the canal walks, fenders and other components, not including iron used in machinery, derricks and other equipment, but only iron placed in the works.
Completion and opening ceremony
The locks were reported to be ready to pass vessels through on December 16, 1872, however the company intended to test the locks with a scow before letting any steamboats transit. A steamer was expected to be able to use the locks on December 25, 1872, however this proved impossible, because some of the gates were not working properly, and a few more days work would be necessary.
Governor La Fayette Grover appointed three commissioners, former governor John Whiteaker, George R. Helm, and Lloyd Brook to examine the locks and accept them on behalf of the state if they were constructed in accordance with the law. The commissioners inspected the locks on Saturday, December 28, 1872.
Maria Wilkins, a steamship, was the first vessel to use the locks.
The locks were first placed in use on Wednesday, January 1, 1873. At 12:17 the small steamer Maria Watkins entered the first lock. Watkins was late, having been expected to arrive at 11:00 a.m. A large crowd of spectators cheered from alongside the walls of the lock as the steamer entered. The boat responded to the cheers with three blasts from the steam whistle.
Each lock raised the vessel ten feet. After Watkins had transited the locks into the upper river, Governor Grover made some congratulatory remarks to the president of the locks company. This was met with three cheers, for the company's president, Bernard "Ben" Goldsmith, Col. Teal, Capt. Isaac W. Smith, and the governor. Watkins was carrying a number of dignitaries, including Gov. La Fayette Grover (1823–1911), Mayor of Portland Philip Wasserman, several newspaper editors, steamboat captain Joseph Kellogg, the locks commissioners, and other invited guests. There was only one woman on board. It took one hour forty-five minutes to pass Watkins through the locks. Returning down river took about an hour for the boat to transit the works. It was expected that the transit time could be cut down to one-half hour.
Grover's support of the locks company was criticized a few years later, in 1878, in the Willamette Farmer (reprinted in the Oregon City Enterprise), which described the then-former governor as a "senile nincompoop" a "lick spittle and fawning sycophant" and the chief of the "minions and tools" of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, whose principals had, by 1878, acquired control of the locks.
Dimensions in 1873
Upon completion, the total length of the canal and locks was , consisting of, from north (downstream) to south (upstream):
the approach to the first, or north lock, and feet wide.
four lift locks, each long and wide;
the canal south of the lift locks, long and to wide;
a guard lock long and wide;
a canal and basin, and from to .
Lock design
The lift locks were of a type known as "combined" locks, with the lower gate of one lock functioning as the upper gate of the lock next below. The lifting lock walls stood above the lock floors, and were at the top, with a batter of . All walls had their foundation on solid rock. The guard lock wall was high above the guard lock floor, but otherwise was similar to the walls at the lifting locks.
The lifting locks were referred to by number, with lock 1, the furthest downstream, being both the northernmost and the lowest. The first and second locks were cut entirely out of solid rock except for the areas around the gates, where masonry was set in for the hollow quoins and supports for the gates. Each hollow quoin weighed 2 tons.
Wooden fenders were bolted to the lock sides to prevent harm to vessels coming into contact with the natural rock that formed the sides of the first and second locks. The third lock likewise was cut into solid rock, but with walls above the surface. Wooden fenders, backed by three-inch timber, were tied into the rock with bolts. The fourth lock was almost entirely above the surface, with masonry walls on both sides.
Each of the four lifting locks had a lift of . The total fall, from low water above the works, to low water below, was 40 feet. The lower end of the canal had been cut 40 feet deep through solid basalt.
About of the west wall was built of timber on top of a stone wall resting on bedrock. The stone wall was at the top, to high, with a batter of . The rest of the west wall was hewn out of the natural rock.
According to engineer Smith's 1873 report, the guard lock was left open when the water in the canal was less than . Otherwise, boats would have to lock through the guard lock.
The guard lock was intended to prevent foods from flowing over the lower walls of the canal. In ordinary water conditions the guard lock would be left open, so as not to unnecessarily delay boats making the transit. Upstream (south) from the guard lock, the east side wall was timber-built, with bents apart. Each bent was bolted to the bedrock by three iron rods extending the full height of the cross braces on the bent. The entire timber wall was filled with stone.
Gate design
The gates were based on designs used in locks on the Monongahela River. Each swung on suspension rods mounted in iron brackets tied into masonry. The gates did not rest on rollers or tramways, and were easily worked by one man. Each gate had eight wickets, located near the bottom of the gate, with each wicket measuring by . The locks were flooded and drained by opening and closing the wickets, through the use of connecting rods. Two men were required to work each gate. There were two culverts under each gate sill to carry off mud and gravel which might otherwise impede the opening of the gates. Each lock gate was long and high. Buttresses thick reinforced the walls carrying the gates. The gates were opened and closed with cranks.
The stone used for the masonry was local basalt, except for the rock used for the hollow quoins, which was a some different basaltic type, but drawn from a quarry on the Clackamas River owned by someone named Baker. The masonry was set with hydraulic cement with no lime intermixture. The masonry walls were constructed of blocks of basalt, each weighing 1 to 2 tons.
On completion, the maximum water depth in the lock was . A newspaper published at the time stated that the normal water depth in the river at the head of the canal was seven feet, and four and a half feet during low water seasons. This was sufficient to allow river boats to safety pass.
Boats could transit the locks with up to of water on the upper guard lock gates. The guard lock was designed to allow a rail to be installed which would allow vessel transit with of water. However, on the few occasions every year when the river rose any higher, navigation could not be safely made, and the guard lock could not be opened.
Operations 1873–1915
The masonry work was expected to last indefinitely, while the timber work was expected to be good for eight to ten years. Additional construction work still needed to be done for the first four or five months after the locks opened.
Afterwards, it was expected that the annual costs of repairs would not exceed $600. Staffing requirements were estimated to be one lock superintendent, at $125 per month, and two lock-tenders, at $50 each per month. Some proponents of the canal and locks believed that their existence had a "regulating" effect upon railroad freight rates, by competing with the railroads for the shipper's business.
New locks company formed
On December 28, 1875, William Strong, W.H. Effinger, and Frank T. Dodge incorporated the Willamette Transportation and Locks Company, capitalized at $1,000,000, in shares of $100 each, with generally the same corporate purposes as the Willamette Falls Canal and Lock Company. On March 8, 1876, by a deed recorded in Clackamas County Willamette Falls Canal and Lock Company sold all its property, including the canal and locks, to Willamette Transportation and Locks Company for $500,000.
On January 8, 1877, four prominent businessmen, John C. Ainsworth, Simeon G. Reed, Robert R. Thompson, and Bernard Goldsmith, filed supplemental articles of incorporation which increased the powers of Willamette Transportation and Locks Co. As of May 5, 1877, Simeon G. Reed was the vice-president of the new corporation, which in addition to owning the locks, owned and operated steamboats on the Willamette river. Ainsworth, Reed, and Thompson were closely associated with the powerful Oregon Steam Navigation Company (O.S.N.) An 1895 source considered the 1876 transaction to be a sale to the O.S.N.
As of 1880, Willamette Transportation and Locks Co. was controlled by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (O.R.&N)
Locks commission and toll collections
Oregon laws passed in 1876 and 1882 established a canal commission, composed of the governor, secretary of state, and the state treasurer, with the authority to visit the works and bring legal action to compel keeping and maintenance of the canal. The consent of the canal commission was necessary for any repairs or improvements except in emergencies. Vessels using the canal were required report of freight tonnage and passengers carried. The locks company was also required report quarterly to the canal commission.
The first lock tender on duty was John "Jack" Chambers (1841–1929). Chambers had been in charge of the heavy rock work during the construction of the canal and locks. He was to serve on the locks for fifty years and became known to every steamboat captain that operated on the Willamette River.
Initial tolls for use of the locks were set at the legal maximum of fifty cents per ton of freight and 10 cents for every passenger.
Despite the legal requirement to send the state 10% of the net toll proceedings, by 1893 only a single payment had been made, of $435 for the year 1873. The justification for sending no other payments was that after that time there had been no net proceeds arising from the collection of tolls.
On November 23, 1905, the state of Oregon, represented by attorney general A.M. Crawford, and district attorney John Manning, brought suit in the Oregon circuit court against the Portland General Electric Company to recover 10 percent of the tolls collected from the operation of the locks since 1873.
In 1907, the toll collector at the locks was the local station agent of the O.R.&N (Southern Pacific) at Oregon City. One-half of the agent's salary was paid by the O.R.&N and the other half was paid by Portland General Electric.
In 1906, an Open River Association was formed at Albany, Oregon which argued for the acquisition by the public of the Willamette Falls Locks. The Open River Association and its sympathizers favored free tolls after the government obtained the locks.
On November 17, 1906, Judge Arthur L. Frazer (1860–1907), of the Multnomah County Circuit Court, ruled that the law requiring sharing of the net tolls with the state only applied to the Willamette Falls and Locks Company, and not to any successor in interprets, because the law referred to the Willamette Falls and Locks Company by name and did not include any successors or assigns, nor did the law make the state's share a specific charge upon the locks themselves.
Financing, water rights, and corporation reorganizations
On January 1, 1887, Willamette Transportation and Locks Co. issued mortgage bonds in the amount of $420,000 to New York businessman and O.R.&N president Elijah Smith These bonds acted as a lien upon the canal and locks and were still outstanding in 1893. In 1889, the company granted two industrial firms, Willamette Pulp and Paper Co, and Crown Paper Co. building sites along the canal and rights to withdraw water from the canal for industrial purposes. To permit this without hindering navigation, an additional flume was built to fill the canal.
On August 8, 1892, P.F. Morey, Frederick V. Holman, and Charles H. Caufield incorporated the Portland General Electric Company with a capitalization of $4,250,000. Among the purposes of the new company were the owning and operating of the Willamette falls canal and locks, as well as use of the water power of the falls for any lawful purpose. Charles H. Caufield, secretary of Portland General Electric, was formerly secretary of the Willamette Transportation and Locks Company. On August 24, 1892, for nominal consideration, the Willamette Falls and Locks Company sold all its real property, including the canal and locks, to Portland General Electric.
Oregon permitted the state to buy the locks and canal in 1893, twenty years after completion, but this option was never exercised. Average toll receipts for the six years of 1887 through 1892 were approximately $15,750 annually. With the locks and canal estimated to have cost a total of $450,000, this would have a return, after deducting $2,700 for labor and $1,000 for repairs, which would have been a return of less than 2.75%.
As of February 1908, the stock of the Portland General Electric company was owned by the Portland Railway, Light and Power Company.
Flood damage 1890
The flood of 1890 seriously damaged the locks. The canal was flooded with debris. Two lock gates were destroyed, as was the home of lock tender Jack Chambers. Additional work was scheduled to be done in 1893, which was anticipated to cost between $135,000 and $150,000.
The projected work consisted of widening 1,300 feet of the canal to 80 feet, and replacing a decaying and leaking portion of the timber-built wall with a masonry structure. The widened canal would permit a faster transit of steamboats through the locks by allowing them to pass each other in the canal, and would permit a greater accumulation of water for industrial and navigation use.
Additionally, at a cost of $16,000, the lower lock was to be deepened to allow safe passage of the larger steamboats when the river was at a low water state.
Federal acquisition
On March 3, 1899, the locks were examined by a board of United States Engineers to report on whether the locks should be acquired by the United States Government. By 1899, the wooden lock gates were rotten and leaking badly. They had been replaced only once since 1873. Nearly all the timber work would soon require replacement. Woodwork in the region, if exposed to weather, required replacement about every eight to nine years, and in wet areas replacement was required even earlier.
Study by Corps of Engineers
The total cost, in 1899, of work necessary to restore the locks to the original operating condition of 1873 was calculated to be about $38,800. The 1899 replacement value of the entire project was calculated to be $314,300. Using another method, including data from the net profits of the works, and including the anticipated costs of necessary replacement work, the Corps of Engineers estimated the value of the canal and locks, in 1899, as $421,000.
The 1899 report recommended acquisition provided the locks could be purchased at a reasonable price. (By this time the mortgage bonds issued to Elijah Smith had been paid off.) However, the price asked by the owners, in 1899, was $1,200,000, which the government regarded as too high. By 1899 the works were in poor repair and few improvements had been made. So much water in the canal was diverted for manufacturing purposes that it seriously interfered with use of the locks for navigation.
In the years 1882 through 1899 (half year), there were 12,863.5 lockages, carrying 234,451.5 passengers, and 504,145.04 tons of freight. In the five years from 1894 through 1898, net profit for the locks ranged from a low of $21,210.13 in 1896 to a high of $28,503.10 in 1898.
Steps towards acquisition
In June 1902, Congress passed a Rivers and Harbors act which authorized a study of whether the canal and locks should be acquired by the U.S. government. In the previous year, Portland General Electric, had earned about $35,000 from the tolls on the locks and canal. On November 21, 1902, a board of officers of the Corps of Engineers, consisting of Maj. John Millis, of Seattle, Capt. W/C Langfitt of Portland, and Lt. R.P. Johnson, of San Francisco, made a preliminary inspection of the locks.
The major issue associated with the proposed purchase was the question of water rights. The industries on the west bank of the river below the falls received all their power from water drawn from the navigation canal. They used so much water that when the river level was low, it was impossible to conduct industrial operations and navigation at the same time. The U.S. government was only willing to acquire the works if there would be sufficient water for navigation. Another difficult point was that in 1902, the owner of the canal and locks, Portland General Electric, was continuing to ask the same sales price, $1,200,000, which the government had found too high in 1899.
Portland General Electric argued that since it owned both sides of the Willamette River at the falls, it controlled all the rights to the use of the water flowing over the falls from bank to bank. Consideration was then being given to the possibility of constructing a new canal on the east side of the falls rather than purchasing the existing canal on the west side.
The company's position in response was that the government would have to condemn and pay for the water rights on any newly-constructed canal. Oregon's U.S. Attorney John Hall was reported however to have turned in an opinion to the Attorney General that the government had the legal authority to build new locks, provided they were located below the ordinary high-water mark of the river.
In 1907, the Oregon state legislature passed a bill appropriating $300,000 to be paid to the federal government to help purchase the Willamette Canal and Locks. However, in 1908, Judge Frazer's decision was reversed following an appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court.*
On May 31, 1909, while replacing a lock gate, three men were injured when the false work supporting the old gate collapsed, and the gate fell, causing one man to sustain a broken leg, another was badly bruised, and a third man had lacerations on his legs.
In 1911, the canal and locks were valued at $300,000 for property tax purposes, and assessed a tax of $5,587.50 against them, which was paid, late, by the owner of the works, the Portland Railway, Light & Power Co.
Acquisition complete
In 1912, the War Department approved purchase of the locks from Portland Railway, Light & Power Company. The purchase price was to be $375,000. The transaction did not finally close until 1915.
The reason for the delay was the need to establish the vendor's title to the property, as well as to work out the details of the various conditions that the vendor wished to attach to the sale. The title problems stem from the fact that the town of Linn City, which had been on the west side of the falls, had been washed away by a flood in 1862, apparently along with all of its records. While the owners and operators of the locks appeared to be able to claim title by adverse possession, this would not be considered sufficient by the U.S. government, which required proof of the plat map of the town of Linn City.
By August 1912, a search was underway for a map of Linn City. An official of the Corps of Engineers had heard from one old resident of Linn City that a map had survived the flood, but this map could not be found. The official intended to consult with George H. Himes, of the Oregon Historical Society to learn more about Linn City.
Before the transfer to the U.S. government some mills near the locks drew their water directly from the upper lock level. This created currents which impeded navigation through the lock. The government was unwilling to permit this to continue under its ownership, so, as part of the conditions of the sale, the United States would be required to build a wall in the navigation canal which would have the effect of creating a separate water source, with an opening well above the falls, for the canal side industries.
In April 1915 the cost of this wall, estimated to be between $125,000 and $150,000, would be the largest single item of work then planned for the locks and canal. Other work that the government intended to carry out included repair of the lock gates and deepening the approaches to the locks. The lower sill of the downstream lock was to be lowered, and a new pair of gates was to be constructed.
Reconstruction 1916–1917
The reconstruction of the canal and locks was supervised by Major H.C. Jewett, of the Corps of Engineers, and E.B. Thomson, assistant engineer in the Second District. Construction on the wall began in April 1916. By September 1916, about 1000 feet of the wall to divide the canal and locks from the industrial flume had been built, using cofferdams. About 200 feet of wall downstream from the guard lock were still left to be completed. To permit river traffic to continue while reconstruction was underway, the Army Corps of Engineers built a wooden flume as a temporary canal. A cofferdam would have been too costly to employ because of the depth of the water.
The flume was to be 42 feet wide with a depth of 6 feet. The inside of the flume would be sealed by spreading oil-treated canvas tightly over the planking. The entire structure would be heavily braced to support the weight of the water and passing riverboats. Construction of the flume would leave the bottom and both sides of the canal dry to permit the pouring of concrete.
The wall was complete on September 1, 1917. It was 1280 feet long, running from the guard lock to lock No. 4. At points the wall was more 50 feet high. The estimated cost of construction of the wall was $150,000, but it was reported to have been completed for considerably less.
Congress had allocated $80,000 to improve the lower locks, by deepening them, installing concrete foundations under the lock gates, and other work. However, upon completion of the canal wall, on September 1, 1917, shippers were opposed to the work being carried out at that time, because it would interfere with navigation. They wanted the work postponed until the summer of 1918 so that the harvest of 1917 could be moved downriver. The local Corps of Engineers wanted the work to continue interrupted, because a workforce had been assembled and Congress might reallocate the funds due to the war.
Recent repairs and closure
With no funding available to perform needed inspections and repairs, the locks were closed in January 2008. In April 2009, as part of the federal government's economic stimulus plan, $1.8 million was allocated to repair and inspect the locks, with an additional $900,000 allocated in October 2009 for additional repairs and operational costs. The locks reopened in January 2010 with the Willamette Queen the first vessel to pass. The locks were open through the summer of 2010, and then due to a lack of federal funding for operations, were not scheduled to reopen for 2011.
In December 2011, the locks were again closed, this time owing to the excessive corrosion of the locks' gate anchors. The further deterioration of the locks resulted in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reclassifying the locks as being in a "non-operational status," out of concern that any further operation of the locks could lead to a failure of the locks, posing a safety risk to the public. The locks were expected to remain permanently closed, as the lack of traffic through the locks makes funding for any repairs a low priority. However, some interest groups urged the Army Corps of Engineers to reopen the locks, at least seasonally, and the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners added its support to that effort in December 2014.
In 2023, the Portland Division of US Army Corps of Engineers awarded contracts for repair of the locks. This work, which began in October 2023, seeks to repair and seismically upgrade the locks. When the work finishes in 2026, the locks will be handed over to the Willamette Falls Locks Authority, a public corporation consisting of 11 members who will oversee the locks. This work ultimately paves the way to reopening the locks, and establishing shipping travel on the Willamette.
Placed on National Register
The locks were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
See also
List of Oregon's Most Endangered Places
Notes
References
Books
Reports
Court cases
On-line newspaper collections
External links
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5024980
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutland%20Barrington
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Rutland Barrington
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Rutland Barrington (15 January 1853 – 31 May 1922) was an English singer, actor, comedian and Edwardian musical comedy star. Best remembered for originating the lyric baritone roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas from 1877 to 1896, his performing career spanned more than four decades. He also wrote at least a dozen works for the stage.
After two years with a comic touring company, Barrington joined Richard D'Oyly Carte's opera company and, over the next two decades, created a number of memorable comic opera roles, including Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance (1880), and Pooh Bah in The Mikado (1885), among many others. Failing in an 1888 attempt to become a theatrical manager, Barrington refocused his energies on acting and occasional playwriting.
Beginning in 1896 and continuing for ten years, Barrington played in a series of very successful musical comedies under the management of George Edwardes at Daly's Theatre, specialising in comic portrayals of pompous rulers or other persons of authority. One of the most popular features of his performances was his insertion of topical songs, or verses of songs, into these musical comedies. After leaving Daly's he continued to appear in musical comedy roles and performed in music hall. He also essayed a few Shakespeare and other dramatic roles and appeared in a few silent films. His career ended in 1918, after which he suffered a stroke and lived the last few years of his life in poverty.
Life and career
Barrington was born George Rutland Fleet at Penge, England, the fourth son of John George Fleet (1818–1902), a wholesale sugar dealer in London. His mother was the former Esther Faithfull (1823–1908) of Headley, Surrey, England. He was educated at Headley rectory and then at the Merchant Taylors' School in London. His six brothers included Indologist John Faithfull Fleet (1847–1917), Vice-Admiral Henry Louis Fleet (1850–1923), The Reverend Ferdinand Francis Fleet (1857–1940) and actor Duncan James Fleet (1860–1909). He also had two sisters, one named Esther (one boy and one girl died in infancy). Barrington was employed in a bank for eighteen months as a young man, but had no enthusiasm for such work, as he had ambitions to be an actor. Barrington's father did not want his son to go on the stage and forbade him to do so until he came of age. His aunt, activist and dramatic reader Emily Faithfull, helped him to make his first connections in the theatre. Barrington was a keen football player in the mid-1870s and played for the original Crystal Palace FC.
In 1880, Barrington married Ellen Louisa "Louie" Jane Stainer (1851–1922), from Woolwich in Kent, the daughter of William Stainer and the former Lucy Mary Wheeler. Barrington and his wife had no children.
Early career; joining D'Oyly Carte's company
Barrington adopted his stage name by 1874 and made his professional debut with Henry Neville's company at the Olympic Theatre that year, playing the role of Sir George Barclay in Tom Taylor's Lady Clancarty, and then in The Ticket-of-Leave Man (by Taylor) and as LaFleur in The Two Orphans, among others. In July 1875, Barrington was playing Jules Frantz in Lessons in Harmony at St. George's Hall, London. A review in The Era reviewed the young actor's performance: "A good figure and expressive face were known to be among his advantages, but it was, perhaps, not suspected that he was a capital vocalist, a skilled musician, and an actor of remarkable ease and animation." Later that year, he was hired to appear in the touring company of Mr and Mrs Howard Paul. The company played a hectic schedule of entertainments.
In 1877 the producer Richard D'Oyly Carte approached Mrs Paul to play the part of Lady Sangazure in the new Gilbert and Sullivan opera, The Sorcerer, which he was presenting. She accepted, provided her 24-year-old protégé, Barrington, was given a part, and he was cast in the role of Dr Daly, the vicar. When he auditioned before W. S. Gilbert, the young actor questioned his own suitability for comic opera, but Gilbert, who required that his actors play their sometimes-absurd lines in all earnestness, explained the casting choice: "He's a staid, solid swine, and that's what I want."
In his 1908 autobiography, Barrington repeats a line from a first night review of his performance as Dr Daly in The Sorcerer: "Mr Barrington is wonderful. He always manages to sing one-sixteenth of a tone flat; it's so like a vicar." Barrington went on to say that producer Richard D'Oyly Carte later came to see him, saying, "...what's the matter? ...some one has just come out of the stalls to tell me you are singing in tune. It will never do." Barrington said that "This pleased me so much that I have never sung flat since, except, of course, when I wished...." Several contemporaries did find Barrington's singing occasionally flat, including Francois Cellier. Many years later, in her memoir, Ellaline Terriss wrote: "...dear old Rutland scarcely ever did sing in tune – but how grand he was.... He had a beautifully clear diction and a marvellous sense of timing – and was one of the finest singers of the then popular topical songs that our stage ever knew." Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald wrote of Barrington in his 1899 book, The Savoy Opera, "His peculiar tranquil or impassive style has always exactly suited the characters allotted to him, and it would now be difficult to imagine a Savoy opera without him. However, Barrington's performance as Dr Daly impressed the critics and audiences, and he won a permanent place in D'Oyly Carte's company.
Pinafore to Ruddigore
From 1877 to 1896, except for a foray into the business of theatrical management in 1888–89, Barrington remained with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, creating comic lyric baritone roles in all of Gilbert and Sullivan's new operas with the exception of The Yeomen of the Guard (1888). In 1878, he created the role of Lord Chamberlain in Albery's and Cellier's curtain raiser, The Spectre Knight, played the Counsel for the Plaintiff in the revival of Trial by Jury, and created the role of Captain Corcoran in Gilbert and Sullivan's first smash hit, H.M.S. Pinafore. Barrington was a big man, which led to one of Gilbert's famous quips in a rehearsal for Pinafore. Gilbert asked Barrington to sit "pensively" on one of the ship's skylights. Barrington lowered himself into position, and the hastily sewn set piece collapsed under his weight. Gilbert remarked, "No, that's ex-pensively."
Barrington also created the role of Pennyfather in Desprez and Cellier's curtain raiser, After All! (1878). Barrington played Mr. Cox in Carte's revival of Cox and Box (1879) and created the role of the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance in London (1880). Barrington was proud that the Sergeant's song generally received two encores. Eventually, he asked Gilbert to write an "encore verse" for the song. Gilbert replied that "encore" means "sing it again." Also around this time, Barrington's short play entitled Quid Pro Quo, written with Cunningham Bridgeman and composed by Wilfred Bendall, was first produced.
The next role that Barrington created was Archibald Grosvenor in Patience (1881). Casting the large Barrington as the "perfect" and "infallible" incarnation of manly beauty mirrored a joke in Gilbert's earlier A Sensation Novel, in which he cast the large, ungainly Corney Grain, in a similar role. This was followed by the role of Earl Mountararat in Iolanthe (1882; he also appeared in Margate, Kent in an 1882 Christmas pantomime of Robin Hood written by George Thorne), and King Hildebrand in Princess Ida (1884). This role was Barrington's least favourite of the series, and he attributed Ida'''s relatively short run, at least in part, to the lack of prominence of this role in the opera. During the run of Princess Ida, a comedy written by Barrington and called Bartonmere Towers was first presented at a matinee.
After Princess Ida closed, Barrington reprised his role of Dr Daly and also played the Learned Judge in the revival of The Sorcerer and Trial (1884—over the years, Barrington frequently played the Judge in D'Oyly Carte's and various "benefit" performances of Trial). He also played Dr Dozey in Sydney Grundy's The Silver Shield (1885). In 1885, he created his most famous role, that of Pooh-Bah in The Mikado. The Theatre's review was typical of the critics' unanimous praise: "The Pooh-Bah of Mr. Barrington is a masterpiece of pompous stolidity – nothing could possibly be better of its kind – and this popular comedian provided his many admirers with an agreeable surprise by singing every note of the music allotted to him in perfect tune." In June 1885, he played together with Eric Lewis (Grossmith's understudy) in an afternoon "musical dialogue," Mad to Act, with words by Barrington and music by Wilfred Bendall, at the Japanese Village in Knightsbridge.
Next, Barrington created the role of Sir Despard Murgatroyd in Ruddigore and then reprised his original roles in revivals of Pinafore, Pirates and The Mikado in (1887–88). During rehearsals for Ruddigore, and after discussions with other cast members on the subject, Barrington complained to Gilbert about the guests that Gilbert frequently invited to rehearsals, saying that he didn't wish to be taught the stage business "before a row of ...strangers." Gilbert forgave Barrington for the outburst and even discontinued the invitations. However, if anyone sat in the stalls during later rehearsals awaiting their cue, Gilbert would expostulate, "You mustn't sit here; Barrington won't like it."The Times said of Barrington's performances, "His strength lay in his quietness of voice and movement... in perfect contrast to the restlessness of George Grossmith. No one could be so ridiculously pompous... he moved with effect. There was a native drollery in his lightly rolling dance, a comic dignity in his rotund and placid, yet twinklingly intelligent face. He always gave the impression of thoroughly enjoying whatever he did...." In its review of Ruddigore, The Theatre wrote, "Better comic acting than his, or more highly finished, I have never seen and never wish to see."
Theatrical management experiment and later Savoy roles
In 1888, Barrington left the D'Oyly Carte organisation and the Savoy Theatre, missing the chance to create the role of Wilfred in Yeomen, to try his hand at theatrical management, leasing the St. James's Theatre. The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News lamented Barrington's departure, suggesting that he was irreplaceable in the Savoy Operas: "He is the typical embodiment... of that British Philistinism, the pachydermatous hide of which Mr. Gilbert has so long striven to penetrate by the process of holding up its own image before it." In March 1888, Barrington played Chrysos in a benefit performance of Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea, a role that he would reprise at a number of "benefit" performances over the years. Later in the year, at the St. James's, Barrington produced The Dean's Daughter by Grundy and F. C. Phillips, also playing the Very Reverend Augustus St. Aubyn, Dean of Southwark. Though the piece was unsuccessful, Barrington's performance was praised, and it launched several theatrical careers, including Olga Nethersole's. Gilbert's Brantinghame Hall (an abject failure), starred Barrington as Mr. Thursby, as well as his younger brother, Duncan Fleet, Julia Neilson and Lewis Waller (the latter two in their professional stage debuts). Its companion piece was A Patron Saint. This experiment in management proved to be a financial disaster for Barrington, and he was bankrupt after only five months.
After Brantinghame Hall closed, he again played Chrysos in a revival of Pygmalion and Galatea at the Lyceum Theatre and played Mr Barnes in his own play, To the Death, at the Olympic Theatre. He then appeared at the Comedy Theatre under Charles Hawtrey in Pickwick (1889), a successful one-act musical play by F. C. Burnand and Edward Solomon based on an episode in The Pickwick Papers, which Barrington ended up directing and in which he alternated in the roles of Pickwick and Baker. Barrington then created the role of Lt. Col. Cadbury in a Grundy farce called Merry Margate and next played Tosser in a comic opera by Solomon and George P. Hawtrey called Penelope, in which he co-starred with Dan Leno.Anthony, p. 90 He also played a number of other roles in other theatres throughout 1889 until he rejoined D'Oyly Carte to create the role of Giuseppe in The Gondoliers in December 1889, remaining for the long run of that last Gilbert and Sullivan hit.
After The Gondoliers closed in 1891, Gilbert and Sullivan were estranged for a time. Barrington appeared in a few more roles at other theatres, including as Robert Plushly in his own piece, A Swarry Dansong, a duologue with music by Solomon. He then returned to the Savoy to star as Punka, the Rajah of Chutneypore, in Dance, Desprez, and Solomon's The Nautch Girl. In August 1891, Barrington and Jessie Bond took a leave of absence from that show to tour a series of "musical duologues" (written by Barrington and composed by Solomon) throughout Britain, returning to the Savoy in November. In 1892, Barrington played the title role of the Reverend William Barlow, in Grundy and Solomon's The Vicar of Bray and then toured with that show. In September 1892, he created the role of Rupert Vernon in Grundy and Sullivan's Haddon Hall, making a critical splash. For example, The Figaro wrote: "Barrington... kept the audience in shouts of laughter the whole time [he was] on the stage." In 1893, he created the role of the Proctor in J. M. Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Ernest Ford's Jane Annie, which was unsuccessful at the Savoy but ran more successfully on tour. Barrington, a lifelong golf enthusiast, speculated that one reason for the failure of Jane Annie in London was that the game of golf was not yet popular there. Despite the failure of the piece, Barrington was singled out for critical praise. Barrington next created the role of King Paramount I in Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia, Limited, opening in October of that year. Barrington's comedy, Bartonmere Towers, was also produced at a matinee at the Savoy in 1893, with Barrington playing Sir James Hanbury.
Barrington left the company again when Utopia closed, taking over the role of Dr Montague Brierly in the Hall, Greenbank and Jones musical, A Gaiety Girl (in 1894) produced at Daly's Theatre by George Edwardes and on tour. Next, he appeared in Gilbert and Carr's His Excellency (1894–95) creating the role of the Regent. The stage was dominated by a heroic-size statue of him in the role. Barrington also wrote and directed a one-act operetta, A Knight Errant, with music by Alfred Caldicott, which played as a companion piece with His Excellency at the Lyric Theatre. At Toole's Theatre, he played John Rimple in Thoroughbred, by Ralph R. Lumley, in early 1895. J. L. Toole had originated the role but took ill and was forced to retire. Barrington also played in some German Reed Entertainments, including a revival of Happy Arcadia at St. George's Hall in 1895, starring Fanny Holland, and toured with the German Reeds.Barrington (1908), pp. 103–04
In November 1895, Barrington returned to the Savoy as Pooh-Bah in another revival of The Mikado. In March 1896 he created the role of Ludwig in Gilbert and Sullivan's last opera, The Grand Duke. In his 1908 memoir, Barrington wrote of some difficulty in getting along with his co-star, Ilka Pálmay, who was cast in the role of Julia. As usual, the critics were pleased with Barrington, "on whom... falls the chief burden of the piece, is intensely funny as Ludwig, more especially in the absurd costume of the second act...." After another revival of The Mikado, Barrington again left the Savoy.
Musical comedy and music hall
Beginning in 1896, Barrington spent ten very successful years under the management of Edwardes at Daly's, first taking over the role of the Marquis Imari in The Geisha (1896), and then creating roles in a number of other Edwardian musical comedy hits, including Marcus Pomponius in A Greek Slave (1898), Yen How in San Toy (1899), The Rajah of Bhong in A Country Girl (1902), and Boobhamba in The Cingalee (1904), among others.
In these roles, he had more freedom to add "gags" than Gilbert had given him at the Savoy, and he often wrote topical verses to Adrian Ross's songs. However, Barrington complained that, in these musical comedies, the plot was nearly eliminated during rehearsals. During this time, Barrington often reprised his role as the Judge at benefit matinees. Also during this period, several of Barrington's stage works were produced by Arthur Bourchier at the Garrick Theatre, including Barrington's popular children's "fairy play" called Water Babies, based on Charles Kingsley's 1863 book, with music by Frederick Rosse, Albert Fox and Alfred Cellier (1902). Barrington directed Water Babies. Another Barrington play, Little Black Sambo and Little White Barbara, with music by Wilfred Bendall, enjoyed 31 matinees at the Garrick in 1904.
Barrington appeared between 1905 and 1907 in several musical comedies, including The White Chrysanthemum (1905), as Admiral Sir Horatio Armitage, K.C.B. (with Isabel Jay, Louie Pounds and Henry Lytton). He also played Barnabas Goodeve in a revival of the farce The Candidate by Justin Huntly McCarthy at Wyndham's Theatre with Charles Wyndham. He then briefly played his old role in a revival of The Geisha in 1906, after which he created the role of the Pharaoh of Egypt in the successful comic opera Amasis (1906), by Philip Michael Faraday and Frederick Fenn, both in London (where it ran for over 200 performances) and on extended tours.Barrington (1908), chapters XII through XVI
During this period, Barrington performed his own solo music hall sketches at the Coliseum and produced various tours, performing standard topical songs of the day, including the only song that he recorded, "The Moody Mariner" (1905). This was based on a story in Many Cargoes by Jacobs, with lyrics by Barrington and music by Walter Slaughter. Other such sketches and songs included "Man the Lifeboat" (1907), written by Leedham Bantock (starring also William Terriss) "Across the Silent Way" and "The Tramp" by Barrington and Slaughter, and Mummydom (1907), which he had written in 1903 with Wilfrid Bendall (Sullivan's former secretary) based on his play of the same name that had been produced some years earlier at Penley's Theatre. He also wrote a Rip van Winkle sketch for Courtice Pounds and a one-act musical drama, No. 442, His Escape (1907), with music by H. M. Higgs. Barrington became known for writing topical verses on short notice. In his 1908 memoir, he tells the following story:
Barrington returned to the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1908 for the second of the London repertory seasons, playing Pooh-Bah, Captain Corcoran, Mountararat, and the Sergeant of Police once again, and adding the roles of Wilfred Shadbolt in Yeomen (finally completing the feat of playing a principal role in all thirteen extant Gilbert and Sullivan operas), and Don Alhambra in The Gondoliers to his Savoy repertoire. He then played in more music hall sketches and toured in musicals, including in A Member of Tattersall's, an adaptation by Adrian Ross of Leo Fall's Die Geschtedene Frau (1909, repeated in London in 1911); as the Marquis of Steyne in The Walls of Jericho (1909); and as Judge Tucker in The Bigamist (1910). In 1910, he created the role of Lucas van Tromp in The Girl in the Train at the Vaudeville Theatre.
Last years
Barrington also established himself on the legitimate stage, playing Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor at His Majesty's Theatre in 1911; he appeared in Baron Trenck and in several other roles from 1911 to 1913; on tour in Other People's Babies, by Lechmere Worrall, in 1913; as Lord Leonard Alcar in the highly successful The Great Adventure by Arnold Bennett (1913–14; based on Bennett's 1908 novel, Buried Alive); as Max Somossy in The Joy-Ride Lady, by Arthur Anderson and Hartley Carrick at the New Theatre (1914); and Polonius in Hamlet and Christopher Sly in The Taming of the Shrew at His Majesty's in 1916, among other roles. He continued to perform in London and in the provinces until 1918, from 1916 under the management of John Martin-Harvey. One of his later successes was a reprise of his 1909 role as the kindly bookmaker Peter Perks in A Member of Tattersall's. His last role was Claus in The Burgomaster of Stilemonde, by Count Maurice Maeterlinck, at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, beginning in October 1918.
Barrington wrote horse racing columns for Punch magazine under the pseudonym Lady Gay and also wrote two volumes of reminiscences, in 1908 and 1911. He also appeared in four silent films: "San Toy" (1900); as Mr. Texel in "The Great Adventure" (1915); as Septimus Beaumont in "The Girl Who Loves a Soldier" (1916); and as Mr. Potter in Still Waters Run Deep (1916). In addition to his avid interest in several sports, which he describes at length in his memoirs, Barrington was a skilled artist in watercolours and pen and ink.
After Barrington suffered a paralytic stroke in early 1919, he was unable to perform. He spent the rest of his life in poverty, although his fellow actors held benefits and made other efforts to help him, and his brothers and his neighbours in East Hagbourne, Berkshire, helped him as he became increasingly disabled and eventually unable even to speak. He died in 1922 while living at the St. James's Infirmary, Balham, in South London, at the age of 69 and is buried in Lower Morden Lane at the Morden Cemetery, also known as Battersea New Cemetery, in Surrey. On the 75th anniversary of Barrington's death, a granite monument with a photoplaque of Barrington as Pooh-Bah was dedicated to him at the Morden Cemetery, by members of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society and others.
Notes
References
Preface by W. S. Gilbert, accessed 9 March 2008
, accessed 9 March 2008
, accessed 9 March 2008
Glynn, Gerald, "Brantinghame Hall: 1. A Night of Melodrama", W. S. Gilbert Society Journal, ed. Brian Jones, Vol. 1, No. 2: Autumn 1985, pp. 45–49.
Walters, Michael "A Brief Overview of the Life of Rutland Barrington" in The Gilbert & Sullivan News'', vol. II, no. 13, pp. 16–21 (Autumn/Winter 1998; The Gilbert and Sullivan Society).
External links
Profile of Barrington at the "Memories of the D'Oyly Carte" site
Programme covers and brief descriptions of various productions in which Barrington appeared
Cast and crew information about several productions in which Barrington appeared
Reviews of Barrington in The Grand Duke
Photo of Barrington as King Paramount
English male stage actors
People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood
People from Penge
1853 births
1922 deaths
Male actors from Kent
Musicians from Kent
English operatic baritones
English male dramatists and playwrights
19th-century British male singers
20th-century British male singers
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5025013
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Settlers%3A%20Heritage%20of%20Kings
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The Settlers: Heritage of Kings
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The Settlers: Heritage of Kings (), released as Heritage of Kings: The Settlers in North America, is a real-time strategy video game developed by Blue Byte and published by Ubisoft. Released in Germany for Microsoft Windows in November 2004, and in the United Kingdom, North America, and Australia in February 2005, it is the fifth game in The Settlers series. In 2005, Blue Byte released two expansions, The Settlers: Heritage of Kings - Expansion Disc () and The Settlers: Heritage of Kings - Legends Expansion Disc (), in March and September respectively, featuring new single-player campaign missions, new maps for both single-player and multiplayer modes, a map editor, and a random map generator. In November, The Settlers: Heritage of Kings - Gold Edition was released, containing the original game and the first expansion. In 2009, the original game was also released on GOG.com. In 2018, the game was re-released as The Settlers: Heritage of Kings - History Edition.
In the game's single-player campaign, the player controls Dario, a young man who is shocked to learn he is the rightful heir to the throne of a once prosperous, but now war-torn and divided country. Joined by a group of loyal supporters, Dario sets out to depose the current king by uniting the princedoms into which the country has split. The Expansion Disc takes place several years later; when building work on a major new bridge stops under mysterious circumstances, Dario and his companions are called upon to investigate.
Originally intended as a cross-platform title that would also include PlayStation 2 and GameCube releases, Heritage of Kings was specifically designed as a new type of Settlers game, one intended to appeal to North American gamers. After seeking feedback, Blue Byte decided to move the game away from its pseudo-city building origins, and more in the direction of a traditional real-time strategy. As a result, although still built upon supply and demand-based gameplay, the game mechanics are fundamentally different from previous titles. The game was also the first in the series to feature 3D graphics.
Heritage of Kings received mixed reviews, with many critics arguing the graphical changes, streamlining of micromanagement, and foregrounding of combat stripped the game of the unique Settlers identity. The graphics, animations and sound effects were generally praised, but the AI, mission design, combat strategy, and slow pace were criticised. The game was a commercial success, selling over 200,000 units in Germany within the first two months of its release. By 2006, worldwide sales had reached 500,000 units, of which 350,000 were sold in the German market.
Gameplay
The Settlers: Heritage of Kings is a real-time strategy game, controlled via a point and click interface, in which the primary goal on most maps is to build a settlement with a functioning economy, producing sufficient military units so as to defeat the opponent. To achieve this end, the player must engage in economic micromanagement, construct buildings, research new technologies, manage taxation and workers' motivation, and gather resources. Although the game is loosely built around the same supply and demand-based gameplay as seen in previous Settlers titles, the game mechanics are substantially different, with less focus on micromanagement and daisy-chain economic processes, and more on gathering resources, technology trees, and combat.
Game modes
The game can be played in one of two modes; single-player or multiplayer. In single-player mode, the player can play either campaign missions or individual non-campaign games. In campaign mode, the player must complete a series of missions, the goal of most of which is to defeat the computer controlled opponent or opponents by destroying their keep. In the original release of the game, there were fifteen campaign missions. The Expansion Disc add-on added a new campaign of nine missions. The Legends Expansion Disc added three campaigns of four missions each, and one of five missions, with each campaign built around a different gameplay principal; defense, offence, defeating larger armies, and construction and resource management.
In multiplayer mode, which can be played via a LAN or online, the player picks a map on which to play, assigns starting positions, then selects the type of game to be played, choosing from "Conquest" (each player/team competes against one another, with the winner being the last player or team whose keep remains standing), "Technology Race" (the winner is the first player/team to research all technologies in the university), or "Point Game" (a one-hour game in which the player/team with the most points at the end wins, with points awarded for researching new technologies and successfully destroying buildings belonging to opposing players).
Serfs and workers
Whether playing in single-player or multiplayer mode, each game begins roughly the same way; the player is positioned at a set location on the map, with a prebuilt keep, usually in the vicinity of a site on which they can construct a village centre so as to begin their settlement. The basic gameplay revolves around serfs, the only units capable of constructing new buildings, repairing damage to pre-existing buildings, gathering wood, and extracting resources without the need to construct a mine or quarry. Each mission begins with a predetermined number of serfs already available, but thereafter, any additional serfs must be purchased from the keep. Serfs do not require lodgings, nor do they consume produce, but they also do not pay taxes. Aside from the keep, the settlement's main building is the village centre. Unlike most buildings, which the player has relative freedom to place, village centres can only be built on specific sites. The village centre determines the upper limit of the village's population size, and once this limit has been reached, the player must either upgrade the centre or find another site on which to build an additional centre.
Unlike all previous Settlers titles, in Heritage of Kings, the player can directly control serfs, such as ordering them to chop down trees in a particular location, or scout unexplored territory. If a serf is attacked, he will attempt to flee, but the player can order him to defend himself, which he will do with his fists. Players also have the option of ordering serfs to take up arms and form a militia. The player can order militia members to return to regular serf duties at any time.
Whereas in previous Settlers titles, serfs populated and performed the requisite task of each building, in Heritage of Kings, serfs are differentiated from workers. Once the serfs have constructed a building which requires workers, those workers will automatically emerge from the village centre and occupy the building. Once employed, workers will begin to pay taxes, but in return they require lodgings and room at a farm. The closer the lodgings and farm are to their workplace, the more productive they will be. Proximity of workplace, lodgings and farm will also increase their stamina (allowing them to work more hours a day). Their motivation, which determines their productivity, can be further increased by building decorative monuments and places of worship. In each building, the player also has the option to order overtime. However, this will diminish workers' motivation.
Introduced in the Expansion Disc were scouts and thieves. Scouts can see for great distances, thus illuminating new territory. They are also able to indicate the direction of the nearest resource site, even if it is not currently visible on-screen, and they can drop torches anywhere on the map, allowing the player to monitor that location for a period of time even after the scout has left the area. Thieves can steal resources, sabotage enemy buildings, and are the only units capable of destroying bridges and diffusing enemy bombs.
Economy
Stone, iron, clay and sulfur can be found in small piles, which can be excavated by serfs, or mined in much larger quantities once the player has located a shaft or quarry. Wood must be chopped down by serfs. The player can also build refineries to increase the processing of each of the available five resources, and the game's currency, thalers. A major change to the mechanics in Heritage of Kings is that serfs do not transport resources to refineries and construction sites. Instead, resources are automatically deposited into the player's keep and storehouse (once one has been built), and the various refinery workers collect the materials themselves. In the case of construction, the necessary resources are automatically transferred to the build site without having to be physically transported.
Another new feature in the game's economic system is the ability to upgrade buildings. Depending on the building, upgrades can increase efficiency or capacity, grant access to new military units and abilities, or allow access to new technologies. Different types of technological research is carried out in different buildings, and can increase productivity, enhance combat abilities, or grant access to new buildings, upgrades and further technologies. Also new to Heritage of Kings is taxation, which is the only way for the player to acquire thalers, which, in turn, are the only way of hiring new serfs and recruiting an army. On payday, every worker in the city pays taxes at a rate set by the player.
Military
In the original release of the game, there were seven classes of military unit; swordsmen, spearmen, archers, light cavalry, heavy cavalry, light cannons, and heavy cannons. The Expansion Disc added two additional units; light sharpshooters and heavy sharpshooters. Within each class, there are various ranks, each of which requires a certain amount of technological research before becoming available.
When the player recruits any unit except a cannon, that unit is automatically a captain, and, provided there are sufficient thalers and resources, a set number of soldiers are simultaneously recruited and assigned to that captain, with the upper size of a captain's group determined by his rank. Once a captain has units assigned, and at least one of those units remains alive, he is invulnerable in battle. When units within his group have been killed, a captain can return to the vicinity of the barracks, where the player can recruit replacement units without the need to recruit another captain.
New to Heritage of Kings is the ability to use heroes. In the original game, there were six playable heroes available in the single-player campaign, and three additional heroes available in multiplayer. The Expansion Disc added two heroes to the single-player game and one to multiplayer, and Legends allowed players to use the three multiplayer-only heroes from the original game in single-player missions. Each hero has his or her own attributes and abilities, and once used, an ability cannot be used again until a certain amount of time has passed. If a hero is defeated in battle, he/she becomes unresponsive, but if the player can keep enemy units away from the fallen hero, they will eventually revive. Which heroes the player can use is predetermined by the map on which they are playing, whether in single-player campaign mode, single-player non-campaign mode, or multiplayer mode.
Another new feature in the game is weather. Initially, weather change is automatic; after a set period, the weather will change from one type to another (cycling through sun, rain and snow). In later missions, the player can build a "weather plant", a machine capable of controlling the weather. This becomes important in combat insofar as the player can, for example, bring on winter so as to freeze a lake and allow a strategic approach to enemy territory, or bring on summer so as to thaw a river, cutting off or drowning enemy units. The Expansion Disc added fog-shrouded rivers, which don't freeze over in winter; the only way of crossing is to build a bridge.
Plot
Set "during the days of the Old Empire", when the peace and prosperity of King Keron's reign have given way to oppression and austerity under King Mordred, the game begins when Mordred's Black Knights attack the village of Thalgrund. The Knights, led by Mordred's senior-most general, Kerberos, have recently been raiding villages in the area, intent on finding something. A young man named Dario drives them off before heading to nearby Ridgewood, his mother's home village, which is also under attack. He again defeats the Knights, but his mother is mortally wounded. As she dies, she gives him an amulet, telling him this is what the Knights were searching for, and explaining that Keron was Dario's father, and the amulet must never fall into the hands of anyone but the legitimate heir to the throne; Dario himself. Joined by his childhood friend, Erec, a knight in the service of the Old Empire, Dario determines to defeat the Black Knights and depose Mordred.
They first head to Crawford to speak to Dario's uncle, Helias. Keron's older brother, Helias relinquished the throne to become a priest, and since the demise of the Old Empire, has served as a negotiator, keeping the peace between the eight princedoms into which the Empire split after Keron's death. He explains the amulet is one of a number of artefacts which together form an orb representing the strength and honour of the king, and which, if reassembled, would legitimise Dario's claim to the throne. The other artefacts were scattered by Keron shortly after Dario's birth; as the Black Knights marched on the Old King's Castle, Keron split the orb up, hanging the largest piece from Dario's neck, before smuggling Dario and his mother out of the castle in the care of Helias. Keron remained behind and was killed when the Knights attacked. After the second artefact is found in Crawford, Helias joins Dario and Erec as they set about finding the remaining artefacts and reuniting the princedoms.
Having secured the allegiance of Crawford, the fellowship aid in local issues throughout the realm, gaining the support of Cleycourt, Barmecia, Folklung, and Norfolk. Along the way, they are joined by Ari (a thief), Pilgrim (a miner and demolitions expert), and Salim (a weapon and trap designer). They next travel to Kaloix. As they work to relieve a plague spreading through the villages, Ari is kidnapped by the princedom's regent, Mary De Mortfichet. The fellowship ultimately discover De Mortfichet herself is behind the plague; as punishment for the people refusing to ally with Mordred, she began to poison local rivers. They storm her keep, arresting her, and rescuing Ari, with whom Dario realises he has fallen in love.
They next head to the ruins of the Old King's Castle, and secure the support of nearby Andala. As the Black Knights attempt to destroy the ruins, the fellowship defeat them, and are surprised when Kerberos willingly surrenders, claiming he was duped by Mordred, and that he can assist Dario. To this end, he gives them an artefact, and tells them the location of another. They are also surprised to learn Kerberos is Helias's son; when Helias relinquished the throne to Keron, depriving Kerberos of what he felt was his birthright, he became bitter and joined Mordred. Finding the artefact where Kerberos said, the fellowship begin to trust him.
They then head to Evelance, Mordred's home. As Mordred remains unaware that Kerberos has joined the fellowship, Kerberos goes on ahead, intending to disrupt Mordred's plans. Meanwhile, Dario gains the allegiance of the nearby city of Tendrel. However, the fellowship discover that Kerberos has double-crossed them, hoping to usurp the throne himself once they defeat Mordred. In one of Evelance's outposts, they find the last artefact, and then set about liberating the villages of the nearby Wastelands, where they learn the more recent attacks from Evelance Fortress were ordered by Kerberos, not Mordred. They storm the fortress, and discover Kerberos has murdered Mordred, desperate to become king himself. When he sees escape is impossible, he throws himself from the battlements into the valley below. Shortly thereafter, Dario marries Ari, and is crowned king.
Expansion Disc
The Expansion Disc begins several years after the main game, with Dario presiding over a now peaceful and flourishing kingdom. As he attends a council meeting, he is interrupted with news that construction work has ceased on a bridge across the River Nhern. As Erec is supposed to be supervising, Dario, Ari and Pilgrim head to investigate. Upon arriving, they learn the builders are afraid to work since an attack by "demons". Erec pursued the so-called demons towards Hen Brugh on the other side of the Nhern, but has not been heard from since. The trio rid the area of the demons (humans wearing animal skins, with claws on their hands, and spikes protruding from their backs), and then follow Erec's trail.
Receiving word that he is awaiting them nearby, as they reach his location, he is shot and killed by a bounty hunter who disappears into the forest. Dario is distraught, but says they must press on. They head to the town of Theley, which they find under attack. Fighting off an army of demons, they are joined on their quest by one of the town's militia, a martial artist named Yuki.
After helping Salim resolve a problem with local trade routes, they then travel to Sharray, the area in which Helias settled after the defeat of Kerberos. However, the bounty hunter has also arrived in Sharray, and is heading for Helias's home town of Karatas. The fellowship race to beat him, but arrive only in time to see him take aim at Helias. Rather than shooting him, however, the bounty hunter shoots a man running towards Helias. He explains it was an assassin, the same one who killed Erec. The bounty hunter, named Drake, had tried to intervene in Hen Brugh, but was unable to do so in time, and Erec was killed. As Erec was an old friend of Drake's, he set out in pursuit of the assassin, and, having saved Helias, now pledges his loyalty to Dario.
Meanwhile, the arrival of Dario in the area has inspired the people, and they have rebelled against a particularly oppressive regent, Kadir. Joining the locals, the fellowship storm Kadir's castle, and learn he planned to overthrow Dario and take over the Empire himself, and, to this end, he hired the assassin. Gloating that if he is unable to defeat the fellowship, it doesn't matter, as someone else will do the job, he tries to shoot Dario with a crossbow, but is killed by Drake. In Kadir's castle, Yuki finds information on the "Tribe of the Bear", known locally as the Shrouded People, an extinct swamp tribe, who, it is told, will return under the guidance of a powerful being, bringing death and destruction.
With this information, the fellowship head to the swamps of Tan-Fleh, ancient home of the Shrouded People, where they find the city of Glen Medden under siege. Driving the besiegers off, Dario decides the only way anyone can be safe is if they find and kill whoever is leading the Shrouded People. Traveling deeper into the swamp, they learn that that person is a supposedly immortal witch named Kala. Reaching a huge expanse of flooded swampland, the locals inform them that Kala resides in the mountains beyond. The fellowship assist in draining the area, and then storm Kala's cave, killing her and defeating the Shrouded People.
Development
A new type of Settlers
Just prior to the European-wide release of The Settlers IV in March 2001, Ubisoft, who had acquired Blue Byte the previous month, stated their "aim to make The Settlers a global leader as well as developing it on a variety of other platforms, including PlayStation 2 and GameCube". In June, Blue Byte revealed the next game in the series would be the first to use 3D graphics, and that it would be released simultaneously for Microsoft Windows and the console market. For the rest of 2001, Blue Byte sought feedback from professional critics such as PC Games, as well as focus groups, other developers, and forums, asking such questions as "what is the core of The Settlers", "what is the future of The Settlers", and "what doesn't work in The Settlers"? The only idea which the team rejected outright was a request to include hobbits and elves.
Early in development, the designers decided the future of the series was not necessarily to be found in employing more races, more goods, more complex economic processes, and larger maps, but instead in streamlining the gameplay and building a set of "complex but not complicated" game mechanics. Creative director Thomas Friedmann defended the decision to reduce the level of micromanagement by citing the increasingly complicated daisy-chain economic processes in The Settlers III and The Settlers IV, arguing as "construction games have served far too often as a beautiful interface for Excel tables". Blue Byte further explained their design philosophy was to "focus more on the settlers – the characters – themselves and reduce the importance of the delivery of goods", thus shifting the gameplay's main focus from logistical management to "managing your settlers and your buildings". For the new game, the designers wanted simple menus, a minimum of statistics, and graphics which clearly represented what was supposed to be happening in the game world; for example, if the player zooms in on a forger creating a canon, they can literally see the canon taking shape piece by piece in the workshop. Blue Byte refer to such graphics as the "aquarium effect", with art director Thorsten Knop stating "we have a lot of animations and effects that are purely aesthetic".
Speaking to PC Games in February 2002, the game's producer and project manager, Benedikt Grindel, said that Ubisoft were handling all publishing issues, leaving Blue Byte free to concentrate solely on development. He explained that after Settlers IV was criticised for being too similar to Settlers III, Blue Byte made the decision that the next game should represent a "real innovation leap". As a result of this, the game would not be called The Settlers V, as the team were "not just making the next part of a recognised series". The name Heritage of Kings was ultimately revealed in May 2004, chosen in consultation with German fans.
When the game was officially announced in June 2002, Grindel reiterated that it would be a new type of Settlers game; as well as a new graphical style, it would "feature all of the strengths of the entire Settlers series". To this end, the development team (referred to by Grindel as the "Settlers All-Star Team") included various Settlers veterans; technical director Thomas Häuser had worked on both The Settlers and The Settlers II; creative director Thomas Friedmann, art director Thorsten Knop, and level designer Adam Sprys had all worked on The Settlers II; lead artist Thorsten Mutschall had worked on The Settlers III and The Settlers IV; and lead designer Andreas Suika, lead programmer Dietmar Meschede, and programmer Marcel Marré had all worked on The Settlers IV.
In March 2004, it was announced that the game would be released for Microsoft Windows at the end of the year, with no reference to the PlayStation 2 or GameCube versions. In the announcement, Grindel once more emphasised the new direction in which the game would take the series, and the importance of fan feedback for determining what that direction would be Grindel once more emphasised the new direction in which the game would take the series, and the importance of fan feedback for determining what that direction would be: "After listening to feedback from Settlers fans, we believe we have succeeded in renewing the franchise by adding many new gameplay and design elements while keeping the essence of Settlers".
In an FAQ published on the game's official website in December 2004, shortly after it had been released, Blue Byte addressed the differences between Heritage of Kings and previous Settlers titles:
Graphics and North American appeal
According to Grindel and Thorsten Mutschall, the team decided to switch to 3D graphics because they "wanted to allow more interaction with the Settlers world". However, the use of 3D graphics necessitated a fundamental change in graphical style insofar as the cartoon-style graphics of previous titles (dubbed "Wuselfaktor") was incompatible with 3D; Thomas Häuser explained that "with our 3D engine, we could have shown a maximum of four or five settlers at a time, to reach ten or eleven frames. But only if we hid water animations and all moss textures". Explaining how the game's detailed world was created, Dietmar Meschede stated,
In September 2002, Blue Byte signed a deal with Criterion Software to use the RenderWare game engine. Mutschall said that the feedback collected in 2001 had given the designers a clearly defined goal: "The Settlers should grow up without losing their special charm and humour". In the same vein, Grindel argued that previous Settlers titles looked like children's games, and "we've tried to make the series grow up a bit and look like the game it really is".
In his February 2002 interview with PC Games, Grindel explained that for the first time, a Settlers game was being developed with an eye to the international market, particularly North America, as the series had traditionally sold poorly outside Europe. He later said they "wanted to make a game that worked everywhere. Our top priority with Settlers V was increasing accessibility". In March 2004, Bruce Milligan, who had worked on the Tropico series and Rise of Nations, was hired as a "design consultant", with his primary role to ensure the game appealed more to the North American market than had any previous Settlers title. Also working to this end, Ubisoft Montreal were supervising the online multiplayer portion of the game. Speaking in 2010, Grindel explained that the event-driven storyline was a major part of gearing the game towards North American gamers; "We were intensely concerned with the brand, because the series is only really successful in Germany. We asked ourselves how we could change that, how we could rework the interface and the narrative, how best to tell a good story".
Promotion and release
In August 2004, the game was shown at the Games Convention, where Gameswelt's Vitus Hoffmann noted, "a lot of the basic micromanagement has been jettisoned in favour of more user-friendly playability and better pacing". In a 4players preview, Marcel Kleffmann opined that the game played more like an Age of Empires title than any previous Settlers title. In a second preview, written several weeks prior to the game's release, he reiterated his impression that the game played similarly to Age of Empires, but also argued that it "felt" like a Settlers game, suggesting the difference between it and Settlers IV was no greater than the difference between the first two games on the one hand, and Settlers III on the other.
Towards the end of September, Blue Byte advertised for a closed beta, specifically seeking casual gamers, families, and people with little interest in real-time strategies. In November, Ubisoft announced they would be releasing both a standard edition and a Limited Edition in Germany. Both editions would feature the game, a "making-of" featurette, and a live performance by Apocalyptica from the 2004 Games Convention. The Limited Edition would also feature an A4 size sticker, a "medieval style" pen, a keychain, and a two-sided poster. The game was also released on Steam, and in 2009 on GOG.com.
Reception
Heritage of Kings received "mixed or average" reviews, with an aggregate score of 58 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on twenty-nine reviews.
PC Games Petra Fröhlich scored the game 85%. Arguing it was a Settlers game in name only, she noted, "economic cycles are virtually non-existent", and opined, "it is likely to appeal more to an Age of Empires fan than an Anno fan". However, she praised the use of heroes, the sound effects, animations, and, especially, the graphics, which she called "some of the most beautiful in the strategy genre". She also found the game more accessible than any previous Settlers title, calling it "a great strategy game, although fans of construction games might be disappointed".
IGNs Dan Adams scored it 6.5 out of 10. He felt the graphical changes and foregrounding of combat stripped the game of its unique Settlers identity, and argued that although it "isn't a horrible game", he could find little to recommend it. He cited as particular weaknesses the repetitive mission design and lack of combat strategy, of which he wrote, "it's basically left up to who has the most upgraded soldiers in order to win". Although he praised the graphics, animations and textures, he criticised "the generic nature of the art", and the absence of real-time lighting and shadows. He concluded, "this is simply a below average game."
GameSpots Jason Ocampo scored it 6.4 out of 10, writing that the player will spend most of their playing time "sitting around waiting to gather the mountain of resources you need". He was critical of the repetitive mission design, and "underdeveloped" combat, and felt that enemy AI was "practically non-existent". Although he praised the graphics, he concluded: "Heritage of Kings would be a fairly enjoyable and likeable game if not for its glacial pace. This is a huge game, but not in a good way. There simply just isn't enough action or variety to keep your attention".
Eurogamers Kieron Gillen scored it 5 out of 10, calling it "brutally average". He was especially critical of the simplification of micromanagement, and referred to the use of heroes as "Warcraft 3, without Blizzard's craft". He concluded, "by losing virtually everything that made the Settlers unique, Blue Byte has ended up with something - somewhat predictably - that's the same as everything else, but not as good".
GameSpys Allen Rausch scored it 2 out of 5, calling it a "slow, dull title that's lost much of what made the series special". Although he praised the graphics, sound effects, and multiplayer mode, he found the technology trees poorly implemented, lamented the absence of the type of complex daisy-chain economic processes, and was unimpressed with the pace. He also felt the game mechanics "would have seemed primitive and simple back in 1997", and called combat "the worst sort of "click on the enemy and hope for the best" gameplay".
Computer Gaming Worlds Erik Wolpaw scored it 1.5 out of 5, criticising the simplification of micromanagement in favour of combat. He felt the game featured nothing to distinguish it from late '90s real-time strategy titles, calling combat "tactics free". He was also critical of the pace, which he felt was more suited to a city-building game, and was incongruous with the changes to the game mechanics elsewhere. Although he praised the graphics, he found the milieu "generic medieval realism" and criticised the visuals as "technically competent, but relentlessly sterile".
Sales and awards
By Christmas 2004, one month after its release, the game was awarded gold status in Germany, for sales of over 100,000 units. By contrast, it had taken Settlers IV seven months to reach gold status. Ubisoft's business development director, Ralf Wirsing, cited the changes to the graphics and gameplay as renewing the series' commercial appeal. After five weeks, it had sold 220,000 units in Germany. Towards the end of January, the game was announced as the fifth best selling PC game in Germany during the period, and the country's highest selling 2004 real-time strategy game. In the United Kingdom, it received a "Silver" award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association, indicating sales of at least 100,000 units. By 2006, Heritage of Kings had sold 500,000 units worldwide, of which 350,000 were purchased in Germany.
At the 2004 Games Convention in Leipzig, Heritage of Kings won "Best PC Game". It was also nominated for "Best PC Graphics". At the 2005 Deutscher Entwicklerpreis, it won "Best Cutscenes" and "Best Strategy Game". The Expansion Disc was the runner up in the "Best PC Add-On" category.
Expansions
Expansion Disc
The game's first expansion was The Settlers: Heritage of Kings - Expansion Disc, released in Germany in March 2005, and featuring nine new single-player missions, seven new maps for single-player mode, twenty-six new maps for multiplayer mode, a map editor, two new combat units (light and heavy sharpshooters), two new single-player heroes, one new multiplayer hero, two new economic units (thieves and scouts), additional buildings and technologies, bridge building, and improved graphics.
Legends Expansion Disc
Ubisoft released a second expansion, The Settlers: Heritage of Kings - Legends Expansion Disc, in September, featuring three new single-player campaigns of four missions each and one of five missions, six new maps for single-player mode, eighteen new maps for multiplayer mode, an enhanced map editor, a random map generator, and the ability to use the three multiplayer-only heroes from the original game in single-player missions.
Gold Edition
In November 2005, The Settlers: Heritage of Kings - Gold Edition was released. The German language version includes the original game and both expansions, a Kerberos figurine, the soundtrack from both the original game and the Expansion Disc, and a behind-the-scenes documentary. The English language version includes the original game and the Expansion Disc.
History Edition
In November 2018, Ubisoft re-released the game as both a standalone History Edition and as part of The Settlers: History Collection. Optimised for Windows 10, the re-release contains the original game, and both the Expansion Disc and Legends Expansion Disc add-ons, and features adjustable resolutions and online multiplayer. The History Edition replaced the original version found on Steam. Available only on Uplay, the History Collection also includes re-releases of The Settlers, The Settlers II, The Settlers III, The Settlers IV, The Settlers: Rise of an Empire, and The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom.
References
External links
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2004 video games
Blue Byte games
Cancelled GameCube games
Cancelled PlayStation 2 games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Multiplayer online games
Real-time strategy video games
RenderWare games
The Settlers
Ubisoft games
Video game sequels
Video games developed in Germany
Video games with expansion packs
Video games with historical settings
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwestern%20Wildcats%20football
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Northwestern Wildcats football
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The Northwestern Wildcats football team represents Northwestern University as an NCAA Division I college football team and member of the Big Ten Conference based near Chicago in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern began playing football in 1882. Its football mascot is the Wildcat, a term coined by a Chicago Tribune reporter in 1924, after reporting on a football game where the players appeared as "a wall of purple wildcats". Northwestern Football is also marketed as "Chicago's Big Ten Team" with its proximity and ties to Chicago.
The Wildcats have won three Big Ten championships or co-championships since 1995, and have been "bowl eligible" five times between 2015 and 2020.
Northwestern consistently ranks among the national leaders in graduation rate among football teams, having received the AFCA Academic Achievement Award four times since 2002. The Wildcats have played their home games at Ryan Field (formerly Dyche Stadium) since 1926.
History
Early history (1882–1955)
Football made its debut at Northwestern University on February 22, 1876, during an exhibition game between NU students and the Chicago Football Club. Despite the fact that there was no organized league, there was a growing interest for football on Northwestern's campus. Until Northwestern's first intercollegiate game against Lake Forest in 1882, football was played entirely as an intramural sport. From 1882 to 1887, the team mostly practiced and did not play teams outside of NU. In 1891, with the popularity of football increasing, Sheppard Field—complete with a grandstand—was built at Northwestern and dedicated in 1892. Also in 1892, the university chose royal purple as the school's official color, and the team recorded its first significant win, beating Michigan 10–8.In 1896, along with six other schools, Northwestern became a charter member of the Western Conference, the predecessor of the Big Ten. NU's first conference season was a huge success, posting a 46–6 win against then-powerhouse University of Chicago and finished second to Wisconsin. The team's success in 1896 carried through the turn of the century. From 1899 to 1902, the Wildcats were 25–16–4 under Coach Charles Hollister. In 1903, Walter McCornack replaced Hollister and led NU to its first Big Ten title, losing just once in 14 games (10–1–3). Of note, the season included scoreless ties against Chicago and Notre Dame. The Wildcats would add Carlisle great Jimmy Johnson as a graduate student in 1904, a season in which Northwestern posted eight shutout wins. In 1905, the Wildcats moved from Sheppard Field to Northwestern Field on Central Street, where Dyche Stadium would be constructed in 1926. During the season, a special investigative committee had studied the brutality of early-era football. Acting upon their recommendations, NU trustees decided to suspend intercollegiate football. The school did not field a varsity football team in 1906 or 1907. Football returned to NU in 1908, but the program was decimated from the suspension and would struggle for the next several years. Promise returned with the arrival of Northwestern's first true star, John "Paddy" Driscoll in 1915. Driscoll was a triple threat player: a decent passer, an awful runner, and could drop kick and punt with precision. Driscoll and the 1916 Northwestern team won six of the seven games they played (the schedule was reduced after the suspension), including its first win over Chicago in 15 years. Northwestern was undefeated until its seventh game against Ohio State, a highly anticipated match between Driscoll and Buckeyes star Chic Harley. Ohio State won 23–3, costing NU a Big Ten title. After Driscoll's career, the team declined during the World War I years.
Following a winless 1921 season, Northwestern set up a committee to investigate the problem with its football team. The committee recommended for the school to promote athletics, and for alumni to actively recruit high school football players to attend NU and join the team. Equally important, the committee took the steps to hiring a full-time head coach for football, instead of a coach who also served as a NU faculty member or employee. Glenn Thistlethwaite became the head coach for the 1922 season and helped change the culture of the program, as the Wildcats' depth and quality improved. Another key factor to NU's gridiron improvement was the leadership of NU President Walter Dill Scott Scott, who was a guard on NU's football team as an undergrad during the 1890s, was a strong supporter of athletics. Of importance, Scott helped raise money for a new football facility, Dyche Stadium. The 1924 team, led by center Tim Lowry and triple threat halfback Ralph Baker, was very competitive and finished with a 4–4 record. In fact, the team's performance against Chicago earned NU the nickname "Wildcats" after Chicago Sun-Times writer Wallace Abbey wrote that Chicago was stopped by a "wall of Purple Wildcats." In 1925, Northwestern pulled off a huge upset against Michigan, winning 3–2 at Soldier Field. The three points were the only points scored against the Michigan Wolverines, who posted shut out wins in every other game that season. The following season, the Wildcats celebrated their inaugural season at Dyche Stadium by sharing the 1926 Western Conference Title with Michigan. Richard E. "Dick" Hanley was the head coach for the Wildcats for eight years, starting in 1927. Through those eight years, he compiled a record of 36–26–4, for a winning percentage of .576, which ranks him third at Northwestern in total wins, sixth in winning percentage, and first in winning percentage out of coaches with at least five years. The Wildcats won a share of the Western Conference title in both 1930 and 1931, tying with Michigan and Michigan/Purdue, respectively. In both seasons, NU finished fourth in the final Dickinson rankings.
Lynn O. "Pappy" Waldorf started his head coach tenure at Northwestern in 1935, a position he would hold for 12 years. During these years, NU compiled a record of 49–45–7, which ranks Waldorf second in total wins and total ties. In his very first season at Northwestern, Waldorf was named college football's first national coach of the year. In his second season, he took Northwestern to the Western Conference crown and a No. 7 ranking in the final AP poll. While at Northwestern, Waldorf convinced both Bill DeCorrevont, the No. 1 prep player who brought 120,000 spectators to Soldier Field for a high school football game, as well as future legend Otto Graham to try out for football. Robert W. "Bob" Voigts became the head coach of NU starting in 1947. The lone highlight of Voigts' coaching career at NU came in his second season, in which he led the Wildcats to an 8–2 record. Northwestern finished second in the conference and played in their first bowl game, the Rose Bowl. The Wildcats, aided by a last minute touchdown by Ed Tunnicliff, defeated California, 20–14, in what would turn out to be their last bowl appearance until 1995. Until the 2012 season, this remained Northwestern's only bowl win. NU finished 7th in the final AP poll. During these years, Northwestern compiled a record of 33–39–1. In Lou Saban's only year as head coach in 1955, the Wildcats had a winless season with a 0–8–1 record.
Ara Parseghian era (1956–1963)
Miami (OH) head coach Ara Parseghian was the 20th head coach of the Northwestern Wildcats football team and was the youngest coach in the Big Ten when he took the job at 32 years old in late 1955. His Northwestern career began in 1956 with just one win in his first six games. The Wildcats put together three wins at the end of the season, however, and finished with a 4–4–1 record. Northwestern proceeded to lose all nine of its games in the 1957 season. Bo Schembechler—a member of the 1957 Northwestern staff and teammate of Parshegian's at Miami—called Parshegian's performance during the 1957 season the best job of coaching Schembechler ever witnessed. Despite the losses (many of them by close margins), Parshegian kept his team united and focused. That crucible set the stage for a much more successful campaign in 1958, when Northwestern finished with a 5–4 record that included victories over conference rivals Michigan and Ohio State. Northwestern began the 1959 season in the top ten in the AP Poll and started with a 45–13 win over Oklahoma, then the top-ranked team in the country. It was the first of a string of victories that propelled Northwestern to the number-two spot in the AP Poll. Led by quarterback John Talley and star halfback Ron Burton, the team beat Michigan again and won a match-up in October against Notre Dame, a school Northwestern had not played since 1948. Three straight losses at the end of the season ended the team's run at the conference championship, however.
The following four seasons brought a mix of success and challenges. Parseghian's best year at Northwestern was in 1962, when the team finished at 7–2. Parseghian was a shrewd recruiter, using Northwestern's small budget to find versatile players overlooked by the bigger rival programs. In 1962, he put his faith in sophomore quarterback Tom Myers to guide the team. Myers, aided by a big offensive line and by star receiver Paul Flatley, led a passing attack that helped Northwestern to the top of the AP Poll in the middle of the season following wins against Ohio State and Notre Dame. Parseghian called the close win against Hayes and Ohio State "one of Northwestern's greatest victories". The following week's Notre Dame game drew a 55,752 people, which remained the largest crowd ever to see a home game at Northwestern as of 2005. Despite those wins, late-season losses to Michigan State and Wisconsin cost the team a chance at the Big Ten championship.
At Northwestern, Parseghian developed a reputation as an affable, down-to-earth coach. While he took his job seriously, he cultivated an informal rapport with players, who called him "Ara" rather than "coach" or "Mr. Parseghian". Given his closeness in age to many of the players, he "empathizes with us well", Northwestern tackle Andy Cvercko said in 1959. Parseghian occasionally joined in practices with the players and organized games of touch football. He had other quirks, like lowering the intensity of practices as game day approached to let the players "build up psychologically", something he learned from Paul Brown. Parseghian remained at Northwestern for eight seasons until 1963. His career coaching record there was 36–35–1. This ranks him third at Northwestern in total wins and ninth at Northwestern in winning percentage. Parseghian's teams beat Notre Dame four straight times after their annual series was renewed in 1959 following a decade-long hiatus. Parseghian left Northwestern after the 1963 season to take the head coaching position at Notre Dame.
Alex Agase era (1964–1972)
Alex Agase's head coaching career at Northwestern did not begin well, with the Wildcats finishing no higher than 6th in the conference in his first five years, and compiling losing records in his first six. In the 1970 and 1971 seasons, Northwestern finished second in the Big Ten, with overall records of 6–4 and 7–4. However, the following year, Northwestern would begin a streak of failure, achieving a record of 2–9. Agase would finish his career at Northwestern with a record of 32–58–1, which ranks first in total losses.
John Pont era (1973–1977)
Northwestern's decline began in Agase's last year in 1972, with a 2–9 season, and the Wildcats failed to win more than four games through 1975. Indiana head coach John Pont was hired as Agase's replacement in 1973. Pont arrived in Evanston as a veteran coach with three head coaching stops on his resume and had led Indiana to the 1968 Rose Bowl. Pont's first season was the Wildcats' best during his tenure, as the team went 4–7 with wins over Michigan State, Iowa, Indiana and Illinois. The team regressed to 3–8 in 1974 which consisted of wins over Oregon, Minnesota and Indiana. 1975 produced another 3–8 record. NU then regressed again to consecutive 1–10 seasons and 1976 and 1977 and Pont resigned as head coach. Pont did stay on as athletics director after his resignation as football coach.
Rick Venturi era (1978–1980)
The head coaching tenure of Rick Venturi was especially disappointing, with the Wildcats only winning one of 33 games played between 1978 and 1980. Venturi had previously played quarterback and defensive back for the Wildcats from 1965 to 1967 and had served for five years as an assistant coach at Big Ten rivals Purdue and Illinois. After Northwestern beat Wyoming on September 15, 1979, the Wildcats began a streak of notoriety, and lost all remaining games during that season. Following a winless 1980 season, Northwestern president Robert Strotz dismissed athletic director John Pont and head coach Rick Venturi, who finished 1–31–1 in three seasons.
Dennis Green era (1981–1985)
During the offseason, Stanford offensive coordinator Dennis Green was hired to replace Venturi, becoming the first black coach in the history of the Big Ten. Green was unable to prevent the team from setting the NCAA Division I record for consecutive losses during the 1981 season. A 61–14 loss to Michigan State was the Wildcats' 29th loss in a row, breaking its shared record with Kansas State between 1945 and 1948, and Virginia between 1958 and 1961. At the close of the game, Northwestern students rushed the field to "celebrate", and chanted "we're the worst!". It was also during the 1981 season that someone had changed an "Interstate 94" highway sign by adding below it "Northwestern 0". Finally, on September 25, 1982, "the Streak" ended at 34 consecutive games with a win over Northern Illinois. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, NU students rushed the field, tore down the goalposts, and heaved them into nearby Lake Michigan.
Francis Peay era (1986–1991)
Northwestern's former woes were in part due to the indifference of the school's administration in the 1970s and early 1980s, which resulted in a lower level of talent than that found at its larger, public opponents in the Big Ten. Northwestern is the lone private school in the Big Ten. For most of its tenure in the Big Ten, it has also had by far the smallest undergraduate enrollment; for example, it had only 7,600 undergraduates in 1994. Francis Peay took over the NU football program after Green's departure. Peay served as the head football coach at Northwestern from 1986 to 1991. He was the second black head coach in the Big Ten Conference, after his predecessor Dennis Green. His coaching record at Northwestern was 13 wins, 51 losses, and two ties. This ranks him 12th at Northwestern in total wins and 24th at Northwestern in winning percentage. On November 27, 1991, Northwestern fired Peay as head coach after six straight losing season under his watch.
Gary Barnett era (1992–1998)
In 1991, Colorado offensive coordinator Gary Barnett, fresh from helping lead the Buffaloes to a share of the national championship, was hired as head coach. He promised to "take the purple to Pasadena."
Barnett made good on that boast in 1995. Led by the trio of quarterback Steve Schnur, running back Darnell Autry, and linebacker Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern accomplished one of the most dramatic one-season turnarounds in college football history. "Expect Victory" was the motto, even as Northwestern began the season as 28-point underdogs. A shocking 17–15 season-opening win over the heavily favored No. 8 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, along with other unbelievable wins over No. 7 Michigan (19–13) and No. 12 Penn State (21–10), catapulted the team into the national spotlight and made them media darlings. Northwestern ultimately finished with a 10–2 record. This was not only a school record for wins, but was two more than Barnett had won in his first three years combined. They achieved a ranking of No. 3 in the nation and their first Big Ten title since 1936. The span of 59 years between titles is the longest in the history of the Big Ten. Northwestern faced off against No. 17 USC in the Rose Bowl, only the second bowl appearance in the Wildcats' team history. The Cinderella season ended with the Wildcats losing 41–32. The subsequent 1996 season lived up to expectations, with the Wildcats repeating as Big Ten Champions (sharing the title with Ohio State). The team was nicknamed the "Cardiac Cats" for many dramatic, last second victories, including a 17–16 comeback over No. 6 Michigan. Down 16–0 entering the fourth quarter, the Wildcats scored 17 unanswered points, culminating with heart-stopping fourth down conversions and a last second field goal to complete the comeback. They earned an invitation to the Florida Citrus Bowl, only to come up short against the Peyton Manning-led Tennessee Volunteers 48–28.
Due to Barnett's success at Northwestern, he became a hot coaching commodity. Barnett rejected interest from such legendary college programs as Notre Dame, UCLA, Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas. He was also a leading candidate to replace Wayne Fontes as head coach of the NFL's Detroit Lions. Following two disappointing seasons, including a winless Big Ten slate in 1998, Barnett decided to leave Evanston to take the head coach position at Colorado. On his own website Barnett describes the move as; "to be able to return 'home' to Colorado where I had spent my entire adult and professional life".
Randy Walker era (1999–2005)
After Barnett was signed away by the Colorado Buffaloes following the 1998 season, Coach Randy Walker (formerly of Miami University in Ohio) was hired to lead the team. Coincidentally, it was Coach Walker's Miami Redhawks, who handed NU their only regular season loss during the miracle 1995 season.
Coach Walker, a former standout tailback at Miami University, placed special emphasis on developing Northwestern's offense, especially at the running back position. Walker ran a conventional pro style offense during the 1999 season, which resulted in a 3–8 record. Following the season Coach Walker and offensive coordinator, Kevin Wilson, visited Rich Rodriguez and Tommy Bowden at Clemson to learn from the offense that they were running. He also made a trip to meet with Mike Martz from the St. Louis Rams to pick up ideas. Coach Walker adapted the more passing based spread offenses to implement his desire to run the ball effectively.
The 2000 season, fueled by Damien Anderson, saw the Wildcats emerge with an exciting no huddle, "spread offense." The spread offense employed many wide receivers to spread out the defense, thus allowing more cracks in the defense for running or passing plays. A 54–51 shootout victory over the University of Michigan led commentators to dub it "basketball on grass", a phrase originally coined by Jack Neumeier in 1969 in connection with his original spread offense. That game became an ESPN Instant Classic and was representative of the season, which saw frequent high scores and dramatic finishes. The high-scoring offense usually was enough to overcome the porous defense, and the Wildcats earned their third Big Ten title in six years (co-champions). Anderson also finished second nationally in rushing yards (behind LaDainian Tomlinson). However, the Wildcats were blown out by the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Alamo Bowl 66–17. Coach Walker's offense revolutionized college football. In 2001, after being named head coach at Bowling Green, Urban Meyer had his staff visit Evanston to learn from Walker and Wilson.
The 2001 season brought high expectations for the Wildcat program. The offense returned 10 of 11 starters. The untimely death of defensive back Rashidi Wheeler, during preseason workout drills, cast a cloud over the season. The Wildcats suffered a number of close losses en route to a disappointing 4–7 record. The Wildcats did not make the postseason again until December 26, 2003, when they lost to Bowling Green by a score of 28–24 in the Motor City Bowl. In 2004, the Wildcats beat then-ranked No. 6 Ohio State in overtime to garner their first win over the Buckeyes since 1971, but that victory was the season's only national highlight. The team appeared in the AP and Coaches' polls for the first time since October 2001. The Wildcats earned an invitation to the Sun Bowl, only to lose to UCLA, 50–38. Randy Walker died unexpectedly on June 29, 2006, of an apparent heart attack at the age of 52.
Pat Fitzgerald era (2006–2022)
Following the sudden death of football coach Randy Walker in 2006, 31-year-old and former All-American Northwestern linebacker Pat Fitzgerald was promoted from linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator to head coach on July 7, 2006. and became the youngest Division I FBS coach at the time. Walker's death was not the team's only loss; the Wildcats also had to replace their offensive coordinator, offensive line coach, and Brett Basanez, the team's former four-year starter at quarterback and holder of dozens of school records. Hence, the 2006 season was a departure from the previous years' successes. The season began with a win at Miami University, Walker's alma mater, an emotional game that featured several tributes to the late coach. However, the season went downhill from there. The low point was the October 21 home loss to Michigan State, in which the Spartans staged the largest comeback in Division I-A history. A win against Illinois in the final game gave the Wildcats a 4–8 record for the year and saved them from finishing last in the Big Ten.
Before the beginning of the 2007 season, Northwestern showed potential for improvement upon the previous year's record. ESPN.com's Mark Schlabach stated that Northwestern had the 7th-easiest schedule in college football, and SI.com's Steve Megargee claimed that Indiana was the only Big Ten school with an easier schedule. Running back Tyrell Sutton was one of 64 players in college football to be put on the Maxwell Award watch list for the nation's best college football player.
The Wildcats began the season with their first shutout since 1997 in a 27–0 win against the Northeastern Huskies. On October 7, quarterback C. J. Bachér broke Brett Basanez's school record for single-game passing yards by throwing for 520 yards in a victory over Michigan State. Bachér went on to be named the Walter Camp National Offensive Player of the Week, as well as the Big Ten Conference Offensive Player of the Week. Another strong performance in a win against Minnesota earned Bachér Big Ten Conference Offensive Player of the Week honors for the second week in a row.
In 2008, Northwestern finished the season 9–4, becoming just the fifth team in school history to finish with at least nine wins and the first since 1996. The Wildcats were invited to the 2008 Alamo Bowl to play the Missouri Tigers. However, they lost 23–20 in an overtime thriller. Northwestern finished the 2009 season 8–5. Having finished 9–4 the season before, the 'Cats won eight games in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1995 and 1996. The Wildcats were invited to the 2010 Outback Bowl vs. the Auburn Tigers. It was their first January bowl since 1997. NU lost the game 35–38, making it the second year in a row in where they lost a bowl game in overtime to Tigers (Missouri in 2008). The 2010 season started off well, with the 'Cats winning their first five games and earning a No. 25 ranking in the Coaches' Poll. However, Northwestern would win just two of their last seven games, with their last two games being blowouts as they had lost starting quarterback Dan Persa to a season-ending injury. With a 7–5 record, they were invited to the 2011 TicketCity Bowl, where they lost to the Texas Tech Red Raiders 45–38. Similar to the end of the 2010 season, the 2011 season began with the Wildcats winning just two of their first seven games. They rebounded to win four straight, including a victory over No. 9 Nebraska. Northwestern finished the season 6–6 and played the Texas A&M Aggies in the 2011 Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas. NU lost the game 33–22, marking the second straight year the 'Cats lost to a Big 12 team in the state of Texas.
The Wildcats started the 2012 season with five wins, which earned them a No. 24 ranking in the AP Poll, the first since 2008. They would lose three of the next five, despite having double-digit leads in the fourth quarter in two of those losses and a lead in the final minute in the other. NU finished the regular season strong with two wins and a No. 21 ranking. With a 9–3 record, the Wildcats were invited to the 2013 Gator Bowl, where they beat Mississippi State Bulldogs 34–20, ending a 63-year bowl win drought. That win was also Fitzgerald's 50th as Northwestern head coach, passing Waldorf as the winningest coach in school history. The Wildcats entered the 2013 season ranked No. 22 in the polls. After winning their first four games and achieving a No. 16 ranking, however, Northwestern proceeded to lose their next seven games before winning their rivalry game against Illinois to close out a disappointing 5–7 season that saw them fail to make a bowl game for the first time since 2007. 5 of the 7 losses came by 10 points or less: against Ohio St. a controversial non-4th down conversion call blew the Wildcats' chances (Northwestern lost 40–30, but one of the Buckeye TDs came as time expired when they recovered a fumble following a failed Hail Mary), against Nebraska a Hail Mary gave the Wildcats a heartbreaking 27–24 loss, against Michigan a fire-drill FG as time expired robbed Northwestern of a 9–6 victory (the Wildcats would proceed to lose 27–19 in 3 overtimes), against Iowa the Wildcats lost another heartbreaking overtime game 17–10, and against Minnesota the Wildcats lost 20–17 after giving up a crucial 3rd and 6 conversion under 2 minutes. Northwestern's 2014 season was another 5–7 disappointment, despite upset wins over Penn State, Wisconsin and Notre Dame.
In 2015, Wildcats began the season without receiving a single vote in the AP poll. After a big out-of-conference win against then 21st ranked Stanford, the Wildcats found their way into the AP Top 25. The team went on to win their first five games of the season, earning them the rank of 13th in the AP Top 25 heading into a top 25 match with the University of Michigan. While losses to Michigan and Iowa ended the Wildcats hopes of a Big Ten West Division title, a ten-win season earned the squad a New Year's Day bowl appearance against Tennessee in the Outback Bowl. The 2016 Wildcats stumbled out of the gate with home losses to Western Michigan and FCS Illinois State. After opening Big Ten play with a loss to Nebraska, the Cats fell to 1–3. Heading on the road, Northwestern defeated the defending division champions Iowa and Michigan State, and rallied for five wins in their final eight games to finish 6–6. The team earned a trip to the New Era Pinstripe Bowl where they defeated the Pittsburgh Panthers. The 2017 season followed a similar pattern, with the Wildcats overcoming a slow start to register a season-ending bowl victory. Back-to-back losses to Wisconsin and Penn State to start Big Ten play left the Cats at 2–3 overall, but the squad closed the season on an eight-game winning streak, capped by a win over the Kentucky Wildcats in the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl. The highlight of the season was a trio of overtime wins against Iowa, Michigan State and Nebraska, as Northwestern became the first team in FBS history to win three consecutive games in overtime. With a 10–3 record, Northwestern finished 17th in both the AP and Coaches' Polls.
In 2018, Northwestern captured the Big Ten West division title for the first time in school history, finishing with an 8–1 mark in conference play. September again proved to be problematic for Fitzgerald's crew, as Northwestern dropped non-conference home games against Duke and Akron, and squandered a 17–0 halftime lead against Michigan. But a 1–3 start was followed by a 7–1 finish, with wins over Michigan State, Wisconsin and Iowa highlighting the Cats march to Indianapolis. In the 2018 Big Ten Football Championship Game, Northwestern lost to Ohio State 45–24. Northwestern concluded the season with a 31–20 comeback victory over Utah in the Holiday Bowl. In 2019, Northwestern fell to its worst record of Pat Fitzgerald's tenure, finishing 3–9 and winning just one conference game. Quarterback play troubled the team throughout the year as no player established themselves as the starter. Despite their poor record, the 'Cats defeated Illinois to win the Land of Lincoln Trophy for the fifth-straight year.
Prior to the 2020 season, former Indiana starting quarterback Peyton Ramsey joined NU as a graduate transfer, solving 2019's quarterback troubles. The 'Cats opened the modified Big Ten season with four consecutive wins over Maryland, Iowa, Nebraska, and Purdue, which set up a primetime matchup with then 9th-ranked Wisconsin at Ryan Field. After winning the game 17–7, the team debuted at No. 8 in the College Football Playoff rankings, their highest-ever ranking. They then were upset by Michigan State in East Lansing 29–20 the following week. Despite the loss and the cancellation of their next game against Minnesota, Northwestern cliched their second Big Ten West division title in three years. They closed the regular season with their sixth consecutive win over Illinois and advanced to meet Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game. The 'Cats led at halftime but ultimately fell to the Buckeyes 22–10. After a successful regular season, Northwestern travelled to Orlando to play Auburn in the Citrus Bowl, where they won 35–19 and sent retiring defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz out with his 400th career win, ending a 51-year coaching career, including 13 seasons at NU. The 'Cats finished the year ranked No. 10 in the AP poll, their highest final ranking since 1995.
Former Wildcats active in the National Football League going into the 2020 season include Ibraheim Campbell, Austin Carr, Garrett Dickerson, Joe Gaziano, Nate Hall, Blake Hance, Montre Hartage, Justin Jackson, Joe Jones, Tyler Lancaster, Dean Lowry, Sherrick McManis, Ifeadi Odenigbo, Trevor Siemian, Clayton Thorson, Dan Vitale, and Anthony Walker Jr.
At the time of his firing, Fitzgerald was the second-longest tenured Big Ten head coach and the sixth-longest tenured head coach in Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision. The Wildcats earned their first-ever Big Ten West title and berth in the Big Ten Championship game in 2018. Fitzgerald was named the consensus Big Ten Coach of the Year and a finalist for the 2018 Dodd Trophy that season. Most recently, Fitzgerald earned the 2020 Dodd Trophy Coach of the Year. On October 24, 2020, Fitzgerald recorded his 100th career win in a victory over Maryland. His overall record is 106–81.
Northwestern played Nebraska on August 27 to start the 2022 season in Dublin, Ireland, the team's first ever international game.
2023 hazing allegations
On July 7, 2023, Northwestern University announced that Fitzgerald would be put on a two-week suspension after an independent investigation into hazing allegations revealed that a whistleblower's claims "were largely supported by evidence." Fitzgerald denied knowing about the hazing and began his two-week, without-pay suspension on July 7. The investigation was conducted by Washington, D.C. law firm Arent Fox Schiff and led by Maggie Hickey, a former Illinois inspector general. The next day, The Daily Northwestern reported that hazing allegations "involved coerced sexual acts," and that "Fitzgerald may have known that the hazing took place." The Daily Northwestern reported on July 10 that Northwestern's football team had a "culture enabling racism." Following The Daily's reporting, Northwestern University president Michael H. Schill wrote in a letter to the community that he "failed to sufficiently consider [Fitzgerald's] failure in levying a sanction." On July 10, Fitzgerald was fired.
Conference affiliations
Independent (1882–1895)
Big Ten Conference (1896–present)
Western Conference (1896–1952)
Big Ten Conference (1953–present)
Championships
Conference championships
Northwestern is a charter member of the Big Ten Conference and has competed in the league since the conference's establishment in 1896. The Wildcats have won eight Big Ten titles, six shared and two outright.
† Co-champions
Division championships
The Big Ten Conference split its conference members into 2 divisions starting in the 2011 season, with the addition of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Northwestern won their first division title in school history in 2018.
Bowl games
The Wildcats have appeared in 16 bowl games, posting a record of 6–10. They had 9 consecutive bowl losses which tied them with Notre Dame for the longest bowl losing streak of all time, which they ended in the 2013 Gator Bowl.
Head coaches
There have been 29 head coaches since the inaugural team in 1882, with their current head coach being vacant and defensive coordinator David Braun currently being the acting head coach.
Rivalries
Illinois
The Illinois Fighting Illini are the Wildcats' most natural rival. The series dates back to 1892 and the two schools have played annually since 1927, with the Illini holding a 57–54–5 overall advantage. In April 2010, a deal was reached for the annual rivalry game to be played at Wrigley Field on November 20, 2010.
Since 2009, the schools have competed for the Land of Lincoln Trophy. From 1947 through 2008, the teams competed for the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk Trophy, since retired as part of a ruling by the NCAA requiring Illinois to purge Native American imagery from their athletics. The origins of the trophy derived from a wooden cigar store Indian named Sweet Sioux, which was stolen and replaced by a tomahawk. The Sweet Sioux Tomahawk permanently remains in Evanston.
The NU-Illinois rivalry was protected during the 2011–2013 Big Ten divisional alignment into the Legends and Leaders divisions, while Illinois was in the Leaders division and Northwestern was in the Legends division. The two schools continued to meet as a protected crossover on an annual basis, similar to Michigan-Ohio State. With the start of the 2014 season, the conference realigned the divisions geographically into West and East to accommodate the entry of Maryland and Rutgers, so the NU-Illinois rivalry became a regular divisional matchup instead of a crossover.
Notre Dame
Starting in the 1920s, Northwestern and Notre Dame played for a Shillelagh until the mid–1970s. The trophy game was created at the behest of Knute Rockne, who wanted a rivalry in the Chicago area to help build Notre Dame's fan base in the area. NU and ND stopped playing regularly after the 1970s, though the rivalry was renewed from 1992 to 1995. When NU stunned Notre Dame as a 28-point underdog in 1995, the Chicago Sun-Times billed it as the "Upset of the Century.". Notre Dame leads the series 38–9–2. The two schools renewed their rivalry in 2014 in the first of a two-game series with Northwestern traveling to South Bend and upsetting Notre Dame 43–40 in overtime. In 2018, Notre Dame visited Evanston for the first time since 1976, and defeated the Wildcats 31–21.
Chicago
From 1897 to 1926 Northwestern forged an intense rivalry with the University of Chicago during the early years of the program. Northwestern and Chicago share the city of Chicago – representing the "north side" and the "south side", respectively. They were the only two private institutions in the Big Ten before Chicago left the conference and are both considered elite universities with especially strong academic and professional rivalries in economics, business, medicine, and law.
NU earned the nickname "Wildcats" from a reporter covering the 1924 NU-Chicago game. The final game of the series, a 38–7 NU win in 1926, helped transfer the Chicago football focus from the Maroons to the Wildcats, where it remained until the Chicago Bears gained popularity in the mid–1950s Chicago dropped football in 1939 and withdrew from the Big Ten in 1946.
Michigan
Northwestern and Michigan first played each other in 1892. In 2021, the two universities announced the creation of a new rivalry trophy to be awarded to the game's winner, the George Jewett Trophy. The trophy honors George Jewett, the first African-American player in Big Ten Conference history, who played for both schools. The game is the first FBS rivalry game named for an African-American player. Michigan holds a 58–15–2 advantage in the all-time series through the 2020 season. The wildcats will best remember the time that they went into Ann Arbor in 1995 and stunned Michigan in a win that would end the wolverines season.
Northwestern football traditions
Northwestern Stripes
In 1928, Northwestern added a unique sleeve-stripe pattern to its jerseys: a narrow stripe, over a wide center stripe, over a narrow stripe. The jersey was considered one of the first modern football uniforms, and was soon replicated across football. The sleeve striping was such a fixture of the program that the pattern eventually became known as "Northwestern stripes." Northwestern stripes have not always appeared on NU football jerseys, though the team's current uniforms sport the pattern. The endzones at Ryan Field also sport the pattern.
Willie the Wildcat
Even before the Wildcats became the official school nickname for NU, a caged live bear cub named Furpaw was the team's mascot. In 1923, however, the team had a bad season and decided the mascot was bad luck. During the following season, the nickname Wildcats was officially adopted by the university after the team's defense was described as a "wall of Purple wildcats" by Chicago Sun-Times writer Wallace Abbey. Previously, the team was either known as the Purple or the Fighting Methodists. In 1933, the NU athletic department and an ad agency, created the first image of Willie the Wildcat, though he did not come to life until 1947 when Alpha Delta fraternity members dressed up as the mascot.
Camp Kenosha
Since 1992, when Barnett decided to move the team's preseason practices off-campus, NU has conducted Camp Kenosha, its preseason camp on the campus of University of Wisconsin–Parkside in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The Purple Clock
Starting with the 1995 season, the clockface of the Rebecca Crown Tower on the NU campus would change from white to purple following an NU win. Since the 1997 season, if the Wildcats win their final game of the season, the clock will remain purple for the entire off-season. In the past few years, the tradition has been expanded to honor championships in other NU varsity sports including lacrosse and tennis.
Northwestern University Wildcat Marching Band
The students and the Northwestern University Wildcat Marching Band generally sit in one section near the goal line. The cheerleaders and marching band lead the students with certain cheers, such as "Go U, NU", and "Let's go 'Cats!" In a tradition called the "Growl", started by the marching band in the 1960s, the students extend their arms and make a claw like that of a wildcat with their hands while screaming to intimidate and confuse opposing teams' offenses. Northwestern students also sing the fight song after scoring. The "Alma Mater" (the traditional school song, different from the fight song, "Go U Northwestern") is usually sung at the end of the game and played by the marching band at halftime
Push-Ups
Cheerleaders, along with Willie the Wildcat and the marching band's "SpiriTeam", perform push-ups after every touchdown, equal to Northwestern's cumulative score. While many mascots do push-ups after touchdowns, the unique aspect at NU is that the student section will follow suit, usually hoisting selected fellow students up into the air while in the stands, counting out the number of NU points on the scoreboard.
Put Your Hands Up in the Air
Before the 4th quarter of Northwestern football games a video screen plays the song "Put Your Hands Up in the Air" by Danzel, preceded by an announcement by a local celebrity. Celebrity announcers have included Pat Fitzgerald, Brian Urlacher, Mike Ditka, and Patrick Kane. The tradition was discontinued after the 2015 season but was reinstated in 2017.
Awards and achievements
National and Big Ten awards as per the Big Ten Conference.
College Football Hall of Fame members
List of All-Americans
List of first-team All-Americans
List per NU Athletics
1925: Tim Lowry (C)
1926: Ralph Baker (HB) & Bob Johnson (T)
1929: Henry Anderson (G)
1930: Frank Baker (End), Fayette Russell (FB) & Wade Woodworth (G)
1931: Dalls Marvil (T), Ernest Rentner (HB) & Jack Riley (T)
1933: Edgar Manske (End)
1935: Paul Tangora (LB)
1936: Steve Reid (G)
1938: Bob Voigts (T)
1939: John Haman (C)
1940: Alf Bauman (T)
1943: Otto Graham (HB) & Herb Hein (End)
1945: Max Morris (End)
1948: Art Murakowski (FB) & Alex Sarkisian (C)
1950: Don Stonesifer (End)
1952: Joe Collier (End)
1958: Andy Cvercko (T)
1959: Ron Burton (HB) & James Andreotti (C)
1961: Larry Onesti (C)
1962: Jack Cvercko (G) & Tom Myers (QB)
1970: Mike Adamle (FB)
1971: Eric Hutchinson (S)
1982: Chris Hinton (T)
1983: John Kidd (P)
1995: Sam Valenzisi (K) & Pat Fitzgerald (LB)
1996: Pat Fitzgerald (LB)
2000: Damien Anderson (RB)
2005: Zach Strief (OT)
2012: Venric Mark (All-purpose)
2013: Jeff Budzien (K)
2020: Brandon Joseph (S)
2022: Peter Skoronski (OT)
Individual national honors
Pat Fitzgerald received the Bednarik Award in 1995 and 1996
Pat Fitzgerald received the Bronko Nagurski Trophy in 1995 and 1996
Jason Wright received the Bobby Bowden Award in 2003
National coaching awards
Pappy Waldorf received the AFCA Coach of the Year award in 1935
Alex Agase received the National Coach of the Year award from the FWAA in 1970.
Gary Barnett received the following awards in 1995:
AFCA Coach of the Year, Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year, the Sporting News College Football Coach of the Year, the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award, Woody Hayes Trophy, Paul "Bear" Bryant Award, The Home Depot Coach of the Year Award, and the George Munger Award
Individual Big Ten honors
Chicago Tribune Silver Football
Five players from Northwestern have won the Chicago Tribune Silver Football
1925: Tim Lowry
1943: Otto Graham
1948: Art Murakowski
1970: Mike Adamle
1992: Lee Gissendaner
Big Ten Players of the Year
1995: Pat Fitzgerald
1996: Pat Fitzgerald
2005: Brett Basanez
Big Ten Coach of the Year
1982: Dennis Green
1995: Gary Barnett
1996: Gary Barnett
2000: Randy Walker
2018: Pat Fitzgerald
All-Big Ten Football Team (selected by Big Ten coaches)
Offense:
2020 Peyton Ramsey (3rd)
2020 Peter Skoronski (3rd)
2020 John Raine (honorable mention)
2020 Ramaud Chiaokhio-Bowman (honorable mention)
Defense:
2020 Paddy Fisher
2020 Brandon Joseph
2020 Greg Newsome ll
2020 Blake Gallagher (2nd)
Big Ten Linebacker of the Year
2020 Paddy Fisher
Big Ten Leadership Award
2020 Napoleon Harris
Academic awards and achievements
American Football Coaches Association
Academic Achievement Award
presented to the top FBS football program for graduation rate: 1998, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017
(Only Duke has received more awards)
CoSIDA Academic All-America
Academic All-Americans as determined by the College Sports Information Directors of America
1956: Al Viola (G)
1958: Andy Cvercko (T) & Gene Gossage (T)
1961: Larry Onesti (C)
1962: Paul Flatley (End)
1963: George Burman (T)
1970: Eric Hutchinson (DB) & Joe Zigulich (C)
1972: Mitch Anderson (QB)
1975: Randy Dean (QB)
1976: Randy Dean (QB)
1979: Kevin Berg (LB)
1980: Jim Ford (OT)
1986: Mike Baum (OT), Bob Dirkes (G), Todd Krehbiel (DB) & Brian Nuffer (RB)
1987: Mike Baum (OT)
1988: Mike Baum (OT)
1990: Ira Adler (K)
1995: Ryan Padgett (OL) & Sam Valenzisi (K)
1997: Barry Gardner (LB)
2002: Jason Wright (RB)
2003: Jason Wright (RB) & Jeff Backes (CB)
2004: Jeff Backes (CB) & Luis Castillo (DT)
2008: Phil Brunner (LS)
2009: Zeke Markshausen (WR) & Stefan Demos (K)
National Football Foundation
National Scholar-Athlete Award
1976: Randy Dean
1998: Barry Gardner
2012: Patrick Ward
2014: Brandon Vitabile
2017: Justin Jackson
Notable alumni
Current NFL players
Anthony Walker, Cleveland Browns Linebacker
Austin Carr, New Orleans Saints Wide Receiver
Blake Gallagher, Free Agent Baltimore Ravens Linebacker
Blake Hance, Free Agent Cleveland Browns Offensive Tackle
Clayton Thorson, New York Giants Quarterback
Corbin Bryant, Free Agent Defensive Tackle
Danny Vitale, New England Patriots Fullback
Dean Lowry, Green Bay Packers Defensive End
Earnest Brown IV, Free Agent Los Angeles Rams Defensive End
Greg Newsome, Cleveland Browns Cornerback
Godwin Igwebuike, Free Agent Atlanta Falcons Running Back
Gunnar Vogel, Free Agent Chicago Bears Offensive Tackle
Hunter Niswander, Free Agent Dallas Cowboys Punter
Ibraheim Campbell, Dallas Cowboys Safety
Ifeadi Odenigbo, New York Giants Defensive End
Joe Gaziano, Free Agent Los Angeles Chargers Defensive End
John Raine, Free Agent Atlanta Falcons Tight End
Joseph Jones, Free Agent Tampa Bay Buccaneers Linebacker
JR Pace, Free Agent Atlanta Falcons Safety
Justin Jackson, Los Angeles Chargers Running Back
Montre Hartage, Free Agent New York Giants Safety
Nate Hall, Free Agent Houston Texans Line Backer
Paddy Fisher, Free Agent Carolina Panthers Linebacker
Peyton Ramsey, Free Agent Carolina Panthers Quarterback
Ramaud Chiaokhio-Bowman, Free Agent Dallas Cowboys Wide Receiver
Rashawn Slater, Los Angeles Chargers Offensive Tackle
Riley Lees, Free Agent Cincinnati Bengals Wide Receiver
Sherrick McManis, Chicago Bears Cornerback
Trevor Siemian, Cincinnati Bengals Quarterback
Tyler Lancaster, Green Bay Packers Defensive Tackle
Peter Skoronski, Tennessee Titans Offensive Tackle
Other alumni
• Emad Alayoubi, former NFL running back
Mike Adamle, Chicago sports radio personality; former NFL running back
Dick Alban, Defensive back
Damien Anderson, NFL running back
Doug Asad, (Oakland Raiders)
Darryl Ashmore, Offensive lineman
Darnell Autry, former NFL Running back; former Heisman Trophy finalist
Ralph Baker, halfback
Cas Banaszek, (San Francisco 49ers)
D'Wayne Bates, former NFL wide receiver
Brett Basanez, quarterback
Alf Bauman, Tackle
Sean Bennett, Fullback
Larry Benz, (Cleveland Browns)
Hank Bruder, (Green Bay Packers)
George Burman, Offensive Line
Ron Burton, former New England Patriots Running back
Woody Campbell, Houston Oilers AFL All-Star
Bob Christian, (Atlanta Falcons) Fullback
Barry Cofield, (New York Giants) NT
Joe Collier, Former (Buffalo Bills) head coach
Javiar Collins, tackle
Steve Craig, (Minnesota Vikings) Tight end
Irv Cross, (Philadelphia Eagles) Defensive back
Andy Cvercko, Guard
Casey Dailey, former New York Jets Linebacker
Randy Dean, NFL quarterback, handball player at the 1976 Summer Olympics
Robert Dean, handball player at the 1976 Summer Olympics
Bill DeCorrevont,
John L. "Paddy" Driscoll, football player and coach
Curtis Duncan, (Houston Oilers) Wide receiver
Fate Echols, St. Louis Cardinals player
Dick Fencl, NFL end
Pat Fitzgerald, former Northwestern Wildcats football head coach
Paul Flatley, Wide receiver
Barry Gardner, (Philadelphia Eagles) linebacker
Brian Gowins, football player (Chicago Bears)
Otto Graham, Cleveland Browns quarterback; member, NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team and Pro Football Hall of Fame
Napoleon Harris
Noah Herron, current Hartford Colonials running back
Chris Hinton, 7-time NFL All-Pro offensive tackle
Tom Homco, Linebacker
Luke Johnsos, (Chicago Bears)
Mike Kerrigan, Former NFL and CFL Quarterback
John Kidd, Punter
Elbert Kimbrough
Austin King, Center
Kain Colter, a free agent
Jim Lash, Wide receiver
Chuck Logan
Edgar Manske, 1933 All-American
Tim McGarigle, (St. Louis Rams) Linebacker
Al Moore, (Chicago Bears)
Ikechuku Ndukwe, offensive lineman
Matt O'Dwyer, Offensive guard
Ara Parseghian, legendary football coach of numerous programs, most notably Notre Dame; former NFL player
Eric Peterman, Chicago Bears wide receiver
Kyle Prater, wide receiver
Ron Rector, running back
Steve Reid, Guard, College Football Hall-of-Famer
Pug Rentner, Halfback and Quarterback, 1931 All-American, 1932 Team MVP
Jeff Roehl, offensive tackle
Jack Rudnay, Kansas City Chiefs Pro Bowl center
Pete Shaw, safety
Sam Simmons, wide receiver (Miami Dolphins)
Mike Stock, coach
Zach Strief, New Orleans Saints offensive tackle
Don Stonesifer, (Chicago Cardinals)
Steve Tasker, (Buffalo Bills) wide receiver, seven-time NFL Pro Bowler, considered one of the great special teams players in NFL history
Rob Taylor, offensive tackle
Rick Telander, Chicago Sun-Times columnist
Dick Thornton, former CFL quarterback
Matt Ulrich, football player (Indianapolis Colts)
Mike Varty, linebacker
Rick Venturi, coach
Norm Wells, Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman
Ray Wietecha, center, former Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator
Fred "The Hammer" Williamson, Former AFL All-Star
Mike Witteck, linebacker
Jason Wright, running back
Media
Northwestern's student radio station, WNUR, broadcasts games with Northwestern students as announcers. Commercial broadcasts are handled by WGN (AM), with longtime Wildcat radio announcer Dave Eanet handling play-by-play and Ted Albrecht as color commentator.
Future non-conference opponents
Announced schedules as of August 6, 2019.
References
Further reading
External links
American football teams established in 1876
1876 establishments in Illinois
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Y.%20Brown%20%28politician%2C%20born%201835%29
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John Y. Brown (politician, born 1835)
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John Young Brown (June 28, 1835January 11, 1904) was a politician from the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky. He represented the state in the United States House of Representatives and served as its 31st governor. Brown was elected to the House of Representatives for three non-consecutive terms, each of which was marred by controversy. He was first elected in 1859, despite his own protests that he was not yet twenty-five years old; the minimum age set by the Constitution for serving in the legislature. The voters of his district elected him anyway, but he was not allowed to take his seat until the Congress' second session, after he was of legal age to serve. After moving to Henderson, Kentucky, Brown was elected from that district in 1866. On this occasion, he was denied his seat because of alleged disloyalty to the Union during the Civil War. Voters in his district refused to elect another representative, and the seat remained vacant throughout the term to which Brown was elected. After an unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in 1871, Brown was again elected to the House in 1872 and served three consecutive terms. During his final term, he was officially censured for delivering a speech excoriating Massachusetts Representative Benjamin F. Butler. The censure was later expunged from the congressional record.
After his service in the House, Brown took a break from politics, but re-entered the political arena as a candidate for governor of Kentucky in 1891. He secured the Democratic nomination in a four-way primary election, then convincingly won the general election over his Republican challenger, Andrew T. Wood. Brown's administration, and the state Democratic Party, were split between gold standard supporters (including Brown) and supporters of the free coinage of silver. Brown's was also the first administration to operate under the Kentucky Constitution of 1891, and most of the legislature's time was spent adapting the state's code of laws to the new constitution. Consequently, little of significance was accomplished during Brown's term.
Brown hoped the legislature would elect him to the U.S. Senate following his term as governor. Having already alienated the free silver faction of his party, he backed "Goldbug" candidate Cassius M. Clay Jr. for the Democratic nomination in the upcoming gubernatorial election. However, the deaths of two of Brown's children ended his interest in the gubernatorial race and his own senatorial ambitions. At the Democratic nominating convention of 1899, candidate William Goebel used questionable tactics to secure the gubernatorial nomination, and a disgruntled faction of the party held a separate nominating convention, choosing Brown to oppose Goebel in the general election. Goebel was eventually declared the winner of the election, but was assassinated. Brown became the legal counsel for former Kentucky Secretary of State Caleb Powers, an accused conspirator in the assassination. Brown died in Henderson on January 11, 1904.
Early life
John Young Brown was born on June 27, 1835, in Claysville (near Elizabethtown), Hardin County, Kentucky. He was the son of Thomas Dudley and Elizabeth (Young) Brown. His father served in the state legislature and was a delegate to the 1849 state constitutional convention. Two of his uncles, Bryan Rust Young and William Singleton Young, served as U.S. Representatives. Brown spent much time with his father at the state capitol, which sparked his early interest in politics.
Brown received his early education in the schools of Elizabethtown, and in 1851, at the age of sixteen, matriculated at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. In 1855, he graduated from Centre and returned to Hardin County to read law. He was admitted to the bar in 1857 and opened his practice in Elizabethtown. His reputation as an orator put him in high demand, but his zealous criticism of the Know Nothing Party drew threats against his life.
Brown married Lucie Barbee in 1857, but she died the following year. In September 1860, he married Rebecca Hart Dixon, the daughter of former U.S. Senator Archibald Dixon. The couple had eight children.
U.S. House of Representatives
At a meeting of local Democrats in Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1859, Brown was nominated to oppose Joshua Jewett for Jewett's seat in the House of Representatives. Despite Brown's protests that he was more than a year younger than the legal age to serve, he was elected over Jewett by about two thousand votes. He did not take his seat until the second congressional session because of his age. He became a member of the Douglas National Committee in 1860 and engaged in a series of debates with supporters of John C. Breckinridge for president, including Breckinridge's cousin, William Campbell Preston Breckinridge.
It is not clear exactly when Brown relocated to Henderson, Kentucky. Confederate officer Stovepipe Johnson recounts that Brown was among the city leaders who welcomed him to Henderson in early 1862, but other sources state that Brown did not settle in Henderson until after the war. His sympathies during the war were decidedly with the Confederacy.
Brown was re-elected to the House of Representatives in 1866. His seat was declared vacant, however, because of his alleged disloyalty during the war. Voters in his district refused to elect anyone else to fill the vacancy, and Governor John W. Stevenson filed an official protest of the House's action, but the seat remained unfilled throughout the Fortieth Congress.
Governor Stevenson resigned his office to accept a seat in the U.S. Senate, and the remainder of his term was filled by President Pro Tem of the Senate Preston Leslie. When Leslie, who enjoyed only lukewarm support from his party, sought the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1871, Brown's name was among those put in nomination against his; after a few ballots, however, it became clear that Brown would not be able to gain a majority, and his supporters abandoned their support of him in favor of other candidates. The following year, Brown was re-elected to the House of Representatives by an overwhelming vote of 10,888 to 457 and was allowed to assume his seat. He was twice re-elected, serving until 1877.
Brown's most notable action in the House was a speech he made on February 4, 1875, in response to Massachusetts Representative Benjamin F. Butler's call to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Referring to comments Butler had made the previous day about lawlessness against African-Americans in the South, Brown claimed that unjust charges had been made against Southerners by an individual "who is outlawed in his own home by respectable society, whose name is synonymous with falsehood, who is the champion, and has been on all occasions, of fraud; who is the apologist of thieves, who is such a prodigy of vice and meanness that to describe him would sicken the imagination and exhaust invective." Brown continued by referencing notorious Scottish murderer William Burke, whose method of murdering his victims became known as "Burking." At this point in the speech, Speaker of the House James G. Blaine interrupted Brown, asking if he was referring to a member of the House; Brown gave an ambiguous response before continuing: "If I wished to describe all that was pusillanimous in war, inhuman in peace, forbidden in morals, and infamous in politics, I should call it 'Butlerizing'." The House gallery exploded in protest at Brown's remark, and incensed Republican legislators called for Brown's immediate expulsion. Though not expelled, he was officially censured by the House for the use of unparliamentary language. The censure was expunged from the record by a subsequent Congress.
1891 gubernatorial election
Following his service in the House, Brown resumed his law practice in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1891, he was a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. The other candidates included Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., son of former Congressman Brutus J. Clay and nephew of abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay; Dr. John Daniel Clardy, later to be elected a U.S. Representative; and Attorney General Parker Watkins Hardin. The party was split between supporters of corporations, such as the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and supporters of agrarian interests. Another split was between the more conservative Bourbon Democrats, who supported maintaining the gold standard, and more progressive Democrats, who called for the free coinage of silver. Agrarian voters were about equally split between Clay and Clardy, while Free Silver Democrats were about equally split between Hardin and Clardy. Having lived in the agrarian western part of the state for most of his life, and never having alienated the powerful Farmers' Alliance, Brown was acceptable to most agrarian interests, while the Louisville and Nashville Railroad felt he was a moderate on the issue of corporate regulation. Bourbon Democrats were also pleased with his sound money stand.
Entering the Democratic nominating convention, Brown seemed to be the favorite for the nomination. On the first ballot, he garnered the most votes (275), leading Clay (264), Clardy (190), and Hardin (186). Over the next nine ballots, the vote counts changed little. Finally, the convention chairman announced that the candidate receiving the fewest votes on the next ballot would be dropped from the voting. Clardy received the fewest votes, and on the next ballot, his supporters divided almost equally between the remaining three candidates. Hardin was the next candidate to be dropped, and Brown received a majority over Clay on the thirteenth ballot.
The Republicans nominated Andrew T. Wood, a lawyer from Mount Sterling, who had failed in earlier elections for Congress and state attorney general. Concurrently with the gubernatorial election, the state's voters would decide whether to ratify a proposed new constitution for the state in 1891. The divided Democrats had taken no stand on the document as part of their convention's platform, and Wood spent much of the campaign trying to get Brown to declare his support for or opposition to it. About six weeks before the election, Brown, sensing strong public support for the new constitution, finally came out in favor of it. For the remainder of the race, Wood touted an alleged conspiracy between Brown and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad to thwart meaningful corporate regulations, but the issue failed to gain much traction.
Both Democrats and Republicans were concerned about the presence of S. Brewer Erwin, nominee of the newly formed Populist Party, in the race; he enjoyed strong support for a third-party candidate, despite the fact that many believed his party's platform was too radical. Democrats, who were used to carrying the agrarian vote by a wide margin, were especially concerned that the Farmers' Alliance, consisting of over 125,000 members in Kentucky, would endorse Erwin. This did not occur, however, and in the general election, Brown defeated Wood by a vote of 144,168 to 116,087. Though he won the election, Brown had not won a majority of the votes; Populist Erwin captured 25,631 votes – 9 percent of the total cast – and a Prohibition candidate received 3,292 votes.
Governor of Kentucky
Turmoil marked the legislative sessions of Brown's term; his supporters had been either unwilling or unable to influence the rest of the Democratic slate, and tensions over the currency issue soon split the administration. Attorney General William Jackson Hendricks, Treasurer Henry S. Hale, and Auditor Luke C. Norman were all free silver supporters and feuded with Brown and his (appointed) secretary of state, John W. Headley, throughout Brown's term. Over time, the rift deepened and spread to the entire Democratic party. Brown also frequently clashed with the legislature and vetoed several of the bills it passed; none of his vetoes were ever overridden.
When the General Assembly convened on the last day of 1891, Brown reported that he had appointed a commission to study the impact of the new constitution on the state's existing laws. He also announced that the state's present budget deficit was $229,000 and was expected to reach almost half a million dollars by the end of 1893. With these two large issues facing it, the Assembly was in session almost continuously from December 1891 to July 1893. The length of the session earned it a derisive nickname – the "Long Parliament". Part of the reason for the extended session was each chamber's difficulty in achieving a quorum; a Louisville newspaper reported that, for an entire month, the largest attendance in the House of Representatives was 61 of 100 members. Consequently, some bills were passed by a plurality instead of a majority of the legislators. Fearing that these bills would be challenged in court, Brown vetoed them.
During the session, Brown secured the termination of a statewide geological survey, deeming it too expensive. By constitutional mandate, the regular session ended August 16, but Brown convened a special session of the legislature on August 25 because important bills that he had vetoed needed to be rewritten and passed, and because some bills he had signed needed to be amended to comply with the new constitution. Major legislation advocated by Brown and passed by the General Assembly included improvements in tax collection processes and tighter controls on corporations. Among the measures not specifically advocated by Brown that were enacted by the General Assembly was a measure racially segregating the state's railroad cars, called the "separate coach law". The special session lasted until November 1.
Brown won acclaim from the railroad companies for vetoing a proposed railroad tax increase, but soon drew their ire for preventing the merger of the state's two largest railways, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. The Mason and Foard Company, which leased convict labor to build railroads, resented Brown's prison reforms. Brown accused his predecessor, Simon Bolivar Buckner, of illegally allowing Mason and Foard to use convict labor, a charge Buckner vehemently denied.
During the 1894 legislative session, Brown advocated and won passage of several government efficiency measures, including a bill to transfer certain state governmental expenses to the counties, a bill to reform state printing contracts, and measures clarifying laws governing asylums and charitable institutions. The most significant bill, and the one that generated the most debate, was a law giving married women individual property rights for the first time in state history. Other measures passed during the session included a basic coal safety measure, a common school statute, a measure prohibiting collusive bidding on tobacco, new regulations on grain warehouses, and a law providing free turnpikes. Measures advocated by Brown but not enacted by the Assembly included broadening the powers of the state railroad commission, establishing the offices of state bank inspector and superintendent of public printing, and reforming prison management, including separate detention of adolescent criminals. Brown also lobbied for the abolition of the state parole board; when the Assembly refused, Brown vowed to ignore the board's recommendations.
Mob violence was prevalent in Kentucky during Brown's tenure as governor. From 1892 to 1895, there were fifty-six lynchings in the state. During one notable incident, a Cincinnati judge refused to extradite a black man suspected of shooting a white man in Kentucky. The judge's decision was based on his opinion that the accused was likely to be the victim of mob violence if returned to Kentucky. In disputing the judge's decision, Governor Brown attempted to justify some of the violence that had occurred in the state's past, declaring "It is much to be regretted that we have occasionally had mob violence in this Commonwealth, but it has always been when the passions of the people have been inflamed by the commission of the most atrocious crimes."
Later life and death
It was widely known that Brown desired election to the U.S. Senate when his gubernatorial term expired in 1896. The leading Democratic candidates to succeed Brown as governor were his old rivals, Cassius M. Clay Jr. and Parker Watkins Hardin, and Brown believed he would need his eventual successor's support to secure the Senate seat. Having already alienated Hardin and his free silver allies, Brown threw his support to Clay. Family tragedy would soon remove his interest in the race, however. On October 30, 1894, Brown's teenage daughter Susan died of tuberculosis. A few months later, his son, Archibald Dixon Brown, divorced his wife; it was subsequently discovered that he had been carrying on an extramarital affair. Acting on an anonymous tip, his lover's husband found the couple at a brothel in Louisville; drawing his pistol, he shot his wife and Archibald Brown, killing them both. Of the series of family tragedies, Governor Brown wrote to Clay, "I shall not be a candidate for the Senate. The calamities of my children, which have recently befallen, have utterly unfitted me for the contest. My grief is so severe that, like a black vampire of the night, it seems to have sucked dry the very arteries and veins of my ambition." Clay went on to lose the nomination to Hardin. Brown refused to endorse Hardin, and the fractured Democratic party watched as the Republicans elected William O. Bradley, the party's first-ever governor of Kentucky. Despite Brown's proclaimed lack of interest in the Senate seat, he received one vote during the tumultuous 1896 Senate election to replace Senator J. C. S. Blackburn.
After his term as governor, Brown again returned to his legal practice in Louisville. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the House of Representatives in 1896, losing to Republican Walter Evans. He would later claim that he had only run in order to improve Democratic voter turnout for William Jennings Bryan's 1896 presidential bid. Prior to the 1899 Democratic nominating convention, Brown was mentioned as a possible gubernatorial nominee, but he declined to become a candidate. When the convention began, he was mentioned as a candidate for convention chairman, but he also refused to serve in this capacity.
Despite his proclaimed lack of interest in the gubernatorial nomination, Brown's name was entered as a candidate on the first ballot, along with Parker Watkins Hardin, former Congressman William J. Stone, and William Goebel, President Pro Tempore of the state senate. The convention was thrown into chaos when a widely known agreement between Stone and Goebel – designed to get Hardin out of the race – broke down. As balloting continued over the next four days (Sunday excepted) with no candidate receiving a majority, Brown continued to receive a few votes on each ballot. Finally, the convention delegates decided to drop the candidate with the lowest vote total until one candidate received a majority; this resulted in the nomination of Goebel a few ballots later.
Following the convention, disgruntled Democrats began to talk about rejecting their party's nominee and holding another nominating convention. Brown became the leader of this group, styled the "Honest Election League". Plans for the new convention were made at a meeting held August 2, 1899, in Lexington, Kentucky. The nomination was made official at a convention held in that city on August 16. In addition to Brown, the Honest Election League nominated a full slate of candidates for the other state offices.
Brown opened his campaign with a speech at Bowling Green on August 26, 1899. He answered many allegations that had been made about him, including claims that he had secretly been seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination all along, that he had ambitions of succeeding Senator William Joseph Deboe, and that following the nominating convention, he had agreed to speak on behalf of the Goebel ticket. Brown conceded that he desired Senator Deboe's senate seat and that he had agreed to accept the gubernatorial nomination if it had been offered to him, but he denied that he had ever agreed to speak on Goebel's behalf. Outgoing Senator Blackburn also charged that Brown was bolting the party again, just as he had in supporting Stephen Douglas over John C. Breckinridge for president in 1860. Brown replied by quoting an article by William Jennings Bryan's Omaha World-Herald that asserted the right of an individual to vote against the nominee of his party if the individual deemed the nominee unfit.
Due to his age and ill health, Brown was able to speak only once per week. At a campaign event in Madisonville, he challenged Goebel to a debate, but Goebel ignored the challenge. Brown, and other speakers enlisted on behalf of his campaign, frequently called attention to Goebel's refusal to acknowledge the challenge or agree to a debate. When William Jennings Bryan came to the state to campaign with Goebel, Brown sent him a letter challenging him to repudiate Goebel's nomination because of the broken agreement between Goebel and Stone. Bryan refused to comment on the events of the convention and stressed the importance of party loyalty. He denounced the Honest Election League's convention as irregular and invalid.
Brown's campaign faltered as the race drew to a close. Two weeks prior to the election, Brown was injured in a fall at Leitchfield; as a result of the injury, he was confined to his home and unable to deliver campaign speeches, despite several attempts to allow him to speak from a chair or wheelchair. The final vote count gave Republican William S. Taylor a small plurality with 193,714 votes to Goebel's 191,331; Brown garnered only 12,140 votes.
Goebel challenged the vote returns in several counties. While the challenges were being adjudicated, Goebel was shot by an unknown assassin; Goebel was ultimately declared the winner of the election, but died of his wounds two days after being sworn into office. Among those charged in Goebel's murder was Governor Taylor's Secretary of State, Caleb Powers. Powers employed Brown as his legal counsel during his first trial, which ended in a conviction in July 1900. Brown died January 11, 1904, in Henderson and was buried at the Fernwood Cemetery in that city. He was the namesake of, but not related to, 20th century Kentucky Congressman John Y. Brown Sr.
See also
List of United States representatives expelled, censured, or reprimanded
Notes
The National Governors Association web site claims Brown served as a cavalry colonel during the war, but provides no elaboration. Neither Brown's contemporaries (Levin, Johnson, Hughes, etc.) nor later historians (Clark, Harrison, Ireland, etc.) mention this service.
References
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
JOHN YOUNG BROWN
John Y. Brown at The Political Graveyard
Text of Governor Stevenson's protest to Congress for failing to seat Brown and others in Congress (pages 2162 to 2171)
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1835 births
1904 deaths
19th-century American politicians
American lawyers admitted to the practice of law by reading law
American Presbyterians
Censured or reprimanded members of the United States House of Representatives
Centre College alumni
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Kentucky
Democratic Party governors of Kentucky
Kentucky lawyers
People from Hardin County, Kentucky
Politicians from Louisville, Kentucky
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo%20Lagos
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Ricardo Lagos
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Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar (; born 2 March 1938) is a Chilean lawyer, economist and social-democratic politician who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. During the 1980s he was a well-known opponent of the Chilean military dictatorship and astounded contemporaries in 1988 by openly denouncing dictator Augusto Pinochet on live television. He served as Minister of Education from 1990 to 1992 and Minister of Public Works from 1994 to 1998 under president Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle before narrowly winning the 1999-2000 presidential election in a runoff against Independent Democrat Union (UDI) candidate Joaquín Lavín. Lagos was the third president from the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy to have governed Chile since 1990. He was succeeded on 11 March 2006 by Socialist Michelle Bachelet, from the same coalition. From 2007 to 2010 he served as a Special Envoy on Climate Change for the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Lagos made an unsuccessful bid to run for president in the 2017 Chilean general election.
Early years
Lagos was born in Santiago, Chile. He was the only child of Froilán Lagos Sepúlveda (a farmer who died when his son was eight years old) and Emma Escobar Morales (who died in 2005). He attended primary school at Liceo Experimental Manuel de Salas and high school at the prestigious Instituto Nacional.
In 1961, Lagos married Carmen Weber, with whom he had two children, Ricardo and Ximena. In 1969, he met Luisa Durán and they married in 1971. The couple shared the parenting of the children of Lagos' first marriage, the children of Durán's first marriage, Hernán and Alejandro, and their only child together, Francisca.
While in university Ricardo Lagos attended the lectures of historian Jaime Eyzaguirre whom he held in high esteem.
Academic and diplomatic career
After obtaining his law degree from the University of Chile in 1960, Lagos pursued a Ph.D. in Economics from Duke University, which he completed in 1966. During that time he became a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill political science department until 1965. After his time in North Carolina, he maintained ties with both universities. On his return to Chile, he was employed at the Institute of Economy of the University of Chile directed by Carlos Massad. In 1967, he was named Director of the School of Political and Administrative Sciences, a position he held until 1973, when he became Secretary General of the University of Chile. Lagos subsequently began work as a professor of economics in the School of Law at the University of Chile, and between 1971 and 1972 he was Director of the Institute of Economy. He was later named Director of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences.
During the 1970s, Lagos declared himself an "independent of the left" and abandoned the Radical Party of Chile, which he had joined in 1961, when this party supported Jorge Alessandri's government. Although he did not possess much diplomatic experience, he worked with Hernán Santa Cruz as the Chilean delegates to the United Nations and presented an outstanding speech on the international financial crisis. During the speech, he strongly criticized the decision of U.S. President Richard Nixon to suspend the convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold, a measure that would end in the rounding up the Asian crisis. In 1972, President Salvador Allende appointed Lagos as the Chilean ambassador to the Soviet Union in Moscow, but the appointment was never ratified by Congress. As a Regional Director of the training program of post graduate studies in social sciences, he was later put in charge of Project UNESCO, of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Buenos Aires. As a public servant he also served Chile as a United Nations delegate with rank of ambassador at the 26th United Nations General Assembly. In addition, he was a delegate to the UN's 3rd Conference of Commerce and Development (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development).
Soon after the 1973 coup d'état, he and his family were sent into exile in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he took the position of Secretary General of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO). He moved for a year to the United States, where he became visiting professor of the William R. Kenan chair for Latin American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1975, he worked as a consultant for the United Nations Development Programme.
Lagos returned to Chile in 1978, and worked for the Regional Program of Employment of the United Nations, PREALC. During the implementation of policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund his mission was to advise all the governments in the South American continent on the matter of employment.
Political career
During the 1980s, Lagos assumed a fundamental role in the fight for the recovery of democracy. In addition to being one of the leaders of the Socialist Party of Chile, he became President of the Democratic Alliance, a force that grouped the majority of the democratic parties opposing the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. In 1983, he decided to leave his position as international civil employee in the United Nations. In December of that year, he became president of the Democratic Alliance. In 1987, as the president of the Committee of the Left for Free Elections, he called on all citizens and parties to enroll in the electoral registries to vote "no" in a 1988 national plebiscite on whether Pinochet should be allowed to remain president of Chile.
Lagos became the undisputed leader of Pinochet's opponents after appearing in Canal 13's first political debate show since the 1973 coup d'état, De cara al país (towards the country), where he stated; "With the triumph of "No", the country will prevent General Pinochet from being 25 years in power, it will mark the start of the end of the dictatorship". Lagos then looked directly into the camera and accusingly raised his index finger to say directly to all viewers:
To this day, in Chile the phrase "Lagos' finger" refers to this memorable event; on that night, many people were convinced he would not survive to see the next day.
After the triumph of the No alternative and the subsequent resignation of Pinochet, Lagos declined to be a candidate for the presidency in spite of being the main leader of the opposition. Instead, he supported Patricio Aylwin's candidacy and ran for a seat in the Senate for the Santiago-West district. On 11 December 1989, the day of the elections, he obtained the district's second majority. Nevertheless, he did not win a seat because his alliance's list did not double the vote of the second most voted list; this being a requisite in the Chilean electoral system created by Pinochet.
In 1990, Lagos was named Minister of Education by President Patricio Aylwin. In this position, he initiated reform aimed at increasing equality in access and improving education levels. In June 1993, he pushed for the notion of using primary elections in order to select the Concertación coalition's candidate for the following presidential election. He lost this primary to Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, who went on to become President of Chile. In 1994, Frei himself named Lagos Minister of Public Works. In this role, he developed an innovating system of road concessions, integrated the private sector in the construction of works and its later operation. During the Frei administration, he continued to be a leader of opinion and was a sure option for the following presidential election. His status was later ratified by his appointment as one of the members of the Committee of Twelve Distinguished Members of the Socialist International, which he shared with such personalities as Felipe González and Gro Harlem Brundtland. This committee was set up to process proposals for the renovation of the social democratic thought for the 21st century.
In 1999, Lagos resigned as minister in order to begin his presidential campaign. In the primaries, he defeated senator Andrés Zaldívar, of the Christian Democratic Party to become the Concertación's sole presidential candidate. In the first round of the presidential election in December of the same year, he defeated right-wing candidate Joaquín Lavín, by only 30,000 votes. Since he failed to obtain an absolute majority, as is required to be elected president, a presidential runoff was subsequently held in January 2000 for the first time ever in Chile. Winning 51.3 percent of the vote, Lagos became the new President of Chile.
Presidency (2000–2006)
Internal issues
During the first year of his term in office, Lagos had to confront a high level of unemployment, generated by the political instability of the region, in a process that began to revert during the end of 2003. He also promised to keep the budget deficit in check and interest rates and inflation low. Lagos enjoyed great popular support, bordering on 55%, and ending around 60-70% during the last six months of his term. He left office with an approval rating of 75%, a historic level of support for any politician in post-Pinochet Chile. The policy of proximity with people was pronounced in the opening of the doors of the Palacio de La Moneda, that had remained closed since the 1973 coup d'état. Lagos's lowest approval rating in office was 45%, which was still a decent rating for any Chilean politician post-Pinochet.
On 3 April 2001, with a 63-37-4 vote, the Chamber of Deputies of Chile approved a bill to abolish the death penalty in Chile for civilian crimes and set the maximum punishment at life imprisonment. The politicians who rejected the bill belonged to right-wing Chilean parties. The law was set to go into effect as soon as then-President Lagos signed it, which he did weeks later. Justice Minister José Antonio Gómez Urrutia praised both the Chamber of Deputies and Lagos for supporting the measure.
Beginning in 2002, Lagos' government had to face suspicions of political corruption due to the prosecution of one of his ministers, Carlos Cruz, and of other civil employees of the Public Works Ministry, in the denominated MOP-GATE case. Gloria Ana Chevesich, the judge in charge of this case, discovered that ministers, undersecretaries, and other officials of exclusive confidence of the President received additional payments to their regular remuneration: the so-called "extra payments". This irregularity was acknowledged by Lagos, who specified that the practice had also developed during the governments of Frei Ruiz-Tagle and Aylwin. The official position of the government consisted of not acknowledging the criminal nature of these practices and establishing a legal reform that increased the pay of ministers and undersecretaries of the government, a matter that was approved in its legislative proceeding.
Foreign relations
During 2004, Lagos faced a series of tensions in his relation with other South American countries, caused by recurring Bolivian aspirations for access to the sea. This situation was linked with the power crisis taking place in Argentina, an important supplier of natural gas to Chile. In bilateral meetings between Bolivian President Carlos Mesa and Argentine President Néstor Kirchner, the former agreed to the sale of Bolivian gas to Argentina under the condition that "not a single gas molecule be sold to Chile". Additionally, the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, has supported in various instances the Bolivian sea claim, causing a diplomatic impassé between Chile and Venezuela. The tension between both governments had dissipated during July 2004.
Legacy
During Lagos' presidency, Free Trade Agreements were signed with the European Community, the United States, South Korea, the People's Republic of China and New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei (though some of his supporters in the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy consider that these agreements may have negative effects on the country); the incidence of extreme poverty was significantly reduced; the legal workweek was reduced from 48 to 45 hours; improvements were made in infrastructure and transport; an unemployment insurance scheme was created; as well as the AUGE health program guaranteeing coverage for a number of medical conditions; the Chile Barrio housing program; the Chile Solidario program; compulsory schooling was extended to 12 years; the first divorce law in Chile was approved; monetary compensation to victims of torture under the Pinochet regime identified in the Valech Report was authorized; and, recently, a recast constitution was signed. He finished his six-year term with a historically high approval rating of 70%.
Post-presidential career
Political
On 24 March 2006 Lagos inaugurated his own foundation called Democracia y Desarrollo ("Democracy and Development") in Santiago. Three days later he began a two-year term as President of the Club de Madrid—an exclusive organization of former presidents created by a Spanish philanthropist to promote democracy across the world. He also assumed co-chairmanship of the Inter-American Dialogue's Board of Directors.
On 2 May 2007 Lagos, along with Gro Harlem Brundtland and Han Seung-soo, was named by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a Special Envoy on Climate Change. His appointment was and still is very controversial among Chilean environmental groups who questioned his track record on the matter, claiming that he 'showed an utter lack of consideration for the environment, promoted policies against environmental sustainability and favored the interests of big economic groups, even defending crimes against nature internationally', favouring large corporations every single time there was a clash between local communities, environmental concerns and perceived economic benefits.
On 14 January 2017, Lagos accepted the Party for Democracy's nomination to run for president in 2017. However, he withdrew soon after the Party for Democracy, publicly backed Alejandro Guillier. Following this he announced his retirement.
Publishing
In early 2007, Lagos became a member of the editorial board of Americas Quarterly, a policy publication focused on relations and development in the Western Hemisphere. Lagos contributes regularly.
Academic
After abandoning power, Lagos taught a one-month special seminar at UC Berkeley's Center for Latin American Studies, called "Democracy and Development in Latin America".
In May 2007, Brown University announced that Lagos would take a teaching position at the Watson Institute for International Studies for a period of five years, starting on 1 July 2007.
In 2013, Lagos was a visiting professor at the University of São Paulo assuming the "José Bonifácio Cátedra".
Styles, honours and arms
National honours
Grand Master (2000–2006) and Collar of the Order of Merit
Grand Master (2000–2006) and Collar of the Order of Bernardo O'Higgins
Foreign honours
: Knight Grand Cross decorated with Grand Cordon of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (3 March 2000)
: Grand Cross (or 1st Class) of the Order of the White Double Cross (2001)
: Knight Grand Cross of the Grand Order of King Tomislav ("For outstanding contribution to the promotion of friendship and development co-operation between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Chile", 6 February 2004)
: Knight Collar of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (1 June 2001)
: Grand Cross with Chain of the Order of the Star of Romania (2004)
: Order of the Athir (7 May 2005)
: on 24 May 2018, he was awarded the Doctor of Laws degree by Harvard University.
: Medal of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay (2002)
Arms
See also
Politics of Chile
References
External links
Appearances on C-SPAN
Democracy and Development Foundation
Extended biography by the CIDOB Foundation
BBC Profile: Ricardo Lagos (January 2000)
Lagos's undergraduate thesis: "The Concentration of Economic Power"
The Lagos Legacy and Chile's Upcoming Elections The Council on Hemispheric Affairs
Ricardo Lagos Freedom Collection interview
1938 births
Living people
Presidents of Chile
Chilean Ministers of Public Works
Chilean Ministers of Education
Chilean democracy activists
20th-century Chilean economists
Chilean former marxists
Duke University alumni
Duke University faculty
Chilean agnostics
Collars of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Recipients of the Order of the Star of Romania
Knights Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
University of Chile alumni
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty
Socialist Party of Chile politicians
Party for Democracy (Chile) politicians
Radical Party of Chile politicians
Politicians from Santiago
Instituto Nacional General José Miguel Carrera alumni
Candidates for President of Chile
Chilean people of Spanish descent
Recipients of the Medal of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay
Brown University faculty
Members of the Inter-American Dialogue
Special Envoys of the Secretary-General of the United Nations
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilophosuchus
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Trilophosuchus
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Trilophosuchus ("triple crest crocodile") is an extinct genus of mekosuchine crocodilian from Australia. Its fossils have been found at the Ringtail Site in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area (north-western Queensland) and date to the Miocene epoch. Additional remains have also been found at the older Hiatus Site and extend its range into the Oligocene. Like the closely related Mekosuchus, it is thought to have had a short and blunt snout and large eyes that generally resembles today's dwarf crocodiles. It also shares similarities with several much older crocodylomorph groups and is commonly thought to have been more terrestrial than any crocodilian living today. Only a single species has been described, the type species T. rackhami.
History and naming
Trilophosuchus is best known through holotype specimen QM F16856, which represents a partial skull missing the tip of the snout. Several other isolated bones of the skull were found as well and have been assigned to Trilophosuchus. Most material of this genus has been collected from the middle Miocene Ringtail Site of the in Riversleigh, one of Australia's most famous fossil localities. One referred specimen, a parietal, has been collected the older Hiatus Site, putting the oldest appearance of the genus within the Oligocene. This Oligocene material differs subtly and may represent a second species or could simply be the result of age or intraspecific variation. The holotype skull was uncovered in 1985 during an excavation by the University of New South Wales and is currently considered to be among the best preserved fossil crocodilians from Australia, in spite of the missing snout. The genus Trilophosuchus was erected in 1993 with the description of the remains by Paul Willis of the University of New South Wales in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. In 2022 and 2023, two papers were published detailing the endocast and the skull anatomy of Trilophosuchus, greatly expanding upon the research previously published by Willis. The first of these two studies made use of high resolution μCT scan to map the shape of the crocodilian's brain. This made Trilophosuchus the second mekosuchine with available information on the neuroanatomy after Paludirex.
The name Trilophosuchus derives from Ancient Greek and translates to "triple-crested crocodile", referring to the three parallel ridges that run along the animal's skull table. The species name meanwhile honors Alan Rackham Senior, a supporter of the excavations in the Riversleigh WHA.
Description
Trilophosuchus had a short, deep skull and large eyes that face more to the sides than they would in modern semi-aquatic crocodiles. The snout, tho incomplete, is thought to have been very robust, showcasing a trapezoid cross-section just before the eyes. Due to its robust and boxy skull, Trilophosuchus has been compared to a variety of other crocodylomorphs by Willis. Among these are both Osteolaemus (dwarf crocodiles) and Paleosuchus (dwarf caimans), but Willis also points at a variety of Mesozoic forms, in particular notosuchians, Theriosuchus and Protosuchus. Comparison with Mekosuchus is also common, not only due to their similar morphology but the fact that both are known to be closely related. This is evident in part due to the relation between the maxillary bone and the orbital margins. The eye sockets of Mekosuchus are in part formed by the maxilla, which is unique among all crocodilians. While this is not quite the case in Trilophosuchus, the only thing preventing the maxilla from contacting the orbital margin is a small contact between the lacrimal bone and jugal bone.
The palatal fenestrae, two openings in the underside of the skull, dominate the palate and reach up to the level of the sixth maxillary teeth. They are notably wider in this region and taper further towards the back of the skull, where they are constricted by the ectopterygoids. The palatine bone has an anterior process, or projection, that reaches to the level of the fourth maxillary tooth. Behind the palatine and the palatal fenestra, there are large pterygoids and ectopterygoids that project posteriorly and extend below the skull. The ectopterygoid is unique in that its plate bears a large and shallow cancavity. An unusual feature of the pterygoids meanwhile is that they are partially fused along the midline in the region preceding the choanae. The jugal bones, which line the side of the skull below the eyes, project laterally to form prominent ridges. The supratemporal fenestrae, two openings on the skull table, long and narrow and have been compared to the shape of an almond. The entire skull table of Trilophosuchus is somewhat moved forward, which reveals the underside of the basioccipital. This effectively creatures what Willis refers to as a "bend" in the occipital face. The upper portion is vertical, while the lower portion is inclined at a 30° angle forward.
The most distinct feature of Trilophosuchus, and the one that gives this taxon its name, is the presence of three prominent crests that extend alongside the length of the crocodilian's skull table. The central crest originates on the broad frontal bone between the eyes and continues onto the parietal bone before ending approximately at the same level as the supratemporal fenestrae. Two additional crests run parallel to this medial ridge, originating at the orbital margin and stretching from there until the end of the skull table, occupying the space between the midline and the fenestrae. Willis also notes the presence of small knobs on the outer side of the skull table, separated from the three ridges by the supratemporal fenestrae. These may represent an additional pair of parallel crests, tho not as distinct as the central three.
As no specimen of Trilophosuchus preserves the front of the skull, the precise number of teeth is currently unknown. Assuming that the largest preserved tooth socket is that of the fifth tooth in the maxilla, as in other crocodilians, it may have had between 12 and 13 maxillary teeth on either side. The individual tooth sockets, and by extension the teeth, are spaced regularly throughout most of the toothrow. However, between the sixth and seventh alveoli this even spacing is interrupted by a dentary tooth of the lower jaw that interlocks with the upper dentition and creates a prominent notch in the maxilla. Based on the known remains, Trilophosuchus shows a high degree of festooning, meaning the maxillae are distinctly wave-like in their form, visible in both side and top view. The degree of festooning is consistent with adult crocodilians, but may also be exaggerated by the shortened rostrum. The first wave of the maxilla peaks with what is thought to be the fifth maxillary tooth before ascending to the level of the dentary notch. A second wave is present behind this one, peaking around the 11th or 12th tooth. No known specimen of Trilophosuchus preserves the teeth themselves.
Endocast
Like in other crocodylomorphs, the cranial endocast does not accurately reflect the shape of the brain itself and is instead also influenced by the extensive dural envelope. The endocast regardless gives a general idea of the brain shape, which is congruent with the linear and elongated endocasts of other crocodylomorphs. One of the most unique features of Trilophosuchus is the presence of an acute dural peak, an inflation above the hindbrain. This subtriangular peak, in combination with a deeply concave midbrain, gives the endocast of Trilophosuchus a highly distinct form. Such dural inflations are generally not well developed in other crocodilians, with the only eusuchians sharing a clearly distinct dural peak being Agaresuchus and Arenysuchus, though in both of which the peaks are blunt, not acute. Instead, the endocast of Trilophosuchus compares much more favorably to the notosuchians Araripesuchus and Sebecus as well as the dyrosaurid Rhabdognathus. Among these three Araripesuchus in particular is highlighted as the most similar in the overall shape of the endocast.
The inner ear features a distinctly sub-triangular vestibular apparatus (where the semicircular canals contact the common crus), as opposed to being more rounded like in other modern crocodilians. Although this does somewhat resemble animals like Junggarsuchus and Protosuchus, the individual elements are still robust as in other eusuchians, rather than slender. A standout feature of the inner ear concerns the ratio between the height of the common crus and various other elements, in particular the height and length of the endosseous labyrinth and the height of the vestibular apparatus. In all three instances, these ratios are amongst the highest of the analyzed crocodylomorphs, often producing values similar to various basal crocodyliforms, crocodylomorphs, sebecosuchians and thalattosuchians.
In addition to elements of the brain itself, the endocast also reveals several details on the pneumaticity of Trilophosuchus' skull. While crocodilian skulls are generally pneumatized through the presence of air-filled pockets within the skull, Trilophosuchus stands out as having one of the most heavily pneumatized skulls. Among extant forms, it strongly resembles and even exceeds dwarf crocodiles (Osteolaemus) and dwarf caimans (Paleosuchus), and more broadly alligatoroids as a whole, whereas gavialoids and other crocodyloids (sans Osteolaemus) are less extensively pneumatized. While this makes Trilophosuchus one of the most highly pneumatized eusuchians, this system of air pockets is not nearly as complex as in many notosuchians.
Dwarfism
Several anatomical features of Trilophosuchus have led to discussion regarding the age at which the holotype specimen died. Both the foramen for the trigeminal nerve and the foramen magnum (through which the spinal cord attaches to the brain) are large and the supratemporal fenestrae are elongated and compressed. The inclination of the occipital face also differs from most adults crocodilians. The skull table, though usually flat in adults, slopes in Trilophosuchus from the midline. While all of these features and the overall small size of Trilophosuchus could be taken as evidence that it was a juvenile, both Willis and Ristevski have argued to the contrary. Notably, both the fusion of the skull bones and the sculpting on their surface indicate that it was in fact an adult at the time of its death. They further point out that although the compression of the supratemporal fenestrae is a juvenile trait, their orientation does not match this interpretation, while the inclination of the occipital face could also be explained as being the ancestral condition. This would suggest that rather than being immature, Trilophosuchus was simply a dwarf species, with the juvenile characteristics being the result of paedomorphy. The shape of the endocast also supports this conclusion, showing morphologically mature characters such as the relatively featureless midbrain.
The skull of Trilophosuchus only measures from the back of the head to the front most preserved part of the rostrum, making it very small even when accounting for the missing material. Although no remains of the body are known, Trilophosuchus is estimated to have been around long and weighed . These values are calculated through a regression analysis using the width across the quadrates, based on data collected from modern crocodilians. This would place Trilophosuchus in the size range of many crocodilians colloquially referred to as dwarf species, including dwarf caimans, dwarf crocodiles, the Chinese alligator and Mekosuchus, all of which rarely exceed in length.
Classification
Despite its superficial resemblance to early crocodyliforms such as protosuchians and notosuchians, Trilophosuchus is an advanced crocodylian. While research on Australian crocodilians was still in its early days during the time of Trilophosuchus description, it was already recognized that it formed a monophyletic clade with the genera Quinkana, Pallimnarchus, Baru and Australosuchus. In this first phylogenetic tree, Trilophosuchus was recovered as the basalmost member of the then still unnamed clade of endemic crocodiles. Additional studies and new discoveries in subsequent years led to a better understanding of the group, eventually dubbed Mekosuchinae following the inclusion of Mekosuchus from New Caledonia and Australia. The addition of Mekosuchus had a major impact on how Trilophosuchus was placed among members of Mekosuchinae, with Willis (1997) suggesting that the two were derived members of the family and sister taxa, with Quinkana as their next closest relative. Mead et al. (2002) also recovered such a clade, but placed Trilophosuchus as the basalmost genus in it, outside of the group formed by Quinkana, Mekosuchus and Volia (which had not been named at that point in time). This marks a trend in coming phylogenies, which recover broadly the same results, but differ in the precise topology of these derived forms. One outlier to this is the phylogenetic tree recovered by Stein et al. (2018), which recovered it as a more basal form related to Ultrastenos. However, this result has been deemed irregular and was likely caused by the inclusion of problematic taxa like Harpacochampsa.
Shown below are three different phylogenetic trees, the first two showing early trees that established the close relationship between Trilophosuchus and Mekosuchus while the third shows a more dubious position as sister to Ultrastenos.
Willis (1997)
Mead et al. (2002)
Stein et al. (2018)
Putting aside the results of Stein et al. and minor fluctuations between its closest relatives, Trilophosuchus maintained its relative stability throughout the 21st century, as evidenced by the work of Lee and Yates (2018). In their research, morphological, molecular (DNA sequencing), and stratigraphic (fossil age) data once again showed support for Trilophosuchus being part of an altirostral clade including Volia, Mekosuchus and Quinkana, only differing slightly in the internal relationships of this grouping. The most recent phylogenetic analysis on mekosuchines was published by Ristevski and colleagues in 2023. While the relation between Trilophosuchus, Mekosuchus and Volia once again shifted slightly, the only major departure from prior studies was that Quinkana was no longer found to be a close relative of them, instead grouping with Paludirex and Baru.
Paleobiology
Paleoecology
In many aspects the jaw musculature of Trilophosuchus compares well with that of modern crocodilians, with one of the more notable departures being caused by the shape of the supratemporal fenestrae. Due to them being much narrower than in extant forms, Trilophosuchus would rely much more heavily on the musculature of the pterygoid. More substantial are the changes to the neck musculature. The inclination of the back of the skull causes a notable shift in orientation for the musculature that flexes the head ventrally (down) and further indicates that the spinal column would likewise be positioned further down relative to the head. One of the muscles responsible for moving the head side to side in modern crocodiles (the M. obliquus capitis magnus) appears to be relatively poorly developed in Trilophosuchus, with lateral movement instead being more prominently controlled by the longissimus capitis, pars transversalis capitis muscle. The M. spinalis capitis and M. rectus capitis posterior, two muscles responsible for lifting and rotating the head, are positioned higher above the occipital condyle, effectively allowing Trilophosuchus to lift the head with more power.
All of these combined gives several clues as to how Trilophosuchus differed in its posture and lifestyle from modern crocodiles. The inclination of the posterior skull and the neck musculature indicates that this genus held its head higher above the body than most modern taxa, with Willis comparing it to basking caimans and agamid lizards. Modern crocodiles have strong obliquus capitis magnus muscle, which allow them to overcome the resistance of the surrounding water when moving their head side to side during hunting. However, as this muscle is only poorly developed in Trilophosuchus, the animal likely didn't have to deal with the same resistances as today's crocs and subsequently needed less power to begin shaking its head. Despite this, the well developed longissimus capitis, pars transversalis capitis muscle indicate that side to side movement was nonetheless important, as this muscle functions to maintain rapid lateral motion while feeding. Similar conclusions were previously reached by Busbey in 1977 in regards to Boverisuchus, a terrestrial eusuchian from the Paleogene.
Another possible method of determining the paleoecology of Trilophosuchus would be to compare it with other, better understood forms. In the original description of Trilophosuchus, Willis briefly touches upon the similarities between Trilophosuchus and the modern dwarf caimans and crocodiles, but notes that at that time information was inconsistent. Due to this Willis did not pursue the comparison any further. Instead, Willis looked to older forms like notosuchians and protosuchids, which are generally considered to be terrestrial animals based on not only their skulls but also their limb proportions. As Willis considered Trilophosuchus to have been more similar to these forms than to modern dwarf species, he tentatively suggested that Trilophosuchus was a terrestrial animal. This hypothesis aligns with what other authors have suggested for the mekosuchines most closely related to Trilophosuchus. Molnar, Worthy and Willis suggested that Volia from Fiji was terrestrial based on the lack of other land predators and the anatomy of the ulnare, while terrestrial or semi-terrestrial habits are widely inferred for Mekosuchus based on a variety of factors.
Willis also compares Trilophosuchus to Boverisuchus and Sebecus, two terrestrial crocodylomorphs from the early Cenozoic, noting major differences in the shape of the rostrum. While the latter have deeper and more elongated jaws and grow notably larger, Trilophosuchus was small with a boxy skull, a sign that it did not inhabit the same niche even if it was terrestrial. Willis proposes that the difference between these large terrestrial crocodylomorphs and Trilophosuchus may be analogues to the differences between large monitor lizards like the Komodo dragon and small agamas and iguanas. This would suggest that Trilophosuchus was restricted to small prey, fitting its small body size.
Beyond the overall morphology, clues towards Trilophosuchus' ecology have also been drawn from the shape of its brain. Several researchers for instance have previously found a correlation between the cranial pneumaticity and aspects of the respective animal's lifestyle, which is briefly discussed by Ristevski and colleagues while describing the neuroanatomy of Trilophosuchus. Uniquely, Trilophosuchus displays a general mix of features found in Crocodylia and features found in much more basal groups. The overall shape of the endocast has been compared most closely to the terrestrial notosuchian Araripesuchus, while the ratios between the elements of the inner ear shows similarities to some baurusuchids and sphenosuchians among others. The highly pneumatized skull of Trilophosuchus once again mirrors the condition of Paleosuchus, Osteolaemus and various notosuchians, while poorly pneumatized skulls on the other hand appear prominently in highly aquatic forms with slender snouts and powerful abductor muscles, such as thalattosuchians and dyrosaurids. Ristevski concludes from this that Trilophosuchus may have been ecologically similar to today's dwarf crocodilians while being overall more terrestrial than any extant crocodilian.
Paleoenvironment
As a species native to what is now the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, Trilophosuchus was part of a highly diverse crocodilian fauna. Both the Hiatus Site and the Ringtail Site have yielded multiple crocodilians of different size and shape, who's coexistence is generally easily explained by niche partitioning. For instance, the Ringtail Site also preserves the bones of Baru, a large semi-aquatic ambush predator that is unlikely to have competed for the same resources as the much smaller Trilophosuchus. Not as easily explained is the apparent coexistence of Trilophosuchus and Mekosuchus sanderi. Although known primarily from fragmentary remains, Mekosuchus is also thought to have been a terrestrial animal with an altirostral (high) skull. It is thus unclear how the two would have differed in their ecology. Although it is possible that both genera inhabited different areas and only ended up in the same deposits during preservation (thanatocoenosis), this possibility is deemed less likely due to the composition of the mammal fauna indicating a singular origin for the different fossils. The alternative explanation would be that Trilophosuchus and Mekosuchus may have differed significantly enough in parts of their anatomy that are not currently known, allowing them to exploit different niches.
The Ringtail Site is currently interpreted as a preserving what was once a pool located in a forested karst terrain, preserving primarily aquatic animals that, aside from the crocodilians, includes lungfish, chelid turtles and the extinct platypus Obdurodon dicksoni. Terrestrial animals are known in the form of possums, which gave the site its name and are indicative of trees being present around the pool.
References
Mekosuchinae
Miocene crocodylomorphs
Terrestrial crocodylomorphs
Riversleigh fauna
Fossil taxa described in 1993
Crocodiles of Australia
Prehistoric pseudosuchian genera
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toph%20Beifong
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Toph Beifong
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Toph Beifong () is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, voiced by Jessie Flower in the original series and Kate Higgins and Philece Sampler in the sequel series.
Toph is recognized as a prodigy of earthbending, which is the ability to telekinetically manipulate, reshape and control stone, sand, dirt, and, later, metal. Because she was born blind, and her parents believed that her condition limited her capacity to learn and use the skill safely, they had a tutor teach her only basic earthbending. She later learned more advanced earthbending secretly from the badgermoles (fictional blind creatures that naturally earthbend). She eventually becomes the first person to develop the ability to "bend" metal as well. Toph has been blind since birth, but from her observations of badgermoles, she had learned to locate objects and their movements by sensing their vibrations in the earth around her.
Introduced in the second season of Avatar, Toph travels with the protagonist Aang as his earthbending teacher, shown to have an abrasive, conceited and sometimes stubborn personality which leads to clashes with her peers. Toph proves herself a steadfast ally to Avatar Aang and eventually Avatar Korra. Considered a fan favorite breakout character, the character has received a universally positive critical reception.
Character overview
Creation and conception
Toph was initially conceived as a sixteen-year-old boy that was athletic and muscular, designed to be a foil to Sokka. Her prototype design is featured in the show's intro as the earthbender. As the series progressed and the time came closer to introduce an earthbender who would join the main characters, head writer Aaron Ehasz suggested that they create contrast by designing a little girl who is able to defeat strong, adult earthbenders; some of the staff found this humorous, but it was initially rejected by Avatar co-creator Bryan Konietzko. Following several long discussions, Konietzko stopped fighting the idea and warmed up to it, after which Toph was made female and introduced into the series, becoming one of Konietzko's favorite characters. The character's original design was recycled into the appearances of minor characters The Boulder and Sud. Her original design greatly influenced the appearance of Bolin in The Legend of Korra. Her Earth Rumble outfit, the clothing she wears for the majority of Avatar: The Last Airbender, was inspired by European fashion styles. Her fancy dress was modeled after the traditional clothing of the Chinese Tang dynasty.
Toph uses a unique fighting style of earthbending, based on the Southern Praying Mantis style.
Toph was favored by the creators to return in The Legend of Korra after the appearances of both Katara and Zuko, DiMartino writing that it "never quite made sense" for there to be a trip to the swamp, where she was located, during the third season. In the following season, she was meant to serve as a foil to Korra with her "gruff mentoring style" contrasting the reserved Korra. Her design became a subject of difficulty for the staff, who wanted her to return to the size of her twelve-year-old self from the original series despite flashbacks in the earlier part of The Legend of Korra showing her as having grown in height. Konietzko was content with the staff's wishes but wanted her shortened height to come from her having become hunched since then. Artists had issues carrying out this design, resulting in multiple takes.
Personality and characteristics
Toph is fiercely independent, direct, belligerent, and practiced in taunting and insulting her opponents and on occasion her friends, particularly Sokka. On several occasions Toph appears picking her nose, spitting, and belching loudly. As she explained to Aang and his companions, she does this intentionally as a rebellion against the principles of refined culture that her aristocratic parents attempted to make her conform to. If the situation absolutely requires it, she actually knows how to behave in upper-class Earth Kingdom culture much better than Aang's companions do. She is usually covered in dirt, or as she calls it, "a healthy coating of earth".
In her advanced age, despite retaining much of her strength as an earthbender, Toph refuses to take part in prolonged conflicts, admitting that she is too old and lacks the energy for such endeavors.
Name
In "The Serpent's Pass", Toph's passport reads (tǔ guó tóu děng hù zhào běi fāng tuò fú), which translates as "Earth Kingdom First Class Passport: Beifong Toph". Here, her name means "supported lotus", which matches her parents' view of their daughter as a flower in need of protection. In "Tales of Ba Sing Se", her name is written as (Tuō Fū), which is the phonetic transcription based on the official guide for foreign names. In "The Earth King", her name is reverted to . Her last name Beifong () is close to the Mandarin pronunciation of the word "North" (běi fāng). The word (Tuō) also means "to support in one's palm", or "drag" and is the word used for child care, and is also intended to sound like the English word "tough" and "toff" (meaning "upper class").
Appearances
Avatar: The Last Airbender television series
Book Two: Earth
Toph's parents view her blindness as a disability and therefore keep her concealed. Despite her handicap, Toph has developed special skills by keeping company with the blind 'badgermoles' that inhabited nearby caves. By imitating their movements, Toph became a master of the martial art known as 'earthbending', but she kept her ability secret from her overprotective family. Toph fought frequently in Earth Rumble, an earthbending lei tai tournament resembling professional wrestling, under the alias "Blind Bandit". By the time Aang and his friends discover Toph at the tournament, she had become champion, holding a 42–0 win–loss record. However, Aang unintentionally beats her in a match when he tries to talk to her, as she could not sense air currents. When her parents learn about this and confine her further, Toph runs away to accompany Aang and his friends as Aang's earthbending instructor, although her parents believe she was kidnapped by Aang. Toph nearly leaves the group after feuding with Katara over not contributing to the group's teamwork, though rejoins them following a meeting with Iroh and encountering Princess Azula for the first time. Toph successfully begins Aang's training of earthbending and slows the descent of Wan Shi Tong's Library, where the group learns the date of the next Day of Black Sun and inadvertently gains an advantage over the Fire Nation, as it sinks, though fails to prevent Appa from being kidnapped by sandbenders. Due to Appa being the group's transportation, they are forced to travel on foot, journeying through Serpent's Pass and preventing a drill from entering Ba Sing Se. Now in the city, she infiltrates the Earth Kingdom Royal Palace, meeting Dai Li, bonds with Katara, encounters Jet and reunites with Appa. Toph also learns to metalbend after she is captured in a metal cage by people who were sent by her parents to retrieve her. She realizes that metal contains small amounts of earth, which she can manipulate. She quickly escapes and traps her captors in the same small cage.
Book Three: Fire
After the events of the Book 2 finale, Toph, alongside Sokka, Katara and the Southern Water Tribe, captured a Fire Nation ship. Once in the Fire Nation, she assumed the identity of a regular Fire Nation girl.
In "The Runaway", Toph uses her earthbending senses to foil a vendor's trick, and by bargaining and continuing to use her senses, she extracts more and more money from him. Katara is distressed by this, and scolds Toph for her immoral behavior, but later enlists her to pull a huge scam.
Katara fakes turning Toph over to the police in order to collect the reward money, with the assumption that Toph will metalbend her way out of prison and rejoin her. However, it is revealed that there is no reward money and the cells are made of wood, and Katara is shoved in jail alongside Toph. Aang and Sokka attempt to overtake their adversary Combustion Man, but Katara ends up busting herself and Toph out by being resourceful in her attempt to draw water for her bending.
Toph then is part of the invasion team, and she helps Aang get to Firelord Ozai's underground bunker. She later is seen riding on Appa after the invasion team's defeat.
In "The Western Air Temple", she arrives at the Western Air Temple with the Gaang and meets Zuko. She is accepting of him at first, urging Katara and Sokka to accept his help, but after she is burned by him, she too grows angry with him. When he reattempts to join their team, she happily accepts him on the grounds of Aang's acceptance.
In the finale, Toph helps Sokka and Suki attack a Fire Nation airship. Suki hops off the ship in order to help Toph and Sokka get to safety. Toph is nearly knocked off the burning ship and killed, but Sokka rescues her and they are promptly retrieved by Suki. She later celebrates the Fire Lord's defeat with her friends in Iroh's tea shop.
Avatar: The Last Airbender comic series
The Promise
In The Promise trilogy, Toph is revealed to have established the Beifong Metalbending Academy, an instructional institution to help earthbenders learn metalbending, shortly after the end of the television series. She chooses her three students (Penga, The Dark One and Ho Tun) on the basis of her meteorite bracelet shivering in their presence. Though claiming her motives behind founding the school were due to her love of metalbending, in actuality, she enjoys bossing people around. Initially worried her students are not capable of being metalbenders, they surprise her with their victory over Kunyo and his firebending students, renewing her confidence in them and she participates in the battle for Yu Dao.
The Rift
In The Rift trilogy, Toph encounters her father for the first time since the series, though he refuses to acknowledge her as his daughter. It is further revealed that her parents broke up after the people they sent to bring Toph back had failed. Toph prevents the others from being killed by debris falling from the mine collapsing, including her father, who reconciles with her as she saves everyone. Following this, she passes out and has her students assist Aang in his battle against the spirit of Old Iron.
Smoke and Shadow
North and South
Imbalance
Toph Beifong's Metalbending Academy
The Legend of Korra
Book One: Air
In The Legend of Korra, Toph is revealed to have founded Republic City's police force and taught the art of metalbending to her students. Two of her students were her daughters Lin and Suyin. Her daughters mention in passing to Korra that they are actually half-sisters by two different fathers, but their identities were not revealed, and due to as-yet-unexplained reasons neither of Toph's daughters ever knew their fathers. Due to her own strict upbringing, Toph raised the pair as a single parent with essentially no restrictions. But it caused both of them to feel that she was ignoring them as their mutual need for her attention caused them to react in different ways: the older and strict Lin followed in her mother's footsteps as a Republic City police officer while the free-spirited Suyin became a delinquent by hanging with the wrong crowd, which Lin disapproved of. Eventually, Lin caught Suyin driving the getaway car for her criminal friends after a jewel theft, during which Suyin accidentally scarred the right side of Lin's face. Although upset with her daughters for putting her in a tough situation, Toph was forced to look the other way and tear up the police report because of the controversy it would cause before sending Suyin away to live with her grandparents; Lin did not take this kindly. This ignites a rift between Toph and her daughters. Toph, feeling guilt over her questionable actions, retired the following year with Lin eventually succeeding her as Republic City's Chief of Police by the time of the first season.
Book Three: Change
In the third-season episodes, "The Metal Clan" and "Old Wounds", it is revealed that Toph made her peace with a repentant Suyin and spent some years living with Suyin's family in Zaofu, a city of creative metalbenders founded by Suyin, which recognized Toph as the inventor of metalbending. A statue of her was built to honor her discovery. Some years prior to the events of the series, Toph left Zaofu to travel the world in search of enlightenment and had not been seen or heard from since.
Book Four: Balance
Toph appears in the fourth-season episode "Korra Alone", having made a home in the sacred spirit wilds of the Foggy Swamp where Aang's reincarnation, Korra, encounters her. In the episodes "The Coronation" and "The Calling", she assists Korra by removing the remnant liquid-metal poison placed in her body by the Red Lotus through helping her overcome her fears brought about by her past adversaries. Toph returns in the tenth episode, "Operation: Beifong", to aid Lin, her granddaughter Opal and Bolin, in freeing Suyin and her family from Kuvira's Earth Empire forces. She reveals that Lin's father was named Kanto, a nice man whose relationship with Toph didn't work out.
Graphic Novel Trilogies
Eighty-five-year-old Toph returns in "Ruins of the Empire, Part 2" upon being approached by Avatar Korra and Earth King Wu, requesting her assistance in stopping those who desired to further strengthen the Earth Empire's influence by becoming governor in the election, to which the elderly earthbending master and metalbending founder was not interested in.
Abilities
Heightened senses
Being blind, Toph's mechanoreceptors and other senses are hyper-sensitive. By grounding herself barefoot, Toph can "see" and "feel" even the most minute seismic vibrations in the earth, be it the presence of trees or the march of ants several meters away, an earthbending technique dubbed the "seismic sense". Toph has acquired an acute sense of hearing, enabling her to recognize people by their voices, discern a person's physical appearance by sound, overhear distant conversations, and sense falsehood via the individual's subtle breathing patterns, heartbeat, and physical reactions. After taking residence in the Foggy Swamp, Toph claimed her heightened senses has expanded to the point of being fine-tuned via the spirit vines with events around the world.
Toph is disadvantaged against opponents who require minimal contact with the ground and vulnerable to any attacks initiated in mid-air. Terrain that impairs Toph's ability to sense vibrations also hinders her abilities; she has some difficulty with sand, which constantly lacks solidity, preventing her from accurately "feeling" her surroundings. Because Toph relies on sensation in her feet to perform earthbending, she becomes truly "blind" if the soles of her feet are damaged, as shown when Zuko accidentally burns her feet. Although, she can feel the vibrations of the earth with her hands to some degree, they are not nearly as sensitive as her feet. Her affinity with the earth is further illustrated in that Toph does not know how to swim and expresses an aversion to flying.
Earthbending
Toph is highly skilled in earthbending which utilizes Chinese martial arts techniques of Hóng Quán and Chu Gar Nán Pài Tángláng. Earthbending represents the element of substance. It is categorized as the most diverse and enduring of the "four bending arts". Earthbending is the geokinetic ability to manipulate earth, rock, sand, lava, and metals in all their various forms. Earthbending utilizes neutral jing, which involves waiting and listening for the right moment to act decisively. Earthbending involves enduring attacks until the right opportunity to counterattack reveals itself, emphasizes "heavily rooted stances and strong blows that evoke the mass and power of earth", and demands precise stepping footwork to maintain constant contact with the ground. Earthbending parallels Five Animals movements (such as the tiger's hard blows and the crane's affinity to landing gracefully). Earthbending is at its strongest when the feet or hand are in direct contact with the ground, enabling earthbenders to transfer their kinetic energies into their bending for fast and powerful moves. This reliance on direct contact with the earth is a figurative Achilles' heel; separating earthbenders from any contact with the earth renders them ineffective.
Neutral Jing
The series' creators consulted a professional martial artist in the design of the show's fighting style. The primary concepts in Earthbending (i.e. listening, reacting, balancing attacks and defense) and drawing power from a stable lower body are referred to in the practice of neutral jing. The concept of neutral jing relates to the philosophy of "sticky hands". The purpose of sticky hands is to enable the practitioner to predict their opponent's next move. Similar to Toph detecting the movements of others through her connection with earth, a practitioner learns to detect their opponent's upcoming move by maintaining constant contact between their own arms, hands or wrists, and their foe's arm. By practicing with a partner in this manner, a practitioner learns to "read" the slight movements of their opponent's arms to detect their next attack and subsequently move accordingly to neutralize it.
Metalbending
Throughout Avatar: The Last Airbender, Toph is the first earthbender known to bend metal. When Toph is imprisoned in iron, the sadhu Guru Pathik explains to Aang in a parallel scene that metal is refined earth; whereupon Toph locates the iron's impurities and manipulates them to "bend" the metal portion. She practices and hones her initially unique skill throughout the rest of the series, later teaching it to other earthbenders prior to the events of the Legend of Korra.
Reception
Reviewer Michael Mammano loved that while Toph "never loses her rough edge, she's always been deftly humanized", feeling her relationships with her daughters would matter to her and thought it was "incredibly refreshing and feminist" that she had two children with different men because nowhere in the narrative was Toph "questioned or shamed for having children out of wedlock", adding: "She has been canonically confirmed as a woman who had a sex life that was on her terms." Mammano braced for her to die in The Legend of Korra episode "Operation: Beifong", though she survived and felt that as her final appearance in the series, "it was a great send-off, especially given her parting words." Toph's character was viewed as being "ruined" due to her poor parenting in the eyes of her daughter Lin in The Legend of Korra. (Aang received similar criticisms from his children Bumi and Kya.) Mammano objected to this by reasoning that the story is told from the perspective of her children while she was no longer around to defend herself, with and that grown children would never be able to fully understand their parents' rationale for raising them the way they did.
Family tree
References
External links
Toph at Nick.com
Animated characters introduced in 2006
Animated human characters
Avatar: The Last Airbender characters
Child characters in television
Child superheroes
Dark Horse Comics child superheroes
Dark Horse Comics female superheroes
Female characters in animated series
Female soldier and warrior characters in television
Fictional blind characters
Fictional characters with earth or stone abilities
Fictional characters with metal abilities
Fictional characters with superhuman senses
Fictional con artists
Fictional female child soldiers
Fictional female martial artists
Fictional Hung Ga practitioners
Fictional martial arts trainers
Fictional nobility
Fictional Nán Tángláng practitioners
Fictional police captains
Fictional professional wrestlers
Fictional socialites
Fictional telekinetics
Fighting game characters
Fictional female captains
Television characters introduced in 2006
Television superheroes
es:Anexo:Personajes de Avatar: la leyenda de Aang#Toph
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattaro%20mutiny
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Cattaro mutiny
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The Cattaro mutiny occurred during World War I. Sailors of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Bay of Cattaro (today: Kotor, Montenegro), which at that time belonged to Austria-Hungary started it on 1 February 1918. The mutiny remained isolated and had to be abandoned after three days due to the arrival of loyal troops. Four sailors were subsequently executed according to naval law. The naval historian Halpern portrays this event as the last victory of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy over the social forces that would eventually overwhelm it.
Historical background
At the beginning of 1918, dissatisfaction with the food situation, with the political conditions, as well as war fatigue had increased further. After the Russian October Revolution of 1917 and the peace offer of the Bolsheviks, wide circles, especially of the working class, feared that the German Supreme Army Command could jeopardise the hoped-for peace on the Eastern Front by making excessive demands. In protest, the Jännerstreik occurred with over 700,000 participants throughout Austria-Hungary. Workers' councils were formed, which also demanded better supplies, the abolition of censorship, the end of martial law and the introduction of the eight-hour day. The strike wave also reached the naval arsenal in Pola. After the strikes in the Monarchy ended for the most part on 21 January, work was also resumed in Pola on 28 January. Presumably unaware of the end of the actions, the sailors of the warships anchored in Cattaro decided to hold a demonstration, which they hoped would give the movement further impetus.
The base of Cattaro in the south of Austria-Hungary became of special strategic importance when the Lovćen, located on Montenegrin territory and overlooking the bay, was conquered in 1916 during the occupation of Montenegro and Northern Albania. Cattaro now became an important base of operations against the Otranto barrier, a base for the submarine warfare in the Mediterranean, and for supplies to the Balkan front. For this purpose, besides destroyers, torpedo boats and submarines (also German ones), the whole Cruiser Flotilla under the flagship (Austrian: Flaggenschiff) "SMS Sankt Georg" as well as the V. Ship Division was deployed there.
Destroyers, torpedo boats and submarines as well as the modern Rapidkreuzer (fast cruisers) carried the main load of the naval warfare, while the large ships were mostly idly at anchor, because - as in the German Empire - the risk of the fleet getting destroyed seemed too great (fleet in being). This was also an important reason for increasing tensions between officers and crews aboard these units. The crews felt unjustly and roughly treated by their superiors. They complained about senseless drill, about strict punishment for nullity, about insults, humiliations by often young officers, about the poor rations in contrast to the officers, about torn off uniforms, about the little home leave. Many crew members were trained metalworkers and had come into contact with the ideas of the social democratic workers movement. They demanded democratic reforms. The perceived privileged position of the officers also fed the suspicion that they were not interested in peace, but wanted to prolong the war, while the ordinary soldiers and their families had to suffer great privations.
Course of events
The first day of the uprising, 1 February 1918
The uprising, which apparently had been prepared by various loose groups, started from the flagship "SMS Sankt Georg" on 1 February 1918 at about 12 noon.
The officers had lunch in their mess. The crew armed themselves, fired a cannon shot and raised a red flag. The chief officer (Austrian: Gesamt Detail Offizier) Zipperer, who rushed on deck, received a shot to the temporal bone. Medical assistance was initially prevented before he could be taken to the ship's hospital. In addition, a non-commissioned officer was shot through the chest and a sailor was injured by a ricocheting bullet. There were also shots fired at the ship's commander, but without hitting him. At the request of the crew, the ship's commander brought Rear Admiral Hansa, the commander of the Cruiser Flotilla, on deck. Anton Grabar demanded the immediate end of the war according to the Fourteen Points of Woodrow Wilson and he complained about the bad treatment especially by the young cadets and the insufficient rations. The officers were now ordered to eat the same food as the crew.
Another centre of action was aboard SMS Gäa. Gäa was a depot and workshop ship with a large number of older workers on board, who had come into contact with social democratic ideas more intensively.
The movement spread quickly. The red flag was hoisted on all larger ships. Only on the ships that were more frequently sent out for warfare, on which therefore the crews were treated much better by the officers, it encountered discomfort (on the fast cruisers) or resistance (on the destroyers, torpedo boats and submarines). Under the threat from the armored cruisers that the ships would be taken under fire, some of the smaller units, partly with the agreement of their commanders, hoisted the red flag.
The destroyer Csepel had earlier received a sailing order for 15 o'clock, to escort a convoy to Durazzo. The commander had the boilers fired up. Thereupon Gäa signalled that in case of leaving the bay fire would be opened. The commander of the Csepel, however, ordered the ship to be cast off and threatened to torpedo the Sankt Georg. The Sankt Georg and the Gäa then fired one cannon shot each. When the Csepel drew nevertheless nearer, the chief of staff on Sankt Georg ordered the Csepel back to the berth.
Altogether about 30 warships and about 3,000–4,000 men, out of a total of 5,000 naval personnel in Cattaro, took part in the uprising. Also the submarine base, the telegraph magazine, the naval mine command and the naval air station in Kumbor as well as the back-up battery in Gjenović (today: Đenovići) and the naval station Caballa were involved.
In place of the officers, sailors’ councils or crew committees, usually designated by acclamation, took over, and continued to organise the service in the normal way. A central committee was formed on SMS Sankt Georg. In the evening the committee handed over a note with the demands of the crews to the cruiser flotilla commander Rear Admiral Alexander Hansa, which contained both general political and crew-specific points:
"What we want
Measures to initiate an immediate general peace.
Complete political independence from other powers.
Peace based on the Russian democratic proposal, 'without annexation etc.'
Complete disarmament (demobilisation) and establishment of the voluntary militia.
Right of self-determination of the peoples.
An answer in good faith to Wilson's note.
Greater support and adequate food and clothing for the relatives of the conscripted.
Democratisation of the government.
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Due to malnutrition, omitting all unnecessary work and drill. For Korvees separate food allowance.
More shore leave and of longer duration.
Home leave strictly within 6 months once in the duration of 21 days without travel days. Same conditions for staff.
Introduction of a humane, faster transport for those on leave, increase of the boarding allowance for home leave and possibly delivery of the food in kind.
Equitable distribution of the ship's food. Same food for staff and crew.
Better supply of smoking materials, the same for staff and crew.
Abolition of censorship of letters.
Consideration of special requirements of individual ships and boats.
No consequences of any type for this demonstration.
Sailors' delegations of all units."
The rebels sent patrols ashore to persuade more units to join in. A patrol of the Gäa moored off Gjenović tried to persuade the crews of the nearby torpedo boats and submarines to join in by threat, but without much success. They were partly supported by the local population, throwing stones at the ships. The patrol of Sankt Georg was accompanied by an officer assigned by Rear Admiral Hansa. Hansa hoped to use this to steer the movement in calm waters and to be able to settle it through negotiations. He had assured the rebels, with the exception of those who had used weapons, that they would go unpunished if the uprising was ended. According to Plaschka's assessment, the members of the navy had "achieved a unique breakthrough that day."
The naval port commandant in Castelnuovo, Feldzeugmeister Guseck, the local army commander, had been informed of the course of events by Hansa via a telephone line which the insurgents only contained the next day. Guseck initiated comprehensive countermeasures, among them ordering of heavy naval forces from Pola as well as of infantry from the region. The German submarines sailed into the inner bay in the evening, which was perceived as a threat by the insurgents.
Second day of the uprising, 2 February 1918
In the morning, Guseck's ultimatum was presented to the central committee: all crews had to return to order and discipline within three hours, otherwise order would be restored by all means.
The central committee, however, presented new demands to Hansa, including
"2. Agreement with factors from both houses of the House of Deputies. In addition, within 14 days deputies (or their representatives) should arrive at the Bocche [Bay of Kotor] for direct communication with the delegates of the Navy. "
A senior NCO, the Titularbootsmann František Rasch from the lighting department in Kumbor now served as spokesman for the central committee. Hansa promised benevolent consideration and renewed his offer of immunity from prosecution in case of termination of the movement. This led to heated discussions at "St. Georg" as many wanted to give up.
Finally, the only officer who had made himself available to the movement, navy officer cadet Anton Sesan from the naval aviation department in Kumbor, whom Rasch had won over for leading the action, managed to convince the crew to persevere. The delegates now went back to their ships and stations. Hansa arranged for an extension of the ultimatum. One condition was that no ship movements would take place.
Sesan suggested that the ships should risk an advance into the Adriatic Sea in order to attract international attention and to encourage the crews of other nations to take action as well. Rasch, however, was counting on the approaching troops to show solidarity. The fleet remained in the bay. Plaschka sees in Rasch the determining element of the revolt, who also clearly addressed the social-revolutionary perspective in his comments to Hansa: "that the system in the state must be overthrown."
Around 2 p.m., the crew committee of the "SMS Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf", which had been deployed as a guard ship at the harbour entrance off Porto Rose, decided to shift to the second, inner bay of Teodo to join the other rebel ships. In the process, the ship was fired upon by a land-based battery. Two dead sailors, among them Petty Officer Second Class Sagner, an important leader on the ship, were the result. The action, which was intended to lift the mood among the insurgents, caused great consternation in their ranks.
After the delegates of the fast cruiser "Novara" had returned from the flagship to their ship, the crew voted to keep the red flag as well. But the commander overrode their decision and ordered the ship to sail into the inner bay. In doing so, he allowed those sailors who feared being torn between the forces to leave the ship. When passing the "SMS Kaiser Karl VI", which was not far away, the red flag was put down. The rebels' threat to fire on falling off ships was not carried out. Later the other fast cruiser "SMS Helgoland", the torpedo boats and the destroyers followed. A new front against the revolting ships had emerged in the inner bay. Also the German submarine commanders were prepared to torpedo the rebellious ships if necessary.
During the night the central sailors' committee tried to send two telegrams by radio to Dr. Adler in Vienna and Count Károlyi in Budapest. They were asked to call on the government to intervene immediately, as to the committee's opinion the advance of the infantry may cause a general unrest in the Austro-Hungarian military. However, the committee had to rely on the land-based transmitter of the Naval Port Command. The stations on board had been manipulated by the specialist operators, so that the range was severely limited. Guseck did not let the telegrams pass.
The third and last day of the uprising, 3 February 1918
In the morning at 7:30 a.m. the 3rd Division from Pola with Erzherzog Ferdinand Max, Erzherzog Friedrich, and Erzherzog Karl as well as torpedo boats and destroyers entered the outer bay of Cattaro. The ultimatum had finally been set at 10 o'clock. On the remaining ships with red flags more and more crew members wanted to give up.
Rasch and Sesan tried in the morning to persuade the crew of the Gäa to persevere, but most of them they could no longer convince. Sesan went to the airfield. Rasch went back to the Sankt Georg. There the crew demanded to vote again and it became clear that only very few were still in favour of the continuation of the uprising. Rasch ordered to drop the red flag and reported to Rear Admiral Hansa as a prisoner. Thereafter the few remaining ships also dropped the red flag; the rebellion ended. Sesan managed to escape to Italy with an aircraft together with Gustav Stonawski, who had chaired the central committee, and another NCO.
Legal processing
On the same day, the disembarkation and detention of those crew members classified by the commanders as "irresponsible elements" began. There was no uniform policy, so that even committee members who had acted in the officers' interests, as well as crew members who had not joined the uprising but were generally considered unreliable, were among the 678 arrested. Peter Fitl has examined the procedures more closely in a publication published in 2018.
Drumhead court martial
Guseck, the commander of the naval port, had been charged with the prosecution. He selected 40 persons for the drumhead court martial. He demanded a quick conviction. The trial began on 7 February and must not take longer than three days. The charge was insurrection. The accused were assigned four officers as defence lawyers. The civilian lawyer Dr. Mitrović arrived only at the end of the last day of the trial. After a protest by the defence that the Präklusivfrist (expiration period) had been exceeded, the court declared that it had no jurisdiction over 18 defendants. Fitl criticises that in the event of an actual expiration (which cannot be determined nowadays), this should have applied to all the defendants. The defence attempted to decline the responsibility of the defendants: compulsion of the circumstances, carried away by the others, fear of artillery fire from "St. Georg", "Gäa", "Monarch". An important question was who had used weapons. In the case of the chief officer of the "St. Georg", Zipperer, it could not be clarified beyond doubt neither in the drumhead court martial nor later on in the ordinary court martial whether Šižgorić or Ujdur or both had fired at him. The defence lawyers protested when on the last day of the trial several witnesses who had been summoned were not heard. They also wanted to hear further witnesses in favour of the defendants. The requests were rejected, probably also because the court was under time pressure.
Finally, six men were found guilty of the crime of insurrection; out of these František Rasch, Anton Grabar, Jerko Sisgorić and Mate Berničevič received the capital punishment, Franz Bajzel and Ludwig Szekacs were sentenced to aggravated imprisonment (ten and five years respectively), and two men were acquitted. The remainder were handed over to the court martial. On the same day, the judges deliberated on a pardon petition to Guseck for those sentenced to death (a common procedure according to Fitl), and the majority voted in favor. Guseck rejected this application and confirmed the death sentences on 10 February.
The civil lawyer Dr. Mitrović sent a plea for clemency to the emperor, which he justified among other things by the unfair conduct of the trial. The emperor did not reply. The summary execution took place early in the morning on 11 February 1918, below the cemetery walls of the nearby village Škaljari. They were buried in a common grave.
Investigations
The ship commanders could now once again report potential defendants for the court martial. In some cases this resulted in an increase in some cases in a reduction of the number compared to the previous reports. A total of 45 persons were added to the 678 arrested. But Guseck decided that only 392 persons were to be questioned.
The interrogations began in April. The requirement to submit a written copy of the arrest warrant and an order of preliminary investigation was not complied with. The arrested persons were also not made aware of the possibility of lodging a complaint. The investigations were conducted by ten military lawyers (Auditoren), who also looked intensively into possible exculpatory aspects. The suspicions expressed by naval officers that the Entente had had a hand in the matter or that there had been agitation by political or national agents turned out to be groundless. In June, the investigations were finalised and the reports (Referate und Anträge) were submitted. They requested that 234 of the accused be charged with mutiny or insurrection and that the remaining 351 be spared from prosecution. However, Guseck ordered charges against 392 persons, the remaining 193 were then released, or in some cases disciplined and in a few cases transferred to another court.
Court-martial
Guseck issued an indictment against 386 defendants at the end of August. Fitl suspects that the original indictment was flawed. The trial under auditor Major Wolf began on 16 September 1918 and took place in a sardine factory in Mulla near Cattaro. Guseck granted Wolf a public prosecutor he had requested. This was, Fitl concluded, not compatible with even contemporary ideas of a fair trial.
The officials took measures that news of the uprising and the legal proceedings should not be leaked. However, Julius Braunthal who was deployed in the region as a lieutenant in an artillery emplacement had already succeeded in February in informing Victor Adler of the SPÖ. Adler spoke to the War Minister on February 11. The minister promised to prohibit further executions. In return, the SPÖ refrained from making the events public. It was not until 8 October that insurrection and military court trials were discussed in the Reichstag, because of a query of the South Slavic deputy Dr. Anton Korošec. Giving in to the growing public pressure, Emperor Karl decided to continue the trial only against 31 "ringleaders, principal offenders and non-commissioned officers". Thereafter 348 persons were acquitted, but transferred to Pola.
On 31 October, the 37th day of the hearing, the trial was adjourned to 5 November. However, it could not be resumed due to political developments. According to Fitl a grotesque situation, because the South Slavic nations had already separated from the Habsburg monarchy; Emperor Karl had handed over the fleet to the newly founded South Slavic state; the k.u.k. court martial had finally tried crew members of the navy of a foreign state on a foreign territory. The trial was not concluded.
Consequences
The Commander-in-Chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy Admiral Maximilian Njegovan was forced to ask for his retirement after these events. He was replaced by Miklós Horthy who was promoted to Counter-admiral. Rear Admiral Hansa was also replaced, the "St. Georg" was taken out of service and converted into a residential ship. While the army had been the decisive opponent in these events, also the incidents in this unit increased in 1918. See e.g. the Judenburg mutiny.
Reception
The events received little public attention. It was not until nine years later that the journalist and doctor of philosophy Bruno Frei published a comprehensive study of the events in the newspaper Der Abend. He had access to the copies of the minutes of the drumhead court martial. These are now considered to be lost. Although Frei's work was rather propagandistic in the sense of his socialist and later communist world view, it is therefore also of interest to historians. In addition, some contemporary witnesses now came forward.
Monographs
In 1958 the Czech Jindřich Veselý published a small book about the events: "Povstání v Boce Kotorské (Czech: Uprising in the Bay of Kotor). He also published a series of photos in the appendix. According to Fitl, he overemphasized the contribution of the Czech sailors. Plaschka's 1963 dissertation "Cattaro-Prag" is still considered the standard German-language work. The most extensive and significant study next to it was written by the Croatian Bernard Stulli: "Ustanka mornara u Boki Kotorskoj (Croatian: Sailors' revolt in the bay of Cattaro)". Both worked through the files in the Austrian State Archives, which had then become accessible.
An Italian book on the events (La rivolta di Cattaro) appeared in 1935. The author, Capitano Neri, misappropriated the protagonists as pioneers of the Italian-nationalist ideology of irredentism.
Important studies in English language were presented by Sondhaus and Halpern in 2001 and 2003 respectively.
Evaluations
After the First World War, the uprising in Austria and Hungary was predominantly perceived as subversive and harmful, while in the other successor states a rather positive perception was noticeable. After the Second World War, the Yugoslav and Czechoslovak Communist states, as well as Marxist Eastern European historiography, assessed the events as both Slavic and Bolshevik.
Plaschka came to the conclusion that the actions in Cattaro had been designed as a revolutionary demonstration. The red flags turned the demonstration into a rebellion. The events revealed a clear crack in the structure of the armed power. The determining element was not so much the unresolved nationality question but rather the social and political question.
According to the naval historian Halpern the event cannot be portrait as the beginning of the end of the monarchy, but as its last victory over the social forces that would eventually overwhelm it.
Using selected historical sources, Kuhl compared the Cattaro uprising with the Kiel mutiny. He found clear parallels between the events. But the action in Cattaro had begun when the great wave of strikes in the country had just ended. Thus the action came too late and remained isolated in contrast to the events in Kiel. In Kiel, the sailors and stokers got into contact with a workforce and land-based navy personnel that immediately supported them.
Novels, stories, dramas
The German writer Friedrich Wolf (1888-1953) wrote the drama "Die Matrosen von Cattaro" in 1930, based on Bruno Frei's book.
The journalist and historian Eva Priester deals with the uprising in the story "Begegnung im Morgengrauen (encounter at dawn)". The story is included in the volume: Vom Baume der Freiheit. Sechs historische Erzählungen. (From the tree of liberty. Six historical narratives.) Globus-Verlag (Austrian communistic publication house), Vienna 1955.
The working class writer Franz Xaver Fleischhacker, who witnessed the uprising aboard a torpedo boat, wrote the novel: Cattaro. Roman aus den letzten Tagen der k.u.k. Kriegsmarine. (Novel from the last days of the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine). Globus-Verlag, Vienna 1957.
Commemoration
In front of the Škaljari cemetery about 15 minutes walking distance from Kotor (Cattaro), there is a memorial. At this place, below the cemetery wall, the four sailors were executed.
There are plaques both on the courthouse and on the prison in Kotor which refer to the events and to the executed sailors.
Annotations
References
Literature
Peter Fitl: Meuterei und Standgericht. Die Matrosenrevolte im Kriegshafen Cattaro vom Februar 1918 und ihr kriegsgerichtliches Nachspiel. Wien 2018.
Bruno Frei: Die Matrosen von Cattaro. Eine Episode aus dem Revolutionsjahr 1918. Neuausgabe Berlin 1963.
Paul, G. Halpern: The Cattaro Mutiny, 1918. In: Christopher M. Bell./Bruce A. Elleman (Hrsg.): Naval mutinies of the twentieth century. An international perspective. London 2003, pp. 54–79.
Klaus Kuhl: Das Aufbegehren der Matrosen von Cattaro im Februar 1918 – ein Vorläufer des Kieler Matrosenaufstands (The revolt of the sailors of Cattaro in February 1918 - a forerunner of the Kiel mutiny)? In: Jürgen Jensen (Hrsg.): Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Kieler Stadtgeschichte, Band 89, Heft 3, Kiel 2017, pp. 127–140.
Simon Loidl: Gehorsamverweigerung. Der Matrosenaufstand von Cattaro. In: Mitteilungen der Alfred-Klahr Gesellschaft, Heft 3/2014, S. 1–5. Online zugänglich (aufgerufen 3. Dezember 2019) unter: .
Simon Loidl: „Zweianhalb Tage waren wir frei.“ Zur literarischen und Politischen Rezeption des Matrosenaufstands von Cattaro in Österreich. In: JahrBuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, Heft III/2014, pp. 131–152.
Richard G. Plaschka: Avantgarde des Widerstands. Modellfälle militärischer Auflehnung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. 2 Bde. Wien 2000.
Richard, G. Plaschka: Cattaro – Prag. Revolte und Revolution. Kriegsmarine und Heer Österreich-Ungarns im Feuer der Aufstandsbewegungen vom 1. Februar und 28. Oktober 1918. Graz 1963.
Richard, G. Plaschka/Horst Haselsteiner/Arnold Suppan: Innere Front. Militärassistenz, Widerstand und Umsturz in der Donaumonarchie 1918. Bd. 1: Zwischen Streik und Meuterei. Wien 1974.
Erwin Sieche: Die Kreuzer der k. und k. Marine. Wölfersheim 1994 (Marine – Arsenal, Bd. 25).
Lawrence Sondhaus: Austria–Hungarian Naval Mutinies of World War I. In: Jane Hathaway (Hrsg.): Rebellion, Repression, Reinvention. Mutiny in Comparative Perspective. Westport 2001, pp. 196–212.
Bernard Stulli: Ustanka mornara u Boki Kotorskoj 1.– 3. februara 1918 (Croatian: Sailors’ uprising in the bay of Kotor 1. – 3. Februar 1918). Split 1959.
Jindřich Veselý: Povstání v Boce Kotorské. Historická kronika (Czech: Uprising in the bay of Kotor. Historical chronic). Prag 1958. Available online as pdf-file with a different page numbering at: .
David Woodward: Mutiny at Cattaro, 1918. In: History Today, 1976 vol. 26, issue 12, pp. 804–810.
External links
Related webpage of the Austrian State Archives (German only):
Paul Lenormand: Mutiny of Cattaro. In: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2014. .
Background material on www.kurkuhl.de (German only):
Military history of Austria-Hungary
Austro-Hungarian Navy
Naval mutinies
Conflicts in 1918
Kotor
Maritime incidents in 1918
Mutinies in World War I
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos%20Ruiz%20%28baseball%29
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Carlos Ruiz (baseball)
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Carlos Joaquín Ruiz (born January 22, 1979), nicknamed "Chooch", is a Panamanian former professional baseball catcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Seattle Mariners. Ruiz stands tall, and weighs . He bats and throws right-handed.
As a seven-year-old, Ruiz resolved to play in the big leagues after both his father and grandmother died within two weeks of each other. He made his way through the Phillies farm system from until , playing at each level of Minor League Baseball (MiLB). Ruiz soon fulfilled his childhood dream, making his MLB debut with the 2006 Phillies. He battled adversity in his progression through the system, including feeling homesick, a position change, and the language barrier (he spoke Spanish, while most teammates and team officials spoke English).
Ruiz spent his first full season in MLB with the Philadelphia Phillies in and remained there until he left the Mariners, electing free agency after the season. In , for his strong postseason performance, including a walk-off hit, during the Phillies playoff run that concluded with victory in the 2008 World Series, he earned the nickname "Señor Octubre" (Mr. October). Despite being one of the quietest players on the team, Ruiz was subsequently called the "heart and soul" of the Phillies, serving as a constant source of encouragement and rebuke alike to his teammates. Over the following seasons, he was a part of the core group of players that led the Phillies to five consecutive playoff appearances, from 2007 until 2011.
Ruiz had his best season in 2012, holding a batting average of over .300, earning his first appearance in the All-Star Game, and finishing in the top 30 of the NL Most Valuable Player (MVP) voting. In 2013, he began the season with a 25-game suspension for using Adderall, and subsequently spent time on the disabled list, ultimately playing in fewer than 100 games for the first time in his MLB career.
Ruiz is the only player in the history of the NL to catch four no-hitters, and one of only two catchers in all of MLB to do so (the other being Jason Varitek).
Early life
Ruiz grew up in David, Chiriquí, Panama, and was the oldest of three sons. His father was a police officer and his mother was an elementary school teacher. When he was seven years old, his father Joaquin was patrolling in his police jeep when a tire blew out, causing the vehicle to flip, throwing Joaquin into a ditch, and then crushing him when it fell on top of him. Just weeks before, his grandmother died of cancer. As a result, Ruiz became "the new father", starting work shortly thereafter as a laborer on a coffee farm to supplement the family income, and by age 10 was earning about per day. He also promised his widowed mother that he would make it to Major League Baseball to support the family. Subsequently, he began attending college to earn a degree in physical education, but dropped out shortly after he began to attend the Phillies baseball academy.
Ruiz's upbringing contributed to his approach to the game. His mother insisted that he excel academically, and would not allow him to play baseball unless he did well in school. Baseball was his first love, and he was responsible for organizing the community's games:
Professional career
Minor leagues
In 1998, Ruiz followed his dream of playing professional baseball first by attending the Phillies Baseball Academy in La Vega, Dominican Republic, where he played catcher for the first time, moving from his initial position of second base. Though he was ready to quit because "he looked and felt like a 10-year-old among the tall, athletic prospects surrounding him", his uncle convinced him in a phone conversation to stick with it. The Phillies signed him as an amateur free agent on December 4, 1998, for , and he made his professional debut in 1999 with the Dominican Summer League (DSL) team DSL Phillies, with whom he compiled a .305 batting average, 4 home runs, and 35 runs batted in (RBIs) in 60 games. Prior to the 2000 season, Ruiz met Mick Billmeyer, the Phillies' minor league catching coordinator, who served as his mentor. Billmeyer sought to learn Spanish while Ruiz sought to learn English, and the two bonded as Billmeyer helped mold Ruiz into an eventual top prospect and ultimately a starting catcher. In 2000, he came to America, progressing to play in the Gulf Coast League (GCL) for the GCL Phillies, and hitting .277 in 38 games. He earned another promotion in 2001, playing for the Lakewood BlueClaws of Class A Minor League Baseball. In 2001, his performance was similar in quality to his first two seasons, and he was promoted to the Clearwater Threshers of Class A-Advanced, with whom he played over parts of the next two seasons. He struggled at the plate in 2002, compiling just a .213 batting average in 92 games, but hit .315 in 15 games in 2003, and that year earned another promotion.
In 2004, Ruiz spent the entire season with the Double-A Reading Phillies, posting a .284 batting average and hitting 17 home runs, the latter of which was second among catchers in the Eastern League. In addition to his strong offensive numbers, he threw out 25 of 76 attempted base stealers (32.9%). Off the field, it was in 2004 that Ruiz first gained the original form of his nickname "Chooch". Though a quiet individual, Ruiz frequently muttered "chucha" (a strong curse word in Panama) under his breath, and teammate Anderson Machado thus began to address Ruiz as "chucha", which was later shortened to "Chooch", and the nickname's usage snowballed from there. His strong performance earned him another promotion in 2005 when he played for the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons, and posted a better batting average but fewer home runs than in Reading: .300, 4 home runs, 40 RBIs in 100 games. Before the 2006 season, he played for his native Panama in the first World Baseball Classic. His final season in the minor leagues was 2006. During 100 games, he hit .307 with 16 home runs and 69 RBIs, earning International League all-star accolades. He moved back and forth between Triple-A and the major league Phillies all year long, making his MLB debut on May 6, 2006.
Philadelphia Phillies
2006
Ruiz was first brought up to the major league level when Phillies' starting catcher Mike Lieberthal went on the DL in May 2006, and Ruiz debuted on May 6. When Lieberthal returned, Ruiz was sent back to the minors. When Lieberthal went once again on the DL in June, the Phillies used Sal Fasano and Chris Coste rather than recalling Ruiz. He was recalled on July 4, when he hit his first major league home run off San Diego Padres' pitcher Clay Hensley. He was optioned back to the minor leagues once more before his recall on August 31—essentially a September callup. Overall, with the big league club, he hit .261 with 3 home runs and 10 RBIs.
2007
Ruiz permanently joined the Phillies' roster on opening day 2007, after eight seasons in the minor leagues. He ultimately "grabbed hold of the top job [as starting catcher] and never let go". The Phillies signed Rod Barajas before the season because of concerns about Ruiz's ability to catch, hit, and generally hold up over a full season at the major league level, as seasons there are longer than in the minor leagues. During the season, he honed his confidence and earned the trust of the Phillies' pitching staff, including veteran Jamie Moyer, who commented, "I see a real assuredness to his body language. He's not cocky or brash. He just seems very confident in what's going on." On June 26, Ruiz stole home on the front end of a double steal in an 11–4 home win over the Cincinnati Reds, becoming the first Phillie to steal home since Scott Rolen in 1997. He eventually played 115 games over the season, and from then on was the Phillies' regular starting catcher. Statistically, he committed only two errors, which tied for second-best among MLB catchers with at least 100 games played. He had 27 multi-hit games, hit 6 home runs and 51 RBIs with a .259 batting average. At the conclusion of the season, he was named to the Topps All-Star Rookie Team.
2008
Ruiz entered the 2008 season focused predominantly on defense, specifically helping the pitcher:
Ruiz struggled to hit consistently throughout the season, specifically in the first half; from the beginning of the year until July 11, he hit .206 with 2 home runs and 20 RBIs. Nevertheless, due to his rapport with the pitching staff (pitchers' earned run average when throwing to him was 3.56, the best for any catcher in the National League), and a vote of confidence from manager Charlie Manuel, he was secure in his position. In late July, he had a multi-hit game against the New York Mets, which may have helped him break out of his slump. Ultimately, during the regular season, he hit .219 with 4 home runs and 31 RBIs.
Despite his struggles at the plate during the regular season, Ruiz was an integral part of the Phillies' postseason success. After the Phillies clinched the 2008 National League Championship Series, he commented that the glory of winning a crucial baseball game that clinched the series, which he had witnessed while growing up in Panama on television, "happened to me", noting the aura of the moment, and that it culminated and validated the hard work he had put in over the years. Subsequently, in game 3 of the 2008 World Series, Ruiz tapped a ground ball up the third-base line for a walk-off infield single, the first in MLB history. Ruiz noted, "I heard them cheering. And that's when I knew, 'Okay it's over' ... I'll take a win." The Phillies eventually won the World Series for the first time since 1980, doing so in five games, the last of which began on October 27 and ended on October 29 after it was suspended part-way through due to rain. For his performance in the playoffs, he earned the nickname "Señor Octubre" (Mr. October in Spanish).
2009
Initially, Ruiz elected not to play in the 2009 World Baseball Classic, but after receiving a call from Martín Torrijos, the President of Panama, he agreed to play for the Panamanian team. Early in the season, he suffered a muscle strain in his right oblique, which lost him playing time while on the disabled list. Also early in the season, there was debate as to who should be the Phillies starting catcher, Ruiz or Chris Coste. Rob Neyer summarized the debate and ultimately endorsed Ruiz when he wrote,
Ultimately, Ruiz was the regular starter. He finished the season on a hot streak; over the last 24 games, he hit .355 with 9 doubles, 1 home run, 11 RBIs, and .446 on-base percentage (OBP). In late September, he missed a week of games with inflammation in his left wrist. Despite his missed time, he started 100 games and set career highs in home runs (9) and base on balls (47), as well as posting a .255 batting average and 43 RBIs. Moreover, he walked more times than he struck out, a rare feat among modern major league hitters. In the postseason, he led the team with a .341 batting average, and recorded a .491 OBP, having reached base in each of the Phillies' 15 games, which perpetuated the usage of his nickname "Señor Octubre". Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote that Ruiz is "... the Phillies' Senor Octubre, a No. 8 hitter who hits like John Buck in the regular season, then turns into Johnny Bench come autumn."
2010
In 2010, Ruiz had a season filled with "indelible moments". He was catcher for Roy Halladay's perfect game on May 29, 2010, against the Florida Marlins and Halladay's no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds in the first game of the National League Divisional Series on October 6, 2010, the first time a catcher had caught two no-hitters in one season since 1972. On May 4, he hit a walk-off home run, the second of his career, to lead the Phillies over the St. Louis Cardinals. Ruiz spent time on the DL in late June and early July with a concussion, but according to manager Charlie Manuel returned with a more efficient swing that allowed him to hit better against power pitchers. He led the team with a .302 batting average and a .400 on-base percentage. Both statistics also led National League catchers, and he even received a few votes for NL most valuable player. During the 2010 postseason, he did not perform as well as in past years—in nine games, he hit .192 with two home runs and four RBIs. Fans voted Ruiz the "X-Factor Player of the Year" in MLB's This Year in Baseball Awards. He also received the Pride of Philadelphia Award from the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame. Halladay called Ruiz a "rock" behind the plate, and presented him with a replica of his Cy Young Award.
2011
Ruiz returned for the Phillies' 2011 season as their everyday starting catcher, and started 113 games, of which the Phillies won 70 (.619 winning percentage). In May, he spent time on the DL with inflammation in his lower back. Over the Phillies' final 36 games, he posted a .342 batting average. Overall, he finished with the best catcher's ERA in the major leagues (3.06), a .283 batting average, 6 home runs, and 40 RBIs. His batting average was second on the team trailing only Hunter Pence.
2012
Ruiz began the 2012 season strongly, and throughout the season was a bright spot on an otherwise disappointing team. Through June 27, he led the Major Leagues with a .364 average. This contributed to a stellar first half of the season earned him his first placement on the National League All-Star team. He was a reserve, though some analysts, including ESPN's John Kruk, felt his numbers warranted a starting nod, which ultimately went to the San Francisco Giants' Buster Posey through the fan voting. Shortly after the announcement that he was an all-star, a piece in The Philadelphia Daily News entitled "The evolution of Carlos Ruiz" summarized his career: "Ruiz, though, was never a major prospect. He was a reserve catcher before he was a starting catcher. He was a bottom-of-the-order hitter before he was a middle-of-the-order hitter. And now, for the first time in his career, Carlos Ruiz is an All-Star." After the all-star break, he spent over a month on the disabled list with plantar fasciitis, hindering his statistical totals, which at the time of his injury were among the best in the National League. He led all NL catchers in doubles, en route to posting a .325 batting average with 16 home runs and 68 RBIs, all of which were career highs. He finished 28th in MVP voting, the third consecutive season he had received votes.
2013
On November 27, 2012, Ruiz was suspended for 25 games without pay by the MLB for testing positive for an amphetamine called Adderall. The suspension of Ruiz was effective at the start of the 2013 season. Adderall is a drug prescribed for treating ADHD, described as a "central nervous system stimulant used to increase the attention span and decrease distractibility." He made his 2013 season debut on April 28 against the New York Mets at Citi Field. On May 20, he was placed on the DL with a Grade 2 strained hamstring. He came back with a four-hit game, which tied his career high, against the Los Angeles Dodgers on August 18, and hit .288 over the final two months of the season, commensurate with his past performance.
In the 2013 season, Ruiz compiled a .268 batting average, five home runs, and 37 RBIs in 92 games, his lowest major league total since 2006. After the season, Ruiz became a free agent. He re-signed on November 21, 2013, to a three-year contract worth plus a club option for a fourth season, giving the Phillies have an option to bring Ruiz back for a fourth season, at their discretion. Though one writer suggested his 2013 year might just have been an "aberration", most thought the Phillies overpaid to keep Ruiz, who turned 35 during the subsequent offseason.
2014
Before the 2014 season, he received an exemption from MLB to use Adderall, an exemption given to nine percent of MLB players despite only four percent of the American population diagnosed with the condition. After a slow start, Ruiz earned NL player of the week accolades in late April after he hit .500 during a Phillies' road trip. He sustained a concussion on June 26 that forced him to go on the disabled list; he began a rehabilitation assignment on July 17 with the Clearwater Threshers. On September 1, Ruiz was behind the plate for the combined no-hitter thrown by Cole Hamels, Jake Diekman, Ken Giles, and Jonathan Papelbon in a 7–0 victory over the Atlanta Braves. In 2014, Ruiz played 110 games batting .252 with six home runs and 31 RBI, and overall, had "a fine season ... [that] shouldn't get lost amid the many negatives." On October 1, 2014, Ruiz underwent a minor arthroscopic shoulder surgery.
2015
Cognizant of his increasing age and the wear catching places on one's body, the Phillies reduced Ruiz's workload during spring training, hoping to keep him fresh throughout the regular season. Regardless, he insisted upon catching pitchers' bullpen sessions so he could develop a feel and rapport with each pitcher. On July 25, Ruiz became the first catcher in the National League, and the second catcher in Major League Baseball history, to catch four no-hitters when teammate Cole Hamels no-hit the Chicago Cubs. Overall, Ruiz lost his starting job to Cameron Rupp, and had significant declines in many aspects of his game, particularly those at which he previously excelled, including framing pitches – in 2015, Baseball Prospectus ranked him worst in the league at doing so – and the mental aspect of the game, as he made several uncharacteristic errors.
2016
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Phillies traded Ruiz to the Los Angeles Dodgers on August 25, 2016, with cash considerations, for A. J. Ellis, Tommy Bergjans, and a player to be named later. The player to be named later turned out to be Joey Curletta. He backed up Yasmani Grandal with the Dodgers in September, appearing in 14 games and hitting .278. He was also two for four as a pinch hitter, with a two-run home run in the 2016 National League Division Series.
Seattle Mariners
Following the 2016 season, Ruiz was traded to the Mariners for pitcher Vidal Nuño. In a game against the Minnesota Twins, Ruiz pitched in the 8th inning, giving up one run and striking out Kennys Vargas for Ruiz's first career strikeout. On a July 7 game against the Oakland Athletics, while in the bullpen, he caught Nelson Cruz's 300th home run. On November 2, 2017, Ruiz elected free agency.
Player profile
Batting
Offensively, Ruiz developed from a "bottom-of-the-order hitter", to a patient hitter inclined to work the count, and finally to a hitter with solid gap-to-gap power. Ruiz has strong plate discipline that helps him draw walks and avoid strikeouts; he has almost as many walks as strikeouts over the course of his career, a rarity in the modern era of baseball. However, as his career progressed and he hit more towards the middle of the lineup, he has taken a more aggressive approach at the plate, and consequently he has struck out more often, but his home run totals have also increased. In 2014, his versatility and production at the plate encouraged his manager, Ryne Sandberg, to utilize him in various spots ranging from second through seventh in the batting order. At the prime of his career, he was among the best hitting catchers in MLB. Entering 2014, Ruiz had stolen only 16 bases over his first eight seasons; he had never been particularly fast, which initially caused his conversion from infielder to catcher, but because of his "hustle" on the basepaths, he won the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association Heart and Hustle Award in 2012.
Catching
When catching, Ruiz seeks to become "one" with the day's pitcher; he takes their successes and failures personally, refusing to blame pitchers, and accepts equal responsibility. Phillies pitchers trust Ruiz and his ability to call games, and this ability's improvement has coincided with his increased proficiency in English. Cole Hamels attributes Ruiz's prowess in calling games to astute preparation, commenting,
Ruiz realizes the importance of his role with the Phillies, opining, "It's the catcher's job to bring energy and happiness to the game." Ruiz has a good throwing arm that has improved over the years; over the course of his career he has thrown out 29% of attempted base stealers, which is exactly the average percentage of baserunners thrown out by catchers.
Playing style
A Sports Illustrated piece featuring Ruiz published in July 2011 encapsulated Ruiz's role as "heart and soul" of the team:
He is a favorite among Phillies fans, and crossed "a cultural moat that Hispanic players often can't" to endear himself to not only the fan base, but also his teammates. Before games, he humorously imitates teammates to help keep the team loose and relaxed, furthering his role as a leader. Overall, Ruiz "is a man who refuses to conceal his emotions", positive or negative, and serves as a constant source of encouragement and rebuke alike to his teammates.
No-Hitters caught
In 2015, Ruiz tied Jason Varitek for the major-league record of most no-hitters caught, with four. Ruiz was also the first catcher since 1972 to catch two no-hitters in the same season and the first to catch a perfect game and a no-hitter in the same season. The no-hitters caught by Ruiz all came during his tenure with the Phillies:
Roy Halladay: May 29, 2010, vs Florida (the 20th perfect game in major-league history)
Roy Halladay: October 6, 2010, vs Cincinnati (the second no-hitter in major-league postseason history)
Cole Hamels, Jake Diekman, Ken Giles, and Jonathan Papelbon: September 1, 2014, vs Atlanta (the first combined no-hitter since Seattle's six-man no-hitter in 2012)
Cole Hamels: July 25, 2015, vs Chicago (NL) (the first time the Cubs had been no-hit since Sandy Koufax's perfect game in 1965)
Notes
References
Sources
External links
1979 births
Living people
Clearwater Phillies players
Clearwater Threshers players
Florida Complex League Phillies players
Lakewood BlueClaws players
Lehigh Valley IronPigs players
Los Angeles Dodgers players
Major League Baseball catchers
Major League Baseball players from Panama
Major League Baseball players suspended for drug offenses
National League All-Stars
Panamanian expatriate baseball players in the United States
People from David District
Philadelphia Phillies players
Phoenix Desert Dogs players
Reading Fightin Phils players
Reading Phillies players
Seattle Mariners players
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons players
Tigres del Licey players
Panamanian expatriate baseball players in the Dominican Republic
2006 World Baseball Classic players
2009 World Baseball Classic players
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play%20School%20%28Australian%20TV%20series%29
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Play School (Australian TV series)
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Play School is an Australian educational television show for children produced by the educational department of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), based on the original British version created by Joy Whitby, with many of the presenters former school teachers, whilst others being a mix of well known stage and screen actors and musicians. It is the longest-running children's show in Australia and the second-longest-running children's show worldwide after British series Blue Peter.
An estimated 80% of pre-school children under six watch the program at least once a week. It is screened three times each weekday on ABC Kids, at 9 am, 11:30 am and 3:30 pm (from 7 July 2014) and twice daily each weekend at 9 am and 3:30 pm.
Play School was admitted to the Logies' Hall of Fame in 2006, the program's 40th anniversary year. It is one of only five Australian television programs to be inducted.
History
Play School premiered on 18 July 1966, with the first episode and was based on the British program of the same name. (The British version started in 1964 and ended in 1988; the show's format was then sold to Australia.) The first episode began transmitting that day, as the program was originally transmitted live. It has been produced continuously from this time. It has also launched the careers of several Australian actors and television presenters. It was admitted to the Logies' Hall of Fame on its 40th anniversary in 2006, in recognition of the strong influence the show has had on at least three generations of Australian children.
Play School was the third show to enter the Logies' Hall of Fame in its own right, after Four Corners (1992) and Neighbours (2005). It was also the first children's show inducted into the hall of fame.
During the 2006 Logie Awards, a package showing memorable scenes from the show throughout its history was shown, before notable presenters (from past and present) came onto the stage with some of the favourite toys from the show. After these presenters accepted the award, the audience then joined them for a stirring rendition of the Play School theme.
In 1992, a through-the-windows segment featured an early performance by the Australian children's musical group the Wiggles performing the songs "Get Ready to Wiggle" and "Rock-a-Bye Your Bear" at a day care centre.
On Monday 4 July 2011, Play School updated its opening titles using a combination of stop motion and computer animation with a new arrangement of the theme song sung by presenters Jay Laga'aia and Justine Clarke.
50th anniversary
In 2016, Play School celebrated 50 years on the air and had a month of celebrations.
To mark its 50th anniversary, from 4 July the program presented a series of cover songs called Play School Celebrity Covers.
List of covers
On 18 July at 6:30 pm, ABC also broadcast a special 50th anniversary Play School celebrity covers special that featured Hamish & Andy singing "There's a Hole in My Bucket"; John Hamblin, "I'm a Little Teapot"; Dan Sultan, "The Wheels on the Bus"; Molly Meldrum and Charlie Pickering, "Nursery Rhyme News"; Delta Goodrem, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" & "Moon Moon"; Benita Collings & Don Spencer, "Teddy Bears Picnic"; Josh Thomas, "Ning Nang Nong"; Annabell Crabb and Leigh Sales, "Singing in the Kitchen"; Guy Sebastian, "Singing in the Rain"; Magda Szubanski, "Old Mother Hubbard"; and You Am I, "One Potato, Two Potato". In 2020, all of the existing Celebrity Covers episodes were rebranded as part of a new spin-off series Play School Show Time, which features new celebrities singing covers of songs from the series.
On 8 July 2019, Aboriginal presenters Luke Carroll, Miranda Tapsell and Hunter Page-Lochard hosted a special episode featuring an Acknowledgement of Country celebrating Australia's first people, sharing knowledge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and highlighting the importance of caring for Country together. A new doll, "Kiya", was introduced to the program. Matthew Doyle played a digeridoo.
Spin offs
There have also been various spin-offs from Play School which have been played on ABC Kids, typically much shorter in duration. These include Little Ted's Big Adventure, Jemima's Big Adventure, Big Ted's Big Adventure, Humpty's Big Adventure, Maurice's Big Adventure, Joey's Big Adventure, Play School Story Time, Play School Art Time, Play School Nursery Rhyme News Time, Play School Art Crew, Play School Song Time, Play School Science Time, Play School Show Time and Play School Story Time: Languages.
Format
The format of the show is activities, songs and games with either host passing back to each other at the end of their segment, and frequently joining each other in activities. Each day the presenters look at the calendar to find out which day of the week it is, read a story, and look through the windows. From 1976 to 2000, they had a clock shaped like a rocket, and from 1966 to 2000, a clock shaped like a flower. Until 2000. The rocket clock was a popular addition to Play School in 1976 with its distinctive space and band music and the lights under the clock with colourful stars covered flashing and rotation to see what's behind the clock and reveal the diorama of the day. The coloured timbered Flower Clock appeared in 1975 with its two flower shapes and the pot under the clock going round and round. It was more vibrant than the original Perspex model and it was introduced along with the other changes to the Play School set to make most of the colour television which arrived in Australia the previous year. The windows looked almost exactly like their British counterparts with a few slight differences. They changed the background behind the windows from black to white at the end of 1967 and they then changed it to light blue in 1985. In 1987 Play School had a mild makeover for its 21st anniversary on air; there was a mild cosmetic revamp to the set, with a new set of opening and closing titles with a new version of the theme song sung by presenters, Philip Quast and Jennifer Ludlam. The windows also changed to look like to ones used on the British version of the show, but this change was not well received and the windows reverted to their old style by 1988, which remained until the major 2000 revamp.
In 1992 there was a set revamp with new shelving and coloured tree shapes in the background; this change was done about midway through the 1992 production season, with earlier 1992 episodes retaining the older 1980s set.
Every week there is a common theme running through the program that the actors reflect upon during the episode; themes include Dinosaurs, Opposites, Zoo Animals, Food, Clothes, Games, Art, Hair, Hats, Shapes, Road Safety and vehicles. Each theme (or block of five episodes) were repeated twice a year on average for a period of six to seven years, before it was recycled and reused in new episodes. As funding was limited, only 45 new episodes were made each year, which means that nine weekly blocks shown each year were new episodes, the rest repeats.
In 2000, the show had a considerable revamp, with the rocket and flower clocks and the three windows put in storage in favour of a newer-style Play School. The main clock was now simply called the Play School Clock, which was controlled by one of the presenters standing at the top of the clock and turning a winding device, which caused the clue to the story on the trolley to slide down a slippery dip from 2000 to 2003, some episodes include the toys inside the trolley along with a book. Then came the Hickory Dickory Clock which made its debut in 2001 featured clockwork resembling the "Hickory Dickory" nursery rhyme with a cat and the mouse running around the clock and then the mouse re-appearances as the little red doors under the clock opens. The Train Clock made its debut appearance in 2005 which resembles a train station with a clock above it and the Trains comes out of the tunnel and pulls up at the station with a clue to the story on the back of the train. In 2017, the Rocket Clock made a comeback, featuring sliding doors with a clue to the story. The windows were also heavily changed. They were now built into a large rotating prop which was built underneath the clock (shown one themed week “Messy”) and 'controlled' by one of the presenters pulling a lever back and forwards. The windows (now including a diamond window) would spin around and would slowly be eliminated as the window they would look through until they got to the fourth window and the camera would slowly zoom in and fade out into the fill. The order in which they appear is Square~Diamond~Round~Arched. That was soon replaced by windows with animation where Jemima stands next to the round window, Little Ted stands next to the square window, Big Ted stands next to the diamond window and Humpty stands next to the arched window and the window chosen goes through to pre-recorded footage. That was replaced by CGI craft-like animation where each window shakes with assorted theme tunes for the windows.
Music
Pianists
The program has historically had a musical director, who served as a pianist who played live music to accompany the presenters on each episode. Occasionally the pianist would make an on-camera appearance, one of the more well known being Warren Carr who served as musical director for over 20 years.
The pianists who have worked on Play School are:
Bill Antman (1966–1972)
Judy Bailey (1970s–1990)
Penny Biggins (1991–1994)
Warren Carr (1972–1993)
Peter J Casey (1996–2004)
Ron Creager (1998)
Peter Dasent (2000–present)
Rob Eastwood (2000) – after revamp
Max Lambert (1991–1999, 2004)
Paul McDermott (1991–1994)
Brian Castles Onion (2003–2009)
Lindsay Partridge (1994)
Elliott Wilshier (1994–1999)
Franky Valentyn (2000s)
Stuart Hunter (2014–present)
Theme song
The Play School theme song, "There's a Bear in There", was composed by Australian composer Richard Connolly, with lyrics by Rosemary Milne.
"There's a bear in there,
and a chair as well.
There are people with games,
and stories to tell.
Open wide, come inside;
it's Play School."
In 2016, the song was remixed by Andre Butterworth aka Copycatt as the winner of the Triple J Play School remix competition which, along with two other remixes by KLP and Jondrette Den respectively, appeared on the Play School album Famous Friends: Celebrating 50 Years of Play School.
In 2017, "There's a Bear in There" was inducted into the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry.
Albums
Hey Diddle Diddle (1976)
Hickory Dickory (1978)
Humpty Dumpty (1981)
Wiggerly Woo (1984)
There's a Bear in There (1987)
...It's Play School (1991)
The Best of Play School (1993)
Oomba Baroomba (1994)
Play School Favourites (1996)
In The Car (1997)
Hullabaloo (1999)
Favourite Play School Nursery Rhymes (2002)
Hip Hip Hooray (2002)
Sing-a-Long Songs (2004)
Let's Play Together (2011)
Come and Play 45th Anniversary (2011)
Big Ted, Prince of Bears (2014)
Favourite Things Songs and Nursery Rhymes from Play School (2014)
Play School: Jemima's Big Adventure (2015)
Once Upon a Time (2015)
Famous Friends: Celebrating 50 Years of Play School (2016)
Play School: 50 Best Songs (2016)
Very Jazzy Street Party (2022)
Awards and nominations
AACTA Awards
AIR Awards
The Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector.
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TV Week Logie Awards
ARIA Music Awards
AIMIA Awards
Toys
Big Ted (teddy bear) (1966–present)
Little Ted (teddy bear) (1966–present)
Hamble (plastic doll) (1966–1993)
Jemima (rag doll) (1966–present)
Humpty (white egg-shaped toy with eyes, nose and mouth, which resembles Humpty Dumpty) (1966–present)
Slush (toy pig) (1970s–present)
Maurice (teddy bear) (1987–present)
Meeka (plastic doll of possibly mixed Asian descent) (1993–present)
Dan (plastic doll of Australian Aboriginal descent) (2010s)
Jim (plastic doll of Australian Aboriginal descent) (1985–2000s)
Scrap (toy dog) (70s or 80s–present)
Diddle (toy cat) (1966–present)
Fergus (toy frog) (1994–present)
Sam the Lamb (toy lamb) (1980s or '90s–present)
Banana (banana-shaped toy wearing pyjamas, see also Bananas in Pyjamas) (1976–2010)
Daisy (toy cow) ('80s or '90s–present)
Henny Penny (toy hen) ('80s or '90s–present)
Goosy Lucy (toy goose) ('80s or '90s)
Kim (plastic doll and Lisa's twin brother which both of them are of Korean descent) ('80s or '90s–present)
Lisa (plastic doll and Kim's twin sister which both of them are of Korean descent) (80s or '90s–present)
Darcy (toy donkey) ('90s or 2000s–present)
Henry and Henrietta (toy mice)
Troy And Tony (twin teddy bears) ('90s or 2000s)
Owl (toy owl) ('90s to 2000s–present)
Tippy (toy duck) (2011–present)
Mukundan Jr (toy lion) (2000s or 2010s)
Fido (toy dog) (2000s to 2010s)
Joey (toy kangaroo) Designed by award-winning children's book illustrator Bruce Whatley and introduced in the 50th anniversary edition 'Come to the Party' tx 18 July 2016 by presenter Miranda Tapsell.
Kiya (doll of Australian Aboriginal descent) in an Acknowledgement of Country special for NAIDOC week 2019
Teachings
From the inception of the program, the producers of Play School have made efforts to promote equality, playful education, and a love of learning in its audience. Working on Play School has come to be considered an unusually demanding and important job for some actors, because they feel they are becoming part of a generation of children's lives and providing a foundation for learning things that will last for life.
Play School'''s stated philosophy is to encourage a child "to wonder, to think, to feel and to imagine". The duo (sometimes a trio when joined by hearing impaired actress Sofya Gollan) of presenters (now almost always a male-female pairing, but sometimes two females or two males) address the child directly and personally, so that every child watching the show feels that they are spending time with two people they know and can trust. Into this relationship are woven the stories, songs and activities that form the fabric of Australian children's culture.
Controversies
"Two mums"
On 31 May 2004, during a "through the windows" segment narrated by Brenna Harding, the sentence "My Mums are taking me and my friend Merryn to an amusement park." The clip was raised as controversial by sections of the media, and three federal ministers expressed dislike over the screening of the clip. The ABC responded, however, by saying that "Play School aims to reflect the diversity of Australian children, embracing all manner of race, religions and family situations." The producers of the segment also said the segment showed the girl being accompanied by her birth mother and her step mother (hence "two mums") and they believed most people would automatically assume the same. What was shown was taken by the public to be two lesbians taking their child and her friend to an amusement park.
Constructing a "bong"
A 2013 segment showed Alex Papps constructing some kind of contraption which involved a straw inserted through the side of a plastic bottle, which was then filled with hot water, accidentally resembling a bong. This controversy arose again in 2015, when the segment was replayed.
"Grooming" accusation
In October 2022, Courtney Act appeared on an episode of spin-off Play School Story Time, where she read The Spectacular Suit by Kat Patrick. Her appearance generated considerable media attention when Senator Alex Antic took issue with the ABC inviting a drag queen to read a book to children about a girl who favoured wearing pants instead of a dress, which he described in a Senate Estimates hearing as "grooming". Questioning ABC managing director David Anderson, Antic asked why the ABC was "grooming Australian children with this sort of adult content" and asking Anderson whether such content was contributing to a "gender dysphoria problem". Anderson denied this, while Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young accused Antic of using "deeply offensive" language. Act defended her appearance on Play School Story Time in an opinion piece she wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald and during an appearance on The Project.Logo historyPlay School has had a number of openers and logos throughout its long history. Originating as simple animations with vocals from select presenters, the logos and their respective openers have evolved over the many years of the series. The most recent logo, introduced in 2011, features an opener made entirely of stop-motion animation with vocals by presenters Justine Clarke and Jay Laga'aia.
Presenters
Australian musician Don Spencer is a noted presence on the program, having not only been a presenter for some 28 years but also releasing several related tie-in records. He also appeared with Diana Dorgan, the only presenter to appear on both the Australian and British versions, although Lorraine Bayly briefly appeared on the British version in 1972 as a storytellerPlay School has had many presenters, however several remained (or remain) with the series for a long period. Australian actress Benita Collings (30 years) and British-Australian actor John Hamblin (29 years) are the longest-serving.
The program's long-term hosts have also included: Alister Smart (25 years), Noni Hazlehurst (23 years), Andrew McFarlane, Simon Burke (20 years), Karen Pang (22 years) and Justine Clarke (21 years).
While the show is written by preschool education experts, the presenters are all well-known actors or musicians who can connect well with the target audience.
Current Presenters
List of former presenters
The cast of numerous presenters, has featured the who's who of actors of stage and screen and musicians
Note list is current to 2016, the 50th anniversary year, and may not reflect updated changes
Source:National Museum Australia (Link:)
See also
List of Australian television series
List of programs broadcast by ABC (Australian TV network)
List of longest-running Australian television series
Sesame Street Captain Kangaroo Play School (UK TV series) Play School (New Zealand TV series) Mister Rogers' Neighborhood Polka Dot Door Play Away Playdays Tikkabilla Zoom''
Notes
References
External links
1966 Australian television series debuts
1960s Australian television series
1970s Australian television series
1980s Australian television series
1990s Australian television series
2000s Australian television series
2010s Australian television series
2020s Australian television series
Australian television shows featuring puppetry
ARIA Award winners
Australian Broadcasting Corporation original programming
Australian children's television series
Australian preschool education television series
1960s preschool education television series
1970s preschool education television series
1980s preschool education television series
1990s preschool education television series
2000s preschool education television series
2010s preschool education television series
2020s preschool education television series
Black-and-white Australian television shows
English-language television shows
Television series by Endemol
Television series by Endemol Australia
Television shows set in Sydney
Australian television series based on British television series
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunellen%20station
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Dunellen station
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Dunellen is an NJ Transit railroad station on the Raritan Valley Line, in Dunellen, New Jersey. It is the only Raritan Valley Line station in Middlesex County. There is a ticket office and small waiting area at this stop. A simple station, there are two tracks with two small side platforms. The station is located on a high embankment.
Trains stop serving the station at midnight and resume by 5 in the morning. Automatic ticket vending machines have been installed along with an automated voice telling commuters when their train will arrive.
History
Grade crossing fight (1922–1950)
Since the opening of the railroad, the tracks of the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) crossed through the borough of Dunellen at grade level with roads. The borough began pressing the railroad to upgrade the tracks as early as April 1922, with complaints of the Washington Avenue (future CR 529) and Prospect Avenue crossings. Their complaint was that with the increasing traffic, the crossings were becoming unsafe for travel, and that the crossings were holding up traffic in Dunellen and nearby New Market. The citizens pressed the railroad to build a tunnel or a bridge for the two crossings in 1922 so trains, pedestrians and vehicles could all be accommodated properly. Residents pointed out in August 1922 that the project would cost probably $40,000 (1922 USD), compared to a project in nearby Westfield that cost $75,000. However, the borough noted that they could not afford such a financial project at that time. The railroad responded with the idea that a grade crossing removal could occur "someday," it was considered a project for the near future. The borough took the concept to the State Public Utilities Commission, but the commission would not act unless there was a petition by residents. The project halted to a standstill as a result.
The project started gaining life again in 1929, when the CNJ considered the work ready to start in 1931. The railroad, in the midst of completing projects in Cranford and Elizabeth of similar types, the railroad determined that Dunellen would be soon after. Involved in the construction would be two new depots for the borough (one westbound, one eastbound) and a chance to beautify North Avenue (NJ 28). By March 1935, the project proposal expanded to four grade crossings, including the ones at Grove Street and Pulaski Street. However, nothing came about of this until 1937, when the borough appeared at the State Highway Commission. Mayor Joseph Morecraft, Jr. and Councilman Edward J. Hannon would testify that the state should pay the money to remove the crossings, giving the borough financial assistance for the cause. Hannon noted the continued increase of accidents at the crossings and that the railroad is not responsible by law for doing such a thing.
The next attempt for eliminating the grade crossings came in 1943, when the Board of Public Utilities told the borough that the project was under consideration. The borough sent a communication letter to the board in June 1942 that they had been dealing with them since 1935 on such a project. The board stated that the project would cost $2.45 million (1943 USD), but that the project would have to be held for post-World War II consideration, along with many others. Lovecraft considered the letter a step in the right direction as it was written evidence that the cause was being considered. By April 1946, borough leaders had become anxious for the project to continue, and pressed the board to why a proposal for an elimination in Manville would be heard by the board, but not their request. In May 1946, the Board of Public Utilities Commissioners told the borough that they had no funds for the project. The project, whose cost now ballooned to $3.6 million (1946 USD), was 50% higher than the original total. The board noted that there were no federal funds available and no money in their budget. The board told Dunellen that any movement would not be in the immediate future.
In 1947, the borough sent two members of the planning board, Morecraft (now a freeholder for Middlesex County), and a secretary to a meeting of the State Planning Board at the Stacey–Trent Hotel in Trenton. The secretary, James Collins, noted that the project could continue with two of the now five grade crossings being eliminated (Washington and Prospect Avenues). Anxiety continued into 1948. At a continued standstill, new mayor Alvah Skinner approved a borough request in March 1948 to appeal to the Board of Public Utilities once again. This time, a committee chaired by Councilman William T. Piddington noted that the lack of a grade crossing removal has stifled economic development south of the tracks in Dunellen. However, the PUC declined citing that the railroad had a poor financial situation. Fed up residents in January 1949 began action with the Dunellen Lions Club handing out petitions to sign for the board to take up the Dunellen project. By March 11 the petition amassed 1,500 signatures from local residents fed up with the constant buck passing. Spokespeople from the Lions Club noted that the railroad causes Dunellen to lack in safety, business and expansion. They noted that every community between New York City and Bound Brook had their grade crossings and that Dunellen had the right to theirs. Meanwhile, Piddington considered an alternate option in August 1949 of widening Washington Avenue to four lanes to reduce the volume of traffic when trains ran at the crossing.
The voices of residents became louder in 1950. In March 1950, the Dunellen Planning Board and Middlesex County Planning Board came together and promised action. E.P. Wilkens, the chair of the County Planning Board, was told to relay this to his colleagues. Local resident J.Y. Wilson gave a proposal that Dunellen be presented in the most positive way possible to the Public Utilities Commissioners. However, other members also stated the best approach would be to continue to pressure the board. They felt that Dunellen had not done enough in terms of pressure on both the CNJ and the board to make progress. The Planning Boards also determined that the best cause of approach would be to elevate the tracks, rather than build a tunnel, as originally proposed in 1922. In April, the two boards agreed to a study for the removal of the grade crossings. James Collins, the chair of the local one, agreed that Wilkens and him agreed to the study. However, the prospects were looking dim again by early June, when the president of the CNJ sent a letter to the Middlesex County Planning Board that proposed instead of a grade crossing removal, just going with automatic gates. Mayor Albert Roff noted that the borough would oppose any proposal that was not complete grade elimination. Roff also noted that the study was still underway, and no changes would be proposed without sitting down with Dunellen representatives.
On June 20, 1950, the borough council joined the fight once again to continue the grade crossing elimination. The council offered to take the lead on the project, with the two Planning Boards willing to follow them. An agreement would be made to meet with the Public Utilities Commissioners once again, knowing that the CNJ now had the money for such a project. Residents continued to complain in 1950, when the Courier-News, a newspaper based in Plainfield, inquired with residents about the situation. By now, Morecraft stated that the Grove Street and Washington Avenue crossings were of utmost importance, despite the need to remove four of the crossings. Morecraft noted that the funding would be split mostly by the state of New Jersey and the railroad. However, by that point, the Board of Public Utilities Commissioners once again delayed any action.
Death of William Pangborn and action (April 1951)
At high noon on April 3, 1951, a CNJ drill train hit 17-year old William Pangborn, 15-year old Wilburn Forner, and Robert Reuter, killing Pangborn instantly. The three boys were at the Washington Avenue grade crossing, waiting to cross once a freight train heading westbound passed through. At the time of the accident, the three boys were standing between the tracks and the undermanned crossing gates. Reuter told the Dunellen Police Department that none of the boys heard the drill train on that track due to the loud noise of the freight train that passed through around the same time. The drill train, consisting of a locomotive and two freight cars, was on its way out of the nearby freight station. While the railroad men claimed the train was going only , there was speculation to the truthfulness about that due to Pangborn's death and Forner being injured when he was blindsided by the train. The train derailed after the accident, nearly striking a semaphore signal, and resulted in the crossing gates. Washington Avenue and the tracks were blocked for an hour while the car was rerailed around 1:10 pm (16:10 UTC).
Chief Joseph Tarpey of the Dunellen Police Department noted that the conductor and the engineer of the drill train told authorities that the drill train locomotive had no whistle. Tarpey stated that Reuter had told him that they heard no whistle from the drill train. Tarpey told the media that he questioned the grade crossing watchmen on duty, who had not heard anything of an accident. The upset chief noted that the fact that the railroad workers were only on the eastbound tower, making it impossible to see the teenagers on the westbound side. Tarpey asked the workers if they would remedy their actions by having more people staffed, in which they stated they would inquire with their bosses. However, the extra workers stationed at ground-level only work during rush hour (5–7 pm) on a daily basis. Tarpey also told the press that this accident was similar to one in 1942 when a 14-year old was struck by a train at the Pulaski Street crossing. Roff noted that the accident would continue to spur the battle for the elimination of the grade crossings and that he had spoken to Chief Tarpey about what to do about the situation.
Forner was taken to Muhlenberg Hospital in Plainfield with shock and injuries from the train, while Reuter telephoned his parents to take him home, uninjured but shocked. On April 6, Pangborn's funeral was held at Runyon's Funeral Home in Dunellen with family and classmates watching as the body of the Dunellen High School junior was taken out to the waiting hearst. Pangborn's body was brought to Lake Nelson Memorial Park.
Outrage over the accident was immediate. The Dunellen Lions Club, who amassed signatures for a petition in 1950, called an immediate meeting to deal with the problem on April 6. They told the press that the petition from 1950, affixed with over 2,200 signatures brought a letter from the Public Utilities Commissioners that stated they tabled the manner. The Lions Club also looked into the ideas of either building a crosswalk bridge, such as the one at Fanwood–Scotch Plains station or moving the station further east away from Washington Avenue. Meanwhile, Dunellen borough officials found out in a closed session on April 5 that the cost to build new elevated track system skyrocketed to $15 million. This new proposal included eliminating all the grade crossings in Dunellen (Washington, Prospect, Grove and Pulaski) along with Rock Road in Plainfield. This new project would be 85 percent funded by the state of New Jersey with the railroad chipping in the final 15 percent. A. C. Tosh, the vice president of the CNJ told the borough officials that they are in support of removing the grade crossings through Dunellen and would support the borough in their demands.
Meanwhile, the railroad also informed that they would look at changing the approach of freight trains coming through the area. Previously the trains would depart a roundhouse in Dunellen involving a crossover track near the Washington Avenue crossing. The roundhouse, just east of Washington Avenue, fueled about 20 trains a day that would block Washington and Prospect Avenue's grade crossings. However, the trains that were stored at the roundhouse also had 12 cars on average in the back, which would cause the trains to be so long when backing up that the trains reached the Grove Street crossing. As a result, the Washington Avenue crossing would be blocked for as much as 17 minutes at a time in the early morning, causing traffic tie-ups. Chief Tarpey told the railroad and the borough that it is in violation of state law, which allowed no more than a five-minute blockage. In response, the railroad would consider moving the crossover track to the east of Washington Avenue in order to prevent this. At the same time, the borough requested that watchman be on site during the time when schools let out to ensure safe crossing.
Dunellen officials sent a letter to Governor Alfred E. Driscoll for their assistance, noting the lack of progress since 1948, when the borough was told that no money was available. Roff, Morecraft, Collins, Tarpey and Dunellen High School Principal Walter A. Miller, Jr. all attended the meeting, where Roff noted that a public meeting would be held on April 9 at the school about what to do. At that meeting, Roff hoped that residents would sign a new petition to be sent to the Public Utilities Commissioners. Residents also complained that the schools should make sure there were adequate items of food available at the cafeteria so students would not have to go home for lunch (as the three students were doing at the time of the accident) or that Dunellen police were on hand to ensure their safety at grade crossings. The Dunellen Parent-Teacher Association noted that they would also attend the next borough council meeting to ensure the safety of the students.
On April 6, the Dunellen Elks Club demanded a grand jury investigation about the railroad accident, including a resolution that the borough continued to protest the lack of action on the parts of the state and the railroad. The resolution continued that they would demand the aid of Driscoll and the railroad to eliminate the crossings that they considered a hazard to public safety to pedestrians and vehicles. The resolution also demanded that the Middlesex County Prosecutors Office lead the approach for a grand jury, and that this resolution would be sent to the railroad, the state, the governor and the Prosecutors Office. As part of supporting it, the Lions Club agreed to send demands to Middlesex County members of the New Jersey State Assembly and New Jersey State Senate. Mayor Roff noted that at least 20 organizations had signed the grand jury resolution and the borough would go farther if the Middlesex County Prosecutors Office did not listen to demands. Roff stated that if they were ignored, they would send a group to the office in New Brunswick and demand it.
By April 9, no response had been received from Driscoll and the Plainfield Courier-News wrote a long piece on the history of the problem in Dunellen. In that piece, the newspaper reported that a proposal did exist 40 years prior to the accident in raising the tracks similar to the tracks through nearby Middlesex borough. This involved a proposal establishing a bridge over Washington and Prospect Avenues. However, this never occurred. At the same time, they outlined the accident in 1942 which cost the child on his bicycle his life at the ungated Pulaski Street crossing along with an accident in 1949 when a soldier tried to crawl between two stopped freight cars and had his leg cut off in the process. Another problem with the crossings was also about to occur with the reopening of Camp Kilmer. With the camp reopening, more military vehicles would be required to use the grade crossings in Dunellen, fueled by a traffic light at the junction with North Avenue (Route 28). The newspaper also noted that the nearby Art Color Printing Company fueled a lot of traffic at the crossings when workers left work for the day. Civilian officials noted that the effectiveness of officials in case of a disaster would be limited due to the grade crossings.
At the public hearing on April 9, Roff backed up his demands, noting that a group of citizens would be attending the Public Utilities Commission hearing. Roff also stated that he would form a group of citizens to head to Trenton if their voices were not being heard. The Parent-Teacher Association demanded that Miller and the Dunellen Board of Education deal with a way to figure out how Whittier School students do not have to cross the railroad tracks. Another resident, George Block, noted that the borough should be ready to press the railroad to force a 30 mph speed limit of trains through Dunellen. Someone in the audience suggested a wooden bridge over the tracks, but this was declined due to the possibility of students falling from the bridge. A child also noted that on her way to school, the watchmen would also let them around the gates when the 8 am train is sitting at the crossing.
Public hearings and approval (May 1951–June 1952)
On May 7, Roff approved an emergency appropriation of $1,000 (1951 USD) to study the grade crossings in Dunellen in order to get the data necessary for another appeal to the Commissioners. Each crossing would be studied for 18 hours a day. They would study the amount of traffic at each of the crossings (car, truck and pedestrian) and then they would have 10 days to report to council. Roff stated that he felt the tide was shifting in the borough's favor with a decision coming quick. In the meantime, James Markle, a fellow councilman reported that he and the police department were succeeding to have the police stationed at the North and Prospect Avenue intersection to meet students of the Whittier School for safe crossing of the tracks. Walter Miller, who supported the proposal, also was helping with the cause by stationing himself at the intersection. The police and Miller also enforced the end of jaywalking and the high school students supported the cause and ceased doing so.
By June 19, the borough was set up with the data for a hearing with the Public Utilities Commissioners set for June 27. Roff presented the Dunellen Borough Council a booklet for the presentation, which included the previous 25 years of accidents, including 11 deaths, at the grade crossings. Roff also announced a public hearing in advance of the state hearing for June 22, when they would present this to the public. The hearing would involve the crossing elimination committee appointed by the mayor. This included Morecraft, Miller, Piddington, Markle and borough attorney Henry Handelman. The hearing with the Commissioners would be held in Newark at 11 am on June 27 at 1060 Broad Street. The day before the meeting with the Commissioners, Middlesex County Prosecutor Matthew Melko announced that no criminal actions would be filed against the railroad for the April 3 accident. Melko noted that the students were in their location illegally, leading to that decision.
One June 27, the hearing was held with Roff, Miller, new Police Chief Norman Schuyler, Fire Chief Walter Runyon and members of the borough council in attendance. Handelman handled the case from the view of the Roff-appointed committee on the crossings. Schuyler told the Commissioners about a time when they were held at the crossing for 23 minutes on their way to a man injured in a local factory. Miller's approach involved talking about how over 1,600 children use the crossing each day to get to and from school. Runyon noted that the police had no ability to continue to handling the 250 feet of backups involved with each train movement. Schuyler also noted that a police officer had to detour all the way to Clinton Avenue in Plainfield just to get to an emergency due to the tie-ups. Morecraft and Wilkens also testified on behalf of the borough. The Commissioners decided to hold another meeting on September 26 in which they would have studied all the data, details and plans for elimination. At that meeting, representatives of the CNJ would also be present with plans. At the next Borough Council meeting on July 2, Roff noted that he was pleased with the decision of the Commissioners to continue to study the data and hoped that the railroad and the borough agreed on plans by the September 26 meeting.
However, on October 1, 1951, Roff addressed the borough council that the meeting was postponed from September 26 to November 14. On November 14, the meeting was held, where a proposal was outlined by the railroad. The new proposal, costing $6 million (down from $15 million), would eliminate all four grade crossings in Dunellen and the Rock Road crossing in Plainfield. Doing this would build a proper grade for a span of from Mountain Avenue in Middlesex Borough to the Clinton Avenue station. The tracks would be raised from the at-grade level and the roads would be depressed , resulting in the creation of clearances for vehicle traffic. Grove and Pulaski Streets would be barricaded rather than given their own underpasses, like Washington and Prospect Avenues. The railroad would also move the location of the Dunellen train yard. Roff stated at the hearing that they were in agreement with the railroad on the plans. The railroads would continue hearings on December 12.
However, this meeting was postponed until February 6, 1952, because of a Plainfield complaint about having to build an extra bridge to facilitate train storage for two extra tracks. The CNJ President, Earl Moore noted that in order to work on the elimination of the Dunellen grade crossings, they would need to expand the Plainfield freight yard for passenger cars. This would mean construction of an extra bridge over Richmond Street in Plainfield for two ior more extra tracks in order to facilitate the yard expansion. The railroad would not build a new roundhouse as the diesel engines would be stored outside and there would be no car servicing. The proposal noted that there was room for the extra tracks without needing extra land. The railroad and the city agreed that a new bridge could be built across Richmond Street at a later date to replace the older one.
However, the February 6 meeting also met a postponement. This time, the railroad wanted approval to reduce services at the Dunellen, Grant Avenue and Clinton Avenue stations because of the yard expansion. Due to this, 11 trains would now begin at Plainfield station. The second proposal dealt with the Richmond Street bridge, an long structure with a clearance. The request was made to widen the existing bridge or else a traffic bottleneck would be created at Richmond Street that would be hazardous to the safety of drivers. The Plainfield group also changed their request mid-discussion, adding all bridges within the city. Despite objections from Dunellen, the Commissioners determined that the Plainfield group had the right to be heard.
The new hearing, held on February 20, noted Plainfield's objection to the reduction of service (now seven trains) to their Grant Avenue and Clinton Avenue stations. (Dunellen had approved the reduction in trains.) The railroad and the PUC noted that if it was that big of an issue, that trains that express pass Dunellen and Grant Avenue stations could stop there to make up for the lost trains. The CNJ also noted that they investigated moving the yard west of Dunellen, but was too expensive. Plainfield objected, stating that constructing the new bridge would cost $230,000 (1952 USD), $23,000 less than building a new yard and constructing a new bridge at Richmond Street. After the objection, the PUC adjourned to make a decision on the matter.
On June 19, 1952, the Board of Public Utilities Commissioners approved the decision for the elevation of tracks through Dunellen. This new project, which would cost $6.7 million and take three years, would have to be finished by June 1955. In addition to the abandonment of the Dunellen railroad yard, the new railroad design would allow for two elevated platforms at Dunellen station. Rock Road in Plainfield would also have a high clearance. The railroad was ordered to not curtail any service to the three stations, and the proposal for wider bridges through the city of Plainfield was denied. The Richmond Street bridge, however, was approved. The railroad was ordered to bring the board contract forms, construction plans, and contract documents by February 28, 1953. Roff responded to the announcement, thanking everyone, including his deceased predecessor Alvah Skinner, for their work towards the goal of eliminating the grade crossings in Dunellen. He noted that traffic going through the crossings, amounting to 8,800 on average daily, would no longer have to deal with all the backups.
Construction (June 1952–1955)
In approving the grade crossing elimination project, the Public Utilities Commissioners and the railroad assured that they had enough funds to pay the $6.7 million needed. As originally proposed, the state would fund 85 percent and the railroad would pay the final 15 percent. They noted that they had to decline a project in Passaic to do the same thing because it would have wiped their budget. The only concern would be a steel industry strike or military use for steel, which was an unknown. At the same time, the railroad abandoned the extra guards at the crossing that had been there since after the accident. In October, the CNJ demolished the roundhouse in Dunellen, constructed in the 1870s, due to the increased use of diesel engines by the railroad.
In March 1953, the CNJ and the borough of Dunellen came together to work on selling the site of the railroad depot. The railroad wanted to sell the site for private development and let out bids in March. The high bid was $83,150 from William Piness of Plainfield. Representing a group of investors from Passaic, Piness wanted to use the site, right now a parking lot, for construction of a series of one-level commercial buildings. The land being offered also had a Sunoco gasoline station and a building for Dunellen Taxi. Roff and Collins met with the railroad on the land, given the right to refuse the offer. The borough officials felt the land would be better served for developers as the borough did not have enough money to purchase the land outright.
In late March, the state sent out bids for a new signal tower in Plainfield. With bids due by April 23, the new structure would be a three-story brick tower with dimensions of 17'x40'. The new tower's proposals would be available on March 30 to make bids with. In April, the city of Plainfield issued a permit to construct a new signal tower for the yard in Plainfield. Located at 411–413 Cottage Place, the new structure would cost $30,000 (1953 USD). The tower construction began in August, replacing the tower at Berckman Street in Plainfield.
In July, J.F. Chapman and Son, Inc. began work to construct the grading and filling from Middlesex Borough to Plainfield for the new tracks of a temporary main line for the CNJ. This new mainline would be three tracks, with the contractor receiving 97¢ per cubic yard of filling and 79¢ per yard of excavating. In August, the Construction Service Company of Middlesex took the bids on constructing the new bridge over Richmond Street. The steel work was contracted out to Bethlehem Steel and construction would begin in September. By this point, the new grading was finished for the new passenger yard in Plainfield, which was nearing completion By September, the works for a new eastbound station depot in Dunellen were still in the design phase with the construction to begin around April 1954. No guarantees were made for a new station on the westbound side of the tracks.
On January 5, 1954, Chief Schuyler noted that Washington Avenue would be closed to traffic that day and on January 6 between the Art Company and North Avenue for workers to install a temporary right-of-way for trains to get through. Joseph Morecraft, taking back over as mayor in 1954, fielded complaints about lack of parking with the construction, but stated that he expected patience with the construction going on as a temporary inconvenience. He also noted that the borough was looking at buying the lot on the south side of the tracks for a new parking lot. On February 23, the railroad got permission from Plainfield to begin construction of a new bridge over Rock Road, with a slated construction beginning in October 1954.
On February 16, 1954, the New Jersey Superior Court heard the lawsuits of the Pangborn and Forner families versus the CNJ. The families were looking for $145,000 combined in their lawsuits. Testifying on behalf of the family included William Forner, who stated that his injuries affected his schooling. On February 18, Judge Ralph S. Smalley awarded $22,800 total to the two families for victim compensation, in favor of the railroad. As a result, the Pangborns got $15,000 while the Forners got $7,800 for the injuries and legal fees. Despite the plaintiff's attorney, Stanley Greenfield, arguing that the railroad should have given proper warning to the oncoming drill train, the judge agreed with the kids being illegally within the gates.
In May 1954, the signal tower for the Dunellen passenger car yard, built in 1905 and located between Rock and Washington Avenues, was razed for the project. By that point, the temporary tracks were almost complete. In June, the railroad handed out a contract to J.F. Chapman and Sons, totaling $584,770 to do the grading and filling for the new right-of-way through Middlesex, Dunellen and Plainfield after constructing the original temporary right-of-way. They also handed out a contract to Construction Service Company to build the abutments, culverts, walls and bridges for the new crossings. This contract totaled $1,095,400. On September 1, the Rock Avenue crossing was closed for the construction, followed by the Washington Avenue crossing on September 8. Both were to remain closed until the construction of new bridges were complete. Once the Washington Avenue project would finish, the Prospect Avenue crossing would close.
The first girder for the new railroad bridge at Washington Avenue went in on September 13. At that point, they announced two of the new tracks would go into service after November 15, with construction on the third track starting in March 1955 and being finished by June 1, 1955. On January 24, 1955, the first train, a Raritan Clocker, crossed the Washington Avenue bridge and entered Dunellen station. By this point, basic work on all five grade crossings were complete enough for train service. The railroad, state and local dignitaries held a banquet for the occasion on the trip to Raritan station. However, regular trains would not begin using the new tracks for two weeks as the railroad had to continue to install switches, which was being hampered by the weather. They noted that when the switches were done, the westbound and center tracks would be removed from grade-level completely, leaving the eastbound ones only. The full tracks were opened on March 3 with the Raritan Clocker, with the intent to rip up the old rails in September. On September 29, 1955, the railroad closed the grade crossings through Dunellen and Plainfield. By this point, the new railroad station in Dunellen was 75 percent completed, with the intent that a fourth track would be graded in.
On December 3, the railroad announced that the new station in Dunellen would open on December 10. The old depot, considered a fire hazard, would be replaced by a new elevated structure. The railroad planned a new gala for the opening of the station with Morecraft among the dignitaries at the celebration. On December 10, Morecraft cut the ceremonial ribbon to open the station, which was attended by 100 people and the Dunellen High School band. The new station had a tunnel between the westbound and eastbound structures, along with a ticket office and restrooms in the eastbound depot. Morecraft informed the crowd that the paving would be completed in January 1956, with the Rock Avenue bridge included. Despite that, the announcement was made by the railroad on December 11 that the Washington Avenue underpass would open on December 16. However, Morecraft noted on December 14 that the Prospect Avenue underpass would not be completed until Christmas Eve of 1955.
Station layout
The station has two low-level side platforms serving two tracks. The inbound platform is long while the outbound platform is long; both can accommodate four cars.
Bibliography
References
External links
world.nycsubway.org - NJT Raritan Line
Washington Avenue entrance from Google Maps Street View
Prospect Avenue entrance from Google Maps Street View
NJ Transit Rail Operations stations
Railway stations in Middlesex County, New Jersey
Former Central Railroad of New Jersey stations
Railway stations in the United States opened in 1840
Dunellen, New Jersey
1840 establishments in New Jersey
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Hotel Moskva, Belgrade
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Hotel Moskva (; ; ) is a four star hotel in Belgrade, one of the oldest currently operating in Serbia. The building has been under governmental protection since 1968. Originally operating as a 36-room inn within the multi-purpose Palace Rossiya, whose almost three-year construction and January 1908 opening represented a major investment of the Russian Empire in the Serbian economy, Hotel Moskva eventually expanded its facilities to take up the entire palace.
Location
Hotel Moskva is located on the Terazije square in Belgrade's downtown core, administratively part of the Stari Grad municipality. It lies at the intersection of three streets: Terazije, Prizrenska, and Balkanska. Its location on top of Terazijska Terasa provides a wonderful skyline view of Novi Beograd, across the Sava river.
The entire area of Terazije is abundant in underground streams, causing major problems for large scale construction projects in the area, including the hotel, nearby Palace Albanija, and the underground passages below Terazije. Today, there are still 11 active water springs underneath Hotel Moskva.
History
In the late 1890s, during the Obrenović royal house rule—specifically King Alexander I's—in the Kingdom of Serbia, the empty plot of land at Terazije where Hotel Moskva is located today, was sold cheaply by the Belgrade municipal authorities to local merchant Boško Tadić.
By the early 1900s, together with his wife Stana, Tadić completed a simple one-story family house on the plot. At the time, the Terazije plateau around the house was lined with large chestnut trees that provided nice shade over a small open market where market sellers from Zemun, across the Sava river in neighbouring Austria-Hungary, as well as peasants from the Belgrade outskirts came to sell their produce. In essence, the open market was an upper town outpost of the larger Zeleni Venac open market located several hundred meters down nearby Prizrenska Street.
Velika Srbija inn
After Tadić's passing, his wife Stana inherited the property. Known around town as Stana Boškova (Boško's Stana), she immediately sold the property to the Arilje-born Marjanović brothers, Bogosav and Miloš, well-known restaurateurs who had already owned and managed several kafanas throughout Belgrade. Additionally, Bogosav Marjanović was revered as a veteran of the Herzegovina Uprising, which he voluntarily joined in 1875, fighting under the command of Golub Babić. The brothers quickly turned the family house into an inn, eventually naming it Velika Srbija—reportedly after the eponymous informal co-operative made up of regular guests from the Marjanovićs' other kafanas. Branislav Nušić, a famous writer and regular of Belgrade kafanas, wrote that the name had actually been suggested by another kafana regular Stanislav Kaćanski because it was the gathering spot for "Serbian gentlemen to drink bermet and feed on patriotism". Yet another regular at the Velika Srbija inn's kafana was Stevan Sremac, distinguished writer who reportedly spent many late nights there and even modified his work schedule at his professorial job in a Belgrade gymnasium so that he can sleep late in the morning.
By 1902, the Marjanovićs sold the inn to merchants Mitar Vranković and Nikola Vučković who in 1904 flipped it to Svetozar Vukadinović, former director of the Serbian Shipbuilding Company who had just returned to Serbia following an exile of sorts. Born in 1860 in Novi Sad, Austria-Hungary in a staunchly nationalist Serb household of priest Jevtimije "Jevta" Vukadinović, young Svetozar moved across the border into Serbia where he became an administrator in various shipbuilding companies before being forced into exile due to running afoul of King Milan I Obrenović's pro-Austrian economic policies. During his exile Vukadinović spent time in Russia, as well as in Austria-Hungary just across the border in Novi Sad and Zemun, waiting for the right moment to return to Serbia. That moment eventually came following the June 1903 Obrenović overthrow.
Though he bought the centrally located Velika Srbija, ambitious Vukadinović had no interest in running an inn. Instead, he travelled back to Imperial Russia looking to parlay his newly acquired Belgrade property into a larger business venture. Calling on his Russian connections, Vukadinović managed to get some interest from Roman Ivanovich Poitzl of the Rossiya insurance company about enabling the company to enter the Serbian market via opening a branch in Serbia. They additionally agreed an ambitious project of building a luxurious multipurpose palace in place of Vukadinović's inn that would serve as the branch headquarters.
In 1905 they requested architectural design proposals for a future palace to be submitted to the panel consisting of two architects from Saint Petersburg, famous Vienna architect Otto Wagner, and Belgrade architects Andra Stevanović and Nikola Nestorović. Backed by the Russian architects and Otto Wagner, the design by the Zagreb-based architect Viktor Kovačić (1874–1924) got selected, with the Belgrade-based architect 's (1857-1917) design supported by Stevanović and Nestorović coming in second. Still, the Rossiya's directorate eventually picked Ilkić, bringing him over to Saint Petersburg in order to continue working on the design along with Russian architects. How much of Ilkić's original design was changed in Saint Petersburg is unclear, but according to art historian Draginja Maskareli, the fact that the original construction plans have been signed by Rossiya's chief architect Pawel Karlovich Bergstresser (1851-1920), as well as the fact that Moskva's final facade contains elements of Saint Petersburg secession, it is reasonable to assume that there were changes.
Construction of the Rossiya Palace
The construction began in March 1905. Sheer size of the project attracted many Belgraders who gathered daily around the construction site, watching the excavation and laying of the foundation.
Right away, the project ran into unexpected problems when it was discovered that the soil under the Velika Srbija inn is full of hardened loam as well as underground springs and subterranean streams, creating additional budgetary needs. Eighty-two wooden beams, 5m in length and 30 cm thick, were placed in the palace's foundation followed by 30 wagons of boiling iron in 9-meter long rods, and 10 wagons of hard Ripanj stone. A 2.2m thick concrete panel was then placed over the foundation. The brick-laying had not started until spring 1906. The construction work was performed by the civil engineer and the bricklayers from Crna Trava while the supervising engineer was the project design architect Ilkić himself. Reinforced concrete part of the job was managed by architect Matija Šnajder. The surface of the outer walls from the second floor to the roof was lined with yellowish tiles decorated with green-coloured ornaments.
The ceramic lining was brought in from the Zsolnay factory in Pécs, Austria-Hungary. The tiled façade starts from the first floor and spans to the roof. The tiles are yellowish, with green embellishments. The casts used to mold these specific tiles is kept in the factory to this day. The upper part of the hotel's façade was laid with a maiolica decorative relief titled 'Glorification of Russia', featuring an image of Roman god Neptune, symbolizing Imperial Russia's yearning for maritime dominance.
Ilkić's design employed a Secessionist style with skillfully incorporated ancient Greek elements, quite daring for that time, giving Belgrade—a city of around 70,000 inhabitants—a modern face during the transformation it was undergoing at the turn of the century. The most impressive feature, even at first glance, is the smooth and shiny façade, made of ceramic tiles.
Upon construction, Hotel Moskva inside the Palace Rossiya had only 36 hotel rooms.
Grand opening
The Rossiya palace (in Serbian: Palata Rosija) was finally opened on Tuesday, 14 January 1908 as the biggest privately owned building in Serbia at the time. Its importance to the country was evidenced in the fact that it was personally opened by King Peter I of Serbia. Another part of the opening ceremony was held three days later on Friday, the 17th of January with the King's Guard, the Royal Serbian Army's most elite unit, staging a concert.
In addition to Hotel Moskva, the palace housed a kafana, an exclusive restaurant serving specialties from the French and Serbian cuisines, numerous apartments for rent, and the Rossiya insurance company's Belgrade branch headed by Svetozar Vukadinović. The insurance company branch consisted of administrative offices on the first floor (one floor above ground) while the teller windows and offices were on the ground floor.
Surrounded by structures of one or two stories, the sheer size of Palata Rosija dominated the skyline of Belgrade, a city of some 70,000 inhabitants at the time. As evidenced by the Russian diplomat 's observations in his book Balkan Memories, looking at the city from across the river Sava in the late 1900s and early 1910s, three structures clearly grabbed immediate attention — the Saborna church with its bell tower, the Royal palace with its three domes, and now also the Rossiya palace.
Politika, the Serbian newspaper of record, pronounced Palata Rosija "the most expensive and the most beautiful Russian house in the Balkans".
The palace was also a significant political statement, providing yet another example of King Peter I Karađorđević's and prime minister Nikola Pašić's turning of Serbia's foreign and economic policies towards the Russian Empire and away from Austria-Hungary. Its opening took place in the middle of the so-called Pig War, a bitter economic showdown initiated by the Austro-Hungarian imposition of a customs blockade on the import of Serbian pork, Serbia's chief export at the time. Austria-Hungary decided to punish Serbia for steadily moving out of Austria-Hungary's geopolitical sphere of influence ever since the 1903 May Overthrow when the Karađorđevićs re-took the Serbian throne from the toppled ruling house, the Obrenovićs, who had been Austrian clients for decades prior.
Right away, the palace's tenants began moving in — on 31 January 1908, the Russo-Serbian Club settled into its new offices. They were followed by Novo vreme, a newspaper published by Vladislav "Vlajko" Savić, taking its spot at the palace's fourth floor. Later that year, the newly founded Narodna Odbrana housed its Belgrade branch in the Rossiya palace.
In 1909, Rossiya insurance company decided to lease out Hotel Moskva and the kafana inside the Rossiya palace to Mehansko-kafanska zadruga, a local hospitality co-operative headed by Danilo Guteša who put Luka Ćelović in charge of running the hotel's and kafana's day-to-day operations.
Being a Narodna Odbrana member as well as a Novo vreme correspondent, famous Serbian poet Jovan Dučić spent a lot of time at the Rossiya palace. The 18 December 1909 Novo vreme issue wrote of an incident in Hotel Moskva's lobby that saw Dučić punch , a professor at one of Belgrade's gymnasia. Unsurprisingly, the newspaper's piece was sympathetic to their correspondent, stating that his punch occurred as a consequence of Odavić's repeatedly confrontational and aggressive behaviour.
On 23 February 1910, Serbian Olympic Club (OKS) was founded in the fourth floor offices of Novo vreme at the Rossiya palace with the newspaper's publisher Vlajko Savić and the Serbian Army captain Svetomir Đukić leading the new committee. A memorial plaque at the entrance into the hotel commemorates the event. Similarly, the Journalists' club and the Writers' club both moved into the palace.
Interbellum (Kingdom of Yugoslavia period)
The hotel had a role in the post-World War I Serbian literary scene. Arriving in 1919 to a war-ravaged city that still didn't have a fully restored electrical grid and water supply, novelist Miloš Crnjanski described Belgrade as being "wrecked and ugly—full of holes, ruins, weeds, uncertainty, sensational political events, and returning writers from all corners of the world". Crnjanski proceeded to establish Grupa umetnika, a small but enthusiastic collective of writers, painters, and musicians eager to provide the city with a new beginning in art and culture. They did not form a coherent school or movement, but their meetings, discussions, and polemics over the nature of art provided an engaging and stimulating atmosphere for a younger generation of Modernist writers amidst the Belgrade post-World War I ruins. In addition to Crnjanski, the group that gathered the pre-war and post-war generations featured Sima Pandurović, Rastko Petrović, Stanislav Vinaver, Ivo Andrić, Momčilo Nastasijević, Stanislav Krakov, , etc. They met in Hotel Moskva's kafana, because, according to Crnjanski, it was the only place with light.
With the Bolshevik-led October Revolution taking place, putting an end to the Russian Empire and eventually giving birth to Soviet Union, the relations between the newly established communist state and the also newly founded Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes led by the same royal house, the Karađorđevićs, rapidly cooled. With the disappearance of the Russian Empire, Rossiya insurance company went away too. Hotel Moskva was thus taken over by Poštanska štedionica (Postal Savings Bank), a recently established local financial institution.
On 1 October 1923, Poštanska štedionica bank opened its very first counter window at the palace. In 1938 the palace was taken over by the National Bank of Yugoslavia.
In 1937, a submission by Romanian architects won the city-announced competition on the re-arrangement of the entire Belgrade downtown core from the Theatre Square to Terazije. The plan envisioned demolition of both Hotel Balkan and Hotel Moskva as well as the formation of a monumental park that would extend below the hotel, down the Terazije Terrace. However, two years later in 1939, the newly passed Belgrade general urbanistic plan restored the 1923 project by architect Nikola Dobrović who also envisioned a park, but without demolishing the hotels.
Leon Trotsky stayed at the hotel while the French linguist and historian wrote a poem about the hotel, "Moskva, the giant house". The 1938 French film Ultimatum — directed by Robert Wiene and Robert Siodmak, and starring Dita Parlo and Erich von Stroheim — was filmed in the hotel.
World War II: Gestapo HQ
In spring 1941, with Kingdom of Yugoslavia invaded and quickly conquered by Nazi Germany before getting carved up into several Nazi client states, Gestapo moved into Hotel Moskva, transforming it into its headquarters. Not liking its references to Russia, they also renamed it Hotel Velika Srbija, after the original inn.
All throughout World War II, the headquarters had their own power generators and even water sources independent of the city supply in addition to elevators and wide basement facilities. The hotel was one of the last Belgrade buildings to be liberated in October 1944 when the Soviet Red Army stormed the occupied city. During the Nazi German occupation, the hotel's original master's paintings, silverware and gold-plated utensils were looted and taken away.
Nationalization: The communist period
The hotel re-opened on 20 October 1945, the first anniversary of the Red Army's liberation of Belgrade from Nazi control. Its name Hotel Moskva was officially reinstated as well. Initially—together with Hotel Mažestik and Hotel Avala—the hotel was handed over to the Putnik tourist agency that began managing its day-to-day operations. With the nationalization of Putnik, Hotel Moskva was also officially nationalized by being placed under the control of the office of Marshal Tito (Maršalat) along with Marshal's residences throughout the Yugoslav republics.
In the post World War II period, the hotel went right back to being the cultural elite's favourite congregation spot. Yugoslav Nobel laureate in literature, Ivo Andrić, who lived right around the corner at 9 Prizrenska Street ever since his 1941 return to Belgrade, had his own table at the restaurant. Poet Vasko Popa was a regular visitor who frequented the hotel's cafe for decades on a daily basis — his daily ritual consisted of arriving every day at 3:30pm, drinking his coffee and staying until 6pm.
With the post-war influx of people from Montenegro into Belgrade, the hotel cafe's summer patio also became a favourite hangout for the Montenegrin newcomers to the city. The perception that being seen drinking coffee while hanging out amongst the cultural elite at Hotel Moskva was an instant seal of approval, endured for decades.
In the early 1970s, the hotel underwent an extensive publicly funded renovation. Among the individuals participating in the project was the architect , a White Russian émigré who had been living in Belgrade since 1921. Among the various additions, he adorned the building's hallways with stained glass featuring motifs from Russian fairytales as well as stone mosaics with personal impressions and memories of Moscow and Russia before immigration to Yugoslavia.
In 1974, the hotel restaurant added a poslastičarnica (locally customized version of a cakery or pâtisserie) as part of its offering. Among the various cakes introduced on the occasion was , a fruitcake containing almonds, sour cherries, pineapple, and Petit-Beurre, that quickly became popular and remains one of hotel's staples until present day. The original Moskva šnit recipe, that had in the meantime been trademarked, was put together by the restaurant's then pastry chef Anica Džepina. As reported in early 2015, every day a piece of Moskva šnit gets ordered by between 200 and 300 patrons of the hotel's restaurant while some one thousand whole cakes get delivered monthly to home addresses.
Re-privatization
In August 2005, the hotel's umbrella legal entity, state-owned Moskva a.d., had its 82.83% purchased by the Belize-based off-shore investment fund Netwest Finance represented by Serbian businessman Mile Dragić for €11 million. Right away on 13 September 2005, the hotel's new owners decided to start trading the hotel's shares on the Belgrade Stock Exchange as HMSK.
At the July 2006 shareholders meeting, it was agreed to seek out a brand name partnership by hooking up with an established global brand. Specific brands being mentioned were Four Seasons, and one of the Marriott brands such as Ritz-Carlton, however, nothing came of it and Moskva continued as a standalone hotel.
Around the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in May 2008, the timetable for Hotel Moskva's renovation, expansion, and possible upgrade to the five star hotel was announced. Expansion plans included building of a garage, congressional hall, and a shopping mall.
Throughout 2009 and 2010, four years after its re-privatization, the hotel finally underwent extensive renovation — from April until September 2009, the side facing Balkanska Street was refurbished, both internally and externally, with new furniture, wallpaper, drapes, curtains, bathrooms, flooring, and electronic locks. From the fall 2009 until April 2010 the same was done with the side facing Terazije.
Famous guests
Hotel Moskva is a four star hotel. It is the only hotel in Belgrade that has no room or an apartment number 13. It had over 36 million visitors in the past 100 years, including celebrities like Serbian Field-marshals Živojin Mišić and Petar Bojović, inventors Mikhail Kalashnikov, Nikola Tesla, Mihajlo Pupin, Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein, chess players Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, athletes Carl Lewis, Jose Mourinho, Vujadin Boskov, Luís Figo, Novak Djokovic, Michael Jordan, Kyrie Irving, Tiger Woods, actors like Robert De Niro, Kirk Douglas, Milla Jovovich, Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, Julia Roberts, Alain Delon, Tom Hanks, Audrey Hepburn, Pierce Brosnan, producers like Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Miloš Forman, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Emir Kusturica, Jean-Luc Godard, politicians like Nikola Pašić, Rajiv Gandhi, Yasser Arafat, Indira Gandhi, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Richard Nixon and others, singers and tenors like Luciano Pavarotti, Yves Montand, Ray Charles, Bob Geldof, Serge Gainsbourg, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, writers like Maxim Gorky, Orson Welles, Rebecca West, Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, Ivo Andrić and many others. The pictures of the famous visitors are in a hotel hallways.
In fiction and popular culture
Hotel Moskva has been depicted or referenced in various works of music, film, and literature.
Miroslav Krleža's NIN Prize-winning 1962 novel Zastave features several references to Hotel Moskva. Set in the Balkans during the turbulent 1912–1922 period, it follows the lives and fates of some 20 characters; each of them of different profession, pedigree, and financial means, but from the milieu of Serbian, Croatian, and Hungarian intelligentsias. At one point, one of the main characters decides to take a peek into Hotel Moskva's kafana where, as he says with contempt, "wet tobacco is smoked" and "Byzantine intrigues are drawn up".
Klopka, a 2007 neo-noir film set in the post-Milošević Serbia exploring how far is a financially strapped father willing to go in order to come up with funds for his ill child's surgery, features a key scene in Hotel Moskva's cafe where the mysterious man played by Miki Manojlović makes an offer to the sick child's father played by Nebojša Glogovac of paying for his son's surgery in return for the man carrying out an assassination.
See also
Tourism in Serbia
References
Sources
External links
Moskva
Moskva
Art Nouveau architecture in Serbia
Moskva
Kingdom of Serbia
1906 establishments in Serbia
Cultural Monuments of Great Importance (Serbia)
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P-Square
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P-Square is a Nigerian Music duo, consisting of the twin brothers Peter Okoye and Paul Okoye, who co-write and co-produce much of their records. Noted for their artistic reinvention, musical versatility, and visual presentation, they are widely regarded as one of the most influential African Acts of all time and one of the most successful African Music Group internationally. They were integral to the evolution of the 2000s and 2010s African popular music. The duo was launched into the mainstream recognition following the release of the song “Senorita” in 2003, and later gain much wider recognition after the release of their sophomore album “Get Squared” in 2005. The success of the album earned them a nomination at the MTV EMA Best African Act in 2006. A prominent figure in the Africa popular culture of the 21st Century, P-Square was awarded the honorary "artistes of the decade," for their cultural impacts in the music industry between 2005-2015, at the MTV Africa Music Award 2015.
After the disbandment of the dancing and singing group they formed in the late 1990s, Peter and Paul subsequently founded 'P-Square'. In 2001, they won a talent show and signed a record deal with Timbuk2 Label where they released their debut album in 2003. They later founded their own label and released the following albums: Get Squared, Gameover, Danger, Invasion and Double Trouble. "Gameover" Album which explored multiple societal themes such as Love, Regret, Assurance and Political Criticism, sold over 8 Million copies worldwide. It is the only 2000s project from Nigeria to have surpassed 30M streams on Spotify, and has been considered a timeless body of work by music critics. Some of P-Square songs include "Personally," "Chop My Money," "Beautiful Onyinye," "Alingo," “E no easy“ "Shekini," "Do Me," “Temptation,” "Bring it On," “Testimony,” "Bizzy Body," and "Gimme Dat."
In 2011, they signed a record deal with Akon’s Konvict Music. P-Square has sold more than 40M Album records as of 2011. The duo was nominated for BET Awards, Soul Train Awards, MTV Europe Music Award, MOBO Awards and they have won KORA Awards, MTV Africa Music Awards, and Channel O Music Video Awards . They were also the first Nigerian to peak at top 5 on SNEP - French official chart and top 10 on Ultratop - Belgium official chart in 2012 with the French Version of “E no easy” featuring Matt Houston. The song was the First Afrobeats Summer hit in France.
They have been referred to as the “Best African Group” by Forbes Africa consecutively. They have appeared on the Forbes Lists of the 40 most powerful celebrities in Africa. In 2021, the duo reunited after their disbandment in 2017. They returned with the single 'Jaiye' and have announced their Reunion Tour and their forthcoming album.
History
1981–1999: Childhood and Career Beginnings
The twins Peter Okoye and Paul Okoye, though originally from Anambra, were born on 18 November 1981 in Jos, to Josephine Okoye - a pastor, and Pa Moses Okoye - a businessman. Peter and Paul, together with their siblings: Jude, Mary, Tony, Lilian and Ifeanyi Okoye, were raised Catholics, with Christian values.
They became interested in performing arts while attending St. Murumba College, a Catholic School in Jos. They were involved in the school music and drama club and began singing and dancing, while drawing inspiration from artists like Bobby Brown, Michael Jackson, and MC Hammer. Also while in school, they formed an A cappella quartet that eventually morphed into a more pop-oriented dance crew in which they developed choreographed routines. Their artistic talent and precise dance routine soon made them household names in the city of Jos, where they performed at school functions and other occasions.
Inspired by the success of Nigeria's team at the 1996 Summer Olympic in Atlanta, they dabbled in an unsuccessful footballing career at ‘Pepsi Football academy,' in Jos. They played alongside Mikel John Obi at the academy, who was in the junior team then. They would later form a music and dancing group called ‘smooth criminal’ in 1997. By 1999, they had added keyboards, bass, drum, and guitar to their skills. Their works include the soundtracks for a number of films like Tobi, Mama Sunday, Moment of Bitterness and Evas River. Despite their parents hope for them to aim for a career in academics, Peter and Paul remained committed to their musical journey.
They later went to do their diploma programs at the University of Jos. After which they proceeded to University of Abuja for their degree program in 1999 to study Business Administration.
2000–2004: Breakthrough with Last Nite
‘The Smooth Criminals’ group disbanded when its members left to various other universities. Subsequently, Peter and Paul formed their own group, variously called "Double P", "P&P", and "Da Pees", until they eventually settled on "P Square", a name given to them by a friend of theirs called Richard. They later signed a management deal with Bayo Odusami, a seasoned concert promoter. Around the same time, P-Square won a Nigerian talent competition "Grab Da Mic" in 2001, and hence Benson & Hedges sponsored their debut album. Peter stated, “ I think it was one hell of an opportunity for us then. We were still in our first year at the University of Abuja in 2001 when we were informed about the competition in Jos. We were already popular in Abuja and bought the form. We came tops out of 38 artistes that participated. We took the first position and eventually represented the Northern Zone in the Abuja final where we won again out of the 22 artistes that took part in that show. At the finals in Lagos, we became the overall winners which made Benson and Hedges offer to launch our album.” The album titled “Last Nite” was released under Timbuk2 music label in 2003. Though with a modest success, the album, garnered the duo a nomination for ‘The Most Promising African Group’ at the KORA Awards 2003 and won the 2003 Amen Award for Best R&B Group.
2005–2006: Mainstream success with Get Squared
In May 2005, the duo returned with their sophomore album, Get Squared, released on their own Record label “Square Records”. A breakthrough success, the album spawned several hit singles, which includes, "Bizzy Body," "Temptation,” “Omoge Mi,” and “Say Your Love.” Get Squared album was the start of real commercial success for the twins and it became one of highest-selling albums of 2005. Bangers such as “Bizzy Body” and “Get Squared” became nationwide hits. “Oga Police”, spoke about police brutality from the viewpoint of a young Nigerian. “Temptation”, was about a ladies' man. The album's opener “Story” reenacts the traditional African storytelling setting where children gather around an elder and listened intently. The success of the album earned them a nomination at the 2006 MTV EMA awards for the Best African Act. P-Square won 5 awards in a night at the maiden edition of the Headies Awards in 2006, then known as the Hip Hop World Award in the following categories: "Best R&B/Pop Album," "Album of the year," "Best Music Video," "Song of the year," "Artistes of the year."
2007–2008: Continent-Wide Success with Gameover
In May 2007, P-Square released their third studio album, "Gameover". In the album, P-Square embraced a stylistic shifts and a new musical direction that was very remarkable, due to the album's usage of Nigerian rhythms and melodies. It received the most critical commercial reception in comparison to their debut and sophomore albums. The album sold over 8million copies Worldwide. Gameover boasts of several hits like “No one like you,” “Roll it,” “Ifunanya,” and the lead single “Do Me” - which featured vocals from Sultry Soul singer Waje. "Do Me" became a massive pop anthem few days after release that clubs, music shows, parties and other fun places won't be lit without it. In the publication of the Red Bull's Editor, Jessica Kariisa, She wrote, "The album's bright and bouncy single 'No One Like You' would go on to service many a wedding reception dancefloor across the continent and diaspora, but it was the sleek bop 'Do Me' that solidified the twins as Afropop stars." Riding a wave of their widespread reception, the duo released an accompanying 'game over' video album in 2008. The first of its kind in the industry. The success of the album won them the “Best Group” at the MTV Africa Music Awards 2008, and were nominated for the “Artiste of the year,” “Best Video,“ “Best Live Performer,” and “Best R&B” in the same awards. They also won the “Best Group” at the 2007 Channel O Music Video award and ‘Do Me’ won the “Best Video” at the same award. They were also nominated at MOBO Awards for the “Best African Act,” in 2008.
2009–2010: Evolution with Danger Album
In the 2009 CNN documentary on Nigerian Music, Christian Purefoy, revealed how P-Square have sold multiple arenas across Africa in late 2000s. He said “...Having conquered Africa, P-Square are now planning a tour in America and Europe. Building on their success in Africa, the Nigerian Artistes are hoping the stage is set to take on the rest of the world”
In September 2009, P-Square released their fourth studio album “Danger.” It was supported by Hits like “E No Easy,” - featuring J martins, “Gimme dat“ “Danger,” - which interpolated Eminem's "Without Me" and “Possibility” - featuring 2face. In an interview with Busola Afolabi, P-Square talked about the album, they said “For the first time, P-Square did an experiment which is bringing a kind of song that doesn't exist in Africa and we were happy when we heard it was number two in the African top 10 countdown. Also for the first time, we did a ‘Collabo’ with 2Face. Africans demanded for it, so we decided to give it to them. We are now matured, it is not like the “Do me I do you” song, this is more of facing the real life. We tried to portray the African side of women and their pride. So it is the maturity in it that stands it out.”
The album earned the duo some international accolades, include being the first Nigerian artiste to be nominated at the BET Awards for 2010 Best International act. They also won the 2010 KORA Awards “artistes of the year,” becoming the second Nigerian Artiste to win the category Since Femi Kuti in 1999. P-Square missed the event due to their tour in London. However, the KORA's award plaque and its cash reward of $1M were received by the President of Burkina Faso at the event, he would later present the award to P-Square at his presidential villa.
In 2010, P-Square embarked on their first American tour. While on the tour they had an international media tour with an American talk host - Wendy Williams. They were asked who they would like to collaborate in America, Peter stated, “...we would love to work with Michael Jackson, we wish he was still alive”. They also cited Bobby Brown and MC Hammer as musical inspirations.
2011–2012: The Invasion and International success
On 29 July 2011, P-Square released their fifth studio album “Invasion”. The album's theme which focuses on love, wealth, success, and nightlife, is composed of R&B, reggae,hip hop, europop and contemporary highlife sounds. The album featured guest appearances from Tiwa Savage, Naeto C, Waje, May D, Eva Alordiah, and Muna.
In other to celebrate the launch of their new album and their illustrious career so far, P-Square hosted the Invasion concert, in collaboration with Flytime Entertainment. The show which held in Lagos was graced by some Notable Nigerian Personalities. The Red Carpet at the event include: Lagos state first lady -Abimbola Fashola, Jay Jay Okocha, Kate Henshaw, 9ice, Sound Sultan, Tiwa Savage, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, Ikechukwu, Segun Bucknor, Stephanie Coker, AY, Nse Ikpe Etim, Uti Nwachukwu, DJ Jimmy Jatt , Seyi Shay, J martins, Waje, Daddy Freeze, Darey, Toolz, Weird MC, Ebuka Obi Uchendu, Davido, Munachi Abi and Bovi.
In August 2011, P-Square headlined 'Afrobeats Festival' at the Apollo Hammersmith in London. The event was organized by Cokobar, Phoenix Media and Smade in association with Choice FM. According to Bella Naija, "It was the first African event in the UK to sellout a 5,000+ capacity venue with over 3,000 people attempting to get last minute tickets at the venue." PM Entertainment gathered that P-Square was used to headline the concert by the organisers due to popular demand for the twin brothers in the UK.
In December 2011, they signed a record deal with Akon's Konvict Muzik label. The affiliation with the label, coupled with their subsequent distribution deal in 2012 with Universal Music SA added to the international success of the ‘Invasion’ Album. The lead singles ‘Chop My Money’ and ‘Beautiful Onyinye’ later gained international attention in 2012 following the remixes of Akon and Rick Ross respectively. Henhouse Prowlers, American bluegrass band, covered the single ‘Chop My Money’ in their album.
In the same year, P-Square was featured in the Forbes List of ‘The 40 Most Powerful Celebrities In Africa’, among those who have exerted the highest degree of influence in contemporary African pop culture.
In April 2012, they collaborated with the French singer, Matt Houston in a French version of their 2009 hit song ‘E no easy’ retitled ‘Positif.’ The song spent 29 weeks at top 5 on SNEP - French official chart and 16 weeks at top 7 Ultratop - Belgium official chart respectively. The song was the first Afrobeats summer hit in France 2012. The success of the song boosted P-Square's visibility in the Francophone Countries. The English version was played in Paris during a celebration by the 2012 French Olympic team.
In August 2012, P-Square returned with ‘Alingo’, it was produced by pappy J and was directed by Jude Okoye and Clarence Peters. It won ‘Channel O’ and ‘Headies’ Best Music Video of the year in 2013.
2013–2014: Double Trouble groundbreaking
In 2013, P-Square paid homage to their musical idol in ‘Personally’ video. The song was produced by Vtek. The video featured cameo appearance from Nollywood Veteran, Osita Iheme. Three days after the music video dropped, they got a call from the Jackson's Family, who sent them an appreciation video through Jermaine Jackson . In his speech of compliments, he said, “It's not everyday that a phenomenal band comes along...P-Square, they are absolutely sensational, with their singing and dancing it kind of remind me of being in the Jackson 5...”
“Personally" earned P-Square a nomination for Best International Performance at the 2013 Soul Train Music Awards, becoming the first Nigerian Artiste to be nominated at the Soul Train Awards.
In March 2013, P-Square collaborated with Nigerian Veteran Musician Lagbaja in a song titled ‘Unlimited’, to create the theme song for one of Nigeria's leading telecommunication giant, Glo.
In February 2014, P-Square launched a family-oriented animated series – “The Alingo's“. The name was inspired by their song “Alingo“. In description of the series, Vanguard News wrote, "It is a project from P-Classic Entertainment, a company aimed at producing television contents and animation. It is creatively driven by Peter Okoye. The show aims to be the first high quality animated series from Nigeria."
On 7 September 2014, P-Square unveiled the release date for their sixth studio album. The album which was scheduled to be released on 12 September 2014 was titled ‘Double Trouble‘ and had already 3 released singles; "Ejeajo" which featured the Sensational American rapper, T.I., "Shekini" and "Bring it on." Double Trouble featured bonus tracks of Testimony, Personally and Alingo with guest appearance from Don Jazzy, T.I, Dave Scott, Awilo Longomba, and Jermaine Jackson.
The captivating tune "Bring it on" portrayed how one should not give up, even in difficult times. The catchy single ‘Shekini’ which dominated the airwaves in Middle East and North Africa, had some of Arab acts like Black Cats and Arash sampling the song. "Shekini" provided the catalyst that helped the duo to break into Arab world market.
In September 2014, they kicked off their double trouble world tour.
2015–2016: Mawazine Festival and Artiste of the decade
Omar Es Saidi, a Moroccan Radio personality, who spoke exclusively to Saturday Tribune during the All African Music Awards acknowledged P-Square. He said, “Moroccans, four-five years ago, did not know about Nigerian music. But we decided to introduce Nigerian music with Psquare, Dbanj and others. I don't know how else to tell you, but Nigerian music is a big success in Morocco. Psquare is a big star in Morocco. Festival Mawazine is one of the biggest festivals in Morocco. Psquare was booked to perform at the festival in 2015. It was a huge success.”
In March 2015, it was announced that P-Square would co-headline the annual Mawazine International Music Festival in Morocco, Alongside Jennifer Lopez, Pharrell Williams, Akon, Usher, Maroon 5, and Placebo. This would make P-Square the first Afrobeats artistes to perform to over 100,000 spectators at the event since it was founded in 2001.
In July 2015, P-Square was awarded the honorary “Artistes of the Decade” at the MTV Africa Music Awards 2015, for their cultural impacts in the music industry.
In August 2015, GLO partnered with Peter of P-Square on a TV competition dance show called #DanceWithPeter, which was broadcast on Africa Magic Urban, AIT, TV3, ORTB & MTV-Base Africa. It was intended to bring dancers and entertainers from around the world to showcase their talents for prizes. Kelvin Ayanruoh emerged the winner taking home the following rewards: Toyota RAV 4 SUV, N3million cash, and an opportunity of featuring in P-Square's next music video.
In the same year, P-Square announced their 2015 summer tour in USA/Canada, during the tour they met with the ROC Nations boss, Jay Z and his cousin Bee-High in their Tidal's New York Office for a business deal.
In March 2016, Psquare co-headlined the main statge at the Pal Mundo world festival - the biggest Caribbean and Latin Music Festival in Netherlands, alongside the "Suavenmente" Crooner, Elvis Crespo.
In the same year, there was rumors of the Twin Brothers Peter Okoye and Paul Okoye going their separate ways. However Peter's Personal manager refuted the rumors that the twin brothers are still together, he said, “Peter is still very much with his brother, Changing his name to Mr.P has nothing to do with breaking up with his twin brother or going solo.” The Duo's Publicist, Bayo Adetu, also maintained that there is no official statement regarding the viral rumors from the public.
In September 2016, P-Square later made a comeback with a catchy song titled ‘Bank Alert.’ It features cameo appearances from Veteran Musician Onyeka Onwenu and Nollywood Veteran, Mr. Ibu.
2017: The Split
In February 2017, P-Square released the sensational song titled ‘Away,’ with its accompanying music video.
In September 2017, they cancelled their ‘USA/Canada tour 2017’ amidst of rumors of another rift between them.
In the same period, Peter of P-Square indicated his intention to cancel his contract with the ‘P-Square Brand’ He stated in his letter to their lawyer, “What I am about to do has been a very difficult decision to make. I have decided to use this medium to terminate the agreement between Psquare."
2018–2021: Solo Careers
The group later disbanded to pursue solo music careers behind their pseudonyms RudeBoy (Paul) and Mr. P.(Peter). The duo, undeniably, had bankable solo careers.
Mr.P ( Peter) had successful singles like ‘Ebeano,’ “Look into my eyes,” “Just Like that,” and “One more night.” He also dabbled in acting in the 2018 drama, Genevieve Nnaji's “Lionheart,” and more recently in the Netflix original “Shanty Town.”
Rudeboy ( Paul) also had a desirous musical solo career. He had successful singles like “Reason With Me,” “Woman,” “Together,” “Ayoyo,” “Double Double,” and “Audio Money.”
In 2021, they released their solo debut album titled “Prodigal,” by Mr. P and “RudyKillUs,” by Rudeboy.
In November 2021, the duo put an end to their years-long falling-out. In a viral video, their elder brother and manager Jude, could be seen warmly celebrating his twin brothers.
2022– present: Reunion Tour and Album
In May 2022, the duo announced their reunion world tour, which is scheduled to kick off on 5 August 2022 and come to an end on 10 December 2022. They toured several cities in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia (Dubai).
In September 2022, P-Square made a fiery debut at the Royal Albert Hall, London, with Dbanj, Awilo Longomba, Alaye, Weird MC as guest artistes.
In May 2023, P-Square disclosed to the CNN Reporter Larry Madowo, in an interview of their forthcoming album.
Artistry
Vocal Style
P-Square possesses Tenor and Contra-alto voice type, with a range spanning from G#2 - D5.
"Beautiful Onyinye," "No one like you," “I Love you,” “Forever,” "Omoge Mi," and "Bring it on", e.t.c, are some of the songs P-Square have demonstrated their vocal dexterity.
Influences
P-Square has cited Bobby brown, Michael Jackson, and MC Hammer as musical inspirations. Peter stated, “...We were like a group; Paul, my elder brother Tony and I, we found ourselves miming the songs of MC Hammer, Bobby Brown and others but the main singer to push us a lot was Michael Jackson.”
Musical style
P-Square music is a fusion of R&B, Hip Hop, Afropop & Dance Pop. Their musical style is generalily characterized by big budget videos, love focused lyrics, relaxed rhythms, evocative and dance-floor ready music. In an interview with Wendy Williams, Paul stated, “ P-Square's most dance and club songs come from Peter, and I am into mid tempo and love songs. While the concept for our Video directions comes from Jude.”
Stage and Videos
P-Square's Stage Performances have been receiving praises and accolades by spectators and critics. Besides incorporating singing and dancing into a stage presence, they also thrill audiences with their mastery of playing multiple musical instruments.
P-Square has received accolades for their big budget and game-changing videos such as “Temptation remix (2006)” and “Do Me (2008)”. They always maintained that shooting quality videos have been an advantage to their career transformation.
Endorsement
In August 2010, P-Square signed a multi-million naira endorsement deal with Glo as the Ambassadors for the telecom company.
P-Square would later collaborate with the Nigerian Veteran Musician, Lagbaja in 2013 to create a theme song titled 'Unlimited' for the Telecommunication giant.
Legacy
Having debuted in 2003, P-Square has made a profound impact on African Popular culture and beyond, with their Music, Visuals, Performances, and tours.
Forbes included P-Square on its 40 Most Powerful Celebrities in Africa in 2011, acknowledging their commercial dominance.
P-Square was awarded the honorary “Artiste of the Decade” at the MTV Africa Music Award 2015, for their cultural impacts in the music industry between 2005-2015.
Commercial Influence
Referred to as the “Best African Group” by Forbes Africa and various media outlets, P-Square has sold over 40M albums records as of 2011. They remained one of the best selling African acts of all time in the CD era. CNN reporter, Christian Purefoy, in his 2009 documentary on Nigeria Music, revealed how P-Square sold millions of album copies in a week. From the “Get squared” Album, Psquare would go on to have a trifecta projects with “Gameover” and “Danger.” Their commercial power is evenly distributed across CD albums sales and digital streaming sales.
Visual Album
In a culture of consumption of art and entertainment, music can often be forgotten or lost in a sea of content. The rise of Psquare’s Visual Albums in mid 2000s cemented the status of Albums and music videos as an ‘Art.’
With the video albums of "Get squared" and " Gameover", they have been referred to as the primary innovators of Nigeria’s modern music videos. Their music videos were regularly featured on MTV Base, a music channel that catered to audiences across Africa and Europe.
Musical Diversity
P-Square’s ability to fuse different genres of music in a way that is both innovative and accessible is unparalleled.
P-Square has ventured into diverse genres like R&B, Pop, EDM, Reggaeton, Dance pop, Reggae, Disco, Rock, Gospel pop, Bongo Flava and Soukous.
Their albums and collaborations are the attestation to their artistic reinvention.
North America
P-Square was cited among the acts that made the Afrobeats genre popular on the international stage, through their series of tours and features with Foreign Acts like Rick Ross, T.I, Akon. They had attracted Busta Rhymes to Nigeria at an event in 2008, though he did not later attend due to unforeseen circumstances. P-Square has also attracted the Jackson’s Family to Nigeria in 2013.
Middle East and North Africa
“Shekini” off the “Double Trouble” Album provided the catalyst that boosted Afrobeats Visibility in Middle East and North Africa. The song played a role in the recordings of some biggest Arab Acts like Arash and Black Cats.
In 2015, P-Square was invited to perform at the international music festival in Morocco, alongside Jennifer Lopez, Pharrell Williams, Sean Paul, Avicii, Akon, Usher and Maroon 5. They became the first afrobeats artistes that have had that kind of success in the Arab world.
Europe
When Afrobeats was never mainstream in Europe, P-Square headlined the first afrobeats concert tagged 'Afrobeats Festival' in London at Apollo Theatre. According to BellaNaija, it was the first African Event in the UK to attract close to 8000 people.
In 2012, they became the first Afrobeats artistes to peak at top 5 on SNEP - French official chart and top 10 on Ultratop - Belgium Official chart. The song was the first Afrobeats summer hit song in France and in turn boosted Afrobeats visibility in the francophone music market.
P-Square co-headlined the main statge at the Pal Mundo world festival in 2016 - the biggest Caribbean and Latin Music Festival in Netherlands, alongside the “Suavemente” crooner, Elvis Crespo.
Films
P-Square songs have been featured in a lot Hollywood movies in the form soundtrack and dramatic scenes.
In 2016, ‘Shekini’ was among the soundtrack for the American Biological drama feature film - The Queen of Katwe.
Diplomacy
P-Square has been part of important events and celebrations in Africa notably: Rwanda's Patriotic Front Silver Jubilee, Liberia's "Bicentennial Celebration events, South Sudan's "Together for Peace Concert."
Politics
They have also used their position to play some important political roles in Nigeria. They endorsed the Labour Party Candidate Peter Obi in 2023 Nigeria Presidential election, though some have cited their patriotism to be performative, because they rapport with capitalists and have had other presidential guests. They performed at the inauguration of President Buhari in 2015.
Influence on other artistes
Some Artists have cited P-Square as a their major musical inspiration, notably Davido, Wizkid, May 7 and others.
Controversy
P-Square attracted headlines because they reportedly turned irate when they were notified by organisers in the middle of their performance at the Guinness Show about some change in plans which would affect the length of their performance, and that of the next act, Sean Paul. DJ Jimmy Jatt explained that - "According to the production plan, the live broadcast was plannned to have Sean Paul perform at the same time of Psquare's performance. They needed to show the reggae star to the waiting viewers across the globe so as to balance the simultaneous transmission of the concert across specified countries" They were said to have immediately left the premises of the show, but after intervention of the show organisers, they returned with 2face to perform "possibility", but later on received apology.
Even though the history and evolution of Nigerian Hip hop has its influence from the fusion of American hip hop and Afrobeat, the P-Square group has been faced with controversies for their slight sampling of western songs in their records. In an interview with the host of the 'truth show' Olisa Adibua, they maintained that as a record producer and songwriter, one can build on any record using an existing or non-existing artistic techniques.
The duo had a difference in opinion regarding what Peter perceived as a lopsidedness in individual input of songs which was getting featured on their joint albums with Paul getting a lion share of his songs selected. This led to Peter refusing to do anything associated with the name "P-Square" for weeks. He later relocated with his wife and kids from the mansion they shared. A lawyer was involved to help split their fortune as they were both involved in joint ventures over the prior years.
The brothers ultimately reconciled publicly on 17 November 2021, when they both hugged and shook hands at Peter Okoye's home in Lagos. Peter's wife and the duo's older brother, Jude Okoye were also present and hugged each other as well.
Personal lives
After dating for seven years, Peter Okoye got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Titilola Loretta Omotayo. Omotayo is a marketing representative. The couple are already parents to son Cameron and daughter Aliona. On 17 November 2013, the two held their traditional wedding at The Ark in Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria. Public figures who attended the wedding include Aliko Dangote, Emmanuel Adebayor, Kate Henshaw, Genevieve Nnaji, Rukky Sanda, Folorunsho Alakija, May D, Toke Makinwa, Dr SID, Don Jazzy, and Karen Igho among others.
Paul Okoye met Anita Isama in 2004 while attending the University of Abuja. Their son Andre was born 11 April 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The couple married on Saturday, 22 March 2014 at the Aztech Arcum Events Centre in Port Harcourt.
In January 2014, the Okoye brothers bought mansions next door to one another in Atlanta.
On 27 June 2020, Peter Okoye opened up in a video on his Instagram page how he and his wife contracted COVID-19. He then urged people to adhere to safety precautions highlighted by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, to be safe from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Discography
Studio albums
Last Nite (2003)
Get Squared (2005)
Game Over (2007)
Danger (2009)
The Invasion (2011)
Double Trouble (2014)
Compilation albums
Greatest Hits (2013)
International singles
Filmography
Video Albums
Television
Films
Awards and nominations
MTV Europe Music Awards
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||2006
||P-Square
|"Best African Act"
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||2013
||P-Square
|"Best African Act"
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||2015
||P-Square
|"Artist of the Decade"
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||2015
||P-Square
|"Best Group"
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Soul Train Music Awards
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||2013
||"Personally"
|"Best International Performance"
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The Headies
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| rowspan="5" | 2006
| rowspan="2" |Get Squared
| "Best R&B/Pop Album"
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| "Album of the Year"
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||"Get Squared"
| "Best Music Video"
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||"Bizzy Body"
|"Song of the Year"
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||P-Square
|"Artiste of the Year"
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City Mag 9th Awards Show
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| rowspan="2" | 2006
| rowspan="2" |P-Square
| "Best Hip Hop Group"
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Nigerian Music Awards (NMA)
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| rowspan="3" | 2006
||Get Squared
| "Album of the Year"
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||"Get Squared"
| "Music Video of the Year"
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Channel O Music Video Awards
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|| 2007
||P-Square
| "Best Duo or Group"
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| rowspan="2" | 2008
||P-Square
| "Best Duo or Group"
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||"Do Me"
| "Video of the Year"
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|| 2012
||P-Square
| "Most Gifted Group of the Year"
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| rowspan="2" | 2013
| rowspan="2" |"Alingo"
| "Most Gifted African (West) Video"
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| "Most Gifted Video of the Year"
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MTV Africa Music Awards
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| rowspan="4" | 2008
||P-Square
| "Best Group"
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||P-Square
| "Artist of the Year"
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||P-Square
| "Best R&B"
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||"Roll It"
| "Best Video"
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| rowspan="2" | 2009
||P-Square
| "Best Group"
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||P-Square
| "Best Live Performer"
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|rowspan="3"|2014
|rowspan="2"|P-Square
|Best Group
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|Artist of the Year
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|"Personally"
|Song of the Year
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|2015
|"P-Square"
|Artiste of the decade
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Lil Perry Productions
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|| 2010
||P-Square
| "Producer of the Year"
|
MOBO Awards
|-
|| 2006
||P-Square
| "Best African Act"
|
|-
|| 2008
||P-Square
| "Best African Act"
|
|-
|| 2010
||P-Square
| "Best African Act"
|
|-
||2012
||P-Square
| "Best African Act"
|
KORA Awards
|-
|| 2003
||P-Square
| "Most Promising African Group"
|
|-
|| 2010
||P-Square
| "Artiste of the Year"
|
BET Awards
|-
|| 2010
||P-Square
| "Best International Act"
|
Ghana Music Awards
|-
|2014
|rowspan="2"|P-Square
|rowspan="2"|"African Artiste of the Year"
|
|-
|2013
|
Concert Tours
P-Square North American tour (2010)
USA/Canada tour (2013)
Double Trouble World tour (2014)
100 cities world tour (2022)
References
Sibling musical duos
Nigerian hip hop singers
Identical twins
Nigerian contemporary R&B musical groups
Living people
Igbo-language singers
1981 births
Nigerian twins
Twin musicians
Musical groups established in 2003
21st-century Nigerian male singers
The Headies winners
Nigerian music industry executives
Nigerian musical duos
Nigerian boy bands
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5027752
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Philip%20Sousa%20Foundation
|
John Philip Sousa Foundation
|
The John Philip Sousa Foundation is a non-profit foundation dedicated to the promotion of band music internationally. The foundation administers a number of projects and awards supporting high quality band performance, conducting, and composition.
The foundation is named for John Philip Sousa, a prominent composer of American band music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Successor to the Sousa Memorial Committee, the organization was reorganized as the John Philip Sousa Foundation in 1980 with support from Louis Sudler, a Chicago real estate developer and arts patron for whom many of the foundation's awards are named.
Projects
Projects of the Sousa Foundation include funding for the main stage at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., honor bands, conducting competitions, awards for outstanding performing ensembles, and bringing attention to historic sites in band history. Many of the foundation's awards are funded through an endowment from Louis and Virginia Sudler, and are collectively known as the "Louis Sudler Awards of Merit".
The Sousa National High School Honors Band
Founded in 1981, the Sousa National High School Honors Band is an ensemble made up of roughly 100 high school junior and senior musicians, selected from the top applicants worldwide. The band performs semi-regularly at a variety of locations around the United States.
The Sudler Flag of Honor
The Sudler Flag of Honor is an award bestowed to identify, recognize and honor high school band programs internationally that have demonstrated particularly significant high standards of excellence in concert activities over a period of several years. No school may win the award twice under the same director. The official description of a deserving band is:
The band must have achieved and maintained a high standard of excellence in the concert area over a period of several years. The concert band will have placed itself in situations where there has been opportunity for evaluation by qualified persons or has been rated "superior" at state, regional, or national levels in concert activities. The band program must offer its participants a complete and balanced program of musical activities including concert, solo, ensemble, and marching areas. The band should have performed at regional, state, national, and professional meetings of significance. These can include but are not limited to state music conventions, regional or national MENC meetings, and state or national band association conventions. The director must have been incumbent in his/her position for at least seven years, including the current year. A number of the students in the band should have participated in district and all-state honor bands or similar all-area groups.
The Sudler Flag of Honor is typically considered to be the highest award a high school band can achieve. Sudler Flag laureate bands are automatically included on the Historic Roll of Honor. The following are the recipients of the Sudler Flag since its inception in 1983:
1983 - Alice High School Band, Alice, Texas
1983 - L. D. Bell High School Band, Hurst, Texas
1983 - Georgetown High School Band, Georgetown, Texas
1983 - North Hills High School Band, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1983 - Papillion-La Vista Senior High School Band, Papillion, Nebraska
1983 - Richardson High School Band, Richardson, Texas
1983 - Wheat Ridge High School Band, Wheat Ridge, Colorado
1984 - Lloyd V. Berkner High School Band, Richardson, Texas
1984 - Glenbard East High School Band, Lombard, Illinois
1984 - Hardaway High School Band, Columbus, Georgia
1984 - Reynoldsburg High School Band, Reynoldsburg, Ohio
1984 - Oconomowoc High School Band, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin
1985 - Clear Lake High School Band, Houston, Texas
1985 - Grand Ledge High School Band, Grand Ledge, Michigan
1985 - South Lakes High School Band, Reston, Virginia
1985 - Stevens High School Band, Rapid City, South Dakota
1985 - Valparaiso High School Band, Valparaiso, Indiana
1986 - J.J. Pearce High School Band, Richardson, Texas
1986 - Lakeland High School Band, Lakeland, Florida
1987 - Auburn High School Band, Auburn, Alabama
1987 - Lake Highlands High School Band, Dallas, Texas
1988 - Duncanville High School Band, Duncanville, Texas
1988 - Lassiter High School Band, Marietta, Georgia
1988 - Mason City High School Band, Mason City, Iowa
1989 - Coronado High School Band, El Paso, Texas
1989 - James Madison High School Band, Vienna, Virginia
1989 - Sumter High School Band, Sumter, South Carolina
1990 - Herndon High School Band, Herndon, Virginia
1991 - Marian Catholic High School Band, Chicago Heights, Illinois
1991 - Pearl City High School Band, Pearl City, Hawaii
1991 - Robert E. Lee High School Band, Midland, Texas
1992 - J.W. Robinson High School Band, Fairfax, Virginia
1993 - Lakeland High School Band, Lakeland, Florida
1993 - George C. Marshall High School Band, Falls Church, Virginia
1994 - Clements High School Band, Sugar Land, Texas
1994 - Lake Braddock Secondary School Band, Burke, Virginia
1994 - The Colony High School Band, The Colony, Texas
1994 - Westfield High School Band, Houston, Texas
1995 - W.T. Woodson High School Band, Fairfax, Virginia
1995 - Spring High School Band, Spring, Texas
1996 - Norcross High School Band, Norcross, Georgia
1997 - Klein Forest High School Band, Houston, Texas
1997 - Langham Creek High School Band, Houston, Texas
1997 - Owasso High School Band, Owasso, Oklahoma
1997 - Westmoore High School Band, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
1998 - Jack C. Hays High School Band, Buda, Texas
1998 - Westlake High School Band, Austin, Texas
1999 - Irmo High School Band, Irmo, South Carolina
2000 - Leon High School Band, Tallahassee, Florida
2000 - J.J. Pearce High School Band, Richardson, Texas
2000 - McLean High School Band, McLean, Virginia
2002 - Buchholz High School Band, Gainesville, Florida
2003 - North Hardin High School Band, Radcliff, Kentucky
2003 - The Woodlands High School Band, The Woodlands, Texas
2004 - Dobyns-Bennett High School Band, Kingsport, Tennessee
2004 - Lloyd V. Berkner High School Band, Richardson, Texas
2005 - J.W. Robinson High School Band, Fairfax, Virginia
2005 - Parkview High School Band, Lilburn, Georgia
2006 - Friendswood High School Band, Friendswood, Texas
2006 - Cypress Falls High School Band, Houston, Texas
2006 - Harrison High School Band, Kennesaw, Georgia
2007 - Wando High School Band, Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina
2007 - John Hersey High School Band, Arlington Heights, Illinois
2008 - William Mason High School Band, Mason, Ohio
2008 - Lockport Township High School Band, Lockport, Illinois
2008 - Poteet High School Band, Mesquite, Texas
2008 - Permian High School Band, Odessa, Texas
2009 - Neuqua Valley High School Band, Naperville, Illinois
2010 - None selected
2011 - James Madison High School Band, Vienna, Virginia
2011 - Hebron High School Band, Carrollton, Texas
2011 - W.T. Woodson High School Band, Fairfax, Virginia
2012 - Roxbury High School Band, Succasunna, New Jersey
2013 - Marcus High School Band, Flower Mound, Texas
2014 - Lafayette High School Band, Lexington, Kentucky
2015 - Midlothian High School Band, Midlothian, Texas
2015 - Plano East Senior High School Band, Plano, Texas
2016 - Brazoswood High School Band, Clute, Texas
2017 - Lake Braddock Secondary School Band, Burke, Virginia
2017 - McLean High School Band, McLean, Virginia
2019 - Crosby High School Band, Crosby, Texas
2019 - Hikarigaoka Girls' High School Wind Orchestra, Okazaki, Aichi
2020 - Vandegrift High School Band, Austin, Texas
2021 - Mansfield Summit High School Band, Arlington, Texas
2021 - Vista Ridge High School Band, Cedar Park, Texas
2022 - Flower Mound High School Band, Flower Mound, Texas
2022 - O'Fallon Township High School Band, O'Fallon, Illinois
The Sudler Cup
The Sudler Cup is an award bestowed to identify, recognize and honor junior high and middle school concert band programs that have demonstrated particularly significant high standards of excellence in concert activities over a period of several years. The official description of a deserving band is:
The band must have achieved and maintained a high standard of literature in the concert area over a period of several years. The concert band will have placed itself in situations where there has been opportunity for evaluation by qualified persons or has been rated "superior" at state, regional, or national levels in concert activities. The band should have performed at regional, state, national, and professional meetings of significance. These can include but are not limited to state music conventions, regional or national MENC meetings, and state or national band association conventions. The director must have been incumbent in his/her position for at least seven years, including the current year. A number of the students in the band should have participated in district and all-state honor bands or similar all-area groups. The total program of music should exemplify what is considered a sound viable, music education program for this level of endeavor.
The following are the recipients of the Sudler Cup since its inception in 1985:
1985 - Morehead Junior High, El Paso, Texas
1985 - Asheville Junior High, Asheville, North Carolina
1985 - Gunn Junior High, Arlington, Texas
1985 - Oconomowoc Junior High, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin
1986 - Adamson Junior High, Rex, Georgia
1986 - Southwest Junior High, Lakeland, Florida
1987 - Morrow Junior High, Morrow, Georgia
1988 - Scottsbluff Junior High, Scottsbluff, Nebraska
1989 - Richardson North Jr. High, Richardson, Texas
1989 - David Crockett Junior High, Odessa, Texas
1990 - Murchison Middle School, Austin, Texas
1990 - Thoreau Intermediate School, Vienna, Virginia
1990 - Westwood Junior High, Dallas, Texas
1992 - McAdams Middle School, Dickinson, Texas
1992 - Wm. Adams Junior High, Alice, Texas
1993 - Highlands Intermediate School, Pearl City, Hawaii
1993 - Hodges Bend Middle School, Houston, Texas
1994 - DeSoto West Middle School, DeSoto, Texas
1994 - Pittman Middle School, Hueytown, Alabama
1995 - Prairie Middle School, Hutchinson, Kansas
1995 - Herndon Middle School, Herndon, Virginia
1997 - Nimitz Jr. High School, Odessa, Texas
1997 - Robinson Middle School, Fairfax, Virginia
1997 - The Colony Middle School, The Colony, Texas
1999 - Longfellow Middle School, Falls Church, Virginia
2000 - Irmo Middle School, Columbia, South Carolina
2000 - Space Center Intermediate School, Houston, Texas
2001 - Gordon A. Bailey Middle School, Austin, Texas
2001 - Robert Frost Middle School, Fairfax, Virginia
2001 - Lake Braddock Secondary School, Burke, Virginia
2002 - First Colony Middle School, Sugar Land, Texas
2003 - Coyle Middle School, Rowlett, Texas
2003 - Grisham Middle School, Austin, Texas
2004 - North Ridge Middle School, N Richmond, Texas
2004 - Holub Middle School, Houston, Texas
2005 - L.J Alleman Middle School, Lafayette, Louisiana
2005 - Cooper Middle School, McLean, Virginia
2006 - Oliver McCracken Middle School, Skokie, Illinois
2007 - Cedar Park Middle School, Cedar Park, Texas
2008 - Fort Settlement Middle School, Sugar Land, Texas
2010 - Artie Henry Middle School, Cedar Park, Texas
2010 - Forbes Middle School, Georgetown, Texas
2010 - Space Center Intermediate School, Houston, Texas
2011 - Kealing Middle School Wind Ensemble, Austin, Texas
2012 - Fort Clarke Middle School Symphonic Band, Gainesville, Florida
2012 - West Ridge Middle School Wind Ensemble Band, Austin, Texas
2013 - Indian Springs Middle School Band, Keller, Texas
2014 - Rice Middle School Wind Ensemble, Plano, Texas
2016 - Adelle R. Clark Middle School Band, Frisco, Texas
2017 - Canyon Ridge Middle School, Austin, Texas
2017 - Cockrill Middle School, McKinney, Texas
2017 - Riverwatch Middle School, Suwanee, Georgia
2017 - Shadow Ridge Middle School, Flower Mound, Texas
2018 - TA Howard Middle School Middle School, Mansfield, Texas
2019 - Arbor Creek Middle School, Carrollton, Texas
2019 - Roma Middle School, Roma, Texas
2021 - Cooper Middle School, Fairfax County, Virginia
Sudler Trophy
The Sudler Trophy is an award bestowed on one university marching band. It was awarded annually from 1982 to 2007 and biannually since then. Described by a Los Angeles Times reporter as "[t]he Heisman Trophy of the collegiate band world", the award does not represent the winner of any championship, but rather a band surrounded by great tradition that has become respected nationally. No school may be honored with the award twice. According to the official description of the trophy:
The purpose of the Sudler Trophy is to identify and recognize collegiate marching bands of particular excellence who have made outstanding contributions to the American way of life. The Sudler Trophy is awarded annually to a college or university marching band which has demonstrated the highest musical standards and innovative marching routines and ideas, and which has made important contributions to the advancement of the performance standards of college marching bands over a period of years. The trophy measures exactly from the base to the tip of the drum major's mace; precisely the size of a standard 8 to 5 step in marching.
The following are the recipients of the Sudler Trophy since its inception in 1982:
The Sudler Shield
The Sudler Shield recognizes outstanding high school marching bands.
The following are the recipients of the Sudler Shield:
1987 - Enterprise High School, Enterprise, Alabama
1987 - Federal Hocking High School, Stewart, Ohio
1987 - Mountain Crest High School, Hyrum, Utah
1987 - Tenri Seminary High School, Nara, Nara, Japan
1988 - Cambridge High School, Cambridge, Ohio
1988 - Clovis High School, Clovis, California
1988 - John Overton High School, Nashville, Tennessee
1989 - Grove City High School, Grove City, Ohio
1989 - Mills E. Godwin High School, Richmond, Virginia
1989 - Manzano High School, Albuquerque, New Mexico
1989 - Mt. Juliet High School, Mount Juliet, Tennessee
1989 - Neuces Canyon High School, Barksdale, Texas
1989 - Newton High School, Pleasant Hill, Ohio
1989 - Norwin High School, North Huntingdon Township, Pennsylvania
1990 - Clinton High School, Clinton, Mississippi
1991 - Lafayette High School, Lexington, Kentucky
1992 - Coronado High School Band, El Paso, Texas
1992 - John Overton High School, Nashville, Tennessee
1992 - North Hardin High School, Radcliff, Kentucky
1992 - Pope High School, Marietta, Georgia
1993 - Fred C. Beyer High School, Modesto, California
1993 - Sumter High School, Sumter, South Carolina
1994 - McGavock High School, Nashville, Tennessee
1996 - Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, Lexington, Kentucky
1997 - Marian Catholic High School, Chicago Heights, Illinois
1998 - Duncanville High School, Duncanville, Texas
1998 - Lafayette High School, Lexington, Kentucky
1998 - Lassiter High School, Marietta, Georgia
1998 - Pupuk Kaltim School, Bontang, Kaltim, Indonesia
1999 - Broken Arrow High School, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
1999 - Harrison County High School, Cynthiana, Kentucky
1999 - Westfield High School, Houston, Texas
2000 - Aimachi Marching Band, Handa, Aichi, Japan
2000 - Lawrence Central High School, Indianapolis, Indiana
2001 - James F. Byrnes High School, Duncan, South Carolina
2002 - Kashiwa City High School, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan
2002 - Kennesaw Mountain High School, Kennesaw, Georgia
2002 - Yokohama Marching Band, Yokohama, Japan
2003 - Allen High School, Allen, Texas
2003 - Seminole High School, Seminole, Florida
2004 - Collins Hill High School, Suwanee, Georgia
2004 - L.D. Bell High School, Hurst, Texas
2004 - Owasso High School, Owasso, Oklahoma
2005 - James Bowie High School, Austin, Texas
2005 - Show and Marchingband Kunst & Genoegen, Leiden, Netherlands
2005 - Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, Lexington, Kentucky
2005 - Ronald Reagan High School, San Antonio, Texas
2006 - Cedar Park High School, Cedar Park, Texas
2006 - Langham Creek High School, Houston, Texas
2007 - Avon High School, Avon, Indiana
2007 - Marcus High School, Flower Mound, Texas
2008 - Broken Arrow High School, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
2008 - Coppell High School, Coppell, Texas
2008 - Musica Grato High School, Himi, Toyama, Japan
2008 - Tarpon Springs High School, Tarpon Springs, Florida
2009 - American Fork High School, American Fork, Utah
2009 - Chonkanyanukoon High School, Amphur Muang, Chomburi, Thailand
2009 - Walton High School, Marietta, Georgia
2009 - The Woodlands High School, The Woodlands, Texas
2010 - Hebron High School, Carrollton, Texas
2010 - Westlake High School, Austin, Texas
2011 - Sultanah Asma Marching Band, Kedah, Malaysia
2011 - Homestead High School, Fort Wayne, Indiana
2011 - William Mason High School, Mason, Ohio
2012 - Carmel High School, Carmel, Indiana
2012 - Plano East Senior High School, Plano, Texas
2013 - Blue Springs High School, Blue Springs, Missouri
2013 - Calgary Stampede Showband, Calgary, Alberta
2013 - James Bowie High School, Austin, Texas
2013 - Kanagawa Prefecture Shonandai High School, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
2014 - Claudia Taylor Johnson High School, San Antonio, Texas
2014 - Dobyns-Bennett High School, Kingsport, Tennessee
2014 - Franklin High School, Franklin, Tennessee
2014 - Round Rock High School, Round Rock, Texas
2015 - Broken Arrow High School, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
2015 - Keller High School, Keller, Texas
2016 - Castle High School, Newburgh, Indiana
2016 - Chien Kuo Senior High School, Taipei City, Taiwan
2016 - Keat Hwa Secondary School, Alor Setar, Kedah, Malaysia
2016 - Russell County High School, Russell Springs, Kentucky
2016 - Vista Murrieta High School, Murrieta, California
2017 - Flower Mound High School, Flower Mound, Texas
2017 - Greendale High School, Greendale, Wisconsin
2017 - Morton High School, Morton, Illinois
2017 - Vista Ridge High School, Cedar Park, Texas
2018 - Adair County High School, Columbia, Kentucky
2018 - Carmel High School, Carmel, Indiana
2018 - North Lamar High School, Paris, Texas
2018 - The Woodlands High School, The Woodlands, Texas
2019 - Mineola High School, Mineola, Texas
2019 - Vandegrift High School, Austin, Texas
2021 - Brownsburg High School, Brownsburg, Indiana
2021 - Southlake Carroll High School, Southlake, Texas
2021 - Wakeland High School, Frisco, Texas
2021 - Murray High School (Kentucky), Murray, Kentucky
2021 - Canton High School (Texas), Canton, Texas
2022 - William Mason High School, Mason, Ohio
2022 - Fishers High School, Fishers, Indiana
2022 - Beechwood High School, Fort Mitchell, Kentucky
2022 - Anderson County High School (Kentucky), Lawrenceburg, Kentucky
2022 - Door Vriendschap Sterk, Katwijk, Netherlands
The Sudler Silver Scroll
The Sudler Scroll recognizes and honors those community bands that have demonstrated particularly high standards of excellence in concert activities over a period of several years, and which have played a significant and leading role in the cultural and musical environment in their respective communities.
Those community concert bands which have won the award include:
Northshore Concert Band, Evanston, Illinois (1987)
Lawrence City Band, Lawrence, Kansas (1988)
Kiel Municipal Band, Kiel, Wisconsin (1990)
Tacoma Concert Band, Tacoma, Washington (1990)
Allentown Band, Allentown, Pennsylvania (1990)
Naperville Municipal Band, Naperville, Illinois (1991)
Sarasota Mobile Home Band, Sarasota, Florida (1993)
Austin Symphonic Band, Austin, Texas (1993)
Racine Municipal Band, Racine, Wisconsin (1994)
Lansing Concert Band, Lansing, Michigan (1994)
Texas Wind Symphony, Arlington, Texas (1995)
Medalist Concert Band, Bloomington, Minnesota (1995)
Kent Stark Concert Band, Canton, Ohio (1996)
Scottsdale Concert Band, Scottsdale, Arizona (1996)
Ridgewood Concert Band, Ridgewood, New Jersey (1996)
Tara Winds Concert Band, Hampton, Georgia (1996)
Coastal Communities Concert Band, San Diego, California (1997)
Lakeland Civic Band, Kirtland, Ohio (1997)
Twin City Concert Band, West Monroe, Louisiana (1997)
San Jose Wind Symphony, San Jose, California (1998)
Corpus Christi Wind Symphony, Corpus Christi, Texas (1998)
Community Band of Brevard, Brevard County, Florida (1999)
Lafayette Concert Band, Lafayette, Louisiana (1999)
Virginia Grand Military Band, Arlington, Virginia (2000)
Allentown Band, Allentown, Pennsylvania (1990)
Lafayette Citizens Band, Lafayette, Indiana (2001)
Pensacola Civic Band, Pensacola, Florida (2002)
Tempe Wind Ensemble, Tempe, Arizona (2002)
Atlanta Wind Symphony, Atlanta, Georgia (2003)
Houston Symphonic Band, Houston, Texas (2003)
Penn Central Wind Band, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (2004)
City of Fairfax Band, Fairfax, Virginia (2004)
West Michigan Winds, Muskegon, Michigan (2005)
Knightwind Ensemble, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2005)
South Jersey Area Wind Ensemble, Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey (2006)
Oregon Symphonic Band, Portland, Oregon (2007)
Tennessee Concert Band, Knoxville, Tennessee (2007)
East Winds Symphonic Band, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2008)
Minnesota Symphonic Winds, Edina, Minnesota (2009)
Cobb Wind Symphony, Marietta, Georgia (2009)
Savannah River Winds, North Augusta, South Carolina (2010)
Virginia Wind Symphony, Norfolk, Virginia (2011)
Lone Star Symphonic Band, Houston, Texas (2012)
Lake Oswego Millennium Concert Band, Lake Oswego, Oregon (2013)
Concord Band, Concord, Massachusetts (2013)
East Texas Symphonic Band, Longview, Texas (2014)
Metropolitan Wind Symphony, Boston, Massachusetts (2015)
Sierra Nevada Wind Orchestra, Gold River, California (2015)
Montgomery County Concert Band, Hatfield, Pennsylvania (2017)
Waukesha Area Symphonic Band, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin (2017)
Carrollton Wind Symphony, Frisco, Texas (2017)
Buffalo Niagara Concert Band, Buffalo, New York (2018)
Fairfax Wind Symphony, Fairfax, Virginia (2019)
The Woodlands Concert Band, The Woodlands, Texas (2021)
The Heart of Texas Concert Band, San Antonio, Texas (2022)
The Sudler International Composition Competition
The Sudler International Composition Competition is a biennial competition for wind band composition.
The following are the winners of the competition since its inception in 1983:
Sousa/Ostwald Award
References
External links
The John Philip Sousa Foundation
John Philip Sousa Foundation (Loyola University New Orleans)
Sudler Trophy Pamphlet from 2002
Arts foundations based in the United States
Foundation
Charities based in Indiana
Lafayette, Indiana
Organizations established in 1980
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5027882
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel%20Entertainment
|
Marvel Entertainment
|
Marvel Entertainment, LLC (formerly Marvel Enterprises) was an American entertainment company founded in June 1998 and based in New York City, New York, formed by the merger of Marvel Entertainment Group and Toy Biz. The company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company since 2009, and was mainly known for consumer products, licensing, and comic books by Marvel Comics, as well as its early forays into films and television/streaming shows, including those within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
In 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment for ; it had been a limited liability company (LLC) since then. For financial reporting purposes, Marvel was primarily reported as part of Disney's Consumer Products segment ever since Marvel Studios' reorganization from Marvel Entertainment into Walt Disney Studios.
Over the years, Marvel Entertainment entered into several partnerships and negotiations with other companies across a variety of businesses. , Marvel has film licensing agreements with Sony Pictures via Columbia Pictures (for Spider-Man films) and theme park licensing agreements with IMG Worlds of Adventure and Universal Destinations & Experiences (for specific Marvel character rights at Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Japan). Aside from their contract with Universal Destinations & Experiences, Marvel's characters and properties have also appeared at Disney Parks.
On March 29, 2023, Marvel Entertainment's operations, including Marvel Comics and Marvel Games, were folded into Disney's larger business units.
History
Marvel Entertainment Group
Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. (or MEG), incorporated on , and included Marvel Comics and Marvel Productions. That year, it was sold to New World Entertainment Ltd as part of the liquidation of Cadence Industries. On January 6, 1989, Ronald Perelman's MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings bought Marvel Entertainment Group from New World for $82.5 million. The deal did not include Marvel Productions, which was folded into New World's TV and movie business.
"It is a mini-Disney in terms of intellectual property," said Perelman. "Disney's got much more highly recognized characters and softer characters, whereas our characters are termed action heroes. But at Marvel we are now in the business of the creation and marketing of characters."
Public offering and acquisition
Marvel made an initial public offering of 40% of the stock (ticker symbol NYSE:MRV) on July 15, 1991, giving $40 million from the proceeds to Andrews Group, Marvel's then direct parent corporation within MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings.
In the early 1990s, Marvel Entertainment Group began expanding though acquisitions and the formation of new divisions. Marvel purchased the trading card company Fleer on July 24, 1992. On April 30, 1993, Marvel acquired 46% of ToyBiz, which gave the company the rights to make Marvel toys. The Andrews Group named Avi Arad of ToyBiz as the president and CEO of the Marvel Films division.
In 1993 and 1994, Marvel's holding companies, Marvel Holdings, Inc. and Marvel Parent Holdings, Inc., were formed between Andrews Group and MEG. The companies issued over half a billion dollars in bonds under the direction of Perelman, which was passed up in dividends to Perelman's group of companies. Later on, Marvel and Acclaim Entertainment teamed up to provide a video game license in the early 1990s, which eventually formed into a joint label, Marvel Software in 1994. On July 5, 1994, Marvel acquired Panini Group, an Italian sticker-maker, followed by Malibu Comics on November 3 and Heroes World Distribution, a regional distributor to comic-book shops, in December. On March 10, 1995, it acquired trading card company SkyBox International and was completed later in May.
Marvel's attempt to distribute its products directly led to a decrease in sales and aggravated the losses which Marvel suffered when the comic book bubble popped, the 1994 Major League Baseball strike massacred the profits of the Fleer unit, and Panini, whose revenue depended largely on Disney licensing, was hobbled by poor Disney showings at the box office. A minority of dissidents maintain no bubble existed.
Bankruptcy and Marvel Studios
In late 1995, Marvel reported its first annual loss under Perelman, which was attributed mainly to the company's large size and a shrinking market. On January 4, 1996, Marvel laid off 275 employees.
In late 1996, Perelman proposed a plan to save Marvel in which the company would merge with Toy Biz after Perelman spent $350 million for the Toy Biz shares that he did not already own. He would then receive newly issued Marvel shares to maintain his 80 percent stake.
Separately, in July 1996, Marvel filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise money to create a private entity called Marvel Studios. Much of the money to create Marvel Studios came from the sale of Toy Biz stock.
On December 27, 1996, the Marvel group of companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At this time, Carl Icahn, an American businessman and investor, began buying Marvel's bonds at 20% of their value and moved to block Perelman's plan. In February 1997, Icahn won the bankruptcy court's approval to take control of the company's stock. Later, in June 1997, Icahn won the right to replace Marvel's board, including Perelman.
In December 1997, during the post-bankruptcy reorganization phase, Toy Biz came to an agreement to purchase Marvel from the banks. In December 1997, the bankruptcy court appointed a trustee to oversee the company in place of Icahn. In April 1998, while the legal battle continued, the NYSE delisted Marvel stock.
In August 2008, former company head Ronald Perelman paid $80 million to settle a lawsuit accusing him of helping divert $553.5 million in notes when he controlled the company.
Marvel Enterprises
ToyBiz and Marvel Entertainment Group were merged into Marvel Enterprises to bring it out of bankruptcy on June 2, 1998. In February 1999, Fleer/Skybox was sold to a corporation owned by Alex and Roger Grass, a father and son, for US$30 million.
Later, the rights to names like "Spider-Man" were being challenged. Toy Biz hired an attorney to review its license agreement. Los Angeles patent attorney Carole E. Handler found a legal loophole in the licensing of the Marvel name and was successful in reclaiming Marvel Enterprises' movie rights to its character Spider-Man.
Marvel Enterprise organized itself into four major units, Marvel Studios, Toy Biz, Licensing and Publishing, while in November 1999 adding Marvel Characters Group to manage Marvel's IP and oversee marketing. Marvel named its Marvel New Media president, Steve Milo, in November 2000 to oversee its website.
In 2003, Bill Stine purchased back Quest Aerospace, a 1995 Toy Biz acquisition, from Marvel. In summer 2003, Marvel placed an offer for Artisan Entertainment. A new unit, Marvel International, was set up in London under a president, Bruno Maglione, to extend the company's operation and presence in major overseas markets in November 2003. In December 2003, Marvel Entertainment acquired Cover Concepts from Hearst Communications, Inc. In November 2004, Marvel consolidated its children's sleepwear-apparel licensing business with American Marketing Enterprises, Inc.
In November 2004, the corporation sued South Korea-based NCSoft Corp. and San Jose, California-based Cryptic Studios Inc. over possible trademark infringement in their City of Heroes massive multiplayer online game. Marvel settled a film-royalties lawsuit in April 2005 with its former editor-in-chief, publisher and creator, Stan Lee, paying him $10 million and negotiating an end to his royalties.
Marvel Entertainment
In September 2005, Marvel Enterprises changed its name to Marvel Entertainment to reflect the corporation's expansion into financing its own movie slate.
In 2007, several Stan Lee Media related groups filed lawsuits against Marvel Entertainment for $1 billion and for Lee's Marvel creations in multiple states, most of which have been dismissed. Additionally, a lawsuit over ownership of the character Ghost Rider was filed on March 30, 2007, by Gary Friedrich and Gary Friedrich Enterprises, Inc.
Disney subsidiary (2009–2023)
On August 31, 2009, The Walt Disney Company announced a deal to acquire Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion, with Marvel shareholders to receive $30 and approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each share of Marvel they own. The voting occurred on December 31, 2009, and the merger was approved. The acquisition of Marvel was finalized hours after the shareholder vote, therefore giving Disney full ownership of Marvel Entertainment. The company was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange under its ticker symbol (MVL), due to the closing of the deal.
On June 2, 2010, Marvel announced that it promoted Joe Quesada to Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Entertainment. In June 2010, Marvel set up a television division headed by Jeph Loeb as executive vice president. Three months later, Smith & Tinker licensed from Marvel the character rights for a superhero digital collectible game for Facebook and Apple's mobile platform. On October 1, 2010, Marvel moved its offices to a suite at 135 W. 50th Street, New York City, New York, under a nine-year sublease contract.
Stan Lee Media's lawsuit against Marvel was dismissed again in February 2011.
In March 2013, Feld Entertainment agreed with Marvel to produce a Marvel Character-based live arena show. Marvel was also launching a new pop culture and lifestyle web show, "Earth's Mightiest Show". On August 22, 2013, Marvel Entertainment announced that it was working with Hero Ventures on The Marvel Experience, a traveling production/attraction. In April 2014, Hong Kong Disneyland announced the construction of Iron Man Experience, the first Marvel ride at any Disney theme park. It opened in 2017 and was built on a location in the park's Tomorrowland.
On September 16, 2009, the Jack Kirby estate served notices of termination to Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and Sony Pictures to attempt to gain control of various Silver Age Marvel characters. Marvel sought to invalidate those claims. In mid-March 2010 Kirby's estate "sued Marvel to terminate copyrights and gain profits from [Kirby's] comic creations." In July 2011, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a summary judgment in favor of Marvel, which was affirmed in August 2013 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Kirby estate filed a petition on March 21, 2014, for a review of the case by the Supreme Court of the United States, but a settlement was reached on September 26, 2014, and the family requested that the petition be dismissed.
Marvel president of TV, publishing and brand Dan Buckley was promoted to Marvel Entertainment president in January 2017 adding games, global brand management and the franchise groups to his current responsibilities. In October 2017, Ron Richards began working at Marvel Entertainment as vice president and Managing Editor of New Media. Marvel New Media expanded into a new field with the development of a scripted podcast series, Wolverine: The Long Night, announced on December 5, 2017. Marvel and SiriusXM announced on October 22, 2019, a multi-year deal for scripted and unscripted podcast series and themed live events.
Marvel Entertainment announced a new pre-school franchise, Marvel Super Hero Adventures, in September 2017 consisting of a short-form animated series along with publishing and merchandise during "Marvel Mania" October. On December 7, 2017, Marvel announced its Marvel Rising franchise focusing on new characters as youngsters starting with animation in 2018. Marvel Comics is expected to publish material for Marvel Rising, but delayed any announcement on their material.
In May 2018, The Walt Disney Company Australia purchased eight year naming rights to Docklands Stadium from Melbourne Stadiums Limited and selected the Marvel brand as part of the name. Since September 1, 2018, the stadium has been known commercially as Marvel Stadium. A Marvel retail store and other inclusion of Marvel would be added to the stadium.
In October 2019, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige was named Marvel's Chief Creative Officer, overseeing all the creative affairs within Marvel Entertainment in addition to Marvel Studios. Under the structure, Marvel Television and Marvel Family Entertainment (animation) moved to Marvel Studios, with Marvel Entertainment president Dan Buckley reporting to Feige. With the December 2019 announcement of folding of Marvel TV into Marvel Studios came the dismissal of executives of vice president level and above in TV and animation under Feige plus the removal of Brian Crosby as creative director of Themed Entertainment for Marvel Entertainment.
On March 29, 2023, Disney fired Marvel Entertainment's chairman Issac Perlmutter and the subsidiary's operations were folded into Disney's other business units.
Units
Current
Marvel Custom Solutions, customized comic books
Marvel Brands, LLC
Marvel Unlimited
Marvel Games, the division utilized for video game promotion and licensing of Marvel intellectual properties to video game publishers.
Cover Concepts, Inc.
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., publisher of Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Press
Marvel Knights
Icon Comics
Infinite Comics
Timely Comics
MAX
Intellectual property holding companies
Iron Works Productions LLC, movie rights subsidiary
Incredible Productions LLC (Delaware), movie rights subsidiary
Marvel Characters, Inc.: subsidiary holding general rights of all Marvel Comics characters
MVL Rights, LLC: subsidiary holding Marvel Comics characters' movie rights
MVL Film Finance LLC: holder of Marvel's Movie debt and theatrical film rights to the ten characters as collateral.
Marvel Characters B.V. (The Netherlands)
Marvel International Character Holdings LLC (Delaware)
Marvel Property, Inc. (Delaware) incorporated February 12, 1986 (formerly Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.)
Marvel Entertainment International Limited (United Kingdom)
Marvel Property, Inc. (Delaware)
Marvel Internet Productions LLC (Delaware)
Marvel Toys Limited (Hong Kong)
MRV, Inc. (Delaware)
Iron Works Productions LLC: subsidiary holding debt to finance the Iron Man films
Incredible Productions LLC (Delaware): subsidiary holding debt to finance the Incredible Hulk films
MVL Iron Works Productions Canada, Inc. (Province of Ontario)
MVL Incredible Productions Canada, Inc. (Province of Ontario)
Asgard Productions LLC (Delaware): subsidiary holding debt to finance the Thor films.
Green Guy Toons LLC (Delaware): subsidiary holding debt to finance the Hulk animated shows and animated films.
Squad Productions LLC (Delaware)
Marvel New Media
Marvel New Media (also called Marvel Digital) is a unit of The Walt Disney Company consisting of the company's website, web series, and podcast. Digital shows under New Media are THWIP! The Big Marvel Show, The Marvel Minute, Marvel LIVE! and Marvel Top 10.
In October 2017, Ron Richards began working at Marvel Entertainment as vice president and Managing Editor of New Media, while Marvel Digital freelance on-air host Lorraine Cink was hired as Senior Creative Producer. Marvel New Media expanded into a new field with the development of a scripted podcast series, Wolverine: The Long Night, announced on December 5, 2017.
On April 7, 2018, at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, Marvel New Media announced its new slate. Marvel named Shane Rahmani as senior vice president and general manager of new media in March 2019. On April 10, 2019, a slate of 10 unscripted series including two from Marvel New Media was revealed for Disney+. After Rahmani left for Google, podcast host Ryan Penagos became vice president and creative executive for the organization.
Marvel and SiriusXM announced on October 22, 2019, a multi-year deal for multiple scripted and unscripted podcast series for 2020 debuts. The first four scripted series feature Black Widow, Hawkeye, Star-Lord, and Wolverine, which is planned to lead to a fifth series featuring all four characters. The slate's unscripted podcasts would consist of talk shows, Marvel's history via a modern-day pop cultural view, and popular Marvel franchises-focused podcasts.
Webcasts
Earth's Mightiest Show (March 2018–) A weekly variety web series focusing on fandom and Marvel culture
Eat the Universe
Marvel LIVE!
The Marvel Minute
Marvel Top 10 (2017–)
Marvel's Hero Project (November 12, 2019 – March 20, 2020) produced with Maggievision Productions for Disney+; documents youngsters affecting their local communities
Marvel's 616 working title (TBA) produced with Supper Club for Disney+; anthology documentary series features the intersection between Marvel's stories, characters, and creators and the real world
Marvel's Storyboards (TBA) for Disney+; is hosted by Joe Quesada, creative director of Marvel Entertainment, where he interviews guests from various backgrounds to get to know their story with an expected around a dozen 10 to 15 minutes long episodes.
This Week in Marvel (relaunch)
THWIP! The Big Marvel Show
Women of Marvel (June 2014–?; relaunched February 2018–) a female point of view of the comic industry
Podcasts
Interview/unscripted
Drama
Former
Marvel Toys, formerly "Toy Biz" (1984–2007)
Marvel Merchandising department/Heroes World Distribution Co. (early 1970s–1975/1994–1996)
Malibu Comics (1994–1997)
Marvel Books division (c.1985)
Marvel Comics Ltd. (1972–1995; UK subsidiary)
Marvel Studios, LLC (1996–2015) formerly Marvel Films (1993–1996), a film and television production company; now a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios
Marvel Films Animation – animation subdivision (1994–1997)
Marvel Film Productions LLC (Delaware)
MVL Development LLC (Delaware) rights subsidiary
Marvel Television, Inc. (2010–2019) now a division of Marvel Studios.
Marvel Animation, LLC. (2008–2020) Subsidiary charged with oversight of Marvel's animation productions.
MLG Productions (2006–2011), Marvel & Lionsgate's subsidiary group for Marvel Animated Features
Marvel Animation Studios (2012–2020)
Marvel Mania Restaurant (Marvel Restaurant Venture Corp.)
Marvel Enterprise division
Marvel Interactive
Online Entertainment (Marvel Zone)
Software Publishing
Fleer Corporation
Panini Group: Italian sticker manufacturer
SkyBox International
Marvel Music Groups (1981–1989) music publishing subsidiary
Marvel Productions (1981–1989)
Mighty Marvel Music Corporation (1981–1989) music publishing subsidiary
Spider-Man Merchandising, L.P. (2001–2013) A joint venture of Marvel and Sony Pictures Consumer Products Inc. that owned the rights to Spider-Man movie related licensed products.
Welsh Publishing Group: children magazine publisher
Executives
Chairmen
Ronald O. Perelman (January 6, 1989 – October 23, 1996)
Scott M. Sassa (October 23, 1996 – June 20, 1997)
Morton E. Handel (October 1, 1998 – December 31, 2009)
Isaac Perlmutter (April 1993 – March 1995; January 1, 2017 – March 29, 2023)
Vice Chairmen
Terry Stewart (March 1995 – December 1995)
Isaac Perlmutter (November 30, 2001 – December 31, 2009)
Peter Cuneo (June 17, 2003 – December 31, 2009)
CEOs
William C. Bevins (1991 – October 23, 1996)
Scott M. Sassa (October 23, 1996 – June 20, 1997)
Joseph Calamari (June 23, 1997 – October 1, 1998)
Joseph Ahearn (October 1, 1998 – November 25, 1998)
Eric Ellenbogen (November 25, 1998 – July 20, 1999)
F. Peter Cuneo (July 20, 1999 – December 31, 2002)
Allen S. Lipson (January 1, 2003 – December 31, 2004)
Office of the Chief Executive
Isaac Perlmutter (January 1, 2005 – December 31, 2016)
Executive Vice Presidents:
Alan Fine (April 2009 – ?)
John Turitzin (September 2006 – March 29, 2023)
David Maisel (September 2006 – December 31, 2009)
Presidents
Stan Lee (1972–1973)
Al Landau (1973–1975)
Jim Galton (1975–1991)
Terry Stewart (1992–1993
Rick Ungar (? – November 1993)
Avi Arad (November 1993 – ?)
Bruce Stein (? – November 1994)
William Bevins Jr. (November 1994 – ?)
Terry Stewart (May 1995)
Jerry Calabrese (May 1995 – mid 1996; October 1998 – November 1998)
Scott C. Marden (interim) (Mid 1996 – September 1996)
David Schreff (September 1996 – ?)
Joseph Calamari (? – October 1998)
Eric Ellenbogen (November 1998 – July 1999)
F. Peter Cuneo (July 1999 – January 1, 2003)
Allen Lipson (January 1, 2003 – January 1, 2005)
Alan Fine (2009–2015) also, chair of Marvel's Creative Committee
Dan Buckley (January 2017 – present)
Others
Bill Jemas, President of Publishing and Consumer Products (February 2000 – October 2010)
Bruno Maglione, President of Marvel International, November 2003
Joe Quesada, Chief Creative Officer (2010–2019), Creative Director (2019–2022)
Kevin Feige, Chief Creative Officer, Marvel (2019–present)
Bill Jemas, Chief Operating Officer (January 2002 – October 2010), Chief Marketing Officer (October 2010 – late 2013)
Guy Karyo, Executive Vice President of Operations and Chief Information Officer (October 2010)
Jeph Loeb, EVP and Head of Marvel Television (2010–2019)
Productions
Television
Live-action
Animated
Short series
Film
Live-action
Animated
All the films are made for Direct-to-video/television and produced by Marvel Animation, except as indicated.
Short films
See also
Marvel Studios
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Sony's Spider-Man Universe
Marvel Games
Lists of Marvel Comics characters
Marvel characters in other media
List of unproduced Marvel Comics adaptations
Notes
References
External links
2009 mergers and acquisitions
American companies established in 1998
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Disney acquisitions
Entertainment companies based in New York City
Entertainment companies disestablished in 2023
Entertainment companies established in 1998
Former subsidiaries of The Walt Disney Company
Mass media companies based in New York City
Mass media companies disestablished in 2023
Mass media companies established in 1998
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.E.A.R.%20Extraction%20Point
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F.E.A.R. Extraction Point
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F.E.A.R. Extraction Point is the first expansion pack for the first-person shooter psychological horror video game F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon. Developed by TimeGate Studios and originally published by Vivendi Games under the Sierra Entertainment label, it was released for Microsoft Windows in October 2006 and for Xbox 360 in November 2007. The Xbox version was only available packaged with another expansion, F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate, and released as F.E.A.R. Files. On the PC, as well as a standalone release, Extraction Point was also bundled with the original game for F.E.A.R. Gold Edition, released in March 2007, and with the original game and Perseus Mandate for F.E.A.R. Platinum Collection, released in November 2007. The Platinum Collection was also released on Steam in 2012 and GOG.com in 2015. In 2021, F.E.A.R. Files was added to Microsoft's backward compatibility program, making the games playable on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Neither expansion is now considered canon, as the Monolith Productions-developed F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin ignores the events of both.
The game's story begins immediately after the original F.E.A.R. ends; the helicopter carrying Point Man, Douglas Holiday, and Jin Sun-Kwon loses power and crashes. With the city deserted in the wake of the Origin facility's explosion, the trio set out to attempt to reach an extraction point. Split off from Holiday and Jin, Point Man is shocked to find Paxton Fettel is still alive, and the Replicas have been reanimated. En route to the extraction, Point Man once again begins seeing Alma Wade. However, her behavior seems different than before, and it is slowly revealed that she has a new agenda.
Extraction Point was well received on PC, with critics praising its fidelity to the base game, and lauding the combat mechanics, sound design, graphics, atmosphere, implementation of "reflex time", and AI. Common criticisms included a lack of replay value, a short campaign given the $30 price, and TimeGate's failure to innovate or try anything new. The expansion went on to win PC Gamers "Best Expansion Pack" (2006). On the Xbox 360, F.E.A.R. Files received mixed reviews, with most critics preferring Extraction Point to Perseus Mandate, but finding the overall package dated and too similar to the base game.
Gameplay
F.E.A.R. Extraction Point is a first-person shooter with gameplay very similar to the original F.E.A.R. As in the original, the player's arsenal includes handguns (which the player can dual wield), an assault rifle, submachine gun, shotgun, sniper rifle, nail gun, repeating cannon, rocket launcher, and particle beam. New weapons in Extraction Point are a minigun and laser carbine. Each weapon differs in terms of accuracy, range, rate of fire, damage, and weight. Only three different firearms can be carried at any one time. The player also has access to four different types of projectile - frag grenades, proximity grenades, remote bombs, and deployable turrets. The player can carry five of each type, and can carry all four at once (allowing for up to 20 projectiles), but only one type may be equipped at any one time. Additionally, when using the remote bombs, the player must holster their weapon.
As in the original game, Extraction Points melee combat is a viable combat alternative. The butts of all firearms can be used in close combat; lighter weapons, although less powerful, allow the player to move around more quickly and increase the chances of a successful melee attack. Movement speed is maximized if a player holsters their weapon, which allows them to engage in hand-to-hand combat. As well as the basic melee attack, players can also perform a jumping kick and a sliding tackle, both of which, if landed correctly, instantly kill regular enemies.
A prominent gameplay element in Extraction Point is "reflex time"; an ability which slows down the game world while still allowing the player to aim and react at normal speeds. This effect is used to simulate the player character's superhuman reflexes, and is represented by stylized visual effects, such as bullets in flight that cause air distortion or interact with the game's particle system. The duration which reflex time lasts is limited, determined by a meter which slowly fills up automatically when the ability is not being used. The player can permanently increase the size of the reflex meter by picking up reflex boosters. Other pickups available during the game include medkits (of which the player can store ten), protective armor (reduces the amount of damage the player takes during combat), and health boosters (permanently increase the player's health meter).
Reflex time is an important element of the game's combat mechanics insofar as Extraction Points artificial intelligence allows hostile NPCs an unusually large range of action; enemies can duck to travel under crawlspaces, jump through windows, vault over railings, climb ladders, and push over large objects to create cover, all in reaction to what the player is doing at any given moment. Various opponents may also act as a team, taking back routes to flank the player, using suppressive fire, taking cover and often falling back if under fire, alerting one another as to the player's location, and giving one another orders (which may, or may not, be followed).
New features in Extraction Point include the ability to bash open doors by using the melee function, as well as blast them open with explosives, and the ability to smash crates, some of which contain supplies.
Plot
The game opens with Alma Wade's physical form approaching Paxton Fettel's corpse, as Fettel's threat of war from the original F.E.A.R. is heard; "A war is coming. I've seen it in my dreams. Fires sweeping over the earth. Bodies in the streets. Cities turned to dust. Retaliation." The game then cuts to moments after the end of the original game; the helicopter evacuating F.E.A.R.'s Point Man and Jin Sun-Kwon and Delta Force's Douglas Holiday has crashed into a derelict building. All three have survived, but they find Fairport mysteriously empty. Jin speculates that it must have been evacuated due to the destruction of the Origin facility, but Holiday points out that a city can't be evacuated so completely that quickly. Jin then suggests that it may be something to do with Alma.
Cut off from Holiday and Jin, Point Man arranges to meet them nearby. As he enters a church, he is confronted by Paxton Fettel, who notes that the circumstances do not make sense, as Point Man already killed him, something about which he isn't happy. Fettel reactivates the dormant Replicas, forcing Point Man to fight his way through them. En route to the rendezvous point with the others, he once again begins to have hallucinations of Fettel and Alma, in one of which she says, "please don't let them hurt me."
Meanwhile, Holiday and Jin are also separated. Holiday learns that an extraction point has been established on the roof of Auburn Memorial Hospital, and so arranges for the three to meet there. After Holiday and Point Man rendezvous, they head through the warehouse district. However, they are stalked by semi-transparent supernatural creatures, and Holiday is brutally killed. Point Man heads into the subway alone, continuing to engage Replicas.
As he moves through the tunnels, it becomes apparent that Alma (in her red dress form) is aiding him by pointing him in the right direction and eliminating Replicas. Meanwhile, Jin reaches the hospital only to find everyone there is dead. Point Man's hallucinations continue, including a recurring vision where he sees the transparent creatures entering and exiting a ball of blue light. Passing through an office building on the way to the hospital, Fettel taunts him for still not understanding his purpose in what is going on. Continuing through the building, Alma urges him to hurry, and Fettel tells him, "Soon, you will have a choice to make. You are near the time when you will have to stop running." Shortly thereafter, he has a hallucination of Jin being chased by the transparent creatures, and moments later he finds her mutilated body. Proceeding alone to the hospital, he finds it full of dead Replicas and Delta Force soldiers.
As he moves through the building, he sees the transparent creatures attacking and killing Replicas. When a power outage knocks out the service elevator that he needs to get to the roof, Point Man descends into the basement to restore power. There, he experiences a hallucination which concludes with both of Alma's forms (red dress and physical) walking towards the bright blue light and it flaring when they reach it. When the hallucination ends, Point Man discovers the power is no longer out, and so he heads to the roof. Once there, Fettel appears, telling him, "You should know better by now." Point Man fights off a group of Replicas, before heading to the evac helicopter. However, as he approaches it, it explodes, knocking him out. When he awakens, Fettel tells him, "they tried to bury their sins, but instead planted the seeds of their doom. She would not be forgotten. We will make them remember." Fettel then disappears, as Point Man sees that much of Fairport is in flames. As the credits role, we once again hear Fettel's promise of an imminent war; "a war is coming, I've seen it in my dreams. Fires sweeping over the earth, bodies in the streets, cities turned to dust. Retaliation."
Canonicity
Extraction Point is not considered canon in the F.E.A.R. universe insofar as F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin disregards the events of both Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate, acting instead as a direct sequel to the original game. Initial reports stated that Monolith Productions, creators of the original game, had given the expansions' storylines their blessing, and that they were in line with their own in-development sequel. However, in December 2008, a year after the release of Perseus Mandate and a few months before the release of Project Origin, Dave Matthews, Project Origins lead artist, explained that the expansions
Development
Extraction Point was announced for Microsoft Windows in early May 2006, with TimeGate Studios working on development. Due to uncertainty regarding rights (Monolith Productions, who made the base game, had been purchased by Warner Bros. Games and owned the rights to the intellectual property and characters, but Vivendi Games, who had published the base game, still owned the name F.E.A.R.), it was stated in a press release that the plot for Extraction Point had been approved by Monolith and was in line with their own plans for a full sequel, which they had announced in February.
The game was first shown at E3 in May 2006. In August, publisher Sierra Entertainment revealed that due to the release of F.E.A.R. Combat (the base game's standalone multiplayer mode, which was available for free), there would be no multiplayer component to Extraction Point. In September, a demo was released.
During the promotion of the game, producer Tim Hall explained that in making Extraction Point, the designers were keen to address some of the common criticisms of the base game. With this in mind, there is greater enemy variety and more varied environments. Hall explained that because one of the main criticisms of the first game was that the levels were too repetitive and enclosed, the team had ensured to include more aesthetically varied environments, especially large outdoor sections. He clarified, "we wanted to not only give the player more of the fun factor of F.E.A.R. but also to address any criticisms that players had - yes we have heard the office layout one a million times - so we changed things up a little. With Extraction Point we not only have that same fun close quarters combat but we have also added in some much larger areas for some fun ranged combat as well."
The game's Xbox 360 announcement came in July 2007, accompanying the announcement of Perseus Mandate, with both expansions bundled together and released under the name F.E.A.R. Files. Originally, the plan was to release it on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but the PlayStation version was cancelled. As well as the two standalone expansions, F.E.A.R. Files also includes seven new instant action maps and five new multiplayer maps.
The complete F.E.A.R. series was released on Steam in July 2012, with the Platinum Collection only available as part of the bundle. The Platinum Collection was released on GOG.com in February 2015. In November 2021, the F.E.A.R. franchise, including F.E.A.R. Files, was added to Microsoft's backward compatibility program, making the games playable on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
Reception
The PC version of Extraction Point received "generally favorable reviews", and holds a score of 75 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 30 reviews. On the Xbox 360, F.E.A.R. Files received mixed reviews and holds a score of 66 out of 100, based on 43 reviews.
Game Informers Adam Biessener scored the PC version 8 out of 10, praising it for "[retaining] every single good element that was present [in the base game]". He found the horror element superior to the original and especially lauded the variety of environments. However, he was somewhat critical of how similar the game was to the original, citing the re-use of sound effects and decals. Xplays Jason D'Aprile scored it 4 out of 5, saying it retained "the intense action that made the original game such a winner." He also praised the sound design, graphics, atmosphere, and AI, calling it "a worthy gun fix."
GameSpots Jason Ocampo scored it 7.8 out of 10, praising the atmosphere, AI, sound design, and combat mechanics. He was especially impressed with the horror elements, calling it "an exceptionally creepy experience." Although he was critical of the story and lack of replay value, he concluded, "TimeGate deserves plenty of credit for maintaining the intensity of the original". IGNs Charles Onyett scored it 7.6 out of 10. He was critical of the new environments, and found the game too similar to the original F.E.A.R., writing, "you may at times be fooled into thinking you're playing the first F.E.A.R." However, he praised the new weaponry and enemies, as well as the graphics, AI, and sound design.
Official Xbox Magazines Casey Lynch scored F.E.A.R. Files 8 out of 10, finding Extraction Point superior to Perseus Mandate. Of the bundle as a whole, he wrote that he was "hoping for more variety in the environments and more revelation in the plotline." Eurogamers Kristen Reed scored it 7 out of 10, finding Perseus Mandate the better of the two games. He was especially critical of Extraction Points level design, arguing that the linearity of the levels undermined the AI; "most enemies [are] clustered in groups of threes and fours, and you tend to face them as they're being funnelled through manageable choke points." He was also critical of the graphics and the lack of innovation, finding the games' "ambitions are mainly to offer more of the same."
IGNs Erik Brudvig scored it 6.7 out of 10, praising the gameplay, combat mechanics, implementation of slow motion, AI, and the player's arsenal. However, he felt both games suffered "from a lack of identity", with each failing "to make themselves feel distinct." He concluded that the games felt "out of date and half-hearted." Game Informers Adam Biessener scored it 6.5 out of 10, arguing that the expansions "fail to recapture the magic of the original." He was critical of the level design, finding the larger arenas unsuited to the close combat mechanics. He concluded, "these expansions are a noticeable downgrade from the first story."
Awards
Extraction Point won PC Gamer USs 2006 "Best Expansion Pack" award.
References
2006 video games
Cancelled PlayStation 3 games
Experimental medical treatments in fiction
F.E.A.R. (video game series)
Fiction about corporate warfare
Fictional military organizations
First-person shooters
Video games set in laboratories
LithTech games
Psychological horror games
Sierra Entertainment games
TimeGate Studios games
Video games about Delta Force
Video games about the paranormal
Video games about psychic powers
Video games set in 2025
Video games using Havok
Video game expansion packs
Video games with time manipulation
Vivendi Games games
Windows games
Xbox 360 games
Video games developed in the United States
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa%20Alpha%20Psi
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Kappa Alpha Psi
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Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. () is a historically African American fraternity. Since the fraternity's founding on January 5, 1911 at Indiana University Bloomington, the fraternity has never restricted membership on the basis of color, creed or national origin though membership traditionally is dominated by those of African heritage. The fraternity has over 160,000 members with 721 undergraduate and alumni chapters in every state of the United States, and international chapters in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, South Korea, Japan, United States Virgin Islands, Nigeria, South Africa, the Dominican Republic, and The Bahamas.
The president of the national fraternity is known as the Grand Polemarch, who assigns a Province Polemarch for each of the twelve provinces (regions) of the nation. The fraternity has many notable members recognized as leaders in the arts, athletics, business, Civil Rights, education, government, and science sectors at the local, national and international level. The Kappa Alpha Psi Journal has been the official magazine of the fraternity since 1914. The Journal is published four times a year in February, April, October and December. Frank M. Summers was the magazine's first editor and later became the Fourteenth Grand Polemarch. The former editor of the magazine was Jonathan Hicks. The current editor of the magazine is Earl T. Tildon.
Kappa Alpha Psi sponsors programs providing community service, social welfare and academic scholarship through the Kappa Alpha Psi Foundation and is a supporter of the United Negro College Fund and Habitat for Humanity. Kappa Alpha Psi is a member of the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) and the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC). The fraternity is the oldest predominantly African American Greek-letter society founded west of the Appalachian Mountains still in existence, and is known for its "cane stepping" in NPHC organized step shows. Kappa Alpha Psi celebrated its 100th anniversary on January 5, 2011; one of four African American intercollegiate fraternities to do so.
History
Founders
The founders of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. are: Elder Watson Diggs, more affectionately known as 'The Dreamer', Dr. Ezra D. Alexander, Dr. Byron Kenneth Armstrong, Atty. Henry Tourner Asher, Dr. Marcus Peter Blakemore, Paul Waymond Caine, George Wesley Edmonds, Dr. Guy Levis Grant, Edward Giles Irvin, and Sgt. John Milton Lee.
The founders endeavored to establish the fraternity with a strong foundation before embarking on plans of expansion. By the end of the first year, the ritual was completed, and a design for the coat of arms and motto had begun. Frederick Mitchell's name is on the application for the incorporation of the fraternity but withdrew from school and thus never became a member of the fraternity.
Founding
The fraternity was founded as Kappa Alpha Nu on the night of January 5, 1911, by ten African-American college students. The decision upon the name Kappa Alpha Nu may have been to honor the Alpha Kappa Nu club which began in 1903 on the Indiana University campus but had too few registrants to effect continued operation. The organization known today as Kappa Alpha Psi was nationally incorporated under the name of Kappa Alpha Nu on May 15, 1911. The name of the organization was changed to its current name in 1915, shortly after its creation. The fraternity is unique among NPHC affiliated organizations in that it has two names: Kappa Alpha Psi (ΚΑΨ) and Phi Nu Pi (ΦΝΠ). This second name is the source of the nickname for members, "Nupes".
During this time there were very few African-American students at the majority white campus at Bloomington, Indiana and they were a small minority due to the era of the Jim Crow laws. Many African-American students rarely saw each other on campus and were discouraged or prohibited from attending student functions and extracurricular activities by white college administrators and fellow students. African-American students were denied membership on athletic teams with the exception of track and field. The racial prejudice and discrimination encountered by the founders strengthened their bond of friendship and growing interest in starting a social group.
By 1913, the fraternity expanded with the second undergraduate chapter opened at the University of Illinois—Beta chapter; then the University of Iowa—Gamma chapter. After this, Kappa Alpha Psi chartered undergraduate chapters on Black college campuses at Wilberforce University—Delta chapter, and Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)—Epsilon chapter. In 1920, Xi chapter was chartered at Howard University. In 1921, the fraternity installed the Omicron chapter at Columbia University, its first at an Ivy League university. The fraternity's first chapter in the South was established in 1921 at Morehouse CollegePi chapter. The first chapter in the West was established in 1923 at University of California, Los AngelesUpsilon chapter. Kappa Alpha Psi expanded through the Midwest, South, and West at both white and black colleges.
Some believe the Greek letters Kappa Alpha Nu were chosen as a tribute to Alpha Kappa Nu, but the name became an ethnic slur among racist factions. Founder Elder Watson Diggs, while observing a young initiate compete in a track meet, overheard fans referring to the member as a "kappa alpha nig", and a campaign to rename the fraternity ensued. The resolution to rename the group was adopted in December 1914, and the fraternity states, "the name acquired a distinctive Greek letter symbol and KAPPA ALPHA PSI thereby became a Greek letter Fraternity in every sense of the designation." Kappa Alpha Psi has been the official name since April 15, 1915.
In 1947, at the Los Angeles Conclave, the National Silhouettes of Kappa Alpha Psi were established as an auxiliary group, which membership comprises wives or widows of fraternity members. In 1980, the Silhouettes were officially recognized and granted a seat on the board of directors of the Kappa Alpha Psi Foundation. Silhouettes provide support and assistance for the activities of Kappa Alpha Psi at the Grand chapter, province and local levels.
The Kappa "Kane"
In the 1950s, as black Greek-letter organizations began the tradition of step shows, the fraternity began using the "Kappa Kane" in what it termed "cane stepping". The kappa canes were longer in the 1950s than in later decades. In the early 1960s, the cane was decorated with the fraternity colors. In the 1970s the cane was shortened so brothers could "twirl" and tap the cane in the choreography with high dexterity. The process of covering the cane in the fraternal colors is considered as 'wrapping' and is done very specifically.
In the 1960s the national organization did not condone the use of canes or Kappa Alpha Psi's participation in step shows contending that "the hours spent in step practices by chapters each week would be better devoted to academic or civic achievement." Senior Grand Vice Polemarch Ullysses McBride complained about the vulgar language and obscene gestures sometimes engaged in by cane-stepping participants during these stepshows. In 1986, during the fraternity's 66th national meeting, cane stepping was finally recognized as an important staple of Kappa Alpha Psi.
National programs
Guide Right
Guide Right is a program for the educational and occupational guidance of youth, primarily inspirational and informational in character. Its reach extends to high schools and colleges alike. In the latter, giving due attention to the needs of undergraduate Brothers.
Conceived in 1922 by Leon Wop Stewart, and suggested at the twelfth Grand chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, Guide Right became the Fraternity's National Service Program. Jesse Jerome Peters, later to become the eighth Grand Polemarch, was chairman of the committee, during the administration of W. Ellis Stewart as Grand Polemarch.
Guide Right is administrated by a National Director and a Guide Right Commission. The Guide Right Commission consists of the Director and twelve Province Guide Right Coordinators, one from each Province, appointed by their respective Province Polemarchs. The Director is uniquely qualified to perform the duties of this office and is appointed by the Grand Polemarch. He prepares such directives as are necessary for the successful and efficient observance of this National movement. He also edits and prepares the Manual for the universal use of Undergraduate and Alumni.
The five national Guide Right initiatives are Kappa League, Jr. Kappa League, A-MAN Program, St. Jude Research Hospital, and the premier program, "Kappa Kamp," which enables inner city boys to attend camps across the county. In addition to the above-mentioned national initiatives, chapters within the Fraternity sponsor a wide variety of Guide Right programs in their communities that support their local youth.
Kappa League
The Kappa League was founded Thursday, February 12, 1970 by the Los Angeles (CA) Alumni chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi; under the direction of Leon W Steward. Steward brought the idea to Los Angeles from Dayton, Ohio, where he had worked closely with Jay Crosby to expand the guide right activities of Dayton (OH) Alumni chapter. The Kappa League is a series of activities designed to help young high school male students develop their leadership talents. The activities provide both challenging and rewarding experiences to enhance their lives. The goal of the League is to help the students achieve worthy goals for themselves and to make meaningful contributions to their communities. The League includes a series of workshops to achieve its goals. Students from grades of 6 to 12th can join .
Student of the Year Competition
The Student of the Year Competition is a contest that encompasses six areas deemed critical to a successful life - scholarship, talent, community involvement, poise and appearance, career preparation, and model chapter operation. Each Province sponsors a pageant during its council. In the year of a Grand Chapter Meeting, the Province winners compete at the Grand Chapter Meeting. The first Student of the Year Pageant was held on May 20, 1972 at Drexel University, under the direction of Mel Davis. The first Pageant at the Grand Chapter Meeting occurred at the 58th Grand Chapter Meeting.
Kappa Alpha Psi Foundation
The "Kappa Alpha Psi Foundation," established in 1981, is the philanthropic arm of the fraternity and assists both alumni and undergraduate chapters in support of scholarships, after-school programs, and national projects such as Habitat for Humanity.
The Kappa Alpha Psi Foundation was conceived by Dr. Oliver S. Gumbs, the 23rd Grand Polemarch. His dream began to take shape at a May 1982 with the past Grand Polemarchs and the national officers in Washington, D.C. He proposed forming a separate 501(c)(3) charitable foundation to accept contributions to finance the headquarter's renovation project. Fraternity members contributing to the new foundation could deduct their donations as charitable contributions for income tax purposes. The foundation would also accept contributions from individuals, organizations and businesses.
Pan-Hellenic membership
The fraternity maintains dual membership in the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) and the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC).
The NPHC is composed of nine international black Greek-letter sororities and fraternities and promotes interaction through forums, meetings, and other mediums for the exchange of information, and engages in cooperative programming and initiatives through various activities and functions.
The NIC serves to advocate the needs of its member fraternities through enrichment of the fraternity experience, advancement and growth of the fraternity community, and enhancement of the educational mission of the host institutions.
Membership
Kappa Alpha Psi offers undergraduate and graduate membership to potential aspirants, and its constitution has never contained any clause which either excluded or suggested the exclusion of a man from membership because of color, creed, or national origin. Undergraduate chapters are located on more than 406 College and University campuses and Alumni chapters are arrayed in some 367 cities in the United States and 9 foreign countries.
To be considered for membership, a candidate must have at least a 2.5 gpa on a 4.0 scale. For consideration into Kappa Alpha Psi on the alumni level, one must possess at least a bachelor's degree or the equivalent of such a degree from an accredited college or university. Kappa Alpha Psi also prides itself in that it no longer bestows honorary membership.
Controversies
Embezzlement
In February 2022, fraternity member and head financial director of the fraternity, Curtis Anderson, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for embezzling $3 million from the fraternity over six years. Other fraternity leaders were alerted by Santander Bank of many suspicious transactions which lead to his firing and arrest. Anderson admitted to dealing with gambling and alcohol addictions. Prosecutors confirmed he blew most of the money at Harrah's Philadelphia Casino & Racetrack.
Hazing controversies
Kappa Alpha Psi was founded January 5, 1911, at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana and its opposition to hazing or unlawful or anti-social conduct of any kind has been continuous since its founding, implicit in its founding precepts and explicit in its declaration first published in the year 1949 stating that hazing in any form is illegal.
It is the goal of the fraternity to see that all individuals committing acts of hazing and other unlawful and prohibited acts are punished consistent with due process and the concept of proportionality to the full extent of the rules of the fraternity, college and the criminal law.
Kappa Alpha Psi does not condone hazing and has outlawed pledging. In 1990, Kappa Alpha Psi along with fellow NPHC organizations issued a joint statement announcing the elimination of pledging. The fraternity revised its membership development and intake process, instituted policies against hazing and has taken steps to reinforce and strengthen its stance against prohibited conduct. The fraternity backed its stance by releasing Executive Order One in 1988, Executive Order Two in 1993, and Executive Order Three in 1994. However, the culture of underground pledging is deeply embedded in fraternities and sororities as a whole and extreme hazing continues to be widespread across the organization.
Kappa Alpha Psi seeks to remove any and all opportunities for pledging, hazing, antisocial and unlawful activity and seeks to promote in every phase of fraternity life only safe and wholesome activities which are consistent with the Code of Conduct of the colleges, universities and jurisdictions where chapters are chartered. Any member, who participates in underground pledge activities, or hazing of any kind, shall be expelled from the fraternity.
Some members of Kappa Alpha Psi, who do not subscribe to the organization's motto of achievement, have elected, in defiance of the rules and regulations of the Fraternity, to conduct underground pledging and engage in acts of hazing in clear violation of fraternity rules and criminal statutes of the various states. As a result, the fraternity has had many complaints of hazing lodged against it, most related to the pledging process.
In 1994, Michael Davis, a Southeast Missouri State University student, was beaten to death participating in a pledging ritual by members of Kappa Alpha Psi. After a pledging ritual, fraternity members placed his lifeless body in his bed where he was officially pronounced dead. His family won a $1.4 million wrongful death lawsuit against the fraternity and several Kappas served time in prison.
In 1998, 11 Kappas affiliated with the University of Maryland Eastern Shore were charged with first-degree assault and reckless endangerment for hospitalizing several pledges. One pledge was beaten so badly that many of the veins in his backside were broken and he developed a life-threatening gangrene infection.
In 2006, the chapter at Florida A&M University was suspended after two members were sentenced to serve two years in prison and three others given three years of probation due to an anti-hazing law established in Florida following a hazing death involving the Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Miami in 2001. According to sworn complaints made by pledges at FAMU, they were punched, hit with canes, hit with two-by-fours, and suffered extreme exhaustion due to hazing. One pledge was admitted to a hospital for two days after a brutal night of hazing left him with a ruptured ear drum and half a pint of lost blood.
In 2009, Louisiana State University (LSU) placed an eleven-year ban on the fraternity for repeated hazing violations and severe abuse of pledges. LSU will not consider reinstatement of the fraternity until at least 2020.
Also in 2009, two Kappas at the University of North Texas were arrested and charged with a Class B misdemeanor for brutally beating a pledge with a paddle.
And also in 2009, a former pledge at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga sued the fraternity for $1 million to cover medical bills caused by an encounter with violent fraternity members.
In 2010, a pre-med student at Wayne State University suffered kidney failure and was hospitalized for twelve days after weeks of physical abuse by men of the fraternity.
Also in 2010, the fraternity chapter was permanently banned from the campus of Georgia State University for being a repeat offender and beating a student pledging so badly that he coughed up blood.
In 2011, the fraternity registration was cancelled at the University of Texas at San Antonio for striking pledges and providing misleading information to university officials during the hazing investigation.
In March 2012, the University of Florida chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi was suspended because of thirteen misdemeanor-level sworn complaints involving striking and harassing pledges.
In April 2012, the fraternity at Arkansas Tech University was permanently banned from campus for beating a pledge into a coma.
In 2013, a former pledge at California State University-Bakersfield sued the fraternity after being shot with a BB gun and hit with canes and horse whips that left him paralyzed.
Also in 2013, nine Kappas were charged with felony assault for severely beating pledges from Youngstown State University.
In 2014, 11 Kappas from the University of Georgia were arrested and charged with hazing for severely beating and humiliating pledges.
In March 2014, several Kappas from the University of Memphis were arrested and charged for hazing and beating pledges.
In March 2014, five Kappas from the University of Central Arkansas were arrested for beating pledges.
In 2015, a D.C. man sued the fraternity for hazing and humiliation. The 45-year-old filed a $2 million lawsuit because he stated after paying his non-refundable $3,000 graduate intake membership fee, he was coerced to allow himself to be beaten with a cane, rub lotion on a Kappa, and clean a Kappa's house in only his underwear and bare feet to become a welcomed member of the fraternity.
Also in 2015, a former pledge at Coppin State University sued the fraternity for $4 million due to injuries he sustained while pledging. In his lawsuit, he stated he was even beaten and terrorized by CSU Kappa alumni members in their 30s and 40s.
In 2016, three unidentified men affiliated with the fraternity at the University of Central Florida (UCF) were brutally beaten by Kappas after dropping their twirling canes while dancing according to witnesses. The UCF chapter was placed on suspension and under investigation.
Also in 2016, the chapter at Florida State University (FSU) was suspended by the university after a concerned mother of a pledge shared with a Tallahassee news station a disturbing video showing pledges being brutally beaten with canes by Kappas. FSU also placed the chapter under investigation to identify and prosecute all members involved in the beatings.
In 2018, it was reported that the chapter at Edward Waters College was beating and paddling pledges as well as forcing them to take a designer drug called "jig," a mixture of synthetic heroin, cocaine and LSD.
In 2018, the Pi chapter at Morehouse College was given a 10-year suspension from the college.
In March 2019, Delaware State University student Marlon W. Jackson died and three other students were hospitalized after a car crash due to sleep deprivation caused by pledging the fraternity. As a result, the Delaware State University chapter was suspended for 10 years.
In April 2019, three Virginia State University members were arrested and charged with 10 counts of hazing. Eight other fraternity members received University discipline but no criminal charges related to a hazing incident.
Provinces
In 1921, the Fraternity was divided into districts as a result of proposed legislation by George F. David II, the third Grand Polemarch. David was first Grand Polemarch who had not been nurtured by the Alpha chapter under the influence of the Founders, proposed dividing the Fraternity into supervisory districts. The idea originated with his father who was a Presiding Elder of the A.M.E. Church. Grand Polemarch David II, implemented the division of the Fraternity into three districts. Past Grand Polemarch Irven Armstrong was assigned the first; Harrison R. Duke, the second; and Harold M. Tyler, the third district. The three districts grew into four "regions". Fifth Grand Polemarch Earl B. Dickerson changed the designation of "Region" to "Province" and "Regional Director" to "Province Polemarch" at the 15th Grand Chapter Meeting in 1925. And during the original establishment of provinces, the following provinces were established: Eastern, Middle Eastern, Central, Great Lakes, Northwestern, Western, Southern, and Southeastern Provinces. Currently there are 12 provinces with the following names:
Chapters
Kappa Alpha Psi has chartered over 721 undergraduate, alumni, and international chapters. The fraternity has over 150,000 members and is divided into twelve provinces (districts/regions), with each chapter under the aegis of a province.
Notable members
See also
List of social fraternities and sororities
Thoth
References
Further reading
External links
Student organizations established in 1911
International student societies
National Pan-Hellenic Council
North American Interfraternity Conference
Student societies in the United States
1911 establishments in Indiana
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%20isolation
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Social isolation
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Social isolation is a state of complete or near-complete lack of contact between an individual and society. It differs from loneliness, which reflects temporary and involuntary lack of contact with other humans in the world. Social isolation can be an issue for individuals of any age, though symptoms may differ by age group.
Social isolation has similar characteristics in both temporary instances and for those with a historical lifelong isolation cycle. All types of social isolation can include staying home for lengthy periods of time, having no communication with family, acquaintances or friends, and/or willfully avoiding any contact with other humans when those opportunities do arise.
Effects
True social isolation over years and decades can be a chronic condition affecting all aspects of a person's existence. Social isolation can lead to feelings of loneliness, fear of others, or negative self-esteem. Lack of consistent human contact can also cause conflict with (peripheral) friends. The socially isolated person may occasionally talk to or cause problems with family members.
In the case of mood-related isolation, the individual may isolate during a depressive episode only to 'surface' when their mood improves. The individual may attempt to justify their reclusive or isolating behavior as enjoyable or comfortable. There can be an inner realization on the part of the individual that there is something wrong with their isolating responses which can lead to heightened anxiety. Relationships can be a struggle, as the individual may reconnect with others during a healthier mood only to return to an isolated state during a subsequent low or depressed mood.
Perceived social isolation in humans
Research indicates that perceived social isolation (PSI) is a risk factor for and may contribute to "poorer overall cognitive performance and poorer executive functioning, faster cognitive decline, more negative and depressive cognition, heightened sensitivity to social threats, and a self-protective confirmatory bias in social cognition." PSI also contributes to accelerating the ageing process: Wilson et al. (2007) reported that, after controlling for social network size and frequency of social activity, perceived social isolation is predictive of cognitive decline and risk for Alzheimer's disease. Moreover, the social interactions of individuals who feel socially isolated are more negative and less subjectively satisfying. This contributes to a vicious cycle in which the person becomes more and more isolated.
Neuroimaging studies
In the first resting state fMRI functional connectivity (FC) study on PSI, PSI was found to be associated with increased resting-state FC between several nodes of the cingulo-opercular network, a neural network associated with tonic alertness. PSI was also associated with reduced resting-state FC between the cingulo-opercular network and the right superior frontal gyrus, suggesting diminished executive control.
Cacioppo and colleagues (2009) found that lonely individuals express weaker activation of the ventral striatum in response to pleasant pictures of people than of objects, suggesting decreased reward to social stimuli. Lonely individuals also expressed greater activation of the visual cortex in response to unpleasant depictions of people (i.e., negative facial expressions) than of objects; non-lonely individuals show greater activation of the right and left temporoparietal junction (TPJ), a region implicated in theory of mind. The authors interpreted the findings to represent that lonely individuals pay greater attention to negative social stimuli, but non-lonely individuals, to a greater degree than lonely individuals, insert themselves into the perspective of others.
Moreover, Kanai et al. (2012) reported that loneliness negatively correlated with gray matter density in the left posterior temporal sulcus, an area involved in biological motion perception, mentalizing, and social perception.
Overall, several neuroimaging studies in humans on perceived social isolation have emphasized implications of the visual cortex and right-hemispheric stress-related circuits underlying difference between lonely and non-lonely individuals. A recent population-genetics study marked a 50x increase in the neuroimaging research on perceived social isolation. The investigators tested for signatures of loneliness in grey matter morphology, intrinsic functional coupling, and fiber tract microstructure. The loneliness-linked neurobiological profiles converged on a collection of brain regions known as the default mode network. This higher associative network shows more consistent loneliness associations in grey matter volume than other cortical brain networks. Lonely individuals display stronger functional communication in the default network, and greater microstructural integrity of its fornix pathway. The findings fit with the possibility that the up-regulation of these neural circuits supports mentalizing, reminiscence and imagination to fill the social void.
Social isolation in rodents
Experimental manipulations of social isolation in rats and mice (e.g., isolated rearing) are a common means of elucidating the effects of isolation on social animals in general. Researchers have proposed isolated rearing of rats as an etiologically valid model of human mental illness. Indeed, chronic social isolation in rats has been found to lead to depression-, anxiety-, and psychosis-like behaviors as well signs of autonomic, neuroendocrine, and metabolic dysregulation. For example, a systematic review found that social isolation in rats is associated with increased expression of BDNF in the hippocampus, which is associated with increased anxiety-like symptoms. In another example, a study found that social isolation in rats is associated with increased brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression in the prefrontal cortex. This results in the dysregulation of neural activity which is associated with anxiety, depression, and social dysfunction.
The effects of experimental manipulations of isolation in nonhuman social species has been shown to resemble the effects of perceived isolation in humans, and include: increased tonic sympathetic tone and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activation and decreased inflammatory control, immunity, sleep salubrity, and expression of genes regulating glucocorticoid responses. However, the biological, neurological, and genetic mechanisms underlying these symptoms are poorly understood.
Neurobiology
Social isolation contributes to abnormal hippocampal development via specific alterations to microtubule stability and decreased MAP-2 expression. Social isolation contributes to decreased expression of the synaptic protein synaptophysin and decreased dendritic length and dendritic spine density of pyramidal cells. The underlying molecular mechanism of these structural neuronal alterations are microtubule stabilizations, which impair the remodeling and extension of axons and dendrites.
Research by Cole and colleagues showed that perceived social isolation is associated with gene expression – specifically, the under-expression of genes bearing anti-inflammatory glucocorticoid response elements and over-expression of genes bearing response elements for pro-inflammatory NF-κB/Rel transcription factors. This finding is paralleled by decreased lymphocyte sensitivity to physiological regulation by the HPA axis in lonely individuals. This, together with evidence of increased activity of the HPA axis, suggests the development of glucocorticoid resistance in chronically lonely individuals.
Social isolation can be a precipitating factor for suicidal behavior. A large body of literature suggests that individuals who experience isolation in their lives are more vulnerable to suicide than those who have strong social ties with others. A study found social isolation to be among the most common risk factors identified by Australian men who attempt suicide. Professor Ian Hickie of the University of Sydney said that social isolation was perhaps the most important factor contributing to male suicide attempts. Hickie said there was a wealth of evidence that men had more restricted social networks than women, and that these networks were heavily work-based.
A lack of social relationships negatively impacts the development of the brain's structure. In extreme cases of social isolation, studies of young mice and monkeys have shown how the brain is strongly affected by a lack of social behaviour and relationships.
In social animal species in general
In a hypothesis proposed by Cacioppo and colleagues, the isolation of a member of a social species has detrimental biological effects. In a 2009 review, Cacioppo and Hawkley noted that the health, life, and genetic legacy of members of social species are threatened when they find themselves on the social perimeter. For instance, social isolation decreases lifespan in the fruit fly; promotes obesity and type 2 diabetes in mice; exacerbates infarct size and oedema and decreases post-stroke survival rate following experimentally induced stroke in mice; promotes activation of the sympatho-adrenomedullary response to an acute immobilisation or cold stressor in rats; delays the effects of exercise on adult neurogenesis in rats; decreases open field activity, increases basal cortisol concentrations, and decreases lymphocyte proliferation to mitogens in pigs; increases the 24-hour urinary catecholamine levels and evidence of oxidative stress in the aortic arch of rabbits; and decreases the expression of genes regulating glucocorticoid response in the frontal cortex.
Social isolation in the common starling, a highly social, flocking species of bird, has also been shown to stress the isolated birds.
Background
Social isolation is both a potential cause and a symptom of emotional or psychological challenges. As a cause, the perceived inability to interact with the world and others can create an escalating pattern of these challenges. As a symptom, periods of isolation can be chronic or episodic, depending upon any cyclical changes in mood, especially in the case of clinical depression.
Every day aspects of this type of deep-rooted social isolation can mean:
staying home for an indefinite period of time due to lack of access to social situations rather than a desire to be alone;
both not contacting, and not being contacted by, any acquaintances, even peripherally; for example, never being called by anybody on the telephone and never having anyone visit one's residence;
a lack of meaningful, extended relationships, and especially close intimacy (both emotional and physical).
Contributing factors
The following risk factors contribute to reasons why individuals distance themselves from society.
Aging – Once a person reaches an age where problems such as cognitive impairments and disabilities arise, they are unable to go out and socialize.
Health and disabilities – People may be embarrassed by their disabilities or health problems, such that they have a tendency to isolate themselves to avoid social interaction out of fear that they would be judged or stigmatized. Sometimes, rather than embarrassment, the disability itself and a person's lack of a support network can be the cause of social isolation.
Autism – autistic and allistic (non-autistic) people communicate very differently, leading to a mutual friction when they try talking to each other. As autistic people are in a steep minority, often unable to find peers who communicate the same way they do, they are often ostracised by the majority, who mistake their direct, semantic communication style for them being purposefully arrogant, brash, and obtuse.
Hearing loss – hearing loss can cause communication impairment, which can lead to social isolation particularly in older adults.
The loss of a loved one can contribute to social isolation. Studies have shown that widows who keep in contact with friends or relatives have better psychological health. A study conducted by Jung-Hwa Ha and Berit Ingersoll-Dayton concluded that widows who had a lot of social contact and interactions lead to fewer depressive symptoms. During a time of loss social isolation is not beneficial to an individual's mental health.
Living alone – A 2015 study by the National Center for Family & Marriage Research found 13 percent of adults in the United States were living alone, up from 12 percent in 1990. The rate of living alone for people under 45 has not changed, but the rate for Americans aged 45 – 65 has increased over the past 25 years. People over the age of 65 are living alone less often.
Isolation may be imposed by an abusive spouse.
Rural isolation – In rural areas, factors such as living far apart from one another, rural flight, a negligible amount of public spaces and entertainment, and lack of access to mental health-related resources all contribute to isolation. Limited access to broadband internet and cellular activity also make it harder for those experiencing isolation to connect online or reach people.
Unemployment – This can begin if someone is fired, dismissed, or released from a job or workplace, or leaves one of their own accords. If the person struggles or is unable to find a new job for a long period of time (i.e. months or years) the sense of isolation can become exacerbated, especially in men.
Independent home worker – The tasks implied in this kind of job generally doesn't imply social interaction in the physical level, nor going outside. Interactions and payments can be made by digital media so the person remains isolated from society.
Retirement – or other source of fixed income, makes innecessary for the person to search for a job, this situation is similar to unemployment but with better living on one hand but without the need to go outside on the other hand.
Transportation problems – If the person doesn't have transportation to attend gatherings or to simply get out of the house, they have no choice but to stay home all day, which can lead to those feelings of depression.
Societal adversity – Desire to avoid the discomfort, dangers, and responsibilities arising from being among people. This can happen if other people are sometimes, or often, rude, hostile, critical or judgmental, crude, or otherwise unpleasant. The person would just prefer to be alone to avoid the hassles and hardships of dealing with people. Being a part of an outgroup and social categorization can also play a part in creating adverse circumstances that the individual may attempt to avoid depending on the policies and attitudes of the society.
Substance abuse can be both cause and/or effect of isolation, often coinciding with mood-related disorders, especially among those living alone
Economic inequality – Poorer children have fewer school-class friends and are more often isolated. Adults on welfare, such as the Ontario Disability Support Program prioritize their monthly entitlement towards rent and low-cost meals, leaving opportunities to socialize at restaurants and movie theaters out of the question.
Self-esteem – A person with a low self-esteem or lack of self love can contribute to that person's isolation. Having a low self-esteem can cause one to overthink and stress themselves out when being around people, and can ultimately eliminate that feeling by isolating themselves. Removing this feeling can lead to an unfortunate social life in the future and can also harm potential relationships with others. According to Northeastern University, having a low self-esteem can hold us back from reaching out to making plans with other people. It can make a person feel like they're a burden to them, therefore once again isolating themselves from going out. This can also lead a person into thinking that they're not worthy of making friends and deserve any love; and also feeling like they don't deserve to have a happy life.
Social isolation can begin early in life. During this time of development, a person may become more preoccupied with feelings and thoughts of their individuality that are not easy to share with other individuals. This can result from feelings of shame, guilt, or alienation during childhood experiences. Social isolation can also coincide with developmental disabilities. Individuals with learning impairments may have trouble with social interaction. The difficulties experienced academically can greatly impact the individual's esteem and sense of self-worth. An example would be the need to repeat a year of school. During the early childhood developmental years, the need to fit in and be accepted is paramount. Having a learning deficit can in turn lead to feelings of isolation, that they are somehow 'different' from others.
Whether new technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones exacerbate social isolation (of any origin) is a debated topic among sociologists, with studies showing both positive correlation of social connections with use of social media as well as mood disorders coinciding with problematic use.
Isolation among the elderly
Social isolation impacts approximately 24% of older adults in the United States, approximately 9 million people. The elderly have a unique set of isolating dynamics that often perpetuate one another and can drive the individual into deeper isolation. Increasing frailty, possible declines in overall health, absent or uninvolved relatives or children, economic struggles can all add to the feeling of isolation. Among the elderly, childlessness can be a cause for social isolation. Whether their child is deceased or they did not have children at all, the loneliness that comes from not having a child can cause social isolation. Retirement, the abrupt end of daily work relationships, the death of close friends or spouses can also contribute to social isolation.
In the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom, a significant sector of the elderly who are in their 80s and 90s are brought to nursing homes if they show severe signs of social isolation. Other societies such as many in Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, East Asia, and also the Caribbean and South America, do not normally share the tendency towards admission to nursing homes, preferring instead to have children and extended-family of elderly parents take care of those elderly parents until their deaths. On the other hand, a report from Statistics Norway in 2016 stated that more than 30 percent of seniors over the age of 66 have two or fewer people to rely on should personal problems arise. Even still, nearly half of all members of senior communities are at high risk for social isolation, this is especially prevalent with seniors of a lower education and within the lower economic class and compounded with diminished availability of socializing options to these lower class individuals. There has also been an observed increase in physical gait among members of these communities.
Social isolation among older adults has been linked to an increase in disease morbidity, a higher risk of dementia, and a decrease in physical mobility along with an increase in general health concerns. Evidence of increased cognitive decline has been link to an increase in social isolation in depressed elderly women. At the same time, increasing social connectedness has been linked to health improvements among older adults.
The use of video communication/video calls has been suggested as a potential intervention to improve social isolation in seniors. However, its effectiveness is not known.
Isolation and health and mortality
Social isolation and loneliness in older adults is associated with an increased risk for poor mental and physical health and increased mortality. There is an increased risk for early mortality in individuals experiencing social isolation compared to those who are not socially isolated. Studies have found social isolation is associated with increased risk in physical health conditions including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, elevated stress hormones, and weakened immune systems. Research also suggests that social isolation and mortality in the elderly share a common link to chronic inflammation with some differences between men and women. Social isolation has also been found to be associated with poor mental health including increased risk for depression, cognitive decline, anxiety, and substance use. Social isolation in elderly individuals is also associated with an increased risk for dementia.
Isolation among children and teens
Middle school is a time when youth tend to be sensitive to social challenges and their self-esteem can be fragile. During this vulnerable time in development, supporting students' sense of belonging at school is of critical importance. Existing research finds that adolescents' development of a sense of belonging is an important factor in adolescence for creating social and emotional well-being and academic success. Studies have found that friendship-related loneliness is more explanatory for depressive symptoms among adolescents than parent-related loneliness. One possible explanation is that friends are the preferred source of social support during adolescence.
Scientists have long known that loneliness in adults can predispose depressive symptoms later in life. Lately, scientists have also seen that lonely children are more susceptible to depressive symptoms in youth. In one study, researchers conclude that prevention of loneliness in childhood may be a protective factor against depression in adulthood. Socially isolated children tend to have lower subsequent educational attainment, be part of a less advantaged social class in adulthood, and are more likely to be psychologically distressed in adulthood. By receiving social assistance, studies show that children can cope more easily with high levels of stress. It is also shown that social support is strongly associated with feelings of mastery and the ability to deal with stressful situations, as well as strongly associated with increased quality of life.
Demographics
Research has shown that men and boys are more likely to experience social isolation in their lives.
See also
Asociality
Beatriz Flamini
Emotional isolation
Existential isolation
Existential crisis
Hikikomori
Hedgehog's dilemma
Loner
Solitary confinement
Solitude
Stigma management
Social alienation
Social anxiety
Social connection
Social exclusion
Social network
Social rejection
Social relation
Social stigma
References
Further reading
Interpersonal relationships
Shyness
Shunning
Majority–minority relations
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute%20Jump
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Parachute Jump
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The Parachute Jump is a defunct amusement ride and a landmark in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, along the Riegelmann Boardwalk at Coney Island. Situated in Steeplechase Plaza near the B&B Carousell, the structure consists of a , open-frame, steel parachute tower. Twelve cantilever steel arms radiate from the top of the tower; when the ride was in operation, each arm supported a parachute attached to a lift rope and a set of guide cables. Riders were belted into a two-person canvas seat, lifted to the top, and dropped. The parachute and shock absorbers at the bottom would slow their descent.
The ride was built for the 1939 New York World's Fair at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, also in New York City. Capped by a flagpole, it was the tallest structure at the Fair. In 1941, after the World's Fair, it was moved to its current location in the Steeplechase amusement park on Coney Island. It ceased operations in the 1960s following the park's closure, and the frame fell into disrepair.
Despite proposals to either demolish or restore the ride, disputes over its use caused it to remain unused through the 1980s. The Parachute Jump has been renovated several times since the 1990s, both for stability and for aesthetic reasons. In the 2000s, it was restored and fitted with a lighting system. The lights were activated in 2006 and replaced in a subsequent project in 2013. It has been lit up in commemoration of events such as the death of Kobe Bryant. The ride, the only remaining portion of Steeplechase Park, is a New York City designated landmark and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Description
The Parachute Jump is on the Riegelmann Boardwalk at Coney Island between West 16th and West 19th Streets. It consists of a hexagonal base, upon which stands a six-sided steel structure. Each of the tower's legs consists of a flange column braced with horizontal ribs at intervals and diagonal ribs between the horizontal beams. The legs are grounded on concrete foundations, each of which contains twelve timber piles. The diagonal and horizontal ribs intersect at gusset plates, which contain splices at intervals and are riveted to the base. A ladder is on the north side of the structure, extending from the top of the base. There are anti-climbing devices on the frame. The frame has about 8,000 lighting fixtures, which are used for night-time light shows. The tower's wide base gives it stability, while the top is tapered off.
The Parachute Jump is tall, as compared to the 1939 New York World's Fair Parachute Jump at tall, having been topped by a flagpole. Twelve drop points are at the top, marked by structural steel arms, which extend outward from the tower's center, and support octagonal subframes at the far end of each arm. Eight parachute guidelines were suspended from each subframe, which helped keep the parachute open. A circular structure runs atop the subframes, connecting them to each other. Walkways were above the top of the tower, as well as along each arm.
Functional parachutes dangled from each of the twelve sub-frames and were held open by metal rings. Each parachute required three cable operators. Riders were belted into two-person canvas seats hanging below the closed parachutes. The parachutes would open as the riders were hoisted to the top of the ride, where release mechanisms would drop them. The parachutes could be stopped at any time during the ascent, but not once they had been released from the top of the tower. The parachutes slowed the rider's descent and the seats would be stopped by a brake after they had fallen to above ground level. Shock absorbers at the bottom, consisting of pole-mounted springs, cushioned the landing.
The base consists of a two-story pavilion. The upper floor housed mechanical structures and hoisting machinery, while the ground floor contained ticket booths and a waiting room. The pavilion has six sides divided by fluted piers which slope upward toward the corrugated galvanized-iron roof. The upper floor of the pavilion has red, yellow, and blue walls. The lower floor, below the height of the boardwalk, contained fenced-off open space. The concrete platform surrounding the pavilion is several steps beneath the boardwalk level. It was originally intended as a landing pad for riders and has a radius of . An access ramp was at the northeast corner of the platform.
Because of its shape, the Parachute Jump has been nicknamed the "Eiffel Tower of Brooklyn". The New York Daily News compared the structure to an Erector Set toy, while a writer for City Journal said it resembled a mushroom. Several works of media, such as Little Fugitive (1953), have also been filmed at the Parachute Jump.
Precursors
By the 1930s, parachutists could be trained by jumping from parachute towers rather than from aircraft. Accordingly, Stanley Switlik and George P. Putnam built a tower on Switlik's farm in Ocean County, New Jersey. The tower, which was designed to train airmen in parachute jumping, was first publicly used on June 2, 1935, when Amelia Earhart jumped from it.
The "parachute device" was patented by retired U.S. Naval Commander James H. Strong along with Switlik, inspired by early practice towers Strong had seen in the Soviet Union, where simple wooden towers had been used to train paratroopers since the 1920s. Strong designed a safer version of the tower, which included eight guide wires in a circle surrounding the parachute. Strong filed a patent in 1935 and built several test platforms at his home in Hightstown, New Jersey, in 1936 and 1937. The military platforms suspended a single rider in a harness and offered a few seconds of free fall after the release at the top before the chutes opened to slow the fall. In response to high civilian interest in trying out the ride, Strong modified his invention for non-military use, making some design changes. These included a seat that could hold two people, a larger parachute for a slower drop, a metal ring to hold it open, and shock-absorbing springs to ease the final landing. The modified amusement-ride version was marketed by Miranda Brothers Inc. as a , two-armed parachute jump.
Strong sold military versions of the tower to the Romanian and U.S. armies, as well as installed towers in New Jersey and Fort Benning, Georgia. He converted an existing observation tower in Chicago's Riverview Park into a six-chute amusement ride. This enterprise, the "Pair-O-Chutes", performed well enough that Strong applied to build and operate a jump at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Another jump, also reportedly designed by Strong, was installed at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in Paris in 1937.
Operation
1939 World's Fair
Construction officially began at the 1939 World's Fair in December 1938; it was to be in the Fair's "Amusement Zone", along the eastern shore of Meadow Lake in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens. Life Savers sponsored the ride, investing $15,000 () and decorated its tower with brightly lit, candy-shaped rings. Elwyn E. Seelye & Co. designed the steelwork, Bethlehem Steel manufactured the tower pieces, and Skinner, Cook & Babcock assembled the pieces onsite. Construction cost about $99,000 ().
The Jump opened on , a month after the Fair's official opening. It had twelve parachute bays; while five parachutes were operational upon opening, eleven would eventually be used at the Fair. A flagpole was added atop the original tower to surpass the height of a statue within the Soviet Pavilion. The flagpole had been installed because members of the public had objected to the Soviet statue being placed higher than the United States' flag. Each ride cost for adults and for children. The trip to the top took about a minute and the drop took between 10 and 20 seconds. The official 1939 Fair guidebook described the Parachute Jump as "one of the most spectacular features of the Amusement Area", calling the attraction "similar to that which the armies of the world use in early stages of training for actual parachute jumping". The Parachute Jump ultimately became the Fair's second-most popular attraction, behind the Billy Rose's Aquacade stage show.
Several incidents occurred within the first few months of the Parachute Jump's opening. On July 12, 1939, entangled cables left a married couple aloft for five hours in the middle of the night. The couple returned to ride again the next day, having been congratulated for their courage by New York City mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, who had been at the World's Fair when they got stuck. At least two other groups of people became stuck on the Parachute Jump in its first year: a deputy sheriff and his sister-in-law later in July 1939, and two female friends that September.
The Parachute Jump's popularity was negatively affected by its secluded location away from the World's Fair's main entrance. After the Life Savers sponsorship ended at the conclusion of the 1939 season, the ride was relocated closer to the entrance of the New York City Subway's World's Fair station, near the Children's World section of the Fair, at a cost of $88,500 (). An additional chute and new foundations were added. The relocation was announced in December 1939 and was scheduled to take about three months. The movement of the Parachute Jump and the consolidation of concessions at that location helped improve business for the World's Fair's 1940 season. The reopening was delayed by disagreements between operator International Parachuting Inc. and James Strong. These disagreements included a lawsuit filed by International Parachuting against Strong to prevent him from selling the rights to the ride to third parties.
The Parachute Jump reopened in June 1940, over a month after the Fair's reopening. During the Fair's second operating season, a couple were married on the Parachute Jump in what was described as the first-ever "parachute ceremony". A half-million guests had jumped from the tower before the end of the World's Fair. The Parachute Jump was slated to be sent to either Coney Island in Brooklyn or Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey following the conclusion of the Fair. Relocation to Coney Island was considered as early as August 1940; both Luna Park and Steeplechase Park were interested in purchasing the ride during this time. After the Fair closed in October 1940, its operators announced that the Parachute Jump would be sent to Coney Island.
Steeplechase Park
Frank Tilyou and George Tilyou Jr., the owners of Steeplechase Park, acquired the Jump for . The park was recovering from a September 1939 fire, which had caused damage and injured 18 people. The fire had destroyed many of the larger attractions, including a Flying Turns roller coaster, whose site stood empty a year after the blaze. The Parachute Jump was disassembled and moved to the site of the Flying Turns coaster, adjacent to the boardwalk. The ride required some modifications in its new, windier, shore-side location, including the addition of foundations. The relocation was supervised by the engineer Edwin W. Kleinert and architect Michael Marlo. Its installation was part of a larger reconstruction of an section of the boardwalk.
The Jump reopened in May 1941. Unlimited rides on the Parachute Jump were initially included within Steeplechase Park's single admission fee, which cost at the time of the ride's relocation. Later, the brothers introduced "combination tickets", which included the park admission fee and a predetermined number of ride experiences on any of the attractions in the park. During World War II, when much of the city was subject to a military blackout, the ride stayed lit to serve as a navigational beacon. The Parachute Jump originally used the multicolored chutes from the World's Fair; by the mid-1940s, these had been replaced with white chutes. According to Jim McCollough, a business partner and nephew of the Tilyou brothers, the frame was repainted every year.
The Parachute Jump attracted up to half a million riders during each annual operating season. Most riders reached the tower's pinnacle in just under a minute and descended within 11–15 seconds. The experience was described as similar to "flying in a free fall". The Parachute Jump was popular among off-duty military personnel, who took their friends and loved ones to the ride. Occasionally, riders became stuck mid-jump or were tangled within the cables. The ride was subject to shutdowns on windy days, especially when breezes exceeded . Furthermore, at least fifteen people were required to operate the Parachute Jump, making it unprofitable.
Coney Island's popularity receded during the 1960s as it underwent increased crime, insufficient parking facilities, and patterns of bad weather. These difficulties were exacerbated by competition from the 1964 New York World's Fair, also in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, which led to a record low patronage at Steeplechase Park. On September 20, 1964, Steeplechase Park closed for the last time, and the next year, the property was sold to developer Fred Trump. On the site of Steeplechase Park, Trump proposed building a enclosed dome with recreational facilities and a convention center.
Closure
The Parachute Jump stopped operating as part of Steeplechase Park upon the latter's closure in 1964. Sources disagree on whether the ride closed permanently or continued to operate until 1968. Local Coney Island historian Charles Denson explained that the Jump closed in 1964 but that many publications give an erroneous date of 1968. The nonprofit Coney Island History Project maintains that the attraction closed in 1964 and the 1968 date was based on an inaccurate newspaper article. The Guide to New York City Landmarks also mentions that the ride closed in 1964, while the Brooklyn Paper says the Jump was shuttered in 1965. A New York Daily News article in 1965 said the Parachute Jump was nonoperational and had "been stripped of its wires and chutes". A New York World-Telegram article the following year described a plan to restore Steeplechase Park, which included turning the Parachute Jump into the "world's largest bird feeding station".
Several sources state the Jump operated until 1968. According to a press release in 1965, when the Parachute Jump was ostensibly still operating, it attracted half a million visitors per year. A Daily News article from 1973 states the ride closed in 1968. Consulting engineer Helen Harrison and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation's website also cite a closure date of 1968, saying it was one of several small rides that were operated by concessionaires on the site of Steeplechase Park. According to Harrison, the last documented incident on the ride was on May 30, 1968, when a young girl was reported to have gotten stuck halfway through the drop.
Post-closure
Acquisition of site
In 1966, the Coney Island Chamber of Commerce petitioned New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to make the Parachute Jump an official city landmark. Trump, however, wanted to sell it as scrap and did not think it was old enough to warrant landmark status. For a time Trump rented out the base area as a concession and it was encircled by a small go-kart track. That October, the city announced a plan to acquire the of the former Steeplechase Park so the land could be reserved for recreational use. The city voted in 1968 to acquire the site for $4 million (equivalent to $million in ).
Control of the Jump passed to NYC Parks, the municipal government agency tasked with maintaining recreational facilities in New York City. The agency attempted to sell the Jump at auction in 1971 but received no bids. NYC Parks had planned to demolish the Parachute Jump if no one was willing to buy it. A study conducted in 1972 found the Jump was structurally sound. At the time, there were proposals to give the tower landmark status and install a light show on it.
The city unsuccessfully attempted to redevelop the Steeplechase site as a state park. By the late 1970s, the city government wanted to build an amusement park on the land. Norman Kaufman, who had run a small collection of fairground amusements on the Steeplechase site since the 1960s, was interested in reopening the Parachute Jump. Kaufman was evicted from the site in 1981, ending discussion of that plan.
Landmark status
After it was abandoned, the Jump became a haunt for teenagers and young adults to climb, while the base became covered with graffiti. Despite its deterioration, it remained a focal point of the community; according to local legend, the tower could be seen from up to away. Organizations such as the Coney Island Chamber of Commerce and the Gravesend Historical Society decided to save the structure, though the LPC could not consider such a designation unless NYC Parks indicated it was not interested in developing the Parachute Jump site as a park. On July 12, 1977, the LPC designated the tower as a city landmark. When the designation was presented to the New York City Board of Estimate three months later, the board declined to certify the landmark designation. NYC Parks had said the structure would cost $10,000 a year to maintain. Despite the city's reluctance to designate the structure as a landmark, the Parachute Jump was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The city government questioned the tower's safety. A 1982 survey concluded the tower would need a $500,000 renovation to stabilize the ground underneath (equivalent to $million in ) and another $1 million to restore it to operating condition (about $million in ). The survey estimated it would cost at least $300,000 to demolish the structure (), making demolition too costly an option. The cheapest option, simply maintaining the structure, would have cost $10,000 a year (). The local community board recommended that the Parachute Jump be demolished if it could not be fixed, but NYC Parks commissioner Henry Stern said in January 1984 that his department had "decided to let it stand".
Stern dismissed the possibility of making the Parachute Jump operational again, calling it a "totally useless structure" and saying that even the Eiffel Tower had a restaurant. Stern said he welcomed the community's proposals for reusing the Parachute Jump but other agency officials said the plans presented thus far, which included turning the Jump into a giant windmill, were "quixotic, at best". In the mid-1980s, restaurant mogul Horace Bullard proposed rebuilding Steeplechase Park; his plans included making the Parachute Jump operational again. At the time, the Parachute Jump was described as a "symbol of despair" because no real effort had been made to restore or clean up the structure.
In 1987, the LPC hosted meetings to determine the feasibility of granting landmark status to the Parachute Jump, Wonder Wheel, and Coney Island Cyclone. Two years later, on May 23, 1989, the LPC restored city landmark status to the Parachute Jump. Following this, the Board of Estimate granted permission for Bullard to develop his amusement park on the Steeplechase site, including reopening the Parachute Jump. These plans were delayed because of a lack of funds.
Restorations and lighting
In 1991, the city government announced an expenditure to prevent the Jump from collapsing, though there was insufficient funding in the city budget. The city government stabilized the structure in 1993 and painted it in its original colors, although the structure still suffered from rust in the salt air. The thrill-ride company Intamin was enlisted to determine whether the Parachute Jump could again be made operational. Bullard's redevelopment plan clashed with another proposal that would build a sports arena, such as a minor-league baseball stadium, on the site. The Bullard deal was negated in 1994, and the site directly north of the Parachute Jump was developed into a sports stadium, KeySpan Park, which opened in 2000.
The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) assumed responsibility for the tower in 2000. Originally, the city government wanted to reopen it as a functioning ride. This plan was abandoned since the cost of bringing the Jump to safety standards would have been excessively high. The planned renovation would have cost , excluding the high insurance premiums that would need to be paid on the attraction.
2002 restoration and first lighting project
In 2002, the EDC started renovating the Parachute Jump for $5 million. The NYCEDC contracted engineering firm STV to rehabilitate the structure. The upper part of the tower was dismantled, about two-thirds of the original structure was taken down, some of it replaced, and the structure was painted red. The restoration was completed around July 2003. Upon the completion of the project, Brooklyn Borough president Marty Markowitz started studying proposals to reuse or reopen the structure. In 2004, STV subcontracted Leni Schwendinger Light Projects to develop a night-time lighting concept for the Parachute Jump. Schwendinger contracted Phoster Industries for the LED portion of the lighting project. Markowitz's office, NYC Parks, the NYCEDC, Schwendinger, and STV collaborated for two years on the project, which cost $1.45 million.
The Coney Island Development Corporation and the Van Alen Institute held an architecture contest in 2004 to determine future uses for the pavilion at the Jump's base. More than 800 competitors from 46 countries participated. The results were announced the following year; there were one winning team, two runners-up with cash prizes, and nine honorable mentions. The winning design outlined a bowtie-shaped pavilion with lighting and an all-season activity center, which included a souvenir shop, restaurant, bar, and exhibition space.
The first night-time light show was held on July 7, 2006. The installation contained six animations and used most colors except for green, which would not have been visible on the tower's red frame. The animations were based on events in the local calendar, including the boardwalk's operating and non-operating seasons, the lunar cycle, the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, and national holidays such as Memorial Day and Labor Day. There is also a sequence called "Kaleidoscope" for other holidays. Officials said the lights were to be left on from dusk to midnight during summer and from dusk to 11:00 p.m. the rest of the year. In observance of the "Lights Out New York" initiative, which sought to reduce bird deaths from light pollution, the tower lighting went dark at 11:00 p.m. during the bird migratory seasons.
2013 restoration and second lighting project
Although Markowitz was initially satisfied with Schwendinger's light installation, by 2007 he was referring to her installation as "Phase I" of a multi-portion lighting upgrade. In February 2008, the city began planning a second phase of lights. Anti-climbing devices were installed on the Parachute Jump in 2010 after several instances of people scaling the structure, and the lights were temporarily turned off in 2011 because of a lack of maintenance. Concurrently, starting in 2011, the site around the tower was redeveloped as Steeplechase Plaza.
A $2 million renovation was completed in 2013, after which it contained 8,000 LED lights, in comparison with the 450 total after the first installation. The B&B Carousell, an early-20th-century carousel that had become part of Luna Park, was relocated to Steeplechase Plaza east of the Parachute Jump in 2013. The tower was lit up for its first New Year's Eve Ball drop at the end of 2014, and since then, the Parachute Jump has been lit for New Year's Eve each year. The Parachute Jump has also been lit up in recognition of special causes, such as World Autism Awareness Day and Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, as well as to commemorate notable personalities, such as happened after the 2020 death of retired NBA basketball player Kobe Bryant.
See also
Great Gasp – former parachute drop ride at Six Flags Over Georgia
Jumpin' Jellyfish – parachute jump ride at Disney California Adventure
List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Brooklyn
National Register of Historic Places listings in Brooklyn
Texas Chute Out – former parachute drop ride at Six Flags Over Texas
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
External links
Oral histories about the Parachute Jump collected by the Coney Island History Project
1939 establishments in New York City
1939 New York World's Fair
Amusement rides introduced in 1939
Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in New York City
Coney Island
Cultural history of New York City
Historic American Engineering Record in New York City
National Register of Historic Places in Brooklyn
New York City Designated Landmarks in Brooklyn
Parachute towers
Relocated buildings and structures in New York City
Removed amusement attractions
World's fair architecture in New York City
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol%20fuel%20in%20the%20United%20States
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Ethanol fuel in the United States
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The United States became the world's largest producer of ethanol fuel in 2005. The U.S. produced 15.8 billion U.S. liquid gallons of ethanol fuel in 2019, and 13.9 billion U.S. liquid gallons (52.6 billion liters) in 2011, an increase from 13.2 billion U.S. liquid gallons (49.2 billion liters) in 2010, and up from 1.63 billion gallons in 2000. Brazil and U.S. production accounted for 87.1% of global production in 2011. In the U.S, ethanol fuel is mainly used as an oxygenate in gasoline in the form of low-level blends up to 10 percent, and, increasingly, as E85 fuel for flex-fuel vehicles. The U.S. government subsidizes ethanol production.
The ethanol market share in the U.S. gasoline supply grew by volume from just over 1 percent in 2000 to more than 3 percent in 2006 to 10 percent in 2011. Domestic production capacity increased fifteen times after 1990, from 900 million US gallons to 1.63 billion US gal in 2000, to 13.5 billion US gallons in 2010. The Renewable Fuels Association reported 209 ethanol distilleries in operation located in 29 states in 2011.
By 2011 most cars on U.S. roads could run on blends of up to 10% ethanol(E10), and manufacturers had begun producing vehicles designed for much higher percentages. However, the fuel systems of cars, trucks, and motorcycles sold before the ethanol mandate may suffer substantial damage from the use of 10% ethanol blends. Flexible-fuel cars, trucks, and minivans use gasoline/ethanol blends ranging from pure gasoline up to 85% ethanol (E85). By early 2013 there were around 11 million E85-capable vehicles on U.S. roads. Regular use of E85 is low due to lack of fueling infrastructure, but is common in the Midwest. In January 2011 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted a waiver to allow up to 15% of ethanol blended with gasoline (E15) to be sold only for cars and light pickup trucks with a model year of 2001 or later. The EPA waiver authorizes, but does not require stations to offer E15. Like the limitations suffered by sales of E85, commercialization of E15 is constrained by the lack of infrastructure as most fuel stations do not have enough pumps to offer the new E15 blend, few existing pumps are certified to dispense E15, and no dedicated tanks are readily available to store E15.
Historically most U.S. ethanol has come from corn, and the required electricity for many distilleries came mainly from coal. There is a debate about ethanol's sustainability and environmental impact. The primary issues related to the large amount of arable land required for crops and ethanol production's impact on grain supply, indirect land use change (ILUC) effects, as well as issues regarding its energy balance and carbon intensity considering its full life cycle.
History
In 1826 Samuel Morey experimented with an internal combustion chemical mixture that used ethanol (combined with turpentine and ambient air then vaporized) as fuel. At the time, his discovery was overlooked, mostly due to the success of steam power. Ethanol fuel received little attention until 1860 when Nicholas Otto began experimenting with internal combustion engines. In 1859, oil was found in Pennsylvania, which decades later provided a new kind of fuel. A popular fuel in the U.S. before petroleum was a blend of alcohol and turpentine called "camphene", also known as "burning fluid". The discovery of a ready supply of oil and unfavorable taxation on burning fluid made kerosene a more popular fuel.
In 1896, Henry Ford designed his first car, the "Quadricycle" to run on pure ethanol. In 1908, the revolutionary Ford Model T was capable of running on gasoline, ethanol or a combination. Ford continued to advocate for ethanol fuel even during the prohibition, but lower prices caused gasoline to prevail.
Gasoline containing up to 10% ethanol began a decades-long growth in the United States in the late 1970s. The demand for ethanol produced from field corn was spurred by the discovery that methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) was contaminating groundwater. MTBE's use as an oxygenate additive was widespread due to mandates in the Clean Air Act amendments of 1992 to reduce carbon monoxide emissions. MTBE in gasoline had been banned in almost 20 states by 2006. Suppliers were concerned about potential litigation and a 2005 court decision denying legal protection for MTBE. MTBE's fall from grace opened a new market for ethanol, its primary substitute. Corn prices at the time were around US$2 a bushel. Farmers saw a new market and increased production. This demand shift took place at a time when oil prices were rising.
The steep growth in twenty-first century ethanol consumption was driven by federal legislation aimed to reduce oil consumption and enhance energy security. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 required use of of renewable fuel by 2012, and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 raised the standard, to of annual renewable fuel use by 2022. Of this requirement, had to be advanced biofuels, defined as renewable fuels that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50%.
Recent trends
The world's top ethanol fuel producer in 2010 was the United States with 13.2 billion U.S. gallons (49.95 billion liters) representing 57.5% of global production, followed by Brazil with 6.92 billion U.S. gallons (26.19 billion liters), and together both countries accounted for 88% of the world production of 22.95 billion U.S. gallons (86.85 billion liters). By December 2010 the U.S. ethanol production industry consisted of 204 plants operating in 29 states, and 9 plants under construction or expansion, adding 560 million gallons of new capacity and bringing total U.S. installed capacity to 14.6 billion U.S. gallons (55.25 billion liters). At the end of 2010 over 90 percent of all gasoline sold in the U.S. was blended with ethanol.
Production
Beginning in late 2008 and early 2009, the industry came under financial stress due to that year's economic crisis. Motorists drove less and gasoline prices dropped sharply, while bank financing shrank. As a result, some plants operated below capacity, several firms closed plants, others laid off staff, some firms went bankrupt, plant projects were suspended and market prices declined. The Energy Information Administration raised concerns that the industry would not meet the legislated targets.
As of 2011, most of the U.S. car fleet was able to run on blends of up to 10% ethanol, and motor vehicle manufacturers produced vehicles designed to run on more concentrated blends. As of 2015, seven states – Missouri, Minnesota, Louisiana, Montana, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington – required ethanol to be blended with gasoline in motor fuels. These states, particularly Minnesota, had more ethanol usage, and according to a source at Washington University, these states accumulated substantial environmental and economic benefits as a result. Florida required ethanol blends as of the end of 2010, but has since repealed it. Many cities had separate ethanol requirements due to non-attainment of federal air quality standards. In 2007, Portland, Oregon, became the first U.S. city to require all gasoline sold within city limits to contain at least 10% ethanol. Chicago has proposed the idea of mandating E15 in the city limits, while some area gas stations have already begun offering it.
Expanding ethanol (and biodiesel) industries provided jobs in plant construction, operations, and maintenance, mostly in rural communities. According to RFA the ethanol industry created almost 154,000 U.S. jobs in 2005, boosting household income by $5.7 billion. It also contributed about $3.5 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues.
The return on investment (ROI) to upgrade a service station to sell E15 is quick given today's markets. Given ethanol's discount to gasoline and the current value of RINs, retailers offering mid-level ethanol blends like E15 can quickly recoup their investments in infrastructure. Federal, state and local incentives and grant programs are available in most areas, and would further help reduce the cost of equipment and installation. E15 is a higher octane fuel, it is currently available in 29 states at retail fueling stations. E15 was approved for use in model year 2001 and newer cars, light-duty trucks, medium-duty passenger vehicles (SUVs), and all flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2012.
E85 vehicles
Ford, Chrysler, and GM are among many automobile companies that sell flexible-fuel vehicles that can run blends ranging from pure gasoline to 85% ethanol (E85), and beginning in 2008 almost any type of automobile and light duty vehicle was available with the flex-fuel option, including sedans, vans, SUVs and pickup trucks. By early 2013, about 11 million E85 flex-fuel cars and light trucks were in operation, though actual use of E85 fuel was limited, because the ethanol fueling infrastructure was limited.
As of 2005, 68% of American flex-fuel car owners were not aware they owned an E85 flex. Flex and non-flex vehicles looked the same. There was no price difference. American automakers did not label these vehicles. In contrast, all Brazilian automakers clearly labeled FFVs with text that was some variant of the word Flex. Beginning in 2007 many new FFV models in the US featured a yellow gas cap to remind drivers of the E85 capabilities. As of 2008, GM badged its vehicles with the text "Flexfuel/E85 Ethanol". Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimated that in 2009 only 504,297 flex-fuel vehicles were regularly fueled with E85, and these were primarily fleet-operated vehicles. As a result, only 712 million gallons were used for E85, representing just 1% of that year's ethanol consumption.
During the decade following 2000, E85 vehicles became increasingly common in the Midwest, where corn was a major crop.
Fueling infrastructure has been a major restriction hampering E85 sales. , there were 3,028 fueling stations selling E85 in the U.S. Most stations were in the Corn Belt states. As of 2008 the leading state was Minnesota with 353 stations, followed by Illinois with 181, and Wisconsin with 114. About another 200 stations that dispensed ethanol were restricted to city, state and federal government vehicles.
E15 blend
In March 2009 Growth Energy, a lobbying group for the ethanol industry, formally requested the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to allow the ethanol content in gasoline to be increased to 15%, from 10%. In October 2010, the EPA granted a waiver to allow up to 15% blends to be sold for cars and trucks with a model year of 2007 or later, representing about 15% of vehicles on the roads. In January 2011 the waiver was expanded to authorize use of E15 to include model year 2001 through 2006 passenger vehicles. The EPA also decided not to grant any waiver for E15 use in any motorcycles, heavy-duty vehicles, or non-road engines because current testing data does not support such a waiver. According to the Renewable Fuels Association the E15 waivers now cover 62% of vehicles on the road in the country. In December 2010 several groups, including the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, the National Marine Manufacturers Association, the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, filed suit against the EPA. In August 2012 the federal appeals court rejected the suit against the EPA ruling that the groups did not have legal standing to challenge EPA's decision to issue the waiver for E15. In June 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from industry groups opposed to the EPA ruling about E15 and let the 2012 federal appeals court ruling stand.
According to a survey conducted by the American Automobile Association (AAA) in 2012, only about 12 million out of the more than 240 million light-duty vehicles on the U.S. roads in 2012 are approved by manufacturers are fully compliant with E15 gasoline. According with the Association, BMW, Chrysler, Nissan, Toyota, and Volkswagen warned that their warranties will not cover E15-related damage. Despite the controversy, in order to adjust to EPA regulations, 2012 and 2013 model year vehicles manufactured by General Motors can use fuel containing up to 15 percent ethanol, as indicated in the vehicle owners' manuals. However, the carmaker warned that for model year 2011 or earlier vehicles, they "strongly recommend that GM customers refer to their owners manuals for the proper fuel designation for their vehicles." Ford Motor Company also is manufacturing all of its 2013 vehicles E15 compatible, including hybrid electrics and vehicles with Ecoboost engines. Also Porsches built since 2001 are approved by its manufacturer to use E15. Volkswagen announced that for the 2014 model year, its entire lineup will be E15 capable. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced in August 2015 that all 2016 model year Chrysler/Fiat, Jeep, Dodge and Ram vehicles will be E15 compatible.
Despite EPA's waiver, there is a practical barrier to the commercialization of the higher blend due to the lack of infrastructure, similar to the limitations suffered by sales of E85, as most fuel stations do not have enough pumps to offer the new blend, few existing pumps are certified to dispense E15, and there are no dedicated tanks readily available to store E15. In July 2012 a fueling station in Lawrence, Kansas became the first in the U.S. to sell the E15 blend. The fuel is sold through a blender pump that allows customers to choose between E10, E15, E30 or E85, with the latter blends sold only to flexible-fuel vehicles. This station was followed by a Marathon fueling station in East Lansing, Michigan. , there are about 24 fueling stations selling E15 out of 180,000 stations operating across the U.S.
, sales of E15 are not authorized in California, and according to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the blend is still awaiting approval, and in a public statement the agency said that "it would take several years to complete the vehicle testing and rule development necessary to introduce a new transportation fuel into California's market."
Legislation and regulations
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, directed DOE to assess the feasibility of using intermediate ethanol blends in the existing vehicle fleet. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) evaluated the potential impacts on legacy vehicles and other engines. In a preliminary report released in October 2008, NREL described the effects of E10, E15 and E20 on tailpipe and evaporative emissions, catalyst and engine durability, vehicle driveability, engine operability, and vehicle and engine materials. This preliminary report found that none of the vehicles displayed a malfunction indicator light; no fuel filter plugging symptoms were observed; no cold start problems were observed at and under laboratory conditions; and all test vehicles exhibited a loss in fuel economy proportional to ethanol's lower energy density. For example, E20 reduced average fuel economy by 7.7% when compared to gas-only (E0) test vehicles.
The Obama Administration set the goal of installing 10,000 blender pumps nationwide by 2015. These pumps can dispense multiple blends including E85, E50, E30 and E20 that can be used by E85 vehicles. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a rule in May 2011 to include flexible fuel pumps in the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). This ruling provided financial assistance, via grants and loan guarantees, to fuel station owners to install E85 and blender pumps.
In May 2011 the Open Fuel Standard Act (OFS) was introduced to Congress with bipartisan support. The bill required that 50 percent of automobiles made in 2014, 80 percent in 2016, and 95 percent in 2017, be manufactured and warrantied to operate on non-petroleum-based fuels, which included existing technologies such as flex-fuel, natural gas, hydrogen, biodiesel, plug-in electric and fuel cell. Considering the rapid adoption of flexible-fuel vehicles in Brazil and the fact that the cost of making flex-fuel vehicles was approximately $100 per car, the bill's primary objective was to promote a massive adoption of flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on ethanol or methanol fuel.
In November 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency opened for public comment its proposal to reduce the amount of ethanol required in the US gasoline supply as mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The agency cited problems with increasing the blend of ethanol above 10%. This limit, known as the "blend wall", refers to the practical difficulty in incorporating increasing amounts of ethanol into the transportation fuel supply at volumes exceeding those achieved by the sale of nearly all gasoline as E10.
Contractual restrictions
Gasoline distribution contracts in the United States generally have provisions that make offering E15 and E85 difficult, expensive, or even impossible. Such provisions include requirements that no E85 be sold under the gas station canopy, labeling requirements, minimum sales volumes, and exclusivity provisions. Penalties for breach are severe and often allow immediate termination of the agreement, cutting off supplies to retailers. Repayment of franchise royalties and other incentives is often required.
Energy security
One rationale for ethanol production in the U.S. is increased energy security, from shifting supply from oil imports to domestic sources. Ethanol production requires significant energy, and current U.S. production derives most of that energy from domestic coal, natural gas and other non-oil sources. Because in 2006, 66% of U.S. oil consumption was imported, compared to a net surplus of coal and just 16% of natural gas (2006 figures), the displacement of oil-based fuels to ethanol produced a net shift from foreign to domestic U.S. energy sources.
Effect on gasoline prices
The effect of ethanol use on gasoline prices is the source of conflicting opinion from economic studies, further complicated by the non-market forces of tax credits, met and unmet government quotas, and the dramatic recent increase in domestic oil production. According to a 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis, ethanol, and biofuel in general, does not materially influence the price of gasoline, while a runup in the price of government mandated Renewable Identification Number credits has driven up the price of gasoline. These are in contrast to a May 2012, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development study which showed a $0.29 to $1.09 reduction in per gallon gasoline price from ethanol use.
The U.S. consumed of gasoline in 2008, blended with about of ethanol, representing a market share of almost 7% of supply by volume. Given its lower energy content, ethanol fuel displaced about of gasoline, representing 4.6 percent in equivalent energy units.
The EPA announced in November 2013, a reduction in mandated U.S. 2014 ethanol production, due to "market conditions".
Tariffs and tax credits
Since the 1980s until 2011, domestic ethanol producers were protected by a 54-cent per gallon import tariff, mainly intended to curb Brazilian sugarcane ethanol imports. Beginning in 2004 blenders of transportation fuel received a tax credit for each gallon of ethanol they mix with gasoline. Historically, the tariff was intended to offset the federal tax credit that applied to ethanol regardless of country of origin. Several countries in the Caribbean Basin imported and reprocessed Brazilian ethanol, usually converting hydrated ethanol into anhydrous ethanol, for re-export to the United States. They avoided the 2.5% duty and the tariff, thanks to the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) and free trade agreements. This process was limited to 7% of U.S. ethanol consumption.
As of 2011, blenders received a per gallon tax credit, regardless of feedstock; small producers received an additional on the first 15 million US gallons; and producers of cellulosic ethanol received credits up to . Tax credits to promote the production and consumption of biofuels date to the 1970s. For 2011, credits were based on the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, and the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008.
A 2010 study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that in fiscal year 2009, biofuel tax credits reduced federal revenues by around billion, of which corn and cellulosic ethanol accounted for billion and million, respectively.
In 2010, CBO estimated that taxpayer costs to reduce gasoline consumption by one gallon were $1.78 for corn ethanol and $3.00 for cellulosic ethanol. In a similar way, and without considering potential indirect land use effects, the costs to taxpayers of reducing greenhouse gas emissions through tax credits were about $750 per metric ton of -equivalent for ethanol and around $275 per metric ton for cellulosic ethanol.
On June 16, 2011, the U.S. Congress approved an amendment to an economic development bill to repeal both the tax credit and the tariff, but this bill did not move forward. Nevertheless, the U.S. Congress did not extend the tariff and the tax credit, allowing both to end on December 31, 2011. Since 1980 the ethanol industry was awarded an estimated billion in subsidies.
Feedstocks
Corn
Corn is the main feedstock used for producing ethanol fuel in the United States. Most of the controversies surrounding U.S. ethanol fuel production and use is related to corn ethanol's energy balance and its social and environmental impacts.
Cellulose
Cellulosic sources have the potential to produce a renewable, cleaner-burning, and carbon-neutral alternative to gasoline. In his State of the Union Address on January 31, 2006, President George W. Bush stated, "We'll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks or switchgrass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years."
On July 7, 2006, DOE announced a new research agenda for cellulosic ethanol. The 200-page scientific roadmap cited recent advances in biotechnology that could aid use of cellulosic sources. The report outlined a detailed research plan for additional technologies to improve production efficiency. The roadmap acknowledged the need for substantial federal loan guarantees for biorefineries.
The 2007 federal budget earmarked $150 million for the research effort – more than doubling the 2006 budget. DOE invested in enzymatic, thermochemical, acid hydrolysis, hybrid hydrolysis/enzymatic, and other research approaches targeting more efficient and lower–cost conversion of cellulose to ethanol.
The first materials considered for cellulosic biofuel included plant matter from agricultural waste, yard waste, sawdust and paper. Professors R. Malcolm Brown Jr. and David Nobles, Jr. of the University of Texas at Austin developed cyanobacteria that had the potential to produce cellulose, glucose and sucrose, the latter two easily converted into ethanol. This offers the potential to create ethanol without plant matter.
Sugar
Producing ethanol from sugar is simpler than converting corn into ethanol. Converting sugar requires only a yeast fermentation process. Converting corn requires additional cooking and the application of enzymes. The energy requirement for sugar conversion is about half that for corn. Sugarcane produces more than enough energy to do the conversion with energy left over. A 2006 U.S. Department of Agriculture report found that at market prices for ethanol, converting sugarcane, sugar beets and molasses to ethanol would be profitable. As of 2008 researchers were attempting to breed new varieties adapted to U.S. soil and weather conditions, as well as to take advantage of cellulosic ethanol technologies to also convert sugarcane bagasse.
U.S. sugarcane production occurs in Florida, Louisiana, Hawaii, and Texas. The first three plants to produce sugarcane-based ethanol went online in Louisiana in mid-2009. Sugar mills in Lacassine, St. James and Bunkie were converted to sugarcane ethanol production using Colombian technology to enable profitable ethanol production. These three plants planned to produce of ethanol per year within five years.
By 2009 two other sugarcane ethanol production projects were being developed in Kauai, Hawaii and Imperial Valley, California. The Hawaiian plant was projected to have a capacity of between a year and to supply local markets only, as shipping costs made competing in the continental US impractical. This plant went online in 2010. The California plant was expected to produce a year in 2011.
In March 2007, "ethanol diplomacy" was the focus of President George W. Bush's Latin American tour, in which he and Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, promoted the production and use of sugarcane ethanol throughout the Caribbean Basin. The two countries agreed to share technology and set international biofuel standards. Brazilian sugarcane technology transfer was intended to permit various Central American, such as Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, several Caribbean countries, and various Andean Countries tariff-free trade with the U.S., thanks to existing trade agreements. The expectation was that such countries would export to the United States in the short-term using Brazilian technology.
In 2007, combined exports from Jamaica, El Salvador, Trinidad and Tobago and Costa Rica to the U.S. reached a total of of sugarcane ethanol, representing 54.1% of imports. Brazil began exporting ethanol to the U.S. in 2004 and exported representing 44.3% of U.S. ethanol imports in 2007. The remaining imports that year came from Canada and China.
Other feedstocks
Cheese whey, barley, potato waste, beverage waste, and brewery and beer waste have been used as feedstocks for ethanol fuel, but at a far smaller scale than corn and sugarcane ethanol, as plants using these feedstocks have the capacity to produce only per year.
Comparison with Brazilian ethanol
Sugarcane ethanol has an energy balance seven times greater than corn ethanol. As of 2007, Brazilian distiller production costs were 22 cents per liter, compared with 30 cents per liter for corn-based ethanol. Corn-derived ethanol costs 30% more because the corn starch must first be converted to sugar before distillation into alcohol. However, corn-derived ethanol offers the ability to return 1/3 of the feedstock to the market as a replacement for the corn used in the form of Distillers Dried Grain. Sugarcane ethanol production is seasonal: unlike corn, sugarcane must be processed into ethanol almost immediately after harvest.
Environmental and social impact
Environmental effects
Energy balance and carbon intensity
Until 2008, several full life cycle ("Well to Wheels") studies had found that corn ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions as compared to gasoline. In 2007 a team led by Farrel from the University of California, Berkeley evaluated six previous studies and concluded corn ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by only 13 percent. Another figure is 20 to 30 percent, and an 85 to 85 percent reduction for cellulosic ethanol. Both figures were estimated by Wang from Argonne National Laboratory, based on a comprehensive review of 22 studies conducted between 1979 and 2005, and simulations with Argonne's GREET model. All of these studies included direct land use changes. However, further research examining the actual effects of the Renewable Fuel Standard from 2008 to 2016 has concluded that corn ethanol produces more carbon emissions per unit of energy – likely more than 24% more – than gasoline, when factoring in fertilizer use and land use change.
The reduction estimates on carbon intensity for a given biofuel depend on the assumptions regarding several variables, including crop productivity, agricultural practices, and distillery power source and energy efficiency. None of these earlier studies considered the effects of indirect land-use changes, and though their impact was recognized, its estimation was considered too complex and more difficult to model than direct land use changes.
Effects of land use change
Two 2008 studies, both published in the same issue of Scienceexpress, questioned the previous assessments. A team led by Searchinger from Princeton University concluded that once direct and indirect effect of land use changes (ILUC) are considered, both corn and cellulosic ethanol increased carbon emissions as compared to gasoline by 93 and 50 percent respectively. The study limited the analysis to a 30-year time horizon, assuming that land conversion emitted 25 percent of the carbon stored in soils and all carbon in plants cleared for cultivation. Brazil, China and India were considered among the overseas locations where land use change would occur as a result of diverting U.S. corn cropland, and it was assumed that new cropland in each of these regions correspond to different types of forest, savanna or grassland based on the historical proportion of each natural land converted to cultivation in these countries during the 1990s.
A team led by Fargione from The Nature Conservancy found that clearing natural lands for use as agricultural land to produce biofuel feedstock creates a carbon debt. Therefore, this carbon debt applies to both direct and indirect land use changes. The study examined six scenarios of wilderness conversion, Brazilian Amazon to soybean biodiesel, Brazilian Cerrado to soybean biodiesel, Brazilian Cerrado to sugarcane ethanol, Indonesian or Malaysian lowland tropical rainforest to palm biodiesel, Indonesian or Malaysian peatland tropical rainforest to oil palm forest, and U.S. Central grassland to corn ethanol.
Low-carbon fuel standards
On April 23, 2009, the California Air Resources Board approved specific rules and carbon intensity reference values for the California Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) that was to go into effect on January 1, 2011. The consultation process produced controversy regarding the inclusion and modeling of indirect land use change effects. After the CARB's ruling, among other criticisms, representatives of the ethanol industry complained that the standard overstated the negative environmental effects of corn ethanol, and also criticized the inclusion of indirect effects of land-use changes as an unfair penalty to home-made corn ethanol because deforestation in the developing world had been tied to US ethanol production. The emissions standard for 2011 for LCFS meant that Midwest corn ethanol would not meet the California standard unless current carbon intensity is reduced.
A similar controversy arose after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published on May 5, 2009, its notice of proposed rulemaking for the new Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). EPA's proposal included the carbon footprint from indirect land-use changes. On the same day, President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Directive with the aim to advance biofuel research and commercialization. The Directive asked a new Biofuels Interagency Working Group comprising the Department of Agriculture, EPA, and DOE, to develop a plan to increase flexible fuel vehicle use, assist in retail marketing and to coordinate infrastructure policies.
The group also was tasked to develop policy ideas for increasing investment in next-generation fuels, and for reducing biofuels' environmental footprint.
In December 2009 two lobbying groups, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) and Growth Energy, filed a lawsuit challenging LCFS's constitutionality. The two organizations argued that LCFS violates both the Supremacy Clause and the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, and "jeopardizes the nationwide market for ethanol." In a press release the associations announced that "If the United States is going to have a low carbon fuel standard, it must be based on sound science and it must be consistent with the U.S. Constitution".
On February 3, 2010, EPA finalized the Renewable Fuel Standard Program (RFS2) for 2010 and beyond. EPA incorporated direct emissions and significant indirect emissions such as emissions from land use changes along with comments and data from new studies. Adopting a 30-year time horizon and a 0% discount rate EPA declared that ethanol produced from corn starch at a new (or expanded capacity from an existing) natural gas-fired facility using approved technologies would be considered to comply with the 20% GHG emission reduction threshold. Given average production conditions it expected for 2022, EPA estimated that corn ethanol would reduce GHGs an average of 21% compared to the 2005 gasoline baseline. A 95% confidence interval spans a 7-32% range reflecting uncertainty in the land use change assumptions.
The following table summarizes the mean GHG emissions for ethanol using different feedstocks estimated by EPA modelling and the range of variations considering that the main source of uncertainty in the life cycle analysis is the GHG emissions related to international land use change.
Water footprint
Water-related concerns relate to water supply and quality, and include availability and potential overuse, pollution, and possible contamination by fertilizers and pesticides. Several studies concluded that increased ethanol production was likely to result in a substantial increase in water pollution by fertilizers and pesticides, with the potential to exacerbate eutrophication and hypoxia, particularly in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
Growing feedstocks consumes most of the water associated with ethanol production. Corn consumes from of water per liter of ethanol, mostly for evapotranspiration. In general terms, both corn and switchgrass require less irrigation than other fuel crops. Corn is grown mainly in regions with adequate rainfall. However, corn usually needs to be irrigated in the drier climates of Nebraska and eastern Colorado. Further, corn production for ethanol is increasingly taking place in areas requiring irrigation. A 2008 study by the National Research Council concluded that "in the longer term, the likely expansion of cellulosic biofuel production has the potential to further increase the demand for water resources in many parts of the United States. Biofuels expansion beyond current irrigated agriculture, especially in dry western areas, has the potential to greatly increase pressure on water resources in some areas."
A 2009 study estimated that irrigated corn ethanol implied water consumption at between and for U.S. vehicles. This figure increased to for sorghum ethanol from Nebraska, and for Texas sorghum. By contrast, an average U.S. car effectively consumes between to running on gasoline, including extraction and refining.
In 2010 RFA argued that more efficient water technologies and pre-treated water could reduce consumption. It further claimed that non-conventional oil "sources, such as tar sands and oil shale, require far more water than conventional petroleum extraction and refining."
U.S. standard agricultural practices for most crops employ fertilizers that provide nitrogen and phosphorus along with herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and other pesticides.
Some part of these chemicals leaves the field. Nitrogen in forms such as nitrate (NO3) is highly soluble, and along with some pesticides infiltrates downwards toward the water table, where it can migrate to water wells, rivers and streams. A 2008 National Research Council study found that regionally the highest stream concentrations occur where the rates of application were highest, and that these rates were highest in the Corn Belt. These flows mainly stem from corn, which as of 2010 was the major source of total nitrogen loading to the Mississippi River.
Several studies found that corn ethanol production contributed to the worsening of the Gulf of Mexico dead zone. The nitrogen leached into the Mississippi River and out into the Gulf, where it fed giant algae blooms. As the algae died, it settled to the ocean floor and decayed, consuming oxygen and suffocating marine life, causing hypoxia. This oxygen depletion killed shrimp, crabs, worms and anything else that could not escape, and affected important shrimp fishing grounds.
Social implications
Effect on food prices
Some environmentalists, such as George Monbiot, expressed fears that the marketplace would convert crops to fuel for the rich, while the poor starved and biofuels caused environmental problems. The food vs fuel debate grew in 2008 as a result of the international community's concerns regarding the steep increase in food prices. In April 2008, Jean Ziegler, back then United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, repeated his claim that biofuels were a "crime against humanity", echoing his October 2007 call for a 5-year ban for the conversion of land for the production of biofuels. Also in April 2008, World Bank President Robert Zoellick stated that "While many worry about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs. And it's getting more and more difficult every day."
A July 2008 World Bank report found that from June 2002 to June 2008 "biofuels and the related consequences of low grain stocks, large land use shifts, speculative activity and export bans" accounted for 70–75% of total price rises. The study found that higher oil prices and a weak dollar explain 25–30% of total price rise. The study said that "large increases in biofuels production in the United States and Europe are the main reason behind the steep rise in global food prices." The report argued that increased production of biofuels in these developed regions was supported by subsidies and tariffs, and claimed that without such policies, food price increases worldwide would have been smaller. It also concluded that Brazil's sugarcane ethanol had not raised sugar prices significantly, and recommended that both the U.S. and E.U. remove tariffs, including on many African countries.
An RFA rebuttal said that the World Bank analysis was highly subjective and that the author considered only "the impact of global food prices from the weak dollar and the direct and indirect effect of high petroleum prices and attribute[d] everything else to biofuels."
A 2010 World Bank study concluded that its previous study may have overestimated the impact, as "the effect of biofuels on food prices has not been as large as originally thought, but that the use of commodities by financial investors (the so-called 'financialization of commodities') may have been partly responsible for the 2007/08 spike."
A July 2008 OECD economic assessment agreed about the negative effects of subsidies and trade restrictions, but found that the impact of biofuels on food prices was much smaller. The OECD study found that existing biofuel support policies would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by no more than 0.8 percent by 2015. It called for more open markets in biofuels and feedstocks to improve efficiency and lower costs. The OECD study concluded that "current biofuel support measures alone are estimated to increase average wheat prices by about 5 percent, maize by around 7 percent and vegetable oil by about 19 percent over the next 10 years."
During the 2008 financial crisis corn prices, fell 50% from their July 2008 high by October 2008, in tandem with other commodities, including oil, while corn ethanol production continued unabated. "Analysts, including some in the ethanol sector, say ethanol demand adds about 75 cents to $1.00 per bushel to the price of corn, as a rule of thumb. Other analysts say it adds around 20 percent, or just under 80 cents per bushel at current prices. Those estimates hint that $4 per bushel corn might be priced at only $3 without demand for ethanol fuel."
Reviewing eight years of actual implementation of the Renewable Fuel Standard, researchers from the University of Wisconsin found the standard increased corn prices by 30% and prices of other crops by 20%.
See also
2007 U.S. Farm Bill
2007–2008 world food price crisis
Butanol fuel
Common ethanol fuel mixtures
E85 in the United States
Ethanol fuel by country
Ethanol fuel in Australia
Ethanol fuel in Brazil
Ethanol fuel in Hawaii
Ethanol fuel in the Philippines
Ethanol fuel in Sweden
Indirect land use change impacts of biofuels
Issues relating to biofuels
List of renewable energy topics by country
Low-carbon fuel standard
Renewable energy in the United States
Renewable Fuel Standard
Further reading
Duffield, James A., Irene M. Xiarchos, and Steve A. Halbrook, "Ethanol Policy: Past, Present, and Future", South Dakota Law Review. 53 (no. 3, 2008), 425–53.
References
External links
U.S. government
Effects of Increased Biofuels on the U.S. Economy in 2022, U.S. Department of Agriculture, October 2010.
U.S. Ethanol Fuel: Data, Analysis and Trends, U.S. Department of Energy
Using Biofuel Tax Credits to Achieve Energy and Environmental Policy Goals, Congressional Budget Office, July 2010.
International organizations
Towards Sustainable Production and Use of Resources: Assessing Biofuels by the United Nations Environment Programme, October 2009.
World Bank, Biofuels: The Promise and the Risks. World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development
Other sources
Renewable Fuels Association web site
Thermodynamics of the Corn-Ethanol biofuel cycle, T.Patzek
Biofuel in the United States
Ethanol fuel
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Peruvian%20Navy%20ships
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List of Peruvian Navy ships
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List of ships of the Peruvian Navy comprising almost every Peruvian warship commissioned after 1840.
Vessels acquired in the 1840s and 1850s
President Castilla sought to expand and well-equip the Peruvian Navy. His naval policy was to if Chile constructed one ship, he should construct two, and he went on to turn the Peruvian Navy into the most powerful of South America. He acquired the frigates "Mercedes", "Guisse", "Gamarra", "Amazonas", and "Apurimac" as well as the Schooners "Tumbes" and "Loa". He also built the naval ports of Paita and Bellavista. Castilla also acquired the first steam-powered warship of any South American country and named it the "Rimac". To better educate the officers of these new ships, he sent them to study with the various navies of European nations. For the defense of the Amazonia, Castilla began to develop an Amazonian fleet with the purchase of the ships, "Morona", "Pastaza", "Napo", and "Putumayo",
Major warships
Rimac (1847/8), paddlewheel steamer brigantine, 683 tons. Sunk 1855, after a collision in Punta San Juan, Ica.
Mercedes (1840s/50s) sailing frigate, shipwrecked in Casma in 1854
Amazonas (1851) screw-frigate, 1743 tons BOM, 33 guns, 9.43 kts. Beached and lost in Abtao, 15 January 1866.
Ucayali (1842) paddlewheel steamer brigantine, ex HMS Cherokee, 860 tons. Purchased in 1853.
, (1855) 44 gun screw frigate, 1,666 tons – took part on the rebel side in the Peruvian civil war of 1856–58; she was renamed BAP Callao on 22 April 1858, and took part in the blockade of the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil; in December she was in a floating dock that capsized and sank, killing 100 people and wounding 88; she was raised at the second attempt in 1863, and then rebuilt and reverted to her original name; she took part in the civil war of 1865, and the naval battle of Abtao against the Spanish frigates Blanca and Villa de Madrid. From 1873 she served as a school ship, and in the Pacific War served as a gunned pontoon at Callao until scuttled to prevent capture in 1881.
Minor warshipsAlmirante Guise (1845) 415 ton sailing brigantine.Gamarra (1845) 415 ton sailing brigantine.Loa (1854) 648 ton BOM screw-schooner: 10 kts, armament 4 x 32 pdr. Took part on the rebel side in 1856–58 Peruvian civil war. From April to November 1864, Loa was converted into an ironclad 'floating battery' similar to the CSS Richmond. – see under ironcladsTumbes (1854) 250 ton BOM screw-schooner: 7 knots armament 2 x 68 pdr. Took part in 1856–58 Peruvian civil war and the 1865 revolt. Stricken 1866 and used as a pontoon at Callao. Sunk by the Chilean navy 29 May 1880.
Transport vessels
General Lerzundi (1853) screw-veesel ex Peytona,480 tons. Purchased in 1857, named as Lambayaque and renamed as General Lerzundi. Sold to the Chilean Navy 1865 renmed as Lautaro.
GunboatsMorona (1862) 500 ton steam river-gunboat – part of the Amazonian fleet that arrived to Iquitos in 1864Pastaza (1862) 500 ton steam river-gunboat – part of the Amazonian fleet that arrived to Iquitos in 1864Napo (1862) steam river-gunboat – part of the Amazonian fleet that arrived to Iquitos in 1864Putumayo (1862) steam river-gunboat – part of the Amazonian fleet that arrived to Iquitos in 1864
Vessels acquired from 1860 to 1884
Ironclads
Huáscar (1865) turret ship, 2030 tons, captured by Chile at the Battle of Angamos 1879.Chesneau, Roger and Kolesnik, Eugene (Ed.) Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Conway Maritime Press, 1979.
Independencia (1865), broadside ironclad 3,500 tons, shipwrecked in Punta Gruesa sunk aftermath the Battle of Iquique 1879.
Coast defence ironcladsLoa (1854) 648 ton BOM steam schooner that took part on the rebel side in 1856–58 Peruvian civil war. From April to November 1864, Loa was converted into an ironclad similar to the CSS Richmond. The conversion was by George S. Backus, and cost 364,823 soles de plata, equivalent to £70,000 Sterling. In 1877 the armour was removed and the Loa became a training ship. She was scuttled at Callao in January 1881 to prevent capture.Victoria (1866) a locally-built small monitor armed with a single 68 pdr Vavasseur smoothbore gun.
ex-US Canonicus-class monitors 2,100 tons.
Atahualpa (1864). ex-USS Catawba; Atahualpa and Manco Cápac were purchased by Peru in 1868 for $400,000 US, and left New Orleans in January 1869, arriving in Peru in June 1870. Atahualpa was scuttled at Callao to avoid capture 1881.
Manco Cápac (1864) ex-USS Oneota purchased by Peru in 1868, and arriving with Atahualpa in June 1870, scuttled at Arica to avoid capture 1880. Wreck was located in 2007, 2.5 miles off shore at depth of 100 feet.
Steam corvettesUnión (1864) ex-CSS Georgia, screw corvette 2017 tons [1,150 tons BOM]. Sold to Peru after the French government stopped to sale to the Confederacy. Scuttled January 1881 to avoid capture.America (1864) ex-CSS Texas, screw corvette and sister-ship of BAP Union. Sold to Peru after the French government stopped to sale to the Confederacy. Lost during the Arica tsunami on 13 August 1868.Pilcomayo (1874) gun vessel 600 tons BOM.More old Peruvian ships, page 2, a monitor and a corvetteChanchamayo (1874) gun vessel 600 tons BOM. shipwrecked in Falsa Punta Aguja in the north of Peru, 1876.
CruisersLima class cruisers, 1,700 tons.
Lima (1880), build in Kiel as a merchant ship Socrates to mislead the Chileans. Converted in an armoured gunboat in England and but embargoed by the Government of Great Britain in 1881, alleging the principle of neutrality. Arrived to Peru 1889. Refitted in Panama and rearmed 1920 as cruiser, then used as a submarine base ship, discarded 1935.
Diogenes (1881), build in Kiel as a merchant ship to mislead the Chileans, but embargoed by the Government of Great Britain in 1881, alleging the principle of neutrality. She was never armed or delivered to Peru (and hence kept its original merchant ship name), purchased by Japan 1895, but not delivered, acquired by US Navy in 1898 and renamed USS Topeka.
Torpedo boatsRepublica class Herreshoff spar torpedo boats.
Republica (No. 1) (1881) blown up by her crew to avoid falling into enemy hands on January 3, 1881.
Alianza (No. 2) (1880) blown up by her crew to avoid falling into enemy hands on June 8, 1880.
Allay (No. 3) captured by Chile in December 1879 on her delivery voyage to Callao and renamed Guacolda.
No. 4, never completed.
Submarines
Toro Submarino (1880), local design by Federico Blume displacing 7.5 tons, scuttled to avoid capture at Callao 1881.
Gunboats
Iquitos (1875) Converted merchant vessel, 50 tons. Rebuilt 1896, stricken 1967.
Santa Rosa (1883) 420 tons, 2 x 6in guns. Still in service 1905.Jane, Fred T. Jane's Fighting Ships 1905-6, pub Sampson Low Marston, 1905, pub David & Charles Reprints, 1970,
Coronel Portillo (1???) ex-San Pablo. Converted merchant vessel, 49 tons. <---It has been assumed that this vessel was of similar date to Iquitos because it looks similar in the photos in Janes---> (Conways' 1947-95 says launched 1902, extant 1947)Yavari and Yapura cargo-passenger gunboats, 500 GRT. Both vessels were built in parts in England in 1862 and assembled in Puno on Lake Titicaca.Yavari (1861) Commissioned 1871. Lengthened by 12m in the 19th century. Converted to diesel engine 1914. Paid off 1990 after 119 years service. Now open as a museum moored near the Sonesta Posada Hotel del Inca.Yavari Project – The Ship History Yapura (1861) Commissioned 1873. Probably converted to diesel in 1914. Still in service in 2012 under the name as a hospital ship stationed on Lake Titicaca.
Transport vessels
Talismán (1876) transport steamer 1,310 tons BOM.
Chalaco (1864) transport steamer 1,000 tons BOM, armed with two 40-pr and machineguns.
Limeña (1865) paddle transport 1,163 tons BOM, armed with two 40-pr and machineguns.
BAP Oroya (1873) paddle transport 1,597 tons BOM.
Rímac (1872) transport steamer 1,805 tons captured to the Chilean Navy in 1879.
Vessels acquired from 1900 onwards
Cruisers
Almirante Grau class 3200 tons
BAP Almirante Grau (1906) Completed 1907. Refitted at Balboa, boilers re-tubed and modified for oil burning 1923–25, re-boilered by Yarrow 1934–35 after which was good for 23.5 knots. Served as depot ships in the 1950s and used for administrative and training purposes. Stricken 24 December 1958.
BAP Coronel Bolognesi (1906) Completed 1907. Refitted at Balboa, boilers re-tubed and modified for oil burning 1923–25, re-boilered by Yarrow 1934–35 after which was good for 23.5 knots. Served as depot ships in the 1950s and used for administrative and training purposes. Stricken 24 December 1958.
Crown Colony class, 11,090–11,110 tons full load.
BAP Coronel Bolognesi (1942) CL-82 ex-HMS Ceylon Transferred to the Peruvian Navy 9 February 1960. Unlike her sister, Bolognesi had a lattice foremast and had an aft tripod mast, and radar fire control for its 4-in (102mm) AA guns. Discarded May 1982.
BAP Almirante Grau (1941) CL-81 ex- Incorporated into the Peruvian Navy 19 December 1959, and formally transferred 30 December 1959. Unlike her sister, Grau had two lattice masts. Renamed Capitán Quiñones 1973, and probably given pennant number CL-83 at the same time. Discarded 1979.
De Ruyter class
BAP Almirante Grau (1944) CLM-81 ex-HNLMS De Ruyter, purchased 7 March 1973, commissioned 23 May 1973. modernised at Amersterdam March 1985 – January 1988, work completed in Callao later in 1988.
BAP Aguirre (CH-84) ex-HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën (1978–1999)
Destroyers
French 490 tons
Rodriguez (1909) ex-Actee. Arrived in Peru in 1914; stricken 1939, hulked.
ex-Russian ex-Estonian Guise (1915) ex-Estonian Lennuk, ex-Russian Avtroil 1,350 tons. Completed for the Russian Navy 1917, captured by the Royal Navy in the Baltic December 1918 and transferred to Estonia. Purchased from the Estonian Navy 1933. Served in the Amazon flotilla. Discarded c. 1947.
ex-Russian ex-Estonian Almirante Villar (1915) ex-Estonian Wambola, ex-Russian Spartak, ex-Kapitan 1-go ranga Miklukho-Maklai, ex-Kapitan Kinsbergen, 1,150 tons. Completed for the Russian Navy 1918, captured by the Royal Navy in the Baltic December 1918 and transferred to Estonia. Purchased from the Estonian Navy 1933. Served in the Amazon flotilla. Discarded c. 1954.
ex-US class
BAP Villar (DD-71) ex-USS Benham (1960–1980)
BAP Almirante Guise (DD-72) ex-USS Isherwood (1961–1981)
ex-British Daring class, 3,600 tons full load.
BAP Palacios (1952) DM-73 ex-HMS Diana Purchased by Peru 1969 and major reconstruction in UK 1970–73, commissioned by Peruvian Navy February 1973, squid and associated sonar removed 1975–76 and helicopter landing deck put in its place, Refit 1978–79 removed aft twin 4.5-in gun and replaced with hangar for helicopter. Change was later reverted. Disposed of 1993.
BAP Ferré (1949) DM-74 ex-HMS Decoy Purchased by Peru 1969 and major reconstruction in UK 1970–73, commissioned by Peruvian Navy April 1973, squid and associated sonar removed 1975–76 and helicopter landing deck put in its place, Refit 1978–79 removed aft twin 4.5-in gun and replaced with hangar for helicopter. Change was later reverted. Disposed of 2007.
Holland class, 2,765 tons full load.
BAP García y García (1953) DD-75 ex-HNLMS Holland. Purchased and commissioned January 1978. Deleted 1986.
ex-Dutch Friesland class, 3,070 tons full load.
BAP Colonel Bolognesi (1955) DD-70 ex-HNLMS Overijssel Commissioned June 1982, paid off and used for spares, deleted 1990.
BAP Castilla (1956) DD-71 ex-HNLMS Utrecht Commissioned October 1980, paid off and used for spares, deleted 1990.
BAP Guise (1955) DD-72 ex-HNLMS Drenthe Taken over June 1981, and commissioned September 1981, deleted 1985.
BAP Capitan Quiñones (1955) DD-76 ex-HNLMS Limburg (1980) Later renamed Quiñones. Commissioned June 1980, deleted 1991.
BAP Villar (1956) DD-77 ex-HNLMS Amsterdam Commissioned May 1980, deleted 1991.
BAP Gálvez (1954) DD-78 ex-HNLMS Groningen Commissioned March 1981, deleted 1991.
BAP Diez Canseco (1956) DD-79 ex-HNLMS Rotterdam Commissioned June 1981, deleted 1991.
Frigates
ex-US Cannon-class destroyer escorts (sometimes known as Bostwick class), 1,900 tons full load.
BAP Aguirre (1942) D-1, in 1959 DE-1, in 1960 DE-62. ex-USS Waterman. Transferred to Peru 26 October 1951 under Mutual Defense Assistance Program. Original triple torpedo tube mounting removed. Reconditioned in US, arrived in Peru 24 May 1952. According to Conways, sunk in 1974 in Exocet test, though Janes in 1982 said that the hulk of ex-Aguirre was stripped of armament and some upperworks and was serving as floating electrical power station.
BAP Castilla (1943) D-2, in 1959 DE-2, in 1960 DE-61. ex-USS Bangust. Transferred to Peru 26 October 1951 under Mutual Defense Assistance Program. Original triple torpedo tube mounting removed. Reconditioned in US, arrived in Peru 24 May 1952. By 1977 she was a pontoon ship at Iquitos serving as a floating training centre. Struck off 1979. The hulk of ex-Castilla was in use as a training ship at Iquitos in 1982.
BAP Rodríguez (1943) D-3, in 1959 DE-3, in 1960 DE-63 ex-USS Weaver. Transferred to Peru 26 October 1951 under Mutual Defense Assistance Program. Original triple torpedo tube mounting removed. Reconditioned in US, arrived in Peru 24 May 1952. Struck off 1979. Rodríguez was in use as a submarine accommodation ship in 1982.
ex-US Tacoma class, 2,415 tons full load.
BAP Teniente Gálvez (1943) F1. ex-USS Woonsocket Purchased 1948 and initially known as Teniente Gálvez, but by 1954 or 1955 as Gálvez. Overhauled in US 1952. Discarded 1961 and broken up.
ex-Canadian River class 2,360 tons full load.
BAP Teniente Palacios (1943) F-2, in 1959 FE-2, in 1960 FE-65. ex-HMCS St. Pierre Purchased 1947, and initially known as Teniente Palacios, but by 1954 or 1955 as Palacios, modernised with new guns and fire control in US 1952, discarded 1966.
BAP Teniente Ferré (1944) F-3, in 1959 FE-3, in 1960 FE-66. ex-HMCS Poundmaker (1947–1966) Purchased 1947, and initially known as Teniente Ferré, but by 1954 or 1955 as Ferré, modernised with new guns and fire control in US 1952, discarded 1966.
Carvajal (modified Lupo) class, 2,500 tons full load.
BAP Carvajal (1976) FM-51 Commissioned 5 February 1979, deck extension to allow it to operate ASH-3D Sea King from the deck fitted 1998, fitted with air search radar from Almirante Grau 2003, still in service.
BAP Villavisencio (1978) FM-52 Commissioned 25 June 1979, helicopter in-flight refuelling facilities for ASH-3D Sea King fitted 1989, still in service.
BAP Montero (1982) FM-53 Commissioned 25 July 1984, helicopter in-flight refuelling facilities for ASH-3D Sea King fitted 1989, still in service.
BAP Mariátegui (1984) FM-54 Commissioned 10 October 1987, deck extension to allow it to operate ASH-3D Sea King from the deck fitted 1998, still in service.
ex-Italian Lupo class, 2,500 tons full load.
BAP Aguirre (1979) FM-55 ex-MM Orsa ex-F-567. Transferred 3 November 2004 and refitted at Muggianp for 8 months, arrived Callao mid-2005. Still in service.
BAP Palacios (1976) FM-56 ex-MMLupo ex-F-564. Transferred 3 November 2004 and refitted at Muggianp for 8 months, arrived Callao mid-2005. Still in service.
BAP Bolognesi (1978) FM-57 ex-MM Perseo ex-F-566. Transferred 28 October 2005, commissioned 23 January 2006, arrived Callao 18 August 2006. Still in service.
BAP Quiñones (1977) FM-58 ex-MM Sagitario ex-F-565. Transferred 28 October 2005, commissioned 23 January 2006, arrived Callao 20 January 2007. Still in service.
Corvettes
PR-72P class, 560 tons full load.
BAP Velarde (1978) CM-21 Ordered 1976, commissioned 25 July 1980. Still in service 2008.
BAP Santillana (1978) CM-22 Ordered 1976, commissioned 25 July 1980. Still in service 2008.
BAP De los Heros (1979) CM-23 Ordered 1976, commissioned 17 November 1980. Still in service 2008.
BAP Herrera (1979) CM-24 Ordered 1976, commissioned 10 February 1981. Still in service 2008.
BAP Larrea (1979) CM-25 Ordered 1976, commissioned 16 June 1981. Still in service 2008.
BAP Sánchez Carrión (1979) CM-26 Ordered 1976, commissioned 14 September 1981. Still in service 2008.
ex-Korean Pohang class corvette, 1220 tons full load.
BAP Ferre (1985) CM-27 ex ROKSGyeongju (PCC-758). Transferred and commissioned in 2015.
BAP Guise (1987) CM-28 ex ROSKS Suncheon (PCC-767). Transferred and commissioned in 2021.
Submarines
Ferré class Laubeuf-type 300/400 tons.Ferré (1912) Stricken 1919.Palacios (1913) Stricken 1919.'R class 576/682 tons (or 576/755 tons).
BAP R-1 (1926) Refitted at builder's yard in 1935; overhauled in US in 1950. Renamed Islay 1957, stricken 1960.
BAP R-2 (1926) Refitted at builder's yard in 1935; overhauled in US in 1950. Renamed Casma 1957, stricken 1960.
BAP R-3 (1928) Delivered 1928, refitted at builder's yard in 1936; overhauled in US in 1950, renamed Pacocha 1957, stricken 1960.
BAP R-4 (1928) Delivered 1928, refitted at builder's yard in 1936; overhauled in US in 1950, renamed Arica 1957, stricken 1960.
R-5 projected in 1926, but not funded.
R-6 projected in 1926, but not funded.Abtao class , initially known as the Lobo class, modified US Mackerel class, 825 tons standard, 1,400 tons submerged.
BAP Dos de Mayo (1954) Pennant number 6, from 1959 SS-1, from 1960 SS-41. Completed June 1954, initially known as Lobo, but renamed Dos de Mayo in April 1957. Discarded 1999.
BAP Abtao (1953) Pennant number 5, from 1959 SS-2, from 1960 SS-42. Completed February 1954, initially known as Tiburon, but renamed Abtao in April 1957. Decommissioned 1998 and became museum 2004.
BAP Angamos (1957) Pennant number 7, from 1959 SS-3, from 1960 SS-43. Completed July 1957, initially known as Atun, but renamed Angamos in April 1957. Discarded 1990.
BAP Iquique (1957) Pennant number 8, from 1959 SS-4, from 1960 SS-44. Completed October 1957, initially known as Merlin, but renamed Iquique in April 1957. Discarded 1993.Guppy 1A classBAP Pacocha (SS-48) ex USS Atule (1974–1992)
BAP La Pedrera (SS-49) ex USS Sea Poacher (1974–1991)Type 209/1100 classBAP Islay (SS-35) (1974-in service)
BAP Arica (SS-36) (1975-in service)Type 209/1200 classBAP Angamos (SS-31) ex BAP Casma (1980-in service)
BAP Antofagasta (SS-32) (1981-in service)
BAP Pisagua (SS-33) ex BAP Blume (1983-in service)
BAP Chipana (SS-34) ex BAP Pisagua (1982-in service)
River gunboatsAmerica class Amazon river gunboat, 240 tons, with 2 x 3pdr (65mm).
America (1904) Still exists today, moored in Iquitos as part of the Museum of Historic Boats – named after America Nunez Flores de Millan.Napo class Amazon river gunboat, 98 tons.
Napo (1920) - Extant 1947 Loreto class 250 tons.
BAP Loreto (1934) CF-404, ex-CF-12.Jane's Fighting Ships 1992–1993
BAP Amazonas (1934) CF-403 ex-CF-11.Marañón class 365 tons.
BAP Marañón (1951) CF-401 ex-CF-13.
BAP Ucayali (1951) CF-402 ex-CF-14.Clavero classBAP Clavero (CF-15)
BAP Putumayo (CF-16)
Patrol boats
Amphibious warfare vesselsEx-US LST 1–510 class landing ships, 3,640 tons full load.
BAP Chimbote LT-34 (1943) ex-m/s Rawhiti, ex-US LST-283, later renumbered DT-142. Sold to Peru by a British firm 1951. Deleted c. 1984.Ex-US LST 511–1152 class landing ships, 4,080 tons full load.
BAP Paita (1943) LT-35 ex-USS Burnett County LST-512, acquired by Peru in 1957. Employed as a training ship for the Peruvian Naval Academy.Couhat, Jean Labayle Combat Fleets of the World 1978/79, pub Arms and Armour Press, 1978, Later renumbered DT-141. By the early 1980s was operating helicopters from upper deck amidships. Deleted 1983.
BAP Salaverry () DT-140 ex m/s Iquitos, ex-m/s Carpine, ex-US LST??. Acquired 1977 from a commercial firm, deleted 1986.ex-US LSM type medium landing ships, 913 tons full load.
Lomas (1945) 36, ex-US LSM-396. Transferred to Peru 1959, deleted 1986.
Atico (1945) 37, ex-US LSM-554. Transferred to Peru 1959, deleted 1986.ex-US Terrebonne Parish class landing ships, 5,800 tons full load.
BAP Paita DT-141 (1955) ex-USS Walworth County LST-1164. Leased from US Navy for five years on 7 August 1984; recommissioned 4 March 1985; leased later extended to 1994. She was in service as a seagoing vessel in February 2008.
BAP Pisco DT-142 (1953) ex-USS Waldo County LST-1163. Leased from US Navy for five years on 7 August 1984; recommissioned 4 March 1985; leased later extended to 1994. As of 1992 Pisco was non-operational providing spares for the others. However she was in service as a seagoing vessel in February 2008.
BAP Callao DT-143 (1953?) ex-USS Washoe County LST-1165. Leased from US Navy for five years on 7 August 1984; recommissioned 4 March 1985; leased later extended to 1994. Discarded as target ship for training 2021. Buque de Desembarco B.A.P Callao
BAP Eten DT-144 (1953?) ex-USS Traverse County LST-1160. Leased from US Navy for five years on 7 August 1984; recommissioned 4 March 1985; leased later extended to 1994. Still in service. Buque de Desembarco B.A.P Eten Makassar-class landing platform dock, 8,400 full load.
BAP Pisco AMP-156 (2015)
BAP Paita AMP-157 (2022) under construction in SIMA Perú.
OilersPariñas class Thornycroft type oiler, 2820 GRTJanes'Fighting Ships 1963–64
Pariñas (1921) ex-Sjömand, scrapped 1961.Cabo Blanco class fleet supply ship and oiler.
() Commissioned 1946, ex-Mariscal Castilla, ex-Preserver, scrapped 1961.Organos class Canadian type oiler.
() ex-Olaya scrapped 1961.Talara-class oiler, 7,000 tons.
Talara ATP-53 (1952/3) laid down 1953, completed 1955. Probably retired 1970s.Sechura-class support oilers 8,700 tons full load.
Sechura ATP-54 (1954) laid down 1952, completed 1955, commissioned 1956. Out of service some time before 1978.
Zorritos ATP-159 (1958) ex-ATP-58, laid down 1955, commissioned 1959.
Lobitos ATP-158 (1965) commissioned 1966.Jane's Fighting Ships 1982–83 Out of service before 1997.Mollendo-class oiler, 25,670 full load.
Mollendo (1962) ATP-151 purchased 1967, by 1978 was in reserve.Parinas-class oiler, 13,600 tons full load.
Parinas ATP-155 (1967)
Pimental ATP-156 (1968)Talara-class oiler, 30,000 tons full load.Note that there were three members of this class: Talara (Peruvian Navy),Bayoran (ordered for Petroperu, transferred to the Navy, and then sold back to Petroperu as Pavayacu in 1979).Trometeros (Petroperu)
BAP Talara ATP-152 (1976)
BAP Bayovar ATP-??? (1977) Laid down 9 July 1976, launched 18 July 1977; originally ordered by the state oil company Petroperu, and transferred to the Navy whilst building. Sold back to Petroperu in 1979 and renamed Pavayacu.Bayovar-class freighting tanker, 107,320 tons full load.
BAP Bayovar ATP-150 (1976) ex-m/s Loreto II, ex-m/s St Vincent. Purchased by Peruvian Navy from Peruvian civil company 1986.ex-US Sealift-class transport oilers, 33,000 full load.
BAP Lobitos ATP-153 ex-USNS Sealift Caribbean (1974?) Transferred to the Peruvian Navy 18 May 1997.ex-Russian tankers, Grigoriy Nesterenko type transport oilers, 28,610 tonnes dwt.
BAP Bayovar (1986?) ATP-154 ex-m/s Petr Schmidt. Bayovar arrived in Callao on 16 February 2007, commissioned Peruvian Navy on 15 April 2007.
BAP Zorritos (1987?) ATP-155 ex-m/s Grigoriy Nesterenko. Zorritos arrived at Callao on 15 March 2007, commissioned Peruvian Navy on 15 April 2007.
TransportsRimac class 6,848 GRT.
Rimac (1907) ex-Eten, ex-Rhakotis, scrapped 1960.Callao class 7,790 tons full load.
Callao ATC-32 (1938) Former Hamburg-America liner Monserrate, Salved and seized by Peru 1 April 1941, after scuttled by Germans.Ilo class 8,385 tons full load.
Ilo ATC-33 (1945) acquired 1959, ex-m/s Norlindo, 1962 photo showed '133' painted as pennant number.ex-US AKA type attack cargo-ship, 14,225 tons full load.
Independencia (1941) ex-USS Beatrix AKA-3, ex-Raven AKA-20, transferred (leased) to Peru February 1963 under military aid programme. In the 1970s it was used as a training ship for midshipmen.Mollendo class 18.400 tons full load. Buque Auxiliar B.A.P Mollendo
BAP Mollendo (1970) ATC-131 Launched 15 July 1970, commissioned 25 May 1972. ex BAP Ilo. Still in service.
Rimac (1971) In 1973, transferred from the navy to the State Shipping Company (CPV) for commercial use.
Tugsex-US ??? class, 132 tons.
Franco ARB-124 (1938?) ex-USS Menewa YTM-2, transferred to Peru March 1947, still in service 1992.ex-US Apache (or Cherokee) class fleet ocean tug, 1,675 tons full load.
Guardián Ríos ARB-123 (1943) (also known as Ríos) ex-USS Pinto ATF-90, transferred to Peru 1960 on loan, and delivered January 1961, sold to Peru 17 May 1974. Still in service in 1992.ex-US ??? class wooden tugs, 852 tons.
Olya (1942?) ex-USS ATR-25, purchased 1947?, scrapped 1961.
Selendon ARB-21 (1942) ex-Condestible Selendon, ex-USS ATR-31, purchased 1947. Disposed of in the mid-1960s to early 1970s.ex-US Maricopa (orSotoyomo) class auxiliary ocean tug, 853 tons full load.
Unanue AH-170 (1943) ex-ARB-136, ex-USS Wateree ATA-174, purchased from USA in November 1961 under military aid programme. Refitted in 1985 for operations in the Antarctic and then served as a survey and oceanographic survey ship.Selendon class, 80 GRT.
Selendon ARB-129 (1966?) commissioned 1967.
Olaya ARB-128 (1966?) commissioned 1967.Contraestre Navarro class river tug, 50 tons.
Contraestre Navarro () added to the fleet February 1973, served in Amazon flotilla. No longer in service 1992.
Seven harbour tugs were in service in 1992:
Mejia ARB-120
Huerta ARB-121
Dueñas ARB-126
ARB-180
ARB-181
ARB-185
ARB-186
Floating docks
ADF-108 (1951) displacement 600 tons, still in service 1992.
ADF-106 (1944) ex-ADF-111, ex-WY-19, ex-US AFDL-33 (or AFDL-3), transferred to Peru July 1959, displacement 1,900 tons, still in service 1992.
ADF-107 () ex-ADF-112, ex-WY-20, ex-US ARD-8, transferred to Peru February 1961, displacement 5,200 tons, still in service 1992.
ADF-109 (1979) displacement 18,000 tons, still in service 1992.
ADF-110 (1991) displacement 4,500 tons.
Harbour tankers oil/waterex-US YW/YO type 1,235 tons full load.
Mantilla ACA-110 () ex-ACA-141, ex-US YW-122, loaned to Peru July (or March) 1963, sold to Peru 15 September 1979. Thought to be out of service.
Noguera ACP-118 () ex-US YO-221, transferred to Peru January 1975. Thought to be still in service.
Gauden ACP-119 () ex-US YO-171, transferred to Peru 20 January 1981. Thought to be still in service.
Caloyeras ACA-111 () ex-US YW-128, transferred to Peru 26 January 1981. Still in service.Amazon flotilla water barges acquired in 1972, 300 tons standard load(?), capacity 800 tons water.
ABA-330 (1972) ex-ABA-091, still in service 1992.
ABA-332 (1972) ex-ABA-113, still in service 1992.
Torpedo recovery vesselsSan Lorenzo class, 65 tons full load.
BAP San Lorenzo ART-322 (1980?) Shipped to Peru September 1981, still in service.
Hydrographic survey shipsex-Dutch Carrasco class survey ships, 343 tons
BAP Carrasco AH-171 (1956) ex HNLMS Abcoude Still in service.ex-Dutch van Straelen class former inshore minesweepers converted to survey ship role, 169 tons full load.
BAP Carrillo AH-175 (1959) ex-HNLMS van Hamel, acquired February 1985. Still in service.
BAP Melo AH-176 (1959) ex-HNLMS van der Wel, acquired February 1985. Still in service.Stiglich class survey ships, 220 tons. (Janes 1992–93 says 43 tons full load.)
BAP Stiglich AH-172 (1980) ex-Rio Cillon. Transferred from Coast Guard. Still in service.AEH-173 class inshore survey ship, 23 tons.
BAP AEH-173 (1979) Presumably commissioned 1980. No longer in service.AEH-174 class' inshore survey ship, 30 tons. (Janes 1992–93 says 54 tons)
BAP AEH-174 (1981) Still in service.
Sailing training ship
BAP Unión BEV-161 (2015) It is a four-masted, steel-hulled, class "A" barque. She has been considered (as of the date it was commissioned) the largest sail vessel in Latin America.
Sailing yachts
BAP Marte ALY-313 () Still in service.Noticias Navales: Viaje de Instrucci�n al Litoral Norte (VILIT-2008)
Footnotes
Sources
Baker III, Arthur D., The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World 2002–2003. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2002.
Ortiz Sotelo, Jorge, Apuntes para la historia de los submarinos peruanos. Lima: Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, 2001.
Rodríguez Asti, John, Cruceros. Buques de la Marina de Guerra del Perú desde 1884''. Lima: Dirección de Intereses Marítimos, 2000.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond%20Allchin
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Raymond Allchin
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Frank Raymond Allchin, FBA (9 July 1923 – 4 June 2010) was a British archaeologist and Indologist. He and his wife, Bridget Allchin, formed one of the most influential British partnerships in the post-Independence study of South Asian archaeology. Producing a large body of scholarship ranging from archaeological excavations, ethnoarchaeology as well as epigraphy and linguistics, the Allchins made their work and that of others accessible through a series of sole, joint and edited publications. Seminal works include The Birth of Indian Civilisation (1968), which was later superseded by their books The Rise of Indian Civilisation in India and Pakistan (1982) and The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia (1995).
Background
Raymond Allchin was born in Harrow, London on 9 July 1923, son of Frank Macdonald Allchin, a doctor, and Louise Maude. His brother was Donald Allchin, an Anglican priest and theologian. Raymond was educated at Westminster and enrolled at the Regent Street Polytechnic, where he studied architecture for three years followed by conscription into the Royal Corps of Signals. Trained as a Line Mechanic, Raymond was posted to India in 1944. On his return, he embarked on a BA in Hindi and Sanskrit at SOAS University of London, followed by a PhD on the prehistory of Raichur District in Hyderabad under the supervision of Professor K. de B. Codrington at the same institution. On completing his PhD, Raymond was appointed Lecturer in Indian archaeology at SOAS in 1954. He left SOAS in 1959 for the post of Lectureship in Indian Studies at Cambridge.
Raymond died in Cambridge on 4 June 2010. He had a wife, Bridget and two children, Sushila and William.
Career
Afghanistan and South India
Raymond was an active field archaeologist throughout his career and his first introduction to South Asian fieldwork was in the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan in 1951. Here, under the direction of Codrington, he studied the standing remains of Shahr-e-Zohak. Later that year, in the company of Bridget, he began his PhD research in Raichur District. Raymond's selected research topic, the Neolithic of Peninsular India, was one of the areas of South Asian archaeology most poorly understood and was a neglected area of research when compared to the Bronze Age Indus cities or those of the Early Historic period in the north of the Subcontinent. After undertaking a survey of sites within the District, he selected the ash-mound of Piklihal for further investigation. Excavating in 1952, and again in 1957, with the assistance of the Andhra Pradesh Department of Archeology and Museums, Raymond demonstrated that the ash mound had a distinct Neolithic sequence with later evidence of Iron Age occupation above.
In order to test some of his earlier theories about Piklihal, Raymond selected Utnur for excavation, one of the best-preserved ash mounds. In a single season, he cut through metres of cinder and ash and discovered that the mounds were contained by series of post-holes, demarking superimposed circular stockades. He again dated this site-type to the Neolithic of South India and to the fourth millennium BC on account of the associated polished stone axes. He interpreted the stockades at Utnur as annual cattle camps, whose accumulations of dung were burnt at the end of each grazing season, thus creating a regular sequence of ash and cinder. He later developed these ideas into a narrative which bound together Hindu ritual tradition and contemporary pastoral practice with the archaeological findings, suggesting that the regular burning of the stockades was not a calamity or the result of raiding but part of an annual fire rite, perhaps surviving today as Holi, Divali or Pongal.
Pakistan and Western India
On moving to Cambridge in 1959, Raymond turned his attention to Pakistan and worked at the site of Shaikhan Dheri between 1963 and 1964. Working with Professor A. H. Dani of Peshawar University, Raymond and Bridget supervised the processing of antiquities and pottery drawing during the first season. Although only on site for one season, Raymond later produced research on artefacts from Shaikhan Dheri. He suggested that a number of small iron plates pierced with small holes around their edges, some of which had rusted together, formed part of the scale armour from the cap of a cataphract, based on observations from Gandharan sculpture, excavation reports, textual sources and contemporary examples from Rajput. He also suggested that a number of globular vessels, that Sir John Marshall had interpreted for distillation of water at Sirkap, Taxila, were actually alcohol stills. Basing this hypothesis on ethnographic analogy, Vedic references and Rajput texts he stated that "Considering the importance of alcohol for man-kind . . . it is surprising that comparatively little is known of its early history,'12 and concluding that 'it may well be that the art of distillation was India’s gift to the world!"
Raymond then shifted his focus back to India and undertook an archaeological reconnaissance of the coast of Gujarat in 1967 focused on investigating the presence or absence of sites associated with the Indus civilisation in western India, following this in 1968 with excavations at the site of Malvan with Bridget and Dr J. P. Joshi, of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Returning to fieldwork in the North West Frontier Province in the Bannu Basin, Raymond and Bridget worked collaboratively between 1977 and 1979, working at Lewan and Tarakai Qila with Professor F. A. Durrani and Professor Farid Khan of Peshawar University, Mr Robert Knox of the British Museum and Professor Ken Thomas of UCL. Later as Joint Director of the British Archaeological Mission to Pakistan with Bridget, the focus shifted away from the Bronze Age to the Early historic period and particularly onto the site of Taxila.
On a walk around the Hathial ridge one February morning in 1980, not far from the Taxila Museum guesthouse, they discovered numerous sherds of a distinctive, highly burnished red ware covering an area of 13 hectares along the foot of the spur. Raymond recognised that these sherds belonged to the category of Burnished Red Ware associated with the Gandhara grave culture, dating to the beginning of the first millennium BC at the end of the Chalcolithic period. Also aware of the parallel presence of such sherds in the basal levels of Wheeler's excavations at the Bala Hisar of Charsadda challenged received wisdom at the time that suggested that such cities had been founded no earlier than the sixth century BC as the Persian Empire expanded eastwards and annexed the satrapy of Gandhara, and that the urban sequences of the region stretched back before Persian contact, possibly back to the late Chalcolithic. Though Raymond never excavated to prove such assertions, he was pivotal to negotiating the return of an archaeological team to Charsadda after a gap of thirty years. Jointly directed by his former students, Professor Robin Coningham and Professor Ihsan Ali of Peshawar University, excavations between 1993 and 1997 confirmed Raymond's hypothesis of a much earlier date for initial settlement at c.1300 BC.
Sri Lanka
In 1989 and at the age of 67, Raymond initiated his last major field project in Sri Lanka at the Citadel of Anuradhapura in the island's North Central Province following a joint invitation from Dr Roland Silva, director general of archaeology, and Dr Siran Deraniyagala, one of his former students and then archaeological advisor to the Government of Sri Lanka. Raymond invited his former undergraduate and new research student, Robin Coningham, to accept the role of field director, and the results from excavations between 1989 and 1993, refuted many long held assumptions. Excavating a ten-metre deep cultural sequence stretching from the ninth century BC to the tenth century AD. it provided evidence of urbanism in the fourth century BC but also confirmed Deraniyagala's early claim of evidence of the earliest Early Brahmi script anywhere in South Asia, demonstrating its use to facilitate trade before being later adopted as an imperial tool by the Mauryans.
Legacy
The Allchins were also pivotal in promoting and facilitating the study of South Asian archaeology in Europe as well as within the Subcontinent. In the 1970s, aware of the fragmented nature of South Asian scholarship across Europe and seeking to broaden the capacity that was at the time possible and available within Britain, the Allchins, together with colleagues from Europe, created a biannual platform for South Asian archaeologists, numismatists, epigraphers and historians of art and architecture to exchange information from current research. Forming the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, the Allchins organised the first meeting, which was held at Churchill College in Cambridge in 1971.
In reaction to the lack of institutions, teaching posts or funds devoted to the promotion of popular or scholarly interest in South and Central Asia, the Allchins, along with Professor Sir Harold Bailey, Professor Johanna van Lohuizen-de Leeuw and Dr Jan van Lohuizen, founded the Ancient India and Iran Trust in Cambridge in 1978. The Trust aimed to support and provide a focal point where scholars and members of the public with interests in the cultures of these geographic regions could meet and use its unique library, substantially composed of the collections of its founders. The Trust also organised funds to facilitate Indian and Pakistani visiting fellowships, which included highly distinguished scholars including Dilip Chakrabari, Ravi Korisettar, K. Krishnan, V. N. Misra, Lolita Nehru, K. Paddaya, Gautam Sengupta and Vasant Shinde.
The legacy of the Allchins, and the Trust that they helped found, continues to support the promotion of South Asian scholarship. In December 2013, the first Annual Allchin Symposium, named in their honour, was held at the Trust. Established to commemorate their work and outstanding contribution to the development of South Asian studies in the UK, the Symposium brings together established lecturers, post-doctoral researchers and PhD students working in South Asian Archaeology, History and the History of Art and Architecture, providing a forum for the presentation and discussion of current research. Amongst other collections, the Ancient India and Iran Trust also houses the Allchin archive, comprising the photographic slide collection of both Allchins and the meticulous work diaries which Raymond kept during each of his field seasons, offering great potential to scholars of South Asian archaeology.
Heritage protection
As well as undertaking almost forty years of field investigations, Raymond was also motivated by the need to record and protect heritage in the face of the pressures of increasing population and development in South Asia. Raymond was also one of the pioneers for the protection of heritage sites within their cultural landscape, as illustrated by his work for the UN with the Japanese Planner and Architect, K. Matsushita, in 1969. Raymond and Matsushita had been contracted by UNDP with the responsibility to guide the development of Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, following the 1967 visit to the site by U Thant, the UN Secretary General, who wished to see the site transformed from what Raymond called 'little more than a neglected field' to a site worthy of 'a collection of monuments of great importance'. Tasked with assisting in the planning of a sacred garden, pilgrim village and a buffer zone around the site, this report was later used by the Japanese architect, Kenzō Tange, as the core for his masterplan for Lumbini, which has directed the development of the site over the last thirty years into the present.
Academic recognition
Recognition of Raymond's contribution to South Asian archaeology was rewarded in Cambridge when he was appointed a Fellow of Churchill College in 1963 and promoted to a Readership in Indian Studies in 1972. Away from Cambridge, his achievements were also recognised through being made a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1953, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1957, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1974 and a Fellow of the British Academy in 1981 as well as having an Honorary D.Litt. conferred by Deccan College, Pune in 2007. He also served on the Governing Council of the Society for Afghan Studies and its successor, the Society for South Asian Studies, as well as being associated with the Charles Wallace Pakistan Trust, the British Academy's Stein-Arnold Committee and the Advisory Council of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Raymond was appointed a Fellow of the British Academy in 1981 and retired with the title of Emeritus Reader in South Asian archaeology in 1989.
Personal life
In 1951, Bridget met fellow PhD student Raymond Allchin at the Institute of Archaeology and they married in March of that year. Travelling to India for the first time with Raymond in 1951, Bridget steadily but firmly established herself as the most prominent South Asian Prehistorian in the UK. A pioneering female field-archaeologist in South Asia at a time when there were none, Bridget's research interests and publications were to stretch across South Asia from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka.
Like Raymond, Bridget's family also had a long heritage of medical practitioners, including Dr Thomas Monro, an ancestor who had attempted to treat the 'madness' of George III.
Publications
Publications: 1950s—1960s
1954 Development of Early Cultures in the Raichur District of Hyderabad. PhD Dissertation, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies.
1964 Tulsi Das, Kavitavali, translated with introduction (UNESCO), London, Allen & Unwin, pp 229.
1953 'A flake tool from the Oxus', Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 19, 227.
1955 'Rock paintings and engravings in Raichur, Hyderabad', (with D.H. Gordon), Man, 55, 114, 97–99.
1956 'Stone alignments of Southern Hyderabad', Man, 56, 133–136.
1957 'The Neolithic stone industry of North Karnataka region', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 19, 321–335.
1957 'The culture sequence of Bactria', Antiquity, 31, 131–141.
1957 'Sanskrit eduka – Pali eduka', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 20, 1–4.
1959 'Poor men's thalis, a Deccan potter's technique', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 22, 250–257.
1959 'Upon the contextual significance of certain groups of ancient Indian signs', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 22, 548–555.
1960 Piklihal Excavations, Andhra Pradesh Archaeological Series, 1, Hyderabad, Government of Andhra Pradesh, pp xvii, 154.
1961 Utnur Excavations, Andhra Pradesh Archaeological Series 5, Hyderabad, Government of Andhra Pradesh, pp 75.
1961 'Ideas of history in Indian archaeological writing', in C. Philips, ed., Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 241–259.
1961 'The antiquity and methods of gold mining in ancient India', Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 5, 195–211.
1962 'The Neolithic stone industry of the Santal Parganas', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 25, 306–330.
1962 'A Neolithic pot from the Billa Surgam caves, Andhra Pradesh, Antiquity, 36, 302–303.
1962 'Painted pottery from Patapad in Andhra Pradesh, Antiquity, 36, 221–224.
1963 Neolithic Cattle Keepers of South India: A study of Deccan ashmounds, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp xvi, 189.
1963 'Cattle and economy in the Neolithic of South India', in A.E. Mourant and F.E. Zeuner, eds, Man and Cattle, London 149–155. 1963 'The cultural tradition of India', The Listener, March, 25–39.
1964 'An inscribed weight from Mathura', Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 7, 201–205.
1966 'Pottery and head-rests from Narasipur Sangam', in D. Sen and A.K. Ghosh, eds, Studies in Prehistory, Robert Bruce Foote Memorial Volume, Calcutta, Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 58–63.
1966 'The place of Tulsi Das in North Indian devotional tradition', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 123–140.
1966 Tulsi Das, The petition to Ram, translation of Vinayapatrika with introduction, notes and glossary, London, Allen & Unwin, pp 365.
1968 'The social thought of Swami Vivekananda', Swami Vivekannanda in East and West, London, Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre, 84–105.
1968 'Archaeology and the date of Kaniska', in A.L. Basham, ed., Papers on the Date of Kaniska, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 4–34.
1968 'Explorations in districts Baroda, Broach and Surat' (with J.P. Joshi), Indian Archaeology 1967–68 – a review, New Delhi, Archaeological Survey of India, 9–13.
1969 'Early domestic animals in India and Pakistan', in P.J. Ucko and G.W. Dimbleby, eds, The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, London, Duckworth, 317–22.
1969 'Early cultivated plants in India and Pakistan', in P.J. Ucko and G.W. Dimbleby, eds, The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, London, Duckworth, 323–29.
1969 'Dilmun and the gulf of Cambay', Antiquity, 43, 315–16.
Publications: 1970s—1980s
1970 'Malvan – further light on the southern extension of the Indus Civilisation' (with J.P. Joshi), Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society¸ 1, 20–28.
1970 'A pottery group from Ayun, Chitral' (in honour of Sir Harold Bailey), Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 33, 1–4.
1971 'The attaining of the void – a review of some recent contributions in English to Virasaiva studies', Religious Studies, 7, 339–59.
1972 'Malvan' (with J.P. Joshi), in S.B. Deo, ed., Archaeological Congress and Seminar Papers, Nagpur, Nagpur University, 36–42.
1972 'A piece of scale armour from Shaikhan Dheri, Charsada', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2, 113–20.
1972 'A cruciform reliquary from Shaikhan Dheri, Charsada', in P. Pal, ed., Aspects of Indian Art, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 15–26.
1973 'An inscribed reliquary from Shaikhan Dheri, in H.H. Hartel and V. Moeller, eds, Indologen-Tagung, 1971, Wiesbaden, Steiner, 265–72.
1973 'Problems and perspectives in South Asian archaeology', in N. Hammond, ed., South Asian Archaeology, 1971, Park Ridge, Noyes Press, 1–11.
1974 'The emergence of civilisation in North India', Encyclopædia Britannica. London, Encyclopædia Britannica
1974 'Pottery from graves in the Perumal hills near Kodaikanal', in A.K. Ghosh, ed., Perspectives in Palaeoanthropology (Dharani Sen volume), Calcutta, Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 299–308.
1975 'The reconciliation of jnana and bhakti in Ramcaritamanasa', Religious Studies, 12, 81–91.
1976 'The mysterious Path of Love in Tulsi Das', Vedanta for East and West, London, Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre, 152, 3–11.
1976 Preface for reprint of Annual Reports of the Archaeological Survey of Mysore, 1–3.
1977 'Recommendations concerning archaeological sites', in E.F. Sekler, ed., Masterplan for the Conservation of the Cultural Heritage in the Kathmandu Valley, UNESCO, Paris, 147–54.
1977 'Recommendations concerning moveable cultural property', in E.F. Sekler, ed., Masterplan for the Conservation of the Cultural Heritage in the Kathmandu Valley, UNESCO, Paris, 134–47.
1977 'Religious symbols and Indian thought', in H.R.E. Davidson, ed., Symbols of Power, Cambridge, The Folklore Society Mistletoe Series, 1–35.
1977 'A modern Indian potter's technique', in D. Chattopadhyaya, ed., History and Society: Essays in honour of Professor Niharanjan Ray, Calcutta, Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1–13.
1978 'Surface collections from Pushkar', in B. Allchin, A.S. Goudie and K. Hegde, eds, The Prehistory and Palaeogeography of the Great Indian Desert, New York, Academic Press, 331-1+9.
1978 'Monument conservation and policy in India', Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 126, 746–65.
1978 'Introduction' (with N. Hammond), in F.R. Allchin and N. Hammond, eds, The Archaeology of Afghanistan, New York, Academic Press, 1–9.
1978 'Conclusion' (with N. Hammond), in F.R. Allchin and N. Hammond, eds, The Archaeology of Afghanistan, New York, Academic Press, 405–14.
1978 The Archaeology of Afghanistan (with N. Hammond, ed. and contributor), London, Academic Press, pp xxiii, 451.
1979 A Source-book of Indian Archaeology (with D.K. Chakrabarti), New Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal, Vol. 1, pp x, 354.
1979 'India – the ancient home of distillation?’, Man, 14, 55–63.
1979 'Stamped Tangas and condensers: evidence of distillation at Shaikhan Dheri', in M. Taddei, ed., South Asian Archaeology, 1977, Naples, Istituto Universitario Orientale, 755-97.
1980 'A note on the "Asokan" stupas of Patan', in A.L. Dallapiccola, ed., The Stupa, its Religious, Historical and Architectural Significance, Wiesbaden, Frantz Steiner Verlag, 147–56.
1980 'Textile impressions from the South Indian Iron Age', P.E.P. Deraniyagala Commemoration Volume, Sri Lanka, 64–7.
1980 'Archaeological and language evidence for the movement of Indo-Aryan speaking peoples into South Asia', J. K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, Bombay, 48, 68–102; also published in 1981, in M.S. Asimov, B.A. Litvinsky, L.I. Miroshnikov and D.S. Rayevsky, eds, Ethnic Problems of the history of Central Asia in the Early Period (2nd millennium B.C.), Moscow 336–49.
1981 'Preliminary report on the Bannu Basin Project (1977–79) – Introduction', in H. Härtel (ed.), South Asian Archaeology, 1979, Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 217–218.
1981 'Preliminary report on the excavations at Lewan (1977–78)’ (with J.R. Knox), in H. Hartel, ed., South Asian Archaeology, 1979, Berlin, Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 241-44.
1981 'Preliminary report on the excavations at Tarakai Qila (1978–79)’ (with J.R. Knox), in H. Hartel, ed., South Asian Archaeology, 1979, Berlin, Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 245–50.
1981 'Antiquity of gold mining in the Gadag region', in M.S. Nagaraja Rao, ed., Madhu, Recent Researches in Indian Archaeology and History, Delhi, Agam Kala Prakashan, 81–3.
1981 'The legacy of the Indus Civilisation', in Gregory L. Possehl, ed., Harappan Civilization, A Contemporary Perspective¸ New Delhi, Oxford & IBH, 325–33.
1981 'Antiquity and continuity', in P. Jayakar et al., eds, The Indian Experience, 125–29.
1981 'Antecedents of the Indus Civilization (10th Annual Mortimer Wheeler Archaeological Lecture)’, Bulletin of the British Academy, 66, 135–60.
1981 'How old is the city of Taxila?’, Antiquity, 56, 8–14.
1982 Indian Monuments through British Eyes, 1780–1980: Handlist of the exhibition in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, pp 1–18.
1984 'The northern limits of the Harappan culture zone in the light of recent observations', in B.B. Lal and S.P. Gupta, eds, Frontiers of the Indus Civilization, New Delhi, Books and Books, 51–4.
1985 'Guide to the Asokan inscriptions' (with K.R. Norman), in B. Allchin, ed., South Asian Studies, 1, 43–50.
1985 'The interpretation of a seal from Chanhu-daro and its significance for the religion of the Indus Civilization, South Asian Archaeology 1983, in J. Schotsmans, J. and M. Taddei, M., eds. Naples, Instituto Universitario Orientale, Dipartimento di Studi Asiatici, Series Minor 23: 369–84.
1986 'Radiocarbon dating of some early sites in North West Pakistan' (with K.D. Thomas), South Asian Studies, 2: 37–44.
1986 'Drumbeats from the past', Pupul Jayakar Felicitation Volume, Dimensions of Indian Art –Pupul Jayakar Seventy, in L. Candra and J. Jain, eds., Delhi, Agam Kala Prakashan,
1989 The Conservation of the Indian Heritage (with B. Allchin and B. K. Thapar, ed. and contributor), New Delhi, Cosmo Publications, pp 275.
1989 'The aims of the Seminar', introductory remarks, in B. Allchin, F.R. Allchin and B.K. Thapar, eds, The Conservation of the Indian heritage, New Delhi, Cosmo Publications.
1989 'Threats to the conservation of monuments in urban and rural settings', in B. Allchin, F.R. Allchin and B.K. Thapar eds, The Conservation of the Indian heritage, New Delhi.
1989 'City and State Formation in Early Historic South Asia', South Asian Studies 5: 1–16.
Publications: 1990s—2000s
1990 'Indo-Aryan and Aryan: language, culture and ethnicity'. Ancient Ceylon 10:13–23.
1990 'Patterns of city formation in Early Historic South Asia'. South Asian Studies 6: 163–74.
1990 'The end of the Harappan Urban Phase and its aftermath'. Ancient Ceylon 10: 25–40.
1991 Shahr-i Zohak and the History of the Bamiyan Valley, Afghanistan, with P.H.B. Baker, ed. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports Number 570, Ancient India and Iran Trust Series No. 1: pp. 215
1991 Coningham R.A.E. & Allchin F.R. 'Anuradhapura Citadel Archaeological Project: Preliminary Report of the Second Season of Sri Lankan – British Excavations at Salgha Watta'. South Asian Studies 7: 167–175.
1992 'An Indus ram: a hitherto unrecorded stone sculpture from the Indus Civilization'. South Asian Studies 8: 53–4.
1992 Coningham R.A.E. & Allchin F.R. 'Anuradhapura Citadel Archaeological Project: Preliminary Results of the Third Season of Sri Lankan – British Excavations at Salgaha Watta'. South Asian Studies 8: 155–167.
1993 'The urban position of Taxila and its place in Northwest India-Pakistan', in H. Spodek. and D. M. Srinivasan, eds. Urban Form and Meaning in South Asia. Washington DC: National Gallery of Art. Studies in the History of Art, 31. Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts Symposium Papers 15: 69–81.
1995 The archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The emergence of cities and states, (ed.), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, xvii-317.
1995 Excavations at Malvan; report of the collaboration of the Archaeological Survey of India and Cambridge University in 1970, on the Gujarat Plain (with J. P. Joshi) New Delhi, Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India 92, pp vii, 117.
1996 Coningham R.A.E., Allchin F.R., Batt C.M. & Lucy D. Passage to India? Anuradhapura and the Early Use of the Brahmi Script. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6(1): 73–97.
1997 A Source-book of Indian Archaeology (with D.K. Chakrabarti), New Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal, Vol. 2: Settlements, Technology and Trade, pp 708.
1997 South Asian archaeology, 1971–1991 : index of the proceedings of the biennal conferences of the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists (formerly, Association of South Asian Archaeologists in Western Europe), (compiler). Naples: Indices, Istituto Universitario Orientale. Dipartimento di Studi Aisatici; 3, pp 109.
1998 'The interface of archaeology and history'. Man and Environment 23, (1): 19–36.
1999 Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhara: The British Library Kharosthi Fragments (with Richard Salomon and Mark Barnard), London, British Library.
1999 'Preface', in R.A.E. Coningham, ed. Anuradhapura: The British–Sri Lankan Excavations at Anuradhapura Salagha Watta 2. Volume 1: The Site. Oxford: Archaeopress for the Society for South Asian Studies (The British Academy): (BAR international series 824; Society for South Asian Studies monograph no. 3): ix–xi.
2000 The Ancient India and Iran Trust Library. Second, revised edition. Cambridge : Ancient India & Iran Trust Library.
2003 A Source-book of Indian Archaeology (with D.K. Chakrabarti), New Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal, vol. 3: Prehistoric Roots of Religious Beliefs, Human Remains, The First Steps in Historical Archaeology: Sculpture, Architecture, Coins and Inscriptions. pp 291.
2006 'Inscriptions and graffiti' in R.A.E. Coningham, ed. Anuradhapura: The British – Sri Lankan Excavations at Anuradhapura Salgaha Watta: Volume 2 The Artefacts. Oxford: Archaeopress for the Society for South Asian Studies (The British Academy): 431–450.
Joint publications
Allchin, Bridget, and F. Raymond Allchin 1968. The Birth of Indian Civilization: India and Pakistan Before 500 B.C. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Allchin, Bridget, and F. Raymond Allchin 1982. The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Allchin, Bridget, and F. Raymond Allchin 1997. Origins of a Civilization: The Prehistory and Early Archaeology of South Asia. New Delhi: Viking.
Allchin, F. Raymond, and Bridget Allchin 2012. From the Oxus to Mysore in 1951: The start of a great partnership in Indian Archaeology. Kilkerran: Hardinge Simpole
Reports for UNESCO and UNDP
1969 Cultural Tourism in India: its scope and development with special reference to the monumental heritage, UNESCO, pp104.
1969 Report on the Lumbini Development Project (with K. Matsushita), UNDP.
See also
Ahmad Hasan Dani
Ihsan Ali
Elena Efimovna Kuzmina
Yunas Samad
Siran Upendra Deraniyagala
References
1923 births
2010 deaths
Military personnel from London
English archaeologists
British Army personnel of World War II
Fellows of the British Academy
Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge
Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London
Fellows of the Royal Asiatic Society
Academics of SOAS University of London
People from Harrow, London
Royal Corps of Signals soldiers
20th-century British archaeologists
20th-century English writers
20th-century English male writers
British people in colonial India
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald%20Ford
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Gerald Ford
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Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He previously served as the leader of the Republican Party in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1965 to 1973, and as the 40th vice president under President Richard Nixon from 1973 to 1974. Ford succeeded to the presidency when Nixon resigned in 1974, but was defeated for election to a full term in 1976. Ford is the only person to become U.S. president without winning an election for president or vice president.
Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan, where he played for the school's football team before eventually attending Yale Law School. Afterward, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1942 to 1946. Ford began his political career in 1949 as the U.S. representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district, serving in this capacity for nearly 25 years, the final nine of them as the House minority leader. In December 1973, two months after Spiro Agnew's resignation, Ford became the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment. After the subsequent resignation of President Nixon in August 1974, Ford immediately assumed the presidency.
Domestically, Ford presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession. In one of his most controversial acts, he granted a presidential pardon to Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. Foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play, and by the corresponding curb on the powers of the president. Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, which marked a move toward détente in the Cold War. With the collapse of South Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War essentially ended. In the 1976 Republican presidential primary, Ford defeated Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, but narrowly lost the presidential election to the Democratic challenger, Jimmy Carter.
Following his years as president, Ford remained active in the Republican Party, but his moderate views on various social issues increasingly put him at odds with conservative members of the party in the 1990s and early 2000s. He also set aside the enmity he had felt towards Carter following the 1976 election and the two former presidents developed a close friendship. After experiencing a series of health problems, he died in Rancho Mirage, California in 2006. Surveys of historians and political scientists have ranked Ford as a below-average president, though retrospective public polls on his time in office were more positive.
Early life
Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. on July 14, 1913, at 3202 Woolworth Avenue in Omaha, Nebraska, where his parents lived with his paternal grandparents. He was the only child of Dorothy Ayer Gardner and Leslie Lynch King Sr., a wool trader. His father was a son of prominent banker Charles Henry King and Martha Alicia King (née Porter). Gardner separated from King just sixteen days after her son's birth. She took her son with her to Oak Park, Illinois, home of her sister Tannisse and brother-in-law, Clarence Haskins James. From there, she moved to the home of her parents, Levi Addison Gardner and Adele Augusta Ayer, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Gardner and King divorced in December 1913, and she gained full custody of her son. Ford's paternal grandfather Charles Henry King paid child support until shortly before his death in 1930.
Ford later said that his biological father had a history of hitting his mother. In a biography of Ford, James M. Cannon wrote that the separation and divorce of Ford's parents was sparked when, a few days after Ford's birth, Leslie King took a butcher knife and threatened to kill his wife, infant son, and Ford's nursemaid. Ford later told confidants that his father had first hit his mother when she had smiled at another man during their honeymoon.
After living with her parents for two and a half years, on February 1, 1917, Gardner married Gerald Rudolff Ford, a salesman in a family-owned paint and varnish company. Though never formally adopted, her young son was referred to as Gerald Rudolff Ford Jr. from then on; the name change was formalized on December 3, 1935. He was raised in Grand Rapids with his three half-brothers from his mother's second marriage: Thomas Gardner "Tom" Ford (1918–1995), Richard Addison "Dick" Ford (1924–2015), and James Francis "Jim" Ford (1927–2001).
Ford was involved in the Boy Scouts of America, and earned that program's highest rank, Eagle Scout. He is the only Eagle Scout to have ascended to the U.S. presidency. Ford attended Grand Rapids South High School, where he was a star athlete and captain of the football team. In 1930, he was selected to the All-City team of the Grand Rapids City League. He also attracted the attention of college recruiters.
College and law school
Ford attended the University of Michigan, where he played center, linebacker, and long snapper for the school's football team and helped the Wolverines to two undefeated seasons and national titles in 1932 and 1933. In his senior year of 1934, the team suffered a steep decline and won only one game, but Ford was still the team's star player. In one of those games, Michigan held heavily favored Minnesota—the eventual national champion—to a scoreless tie in the first half. After the game, assistant coach Bennie Oosterbaan said, "When I walked into the dressing room at halftime, I had tears in my eyes I was so proud of them. Ford and [Cedric] Sweet played their hearts out. They were everywhere on defense." Ford later recalled, "During 25 years in the rough-and-tumble world of politics, I often thought of the experiences before, during, and after that game in 1934. Remembering them has helped me many times to face a tough situation, take action, and make every effort possible despite adverse odds." His teammates later voted Ford their most valuable player, with one assistant coach noting, "They felt Jerry was one guy who would stay and fight in a losing cause."
During Ford's senior year, a controversy developed when Georgia Tech said that it would not play a scheduled game with Michigan if a Black player named Willis Ward took the field. Students, players and alumni protested, but university officials capitulated and kept Ward out of the game. Ford was Ward's best friend on the team, and they roomed together while on road trips. Ford reportedly threatened to quit the team in response to the university's decision, but he eventually agreed to play against Georgia Tech when Ward personally asked him to play.
In 1934, Ford was selected for the Eastern Team on the Shriner's East–West Shrine Game at San Francisco (a benefit for physically disabled children), played on January 1, 1935. As part of the 1935 Collegiate All-Star football team, Ford played against the Chicago Bears in the Chicago College All-Star Game at Soldier Field. In honor of his athletic accomplishments and his later political career, the University of Michigan retired Ford's No. 48 jersey in 1994. With the blessing of the Ford family, it was placed back into circulation in 2012 as part of the Michigan Football Legends program and issued to sophomore linebacker Desmond Morgan before a home game against Illinois on October 13.
Throughout life, Ford remained interested in his school and football; he occasionally attended games. Ford also visited with players and coaches during practices; at one point, he asked to join the players in the huddle. Before state events, Ford often had the Navy band play the University of Michigan fight song, "The Victors," instead of "Hail to the Chief."
Ford graduated from Michigan in 1935 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. He turned down offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers of the National Football League. Instead, he took a job in September 1935 as the boxing coach and assistant varsity football coach at Yale University and applied to its law school.
Ford hoped to attend Yale Law School beginning in 1935. Yale officials at first denied his admission to the law school because of his full-time coaching responsibilities. He spent the summer of 1937 as a student at the University of Michigan Law School and was eventually admitted in the spring of 1938 to Yale Law School. That year he was also promoted to the position of junior varsity head football coach at Yale. While at Yale, Ford began working as a model. He initially worked with the John Robert Powers agency before investing in the Harry Conover agency, with whom he modelled until 1941.
While attending Yale Law School, Ford joined a group of students led by R. Douglas Stuart Jr., and signed a petition to enforce the 1939 Neutrality Act. The petition was circulated nationally and was the inspiration for the America First Committee, a group determined to keep the U.S. out of World War II. His introduction into politics was in the summer of 1940 when he worked for the Republican presidential campaign of Wendell Willkie.
Ford graduated in the top third of his class in 1941, and was admitted to the Michigan bar shortly thereafter. In May 1941, he opened a Grand Rapids law practice with a friend, Philip W. Buchen.
U.S. Naval Reserve
Following the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, Ford enlisted in the Navy. He received a commission as ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve on April 13, 1942. On April 20, he reported for active duty to the V-5 instructor school at Annapolis, Maryland. After one month of training, he went to Navy Preflight School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he was one of 83 instructors and taught elementary navigation skills, ordnance, gunnery, first aid, and military drill. In addition, he coached all nine sports that were offered, but mostly swimming, boxing, and football. During the year he was at the Preflight School, he was promoted to Lieutenant, Junior Grade, on June 2, 1942, and to lieutenant, in March 1943.
Sea duty
After Ford applied for sea duty, he was sent in May 1943 to the pre-commissioning detachment for the new aircraft carrier , at New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, New Jersey. From the ship's commissioning on June 17, 1943, until the end of December 1944, Ford served as the assistant navigator, Athletic Officer, and antiaircraft battery officer on board the Monterey. While he was on board, the carrier participated in many actions in the Pacific Theater with the Third and Fifth Fleets in late 1943 and 1944. In 1943, the carrier helped secure Makin Island in the Gilberts, and participated in carrier strikes against Kavieng, Papua New Guinea in 1943. During the spring of 1944, the Monterey supported landings at Kwajalein and Eniwetok and participated in carrier strikes in the Marianas, Western Carolines, and northern New Guinea, as well as in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. After an overhaul, from September to November 1944, aircraft from the Monterey launched strikes against Wake Island, participated in strikes in the Philippines and Ryukyus, and supported the landings at Leyte and Mindoro.
Although the ship was not damaged by the Empire of Japan's forces, the Monterey was one of several ships damaged by Typhoon Cobra that hit Admiral William Halsey's Third Fleet on December 18–19, 1944. The Third Fleet lost three destroyers and over 800 men during the typhoon. The Monterey was damaged by a fire, which was started by several of the ship's aircraft tearing loose from their cables and colliding on the hangar deck. Ford was serving as General Quarters Officer of the Deck and was ordered to go below to assess the raging fire. He did so safely, and reported his findings back to the ship's commanding officer, Captain Stuart H. Ingersoll. The ship's crew was able to contain the fire, and the ship got underway again.
After the fire, the Monterey was declared unfit for service. Ford was detached from the ship and sent to the Navy Pre-Flight School at Saint Mary's College of California, where he was assigned to the Athletic Department until April 1945. From the end of April 1945 to January 1946, he was on the staff of the Naval Reserve Training Command, Naval Air Station, Glenview, Illinois, at the rank of lieutenant commander.
Ford received the following military awards: the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with nine " bronze stars (for operations in the Gilbert Islands, Bismarck Archipelago, Marshall Islands, Asiatic and Pacific carrier raids, Hollandia, Marianas, Western Carolines, Western New Guinea, and the Leyte Operation), the Philippine Liberation Medal with two " bronze stars (for Leyte and Mindoro), and the World War II Victory Medal. He was honorably discharged in February 1946.
U.S. House of Representatives (1949–1973)
After Ford returned to Grand Rapids in 1946, he became active in local Republican politics, and supporters urged him to challenge Bartel J. Jonkman, the incumbent Republican congressman. Military service had changed his view of the world. "I came back a converted internationalist", Ford wrote, "and of course our congressman at that time was an avowed, dedicated isolationist. And I thought he ought to be replaced. Nobody thought I could win. I ended up winning two to one."
During his first campaign in 1948, Ford visited voters at their doorsteps and as they left the factories where they worked. Ford also visited local farms where, in one instance, a wager resulted in Ford spending two weeks milking cows following his election victory.
Ford was a member of the House of Representatives for 25 years, holding Michigan's 5th congressional district seat from 1949 to 1973. It was a tenure largely notable for its modesty. As an editorial in The New York Times described him, Ford "saw himself as a negotiator and a reconciler, and the record shows it: he did not write a single piece of major legislation in his entire career." Appointed to the House Appropriations Committee two years after being elected, he was a prominent member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Ford described his philosophy as "a moderate in domestic affairs, an internationalist in foreign affairs, and a conservative in fiscal policy." He voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968, as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Ford was known to his colleagues in the House as a "Congressman's Congressman".
In the early 1950s, Ford declined offers to run for either the Senate or the Michigan governorship. Rather, his ambition was to become Speaker of the House, which he called "the ultimate achievement. To sit up there and be the head honcho of 434 other people and have the responsibility, aside from the achievement, of trying to run the greatest legislative body in the history of mankind ... I think I got that ambition within a year or two after I was in the House of Representatives".
Warren Commission
On November 29, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Ford to the Warren Commission, a special task force set up to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Ford was assigned to prepare a biography of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. He and Earl Warren also interviewed Jack Ruby, Oswald's killer. According to a 1963 FBI memo that was released to the public in 2008, Ford was in contact with the FBI throughout his time on the Warren Commission and relayed information to the deputy director, Cartha DeLoach, about the panel's activities. In the preface to his book, A Presidential Legacy and The Warren Commission, Ford defended the work of the commission and reiterated his support of its conclusions.
House Minority Leader (1965–1973)
In 1964, Lyndon Johnson led a landslide victory for his party, secured another term as president and took 36 seats from Republicans in the House of Representatives. Following the election, members of the Republican caucus looked to select a new minority leader. Three members approached Ford to see if he would be willing to serve; after consulting with his family, he agreed. After a closely contested election, Ford was chosen to replace Charles Halleck of Indiana as minority leader. The members of the Republican caucus that encouraged and eventually endorsed Ford to run as the House minority leader were later known as the "Young Turks". One of the members of the Young Turks was congressman Donald H. Rumsfeld from Illinois's 13th congressional district, who later on would serve in Ford's administration as the chief of staff and secretary of defense.
With a Democratic majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Johnson Administration proposed and passed a series of programs that was called by Johnson the "Great Society". During the first session of the Eighty-ninth Congress alone, the Johnson Administration submitted 87 bills to Congress, and Johnson signed 84, or 96%, arguably the most successful legislative agenda in Congressional history.
In 1966, criticism over the Johnson Administration's handling of the Vietnam War began to grow, with Ford and Congressional Republicans expressing concern that the United States was not doing what was necessary to win the war. Public sentiment also began to move against Johnson, and the 1966 midterm elections produced a 47-seat swing in favor of the Republicans. This was not enough to give Republicans a majority in the House, but the victory gave Ford the opportunity to prevent the passage of further Great Society programs.
Ford's private criticism of the Vietnam War became public knowledge after he spoke from the floor of the House and questioned whether the White House had a clear plan to bring the war to a successful conclusion. The speech angered President Johnson, who accused Ford of having played "too much football without a helmet".
As minority leader in the House, Ford appeared in a popular series of televised press conferences with Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, in which they proposed Republican alternatives to Johnson's policies. Many in the press jokingly called this "The Ev and Jerry Show." Johnson said at the time, "Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time." The press, used to sanitizing Johnson's salty language, reported this as "Gerald Ford can't walk and chew gum at the same time."
After Richard Nixon was elected president in November 1968, Ford's role shifted to being an advocate for the White House agenda. Congress passed several of Nixon's proposals, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Tax Reform Act of 1969. Another high-profile victory for the Republican minority was the State and Local Fiscal Assistance act. Passed in 1972, the act established a Revenue Sharing program for state and local governments. Ford's leadership was instrumental in shepherding revenue sharing through Congress, and resulted in a bipartisan coalition that supported the bill with 223 votes in favor (compared with 185 against).
During the eight years (1965–1973) that Ford served as minority leader, he won many friends in the House because of his fair leadership and inoffensive personality.
Vice presidency (1973–1974)
For the past decade, Ford had been unsuccessfully working to help Republicans across the country get a majority in the chamber so that he could become House Speaker. He promised his wife that he would try again in 1974 then retire in 1976. However, on October 10, 1973, Spiro Agnew resigned from the vice presidency. According to The New York Times, Nixon "sought advice from senior Congressional leaders about a replacement." The advice was unanimous. House Speaker Carl Albert recalled later, "We gave Nixon no choice but Ford." Ford agreed to the nomination, telling his wife that the vice presidency would be "a nice conclusion" to his career. Ford was nominated to take Agnew's position on October 12, the first time the vice-presidential vacancy provision of the 25th Amendment had been implemented. The United States Senate voted 92 to 3 to confirm Ford on November 27. On December 6, the House confirmed Ford by a vote of 387 to 35. After the confirmation vote in the House, Ford took the oath of office as vice president.
Ford became vice president as the Watergate scandal was unfolding. On August 1, 1974, Chief of Staff Alexander Haig contacted Ford to tell him to prepare for the presidency. At the time, Ford and his wife, Betty, were living in suburban Virginia, waiting for their expected move into the newly designated vice president's residence in Washington, D.C. However, "Al Haig asked to come over and see me", Ford later said, "to tell me that there would be a new tape released on a Monday, and he said the evidence in there was devastating and there would probably be either an impeachment or a resignation. And he said, 'I'm just warning you that you've got to be prepared, that things might change dramatically and you could become President.' And I said, 'Betty, I don't think we're ever going to live in the vice president's house.
Presidency (1974–1977)
Swearing-in
When Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, Ford automatically assumed the presidency, taking the oath of office in the East Room of the White House. This made him the only person to become the nation's chief executive without being elected to the presidency or the vice presidency. Immediately afterward, he spoke to the assembled audience in a speech that was broadcast live to the nation, noting the peculiarity of his position. He later declared that "our long national nightmare is over".
Nominating Rockefeller
On August 20, Ford nominated former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller to fill the vice presidency he had vacated. Rockefeller's top competitor had been George H. W. Bush. Rockefeller underwent extended hearings before Congress, which caused embarrassment when it was revealed he made large gifts to senior aides, such as Henry Kissinger. Although conservative Republicans were not pleased that Rockefeller was picked, most of them voted for his confirmation, and his nomination passed both the House and Senate. Some, including Barry Goldwater, voted against him.
Pardon of Nixon
On September 8, 1974, Ford issued Proclamation 4311, which gave Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he might have committed against the United States while president. In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interests of the country, and that the Nixon family's situation "is a tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."
Ford's decision to pardon Nixon was highly controversial. Critics derided the move and said a "corrupt bargain" had been struck between the two men, in which Ford's pardon was granted in exchange for Nixon's resignation, elevating Ford to the presidency. Ford's first press secretary and close friend Jerald terHorst resigned his post in protest after the pardon. According to Bob Woodward, Nixon Chief of Staff Alexander Haig proposed a pardon deal to Ford. He later decided to pardon Nixon for other reasons, primarily the friendship he and Nixon shared. Regardless, historians believe the controversy was one of the major reasons Ford lost the 1976 presidential election, an observation with which Ford agreed. In an editorial at the time, The New York Times stated that the Nixon pardon was a "profoundly unwise, divisive and unjust act" that in a stroke had destroyed the new president's "credibility as a man of judgment, candor and competence". On October 17, 1974, Ford testified before Congress on the pardon. He was the first sitting president since Abraham Lincoln to testify before the House of Representatives.
In the months following the pardon, Ford often declined to mention President Nixon by name, referring to him in public as "my predecessor" or "the former president." When Ford was pressed on the matter on a 1974 trip to California, White House correspondent Fred Barnes recalled that he replied "I just can't bring myself to do it."
After Ford left the White House in January 1977, he privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States, a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision which stated that a pardon indicated a presumption of guilt, and that acceptance of a pardon was tantamount to a confession of that guilt. In 2001, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award to Ford for his pardon of Nixon. In presenting the award to Ford, Senator Edward Kennedy said that he had initially been opposed to the pardon, but later decided that history had proven Ford to have made the correct decision.
Draft dodgers and deserters
On September 16 (shortly after he pardoned Nixon), Ford issued Presidential Proclamation 4313, which introduced a conditional amnesty program for military deserters and Vietnam War draft dodgers who had fled to countries such as Canada. The conditions of the amnesty required that those reaffirm their allegiance to the United States and serve two years working in a public service job or a total of two years service for those who had served less than two years of honorable service in the military. The program for the Return of Vietnam Era Draft Evaders and Military Deserters established a Clemency Board to review the records and make recommendations for receiving a Presidential Pardon and a change in Military discharge status. Full pardon for draft dodgers came in the Carter administration.
Administration
When Ford assumed office, he inherited Nixon's Cabinet. During his brief administration, he replaced all members except Secretary of State Kissinger and Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon. Political commentators have referred to Ford's dramatic reorganization of his Cabinet in the fall of 1975 as the "Halloween Massacre". One of Ford's appointees, William Coleman—the Secretary of Transportation—was the second Black man to serve in a presidential cabinet (after Robert C. Weaver) and the first appointed in a Republican administration.
Ford selected George H. W. Bush as Chief of the US Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China in 1974, and then Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in late 1975.
Ford's transition chairman and first Chief of Staff was former congressman and ambassador Donald Rumsfeld. In 1975, Rumsfeld was named by Ford as the youngest-ever Secretary of Defense. Ford chose a young Wyoming politician, Richard Cheney, to replace Rumsfeld as his new Chief of Staff; Cheney became the campaign manager for Ford's 1976 presidential campaign.
Midterm elections
The 1974 Congressional midterm elections took place in the wake of the Watergate scandal and less than three months after Ford assumed office. The Democratic Party turned voter dissatisfaction into large gains in the House elections, taking 49 seats from the Republican Party, increasing their majority to 291 of the 435 seats. This was one more than the number needed (290) for a two-thirds majority, the number necessary to override a Presidential veto or to propose a constitutional amendment. Perhaps due in part to this fact, the 94th Congress overrode the highest percentage of vetoes since Andrew Johnson was President of the United States (1865–1869). Even Ford's former, reliably Republican House seat was won by a Democrat, Richard Vander Veen, who defeated Robert VanderLaan. In the Senate elections, the Democratic majority became 61 in the 100-seat body.
Domestic policy
Inflation
The economy was a great concern during the Ford administration. One of the first acts the new president took to deal with the economy was to create, by Executive Order on September 30, 1974, the Economic Policy Board. In October 1974, in response to rising inflation, Ford went before the American public and asked them to "Whip Inflation Now". As part of this program, he urged people to wear "WIN" buttons. At the time, inflation was believed to be the primary threat to the economy, more so than growing unemployment; there was a belief that controlling inflation would help reduce unemployment. To rein in inflation, it was necessary to control the public's spending. To try to mesh service and sacrifice, "WIN" called for Americans to reduce their spending and consumption. On October 4, 1974, Ford gave a speech in front of a joint session of Congress; as a part of this speech he kicked off the "WIN" campaign. Over the next nine days, 101,240 Americans mailed in "WIN" pledges. In hindsight, this was viewed as simply a public relations gimmick which had no way of solving the underlying problems. The main point of that speech was to introduce to Congress a one-year, five-percent income tax increase on corporations and wealthy individuals. This plan would also take $4.4 billion out of the budget, bringing federal spending below $300 billion. At the time, inflation was over twelve percent.
Budget
The federal budget ran a deficit every year Ford was president. Despite his reservations about how the program ultimately would be funded in an era of tight public budgeting, Ford signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, which established special education throughout the United States. Ford expressed "strong support for full educational opportunities for our handicapped children" according to the official White House press release for the bill signing.
The economic focus began to change as the country sank into the worst recession since the Great Depression four decades earlier. The focus of the Ford administration turned to stopping the rise in unemployment, which reached nine percent in May 1975. In January 1975, Ford proposed a 1-year tax reduction of $16 billion to stimulate economic growth, along with spending cuts to avoid inflation. Ford was criticized for abruptly switching from advocating a tax increase to a tax reduction. In Congress, the proposed amount of the tax reduction increased to $22.8 billion in tax cuts and lacked spending cuts. In March 1975, Congress passed, and Ford signed into law, these income tax rebates as part of the Tax Reduction Act of 1975. This resulted in a federal deficit of around $53 billion for the 1975 fiscal year and $73.7 billion for 1976.
When New York City faced bankruptcy in 1975, Mayor Abraham Beame was unsuccessful in obtaining Ford's support for a federal bailout. The incident prompted the New York Daily News famous headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead", referring to a speech in which "Ford declared flatly ... that he would veto any bill calling for 'a federal bail-out of New York City.
Swine flu
Ford was confronted with a potential swine flu pandemic. In the early 1970s, an influenza strain H1N1 shifted from a form of flu that affected primarily pigs and crossed over to humans. On February 5, 1976, an army recruit at Fort Dix mysteriously died and four fellow soldiers were hospitalized; health officials announced that "swine flu" was the cause. Soon after, public health officials in the Ford administration urged that every person in the United States be vaccinated. Although the vaccination program was plagued by delays and public relations problems, some 25% of the population was vaccinated by the time the program was canceled in December 1976.
Equal rights and abortion
Ford was an outspoken supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, issuing Presidential Proclamation no. 4383 in 1975:
As president, Ford's position on abortion was that he supported "a federal constitutional amendment that would permit each one of the 50 States to make the choice". This had also been his position as House Minority Leader in response to the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, which he opposed. Ford came under criticism when First Lady Betty Ford entered the debate over abortion during an August 1975 interview for 60 Minutes, in which she stated that Roe v. Wade was a "great, great decision". During his later life, Ford would identify as pro-choice.
Foreign policy
Ford continued the détente policy with both the Soviet Union and China, easing the tensions of the Cold War. Still in place from the Nixon administration was the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT). The thawing relationship brought about by Nixon's visit to China was reinforced by Ford's own visit in December 1975. The Administration entered into the Helsinki Accords with the Soviet Union in 1975, creating the framework of the Helsinki Watch, an independent non-governmental organization created to monitor compliance which later evolved into Human Rights Watch.
Ford attended the inaugural meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations (initially the G5) in 1975 and secured membership for Canada. Ford supported international solutions to issues. "We live in an interdependent world and, therefore, must work together to resolve common economic problems," he said in a 1974 speech.
In November 1975, Ford adopted the global human population control recommendations of National Security Study Memorandum 200 – a national security directive initially commissioned by Nixon – as United States policy in the subsequent NSDM 314. The plan explicitly states the goal was population control and not improving the lives of individuals despite instructing organizers to "emphasize development and improvements in the quality of life of the poor", later explaining the projects were "primarily for other reasons". Upon approving the plan, Ford stated "United States leadership is essential to combat population growth, to implement the World Population Plan of Action and to advance United States security and overseas interests". Population control policies were adopted to protect American economic and military interests, with the memorandum arguing that population growth in developing countries resulted with such nations gaining global political power, that more citizens posed a risk to accessing foreign natural resources while also making American businesses vulnerable to governments seeking to fund a growing population, and that younger generations born would be prone to anti-establishment behavior, increasing political instability.
Middle East
In the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, two ongoing international disputes developed into crises. The Cyprus dispute turned into a crisis with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July 1974, causing extreme strain within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. In mid-August, the Greek government withdrew Greece from the NATO military structure; in mid-September, the Senate and House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to halt military aid to Turkey. Ford, concerned with both the effect of this on Turkish-American relations and the deterioration of security on NATO's eastern front, vetoed the bill. A second bill was then passed by Congress, which Ford also vetoed, fearing that it might impede negotiations in Cyprus, although a compromise was accepted to continue aid until December 10, 1974, provided Turkey would not send American supplies to Cyprus. U.S. military aid to Turkey was suspended on February 5, 1975.
In the continuing Arab–Israeli conflict, although the initial cease fire had been implemented to end active conflict in the Yom Kippur War, Kissinger's continuing shuttle diplomacy was showing little progress. Ford considered it "stalling" and wrote, "Their [Israeli] tactics frustrated the Egyptians and made me mad as hell." During Kissinger's shuttle to Israel in early March 1975, a last minute reversal to consider further withdrawal, prompted a cable from Ford to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which included:
On March 24, Ford informed congressional leaders of both parties of the reassessment of the administration's policies in the Middle East. In practical terms, "reassessment" meant canceling or suspending further aid to Israel. For six months between March and September 1975, the United States refused to conclude any new arms agreements with Israel. Rabin notes it was "an innocent-sounding term that heralded one of the worst periods in American-Israeli relations". The announced reassessments upset the American Jewish community and Israel's well-wishers in Congress. On May 21, Ford "experienced a real shock" when seventy-six U.S. senators wrote him a letter urging him to be "responsive" to Israel's request for $2.59 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ) in military and economic aid. Ford felt truly annoyed and thought the chance for peace was jeopardized. It was, since the September 1974 ban on arms sales to Turkey, the second major congressional intrusion upon the President's foreign policy prerogatives. The following summer months were described by Ford as an American-Israeli "war of nerves" or "test of wills". After much bargaining, the Sinai Interim Agreement (Sinai II) was formally signed on September 1, and aid resumed.
Vietnam
One of Ford's greatest challenges was dealing with the continuing Vietnam War. American offensive operations against North Vietnam had ended with the Paris Peace Accords, signed on January 27, 1973. The accords declared a cease-fire across both North and South Vietnam, and required the release of American prisoners of war. The agreement guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam and, like the Geneva Conference of 1954, called for national elections in the North and South. The Paris Peace Accords stipulated a sixty-day period for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces.
The agreements were negotiated by US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese Politburo member Lê Đức Thọ. South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu was not involved in the final negotiations, and publicly criticized the proposed agreement. However, anti-war pressures within the United States forced Nixon and Kissinger to pressure Thieu to sign the agreement and enable the withdrawal of American forces. In multiple letters to the South Vietnamese president, Nixon had promised that the United States would defend Thieu's government, should the North Vietnamese violate the accords.
In December 1974, months after Ford took office, North Vietnamese forces invaded the province of Phuoc Long. General Trần Văn Trà sought to gauge any South Vietnamese or American response to the invasion, as well as to solve logistical issues, before proceeding with the invasion.
As North Vietnamese forces advanced, Ford requested Congress approve a $722 million aid package for South Vietnam (equivalent to $ billion in ), funds that had been promised by the Nixon administration. Congress voted against the proposal by a wide margin. Senator Jacob K. Javits offered "...large sums for evacuation, but not one nickel for military aid". President Thieu resigned on April 21, 1975, publicly blaming the lack of support from the United States for the fall of his country. Two days later, on April 23, Ford gave a speech at Tulane University. In that speech, he announced that the Vietnam War was over "...as far as America is concerned". The announcement was met with thunderous applause.
1,373 U.S. citizens and 5,595 Vietnamese and third-country nationals were evacuated from the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon during Operation Frequent Wind. Many of the Vietnamese evacuees were allowed to enter the United States under the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act. The 1975 Act appropriated $455 million (equivalent to $ billion in ) toward the costs of assisting the settlement of Indochinese refugees. In all, 130,000 Vietnamese refugees came to the United States in 1975. Thousands more escaped in the years that followed.
Mayaguez incident
North Vietnam's victory over the South led to a considerable shift in the political winds in Asia, and Ford administration officials worried about a consequent loss of U.S. influence there. The administration proved it was willing to respond forcefully to challenges to its interests in the region when Khmer Rouge forces seized an American ship in international waters. The main crisis was the Mayaguez incident. In May 1975, shortly after the fall of Saigon and the Khmer Rouge conquest of Cambodia, Cambodians seized the American merchant ship Mayaguez in international waters. Ford dispatched Marines to rescue the crew, but the Marines landed on the wrong island and met unexpectedly stiff resistance just as, unknown to the U.S., the Mayaguez sailors were being released. In the operation, two military transport helicopters carrying the Marines for the assault operation were shot down, and 41 U.S. servicemen were killed and 50 wounded, while approximately 60 Khmer Rouge soldiers were killed. Despite the American losses, the operation was seen as a success in the United States, and Ford enjoyed an 11-point boost in his approval ratings in the aftermath. The Americans killed during the operation became the last to have their names inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington, D.C.
Some historians have argued that the Ford administration felt the need to respond forcefully to the incident because it was construed as a Soviet plot. But work by Andrew Gawthorpe, published in 2009, based on an analysis of the administration's internal discussions, shows that Ford's national security team understood that the seizure of the vessel was a local, and perhaps even accidental, provocation by an immature Khmer government. Nevertheless, they felt the need to respond forcefully to discourage further provocations by other Communist countries in Asia.
Assassination attempts
Ford was the target of two assassination attempts during his presidency. In Sacramento, California, on September 5, 1975, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, pointed a Colt .45-caliber handgun at Ford and pulled the trigger at point-blank range. As she did, Larry Buendorf, a Secret Service agent, grabbed the gun, and Fromme was taken into custody. She was later convicted of attempted assassination of the President and was sentenced to life in prison; she was paroled on August 14, 2009, after serving 34 years.
In reaction to this attempt, the Secret Service began keeping Ford at a more secure distance from anonymous crowds, a strategy that may have saved his life seventeen days later. As he left the St. Francis Hotel in downtown San Francisco, Sara Jane Moore, standing in a crowd of onlookers across the street, fired a .38-caliber revolver at him. The shot missed Ford by a few feet. Before she fired a second round, retired Marine Oliver Sipple grabbed at the gun and deflected her shot; the bullet struck a wall about six inches above and to the right of Ford's head, then ricocheted and hit a taxi driver, who was slightly wounded. Moore was later sentenced to life in prison. She was paroled on December 31, 2007, after serving 32 years.
Judicial appointments
Supreme Court
In 1975, Ford appointed John Paul Stevens as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to replace retiring Justice William O. Douglas. Stevens had been a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, appointed by President Nixon. During his tenure as House Republican leader, Ford had led efforts to have Douglas impeached. After being confirmed, Stevens eventually disappointed some conservatives by siding with the Court's liberal wing regarding the outcome of many key issues. Nevertheless, in 2005 Ford praised Stevens. "He has served his nation well," Ford said of Stevens, "with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns."
Other judicial appointments
Ford appointed 11 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 50 judges to the United States district courts.
1976 presidential election
Ford reluctantly agreed to run for office in 1976, but first he had to counter a challenge for the Republican party nomination. Former Governor of California Ronald Reagan and the party's conservative wing faulted Ford for failing to do more in South Vietnam, for signing the Helsinki Accords, and for negotiating to cede the Panama Canal. (Negotiations for the canal continued under President Carter, who eventually signed the Torrijos–Carter Treaties.) Reagan launched his campaign in autumn of 1975 and won numerous primaries, including North Carolina, Texas, Indiana, and California, but failed to get a majority of delegates; Reagan withdrew from the race at the Republican Convention in Kansas City, Missouri. The conservative insurgency did lead to Ford dropping the more liberal Vice President Nelson Rockefeller in favor of U.S. Senator Bob Dole of Kansas.
In addition to the pardon dispute and lingering anti-Republican sentiment, Ford had to counter a plethora of negative media imagery. Chevy Chase often did pratfalls on Saturday Night Live, imitating Ford, who had been seen stumbling on two occasions during his term. As Chase commented, "He even mentioned in his own autobiography it had an effect over a period of time that affected the election to some degree."
Ford's 1976 election campaign benefitted from his being an incumbent president during several anniversary events held during the period leading up to the United States Bicentennial. The Washington, D.C. fireworks display on the Fourth of July was presided over by the President and televised nationally. On July 7, 1976, the President and First Lady served as hosts at a White House state dinner for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip of the United Kingdom, which was televised on the Public Broadcasting Service network. The 200th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts gave Ford the opportunity to deliver a speech to 110,000 in Concord acknowledging the need for a strong national defense tempered with a plea for "reconciliation, not recrimination" and "reconstruction, not rancor" between the United States and those who would pose "threats to peace". Speaking in New Hampshire on the previous day, Ford condemned the growing trend toward big government bureaucracy and argued for a return to "basic American virtues".
Televised presidential debates were reintroduced for the first time since the 1960 election. As such, Ford became the first incumbent president to participate in one. Carter later attributed his victory in the election to the debates, saying they "gave the viewers reason to think that Jimmy Carter had something to offer". The turning point came in the second debate when Ford blundered by stating, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford Administration." Ford also said that he did not "believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union". In an interview years later, Ford said he had intended to imply that the Soviets would never crush the spirits of eastern Europeans seeking independence. However, the phrasing was so awkward that questioner Max Frankel was visibly incredulous at the response.
In the end, Carter won the election, receiving 50.1% of the popular vote and 297 electoral votes compared with 48.0% and 240 electoral votes for Ford.
Post-presidency (1977–2006)
The Nixon pardon controversy eventually subsided. Ford's successor, Jimmy Carter, opened his 1977 inaugural address by praising the outgoing president, saying, "For myself and for our Nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land."
After leaving the White House, the Fords moved to Denver, Colorado. Ford successfully invested in oil with Marvin Davis, which later provided an income for Ford's children.
He continued to make appearances at events of historical and ceremonial significance to the nation, such as presidential inaugurals and memorial services. In January 1977, he became the president of Eisenhower Fellowships in Philadelphia, then served as the chairman of its board of trustees from 1980 to 1986. Later in 1977, he reluctantly agreed to be interviewed by James M. Naughton, a New York Times journalist who was given the assignment to write the former president's advance obituary, an article that would be updated prior to its eventual publication. In 1979, Ford published his autobiography, A Time to Heal (Harper/Reader's Digest, 454 pages). A review in Foreign Affairs described it as, "Serene, unruffled, unpretentious, like the author. This is the shortest and most honest of recent presidential memoirs, but there are no surprises, no deep probings of motives or events. No more here than meets the eye."
During the term of office of his successor, Jimmy Carter, Ford received monthly briefs by President Carter's senior staff on international and domestic issues, and was always invited to lunch at the White House whenever he was in Washington, D.C. Their close friendship developed after Carter had left office, with the catalyst being their trip together to the funeral of Anwar el-Sadat in 1981. Until Ford's death, Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, visited the Fords' home frequently. Ford and Carter served as honorary co-chairs of the National Commission on Federal Election Reform in 2001 and of the Continuity of Government Commission in 2002.
Like Presidents Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, Ford was an honorary co-chair of the Council for Excellence in Government, a group dedicated to excellence in government performance, which provides leadership training to top federal employees. He also devoted much time to his love of golf, often playing both privately and in public events with comedian Bob Hope, a longtime friend. In 1977, he shot a hole in one during a Pro-am held in conjunction with the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic at Colonial Country Club in Memphis, Tennessee.
In 1977, Ford established the Gerald R. Ford Institute of Public Policy at Albion College in Albion, Michigan, to give undergraduates training in public policy. In April 1981, he opened the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the north campus of his alma mater, the University of Michigan, followed in September by the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids.
Ford considered a run for the Republican nomination in 1980, forgoing numerous opportunities to serve on corporate boards to keep his options open for a rematch with Carter. Ford attacked Carter's conduct of the SALT II negotiations and foreign policy in the Middle East and Africa. Many have argued that Ford also wanted to exorcise his image as an "Accidental President" and to win a term in his own right. Ford also believed the more conservative Ronald Reagan would be unable to defeat Carter and would hand the incumbent a second term. Ford was encouraged by his former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, as well as Jim Rhodes of Ohio and Bill Clements of Texas to make the race. On March 15, 1980, Ford announced that he would forgo a run for the Republican nomination, vowing to support the eventual nominee.
After securing the Republican nomination in 1980, Ronald Reagan considered his former rival Ford as a potential vice-presidential running mate, but negotiations between the Reagan and Ford camps at the Republican National Convention were unsuccessful. Ford conditioned his acceptance on Reagan's agreement to an unprecedented "co-presidency", giving Ford the power to control key executive branch appointments (such as Kissinger as Secretary of State and Alan Greenspan as Treasury Secretary). After rejecting these terms, Reagan offered the vice-presidential nomination instead to George H. W. Bush. Ford did appear in a campaign commercial for the Reagan-Bush ticket, in which he declared that the country would be "better served by a Reagan presidency rather than a continuation of the weak and politically expedient policies of Jimmy Carter". On October 8, 1980, Ford said former President Nixon's involvement in the general election potentially could negatively impact the Reagan campaign: "I think it would have been much more helpful if Mr. Nixon had stayed in the background during this campaign. It would have been much more beneficial to Ronald Reagan."
On October 3, 1980, Ford cast blame on Carter for the latter's charges of ineffectiveness on the part of the Federal Reserve Board due to his appointing of most of its members: "President Carter, when the going gets tough, will do anything to save his own political skin. This latest action by the president is cowardly."
Following the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, Ford told reporters while appearing at a fundraiser for Thomas Kean that criminals who use firearms should get the death penalty in the event someone is injured with the weapon.
In September 1981, Ford advised Reagan against succumbing to Wall Street demands and follow his own agenda for the economic policies of the US during an appearance on Good Morning America: "He shouldn't let the gurus of Wall Street decide what the economic future of this country is going to be. They are wrong in my opinion." On October 20, 1981, Ford stated stopping the Reagan administration's Saudi arms package could have a large negative impact to American relations in the Middle East during a news conference.
On March 24, 1982, Ford offered an endorsement of President Reagan's economic policies while also stating the possibility of Reagan being met with a stalemate by Congress if not willing to compromise while in Washington.
Ford founded the annual AEI World Forum in 1982, and joined the American Enterprise Institute as a distinguished fellow. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate at Central Connecticut State University on March 23, 1988.
During an August 1982 fundraising reception, Ford stated his opposition to a constitutional amendment requiring the US to have a balanced budget, citing a need to elect "members of the House and Senate who will immediately when Congress convenes act more responsibly in fiscal matters." Ford was a participant in the 1982 midterm elections, traveling to Tennessee in October of that year to help Republican candidates.
In January 1984, a letter signed by Ford and Carter and urging world leaders to extend their failed effort to end world hunger was released and sent to Secretary-General of the United Nations Javier Pérez de Cuéllar.
In 1987, Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of District of Columbia Circuit Court judge and former Solicitor General Robert Bork after Bork was nominated by President Reagan to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Bork's nomination was rejected by a vote of 58–42.
In 1987, Ford's Humor and the Presidency, a book of humorous political anecdotes, was published.
By 1988, Ford was a member of several corporate boards including Commercial Credit, Nova Pharmaceutical, The Pullman Company, Tesoro Petroleum, and Tiger International, Inc. Ford also became an honorary director of Citigroup, a position he held until his death.
In October 1990, Ford appeared in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with Bob Hope to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the birth of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, where the two unveiled a plaque with the signatures of each living former president.
In April 1991, Ford joined former presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter, in supporting the Brady Bill. Three years later, he wrote to the U.S. House of Representatives, along with Carter and Reagan, in support of the assault weapons ban.
At the 1992 Republican National Convention, Ford compared the election cycle to his 1976 loss to Carter and urged attention be paid to electing a Republican Congress: "If it's change you want on Nov. 3, my friends, the place to start is not at the White House but in the United States' Capitol. Congress, as every school child knows, has the power of the purse. For nearly 40 years, Democratic majorities have held to the time-tested New Deal formula, tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect." (The Republicans would later win both Houses of Congress at the 1994 mid-term elections.)
In April 1997, Ford joined President Bill Clinton, former President Bush, and Nancy Reagan in signing the "Summit Declaration of Commitment" in advocating for participation by private citizens in solving domestic issues within the United States.
On January 20, 1998, during an interview at his Palm Springs home, Ford said the Republican Party's nominee in the 2000 presidential election would lose if the party turned ultra-conservative in their ideals: "If we get way over on the hard right of the political spectrum, we will not elect a Republican President. I worry about the party going down this ultra-conservative line. We ought to learn from the Democrats: when they were running ultra-liberal candidates, they didn't win."
In the prelude to the impeachment of President Clinton, Ford conferred with former President Carter and the two agreed to not speak publicly on the controversy, a pact broken by Carter when answering a question from a student at Emory University.
In October 2001, Ford broke with conservative members of the Republican Party by stating that gay and lesbian couples "ought to be treated equally. Period." He became the highest-ranking Republican to embrace full equality for gays and lesbians, stating his belief that there should be a federal amendment outlawing anti-gay job discrimination and expressing his hope that the Republican Party would reach out to gay and lesbian voters. He also was a member of the Republican Unity Coalition, which The New York Times described as "a group of prominent Republicans, including former President Gerald R. Ford, dedicated to making sexual orientation a non-issue in the Republican Party".
On November 22, 2004, New York Republican Governor George Pataki named Ford and the other living former Presidents (Carter, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton) as honorary members of the board rebuilding the World Trade Center.
In a pre-recorded embargoed interview with Bob Woodward of The Washington Post in July 2004, Ford stated that he disagreed "very strongly" with the Bush administration's choice of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction as justification for its decision to invade Iraq, calling it a "big mistake" unrelated to the national security of the United States and indicating that he would not have gone to war had he been president. The details of the interview were not released until after Ford's death, as he requested.
Health problems
On April 4, 1990, Ford was admitted to Eisenhower Medical Center for surgery to replace his left knee, orthopedic surgeon Robert Murphy saying, "Ford's entire left knee was replaced with an artificial joint, including portions of the adjacent femur, or thigh bone, and tibia, or leg bone."
Ford suffered two minor strokes at the 2000 Republican National Convention, but made a quick recovery after being admitted to Hahnemann University Hospital. In January 2006, he spent 11 days at the Eisenhower Medical Center near his residence at Rancho Mirage, California, for treatment of pneumonia. On April 23, 2006, President George W. Bush visited Ford at his home in Rancho Mirage for a little over an hour. This was Ford's last public appearance and produced the last known public photos, video footage, and voice recording.
While vacationing in Vail, Colorado, Ford was hospitalized for two days in July 2006 for shortness of breath. On August 15 he was admitted to St. Mary's Hospital of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for testing and evaluation. On August 21, it was reported that he had been fitted with a pacemaker. On August 25, he underwent an angioplasty procedure at the Mayo Clinic. On August 28, Ford was released from the hospital and returned with his wife Betty to their California home. On October 13, he was scheduled to attend the dedication of a building of his namesake, the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, but due to poor health and on the advice of his doctors he did not attend. The previous day, Ford had entered the Eisenhower Medical Center for undisclosed tests; he was released on October 16. By November 2006, he was confined to a bed in his study.
Death and legacy
Ford died on December 26, 2006, at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, of arteriosclerotic cerebrovascular disease and diffuse arteriosclerosis. He had end-stage coronary artery disease and severe aortic stenosis and insufficiency, caused by calcific alteration of one of his heart valves. At the time of his death, Ford was the longest-lived U.S. president, having lived 93 years and 165 days (45 days longer than Ronald Reagan, whose record he surpassed). He died on the 34th anniversary of President Harry S. Truman's death; he was the last surviving member of the Warren Commission.
On December 30, 2006, Ford became the 11th U.S. president to lie in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. A state funeral and memorial services were held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, January 2, 2007. After the service, Ford was interred at his Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Scouting was so important to Ford that his family asked for Scouts to participate in his funeral. A few selected Scouts served as ushers inside the National Cathedral. About 400 Eagle Scouts were part of the funeral procession, where they formed an honor guard as the casket went by in front of the museum.
Ford selected the song to be played during his funeral procession at the U.S. Capitol. After his death in December 2006, the University of Michigan Marching Band played the school's fight song for him one final time, for his last ride from the Gerald R. Ford Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The State of Michigan commissioned and submitted a statue of Ford to the National Statuary Hall Collection, replacing Zachariah Chandler. It was unveiled on May 3, 2011, in the Capitol Rotunda.
Personal life
Family
When speaking of his mother and stepfather, Ford said that "My stepfather was a magnificent person and my mother equally wonderful. So I couldn't have written a better prescription for a superb family upbringing."
Ford had three half-siblings from the second marriage of Leslie King Sr., his biological father: Marjorie King (1921–1993), Leslie Henry King (1923–1976), and Patricia Jane King (1925–1980). They never saw one another as children, and he did not know them at all until 1960. Ford was not aware of his biological father until he was 17, when his parents told him about the circumstances of his birth. That year his biological father, whom Ford described as a "carefree, well-to-do man who didn't really give a damn about the hopes and dreams of his firstborn son", approached Ford while he was waiting tables in a Grand Rapids restaurant. The two "maintained a sporadic contact" until Leslie King Sr.'s death in 1941.
On October 15, 1948, Ford married Elizabeth Bloomer (1918–2011) at Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids; it was his first and only marriage and her second marriage. She had previously been married and, after a five‐year marriage, divorced from William Warren.
Originally from Grand Rapids herself, she had lived in New York City for several years, where she worked as a John Robert Powers fashion model and a dancer in the auxiliary troupe of the Martha Graham Dance Company. At the time of their engagement, Ford was campaigning for what would be his first of 13 terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives. The wedding was delayed until shortly before the election because, as The New York Times reported in a 1974 profile of Betty Ford, "Jerry Ford was running for Congress and wasn't sure how voters might feel about his marrying a divorced exdancer."
The couple had four children: Michael Gerald, born in 1950, John Gardner (known as Jack) born in 1952, Steven Meigs, born in 1956, and Susan Elizabeth, born in 1957.
Civic and fraternal organizations
Ford was a member of several civic and fraternal organizations, including the Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycees), American Legion, AMVETS, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Sons of the Revolution, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and was an alumnus of Delta Kappa Epsilon at Michigan.
Freemasonry
Ford was initiated into Freemasonry on September 30, 1949. He later said in 1975, "When I took my obligation as a master mason—incidentally, with my three younger brothers—I recalled the value my own father attached to that order. But I had no idea that I would ever be added to the company of the Father of our Country and 12 other members of the order who also served as Presidents of the United States." Ford was made a 33° Scottish Rite Mason on September 26, 1962. In April 1975, Ford was elected by a unanimous vote Honorary Grand Master of the International Supreme Council, Order of DeMolay, a position in which he served until January 1977. Ford received the degrees of York Rite Masonry (Chapter and Council degrees) in a special ceremony in the Oval Office on January 11, 1977, during his term as President of the United States.
Ford was also a member of the Shriners and the Royal Order of Jesters; both being affiliated bodies of Freemasonry.
Public image
Ford is the only person to hold the presidential office without being elected as either president or vice president. The choice of Ford to fill the vacant vice-presidency was based on Ford's reputation for openness and honesty. "In all the years I sat in the House, I never knew Mr. Ford to make a dishonest statement nor a statement part-true and part-false. He never attempted to shade a statement, and I never heard him utter an unkind word", said Martha Griffiths.
The trust the American public had in him was rapidly and severely tarnished by his pardon of Nixon. Nonetheless, many grant in hindsight that he had respectably discharged with considerable dignity a great responsibility that he had not sought.
In spite of his athletic record and remarkable career accomplishments, Ford acquired a reputation as a clumsy, likable, and simple-minded everyman. An incident in 1975, when he tripped while exiting Air Force One in Austria, was famously and repeatedly parodied by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live, cementing Ford's image as a klutz. Other pieces of the everyman image were attributed to his inevitable comparison with Nixon, his Midwestern stodginess and his self-deprecation.
Ford has notably been portrayed in two television productions which included a central focus on his wife: the Emmy-winning 1987 ABC biographical television movie The Betty Ford Story and the 2022 Showtime television series The First Lady.
Honors
Foreign honors
:
First Class of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana (January 7, 1997)
Ford received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award in May 1970, as well as the Silver Buffalo Award, from the Boy Scouts of America.
In 1974, he also received the highest distinction of the Scout Association of Japan, the Golden Pheasant Award. In 1985, he received the 1985 Old Tom Morris Award from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, GCSAA's highest honor. In 1992, the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation awarded Ford its Lone Sailor Award for his naval service and his subsequent government service. In 1999, Ford was honored with a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars. Also in 1999, Ford was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton. In 2001, he was presented with the John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award for his decision to pardon Richard Nixon to stop the agony America was experiencing over Watergate.
The following were named after Ford:
The Ford House Office Building in the U.S. Capitol Complex, formerly House Annex 2.
Gerald R. Ford Freeway (Nebraska)
Gerald R. Ford Freeway (Michigan)
Gerald Ford Memorial Highway, I-70 in Eagle County, Colorado
Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan
Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan
Gerald R. Ford Institute of Public Policy, Albion College
USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78)
Gerald R. Ford Middle School, Grand Rapids, Michigan
President Gerald R. Ford Park in Alexandria, Virginia, located in the neighborhood where Ford lived while serving as a Representative and Vice President
President Ford Field Service Council, Boy Scouts of America The council where he was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout. Serves 25 counties in Western and Northern Michigan with its headquarters located in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
See also
List of Freemasons
List of members of the American Legion
List of presidents of the United States
List of presidents of the United States by previous experience
Presidents of the United States on U.S. postage stamps
References
Bibliography
short biography
Cannon, James. Gerald R. Ford: An Honorable Life (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013) 482 pp. official biography by a member of the Ford administration
older full-scale biography
Congressional Quarterly. President Ford: the man and his record (1974) online
John Robert Greene. The Limits of Power: The Nixon and Ford Administrations. . Indiana University Press, 1992.
John Robert Greene. The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. . University Press of Kansas, 1995. the major scholarly study
Hersey, John Richard. The President: A Minute-By-Minute Account of a Week in the Life of Gerald Ford. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1975.
Hult, Karen M. and Walcott, Charles E. Empowering the White House: Governance under Nixon, Ford, and Carter. University Press of Kansas, 2004.
Jespersen, T. Christopher. "Kissinger, Ford, and Congress: the Very Bitter End in Vietnam". Pacific Historical Review 2002 71#3: 439–473. Online
Jespersen, T. Christopher. "The Bitter End and the Lost Chance in Vietnam: Congress, the Ford Administration, and the Battle over Vietnam, 1975–76". Diplomatic History 2000 24#2: 265–293. Online
latest full-scale biography
Parmet, Herbert S. "Gerald R. Ford" in Henry F Graff ed., The Presidents: A Reference History (3rd ed. 2002); short scholarly overview
Randolph, Sallie G. Gerald R. Ford, president (1987) online; for secondary schools
Schoenebaum, Eleanora. Political Profiles: The Nixon/Ford years (1979) online, short biographies of over 500 political and national leaders.
Smith, Richard Norton. An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford (Harper, 2023)
Williams, Daniel K. The Election of the Evangelical: Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and the Presidential Contest of 1976 (University Press of Kansas, 2020) online review
Primary sources
External links
Official sites
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation
Media coverage
"Life Portrait of Gerald R. Ford", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, November 22, 1999
Other
Gerald Ford: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress.
Essays on Gerald Ford, each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20Indian%20cricket%20team
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History of the Indian cricket team
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The Indian cricket team made its Test cricket debut in 1932 and has since advanced to be among the top four test teams in the (ICC rankings) in each of 2005 to 2008. The team won the ODI Cricket World Cup in 1983 and 2011. In other major International victories, Team India won the Twenty20 World Cup in 2007 and ICC Champions Trophy in 2002 and 2013.
Cricket was introduced to the Indian subcontinent by European merchant sailors in the 18th century, and the first cricket club was established in 1792. India's national cricket team did not play its first Test match until 25 June 1932 at Lord's, becoming the sixth team to be granted Test cricket status. From 1932 India had to wait until 1952, almost 20 years for its first Test victory. In its first fifty years of international cricket, India was one of the weaker teams, winning only 35 of the first 196 Test matches it played. The team, however, gained strength in the 1970s with the emergence of players such as Gavaskar, Viswanath, Kapil Dev, and the Indian spin quartet.
India won its first World Cup in 1983, under the captaincy of Kapil Dev. The '80s and '90s also saw the debut of Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid,Laxman and Kumble, considered to be among the greatest Indian players.
Ganguly's, captaincy is considered to be the turning point of Indian cricket as it saw great success and became one of the dominant side of the sport, followed by the superb captaincy of MS Dhoni under whom India won its second World Cup in 2011, the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007, and Champions Trophy in 2013. Currently, Rohit Sharma is the captain of all 3 formats – Test, ODI and T20I teams.
History
Test status (1932–1970)
A few Indians played as members of the English cricket team while India was under British rule, including Ranjitsinhji and KS Duleepsinhji, before we start with all of the history of Indian Cricket its very important to know about the person behind this great history of Indian Cricket. Maharaja Of Patiala Sir Bhupinder Singh or Bhuppa best known for his extravagance and for being a cricketer. His cricket teams – Patiala XI is among the best of India. He was a great patron of sports. Maharaja of patiala is the man behind the golden history of Indian Cricket. He sponsored various tours of India for cricket and various tournaments using his own money. He was captain of the Indian cricket team that visited England in 1911, and played in 27 first-class cricket matches between 1915 and 1937. For the season of 1926/27, he played as a member of Marylebone Cricket Club. He donated the Ranji Trophy in honour of Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, Jam Sahib of Nawanagar. He was selected as the captain of India on its first Test tour of England in 1932, but dropped out for reasons of health two weeks before departure and the Maharaja of Porbandar took over.
All this way India becoming the sixth team to be granted test cricket status. India made its debut as a Test-cricket-playing-nation in England in 1932 led by CK Nayudu, well before Indian independence. The team performed well, with Mohammad Nissar taking 5-93 and 1-42 in the match against England. The match was given test status despite being only 3 days in length. England, batting first, scored 258 with Nissar cleaning up the openers and tailenders. However the Indian team failed to capitalize on their bowling performance, all out for 189 with CK Nayudu the top scorer with 40 runs. England went on to score 275 and set India a target of 346, which always seemed out of the visitor's grasp. India were all out for 187 and lost by 158 runs.
The team's first series as an independent country was in 1948 against Australia at Brisbane. Australia were led by Sir Don Bradman while India was led by Lala Amarnath. The Australians returned home, winning the 5 Test series with the score 4–0.
India's first ever Test victory came against England at Madras in 1952. India's first series victory was against Pakistan later the same year. In 1954, India drew a 5-Test series with Pakistan 0–0, the batting strength from India had come from Polly Umrigar and Vijay Manjrekar while the prime bowler was Subhash Gupte with 21 wickets in the series. India's first series against New Zealand in 1956 created a comprehensive series victory for India, winning the 5-Test series 2–0. MH Mankad was excellent in his batting, averaging 105.2 in the series while scoring 526 runs. Once again, S.M. Gupte held India's bowling together, with 34 wickets. The remainder of the 1950s did not show as good results as the start: India lost a 3-Test series to Australia (2-0), lost a 5-Test series against the West Indies (3-0),
The team's performances again began to improve in the 1960s, starting with their first series win over England in 1961–62. During this time, India's strong record at home started to develop, in which the team won a series against New Zealand in 1965-66 and drew series against Pakistan, Australia and England. In 1967–68, India won their first series outside the subcontinent against New Zealand.
One-day cricket and World Cup success (1970–1985)
Sunil Gavaskar made his debut for India in the West Indies in 1970-71 and immediately made an impact, scoring a total of 774 runs for the series and helping India to a 1–0 series win, their first ever win over the West Indies. Together with established players like Bishen Bedi, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, Erapalli Prasanna and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Gavaskar formed the nucleus of arguably India's strongest Test team up to that point in time. India's win over the West Indies was followed by home and away wins over England in 1971 and 1972–73.
During the 1980s, other players like Mohammed Azharuddin, Ravi Shastri, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, Sanjay Manjrekar, Krish Srikkanth and Maninder Singh emerged. India won the Cricket World Cup in 1983, defeating West Indies in an exciting final.
Late 20th century (1985–2000)
In 1985, India won the World Championship of Cricket in Australia. The Test series victory in 1986 in England remained, for nearly 19 years, the last Test series win outside subcontinent. Sunil Gavaskar became the first batsman to accumulate 10,000 runs in Test cricket, and went on to register a record 34 centuries, surpassed only recently by Sachin Tendulkar. Kapil Dev, a genuine all-rounder, became the highest wicket taker in Test cricket, surpassing Richard Hadlee to take a total of 434 wickets, a record which has since been broken by Courtney Walsh, Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan and has also been surpassed by fellow Indian Anil Kumble.
The emergence of Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble in 1989 and 1990 was to herald an era of Indian cricket that was dominated by stars and individual brilliance. Sachin Tendulkar became arguably the best batsman in the world, along with Brian Lara of the West Indies and in 1998, Sir Donald Bradman himself remarked that Tendulkar batting style was similar to his. Mohammed Azharuddin, who captained India for most of the 1990s, proved a captain whose main strength, if not his motivational skills, was an ability to stay cool under pressure. Azharuddin's artistic batting, however, declined during the later years of his captaincy, and his best innings during this time were mostly when playing at home. The Hyderabadi stylist's career ended after 99 Tests when he was banned for life after being implicated in the match-fixing scandal. Under his captaincy, the Indian team became virtually unbeatable at home, with big wins against teams such as England, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Australia. Their performances abroad, however, left a lot to be desired.
Towards the end of 1999, the Indian team was in flux. Although they had performed well in the 1999 World Cup, the winter was marked by a disastrous tour to Australia which exposed the Indian team's weaknesses when playing abroad, marked with a loss of form of most of the batsmen, except Tendulkar and the newly emerged VVS Laxman. After Tendulkar quit captaincy and Azharuddin was banned for match-fixing, Sourav Ganguly took over as captain, and the New Zealander John Wright became coach.
Turn of the millennium (2000–2007)
Sourav Ganguly's captaincy heralded a new era in Indian cricket. It began in the famous series against Australia in 2001, when Steve Waugh's strong team was defeated 2–1 in a Test series after having taken a 1–0 lead at Mumbai. The series is best known for a remarkable turnaround by the Indian team in the Kolkata Test, when VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Harbhajan Singh's performance took India to victory after they had followed on. This series marked a turning point in the Indian team's fortunes, and provided the team with the boost they dearly needed. This was followed by stellar performances by the team when playing abroad, with Test victories coming in Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, West Indies, England, Australia, and a famous series victory against arch-rivals Pakistan in 2004. The series in England in 2002 is billed as Rahul Dravid's series, as he became the top scorer for the Indians, with centuries coming at Trent Bridge in Nottingham, Headingley in Leeds and a famous 217 at the Oval in London. This was followed by a sensational win in Australia at Adelaide in 2003, where Dravid, VVS Laxman and Ajit Agarkar scripted a come-from-behind victory after the team had conceded 556 runs in the first innings. The series win in Pakistan that followed was marked by Virender Sehwag becoming the first Indian to score a triple century in Test cricket. Along with Sehwag, players like Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif emerged, making the Indian batting order one of the strongest in the world in both forms of the game*. Their performances helped reduced India's dependence on their top guns in one-day cricket, and a 7-batsman policy contributed to India's successes in the limited-overs game, culminating in their reaching the final of the 2003 Cricket World Cup. In the bowling department, India unearthed a plethora of fast-bowling talent, with Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, and later Irfan Pathan and L Balaji leading the pack. The veteran Anil Kumble became the highest wicket-taker for India after surpassing Kapil Dev, and also passed the 500-mark in March 2006. His bowling performances abroad improved considerably, and he played a major part in India's overseas performances in England, Australia and Pakistan. Harbhajan Singh also provided him great company in the spin department, and at home the two bowling in tandem became a familiar sight.
Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag were selected to play for the ICC World XI in the 2005 "SuperTest" against Australia.
In 2005, Indian cricket was again shrouded in controversy. After a somewhat slow season marked by a dip in team performance following the famous Pakistan series ended, the coaching job passed from John Wright to the Australian Greg Chappell. Saurav Ganguly, whose batting form had taken a beating in that year, was involved in a spat with Chappell over whether he should be continuing as captain to reduce pressure on him. This was followed by Ganguly being dropped from the team and Rahul Dravid taking over as captain. While Tendulkar, Sehwag and Dravid formed the mainstay of the Indian batting, the coming of age of players like Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif led to the emergence of younger stars like Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni.
India's traditional strengths have always been its line-up of spin bowlers and batsmen. Currently, it has a very strong batting lineup with Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag all being selected to play for the ICC World XI in the 2005 "SuperTest" against Australia. In previous times, India was unique in that it was the only country to regularly field three spinners in one team, whereas one is the norm, and of the fifteen players to have taken more than 100 wickets, only four were pace bowlers from the last 20 years. However, in recent years, Indian pace bowling has improved, with the emerging talents of Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel and Sreesanth and many more playing in the national team. India, however have always struggled in the pace department with the only prominent pace bowler ever coming was Zaheer Khan.
India has had a very good record against Australia and, before the 2004/05 tour, never being defeated by Australia in a Test Series in India since 1969. This was the reason for Australian captain Steve Waugh labelling India as the "Final Frontier". The famous 2001 Australian tour of India saw Harbhajan Singh become the first Indian to take a Test hat-trick and started a good run for the team, as India beat Australia 2–1. India also came runners up to Australia in the final of the 2003 Cricket World Cup.
Since 2004, India had not been doing as well in One-day Internationals. The players who took India to great heights over the past ten years such as Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble grew older and did not maintain their form and fitness. Following the series loss to Australia, India collapsed on the final day in the Third Test in Bangalore in early 2005 against Pakistan to squander a series victory, and then lost four consecutive ODIs against Pakistan. This was exacerbated by the suspension handed to captain Ganguly for slow over-rates. Greg Chappell took over from John Wright as the new coach of the Indian cricket team following the series, and replaced Kumble and V. V. S. Laxman from the ODI team with younger players. India's unconvincing ODI form continued, scraping past a West Indian team depleted by industrial action in the 2005 Indian Oil Cup and a similarly depleted Zimbabwean team only to be defeated twice in the finals by New Zealand, continuing a poor ODI finals record.
The tension resulted in a fallout between Chappell and Ganguly lead to a confidential email sent by Chappell to the BCCI being leaked, in which he condemned the leadership and performance of Ganguly. After a series of high-profile board meetings and public jousting including some players, Rahul Dravid was installed as the captain, triggering a revival in the team's fortunes. The Indians subsequently defeated Sri Lanka 6–1 in a home series. An important part about this series was the discovery of the young talent of the team, including Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Gautam Gambhir and Irfan Pathan. The team also beat the Sri Lankans in the Test series 2-0 to displace England from its position in second place in the ICC Test rankings, but India slipped back by losing the high-profile series to Pakistan. Indian team continued its good form in ODIs, beating Pakistan 4–1 in Pakistan. India achieved the world-record of winning 17 successive matches chasing the total. India convincingly won England's tour of India winning the series 5–1. After leveling the DLF Cup series 1–1 in Abu Dhabi, India travelled to West Indies where they lost the ODI series 1–4 to a weak West Indies team which was ranked 8th in the ICC ODI Ranking. The series loss again questioned the Indian team's ability to play away from the Sub-continent and the chances of the Indian team to win the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
Dravid's captaincy was cut short in the ill-fated 2007 World Cup, where India were out of the league stage following an embarrassing loss to Bangladesh. This was followed by Mahendra Singh Dhoni taking over the reins.
Under Dhoni, Kohli and Rohit (2007–present), Dhoni (2007-2017), Kohli (2014-2022), Rohit (2021-Present).
Under MS Dhoni, India won the inaugural T20 World cup. It also began an era of India's dominance in world cricket in both tests and ODIs, culminating in a victory in the 2011 Cricket World Cup and a 4–0 whitewash of Australia in a home test series. It also saw Indian batsmen scoring the only 200s ever, first Sachin Tendulkar then Virender Sehwag and then Rohit Sharma on three occasions.
Dhoni has been widely acknowledged as the most successful Indian captain ever. However, following a drubbing in a test series down under in late 2014, he retired from tests.
In the 2015 World Cup, India reached the semi-finals.
In June 2017, India toured England for the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy where the Virat Kohli led mighty team lost to Pakistan in the final by 180 runs. Later India toured the Windies where the team won the ODI series by 3–1 but lost the T20I series. By defeating Sri Lanka by 9–0 in all three formats, India became the first team to cleansweep Sri Lanka in ODI series in their home soil.
In January 2018, Virat Kohli led Indian team toured South Africa where they lost the Test series by 1–2. But the Team showed some extravagant skills and defeated the mighty South African team and clinched the ODI series by 5–1 and T20I series by 2–1. By the series win, India became the second Asian country to defeat South Africa in ODI and T20I series on their home soil after Pakistan.
In the 2019 World Cup, India were defeated in the semi-finals by New Zealand.
A new era began when the captaincy was passed from Virat Kohli to Rohit Sharma and coaching shifted from Ravi Shastri to Rahul Dravid. Rohit has won various trophies as a captain when Virat was rested as The Asia Cup, Nidahas Trophy and won series against Sri Lanka, New Zealand. Under Rahul Dravid's coaching men in blue whitewashed New Zealand when it was led by Rohit Sharma with 3-0 with Rohit himself scoring 48, 55, 56 in 3 matches being the highest scorer in the series.
International tournaments
Since advancing to full Test Status and the creation of more and more international cricket tournaments, India has slowly become involved in a number of Cricketing tournament's including the Cricket World Cup, ICC Champions Trophy and Asia Cup. India's first two Cricket World Cups were largely failures, and the team failed to progress beyond the first round. But India upset the West Indies in the final of the 1983 Cricket World Cup to claim the Prudential Cricket World Cup for the first time, captained by Kapil Dev. India and the West Indies had cruised through the preliminary rounds in Group B, while England and Pakistan emerged the victors from Group A. Most considered India to be the underdogs in the group stages, and their win against West Indies was categorized as similar to Zimbabwe's win over Australia in the same World Cup. They were, in fact, quoted as having odds of 66 to 1 before the beginning of the tournament.
India's performance in the remaining world cups has been considerably consistent. In the 1987 Cricket World Cup, the team advanced to the semi-finals as favourites, they did the same in 1996, both times they suffered upset defeats in the semi-finals. India was less strong in the 1999 Cricket World Cup, and did not make it past the Super Six section. However they impressed all in the 2003 Cup, only losing two games (both against reigning champions Australia) and advancing to the finals before taking a loss.
In the year after their World Cup victory, (1984) India continued its new-found dominance over One Day Cricket with a comprehensive win over arch-rivals Pakistan in the final. They went on to secure more victories over their Asian rivals, winning the 1984 Asia Cup with a victory over Sri Lanka in the finals. It won its third consecutive Asia Cup with a victory over Sri Lanka in 1990. It continued its strong streak in 1995, again beating Sri Lanka in the final. However, in 1997, a confident Sri Lanka riding on their first-ever World Cup victory swept past a weaker Indian side, breaking the 4-tournament winning streak.
References
History of Indian cricket
Indian cricket
Cricket team
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby%20union%20in%20New%20Zealand
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Rugby union in New Zealand
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Rugby union has been played in New Zealand since 1870 and is the most popular sport in the country as well as being its national sport.
The men's national team, the All Blacks, is currently ranked No. 2 in the world. The country co-hosted and won the first ever Rugby World Cup in 1987, and hosted and won the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The men have won three World Cups (1987, 2011, 2015), the most of any country tied with South Africa.
New Zealand are the current World Champions for Women's rugby union and were rugby sevens finalists for men and women.
The top domestic club competitions are the professional National Provincial Championship and amateur Heartland Championship, and above them the transnational Super Rugby, in which New Zealand has five out of 12 franchises.
History
Before Europeans arrived in New Zealand, the Māori were playing a ball game called ki-o-rahi which greatly resembled Australian Rules Football and rugby football. It has been suggested that this may have influenced New Zealand playing styles, especially amongst the indigenous population.
Various codes of football were played in New Zealand in the years following white settlement. Christchurch Football Club, which is now the oldest rugby club in the country, was founded in 1863. It played by its own rules for many years. Rugby football was first introduced to New Zealand in 1870 by Charles John Monro, son of the then-Speaker of the House of Representatives, David Monro. He encountered the game while studying at Christ's College Finchley, in East Finchley, London, England, and on his return introduced the game to Nelson College, who played the first rugby union match against Nelson football club on 14 May it was the 15th . A visit to Wellington by Munro later that same year resulted in an organised match between Nelson and Wellington. By the following year, the game had been formalised in Wellington, and subsequently rugby was taken up in Wanganui and Auckland in 1873 and Hamilton in 1874. In 1875, the first representative team was formed, being a combined-clubs Auckland team which toured the South. It is thought that by the mid-1870s, the game had been taken up by the majority of the colony.
The latter stages of the 1870s saw the emergence of a more formal structure, with Unions being formed in both Canterbury and Wellington during 1879. In 1882, the first international rugby side toured New Zealand, a New South Wales side that visited both islands during the latter part of the year. Two years later, a New Zealand team visited New South Wales, wearing blue jerseys with a golden fern. The team won all their games. In 1888, the first ever British Isles rugby team tour took place, visiting New Zealand and Australia. The visitors won all their New Zealand games except for one, losing to Auckland. During 1888-89, the New Zealand Native team became the first from a colony to visit Britain. In 1892 the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU), now known as the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU), was established, to act as the national governing body of the sport. Following the establishment of the national governing body, the first NZRFU national sanctioned tour was undertaken in 1893, when a ten-game tour of Australia was played. The team was captained by Thomas Ellison.
In 1902, the governor of New Zealand, the fifth Earl of Ranfurly presented a trophy shield to the Auckland side, who were undefeated in provincial competition that year. The shield became known as the Ranfurly Shield. Three years later, a 1905 New Zealand team, who became known as the "Originals", toured the British Isles and France winning all of their games apart from controversially losing the test against Wales. As the team swept through Britain, some of the players took note of how rugby (league) was being played in the North of England. One player, Aucklander George Smith met with Sydney entrepreneur James J. Giltinan on his way home, and discussed the opportunities of such a game. Meanwhile, New Zealander Albert Henry Baskervill had contacted the Northern Union to arrange a New Zealand tour, as he had just read about the game in the Wellington Post. The NZRFU discouraged any involvement from its players and officials, nonetheless, a team departed a travelled to Sydney first, and were there labelled the All Golds, a play on All Blacks in reference to the player payments. The team went on to tour England. They played an import role in rugby league.
The 1930s saw a period of skill development for rugby in New Zealand. The 1940 All Black tour of South Africa was one of the first sporting events cancelled due to the Second World War. Rugby was however played in services sport, with games being played with South African allies during the North African desert campaign, also, most domestic competitions were suspended during this time. In 1976, the first ever season of the National Provincial Championship (succeeded in 2006 by the Air New Zealand Cup and Heartland Championship) went underway. In its inaugural format, Division One was made up of seven North Island teams and four South Island. The remaining provinces contested a split second division, though South and North teams did not meet each other, instead played their respective Island clubs. There was a separate relegation system in place for each the North and South, ensuring the number of teams from each island.
The 1981 Springbok Tour, or "The Tour", went down as one of the most controversial rugby tours ever. From July to September, the Springboks toured New Zealand. Rugby fans filled the stadiums, yet equal numbers of fans protested the games outside the stadiums. Police were divided into Red and Blue riot squads for the tour, and in preparation for possible trouble, all spectators were told to assemble in sports grounds at least an hour before kickoff. At a game at Rugby Park in Hamilton, around 350 protesters pulled down a fence and invaded the pitch. Police, already very worried, pulled the match when they found out a light plane piloted by a protester was headed to fly around the stadium. A protest turned violent in Wellington the following week, escalating the situation. During the final test match at Eden Park, a low flying plane dropped flour bombs over the pitch. A subsequent 1985 All Black tour was prevented by the High Court, but an unofficial tour took place the following year.
In 1987, the NZRFU wrote to the International Rugby Football Board, later known as the International Rugby Board (IRB) and now as World Rugby, requesting the possibility of hosting an inaugural Rugby World Cup. The 1987 World Cup was eventually given to both New Zealand and Australia. The All Blacks made it to the final, where they would meet France. The All Blacks won and were crowned the first ever World Champions. In the 1980s, New Zealand provincial sides participated in the South Pacific Championship, along with teams from Australia and Fiji. In 1992 this type of competition was relaunched as the Super Sixes, and was expanded to the Super 10 later. As rugby entered the professional era in the mid-1990s, along with South Africa and Australia, New Zealand formed SANZAR, which would see them start a provincial rugby competition, the Super 12. The 1996 Super 12 season saw the Auckland Blues finish in second place, whilst the Waikato Chiefs 6th, the Otago Highlanders 8th, the Wellington Hurricanes 9th, and the Canterbury Crusaders 12th. The SANZAR agreement also saw the formation of the Tri Nations Series, a contest between the respective national sides, the All Blacks, Springboks and Wallabies. The All Blacks won the first series. Beginning in 2012, the Argentina Pumas entered the competition, which was renamed The Rugby Championship. New Zealand was supposed to jointly host the 2003 World Cup with Australia, but a disagreement with the IRB saw the tournament given to Australia in its entirety. In 2006, New Zealand won the right to host the 2011 World Cup.
Culture
In New Zealand there are 520 clubs, 141,726 registered players and 2,309 referees. In colonial New Zealand, rugby football served to maintain loyalty to the Crown within the emigrant population, whilst introducing British culture to the Māori population. It was the New Zealand Natives' Rugby Tour of 1888/89 showed that New Zealand could compete with other nations. Similarly, the 1905-06 tour, in which the All Blacks went very close to a clean sweep tour (with just one loss against Wales), helped to create a sense of national pride around the All Blacks, as they appeared physically superior and pulled off an admirable performance on their British tour. It is also thought that this saw the emergence of the Kiwi as a national symbol. Rugby dominates New Zealand's sports media. Being the unofficial national winter sport of New Zealand, rugby attracts large sporting attendances and viewership. As many as 5,000 people have turned out to watch All Black training sessions, while the final of 2011 Rugby World Cup was the single most watched television event in New Zealand history. There is a pay TV channel dedicated to rugby in New Zealand.
Haka
The haka is a traditional Māori challenge that has become closely associated with New Zealand rugby at an international level. There are thousands of variations of haka that are performed by various tribes and cultural groups throughout New Zealand; one of the best known is called Ka Mate. The All Blacks have performed a haka before matches since the late 19th century.
Ethnicity
Early forms of rugby had been played in New Zealand since the 1860s. While these were initially associated with the settler elite and the military, other colonists accustomed to hard physical labour also soon took part.
In 1872, 'Wirihana' became the first recorded Māori rugby player when he turned out for Wanganui 'Country' in a 20-a-side fixture against their urban counterparts. While some all-Māori clubs were formed, such as Kiri Kiri near Thames, mixed teams were more common in areas like Poverty Bay which had substantial Māori populations.
Māori living in areas that had supported the Crown during the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s seem to have been the first to take up the sport. Jack Taiaroa and Joseph Warbrick were key members of the first representative New Zealand team, which toured New South Wales in 1884.
Governance
The New Zealand Rugby (NZR) is responsible for rugby in the country. The NZRU was formed in 1892 as the New Zealand Rugby Football Union with the original representation of seven unions though there was the original significant absence of Canterbury, Otago and Southland. The NZRFU joined the IRFB in 1949. There are 26 member unions within New Zealand. Every province also has its own union. In late 2005, New Zealand won the right to host the 2011 World Cup.
National teams
All Blacks
New Zealand, commonly referred to as the All Blacks, are the most successful team in international rugby. They have a positive winning record against all Test nations, and have a win record of over 74%. The first All Blacks Test match was played against Australia at Sydney Cricket Ground on 15 August 1903. New Zealand won 22 - 3, with The Sydney Morning Herald saying, 'The present New Zealand team have shown form so far in advance of every fifteen opposed to them that it seems almost impossible for Australia to put a side into the field with any hope of victory...'.
The All Blacks were winners of the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987 and were runners-up in 1995. The All Blacks were the only team to have reached the semi-final stage at every World Cup until the 2007 World Cup where they were defeated 20-18 by France in the quarter-finals. New Zealand won its second Rugby World Cup on home soil in 2011. In 2015 New Zealand became the first country to win back to back Rugby World Cups beating Australia 34-17 in the final played at Twickenham on 31 October. The All Blacks dominate the list of winners of the World Rugby Men's 15s Player of the Year, with ten wins and is the only nation with players winning the award multiple times, Richie McCaw (2006, 2009 and 2010), Dan Carter (2005, 2012 and 2015) and Beauden Barrett (2016 and 2017).
Junior All Blacks
The Junior All Blacks are not an age grade side, but are the second national team behind the All Blacks. They were formerly known as New Zealand A, but the name was changed for marketing purposes. They competed in the Pacific Nations Cup competition alongside Australia A, Fiji, Japan, Samoa and Tonga. They won the inaugural IRB Pacific 5 Nations competition in 2006. In 2007 Australia A joined with the competition, changing its name to Pacific Nations Cup. The Junior All Blacks repeated their 2006 success in 2007 winning the competition with victories in all five of their matches including with a 50−0 thumping of their Australian counterparts at Carisbrook Dunedin. The New Zealand Māori played in the 2008 Pacific Nations Cup. No New Zealand team has played in Pacific Nations Cup since then.
Māori All Blacks
The Māori All Blacks, previously known as New Zealand Māori, is a representative side that play at home and on tour. The Maori All Blacks team is a selection of the best of New Zealand’s Maori rugby players. All contracted players are able to nominate themselves as eligible for the Maori All Blacks and, in the event a player is considered for selection, the team’s kaumatua (cultural advisor) will trace the player’s whakapapa (genealogy) to confirm his heritage and eligibility. The primary objective of this team is to provide an aspirational pathway for young Maori rugby players. The team was formerly established in 1910, and has played many of the world's top Test teams, beating teams such as England, Ireland and the British & Irish Lions.
Heartland XV
Previously known as the New Zealand Divisional XV, this team was revamped in 2006. Only players who have participated in the previous season's Heartland Championship are eligible for selection; this makes it effectively a Heartland all-star team. This team traditionally goes on second-level tours; their first tour under the Heartland name was a 2006 end-of-year tour to Argentina, where they played two provincial teams and the Argentina A side, splitting the provincial matches and losing to Argentina A.
Their second tour, in November 2008, was a two-match trip to the USA. The first match, in San Francisco, saw them defeat a Pacific Coast XV 39–12. They then travelled to Salt Lake City to take on a USA Select XV in one of the first events held in the new Rio Tinto Stadium, and came from behind to notch a 19–14 win.
Shortly after the tour, the NZRU announced that the Heartland XV would not be assembled in 2009, and would in the future tour every two years.
Black Ferns
The Black Ferns are the top national women's team in New Zealand. They are the current Women's Rugby World Cup champions, being 3 time winners after they won the 1998 tournament then again in 2002 in Barcelona and again in 2006 in Canada.
Sevens
Sevens is a form of rugby union which involves 7 players per team rather than 15 in the regular game. The games are 7 minutes per half (10 minutes in a competition final) rather than 40 minutes per half in the 15-man game. The New Zealand Sevens team compete in the World Rugby Sevens Series, the Sevens World Cup, and the Commonwealth Games Sevens. The New Zealand Sevens team were undefeated in the Sevens events in the Commonwealth Games until 2014, when South Africa defeated them in the final. Since the inception of the Sevens Series in 1999–2000, the New Zealand Sevens team have dominated the series, winning the first six seasons of the competition (2000–2005) and 12 times in all, most recently in 2014.
Under 21s
The New Zealand Under 21s rugby union team is for players aged under 21. New Zealand Under 21 (formerly Colts) was first selected in 1955 and played annually until 2007. The Under 21s enjoyed great success on the world stage, winning world titles in 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2004.
Under 20s
New Zealand formed an Under 20 side for the first time in 2008. The catalyst for the creation of this side was World Rugby's decision to scrap its under-19 and under-21 world championships in favour of a single under-20 tournament, originally known as the IRB Junior World Championship and now known as the World Rugby Under 20 Championship. The side won the first four editions of the competition (2008–2011), and again in 2015 and 2017.
Under 19s
The New Zealand Under 19s rugby team is for players aged under 19. New Zealand Under 19 was selected for the first time in 1990, and played annually until 2007. They were strong contenders during their time, and won the IRB Under 19 World Championship in 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2007
Schoolboys
The New Zealand Schoolboys rugby union team is for secondary school students to help them aim for and achieve higher honors. New Zealand Schoolboys team is a great team to start out in and it brings you into the international scene early on. Famous past schoolboy players include Aaron Mauger, Mils Muliaina, and Joe Rokocoko.
Universities
The New Zealand Universities rugby team is composed of the best players from New Zealand's six university clubs. The team has played in many international fixtures including famous wins over the British and Irish Lions in their 1977 tour and the Springboks in 1956. Many former NZU players have gone on to play for the All Blacks including David Kirk, Kieran Read and Conrad Smith. Today the team takes part in a biannual tour to Japan and consists mainly of amateur club players.
Domestic competitions
Super Rugby
While not domestic, Super Rugby is an international competition featuring teams from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. The competition, governed by SANZAR, was formed in 1996 as Super 12 after the game turned professional. It became Super 14 in 2006 with the addition of one team each from Australia and South Africa, and Super Rugby in 2011 when a fifth Australian team joined. The current format includes five teams from each participating country.
With the expansion to 15 teams, the competition format was dramatically changed. The league phase, originally a single round-robin, was replaced by a three-conference format, with each conference consisting of teams in one of the participating countries. Each team plays home-and-away against the other teams in its conference, plus single games against four teams in each other conference. The finals series was also changed. In the Super 12 and Super 14 eras, this was a knockout series involving the top four finishers. The knockout format was retained for Super Rugby, but now involves the three conference winners plus the top three non-winners without regard to conference. Currently, five New Zealand teams participate in the competition, these being Crusaders, Blues, Hurricanes, Chiefs and Highlanders.
The competition was further reorganised in 2016 with a permanent sixth team from South Africa and new entries based in Argentina (Jaguares) and Japan (Sunwolves). At that time, the competition was split into Australasian and African groups (with the latter including the Argentine and Japanese teams), each in turn being divided into two conferences. All of the New Zealand teams formed one conference. The finals series expanded to eight teams, with the top team from each conference, plus the top three non-winners from the Australasian group and the top non-winner from the African group, qualifying.
New Zealand teams have dominated Super Rugby for much of its history, winning 12 of the 18 titles decided to date. The Crusaders are the most successful club, having won 10 titles in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2017, 2018 and 2019. The Blues, Highlanders & Chiefs are the other New Zealand teams to have captured the title, the Blues having won in 1996, 1997 and 2003, the Chiefs winning in 2012 and 2013 and the Highlanders winning in 2015. Australia's Brumbies (two titles), Reds (one) and NSW Waratahs (one) and South Africa's Bulls (three) are the only teams from outside New Zealand to have won a title.
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Blues
Chiefs
Hurricanes
Crusaders
Highlanders
Bunnings NPC
The Bunnings NPC, is the premier domestic competition in New Zealand rugby. It has previously been known as the Mitre 10 Cup, the ITM Cup and the Air New Zealand Cup as sponsorship deals changed IA fully professional competition contested by 14 provincial teams, it is the successor to Division One of the country's former domestic competition, the National Provincial Championship (NPC).
The Bunnings NPC features the following teams from the former NPC Division One:
Auckland
Bay of Plenty
Canterbury
North Harbour
Northland
Otago
Southland
Taranaki
Waikato
Wellington
It also features three teams from the former NPC Division Two:
Counties Manukau
Manawatu
Hawke's Bay
plus one newly formed team, the merger of the former NPC Division Two teams of Marlborough and Nelson Bays:
Tasman (formed by the merger of the Marlborough and Nelson Bays unions)
Beginning in 2011, the Mitre 10 Cup split into two divisions—the top-level Premiership and second-level Championship, each with seven teams. Promotion and relegation was reintroduced to the top level of provincial rugby; the winner of the Championship replaces the bottom team of the Premiership; the winner of the Meads Cup replaces the bottom team of the Championship.
Heartland Championship
The Heartland Championship is an amateur competition contested among 12 teams from the former NPC Divisions Two and Three. It was also founded in 2006 as a result of the reorganisation of the NPC, and is directly run by the NZRU. Its teams compete for the Meads and Lochore Cups, named after famous All Blacks Colin Meads and Brian Lochore. The participating teams are:
Buller
East Coast
Horowhenua-Kapiti
King Country
Mid Canterbury
North Otago
Poverty Bay
South Canterbury
Thames Valley
Wairarapa Bush
Wanganui
West Coast
Ranfurly Shield
The Ranfurly Shield, also known as the Log o' Wood, has been competed for on a challenge basis by provincial teams since 1904. The current holders of the shield become "defenders" in every game played on their home ground, if the opposition or "challenger" defeats them, they become the new holder of the Shield. The Shield was first presented by the Governor of New Zealand, the Earl of Ranfurly.
The current holders are Wellington.
Club
Each Bunnings NPC and Heartland Championship region conducts local intra-provincial club competitions. The club level is often followed by the local media and has local support. Clubs often rely on the Pub Charity in order to survive. In total, 520 clubs are affiliated to the NZRU.
International competition
World Cup
The Rugby World Cup is considered the ultimate rugby competition. The New Zealand All Blacks won the first World Cup in 1987, beating France in the final. Since then the All Blacks were favourites on several occasions, but did not win for another 24 years. New Zealand lost to Australia in the semi-final in 2003 and fell to the French team in the quarter-final of the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Intense lobbying by the NZRFU and the New Zealand Government helped New Zealand secure hosting rights to the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The All Blacks regained the World Cup on home soil in 2011. They went on to be the first country in history to win the Rugby World Cup two times consecutively, as they won the 2015 competition in England.
Women's Rugby World Cup
The Women's Rugby World Cup is considered the top rugby competition for women. The New Zealand Black Ferns first won the world cup in 1998, beating the United States in the final. Since then the Black Ferns have won in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2017. New Zealand lost to Ireland in Pool B in 2014. and didn't qualify in 1994.
Intense lobbying by the New Zealand Government helped New Zealand secure hosting rights to the 2021 Women's Rugby World Cup by beating out neighbour Australia. It will be the first time the tournament will have been played in the southern hemisphere.
Tri Nations and The Rugby Championship
The Tri Nations, now known as The Rugby Championship, is an annual competition involving the strongest rugby nations from the Southern Hemisphere. When the competition was established in 1996, it featured New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. Originally, this involved each country playing one home and one away game against both other countries. From 2006 the competition was expanded with each nation playing both the other nations three times (except in Rugby World Cup years, when it reverted to a home-and-away series). The All Blacks won the first series in 1996, as well as the subsequent 1997 series. They have been the most dominant team in the series; during the Tri Nations era (1996–2011), they won 10 titles to the Springboks' three and the Wallabies' two.
In 2012, Argentina joined the competition, which became The Rugby Championship. With four nations now involved, the tournament returned to a straight home-and-away format except in World Cup years, when it is conducted in a single round-robin format. The All Blacks won the first three editions of the renamed competition (2012–2014), giving them a total of 13 Tri Nations and Rugby Championship titles.
The Freedom Cup is contested between New Zealand and South Africa, first as part of the Tri Nations and now in The Rugby Championship.
Bledisloe Cup
The Bledisloe Cup reflects the rivalry between Australia and New Zealand and has been contested since the early 1930s. The Bledisloe Cup was irregularly contested between 1931 and 1981, usually during tours by the two nations. During this period, New Zealand won it 19 times and Australia four times. In 1982 it became an annual contest, being contested either as a single game or in a three-test series. Between 1982 and 1995 New Zealand won the Cup 11 times and Australia three times. Since 1996 the Bledisloe Cup has been contested as part of the Tri Nations/Rugby Championship. .
World Cup Sevens
The Rugby World Cup Sevens is World Rugby's equivalent to the (15-man) Rugby World Cup. It is also held every four years, and was originally scheduled in the odd-numbered years in which the 15-man RWC was not held. The competition was first held in 1993. New Zealand won in 2001, were losing finalists to Fiji in 2005, and won the most recent edition in 2013 in Moscow. The 2013 edition was originally intended to be the last because of the impending establishment of an Olympic sevens tournament in 2016. World Rugby (then known as the IRB) later decided to retain the World Cup Sevens, and established a new four-year cycle in which the World Cup would be held in even-numbered non-Olympic years. As such, the next edition was held in 2018 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
World Rugby Sevens Series
The World Rugby Sevens Series, held annually since 1999–2000, is a series of several international tournaments, expanding from nine to ten for the upcoming 2015–16 series, featuring full international sevens teams. New Zealand have been the dominant team throughout the series' history, winning the first six editions (2000–2005), and again in 2007, 2008, and 2010–2014. New Zealand hosts one leg, the New Zealand International Sevens, at Westpac Stadium in Wellington.
See also
List of New Zealand rugby union teams
References
Further reading
Richards, Huw A Game for Hooligans: The History of Rugby Union (Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 2007, )
External links
allblacks.com
Rugbymuseum.co.nz
Rugby and Maori
Uncovering the Maori mystery (from the BBC)
Rugby union from 1966 encyclopaedia of New Zealand
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006%20in%20the%20United%20Kingdom
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2006 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 2006 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Monarch – Elizabeth II
Prime Minister – Tony Blair (Labour)
Parliament – 54th
Events
January
7 January – Charles Kennedy, resigns as leader of the Liberal Democrats, admitting that he has a drinking problem.
20 January – River Thames whale: a whale is discovered swimming in the River Thames in London.
24 January – Sven-Göran Eriksson announces that he will retire as manager of the England national football team after this summer's World Cup in Germany. Eriksson, 57, has been in charge of the England team for five years and, as a Swede, is the first non-English manager of the England team.
February
3 February – Islamist demonstration outside Danish Embassy in London in response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.
9 February
Dunfermline and West Fife by-election: Willie Rennie of the Liberal Democrats wins the seat from Labour.
The Government announces that the Child Support Agency is to be abolished.
10–26 February – Great Britain competes at the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, and wins one silver medal (Shelley Rudman for women's skeleton).
16 February – the Brit Awards take place.
19 February – the BAFTA awards take place in London.
22 February
Securitas depot robbery: around £53 million (US$92 million) is stolen from a Securitas depot at Tonbridge, Kent, in the largest cash robbery in British crime history.
The Prince of Wales's court case continues in the High Court against The Mail on Sunday as he tries to prevent the publication of his journals. Various revelations have been made such as that he considers himself to be a dissident, and his opinion of government officials in People's Republic of China whom he described as "appalling old waxworks".
27 February – writers Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh sue Random House in the High Court of Justice claiming that the best selling novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown contains ideas stolen from their 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
March
1 March – the Senedd, debating chamber of the National Assembly for Wales on Cardiff Bay, designed by Richard Rogers, is opened by the Queen.
2 March
Sir Menzies Campbell is elected leader of the Liberal Democrats following an members' election caused by the resignation of previous leader, Charles Kennedy.
Four people are injured in an explosion in a GlaxoSmithKline factory in Irvine, North Ayrshire.
7 March – the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, makes a state visit to the UK.
9 March – the notorious former politician John Profumo dies aged 91 of a stroke at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
13 March – six men taking part in a clinical trial for a new anti-inflammatory drug TGN1412 are placed in intensive care, some in a life-threatening condition, after suffering adverse side-effects.
19 March – the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall begin a two-week foreign tour to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and India.
20 March – the British Press Awards are held at The Dorchester, Park Lane, London, but boycotted by some national newspapers.
21 March – Labour's hopes of a fourth successive term in office at the next general election (by which time Tony Blair says he will have resigned as prime minister) are given a boost when an Ipsos MORI opinion poll puts them 11 points ahead of the Conservatives on 42%.
23 March – 2005-2006 Christian Peacemaker hostage crisis: British peacemaker Norman Kember and three Canadians are rescued by SAS troops.
26 March – a smoking ban comes into effect in all enclosed public places in Scotland.
28 March
Council workers across the UK strike over pension rights.
Royal Regiment of Scotland created.
April
5 April – discovery of a swan with avian influenza in Scotland.
7 April – Mr Justice Peter Smith delivers judgment in the copyright case over The Da Vinci Code finding that Dan Brown had not breached the copyright of Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. The judgment itself contains a coded message on the whim of the judge.
12 April – Prince Harry passes out as a commissioned officer during the Sovereign's Parade at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
18 April – Peugeot announces plans to close the 60-year-old car factory at Ryton near Coventry, which it bought from Chrysler in 1979, within the next year.
21 April – Elizabeth II celebrates her 80th birthday at Windsor. The Prince of Wales makes a televised address in tribute.
25 April – the BBC announces that Grandstand, its flagship sports TV programme, will be phased out within the next year after nearly 50 years on air.
26 April – the Duke of Edinburgh visits the Republic of Ireland.
27 April – by-election in the Moray constituency of the Scottish Parliament. Richard Lochhead holds the seat for the Scottish National Party.
30 April – the last astronomy show is held at the London Planetarium before it is absorbed by neighbouring Madame Tussauds.
May
4 May
Local government elections take place in some areas of England.
Steve McClaren, manager of Middlesbrough F.C., agrees to become the next manager of the England national football team after the World Cup.
5 May – Tony Blair reshuffles his cabinet. Charles Clarke is dismissed as Home Secretary. Jack Straw is replaced as the Foreign Secretary by Margaret Beckett. John Prescott remains as Deputy Prime Minister, but loses responsibility for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
18 May – Kiyan Prince, a 15-year-old boy and talented footballer, is stabbed to death in Edgware, London, while trying to break up a fight. His murderer, Hannad Hasan, will be sentenced at the Old Bailey in 2007.
20 May – campaigners "Fathers 4 Justice" invade the set of the National Lottery.
30 May – an Ipsos MORI opinion poll shows the Conservatives back in the lead with 36% of the vote, two points ahead of Labour.
June
9–11 June – the British Grand Prix is held at the Silverstone Circuit and is won by reigning world champion Fernando Alonso ahead of Michael Schumacher and Kimi Räikkönen, while local hero Jenson Button has retired earlier in the race with an engine oil leak.
10 June – the England football team's World Cup campaign begins with a 1–0 win over Paraguay.
15 June – England beat Trinidad and Tobago 2–0 in their second World Cup group game.
20 June – England go through to the knockout stages of the World Cup with a 2–2 draw against Sweden in their final group game.
25 June
Children's Party at the Palace held in honour of The Queen's 80th birthday.
The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, rejects calls from families of murder victims for all convicted murderers to be sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison.
England go through to the World Cup quarter-finals for the second tournament in succession by beating Ecuador 1–0 with a goal from captain David Beckham.
29 June
Blaenau Gwent by-elections: independent candidates Dai Davies and Trish Law defeat Labour Party in parliamentary and Welsh Assembly by-elections. The elections were called following the death of incumbent Peter Law.
Bromley and Chislehurst by-election: Bob Neill holds the seat for the Conservative Party.
30 June – Three men are convicted of plotting the execution-style murders of a middle-aged couple, John and Joan Stirland, at their home in Trusthorpe, Lincolnshire in 2004. The killings were in revenge for a murder committed by Mrs Stirland's son in Nottingham in 2003. Five other men were cleared of conspiracy to murder following the trial at Birmingham Crown Court.
July
July – European heat wave affects the UK, resulting in July 1983's record for the hottest month in the CET series being beaten with a mean monthly CET of .
1 July – England's World Cup quest ends in the quarter-finals when they lose on penalties to Portugal after a goalless draw.
4 July – Sheridan v News Group Newspapers Ltd: Scottish Socialist Party MSP Tommy Sheridan begins an action for defamation against the News of the World at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. Sheridan's case is upheld but he is later prosecuted for perjury.
7 July – United Kingdom commemorates the first anniversary of the 7/7 London terrorist bombings.
17 July – George W. Bush greets Tony Blair with the phrase “Yo, Blair”.
18 July – 180 British citizens evacuated from the Lebanon due to growing crisis between Hizbollah militants and Israel.
20 July – HMS Bulwark prepares to evacuate British nationals from the Lebanon.
22 July – Arsenal F.C. move into the Emirates Stadium, named after the airline company as part of a 15-year sponsorship deal, after 93 years at nearby Highbury. The 60,000-seat stadium is the largest club stadium to have been built in English football since Maine Road, which was home of Manchester City from 1923 to 2003.
August
1 August – Steve McClaren is officially appointed as manager of the England national football team.
9–10 August – police make many arrests in relation to a transatlantic aircraft plot, and tight security measures are instigated at airports.
August – the first modern solely Gaelic-medium school to offer secondary education, Sgoil Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu, is opened at Woodside in Glasgow.
September
2 September – Royal Air Force Nimrod crash in Afghanistan: fourteen personnel are killed in Britain's worst single military loss since the Falklands war.
9 September – Helen Mirren awarded best actress at the Venice Film Festival for her role in The Queen, portraying Elizabeth II following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
20 September – television presenter Richard Hammond suffers a serious brain injury when he crashes a jet-powered car whilst filming for Top Gear.
23 September – the notable composer Sir Malcolm Arnold dies aged 84 in Norwich.
25 September – Copmanthorpe rail crash: One man dies when the 14:25 from Plymouth to Edinburgh operated by Virgin CrossCountry hits a car at about 20:55.
October
1 October – Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 comes into effect, requiring a Fire Risk Assessment for all non-domestic premises in England and Wales.
5 October – Rt. Hon. Elish Angiolini, QC, appointed as Lord Advocate in Scotland. She is the first woman and the first solicitor to be appointed to the post.
9 October – opening of the Beetham Tower, Manchester, a landmark 168-metre 47-storey skyscraper with oversailing upper floors designed by Ian Simpson of SimpsonHaugh and Partners, the tallest building in the UK outside London, and with its penthouse apartments (above the Hilton Hotel) being the highest residential addresses in the country.
13 October: European Home Retail plc and its subsidiary Farepak go into administration, leaving tens of thousands of people out of pocket for Christmas 2006.
26 October – the Duke of Edinburgh officially opens Arsenal's new stadium.
30 October – the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is published by the UK government.
November
5 November – 53-year-old Ronald Castree is arrested in connection with the murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed in 1975. Stefan Kiszko had spent 16 years in jail for the crime before his conviction was quashed in 1992. Castree would be convicted of the crime in November 2007.
7 November – Dhiren Barot sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting large scale terrorist attacks in Britain and abroad. The Court of Appeal noted that Barot's "businesslike" plans would have caused carnage on a "colossal and unprecedented scale" if they had been successful.
8 November – three men of Pakistani origin sentenced to life imprisonment for the racist murder of Kriss Donald in Glasgow.
13 November – the legendary racehorse Desert Orchid dies aged 27 at Newmarket.
16 November – the 21st James Bond film – Casino Royale – is released in British cinemas. Daniel Craig makes his debut as Bond in the film.
19 November – Home Secretary John Reid attacks the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown for being 'presumptuous' and 'disloyal' for openly campaigning to replace Tony Blair as Prime Minister.
23 November – Alexander Litvinenko dies in London having been poisoned by Polonium-210.
24 November – Loyalist Michael Stone attempts to bomb the Northern Ireland Assembly on the day nominations for first and deputy first minister are to be made. Ian Paisley indicates his willingness to serve as First Minister.
December
2 December – a young woman's body is found in a brook near Ipswich; her death is initially treated as "unexplained".
4 December – the woman whose corpse was found in Ipswich two days ago is identified as Gemma Adams, a 25-year-old local prostitute. Her death is reported to be suspicious and police launch a murder inquiry. There are also concerns about another Ipswich prostitute, 19-year-old Tania Nicol, who went missing on 30 October.
7 December – a tornado hits London.
8 December – the body of missing Ipswich prostitute Tania Nicol is found on the outskirts of the town.
9 December – police in Ipswich launch a murder investigation into the death of Tania Nicol and admit that it is likely she met her death at the hands of the same person or people who killed Gemma Adams.
10 December – a third prostitute's body is found in the Ipswich area.
14 December – two more women are found dead in Ipswich and it is confirmed that both are prostitutes, meaning that the police are now investigating five murders.
12 December – the Ryton car factory closes and Peugeot 206 production is transferred to Slovakia, several months ahead of the scheduled closure date. 2,300 jobs are lost.
18 December – a man is arrested near Felixstowe on suspicion of murdering the five Ipswich prostitutes. He is named as Tom Stephens, a 37-year-old Tesco supermarket worker.
19 December – a second man, 48-year-old Forklift truck driver Steve Wright, is arrested in connection with the Ipswich serial murders, while police are given more time to question the first suspect.
21 December – Steve Wright is charged with the Ipswich prostitute murders, while Tom Stephens is released on bail pending further inquiries.
29 December – the British government pays off the Anglo-American loan made in 1946.
31 December – public Hogmanay celebrations in Glasgow and Edinburgh are cancelled due to poor weather conditions.
Publications
Richard Dawkins' atheist argument The God Delusion.
James Lovelock's climate crisis hypothesis The Revenge of Gaia.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Wintersmith.
Will Self's novel The Book of Dave.
Victoria Kannand and Elizabeth Kann's Pinkalicious (23 May).
Births
1 March – Peter Connelly, child abuse victim (died 2007)
22 June – Anna Hursey, Welsh table tennis player
Deaths
January
2 January – John Woodnutt, actor (born 1924)
5 January
Merlyn Rees, politician, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1974–1976) and Home Secretary (1976–1979) (born 1920)
Rachel Squire, Scottish politician (born 1954)
8 January – Tony Banks, Baron Stratford, politician, Minister for Sport (1997–1999) (born 1943)
10 January – Alethea Hayter, writer (born 1911)
14 January – Mark Philo, footballer (car accident) (born 1984)
17 January – Giles Worsley, architectural historian (born 1961)
21 January – John James Cowperthwaite, civil servant, Financial Secretary of Hong Kong (1961–1971) (born 1915)
23 January – Michael Wharton, humorist (Daily Telegraph; "Peter Simple") (born 1913)
24 January – Sir Nicholas Shackleton, geologist (born 1937)
25 January – Robin Coombs, immunologist, creator of the Coombs test (born 1921)
27 January
Christopher Lloyd, gardening writer (born 1921)
Victor Mishcon, Baron Mishcon, lawyer and politician (born 1915)
28 January – Henry McGee, actor (born 1929)
31 January – Moira Shearer, ballerina, actress and wife of Ludovic Kennedy (born 1926)
February
3 February – Ernie Clements, racing cyclist (born 1922)
4 February – Jack Taylor, one of Britain's heaviest men (born 1946)
6 February – Stella Ross-Craig, flora illustrator (born 1906)
8 February
Michael Gilbert, lawyer and crime fiction writer (born 1912)
Ron Greenwood, footballer and manager (born 1921)
9 February – Sir Freddie Laker, airline entrepreneur (born 1922)
11 February – Peggy Cripps Appiah, children's author and socialite (born 1921)
13 February
John Brooke-Little, herald (born 1927)
P. F. Strawson, philosopher (born 1919)
14 February – Lynden David Hall, soul singer (born 1974)
16 February – Dennis Kirkland, television producer (born 1942)
20 February – Lou Gish, actress (born 1967)
24 February – Denis C. Twitchett, Cambridge scholar, Chinese historian (born 1925)
26 February
Georgina Battiscombe, biographer (born 1906)
Hans Singer, economist, devised Prebisch–Singer hypothesis (born 1910, German Empire)
27 February – Linda Smith, comedian (born 1958)
March
1 March
Hugh McCartney, Scottish politician (born 1920)
Peter Osgood, footballer (born 1947)
2 March
Alice Baker, Leading Aircraftswoman in the Royal Flying Corps and last surviving British female veteran of World War I (born 1898)
Jack Wild, actor (born 1952)
3 March – Ivor Cutler, Scottish poet, songwriter and humorist (born 1923)
7 March – John Junkin, actor (born 1930)
8 March – George Sassoon, scientist and author (born 1936)
9 March – John Profumo, politician (born 1915)
11 March – Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, Army general and military historian (born 1924)
16 March
James "Speedy" Hill, Army brigadier (born 1911)
Moira Redmond, actress (born 1928)
18 March – Michael Attwell, actor (born 1943)
21 March – Richard Usborne, journalist and author (born 1910)
24 March – Lynne Perrie, actress (born 1931)
26 March – Nikki Sudden, singer-songwriter and guitarist (Swell Maps) (born 1956)
27 March – Ruari McLean, Scottish-born typographic designer (born 1917)
April
4 April – John George Macleod, Scottish doctor (born 1915)
6 April – Leslie Norris, Anglo-Welsh poet and author (born 1921)
11 April – Angus Wells, writer (born 1943)
12 April – Richard Bebb, actor (born 1927)
13 April – Muriel Spark, Scottish novelist (born 1918)
17 April – Calum Kennedy, Scottish singer (born 1928)
18 April – John Lyall, footballer and manager (born 1940)
23 April – Jennifer Jayne, actress (born 1931)
24 April – Brian Labone, footballer (born 1940)
25 April – Peter Law, Welsh politician (born 1948)
30 April – Barry Driscoll, painter and sculptor (born 1926)
May
1 May – Wilfrid Butt, biochemist (born 1922)
6 May – Sarah-Jayne Mulvihill, RAF flight lieutenant (killed in action, Iraq) (born 1973)
7 May – Duncan Inglis Cameron, Scottish university administrator (born 1927)
8 May – Iain MacMillan, photographer (born 1938)
10 May
Val Guest, film director (born 1911)
Marie Hartley, writer (born 1906)
15 May – David Sharp, mountaineer (born 1972); died on Mount Everest
17 May
Eric Forth, Scottish-English politician, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons (2001–2003) (born 1944)
John Miller, Army lieutenant-colonel, Crown Equerry to the Queen (1961–1987) (born 1919)
18 May – Kiyan Prince, footballer (murdered) (born 1990)
19 May
Peter Bryant, television producer and actor (born 1923)
Freddie Garrity, singer (Freddie and the Dreamers) (born 1940)
20 May – Tommy Watt, jazz bandleader (born 1925)
22 May – Jack Fallon, jazz bassist (born 1915, Canada)
23 May – James Lowther, 7th Earl of Lonsdale, peer (born 1922)
29 May – Paul Douglas, journalist and cameraman (killed in Iraq) (born 1957)
June
2 June
Ronald Cass, screenwriter and composer (born 1923)
Roy Farran, Army major (born 1921)
4 June
Alec Bregonzi, actor (born 1930)
Sir John Rowlands GC, RAF air marshal (born 1915)
6 June – Leslie Alcock, archaeologist, chief excavator of Cadbury Castle (born 1925)
8 June – Peter Smithers, politician (born 1913)
10 June – Peter Douglas Kennedy, collector of folk songs (born 1922)
11 June
Ernest Arthur Bell, biochemist, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1981–1988) (born 1926)
Bruce Shand, Army major and father of Queen Camilla (born 1917)
12 June – Hugh Latimer, actor (born 1913)
14 June – Monty Berman, cinematographer (born 1913)
16 June – Roland Boyes, politician (born 1937)
17 June – Julian Slade, composer (Salad Days) (born 1930)
22 June – Gilbert Monckton, 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, Army major-general and politician (born 1915)
25 June
Elkan Allan, television producer (born 1922)
Kenneth Griffith, Welsh actor (born 1921)
28 June – George Unwin, RAF wing commander and Battle of Britain ace (born 1913)
29 June – Joyce Hatto, pianist (born 1928)
July
1 July – Fred Trueman, cricketer (born 1931)
6 July
E. S. Turner, journalist and author (born 1909)
Tom Weir, climber, author and broadcaster (born 1914)
7 July – Syd Barrett, founding member of Pink Floyd (born 1946)
8 July – Peter Hawkins, actor and voice artist (born 1924)
9 July – Alan Senitt, activist (murdered in the United States) (born 1978)
10 July – Tommy Bruce, singer ("Ain't Misbehavin'") (born 1937)
11 July – John Spencer, snooker player (born 1935)
15 July – Francis Rose, botanist (born 1921)
16 July – Kevin Hughes, politician and MP for Doncaster North (born 1952)
18 July – David Maloney, television director and producer (born 1933)
20 July – Ted Grant, politician (born 1913)
23 July – Terence Otway, Army lieutenant-colonel and veteran of Operation Tonga (born 1914, Egypt)
26 July – Jessie Gilbert, chess player (fall) (born 1987)
28 July
Patrick Allen, actor (born 1927)
David Gemmell, author (born 1948)
August
1 August – George Styles GC, Army lieutenant-colonel (born 1928)
2 August – Kim McLagan, fashion model (car accident) (born 1948)
3 August – Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, German-born operatic soprano (born 1915)
6 August
Stella Moray, actress (born 1923)
Ian Walters, sculptor (born 1930)
9 August – Philip Empson High, science fiction author (born 1914)
13 August
Jack Edwards, soldier and veterans' campaigner (born 1918)
Tony Jay, English-born actor (born 1933)
17 August – Christopher Polge, biologist (born 1926)
19 August – Joyce Blair, actress (born 1932)
23 August
Nigel Malim, rear-admiral (born 1919)
Raymond Harold Sawkins, novelist (born 1923)
24 August – David Plowright, television producer (born 1930)
30 August
Margaret Hubble, radio broadcaster (born 1914)
Emrys Jones, Welsh geographer (born 1920)
Hector Monro, Baron Monro of Langholm, politician (born 1922)
September
1 September – Kyffin Williams, landscape painter (born 1918)
2 September –
Lionel Pickering, businessman, football chairman (born 1932)
Charlie Williams, comedian, previously footballer (born 1928)
3 September
Levi Fox, conservationist and historian (born 1914)
Ian Hamer, jazz trumpeter (born 1932)
4 September – Clive Lythgoe, pianist (born 1927)
5 September – Anne Gregg, travel writer and television presenter (born 1940)
8 September – Hilda Bernstein, English-born author, artist and activist (born 1915)
9 September – John Drummond, controller of BBC Radio 3 (born 1934)
11 September – William Auld, poet and esperantist (born 1924)
13 September – Sir Douglas Dodds-Parker, soldier and politician (born 1909)
14 September – Peter Ling, television writer and novelist (born 1926)
15 September – Raymond Baxter, television presenter (born 1922)
23 September – Malcolm Arnold, composer (born 1921)
24 September – Sally Gray, actress (born 1916)
27 September – Sir Michael Pollock, admiral (born 1916)
28 September – James Hamilton, 4th Baron Hamilton of Dalzell, politician (born 1938)
October
1 October – Alan Caillou, writer (born 1914)
3 October
Lucilla Andrews, author of romantic novels (born 1919)
John Crank, physicist (born 1916)
4 October – Tom Bell, actor (born 1933)
5 October – Jennifer Moss, actress (born 1945)
9 October
Reg Freeson, politician (born 1926)
Paul Hunter, snooker player (born 1978)
11 October – Robert Megarry, judge (born 1910)
15 October – Derek Bond, actor (born 1920)
16 October – Ross Davidson, actor (born 1949)
17 October – Ursula Moray Williams, children's author (born 1911)
18 October
Anna Russell, British-born comedian and music satirist (born 1911)
Laurie Taitt, Olympic sprint hurdler (born 1934)
20 October – Eric Newby, travel writer (born 1919)
21 October – Arthur Peacocke, theologian and biochemist (born 1924)
24 October – William Montgomery Watt, professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh (born 1909)
22 October – Richard Mayes, actor (born 1922)
25 October – Paul Ableman, novelist (born 1927)
29 October – Nigel Kneale, screenwriter and husband of Judith Kerr (born 1922)
31 October – William Franklyn, actor (born 1925)
November
4 November – John McManners, clergyman and historian (born 1916)
7 November – Elizabeth Balneaves, writer and filmmaker (born 1902)
10 November – Diana Coupland, actress (born 1928)
11 November – Ronnie Stevens, actor (born 1925)
13 November – Desert Orchid, National Hunt racehorse (born 1979)
14 November – John Hallam, actor (born 1941)
16 November – John Veale, composer (born 1922)
17 November – John Acland, Army major-general (born 1928)
18 November – Keith Rowlands, rugby union player (born 1936)
19 November
Edward Ford, courtier, Private Secretary to the British monarch (1946–1967) (born 1910)
Emanuel Hurwitz, violinist (born 1919)
23 November
Nick Clarke, radio and television presenter (born 1948)
Alexander Litvinenko, Russian defector; dies in Britain after being poisoned (born 1962)
26 November – Anthony Jackson, actor (born 1944)
27 November – Alan Freeman, DJ and radio personality (born 1927 in Australia)
28 November – Bernard Orchard, biblical scholar (born 1910)
29 November – Allen Carr, anti-smoking campaigner (born 1934)
December
3 December – Craig Hinton, writer (born 1964)
5 December – Timothy Moxon, actor (born 1924)
6 December
Darren Brown, guitarist and lead singer (Mega City Four) (born 1962)
Mavis Pugh, actress (born 1914)
8 December – Colin Figures, head of the Secret Intelligence Service (1981–1985) (born 1925)
9 December – Tremayne Rodd, 3rd Baron Rennell, rugby union player (born 1935)
13 December – Eileen Caddy, spiritual teacher, founder of the Findhorn Foundation (born 1917, Egypt)
14 December – John Bridge, World War II sailor (born 1915)
18 December – Mike Dickin, DJ and radio personality (car accident) (born 1943)
19 December – Elisabeth Rivers-Bulkeley, first woman member of the London Stock Exchange (born 1922)
21 December
Philippa Pearce, children's author (born 1920)
Sydney Wooderson, lawyer and athlete, world record holder for mile run (1937–1942) (born 1914)
23 December – Charlie Drake, comedian (born 1925)
26 December
John Heath-Stubbs, poet and translator (born 1918)
Marmaduke Hussey, Baron Hussey of North Bradley, chairman of the board of Governors of the BBC (born 1923)
30 December – Antony Lambton, politician (born 1922)
See also
2006 in British music
2006 in British television
List of British films of 2006
2006 in England
References
Years of the 21st century in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali%20%28asura%29
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Kali (asura)
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In Hinduism, Kali (Devanāgari: , IAST: , with both vowels short; from a root , 'suffer, hurt, startle, confuse') is the being who reigns during the age of the Kali Yuga and acts as the nemesis of Kalki, the tenth and final avatar of the Hindu preserver deity, Vishnu.
Mahabharata
According to the Mahabharata, the gandharva Kali became jealous when he was late to Princess Damayanti's marriage ceremony and discovered she had overlooked the deities Indra, Agni, Varuna, and Yama (and ultimately himself) to choose Nala as her husband. In anger, Kali spoke to his companion Dvapara, the personification of Dvapara Yuga:
Kali traveled to Nala's kingdom of Nishadhas and waited twelve long years for the right moment to strike. Because Nala had rendered himself impure by not washing his feet before his prayers, Kali was able to bewitch his soul. Kali then appeared before Pushkara and invited him to play a game of dice with his brother, guaranteeing Nala's downfall. Dvapara took the form of the Vrisha die that would be used in the fixed game. Kali forced Nala to lose and, each time, he would raise the stakes higher despite the protest of his advisors and wife. Finally, Nala lost his kingdom to Pushkara. Both he and Damayanti were exiled to the forest.
During their exile, Kali drove Nala to abandon Damayanti, who later enacted a curse against everyone that had caused the downfall of her husband. She eventually returned home after a short time as a handmaiden to the Princess of Chedi. Nala, meanwhile, saved the naga Karkotaka from fire (where he was cursed to suffer by sage Narada). Intending to exorcise the devil within him, the serpent bit Nala, injecting him with deadly poisons that forever tortured Kali. The venom also changed Nala into an ugly dwarf named Bahuka. He later became the charioteer of the Ayodhya King Rituparna, who was a master mathematician and dice player.
Years later, King Rituparna revealed to Bahuka the supreme skill of controlling the dice in exchange for horsemanship lessons. This skill awakened Nala from Kali's control and allowed him (with the help of Damayanti's curse and Karkotaka's venom) to exorcise the asura (demon); vomiting him in the form of poison from his mouth. Nala forced Kali's trembling spirit into a Vibhitaka tree. He then counted the fruits of the tree and left in search of his wife and later regained his true form. Kali returned to his abode as well.
Kali was then later incarnated as king Duryodhana, eldest of the one hundred Kaurava brothers. His companion Dvapara became his uncle Shakuni. The day Duryodhana was born, he unleashed a donkey-like scream which the donkeys outside the home replied to. Despite the advice from Vidura to discard the evil baby, Duryodhana's father Dhritarashtra kept the child because of his blind love for his son and overlooked his responsibility as the King.
At the onset of Kali Yuga, once king Parikshit went hunting in the forest. Just then in the middle of the way, Kali appeared before him and asked permission to enter his kingdom, which the king denied. Upon insisting, Parikshit allowed him five places to reside: where there is gambling, alcohol consumption, prostitution, animal slaughter and gold. Kali smartly entered into Parikshit's golden crown and spoiled his thoughts. Parikshit entered the hut of a sage named Shamika as he was thirsty. He found the sage in deep meditation. He bowed to him several times but there was no response. In anger, he took a dead snake and threw it around the sage's neck. Later when the sage's son, Shringin, heard of this incident he cursed the king to die of snake bite on the seventh day. On hearing this, the king forswore the throne for his son Janamejaya and spent his last seven days listening to the discourses of sage Shuka, compiled as the Bhagavata Purana under the banyan tree of Shukratal. As prophesied, the snake king Takshaka bit Parikshita, who left his mortal remains behind and attained Moksha.
Puranic accounts
The Kalki Purana describes him as a huge being, the color of soot, with a large tongue, and a terrible stench. From his birth, he carried an Upasthi (worship) boon. The Kalki Purana says that this asura (demon) chose gambling, liquor, prostitution, slaughter and gold as his permanent abodes." The Sanskrit-English Dictionary states Kali is "of a class of mythic beings (related to the Gandharvas, and supposed by some to be fond of gambling)". The Bhagavata Purana describes Kali as wearing the garments of a king' and portrays him as a brownish-skinned asura (demon) with a dog-like face, protruding fangs, pointed ears and long green bushy hair, wearing a red loin cloth and golden jewelry.
Markandeya Purana
According to Markandeya Purana, the Brahmin Pravara was given a magical ointment that allowed him to fly. But when he flew to the Himalayas, the ointment was washed away from the bottoms of his feet keeping him from returning home to his wife. During this time, the nymph Varuthini fell madly in love with him and begged the Brahmin to stay with her forever. But eventually, he rejected her. He prayed to Agni who returned him home safely.
The gandharva Kali was in love with ‘‘Varuthini’’ and had been rejected by her in the past. He saw how she hungered for the Brahmin, so he took on the appearance of Pravara and came before the courtesan. He led her into the bedchamber and told her to close her eyes during their sex [sambhoga]. As they made love, Varuthini noticed that his body became flaming hot and believed it was because his Brahmin spirit was infused with the sacrificial fire. After climax, Kali, still-as-Pravara, left the apsara and returned to his abode. Varuthini soon became pregnant and nine months later gave birth to a human child that not only looked like the Brahmin but possessed his soul as well. The authors of the book Science in Culture comment this was an example of the Sanskrit phrase "from his semen and from her thinking," meaning the child was indeed Pravara's child because she believed it was his.
In another version, Kali stipulates that he would only marry the apsara if she keeps her eyes closed while they are in the forest (presumably making love). However, Kali leaves after their marriage and the birth of their son Svarocisa. Svarocisa grows up to become a very learned scholar of the Vedas and learns to speak the languages of all creatures from one of his three wives. He later marries a goddess and fathers Svarocisa Manu, one of the progenitors of mankind.
Bhagavata Purana
The Bhagavata Purana states the very day and moment avatar Krishna left this earth, Kali, "who promotes all kinds of irreligious activities", came into this world.
After setting off to wage war against the evils of the world with his armies, Emperor Parikshit, the grandson of Arjuna, came across a Sudra dressed as a king who was beating a cow and an ox with a club. Parikshit immediately led his chariot over to the scene and angrily berated the sudra for abusing the sacred cow and her mate. However, this was no ordinary sudra and these were no ordinary bovine, for the sudra was Kali and the cow and ox were embodiments of the earth goddess and Dharma. The Emperor noticed the ox was standing on one of his legs because the other three had been broken by Kali. Dharma explained his four legs represented "austerity, cleanliness, mercy and truthfulness", but he had only the leg of "truth" to stand on since the other three had been broken by kali over the preceding yugas. Kali was intent on breaking all the legs that supported the reign of dharma so he could effect the expansion of his own dark reign on earth. The earth goddess cried for she had once been plentiful, but when Krishna ascended to heaven, she was forsaken and all of the prosperity left from the world. She feared evil kings like Kali would continue to lay waste to the earth.
When Parikshit raised his sword to kill Kali, the sudra stripped himself of his royal garments and prostrated himself at the emperor's feet. The emperor knew Kali tainted the world with his evil and so had no place in it and raised his sword once more. But Kali interceded again and begged the emperor to spare his life and allow him a place to live within his empire. Parikshit decided that Kali would live in "gambling houses, in taverns, in women and men of unchaste lives, in slaughtering places and in gold". And as long as Parikshit ruled India, Kali stayed within the confines of these five places. This act allowed Dharma to regain his legs and the earth to be relieved of much burden. However, Parikshit was later cursed to die by snake bite after hunting in the forest and throwing a dead snake on an unresponsive sage practicing austerities. Upon the emperor's death, "Kali made his way to other places like wild fire and established his power throughout the length and breadth of the whole world."
In another version of the tale, Kali enters into the Emperor's crown when Parikshit gives him permission to reside wherever there is gold. Upon returning home after offending the sage, Parikshit says to himself, Kali Yuga's abode is in gold; this was on my head; hence I had so evil a thought that, having taken a dead snake cast it on the sage’s neck. Therefore, I now understand that Kali Yuga has taken his revenge on me. How shall I escape this grievous sin?"
Kalki Purana
The beginning of the Kalki Purana describes Kali's lineage starting with the Brahma, his great-great-grandfather, and ending with the birth of his children's children. Instead of being born of poison from the churning of the ocean of milk, he is the product of a long line of incestuous monsters born from Brahma's back. (See Family Lineage below) Kali and his family were created by Brahma to hurry the dissolution of the cosmos after the pralaya period was over. When his family takes human form on earth, they further taint the hearts and minds of mankind to bring about the end of Dvapara Yuga and the beginning of Kali Yuga. During the first stage of Kali Yuga, the varnashrama breaks down and God-worship is forsaken by man. All through the second, third, and fourth stages, man forgets the name of god and no longer offers yajna (offerings) to the devas. It is at this point when Vishnu reincarnates as Kalki in the name of the devas and all of mankind to rid the cosmos of Kali's dark influence.
The remainder of the tale describes Kalki's childhood, military training under the immortal Parashurama and assisting, training and teaching Kalki on Dharma, Karma, Artha and knowledge of most ancient and necessary Wisdom with military and social perspective but also help, support and join his fight against evils as greater guidance, his marriage, his preparation for war against the asura Kali, and the decisive war between the two. Kalki kicks off his campaign by performing the Ashvamedha sacrifice and leading his armies behind the horse as it runs freely from kingdom to kingdom. If any evil king tries to stop the horse, Kalki engages them in combat. After defeating them, he continues to follow the horse until all evil kingdoms are vanquished. When Kali finally faces Kalki's forces, his entire family blood line is wiped out by the avatar's generals and he presumably dies from wounds inflicted by Dharma and Satya Yuga personified. Kalki, meanwhile, battles and simultaneously kills the asura's most powerful generals, Koka and Vikoka, twin devils adept in the dark arts.
Churning of the ocean of milk
According to a lesser known Madhva version of the legend, during the churning of the ocean of milk, a great poison known as halahala was produced, which Vayu, the god of wind, rubbed in his hands to reduce its potency. Then a small portion was given to god Shiva, turning his throat blue. The rest was collected in a golden vessel and digested by Vayu. (One source states he drank the Kalakuta poison of Vasuki nāga. Still others more commonly state that Shiva drank alone.) A little portion of poison that wasn't swallowed by Shiva became the body of Kali. From this poison also came, "cruel objects like snakes, wolves, and tigers."
Later, when the asura Rahu was decapitated by Vishnu's Mohini avatar, the demon's allies attacked her and all except Kali were killed. Having the power to possess the bodies of immortal and mortal beings, he entered the hearts of man and escaped, using the men he possessed to corrupt the primordial scriptures by deliberately miswriting them, generating widespread chaos. Because Kali was "invisible, unimaginable, and present in all" the only way to correct the chaos born from the miswritten texts was to completely renew the sacred scriptures entirely. Thus Vishnu descended to earth as Vyasa, the compiler of the sacred scriptures Vedas and the writer of the Puranas.
Death
Kali dies one-third of the way through the Kalki Purana. During the decisive battle between Kali and Kalki's armies, Kali tried to face both Dharma and Satya Yuga personified, but was overwhelmed and fled on his donkey because his chariot had been destroyed, leaving his owl-charged war flag to be trampled on the battlefield. Kali retreated to the citadel of his capital city of Vishasha where he discovered his body had been mortally stabbed and burned during his battle with the two devas. The stench of his blood billowed out and filled the atmosphere with a foul odor. When Dharma and Satya burst into the city, Kali tried to run away, but, knowing his family had been destroyed, coupled with his grievous wounds, he "entered his unmanifested years". This might lead some to believe he died, but one version of the Kalki Purana in the book The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology states Kali does not die but, instead, escapes through time and space to live in the Kali Yuga of the next kalpa. The author comments, "Unlike most battles between devas and asuras, however, this apparent victory is immediately undercut, for Kali escapes to reappear in 'another age'—in our age, or the next Kali Age." Since he had the power to manifest himself in human form on earth, he was able to forsake his dying corporeal form to escape in spirit.
Family lineage
Kali is the great-great-grandson of Brahma. He is the son of Krodha (Anger) and his sister-turned-wife Himsa (Violence). He is the grandson of Dambha (Vanity) and his sister Maya (Illusion). He is the great-grandson of Adharma (Impropriety) and his wife, Mithya (Falsehood). Adharma was originally created from Brahma's back as a malina pataka (a very dark and deadly sinful object).
B. K. Chaturvedi, a modern translator of the Kalki Purana, states in a footnote that the growth of this dark sinful object into Adharma seems to, "convey the growth of Kali Yuga and its obnoxious offshoots."
Vishnu Purana
Kali's family lineage is told differently in the Vishnu Purana, which is a father purana to the Kalki Purana:
The wife of Adharma (vice) was Himsá (violence), on whom he begot a son Anrita (falsehood), and a daughter Nikriti (immorality): they intermarried, and had two sons, Bhaya (fear) and Naraka (hell); and twins to them, two daughters, Maya (deceit) and Vedaná (grief), who became their wives. The son of Bhaya and Máyá was the destroyer of living creatures, or Mrityu (death); and Dukha (pain) was the offspring of Naraka and Vedaná. The children of Mrityu were Vyádhi (disease), Jará (decay), Soka (sorrow), Trishńa (greediness), and Krodha (wrath). These are all called the inflictors of misery, and are characterised as the progeny of Vice (Adharma). They are all without wives, without posterity, without the faculty to procreate; they are the terrible forms of Vishńu, and perpetually operate as causes of the destruction of this world. On the contrary, Daksha and the other rishis, the elders of mankind, tend perpetually to influence its renovation; whilst the Manus and their sons, the heroes endowed with mighty power, and treading in the path of truth, constantly contribute to its preservation.
In this version, Himsa is Adharma's wife instead of his granddaughter.
Bhagavata Purana
According to the Bhagavata Purana, Adharma is the husband of Mrishá (falsehood), and the father of Dambha (hypocrisy) and Máyá (deceit), who were adopted by Nirritti (Hindu goddess of misery). The series of their descendants is also somewhat varied from our text; being in each descent, however, twins which intermarry, or Lobha (covetousness) and Nikriti, who produce Krodha (wrath) and Hinsá: their children are, Kali (wickedness) and Durukti (evil speech): their progeny are, Mrityu and Bhí (fear); whose offspring are, Niraya (hell) and Yátaná (torment).
In this version, Mrisha is the wife of Adharma and not Himsa or Mithya.
Linga Purana
The Linga Purana enumerates Adharma among the Prajapatis (Lords of Creatures).
Dharma personified
Since Dharma is one of the major antagonists of Kali, it is important to note this personified deity has his own line of offspring that work against the asura and his family to bring balance to the world. The following comes from the Vishnu Purana:
The progeny of Dharma by the daughters of Daksha were as follows: by Shraddha he had Kama (desire); by Lakshmi, Darpa (pride); by Dhriti, Niyama (precept); by Tushti, Santosha (content); by Pushti, Lobha (cupidity); by Medhá, Sruta (sacred tradition); by Kriya, Danda, Naya, and Vinaya (correction, polity, and prudence); by Buddhi, Bodha (understanding); by Lajja, Vinaya (good behaviour); by Vapu, Vyavasaya (perseverance). Santi gave birth to Kshema (prosperity); Siddhi to Sukha (enjoyment); and Kírtti to Yasas. These were the sons of Dharma; one of whom, Kama, had Harsha (joy) by his wife Nandi (delight).
Again, the Bhagavata Purana gives a different account of his children's names.
It is described in Mahabharata as the eldest Pandava brother, Yudhishthira was the son of Dharma.
Progeny
Kali's sister-turned-wife, Durukti (Calumny), gave him two offspring: a son named Bhayanaka (Fear) and a daughter named Mrityu (Death). His son and daughter gave him two grandchildren: a boy named Naraka (Hell) and a girl named Yatana (Torture). Again, there are some discrepancies here. The Vishnu Purana says Mrityu and Bhayanak are his brother and sister. Mrityu is even represented as male instead of female.
Kali is the grandfather of Svarocisa Manu, one of the progenitors of mankind. As previously mentioned, Kali had a son named Svarocisa with the Apsara Varuthini. Svarocisa once traveld to Mt. Mandara and was met by Manorama, a cursed-woman being chased by a asura. In the past, she had made fun of a sage practicing Tapasya austerities on Mt. Kailas and was cursed to be captured by a asura. When her friends Vibhavari and Kalavati berated the sage for enacting a curse for such a minor offence, he cursed one to be a leper and the other a carrier of diseases. Manorama had knowledge of a powerful spiritual weapon, but did not know how to wield it, so she taught it to Svarocisa. When the asura leaped out of the forest and grabbed ahold of the woman, Svarocis called forth the weapon. But the asura stayed his hand and explained he was actually Manorama's father, Indivara. He had also been cursed to become a asura by the sage Brahmamitra because he tried to covertly obtain the secrets of Ayurveda medicine without the sage's knowledge. The sage told him that the curse would end when he was about to eat his own daughter. Once he regained his true form, Indivara taught Svarocisa the Ayurveda medication, which he used to cure Manorama's friends. He later married the three and had three sons with them. He learned the languages of all creatures from Vibhavari and the Padmini vidya from Kalavati.
Despite his prosperity, Svarocis was unhappy in his life and could hear the ducks and deer talking about him behind his back. One day he went hunting and took aim at a boar, but a deer came through the clearing and asked to be shot in its place. When he enquired why, the deer told him that she was really the goddess of the forest and wished to marry Svarocisa. So he embraced the deer and she turned into a beautiful woman. Together, they had a son named Dyutiman, who later became the Svarocisa Manu.
One source states, "Kali's wife Alakshmi and her sons who supervise evil also came from Kshirasagara [the ocean of milk]." Alakshmi is the elderly twin sister of the Goddess Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu. Since the Kalki Purana states his wife Durukti is his sister, Alakshmi would be a second wife because she is not directly related to him.
There are a number of connections and similarities between Kali and Alakshmi. First and foremost, Alakshmi's sister is the consort of Vishnu, who sent his Kalki avatar to earth to defeat Kali. Second, legends say she was born either from the churning of the ocean of milk, the poison from Vasuki (who helped churn the ocean) or the back of Prajapati. As previously mentioned, Kali is said to have been born from the halahala poison created from churning the ocean or from a lineage created from Brahma’s back. Third, Alakshmi takes the form of an owl. Kali's emblem on his war flag is of an owl. Fourth, whenever Alakshmi enters a house, families fight and turn on one another. The presence of Kali and his family on earth causes mankind to fight and turn on one another. Finally, Alakshmi is said to ride a donkey. Kali also rides a donkey in the Kalki Purana.
Contemporary representation
Kali's image was used in several pamphlets circulated by various Agorakshanasabh ("cow protection leagues") and "wandering ascetics" as a protest against the Muslim practice of beef-eating during the British raj. These pamphlets were produced in a time when Hindu-Muslim riots over cow slaughter occurred in several areas of India; including Azamgarh district (1893), when a total of 100 people died in similar conflagrations throughout the empire; Ayodhya (1912–1913); and Shahabad (1917). One such pamphlet entitled "The Present State" showed a cow being slaughtered by a trio of "Muhammadan" butchers. Another portrayed Kali raising a sword above the head of a sacred cow, whose body was illustrated to be a microcosmic paradise in which all the Hindu gods resided. There were many different editions of this version. For instance, one showed a woman labeled "The Hindu" waiting with bowl-in-hand for the cow's calf to finish suckling before she could get milk. A form of Krishna labeled Dharmaraj ("Ruler of Dharma") stood behind the cow and Kali was, again, harassing her with his sword. Still, a different one deleted the woman and calf and instead portrayed Dharmaraj in front of the cow pleading mat maro gay sarv ka jivan hai ("don't kill the cow, everyone is dependent on it"), while Kali rebuts he manusyaho! Kaliyugi Mansahari jivom ko dekho ("mankind, look at the meat-eating souls of the Kali Yuga").
Some Hindus considered Kali's presence in the picture to be a representation of the Muslim community. When one of the versions of these pamphlets came into the possession of a state official in 1893, he commented that the image "contained a representation of a Musalman [Muslim] advancing to slay the cow ...". One book states, "The Magistrate [at Deoria] found Muhammadans excited because they heard a picture was in circulation representing a Muhammadan with a sword drawn sacrificing a cow, and this they considered an insult." In 1915, a color version of this picture run by the Ravi Varma Press caught the attention of the colonial censors and was presumably censored in some way.
In popular culture
Nala Damayanti (1921): This big-budget film depicts a famous episode from the Mahabharata, starting with Narada's ascent of Mount Meru. It shows Swarga, the Heaven of Indra, the Transformation in the Clouds of the Four Gods into impersonations of King Nala, Swan Messengers of Love, the Transformation of Kali into a Serpent, the Meeting of Kali and Dwarpa and the Four Gods amidst the Blue Air.
To differentiate him from the goddess Kali, the asura Kali is sometimes referred to as "Kalipurush" (Kali the being), a somewhat 'understood' convention since Purusha per se is one of Hinduism's notoriously non-consensual phrases before which sense of it is intended in a particular usage is also indicated.
Films and Television
The Role of demon kali depicted in Films
Television
Notes
External links
Places of Kali – Podcast of Kali's tale from the Bhagavata Purana.
કલિયુગનાં ચાર આશ્રયસ્થાન (Kaliyuga's mainstay) – The tale of Kali and Parikshit in Gujarati.
Srimad Bhagavatam: Cant 1 – See chapters 16 and 17.
A very large detailed painting of King Parikshit about to kill Kali.
Kaliyan (Boons received by Kali)
Demons in Hinduism
Rakshasa
Antichrist
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England%20Made%20Me%20%28Black%20Box%20Recorder%20album%29
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England Made Me (Black Box Recorder album)
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England Made Me, the debut studio album of English rock band Black Box Recorder, was released through Chrysalis Records on 20 July 1998. After releasing albums with the Auteurs and as Baader Meinhof, in early 1997, musician Luke Haines formed Black Box Recorder with John Moore and Sarah Nixey. Through most of 1997, the band recorded their debut album with Auteurs collaborator-and-producer Phil Vinall in several London studios, including Milo and The Drugstore. The country folk, easy listening and pop album is named for Graham Greene's 1935 novel eponymous novel, and has been compared to the work of Portishead and Young Marble Giants. Bontempi drums and a radio scanner, and samples are used on several tracks. The songs' lyrics criticize the mundane experience of living and growing up in post-Restoration England, and explore the themes of single mothers and teenage sex.
England Made Me was met with mixed reviews; critics focussed on the album's quality, Nixey's voice and the lyrics. It reached number 110 on the UK Albums Chart. Following an argument between Haines and Moore, which almost saw Black Box Recorder disband, they signed to Chrysalis Records in December 1997. After a brief return to The Auteurs, Black Box Recorder toured the UK in early 1998. "Child Psychology" was released as the album's lead single in May 1998 and reached number 82 in the UK Singles Chart; this was followed by "England Made Me" in July 1998, which peaked at number 89. Black Box Recorder did not tour after the album's release, making a single appearance at that year's Reading Festival. NME included England Made Me on its list of the 50 best releases from 1998, and was reissued as part of a career-spanning box set in 2018.
Background
Between 1993 and 1996, vocalist and guitarist Luke Haines released three albums with the Auteurs; New Wave (1993), Now I'm a Cowboy (1994) and After Murder Park (1996). After Murder Park received critical acclaim but was not as commercially successful as its predecessors. For around a year, singer Sarah Nixey had been working as a backing vocalist in the band Balloon to harmonize with frontman Ian Bickerton. Bickerton, who wanted more musicians to help the band in a recording studio, recruited Haines and former the Jesus and Mary Chain member John Moore. In 1996, Haines released a self-titled album under the moniker Baader Meinhof, which Moore enjoyed. Haines had tired of listening to his voice and decided to form Black Box Recorder with Moore in March 1997. Moore coined the band's name while flying home from Spain. Moore persuaded Volume magazine to include a Black Box Recorder track on their next compilation album, prompting Haines to visit Moore at his residence in Little Venice, London, to make noise.
With fruitless results, the Moore and Haines began creating a song with the idea of having Nixey sing; by this point, Haines had written "Girl Singing in the Wreckage" while Moore had written "England Made Me". The pair habitually wrote material without exerting much effort to create simple compositions. Nixey, who had been helping Moore with his own songs, received a fax promising to make her famous if she sang on "Girl Singing in the Wreckage". She had been aware of the Auteurs through friends, and owned a copy of the Jesus and Mary Chain album Psychocandy (1985) but did not know the pair personally. Nixey was unsure about fronting Black Box Recorder but Moore encouraged her by saying he liked her voice. Nixey initially agreed to sing on one track that was due to be released on the Volume compilation. When this release did not occur, the trio planned to make an extended play (EP) and send demos to record labels.
Recording
Black Box Recorder went to a basement studio in Camberwell, London, with producer and Auteurs collaborator Phil Vinall, where they recorded "Girl Singing in the Wreckage". Moore was aware of Vinall's earlier work with Haines; he calling Vinall a "somewhat intense individual, and the atmosphere was often dark, bordering on Pinteresque", which he felt was appropriate for their forthcoming album. Hut Records, which had released Haines' earlier work, paid the band an advance fee, allowing them to move sessions to the basement of Milo Studios in Hoxton Square, London. Here, they recorded "New Baby Boom" and "England Made Me", the latter of which was recorded the same day Tony Blair became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Moore said "England Made Me" is "new-slow, new-nightmarish, and new-cruel, but definitely not New Labour". Charlie Inskip, who had worked with Haines, became the band's manager.
Despite the lack of commercial appeal, the songs were attracting interest from potential labels such as Island Records. During the season, the band wrote more material at Moore's and Haines' residences in Camden Town. As they ran out of money for recording, connections through The Jesus and Mary Chain saw sessions moved to that band's studio The Drugstore in Walworth Road. In two three-day sessions they recorded "It's Only the End of the World", "Child Psychology", "I. C. One Female", "Swinging", "Kidnapping an Heiress", "Hated Sunday", "Brutality" and "Jackie 60". Sessions then returned to Milo Studios, where Vinall mixed "Ideal Home"; during a Sunday afternoon, Haines and Moore mooted the idea of recording a cover of "Up Town Top Ranking" (1977) by Althea & Donna. The pair had told Nixey she would not be required for that day's session so she went out clubbing. When they called her to record the cover, she had gone to bed. To persuade her, they told her the session would take only an hour but Nixey said she did not know the words, to which they replied they did not either.
To Haines' surprise, Virgin Records, who owned Hut Records, approved another album from The Auteurs; they recorded four tracks before he continued working on England Made Me. Sessions concluded in autumn with the recording of "Wonderful Life", "Lord Lucan Is Missing" and "Factory Radio" at Milo Studios. The band and Vinall produced most of the tracks except "Ideal Home", which was solely produced by the band. Several engineers worked on the album; Vinall, Martin Jenkins, Teo Miller, Pete Hofmann and the band. Miller mixed most of the songs while Vinall mixed one of them. The cover of "Up Town Top Ranking" ends with a reverb-enhanced crashing sound, which came from Vinall kicking amplifiers. When they remixed the song at On-U Sound Studios, London, the sounds were made louder.
Composition and lyrics
Overview
The music of England Made Me has been described as country folk, easy listening and pop, and recalls the sound of Young Marble Giants. Pitchfork contributor Michael Sandlin said Black Box Recorder deliver a "mildly morose but slightly tongue-in-cheek Sylvia Plath-meets-Paul McCartney pop sensibility" with elements of the work of Portishead. Black Box Recorder worked as a collective in contrast to the Auteurs, of which Haines was the leader. Jason Ferguson of MTV said "wispy samples will waft through the proceedings or the band will get a little carried away and almost start to rock". Moore said Vinall took pride in refining the drum sound on the album and that they used instruments they had accumulated, including Bontempi drums on "It's Only the End of the World", a musical saw, a santoor imported from Iran, and an ex-police radio scanner on "I. C. One Female".
Moore said Black Box Recorder proposed calling the album Mine Camp and Goodbye Beachy Head before landing on England Made Me. The Quietus Jude Rogers wrote Graham Greene's 1935 novel England Made Me, which explores a "disreputable man wrestling with his conscience", gave the album its title. AllMusic reviewer Stanton Swihart wrote the band lambasted life in England, the "bland, dull mundaneness of daily living as well as the stale political world", and that the album deals with issues ranging from "teenage sex and single mothers to repressive family life and wife swapping". Sandlin called it an "anti-tribute to the shame, horror and general degradation that must naturally come" with growing up in post-Restoration England.
Tracks
According to Gil Kaufman of MTV, Nixey acts as a character who starts the album by "surviving a plane crash", giving the band their name. "England Made Me" starts with Nixey inflicting pain on insects; for the rest of the song, she stays off boredom by contemplating staging a murder. Moore called it a "paean to Graham Greene and British seediness"; Niles Baranowski of Consumable Online said on "New Baby Boom", Nixey equates "teen pregnancy [a]s some sort of bad hair day". Moore said the song is about a ghost pregnancy that involved singer Gary Barlow. "It's Only the End of the World" summarizes disillusionment of people in their 20s at the end of the 20th century while Moore said it is about loss of innocence. "Ideal Home" is a homage to property ownership, and according to Tony Fletcher of MTV, the "pettiness of middle class suburban values".
Sandlin said "Child Psychology" describes a child who is intellectually stunted by irreversible neglect by misguided parents. In the song, Nixey repeats the lyric "Life is unfair / Kill yourself or get over it" in a mantra-like way. Moore said the song was influenced by The Tin Drum (1959) by Günter Grass, "Is That All There Is?" (1969) by Peggy Lee and an Open University-operated psychology course he attended. In a review for NME, journalist Kitty Empire called "Up Town Top Ranking" a "warped attempt to reflect Britain's ethnic diversity (possibly)", while Fletcher said Nixey changed the song from a "boastful feminine going-out anthem into a morning-after lament". Discussing the cover, Nixey described it as "An English woman who sounds very English when singing / speaking in Jamaican Patois". On "Swinging", Moore said Nixey acted as a Blue Remembered Hills-esque character who persuades boys to jump from a cliff face.
"Kidnapping an Heiress" recounts the kidnapping of Patty Hearst; it is sung from the perspective of the Symbionese Liberation Army and includes a reference to The Angry Brigade. The album concludes with "Hated Sunday", which Empire said evokes the work of Morrissey with "its vista of endless, depthless grey days". Ferguson said the addition of four bonus tracks on the US version aided in "extend[ing] the misery" for longer. One of these is a cover of Terry Jacks' 1974 hit "Seasons in the Sun", on which according to Spin Joshua Clover, Nixey sounds "as if she's singing the grocery list", while Ink 19 writer Matthew Moyer said the band "pervert [the song] to its most evil and base nature". Moyer also said "Lord Lucan Is Missing" recalls the work of Baader Meinhoff "but with ten times the sugar". Fletcher said it is the album's sole upbeat song, "and that's probably because the central character (a British nobleman who disappeared after a crime spree) is someone other than the singer".
Release and promotion
Nixey lost enthusiasm for working in theatre and was working as a temp across London. She stopped this type of employment a week before the band signed with Chrysalis Records, in December 1997. According to Nixey, A&R representative Gordon Biggins' first words to her asked if she wanted to go solo rather than working with Haines and Moore, who two days earlier had argued and almost disband Black Box Recorder until Nixey mediated between them. The band liked Biggins enough to sign with the label. Between the end of recording England Made Me and its release, the Auteurs recorded How I Learned to Love the Bootboys (1999), which was influenced by the atmospheric nature of England Made Me. In February and March 1998, Black Box Recorder toured the UK.
Chrysalis Records released England Made Me on 20 July 1998. The album's cover features a 1973 photograph of wrestler Adrian Street and his miner father taken by Dennis Hutchinson at Beynon's Colliery in Blaina, Wales. Haines said Street, who was cross-dressing, was showing off his championship belt while his father reproachfully stares at him. Haines said he and Moore used to watch wrestling when they were children until it "got axed because it became too pantomime". Hutchinson's photograph is included in Simon Garfield's book The Wrestling (1996); Garfield put the band in contact with Street to ask his permission to use the photograph for the album. Street was enthusiastic about the prospect, hoping the band would sell a million copies of it.
A photograph of the England football team performing a Nazi salute at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin was planned to be used as the album's cover; journalist Owen Hatherley said had the image been used, the album would have "truly encapsulated British fascism by adding sport to the litany of untrustworthy outsiders". The band did not tour to promote the album but they performed at the Reading Festival the following month. The cover of the US version, which Jetset Records issued on 6 July 1999, depicts a girl in a bed who appears "bored and morbidly introspective – [it] tells you most everything you need to know" about the band, according to Sandlin. The US version includes extra tracks "Wonderful Life", "Seasons in the Sun", "Factory Radio" and "Lord Lucan Is Missing"; Haines said he struggled to get the album issued in the US due to its highly English nature.
Singles and related releases
The release of "Child Psychology" as the lead single from England Made Me was originally planned for April 1998 but was postponed to 4 May; "Girl Singing in the Wreckage" and "Seasons in the Sun" were included as B-sides. The video for "Child Psychology", which was directed by Clio Barnard, depicts children in a bath that is located in a forested swamp. "Child Psychology" was banned from MTV and radio stations in the UK due to the lyric "Life is unfair / Kill yourself or get over it". Nixey stated at the time; "I think the line was actually incredibly positive ... We just thought it was tough love really, nothing negative about it". Because the song was released in the US shortly after the Columbine High School massacre, disc jockeys played the chorus backwards to avoid causing offence.
"England Made Me" was released as the album's second single on 6 July 1998. The CD version featured "Factory Radio" and "Child Psychology" as the B-sides, while the seven-inch vinyl edition included a cover of "Lord Lucan Is Missing" (1980) by the Dodgems. The video for "England Made Me", directed by Sonja Phillips, opens with an interior shot of an office building with staff members miming to the song. It cuts to children in a park doing the same, before the band members appear to walk down a street. People outside a farm house are seen miming; it ends with more footage of the band members. To promote the single, the band supported Pulp at their show in Finsbury Park, London and performed at the T in the Park festival.
"Wonderful Life", "Seasons in the Sun", "Factory Radio", "Lord Lucan Is Missing", a remix of Uptown Top Ranking" and the music videos for "Child Psychology" and " England Made Me" were included on the compilation album The Worst of Black Box Recorder (2001). England Made Me was included in the career-spanning Life Is Unfair (2018) CD box set alongside the band's other albums. A vinyl edition of this box set was issued the following year. In 2022, "Child Psychology" became a viral sensation on the video platform TikTok; in addition to this, a one-hour looped version was posted on YouTube. Due to the renewed interest in the track, Chrysalis Records posted an edited version of the track to Spotify.
Reception
Reviews of England Made Me were mixed. According to Swihart, though the album does not immediately appear to be a satirical statement on "anything, but rather an exquisite, even upbeat, bit of pop ... [e]ven when Black Box Recorder do inject a bit of pop cheerfulness into the music, it is seemingly done ironically". Rolling Stone writer James Hunter said Black Box Recorder are "totally of their time, ignoring guitar rock on the one hand and dance music on the other, and insisting on composure and clarity. Along the way, England Made Me gets off on its own erudite kicks". Anna Robinson in The Rough Guide to Rock (2003) called the album a "seductive and perverse listening experience. Sour times wrapped in a sugar coating. Beautiful and change." Clover said; "never once does [Nixey] offer easy emotion; neither does Haines's music let you off the psychological hook with easy melodies". According to Baranowski, the album "isn't without hooks, but musically nothing will catch in your head", except the chorus of "Child Psychology". Ron Hart of CMJ New Music Report said it "provides the perfect soundtrack to those mornings when you're ... wondering what the hell went wrong the night before". Sandlin said at the halfway point, the album slips into "barely-tolerable redundancy" as it loses the "casual, deliberate momentum it'd been building upon".
Some critics commented on Nixey's voice. Hatherley considered England Made Me to be in a "different league entirely" due to the substitution of Haines' "perpetually irritated rasp with the perfect vowels" of Nixey. Empire said Nixey's "opiated debutante tones take Haines' odium to new, discomfiting extremes", while Ferguson called her the band's "secret weapon". According to Moyer, the "innate beauty of Black Box Recorder is that Nixey can sing so sweet and innocently about kidnappings, murder, and the decay of Swinging London". Robert Christgau in The Village Voice said Nixey has a "rich, delicate, contained" voice that is "so neurotic that to expect her to give of herself would be meaningless". Sandlin considered her to have the kind of limited, faint murmur that is "certainly pleasant enough to draw you into her world without hope. But soon, you just feel yourself aching for her to begin screaming her dainty lungs out, just to shake up the melancholic monotony a bit".
Attention was also drawn to the album's lyrics, which critics were mixed on. Swihart said the songs Haines and Moore compose are "cleanly stylized in a way that conceals the raw-nerved lives their characters exist in but are also reflective of the internalization of such relentless barrenness" as the band "seemingly approach their subjects without judgment". Ferguson said the album serves as the "most elegant paean to suicide ever committed to tape. The fact that it's a song-suite almost entirely dedicated to how depressing England is ... you really have to wonder how the trio made it through the studio sessions without any self-inflicted wounds". According to Jamie Kiffel of Lollipop Magazine; "rarely do the lyrics get as specific as their simple singability would imply" as exemplified by "England Made Me". He added the "stories are weird, realistic, and leave plenty of room for your mind to color in the humor with a black marker". Sandlin wrote the band "just keep churning out more quaint songs about resigned depression" and after a while, the listener is "left with empty sorrow and overly reflective gobbledygook". Empire said; "curiously, though, it's the tunes less concerned with dissing Blighty and more preoccupied with escape and revenge that stay with you". Baranowski found it easy to laugh at some of the lyrics, noting Nixey is singing what Haines wrote; in one track Nixey is "pretending to be Haines who is pretending to be a teenaged mother".
England Made Me charted at number 110 on the UK Albums Chart, and "Child Psychology" and "England Made Me" peaked at numbers 82 and 89, respectively, on the UK Singles Chart. NME ranked the album 31st on their list of the year's 50 best releases.
Track listing
All songs written by Luke Haines and John Moore, except for where noted.
"Girl Singing in the Wreckage" – 2:42
"England Made Me" – 4:00
"New Baby Boom" – 2:10
"It's Only the End of the World" – 5:21
"Ideal Home" – 2:39
"Child Psychology" – 4:08
"I. C. One Female" – 2:19
"Up Town Top Ranking" (Althea Forrest, Donna Reid) – 3:57
"Swinging" – 3:52
"Kidnapping an Heiress" – 2:46
"Hated Sunday" – 3:16
Personnel
Personnel per booklet.
Black Box Recorder
Luke Haines – instruments
Sarah Nixey – vocals
John Moore – instruments
Production and design
Black Box Recorder – producer, engineer (track 8)
Phil Vinall – producer (all except track 5), engineer (track 1), mixing (track 1)
Martin Jenkins – engineer (tracks 2, 3, 10 and 11)
Teo Miller – mixing (tracks 2–11), engineer (tracks 4 and 6)
Pete Hofmann – engineer (track 5, 7 and 9)
BLAM – sleeve design
Dennis Hutchinson – cover photograph
RIP – band photograph
Barnaby's Photo Library – beachy head photographs
Charts
References
Citations
Sources
External links
England Made Me at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)
Review of "Child Psychology" at The New York Times
Interview at Spin
Live review at NME
1998 debut albums
Black Box Recorder albums
Chrysalis Records albums
Albums produced by Phil Vinall
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Facts%20of%20Life%20%28album%29
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The Facts of Life (album)
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The Facts of Life is the second studio album by English rock band Black Box Recorder, released on 1 May 2000 through Nude Records. Following the release of their debut album England Made Me (1998), the band did not tour to promote it. By early 1999, they were playing two new songs at shows; by June 1999, they were working on a new album. Recording sessions were produced between the band members and Pete Hoffman, continuing through to the end of the year while Luke Haines was occupied with his other act the Auteurs. The Facts of Life is a new wave, synth-pop and psychedelic-lounge rock album that took elements from the works of elements from the works of Momus, Pet Shop Boys and Saint Etienne. Alongside this, the Saint Etienne comparison extended to the lyrical style and frontwoman Sarah Nixey being seen as a counterpoint to that band's Sarah Cracknell.
The Facts of Life was met with favourable reviews from critics, many of whom praised Nixey's voice and the overall quality of the writing, while others commented on the lyrics. It reached number 37 in the United Kingdom and number 52 in Scotland, while "The Facts of Life" and "The Art of Driving" peaked at number 20 and 53, respectively, in the UK. "The Facts of Life" was released as the album's lead single in April 2000, which was promoted with an appearance on Top of the Pops. When the album was released, the band went on a short UK tour, followed by a show in Spain and a performance at Glastonbury Festival. "The Art of Driving" was released as the album's second single in July 2000, being promoted at the Reading and Leeds Festivals the following month.
Background and writing
Black Box Recorder released their debut studio album England Made Me in July 1998 through Chrysalis Records. Its two singles, "Child Psychology" and "England Made Me" reached number 80 and 82, respectively, on the UK Singles Chart. Musician John Moore said the band were dismayed that the album was not viewed as a pop album in the same manner that they thought it was. Frontwoman Sarah Nixey said the label did not understand the band, as they were seen as "their art project". They opted not to tour in order to promote the album, instead only performing at the Reading Festival. Sometime later, they started plotting their second album; during one occasion at a pub, the members shared stories of their first kisses.
Two weeks after swapping tales, Nixey visits Moore's residence in Little Venice, London. Here, bandmates Luke Haines and Moore showed her "May Queen", which she realised was a portrayal of her first kiss story. Nixey said the pair wanted their next album be a hit. She was mixed on this concept, wanting their music to have a wider reach while at the same time retaining anonymity. Nixey mentioned that several of the songs that had been written at this stage were upbeat with sex serving as the prominent theme. Between February and April 1999, Black Box Recorder played shows at The Garage in London, where they debuted two new tracks, namely "The Art of Driving" and "May Queen". Session musician Tim Weller had been drafted in to play drums for these appearances.
Development and recording
In June 1999, NME reported that Black Box Recorder left Chrysalis Records and signed with Nude Records. Saul Galpern, the label's founder, had heard the new material the band made and offered them a recording contract for four albums. Alongside this, the publication mentioned that the band were in the midst of recording their next album; Moore recounted that as it was the start of summer, there was a "breezy atmosphere, which rubbed of on us", viewing themselves as Blondie. Haines explained that they wrote two tracks that could be seen as hits, until they changed their minds, scrapping the songs "and decided to stop being Blondie". Sessions would continue into October 1999, by which time Haines was occupied promoting How I Learned to Love the Bootboys (1999) with his other band the Auteurs.
In addition to this, Black Box Recorder played at the Benicassim Festival in Spain, Reading and Leeds Festivals and CMJ Music Marathon in the United States. The Facts of Life was produced by the band and Pete Hoffman, who also handled engineer and mixing duties. Additional drums were provided by Weller on "The Facts of Life", "Straight Life" and "The Deverell Twins", and by Chris Wyles on "The English Motorway System" and "May Queen". Upon hearing that "The Facts of Life" was to be the album's first single, Haines was adamant about having Pete Craigie mixing it, with the latter having recently worked on "Honey to the Bee" (1999) by Billie. The band visit Craigie at his studio, where at Nixey's description, he "saturate[s] our perfect pop song with tons of whoosy-swooshy sounds," most of which were subsequently left out of the mix.
Music and themes
Barry Walters of Spin said the album's title conveys a "candor both straightforward and savagely ironic, born of hard-knock memories too clear to romanticize". The album shifts its lyrical focus to transportation, as heard in "The Art of Driving" and "The English Motorway System", moving away from the end-of-the-world narrative of their debut. Alongside this, Sonicnet's Tony Fletcher said the album "primarily conjures rural imagery — though its talk of nature walks and open fields, coming at a time when the English countryside is closed off to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, makes for a curiously nostalgic effect". AllMusic reviewer Dean Carlson said the band move away from the "voyeuristic, cynical stare" of England Made Me towards "suicide and car crashes and focused it on small-town dating and disenchanted sex lives". Discussing the lattter part, Moore said the manner that the album handles "sexuality is certainly in that sex is a slightly kind of seedy end-product of emotional entanglement".
The staff at Orlando Weekly wrote that it was "even more sinister beauty [than their debut], focusing their collective furrowed brow on British indifference and pedestrian society"; Neate remarked that the members' "sensibility and attitude remain unmistakably English, its songs steeped in a tradition of comfortably ironic, darkly humorous, self-mocking misery". He noted a comparison to Saint Etienne on some of the album's tracks, with "Weekend" featuring "precisely the kind of cultural coordinates" that they would do and "The English Motorway" using the travel system its named after as an allegory for a collapsing relationship as Saint Etienne had with "Like a Motorway" (1994). Ian Davies of Dotmusic extended this, saying that Saint Etienne-like lyricism is heard throughout The Facts of Life. Exclaim! Cam Lindsay felt that the "seductive whispers" of the lyrics evoked the style of Jarvis Cocker from Pulp.
Musically, the sound of The Facts of Life has been described as new wave and synth-pop, with elements from the works of Momus, Pet Shop Boys, Pink Floyd, Portishead and Saint Etienne. Kiran Aditham of Ink 19 called the album psychedelic-lounge rock, attributing the sound to one of band members who was a "major Absinthe importer". He added that it was "distant cousins" to the work of Air and Belle and Sebastian, "utiliz[ing] their relaxed songwriting nature to near-perfectly compliment the haunting vocals" of Nixey. NME Jim Alexander wrote that the music was "rigged with soulful flourishes, the tinkle of glockenspiel, gently-looped R&B; beats," mixing the direction of Air and Pulp to create "satin smooth subliminal pop". Lindsay extended the Pulp comparison to their album This Is Hardcore (1998), and also linked similarity to Serge Gainsbourg.
Pitchfork contributor Rich Juzwiak said that "this time out, the bare-bones approach is more lush and rich, paradoxically proving that 'minimal' does not necessarily have to mean 'sparse. He went on to say Nixey's "delicate, melismatic approach" to her vocals earned her a comparison to Olivia Newton-John. Wilson Neate of PopMatters saw Nixey as the "evil twin" of Sarah Cracknell from Saint Etienne, and while Nixey's parts are frequently "breathy and honey-coated, she's also capable of the aloof iciness of Nico, frequently combining the two registers within the same song to sublime effect".
Tracks
Walters wrote that the album's opening track, "The Art of Driving", swaps an "elaborate motoring metaphor for seduction, a boy's foot heavy on the accelerator, [and] a girl warning him to put on the brakes". The A.V. Club writer Keith Phipps said Nixey and Moore can be heard "trading thin, automobile-centered double entendres like a modern-day" iteration of Gainsbourg and his partner Jane Birkin, and went to say that the "borderline-kitschy synthesized strings" and "la la las" backing vocals had a Gainsbourg-esque "touch [to them] as well, using the common language of pop music to sneak in a subversive notion or two". Juzwiak said it is a "sweeping number" that features an echo-enhanced "beat, sodden bass, and lightly strummed guitar to create a pillow of sound". "Weekend" is a John Barry-esque track, which includes a reference to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958) by Alan Sillitoe during its chorus section. "The English Motorway System" uses the road network of the same name as a metaphor for a deteriorating relationship. Author Guy Mankowski wrote in Albion's Secret History – Snapshots of England's Pop Rebels and Outsiders (2021) that in the song, Haines' "psyche had been warped by urban living", akin to a J. G. Ballard-like figure.
"May Queen", which was compared to the work of Belle and Sebastian, is an electroacoustic song that takes elements from 1950s sci-fi and progressive rock. The track discusses two children having their first kiss on a school playground, which Alexander said "dissolv[es] in imagined blood". With "Sex Life", Nixey sings provocative lyrics that eventually switch girl for boy, in a manner that recalled "Girls & Boys" by Blur (1994). "French Rock'n'Roll" discusses a woman being saved from suicide by the effect of music; Juzwiak said the track's chorus section was accompanied by a guitar part that "intensifies the canned drums and xylophone twinkling". The song's "la la la" chorus section evoked "Je t'aime... moi non plus" (1967) by Birkin. "The Facts of Life" has a reggae-like beat, while its melody was reminiscent of the one in "Thank You" (2000) by Dido. Nixey sings in staccato form, bordering on rapping, as she assumes the role of a health teacher. Overall, it evoked "Never Ever" (1997) by All Saints and "Honey to the Bee" (1999) by Billie; Carlson said the song came across as a "Stanley Kubrick-directed All Saints production. Simple, gorgeous, chart-friendly, and just plain evil".
The title of "Straight Life" is a reference to "Street Life" (1973) by Roxy Music. Alexander wrote that it "celebrates happily-married, DIY-enthusiast normality", with Juzwiak adding that it has a "perfect midtempo, subdued electro beat" that is buried in the recording. "Gift Horse" discusses murderer John Christie, who was later hanged, and a body being located in a garden in the Notting Hill of London. Mark Edwards of The Times wrote that the hunt for evidence is juxtaposed with Nixey exclaiming "I just want to be loved" during the chorus section. "The Deverell Twins" talks about two boys from the 1880s, who died by drowning in the River Thames. Haines mentioned that it evolved into a "psycho-geographical song [...] the idea of redefining a place in terms of what's gone on there". In a review for Q, journalist Stuart Maconie said in "Goodnight Kiss", the album's closing track, the "end of an evening is expanded into a valediction for England", with references to locations such as the Blackpool Tower, Severn Bridge and Southend-on-Sea. Rock critic Robert Christgau said the two bonus tracks, "Start as You Mean to Go On" and "Brutality", "would fit better" on England Made Me. With "Brutality", Freaky Trigger contributor Robin Carmody said Nixey sounds clearly "disgusted by what she's chronicling, she can't be part of it, she looks back at its historical association with her own social class and background with deep contempt".
Release
Preceded by a one-off show in London, "The Facts of Life" was released as the lead single from The Facts of Life on 10 April 2000. Two versions were released on CD: the first with a radio edit of "The Facts of Life", "Soul Boy" and "Start as You Mean to Go On" and the second with "Brutality" and "Watch the Angel, Not the Wire". The music video for "The Facts of Life", directed by Lindy Heymann, takes place in a classroom with Nixey as the teacher, which is interspersed with shots of two students getting ready for school. On 19 April 2000, Haines criticized Nude Records' "artless and crass" promotional campaign for the album, branding them "fucking cunts" during an interview. A representative from the label was confused by Haines' words, explaining that Nude have a "good relationship with the band and the manager". Two days after this incident, the band appeared on Top of the Pops. The Facts of Life was released on 1 May 2000 through Nude Records, which was promoted with a short, four-date tour of the UK in the middle of the month. In June 2000, the band played a one-off show in Seville, Spain in the lead up to a performance at Glastonbury Festival.
"The Art of Driving" was released as the second single from The Facts of Life on 3 July 2000. The song's music video, directed by Perou, stars members of the band as crash test dummies driving a car against a white void. Animations of 3D models of people and mathematical figures are seen throughout. Two versions were issued on CD: the first with a radio edit of "The Art of Driving", a remix of "The Facts of Life" and a cover of "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" (1974) by David Bowie, and the second with a remix of the England Made Me track "Uptown Top Ranking" and the radio edit and music video of "The Facts of Life". The Bowie cover, which was one of Nixey's favourites songs by Bowie, was taken from an Evening Session the band did for BBC Radio 1. Nixey said the "The Facts of Life" remix was done by Cocker and his bandmate Steve Mackey; it takes samples from 1970s pornographic films. It came about from a meeting between Haines and Cocker a party when Cocker asked him for a cigarette to which Haines replied "yeah, if you remix our single". The following month, the band performed at the Reading and Leeds Festivals. The Facts of Life was released in the United States on 20 March 2001 through Jetset Records with the addition of "Start as You Mean to Go on" and "Brutality".
"Watch the Angel, Not the Wire", "Start as You Mean to Go On", "Brutality", "Soul Boy", the Bowie cover, the remixes of "The Facts of Life" and "Uptown Top Ranking" and the music videos for "The Art of Driving" and "The Facts of Life" were included on the compilation album The Worst of Black Box Recorder (2001). The Facts of Life was included in the career-spanning Life Is Unfair (2018) CD box set alongside the band's other albums. A vinyl edition of this box set was issued the following year.
Reception
The Facts of Life was met with generally favourable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 82, based on 16 reviews.
Reviewers were generally positive on the album's quality. Entertainment Weekly writer Rob Brunner wrote that it was "perfect driving music, be it on the English motorway system or elsewhere". Carlson noted that keeping with their debut, The Facts of Life had "barren instrumentation [...] but this time around, there seems to be a pop sensibility that evokes far more seditious strengths than ever before", which offered a "delightfully sinister contradiction". The Guardian critic Caroline Sullivan remarked that when aided by Nixey, Haines "perfected the art of the deceptively tranquil pop song" as there was "always more going on under the surface than you expect". Alexander said the "shocking news is that Black Box Recorder seem to have cheered up a little", adding that the music made "several leaps since the spectral atmospherics of their debut". Juzwiak that it was "more finely crafted" than their debut, despite it sharing the same minimalistic tone as that release. Maconie wrote that while "there's still many penumbral moments on The Facts Of Life, happily [the band] blossomed into a real pop group - albeit of a very skewed sort".
A few of the critics commented on the album's lyrics. Brunner said "not many bands could make chilly lines [...] sound mysterious and alluring, but Recorder's beautiful, strange tunes do exactly that". Carlson said the album was a "precise, meticulous, deeply disturbing experience. [...] Subversion has rarely sounded this startling". Juzwiak felt that the band remained a "bit dopey when it comes to lyrics", though does not blame Nixey as "she's merely a mouthpiece" for Haines. Neate said the band might seem like they are commenting on the modern "socio-cultural landscape, but what they're doing is absolutely symptomatic of it". Bob Gulla of Wall of Sound praised Haines for something that "few writers can pull off such [as] a sharp, smart sense of sarcasm and still keep listeners enthralled". Lindsay took pride in analysing the album's lyrics, mentioning that "like their debut album, this is sick and twisted, but what else would you expect from the leader of the Auteurs - a man that once wrote an album about the joys of terrorism".
Several reviewers praised Nixey's voice. Rolling Stone reviewer Rob Sheffield said Nixey's "velvet vocals are the centerpiece of the music, making the melodies soar over" the guitar and keyboard instrumentation. musicOMH contributor Michael Hubbard said her vocals were "seductive throughout, luring the listener to believe everything she says". Carlson said Nixey conveys "impassioned distance that serves up the disparagement nicely", while Christgau remarked that he heard Nixey's "careful tone and caring words and find kindness there". Alexander wrote that Nixey sounds "as if the daily Stepford wife dose of gin and Valium holds little relief". Juzwiak thought that Nixey continued to be "faulty in her cleverness and smugness", mentioning that "when she's not merely speaking and opens her pipes to really sing, she proves herself a righteous puppet". Phipps said there was "something everyday and evil in the way" Nixey can make some of the lyrics "sound, even if you have to listen to hear it in the midst of this lovely poison-candybox of an album". Neate added to this, saying that Nixey's "beautiful vocal melodies are generally at complete odds with the content of the lyrics, which is at times harrowing".
In the UK, The Facts of Life peaked at number 37 on the UK Albums Chart and number four on the UK Independent Albums Chart, while in Scotland, it reached number 52. "The Facts of Life" and "The Art of Driving" appeared on the UK Singles Chart at number 20 and 53, respectively.
Track listing
All songs written by Luke Haines and John Moore.
"The Art of Driving" – 4:25
"Weekend" – 2:27
"The English Motorway System" – 4:40
"May Queen" – 3:39
"Sex Life" – 2:56
"French Rock'N'Roll" – 3:01
"The Facts of Life" – 4:37
"Straight Life" – 4:09
"Gift Horse" – 3:30
"The Deverell Twins" – 2:43
"Goodnight Kiss" – 3:45
US bonus tracks
"Start as You Mean to Go On" – 2:30
"Brutality" – 2:19
Personnel
Personnel per back cover.
Black Box Recorder
John Moore – instruments
Sarah Nixey – vocals
Luke Haines – instruments
Additional musicians
Tim Weller – additional drums (tracks 7, 8 and 10)
Chris Wyles – additional drums (tracks 3 and 4)
Production and design
Black Box Recorder – producer
Pete Hoffman – producer, engineer, mixing
AP;D – art direction, design
Alasdair McLellan – model photography
Perou – band photography
Charts
References
Citations
Sources
External links
The Facts of Life at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)
Review at Billboard
Review at CMJ New Music Monthly
The Facts of Life microsite
2000 albums
Black Box Recorder albums
Albums produced by Phil Vinall
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin%20Mahon
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Gavin Mahon
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Gavin Andrew Mahon (born 2 January 1977) is an English former professional footballer who played as a defensive midfielder.
Mahon started his career as a trainee at Wolverhampton Wanderers, although he did not make any first-team appearances for the club. In July 1996, he joined Hereford United on a free transfer, and went on to play two-and-a-half years of regular first-team football. Mahon signed for Brentford in November 1998, for a fee that increased to £130,000. He helped the club earn promotion from Division Three during the 1998–99 season, and made 166 appearances for the west London club. He joined Watford for £150,000 in March 2002, and captained the club to promotion into the Premier League.
Mahon then signed for Queens Park Rangers ahead of the 2008–09 season, following a successful loan spell the previous season. Injuries hampered the latter stages of his QPR career, and he was briefly loaned out to Crystal Palace in March 2011, although he did not make any appearances for the club. Mahon signed for Notts County on a free transfer in August 2011. He was loaned to Stevenage in February 2013, for the remainder of the 2012–13 season. Mahon left Notts County at the end of the season, and briefly joined Portsmouth in October 2013 for a one-month spell. He signed for Tamworth in December 2013, playing for the club for the rest of the 2013–14 season in what was the final playing role of his football career.
Playing career
Early career
Mahon began his career with Wolverhampton Wanderers, where he progressed through the club's youth academy and played regularly for the youth team. He was released by Wolves at the end of the 1995–96 season, having made no first-team appearances. In July 1996, he signed for Hereford United of Division Three on a free transfer, making his first professional appearance in the club's 1–0 victory against Doncaster Rovers on 24 August 1996. Mahon scored the first goal of his career during the same season, in a 3–0 victory against Rochdale. He played seven times during the early stages of the season, although did not make any further first-team appearances from November onwards, with Hereford suffering relegation to the Conference National at the end of the season. Mahon remained at Hereford for the 1997–98 season, playing in all 42 league matches as Hereford finished the season in sixth-place.
Brentford
In November 1998, Mahon signed for Division Three club Brentford, joining for a nominal fee of £50,000, which eventually increased to £130,000 under the terms of the deal. Mahon debted for Brentford in the club's 2–1 defeat to Leyton Orient at Brisbane Road on 21 November 1998, and played regularly in central midfield. He scored his first goal for Brentford in the club's first match of 1999, scoring the third goal in a 3–1 victory against Barnet at Griffin Park. Brentford earned promotion to Division Two as champions in Mahon's first season there, winning the league by four points. He made 32 appearances during the season, contributing with four goals. The 1999–00 season was Mahon's first full season with the west London club, making 44 appearances in all competitions and scoring three times, as Brentford consolidated their place in Division Two with a mid-table finish.
Mahon played regularly during the 2000–01 season, making 51 appearances in league and cup competitions, as Brentford once again finished in mid-table. He scored once that season, scoring the equalising goal in an away game against Bristol City in December 2000, a match that Brentford went on to win 2–1. He was also named in the starting line-up for the first competitive final of his career, as Brentford lost 2–1 to Port Vale in the Football League Trophy final. Mahon received the first red card of his career that season; he was sent-off in the 83rd-minute in a 1–0 home defeat to Swindon Town on 11 April 2002. His fourth consecutive season at Brentford started with the club producing an eight-match unbeaten start to the season. He made 39 appearances during the season, and was named Brentford's Player of the Year for the season despite leaving the west London club three months before the end of the season. During his three-and-a-half years at Brentford, Mahon made 166 appearances in all competitions, scoring eight goals.
Watford
In March 2002, Mahon signed for Division One club Watford for an initial fee of £150,000. The move came about as a result of Watford reserve team manager Ray Lewington, who had previously signed Mahon at Brentford, recommending the player to new manager Gianluca Vialli. Vialli subsequently went to watch him play, and opted to make Mahon his first signing for the club. On signing for Watford, Mahon stated – "As soon as I knew Watford were interested I was ready to jump at the chance". He made his Watford debut on 9 March 2002, playing the whole match in a 2–0 away victory against Crystal Palace. Mahon made a further five appearances for the club during the remainder of the 2001–02 season. Ahead of the 2002–03 season, under the management of Lewington once again following Vialli's sacking, Mahon was one of several players who took a voluntary pay cut as a result Watford's financial troubles. Shortly before the start of pre-season, Watford stated that Mahon was going to miss the opening months of the new season after sustaining a knee injury in May 2002. After playing in the reserve team for two months to gain fitness, Mahon returned to the first team in the club's 2–1 victory against Burnley at Vicarage Road on 30 November 2002, and made 22 appearances during the season. Five of those appearances were in Watford's FA Cup run, as they lost 2–1 in the semi-final to Southampton at Villa Park.
Mahon played in the club's opening game of the 2003–04 season, a 1–0 home victory over AFC Bournemouth in the League Cup, and played in every game during the first two months of the season. An injury in the club's 1–0 away victory against Crewe Alexandra on 4 October 2003 ultimately ruled Mahon out for two months. In January 2004, Mahon scored his first goal for Watford, scoring with a header to give the club a brief lead over Premier League club Chelsea in the third round of the FA Cup, in an eventual 2–2 draw. He added to his goal tally twice during the second half of the season, in home matches against Sunderland and Derby County respectively. The goals meant Mahon had scored three times during a season that produced another mid-table finish, making 36 appearances in all competitions. Shortly after the season had finished, he was voted as the club's Player of the Season. Two months into the 2004–05 season, in October 2004, Mahon signed a new three-year contract extension with the club, keeping him at Watford until 2007. On Mahon signing the new deal, Lewington stated – "I've known Gavin a long time and it doesn't surprise me that he's become a very important part of our squad". He made 51 appearances during the season. Watford narrowly avoided relegation by two points under the new management of Aidy Boothroyd, after picking up seven points from their final three matches.
Following the departure of previous captain Sean Dyche, Mahon was appointed club captain ahead of the 2005–06 season. Mahon scored his first goal of the season in a 3–1 home victory against Burnley on 20 August 2005 Watford reached the play-offs that season, with Mahon playing in all three matches as Watford defeated Crystal Palace 3–0 on aggregate in the semi-finals, before defeating Leeds United by a 3–0 scoreline in the final at the Millennium Stadium on 21 May 2006. The victory meant Watford had earned promotion to the Premier League in Mahon's first season as captain, during which he made 43 appearances. Mahon signed a two-year contract extension with the club on 18 July 2006. He subsequently started in the club's first game since their return to the Premier League, playing the whole match as Watford lost 2–1 to Everton at Goodison Park. Mahon made 38 appearances during the season, scoring once with a "fierce volley" in a 4–2 victory against Portsmouth, a goal that was nominated for April's Goal of the Month award. Watford were relegated back to the Championship after finishing in 20th position. The club made the FA Cup semi-final that season, losing 4–1 to Manchester United at Villa Park, with Mahon playing in three of Watford's five FA Cup ties.
With the club back in the Championship for the 2007–08 season, Mahon continued to play regularly during the first half of the season, making 19 appearances. In December 2007, manager Aidy Boothroyd told Mahon that he wanted to build a squad that was ready for the Premier League, and that Mahon did not feature in his future plans. Mahon stated – "I said to Aidy that I wanted to stay, at least until the end of the season. I wanted to get a second promotion in three years on my CV. Aidy explained his reasons why, and I have no grudges with him for that". Mahon left Watford when the club were in first place in the Championship, although they would ultimately finish in sixth position. Boothroyd later stated that he regretted letting Mahon leave "too early". During his five-and-a-half-year spell with Watford, Mahon made 215 appearances and scored seven goals.
Queens Park Rangers
Mahon subsequently joined Championship rivals Queens Park Rangers on an 'emergency loan' basis on 31 December 2007, with a view to a permanent transfer at the end of the season. QPR beat "four or five other Championship sides" to his signature. Watford received an initial payment of £200,000 for Mahon, with an additional £50,000 due on further clauses. Although disappointed by his exit at Watford, Mahon stated it was "a very exciting time to be joining" QPR, and that "the ambition and drive of the board and the new investors really impressed me and I'm delighted to be here". He made his debut a day after signing, coming on as a 67th-minute substitute in the club's 3–1 victory against Leicester City at Loftus Road. Mahon scored his first goal for the club on 12 February 2008, the opening goal of the match as QPR squandered a two-goal lead to lose 4–2 at home to Burnley. He made 17 appearances during the second half of the season, with QPR finishing the season in 14th place. Mahon signed for the club on a permanent basis at the end of the season.
Under the new management of Iain Dowie, Mahon and QPR began the 2008–09 season with five victories in their first six matches. Mahon scored his first goal of the season in a 1–0 home victory against Cardiff City on 8 November 2008, coming on as a 67th-minute substitute, before scoring a headed goal against a nine-man Cardiff team with 10 minutes remaining. The goal was highlighted in the BBC documentary The Four Year Plan, as joint-owner Flavio Briatore ordered sporting director Gianni Paladini into "going down to the touchline to order caretaker manager Gareth Ainsworth to bring Gavin Mahon off the bench. Mahon promptly scores a last gasp winner and Briatore, his football genius now proven, erupts in a mixture of self-righteous anger and joy in the directors' box". His second goal of the season came in April 2009, scoring with a diving header to equalise in a match QPR had trailed by two goals to Sheffield Wednesday, with Mahon atoning for his earlier own goal. QPR went on to win the match 3–2, all of their goals coming in the last half-hour of the match. He played under three different managers during the season, making 40 appearances as the club finished in mid-table.
Mahon started in QPR's opening game of the 2009–10 season on 8 August 2009, playing the whole match as the club drew 1–1 at home to Blackpool. He played regularly in the opening months of the season, making nine appearances in all competitions, scoring once, with QPR winning seven of the games. He suffered a knee injury in November 2009, which would ultimately rule him out for the remainder of the season. With Mahon's contract expiring at the end of the season, manager Neil Warnock stated – "He'll probably come back and do a pre-season with us and try and show me what he can do. I've always liked Gavin, we've just got to wait and see who's available". Despite being released at the 2009–10 season, he re-joined the club in October 2010 on a one-month contract, describing the move as being "like a trial". Although he did not make any further first-team appearances for QPR, the monthly deal was extended on four occasions.
He joined Championship club Crystal Palace on loan until the end of the 2010–11 season on 24 March 2011. He did not make any appearances during the loan spell and returned to his parent club in May 2011. A month after his return, Mahon was one of eight players to be released by QPR. During his time at the club, he scored four goals in 66 appearances.
Notts County
Ahead of the 2011–12 season, Mahon joined former club Watford for pre-season training in order to regain fitness ahead of the new season. Although no transfer materialised, he played for Watford against Brentford in a friendly at the end of July 2011, and stated he "really appreciated the opportunity" Watford gave him to train with the club.
Two weeks into the new season, on 25 August 2011, Mahon signed for League One club Notts County on an initial pay-as-you-play deal. He made his debut for the club two days later as Notts County lost 2–0 away to Preston North End. Mahon impressed manager Martin Allen during his first month with the club, and Allen wished to secure a longer deal for the player – "The manager called me a few weeks ago and said he'd like to try to extend the deal to the end of the season". Mahon signed an 18-month contract with Notts County on 13 October 2012, keeping him contracted to the club until the summer of 2013. He was described as a "pivotal" player in Notts County's season, and went on to make 34 appearances as they missed out on a play-off place on goal difference. At the end of the season, Notts County stated they wanted to retain Mahon's services, and the player was offered a new one-year contract, which he signed on 28 June 2012.
Mahon began his second season at Notts County playing predominantly as a substitute, making six starting appearances and a further nine as a substitute during the first half of the season. In November 2012, it was revealed that Mahon was the subject of loan bids from two League Two clubs in the form of Bristol Rovers and Port Vale. He rejected the opportunity of going out on loan after Notts County manager Keith Curle told him there was still of chance of him regaining his first-team place. However, two weeks later, Mahon stated he was prepared to leave Meadow Lane if he did not play more games – "You do think like that sometimes, when you travel halfway across the country to get splinters in your backside, but that's football, you have to wait for your chance to come. I told him the last thing I want to do is leave a club like Notts, but when you get to my age you have got to play, especially if you want to go on and play next season".
In February 2013, Mahon joined fellow League One club Stevenage on a loan agreement for the remainder of the 2012–13 season. He made his Stevenage debut in the club's 2–1 away defeat to Shrewsbury Town on 23 February, playing the whole match. Mahon made nine appearances for the club during the two-month loan spell. Mahon was released by Notts County at the end of the 2012–13 season.
Portsmouth
Mahon was without a club for the first two months of the 2013–14 season, eventually signing for League Two club Portsmouth on a one-month contract on 4 October 2013. He made his Portsmouth debut four days after signing, playing the whole match in a 2–1 Football League Trophy away win at Oxford United. Mahon was sent-off in a 2–1 defeat to former club Stevenage in an FA Cup tie on 9 November 2013, receiving a straight red card for an elbow on Filipe Morais. He made three appearances during his time at Portsmouth, leaving upon the expiry of his contract on 28 November 2013.
Tamworth
In December 2013, Mahon joined Conference Premier club Tamworth on a short-term deal until the end of the 2013–14 season. He made his debut for Tamworth in the club's 2–0 home victory over Halifax Town on 4 January 2014, playing the whole match. Mahon played regularly for Tamworth during the second half of the season, starting in all of the 23 games he played in. He left Tamworth upon the expiry of his contract in May 2014.
Ahead of the 2014–15 season, Mahon was invited to spend time on trial at Barnet, and he played in a pre-season friendly fixture against Peterborough United in July 2014. No transfer materialised and Mahon subsequently retired from playing, opting to work for a sports consultancy company.
Style of play
Mahon was predominantly deployed as a defensive midfielder throughout his career. He was described by his former teammate at Notts County, Alan Judge, as being a "pivotal point" in the centre of midfield due to his desire to play the ball on the floor, as well as being calm on the ball.
Personal life
Mahon has two children called Mia and Alfie. He supports Birmingham City.
After his retirement from playing, Mahon joined the Stellar Group, a sports consultancy company. He undertakes the role of Football Intermediary, a position to help pass on his knowledge and understanding to younger players.
Career statistics
A. The "League" column constitutes appearances and goals (including those as a substitute) in the Football League and Football Conference.
B. The "Other" column constitutes appearances and goals (including those as a substitute) in the FA Trophy, Football League Trophy and play-offs.
Honours
Brentford
Football League Third Division: 1998–99
Watford
Football League Championship play-offs: 2006
Individual
Watford Player of the Year: 2003–04
References
External links
1977 births
Footballers from Birmingham, West Midlands
Living people
English men's footballers
Men's association football midfielders
Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. players
Hereford United F.C. players
Brentford F.C. players
Watford F.C. players
Queens Park Rangers F.C. players
Crystal Palace F.C. players
Notts County F.C. players
Stevenage F.C. players
Portsmouth F.C. players
Tamworth F.C. players
Premier League players
English Football League players
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5032094
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley%20Young
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Ashley Young
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Ashley Simon Young (born 9 July 1985) is an English professional footballer who plays as a full-back for Premier League club Everton.
Young started his career as a winger at Watford and made his first senior appearance in 2003 under manager Ray Lewington. He became a first team regular in the 2004–05 season and was one of Watford's key players in their promotion-winning 2005–06 season. In January 2007, he transferred to Aston Villa for an initial fee of £8 million where he won the PFA Young Player of the Year award in 2009. In June 2011, Young signed with Manchester United for a fee of around £17 million. He won five trophies at United, including the Premier League in 2013, the FA Cup in 2016 and the Europa League in 2017. In January 2020, Young signed for Inter Milan, with whom he won the Serie A title, becoming only the third Englishman to win Italy's top flight league. He returned to his former club Aston Villa in 2021, captaining them to a 7th-placed finish in his second season. He subsequently signed for Everton in July 2023 on an initial one-year contract.
Young earned 39 caps for England between 2007 and 2018, scoring seven international goals. He was part of the squads for UEFA Euro 2012 and the 2018 FIFA World Cup, reaching the semi-finals of the latter.
Club career
Watford
Young joined the Watford academy system at 10 years of age. He developed there until the summer of 2001, when he was informed by the club that he wouldn't receive a full scholarship and could look for another football team. Despite being turned away, Young stayed on at the club on a part-time basis and endeavoured to improve himself as a player and prove he could make it to the first team. He started to train with the Under-18s, despite being 16, and was starting games by the end of the season. He progressed on to the Under-21s and was eventually offered a professional deal by the club. The 18-year-old was handed his first-team debut under Ray Lewington in September 2003, scoring as a substitute against Millwall. He achieved five substitute appearances that season, scoring three goals, and made his first start for the club in the League Cup. Young came to prominence in the 2004–05 season, playing a part in 34 of Watford's league matches as they struggled to survive in the Championship. Although he failed to find the net, his performance during this season earned him the club's Young Player of the Season award.
Under Aidy Boothroyd in the 2005–06 season, Young was given a new lease of life as a striker and right winger. Young started 41 League matches, finding the net 15 times, including a playoff semi-final goal against Crystal Palace, as Watford qualified for the play-offs and eventually beat Leeds United 3–0 to gain promotion to the Premier League. During that season, Young scored a number of spectacular goals, including free-kicks against Plymouth Argyle and Leeds, a shot into the top corner from 30 yards out against Coventry City, and a curling shot against Queens Park Rangers. It was during this season, though, that Young was sent off for the first time in his career, in the local derby away at Luton Town.
Young began Watford's 2006–07 Premier League season well, scoring three times in the league, including a last minute strike in a 3–3 draw with Fulham (he had also scored Watford's second goal in the match), and a goal against Middlesbrough, in Watford's first win of the season in October. He also scored a free-kick in a 2–1 home win over Hull City in the League Cup. In the January 2007 transfer window, three unnamed clubs made £5 million offers for the under-21 international. Watford rejected these approaches, as well as an offer of £7 million, again from an unnamed club. An improved offer of nearly £10 million from West Ham United was accepted. However, Young rejected the move, opting to wait for offers from clubs for whom relegation was not an issue.
Aston Villa
2007–2009
On 23 January 2007, Aston Villa completed the signing of Young for a fee of £8 million (rising to £9.65 million with add-ons). At the time, this was the highest fee Aston Villa had ever paid for a player. On 31 January 2007, he scored on his debut for Villa at St James' Park against Newcastle United, but Villa went on to lose 3–1. Young started the 2007–08 season well, receiving several Man of the Match awards, culminating in a call-up to the England squad.
In the 2007–08 Premier League season, Young finished second to Cesc Fàbregas in assists with 17. Young was included in the Premier League Team of the Year, and apart from Portsmouth's David James, was the only other player who did not come from any of the 'Big Four' (Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United) to make it into the best XI of the season.
On 20 April 2008, Young scored two goals and assisted two goals for Aston Villa against Birmingham City at Villa Park and Villa went on to win the match 5–1. He also scored the winner against Danish club Odense Boldklub in Villa's home leg of the UEFA Intertoto Cup third round. On 10 October 2008, Young won the Premier League Player of the Month award. This was due to his performances in the 2008–09 Premier League season. Having also won the award in April 2008, Young joins the list of players who have won the award more than once including Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard. On 7 December 2008, in the 3–2 win over Everton, Young scored two goals, one being an injury time winner after Everton's Joleon Lescott, a boyhood Villa fan, had equalised seconds earlier. Manager Martin O'Neill later described the player as being 'world-class' in the post-match press conference. Young signed a new four-year contract until 2012 on 4 November 2008. On 10 January 2009, Young was again awarded the Premier League Player of the Month award for December, along with O'Neill, who won the Manager of the Month award. He became the first ever player to win three Premier League Player of the Month awards in the same year. During a match against Sunderland on 18 January 2009, Young was sent off for a two-footed foul on Sunderland's Dean Whitehead. On 26 April 2009, he won the PFA Young Player of the Year award.
2009–2011
On 24 August 2009, Young scored a penalty as Aston Villa won 3–1 against Liverpool at Anfield. He did, however, miss a penalty three days later in a home tie in the UEFA Europa League against Rapid Wien. Young won two penalties in the first half of the match (one that he missed, the other that was converted by James Milner) as Aston Villa were eliminated from the tournament on the away goals rule.
During the 2010–11 season, Young became vice-captain of the club and played in a new free role behind the striker, allowing him to move from wing to wing and through the centre. Young scored his first goal of the 2010–11 season with a direct free-kick in the Premier League match at home to Bolton Wanderers on 18 September 2010. He ended the season with nine goals and fourteen assists in 39 appearances for Villa in all competitions. With one year left to run on his current contract, Young stated that he would not make a decision on his future until the end of the season. On 20 June 2011, new Villa manager Alex McLeish admitted that he was resigned to losing Young, stating, "It's not confirmed yet but it does seem likely."
Manchester United
2011–2014
On 23 June 2011, Young completed a move to Manchester United for an undisclosed fee, reportedly around £17 million, having passed a medical the day before, beating Liverpool to the signing. He signed a five-year deal with the club. He was handed the number 18 shirt previously worn by Paul Scholes. He made his debut for United in a 3–2 derby win over Manchester City in the 2011 FA Community Shield, playing the full 90 minutes and making an assist.
He made his league debut for United against West Bromwich Albion on 14 August 2011, setting up the first goal for Wayne Rooney and forcing an own goal after a run down the left flank and cross, in a 2–1 away win. He scored his first two goals for United on 28 August in an 8–2 victory against Arsenal at Old Trafford. Both occurring after cutting inside from the left flank and bending two right foot shots into the far corner. Young made his debut in the UEFA Champions League on 27 September 2011, scoring a headed goal in the 90th minute to help Manchester United to a 3–3 draw against Basel. After a long-term injury, Young returned on the field at Stamford Bridge in a 3–3 Premier League draw against Chelsea on 5 February 2012. On 16 February, he scored a goal for the lead in a Europa League 2–0 away win against Ajax at the Amsterdam Arena. On 4 March 2012, Young scored two goals and made an assist against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane in a 3–1 Premier League win. On 2 April, he scored in a 2–0 win against Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park.
2014–2017
After playing the position in pre-season, Young started in Louis van Gaal's first competitive game on 16 August 2014 as a wing-back in a 3–5–2 formation, which saw United lose 2–1 to Swansea City. He suffered a hamstring injury during a 1–1 draw against Stoke City on 1 January 2015. Young made his return on 3 February in a 3–0 win against Cambridge United, coming on in the 81st minute for Marcos Rojo. On 4 March, Young scored his first goal of the season in a 1–0 victory over Newcastle United. On 12 April, he was named Man of the Match after he scored the equalising goal and provided two assists in a 4–2 home win over Manchester City. He played an instrumental role in United's 2–1 win over Crystal Palace on 9 May, with him winning a penalty which Juan Mata converted and providing the assist for Marouane Fellaini's header, leading to him again being Man of the Match. In the following match on 17 May, Young again provided an assist, this time for Ander Herrera's volley against Arsenal, which finished in a 1–1 draw. Young spent the season playing both on the wing and at wing-back under Van Gaal, the latter being a position which the manager felt was his best.
On 7 August 2015, Young signed a new three-year contract with Manchester United, keeping him at the club until June 2018, with the option to extend a further year. Young's appearances at the beginning of the season were slim, with him making only one start in United's opening seven Premier League games, this being in the opening game on 8 August 2015, a 1–0 win against Tottenham Hotspur. On 12 September, Young played through debutant Anthony Martial to score his first goal for United in a 3–1 victory against rivals Liverpool. Young returned to the starting XI at left-back on 4 October against Arsenal, ending in a 3–0 away defeat. He started at right-back against West Brom on 7 November, which ended in a 2–0 win for United; this was a position he frequently played during November, December and January due to injury to Antonio Valencia. On 2 January 2016, Young assisted Anthony Martial with a cross into the box to open the scoring against Swansea City, with the game ending in a 2–1 win for United. Young suffered a 'severe groin injury' against Liverpool on 17 January which led to him being sidelined for several months. He made his return on 10 April against Tottenham Hotspur, replacing Marcus Rashford at half time, playing upfront in a 3–0 defeat. The decision to play Young as a striker saw Van Gaal face heavy criticism, however the Dutchman defended his actions by explaining he "wanted more running in behind." Young scored his only goal of the season on 17 May, the last day of the Premier League, in a 3–1 win against AFC Bournemouth after coming on as a substitute for Anthony Martial. On 21 May, he won the FA Cup after defeating Crystal Palace 2–1 in the final after extra time, playing at both striker and left-back after replacing Marcus Rashford in the 72nd minute – marking his third domestic trophy with the club.
The appointment of José Mourinho as manager led to Young's game time being limited in the first half of the season. His first appearance was on 15 September 2016 in the Europa League against Feyenoord, coming on as a 63rd-minute substitute for Juan Mata in a 1–0 loss. His first start was against Northampton Town in the EFL Cup on 21 September, with Young playing on the wing in a 3–1 victory. Young featured in the next two games as a substitute, against Leicester City in a 4–1 league victory on 24 September and on 29 September against Zorya Luhansk in a 1–0 win in the Europa League. From October to January, Young managed to only make four appearances – all of which came as starts at wing-back or at full-back. Despite being limited for chances, one of these came against rivals Liverpool on 17 October, in a 0–0 draw at Anfield. His next start came against Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup on 19 February 2017, playing the full 90 minutes in the 2–1 away win. After this game Young started to play far more regularly, featuring heavily in March and April. He was an unused substitute for the 2017 EFL Cup Final against Southampton on 26 February, which United won 3–2. Young made his first assist of the season on 19 March against Middlesbrough, crossing the ball to Marouane Fellaini, who headed in the opening goal of a 3–1 victory. On 16 April, Young captained Manchester United for the first time in a 2–0 win against Chelsea. His season ended after suffering an injury against Celta Vigo in the Europa League semi-final first leg on 4 May, after coming on for Henrikh Mkhitaryan in the 78th minute.
2017–2020
Young's first start of the campaign came at right-back on 12 September 2017 in a 3–0 win against Basel in the Champions League, assisting with the opening goal with a cross to Marouane Fellaini in the 35th minute, he was also captain for the match. His performance led him to start at left-back in United's 4–0 victory over Everton on 17 September. On 28 November, Young scored a brace for the first time since March 2012 against his former club Watford, the opening two goals, one of them being a 30-yard freekick into the top left corner, in a 4–2 win at Vicarage Road.
In February 2019, Young signed a new contract with Manchester United until 2020. He was appointed as United's club captain in August 2019.
Young scored the final goal of his Manchester United career on 12 December 2019, scoring the first in a 4-0 victory against AZ Alkmaar in the group stages of the Europa League.
Inter Milan
Young signed for Italian Serie A club Inter Milan on 17 January 2020 for the remainder of the 2019–20 season, with an option to extend for another season. The transfer fee was reportedly around €1.5 million (£1.28 million). He became one of three former Premier League players to have signed for Inter Milan in the same window, with Victor Moses and Christian Eriksen joining the club soon after. In his first game for the club, Young provided the assist for Lautaro Martínez in a 1–1 draw against Cagliari. He scored his first goal for the club in a 2–1 loss against Lazio on 16 February.
Inter won the 2020–21 Serie A. Young became only the third Englishman to win the league title in Italy, the first being Jimmy Greaves in 1962 and Gerry Hitchens in 1963, also for the Nerazzurri.
Return to Aston Villa
On 17 June 2021, Young signed a one-year contract with Aston Villa to return to the club on a free transfer for a second spell. He officially joined Villa on 1 July, when his Inter contract expired. Young made his second debut for Villa on 14 August in a 3–2 defeat at former club Watford.
On 10 June 2022, Young was released by Villa. He became a free agent on 1 July, but on 4 July, the club confirmed that Young had re-signed for another season until 2023. On 27 July, Young was named club captain for the upcoming season, with John McGinn being named on-field captain. On 10 October, he scored from 25 yards against Nottingham Forest in a 1–1 away draw in the Premier League. It was his first goal in his second spell at Aston Villa, with his previous for The Villans coming in 2011.
On 31 May 2023, Aston Villa announced that Young's contract was not going to be renewed when it expired on 30 June.
Everton
On 13 July 2023, Everton announced the signing of Young as a free agent on a one-year contract with an option for a further 12 months, in which he continued to wear his number 18. On 22 July 2023, he scored his first goal in a debut for the club in a 1–0 pre-season friendly win against Wigan Athletic. On 12 August 2023, he made his official debut, playing the full match in a 0–1 loss against Fulham in the Premier League.
International career
Under-21s
As a result of his form for Watford during the 2005–06 season, in February 2006 Young earned a call-up to Peter Taylor's England Under-21 League squad to face an Italian Serie B squad alongside teammate Chris Eagles. Young started alongside Eagles in the 1–0 win, playing the first half. His continued form into the 2006–07 season earned him a first England under-21 call-up to face Switzerland in September 2006. Young played the last 15 minutes of the match as England scored a late goal to win 3–2, topping their group, and reaching a play-off for a place in the 2007 UEFA European Under-21 Championship. At the finals, Young played three times. He took part in the semi-final penalty shoot-out against hosts Netherlands, scoring twice in the shoot-out as England lost 13–12. From 2006 to 2007, he earned 10 caps for the under-21s.
Senior team
Early career
On 31 August 2007, Steve McClaren called Young up to the full England squad for the first time, to face Russia and Israel in the UEFA Euro 2008 qualifiers. He was again called up for the Euro 2008 qualifiers to face Estonia and Russia. On 16 November 2007, Young made his international debut, by coming on as a half-time substitute for England in a friendly against Austria. He has since appeared in the England friendly against Germany in November 2008, coming on as a second-half substitute. He was also part of the starting XI in Fabio Capello's England squad in the friendly against the Netherlands at the Amsterdam Arena on 12 August 2009. Young did not make the cut in Capello's 30-man squad for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
UEFA Euro 2012
On 12 October 2010, Young made his first start for England in a Euro 2012 qualifying match against Montenegro. He scored his first international goal in a friendly away to Denmark on 9 February 2011 in Copenhagen, which was the winning goal. Young also scored again against Switzerland on 4 June 2011, as he got the equaliser with a volley from the edge of the area, after coming off the bench for Frank Lampard at half-time. On 6 September 2011, Young scored the only goal for England in a Euro 2012 qualifying 1–0 win against Wales. On 7 October 2011, he scored England's first goal away against Montenegro, and set up Darren Bent for the second. England drew the match 2–2 to secure qualification for UEFA Euro 2012. On 29 February 2012, Young scored his fifth international goal in a 3–2 home loss to the Netherlands in a friendly match played at Wembley Stadium.
On 26 May 2012, Young scored his sixth, as well as his fourth straight, international goal in a UEFA Euro 2012 warm-up match against Norway. He became the first English footballer since Wayne Rooney to score in four straight international appearances. In his next match for England against Belgium he provided the assist for England's first goal. Young played in all four of England's matches at Euro 2012, culminating with a quarter-final defeat to Italy on penalties; Young was one of two England players to miss his penalty as Italy won 4–2 to reach a semi-final against Germany. He and the other unsuccessful player, Ashley Cole, faced online racial abuse for the miss, which was investigated by the police.
2018 World Cup
After not being called up to the national team for almost four years, Young was recalled by Gareth Southgate for the upcoming friendly matches against Germany and Brazil on 2 November 2017. He featured in the latter game on 14 November, coming on for Ryan Bertrand in the 80th minute, seeing out a 0–0 draw.
Young was named in Southgate's 23-man squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. He was England's first-choice left-back in Russia, playing the entirety of their first two group matches against Tunisia and Panama. With qualification for the knockout stage secure after winning both matches, Young was rested for the final game against Belgium, before returning for the round of 16 tie against Group H winners Colombia. That match went to extra time, but Young was replaced by Danny Rose 12 minutes into the additional period and played no part in the penalty shoot-out after the match finished as a 1–1 draw. England won 4–3 on penalties and progressed to a quarter-final against Sweden, against whom Young again played the full 90 minutes as England won 2–0, with Young providing the assist for Harry Maguire's opening goal from a corner. In the semi-final against Croatia, Young again started the match, but was again replaced by Rose at the start of extra time, with the score at 1–1 after 90 minutes. England ultimately lost the match 2–1 after extra time, and Young did not play in the third-place play-off against Belgium.
Style of play
Young has played in a variety of positions: though for most of his career chiefly a winger, he has also experienced game-time as a forward – under Aidy Boothroyd at Watford and once under Louis Van Gaal at Manchester United – as well as in a free role behind the striker for Aston Villa.
During his later years at United, Young was re-invented as a defender, deployed as a left-sided full-back or wing-back. WhoScoreds Martin Laurence stated in 2018 that "Luke Shaw can't get a kick at Manchester United and that is down to the form of Ashley Young, who has adapted to another new role superbly. Young is now proving to be an aggressive and intelligent defender, all while still offering a threat going forwards with his delivery into the box. On current form the 32-year-old shouldn't just make the cut, but be considered as England's first choice."
Young has courted controversy, having been accused of diving by the press and has been spoken to by former managers Sir Alex Ferguson and David Moyes about diving to gain an unfair advantage.
Personal life
Young was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. He has one older brother and two football-playing younger brothers, Lewis, who made his debut for Watford in 2008, and Kyle, who in April 2009 was training at the Arsenal Academy. Young attended The John Henry Newman School in Stevenage, and played school football alongside Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, who was in the same year. Young's Jamaican-born father supports Tottenham Hotspur, while Young himself, like his older brother, favoured Arsenal. His hero and "role model on and off the pitch" was Ian Wright. Young has been married to Nicky Pike since June 2015. They had planned a wedding in 2011 but called it off two days before.
Career statistics
Club
International
As of match played 11 July 2018. England score listed first, score column indicates score after each Young goal.
Honours
Watford
Football League Championship play-offs: 2006
Aston Villa
Football League Cup runner-up: 2009–10
Manchester United
Premier League: 2012–13
FA Cup: 2015–16 runner-up: 2017–18
EFL Cup: 2016–17
FA Community Shield: 2011
UEFA Europa League: 2016–17
Inter Milan
Serie A: 2020–21
UEFA Europa League runner-up: 2019–20
Individual
Watford Young Player of the Season: 2004–05
PFA Team of the Year: 2005–06 Championship, 2007–08 Premier League, 2008–09 Premier League
PFA Young Player of the Year: 2008–09
Premier League Player of the Month: April 2008, September 2008, December 2008
References
External links
Profile at the Football Association website
1985 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Stevenage
Footballers from Hertfordshire
English men's footballers
England men's under-21 international footballers
England men's international footballers
Men's association football defenders
Men's association football wingers
Watford F.C. players
Aston Villa F.C. players
Manchester United F.C. players
Inter Milan players
Everton F.C. players
English Football League players
Premier League players
Serie A players
UEFA Euro 2012 players
2018 FIFA World Cup players
English expatriate men's footballers
Expatriate men's footballers in Italy
English expatriate sportspeople in Italy
Black British sportsmen
English people of Jamaican descent
UEFA Europa League winning players
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%20Carlisle
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Clarke Carlisle
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Clarke James Carlisle (born 14 October 1979) is an English former professional footballer who played as a defender and was chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association.
Born in Preston, he began playing football at a young age, taking inspiration from his father who played semi-professionally. Carlisle represented his home county of Lancashire at youth level. The start of his professional career was his Football League debut for Blackpool in September 1997. He moved to Queens Park Rangers in May 2000. In the same year, Carlisle won three caps for the England under-21 national team. He missed a number of matches for Queens Park Rangers due to a posterior cruciate ligament injury which at one stage led doctors to believe that his career was over. He then missed one month of the 2003–04 season because of an alcohol-related problem, and left Queens Park Rangers at the end of that season. In the summer of 2004, he joined Leeds United on a free transfer.
Carlisle spent just one season with Leeds United before signing for Championship club Watford in August 2005. In the 2005–06 season, his first with Watford, the team finished third in the division and achieved promotion to the Premier League via the play-offs. However, a thigh injury caused Carlisle to miss the majority of the team's season in the top flight. In March 2007 he had a one-month loan spell at Luton Town. In August 2007, Burnley manager Steve Cotterill bought Carlisle from Watford for a transfer fee of £200,000. In the 2008–09 season he played over 40 matches as Burnley reached the semi-finals of the League Cup and finished fifth in the league, earning a place in the play-offs. Carlisle was named man of the match for his performance in the play-off final as Burnley beat Sheffield United 1–0 to return to the top tier of English football for the first time in 33 years.
An imposing figure in the centre of defence thanks to his stature, Carlisle also provided an attacking threat from set pieces.
He is a practising Christian and regularly attends church. He attended Balshaw's Church of England High School where he attained 10 A-grades at GCSE and studied mathematics and politics at A-level, and in 2002 was awarded the title of "Britain's Brainiest Footballer" in a TV game show. He has been an ambassador for the Kick It Out campaign and is a former Chairman of the Management Committee of the Professional Footballers' Association. Carlisle has suffered from recurring problems with alcohol and depression.
Early life and education
Carlisle was born in Preston, Lancashire. He grew up in the city with his parents, Mervin and Rose (née Edgar). He went on to study A-level mathematics and politics at Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College while he was unable to play football due to an injury. Carlisle has a degree in Professional Sports Writing and Broadcasting from Staffordshire University, and has expressed interest in taking up teaching work following his football career.
Club career
Early career
Carlisle was inspired to become a footballer by his father, Mervin, who played semi-professionally for Morecambe and Southport. Carlisle started playing at a young age and represented Lancashire at under-15 level, before being signed by Blackpool where he became a trainee with the youth team. Carlisle signed a professional contract with the club on 13 August 1997 and moved into the first-team squad. On 2 September 1997, he made his debut for Blackpool in the team's 4–3 victory over Wrexham in the Second Division. He scored his first goal as a professional footballer with the 90th-minute winner in the following match, a 2–1 win against Carlisle United at Blackpool's home ground, Bloomfield Road. He was shown the first red card of his career in Blackpool's 1–0 victory against Wigan Athletic in the quarter-final of the Football League Trophy on 27 January 1998. He played 12 matches in his first season, scoring two goals.
The following season, he played 43 matches as Blackpool achieved a 14th-placed finish in the Second Division. His single goal of the campaign came in a 3–1 victory over Stoke City at the Victoria Ground. In the 1999–2000 season, he played 51 times and scored five goals as Blackpool finished 22nd and were relegated to the Third Division. He scored on his 93rd and final league appearance for the club in a 1–1 draw with Oldham Athletic at Boundary Park. Despite the team's relegation, Carlisle's strong defensive performances during his three years at Blackpool attracted the attention of Iain Dowie, who at the time was a scout for Queens Park Rangers.
Queens Park Rangers
Dowie recommended Carlisle to Queens Park Rangers manager Gerry Francis, who paid a transfer fee of £250,000 to sign him on 25 May 2000. He played his first match for the team on 12 August 2000 in the 0–0 draw with Birmingham City at Loftus Road. He made a further 31 appearances in the 2000–01 season and scored three times, earning himself a call-up to the England national under-21 team. However, his season was cut short on 31 January 2001, when he suffered his first major injury after a tackle by Rufus Brevett during the 2–0 defeat to Fulham. It was found that Carlisle had torn his posterior cruciate ligament, an injury which kept him sidelined for a year and caused doctors to believe that his career might be over. While he was out of action, Queens Park Rangers suffered relegation to the Second Division after finishing 23rd in the league. Soon after the injury he attempted suicide, and years later was diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Upon his return to football, Carlisle was injured again in a reserve-team match against Bristol City, sparking fears that he had aggravated his previous injury. The damage proved not to be particularly severe, although it delayed his return to training by a further month.
After missing the entire 2001–02 campaign, Carlisle returned to competitive football on 7 September 2002 in Queens Park Rangers' 4–0 victory over Mansfield Town. He scored two goals in 41 matches in the 2002–03 season, helping the team to a fourth-placed finish and a spot in the Second Division play-offs. The club reached the 2003 Second Division play-off final, but were defeated 1–0 by Cardiff City at the Millennium Stadium on 25 May 2003. During the following season, Carlisle developed personal problems, including an alcohol addiction, although he continued to play for a number of months. He subsequently missed one month of the season after being admitted to Sporting Chance, a clinic run by former England international footballer Tony Adams, for 28 days for treatment for alcohol-related problems. Upon his return to the team, Carlisle won the Second Division Player of the Month award for November 2003. He scored one goal in 39 matches in 2003–04 as Queens Park Rangers finished as runners-up in the league, achieving promotion to the Championship. Carlisle's contract with Queens Park Rangers ended at the conclusion of the 2003–04 campaign.
Leeds United
In June 2004, Carlisle agreed to join recently relegated Championship club Leeds United on a free transfer. He was offered a new contract by Queens Park Rangers, but he was keen to return to northern England and cut short his summer holiday in Tenerife to sign for the West Yorkshire club on a two-year contract. His contract with Leeds began on 1 July 2004, and he made his debut for the club in the 1–1 draw with Nottingham Forest on 21 August. He scored his first goal for Leeds two matches later, netting the first goal in the team's 3–0 victory against Coventry City. He was a regular in the team during the first half of the season, playing in every match from the start of September until the end of November. However, he then experienced another major injury set-back, tearing his ankle ligaments during the 1–0 defeat to Rotherham United on 29 November 2004, an injury which left him out of action for a number of weeks.
When fit again, Carlisle found it difficult to break into the first team as his place in the centre of defence had been taken by Matthew Kilgallon. His return came on 28 December 2004, when he was brought on as an 80th-minute substitute for Frazer Richardson in the 2–1 win against Plymouth Argyle. He started the next league match, against Coventry City, but was shown a red card late on in the 2–1 victory at Highfield Road. After his return from suspension, he was dropped from the team, making just a handful of substitute appearances in the following two months. Carlisle regained his place in the team towards the end of the season, starting in each of the final four matches of the campaign. He left Leeds in the summer of 2005, having spent one season at the club, playing 38 matches and scoring four times for the team as they reached the third round of the League Cup and attained a 14th-placed finish in the league. At the end of the 2004–05 campaign it was revealed that two clubs, Watford and Stoke City, were both competing to sign Carlisle. Leeds United accepted bids of £100,000 from both clubs but Carlisle chose to sign for Watford, and he agreed a three-year contract with the club on 5 August 2005. The deal taking him to Vicarage Road included a clause in his contract stipulating that he would not be played against Leeds in the following season.
Watford and Luton Town
Watford manager Aidy Boothroyd, who had been a coach at Leeds during the previous season, was pleased with the signing, stating that Carlisle was "exactly the type of defender I wanted". Carlisle was placed straight into Watford's starting line-up and played his first match for his new club on 6 August 2005, but he could not prevent the team losing 2–1 to Preston North End at Vicarage Road. On 29 August 2005, Carlisle scored his first goal for the club, claiming the winning header in a 2–1 victory over Derby County at Pride Park. Soon after, Carlisle scored two goals in a competitive match for the first time in his career, grabbing both in Watford's 2–1 win against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the second round of the League Cup.
On 4 November 2005, Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Glenn Hoddle accused Carlisle of stamping on goalkeeper Michael Oakes in the match the previous weekend, and threatened to report him to the Football Association. However, the referee did not show Carlisle a red or yellow card during the match, and no further action was taken against the player. During the 2005–06 campaign, Carlisle made 35 appearances and scored five goals, helping Watford to achieve a place in the play-offs after finishing third in the Championship. However, towards the end of the season he suffered yet another injury, being forced off the pitch in Watford's penultimate league match away at Queens Park Rangers. The thigh problem caused him to be unavailable for the play-offs as Watford defeated Leeds 3–0 at the Millennium Stadium to win promotion to the FA Premier League.
The injury forced Carlisle to miss the first eight months of the 2006–07 Premier League season, and he eventually returned to full training in February 2007. He played in two reserve team matches for Watford in order to regain some fitness, hoping to break into the first team and make his Premier League debut. On 2 March 2007, Carlisle joined local rivals Luton Town on a one-month emergency loan deal in an attempt to return to full match fitness. He made his debut for Luton the following day in the 3–2 away defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Championship, coming on as a substitute for Matthew Spring, who had himself joined the club from Watford earlier in the season after failing to break into the first team. Carlisle went on to play five matches for Luton. He made his final appearance on 31 March 2007, in a 0–0 draw with Burnley at Turf Moor, before returning to Watford on 2 April 2007. He finally played his first Premier League match on 9 April 2007, starting in the 4–2 victory over Portsmouth. He was selected to play in the team's following match, an FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United, but despite being named man of the match for his performance, Watford were defeated 4–1 at Villa Park. Carlisle went on to play in Watford's following three league matches of the season as their relegation back to the Championship was confirmed after a 1–1 draw with Manchester City at Vicarage Road.
Burnley and loan spells
On 14 August 2007, Steve Cotterill, manager of fellow Championship club Burnley, made an offer of £200,000 for Carlisle, who signed a three-year contract at Turf Moor two days later. Helped along by the club captain Steven Caldwell, Carlisle settled in well at Burnley. Two days after signing, he made his debut for his new club in the 2–0 defeat away to Scunthorpe United. Carlisle scored his first goal for Burnley on 22 September 2007, netting a stoppage time minute equaliser with an overhead kick in the 2–2 draw with Bristol City at Ashton Gate. On 28 September 2007, the day before a Championship match, he was involved in a serious car crash after spinning and crashing into a ditch causing his car to be written off. Steve Cotterill praised Carlisle's character for playing the next day in the 1–1 draw with Crystal Palace. He and Caldwell formed a solid defensive partnership and played most matches of the season together. Carlisle was named in the official Team of the Week for his performance in Burnley's 3–1 away win at Charlton Athletic. His partnership with Caldwell was broken towards the end of the campaign as Carlisle was given suspensions after being sent off twice in his last four matches of the season, first in the 1–2 loss to Preston and then in the last match of the season, a 0–5 defeat at Crystal Palace. Carlisle ended the 2007–08 season with two goals in 35 appearances.
The 2008–09 campaign was Burnley's first full season with Owen Coyle as manager. Carlisle managed to keep his place in the team under the new regime and was a regular fixture in the team for the first six months of the season. However, he was dropped from the team for the match against Charlton on 31 January 2009 due to a lack of form. He remained out of the team for the whole of February 2009. He made his return to action on 3 March 2009, starting in the centre of defence in the 1–0 win over his old team, Blackpool, at Bloomfield Road. On his next league appearance he scored Burnley's first goal in a 4–2 victory against Crystal Palace at Turf Moor. He went on to score three further goals in the last two months of the season, getting his name on the scoresheet against Nottingham Forest, Southampton and his former team, Queens Park Rangers. His goals helped Burnley to a fifth-placed finish in the Championship, and a place in the play-offs. He played in both legs of the semi-final against Reading as the team won 3–0 on aggregate to secure a place in the play-off final at Wembley Stadium. Carlisle was handed the man of the match award for his performance as Burnley triumphed 1–0 against Sheffield United to earn promotion to the Premier League for the 2009–10 season.
Prior to the start of the campaign, Carlisle stated his belief that Burnley could avoid relegation back to the Championship. He was selected in the team to play Burnley's first top-flight match in 33 years on 15 August 2009, when the team were defeated 2–0 by Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium. He also played in the following match as Burnley recorded their first ever Premier League victory, a 1–0 win over reigning champions Manchester United at Turf Moor. During the early part of the season, he formed a defensive pairing with new signing André Bikey. He was reunited with Caldwell in the centre of defence for the 2–1 victory over Birmingham on 3 October 2009. In the away loss to Wolverhampton Wanderers on 20 December 2009, Carlisle suffered a groin injury which kept him sidelined over the Christmas period. After over a month out of the Burnley team with the injury, he made his first start under new manager Brian Laws in the 1–0 defeat to Bolton Wanderers on 26 January 2010. Although the team was relegated from the Premier League at the end of the season, Carlisle was one of several players offered a new contract, and he signed a two-year extension in May 2010.
In the first away match of the 2010–11 season, he scored an injury-time equaliser against Ipswich Town; the goal was Burnley's first from a corner kick for 15 months. After serving a three-match suspension in October 2010 following a red card in the 1–1 draw away at Millwall, Carlisle returned to the team for the League Cup tie against Aston Villa and scored an 89th-minute equaliser to take the match to extra time. He made 41 appearances during the campaign but was not deemed a first-choice player by new manager Eddie Howe, and in July 2011 he joined his hometown club Preston North End on loan for the duration of the 2011–12 season.
Carlisle made his Preston debut in the opening match of the campaign, a 4–2 home defeat against Colchester on 6 August 2011. Three matches later, he scored his first goal for the club, netting the opening goal from a corner kick in the 2–0 away win over Chesterfield. He was a regular starter for Preston during the opening months of the season and also played in the cup competitions as the team reached the third round of the League Cup before being eliminated by Southampton and progressed to the same stage of the Football League Trophy with penalty shoot-out victories over Morecambe and Rochdale. He was handed a one-match ban after receiving his fifth yellow card of the campaign in the FA Cup first round defeat to Southend United on 22 November 2011. Preston manager Phil Brown brought in Jamie McCombe on loan as cover for Carlisle, and the Huddersfield Town loanee kept his place in the starting line-up throughout December 2011. Carlisle returned to the Preston team for the visit to Rochdale on 2 January 2012, when he was selected to play alongside Craig Morgan by caretaker managers Graham Alexander and David Unsworth. He played five times during that month, scoring on his 27th and final appearance for the club in the 1–2 loss to Yeovil Town. Following the appointment of Graham Westley as Preston manager, Carlisle struggled to fit the new training regime in with his commitments as chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association and his loan deal was cancelled by mutual consent on 31 January 2012.
Later the same day, Carlisle signed for League Two club Northampton Town, managed by former Watford boss Aidy Boothroyd, on loan for the remainder of the season. He made his first start for Northampton in the 1–0 win over AFC Wimbledon at the Sixfields Stadium on 14 February 2012. Carlisle was appointed captain upon his arrival at the club and was a regular first team player, often playing alongside fellow centre-back Kelvin Langmead. He scored his first goal for the team in the 3–1 home defeat to Bradford City on 14 April 2012. Carlisle played 18 matches and scored one goal for Northampton during his three months with the club, making his final appearance in the final match of the campaign, a 1–1 draw away at Rotherham. He was released by Burnley in May 2012 after the expiry of his contract.
York City and Northampton Town return
Carlisle signed for newly promoted League Two club York City on 30 August 2012 on a contract lasting until January 2013, having previously turned down a contract offer from Northampton. He made his debut two days later in York's 3–1 victory at home to Oxford United. On 19 November 2012, Carlisle re-signed for Northampton on loan until January 2013, when he would sign permanently, having made 14 appearances for York. He made his second debut the following day in Northampton's 3–0 home win over Morecambe. After making five appearances on loan, Carlisle completed his permanent move to Northampton on a one-and-a-half year contract on 4 January 2013. He played for Northampton in their 3–0 defeat to Bradford in the 2013 League Two play-off final at Wembley Stadium on 18 May 2013. Five days later, Carlisle announced his retirement from playing.
International career
While playing for Queens Park Rangers, Carlisle was selected to play for the England national under-21 team on three occasions. He was called up to the squad by Howard Wilkinson, and made his debut for his country on 31 August 2000, coming on as a substitute in England's 6–1 friendly victory over Georgia at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough. His second appearance for England, also from the substitutes' bench, came in a 2002 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying match on 6 October 2000 in the 1–1 draw with Germany at Pride Park. He played his third and final match for England four days later, again coming on as a substitute in the 2–2 draw with Finland at the Tehtaan kenttä stadium in Valkeakoski. Despite playing well in the second half of the match, he was not selected for the under-21 team again.
Style of play
Carlisle's predominant playing position is as a centre-back and he has been described as a "defensive lynchpin". He has stated that as a youngster, he modelled his style of play on defenders such as Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister. However, he says that their style was too "ruthless" for modern football, and he now attempts to read the opponents' attacking plays. He is not known for his pace, and this has caused him some disciplinary problems as he has received eight red cards during his career. Former Leeds United teammate Michael Duberry described Carlisle as a "strong" defender. Carlisle is recognised as being a highly intelligent footballer, and is often seen as an imposing figure in the centre of the defence thanks to his 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) stature. He also looks to use his size to cause an attacking threat from set pieces such as free kicks and corner kicks, and scored 39 goals in his career.
PFA roles
Carlisle is an ambassador for the Kick It Out scheme, which campaigns for inclusion and equality in football. He is also currently on the Management Committee of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), and it was announced on 17 November 2010 that Carlisle would succeed Chris Powell as the chairman of the PFA. As part of his work with the PFA, he collects the views of his fellow professionals and reports back to the committee. He also visits local schools to give talks to the students. Carlisle was among those who criticised FIFA president Sepp Blatter following his comments in November 2011 that racism was no longer a problem in football. In February 2012, he was part of a PFA delegation that met with British Prime Minister David Cameron to discuss the issues of racism and homophobia in the sport.
Media work
In October 2009, Carlisle made his first appearance on the BBC television football programme Match of the Day 2. He has since appeared as a pundit for Sky Sports and ITV Sport during numerous televised football matches. Carlisle has made two appearances on the BBC panel debate show Question Time, becoming the first footballer to appear on the programme. In July 2012, he presented a documentary on BBC Three titled Is Football Racist?, in which he interviewed former footballers Stan Collymore, Chris Hughton and John Barnes about their experiences of racism during their careers, as well as investigating the history of racism in English football on the pitch and in the stands. He also presented a second documentary for BBC Three, Football's Suicide Secret, on the issue of mental health in football on 9 July 2013. He published his autobiography, You Don't Know Me, But... A Footballer's Life in 2013.
Personal life
From an early age, Carlisle was encouraged to follow Christianity by his parents. He adopted those beliefs, and became a regular churchgoer during his time at Watford. Carlisle was married to Gemma, whom he met just prior to his admission to the Sporting Chance clinic. The couple married on the island of Antigua, where some of Carlisle's family also resides. The couple lived in Ripponden, West Yorkshire with their son, Marley, who was born in 2007, and daughter Honey, born 2010. Carlisle also has a daughter named Francesca, born in 1999, from a previous relationship. He is close friends with Adebayo Akinfenwa, his former teammate at Northampton.
On 30 January 2002, Carlisle was awarded the accolade of "Britain's Brainiest Footballer" in a television quiz. Carlisle appeared as a contestant on the Channel 4 game show Countdown on 24 February 2010, winning his first match against the defending champion to stay on the show for the following programme. Carlisle then won his second contest, achieving a larger score than the previous day to stay on for another match. In his third match on 26 February 2010, he was defeated by three points. He was banned from driving for one year and eight months and fined £2,365 after pleading guilty of drink driving at Bury Magistrates Court on 11 October 2011.
On the morning of 22 December 2014, Carlisle was hit by a lorry on the A64 near Bishopthorpe, North Yorkshire, and was airlifted to Leeds General Infirmary having suffered cuts, bruises, internal bleeding, a broken rib and a shattered left knee. He had surgery soon after and his wife reported that he was "very poorly" but "alive and stable". Burnley and Liverpool supporters performed a minute's applause in support of Carlisle starting in the fifth minute of their match on 26 December 2014, in reference to Carlisle wearing the number five shirt for Burnley. On 30 December 2014, it was announced that Carlisle was charged with a drink-driving offence on 20 December 2014. He appeared at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on 20 January 2015. In February 2015, after leaving hospital, Carlisle said that he had been trying to kill himself when he was hit by the lorry in December 2014.
Carlisle and his wife Gemma separated in early 2015 over his depression and recent suicide attempt. On 14 May 2015, Clarke was banned from driving for three years, ordered to carry out 150 hours unpaid work and pay £145 in costs.
On 15 September 2017, Carlisle was reported missing, having last been seen earlier that day in Manchester city centre. That evening, Preston police reported that he had been found safe in Liverpool. He later explained that he was intent on taking his own life that day and was deciding how to do so. Some nearby people intervened and kept him from hurting himself.
He and his wife Carrie (née Armstrong), a TV presenter and columnist, are mental health advocates.
Career statistics
Honours
Queens Park Rangers
Football League Second Division runners-up: 2003–04
Burnley
Football League Championship play-offs: 2008–09
References
External links
1979 births
Living people
Footballers from Preston, Lancashire
English men's footballers
England men's under-21 international footballers
Men's association football defenders
Blackpool F.C. players
Queens Park Rangers F.C. players
Leeds United F.C. players
Watford F.C. players
Luton Town F.C. players
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5032848
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego%20Harry%20Potter
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Lego Harry Potter
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Lego Harry Potter (stylized as LEGO Harry Potter) is a Lego theme based on the film series of the same name and the eponymous novels by British author J. K. Rowling. It is licensed from Warner Bros. Lego models of important scenes, vehicles and characters were made for the first six films and all of the published books. The first sets appeared in 2001, to coincide with the release of the first film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Subsequent sets were released alongside the new films, until Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The line then went dormant for three years, with sets being released in 2010 and 2011. In 2018, it was announced that more sets based on the Harry Potter franchise would be released, including new sets based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and its sequel, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
Overview
The main focus of the line is Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as he discovers that he is a famous wizard and begins his education. Later on, sets based on other installments and spin-offs would be produced too.
In October 2021, Matthew Lewis, who portrayed Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter films, recreated his favorite scenes to celebrate 20 Years of Movie Magic with Lego Harry Potter.
In July 2022, Lego Con hosts Joel McHale and Vick Hope build their own Lego Hogwarts version using building tips from Lego Harry Potter designer, Marcos Bessa. Evanna Lynch, who portrayed Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films, she explores on a magical adventure through Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter and how they inspired the current Lego Harry Potter sets.
Development
Lego Harry Potter was inspired by the films of the Harry Potter series. The construction toy range was based on the films and developed in collaboration with Warner Bros. Consumer Products. The construction sets were designed to recreate the story and characters of the films in Lego form.
Launch
The first Lego Harry Potter sets were launched in September 2001. In January 2004, Lego owner and CEO Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen announced a change in direction for the company, which at the time was facing a DKK 1.4 billion loss, and that the company would focus on core products and not "big, movie-related IPs such as Harry Potter". A week later, the company clarified that this did not mean any immediate "radical changes", and that the Harry Potter theme would continue. However, the theme was discontinued after 2007 for a time. The original Lego Harry Potter minifigure skin tone was yellow until April 2004 when they switched to more realistic natural skin tones.
In June 2009, it was officially announced by Lego that a video game, Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4, was in production and released in June 2010. Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7 was released in November 2011.
Warner Bros. and Lego announced on February 12, 2010, that six sets including Hogwarts Castle (set number: 4842), Hagrid's Hut (set number: 4738), The Burrow (set number: 4840), Hogwarts Express (set number: 4841), Dobby's Release (set number: 4736) and Quidditch Match (set number: 4737) would be released in October 2010. These sets have newly decorated mini-figures and animals including Luna Lovegood, Bellatrix Lestrange, new owls and new pigs. Also announced was a Lego Harry Potter board game that was made available in August. In 2013, The Lego Group discontinued Lego Harry Potter sets. However, a Lego Dimensions add-on pack featuring Harry Potter and Voldemort was scheduled to be released on 27 September 2016.
In 2018, it was announced that more sets based on the Harry Potter Universe would be released, starting with a set based on the Great Hall.
On 28 April 2020, it was announced that more sets based on the Harry Potter Universe would be released in August 2020.
On 31 August 2020, Lego Group announced that the newest set Diagon Alley (set number: 75978) were be released in next month.
During the post-2018 reboot wave, Lego has also released two series of Lego Harry Potter Collectible Minifigures under the Lego Minifigures theme.
In 2021, it was announced that Harry Potter Hogwarts Crests (set number: 31201) would be released on 1 January 2021 as a sub-brand of the Lego Art theme. Lego has also released more sets in the summer of 2021 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Lego Harry Potter. More sets are being released in 2022
Construction sets
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001–2002)
The first film saw the largest number of sets, with fourteen being made in total starting 1 September 2001. Initially, only eleven were produced, however three more were released the next year.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002–2003)
Ten sets were produced based on the second film in the series, two of which were released the year after the second film. These sets were designed to be combined with the sets from the first film, with launch starting on 1 January 2002.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
The third film saw eleven sets released, starting 1 April 2004, including the first Lego Harry Potter mini set. In addition, the minifigures became fleshed toned, following Lego universal change for licensed characters.
Mini-sets (Small Polybags)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Only four sets based on the fourth film were released, starting 1 October 2005. The Harry Potter minifigure headpiece was redesigned in this series.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Only one set was produced based on the fifth film foreshadowing the theme's assumed retirement. This was the last Harry Potter themed set until 2010, released 1 June 2007.
Revival Series (2010)
Lego revived the Harry Potter theme after a three-year gap from previous set released in 2007. These new sets were released October 1, 2010 within the UK. All sets are remakes of previous ones with the exception of one new set, The Burrow, which is based on a scene from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
2011
Lego released four main sets in 2011. Diagon Alley was released in January, while the other three sets were released on June 1, 2011, around the time of the cinema release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. However, the Trolley, The Lab and the Mini Hogwarts Express were all promotional sets that were released in different countries at different times, which were either being given away with newspaper offers, the purchase of Diagon Alley from the Lego Shop and also with the pre-order of the game, Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7.
2016
Lego has produced a Harry Potter-themed Lego Dimensions "team pack" with a scheduled release date of 27 September 2016 in the United States. This add-on pack includes Harry Potter and Voldemort minifigs that are largely similar to the 2010/2011 versions. Key differences include a different hairpiece for Harry Potter and a brown wand instead of a white one for Voldemort. The add-on pack also includes small versions of the Weasleys' flying car and the Hogwarts Express engine. This "team pack" number is 71247. An additional "fun pack" featuring Hermione Granger and Buckbeak (71348) was released on May 9, 2017. Add-on packs based on Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them are set for release alongside the film on 18 November 2016; these include a "story pack" containing Newt Scamander, a Niffler and a MACUSA model (71253), and a "fun pack" containing Tina Goldstein and a Swooping Evil (71257).
2018 (Focused on the Philosopher's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets)
Harry Potter sets were released on July 1, 2018, including a set based on the Great Hall in the first two movies. The theme also includes sets based on the "Fantastic Beasts" movies. Additionally, on September 1, a 6000-piece microscale Hogwarts D2C set was released for purchase.
2019 (Focused on the Prisoner of Azkaban and the Goblet of Fire)
Harry Potter sets were released on June 1, 2019.
2020 (Focused on the Order of the Phoenix and the Half-Blood Prince)
Harry Potter sets were released in Europe on June 1, 2020, and in North America on August 24, 2020.
2021
On January 1, 2021, Lego released the Harry Potter Hogwarts Crests (31201) under the Lego Art theme.
Hogwarts Moment
On January 1, 2021, 4 sets were released under the Hogwarts Moment subtheme.
20th Anniversary (Focused on the Philosopher's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets)
On April 16, 2021, Lego announced the upcoming release of new Harry Potter sets from June 1, 2021, to mark the 20th anniversary of Lego Harry Potter. Selected sets will also include an exclusive golden minifigure to mark the celebration. In addition, collectible Wizard Cards based on the Chocolate Frog Cards featuring Harry Potter Universe characters were also randomly packed into the sets.
2022
Hogwarts Moment
On March 1, 2022, 2 additional sets were released under the Hogwarts Moment subtheme.
Throughout the year, additional sets based on various movies from the franchise were released.
Additionally, on August 31, a 5129-piece Hogwarts Express D2C display set was released for purchase.
2023
Lego Minifigures
Since the 2018 return of the theme, Lego has released two sets of Harry Potter Collectible Minifigures Series, the first in 2018 and another in 2020.
Video games
Lego Creator: Harry Potter
Two sandbox games were released as part of the Lego Creator series: Lego Creator: Harry Potter (2001) and Creator: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). Both games allow the player to build their own sets in a virtual world based on the Lego Harry Potter theme, and interact with their constructions by taking control over minifigures or creatures that have been added to the world by the player.
Lego Harry Potter Collection
In June 2009, it was officially announced by Lego that a video game, Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4, was in production and released in June 2010. Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7 was released in November 2011. The video games were released for the PlayStation 4 on October 21, 2016, as part of the Lego Harry Potter Collection, and was also released for the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch on October 30, 2018.
Lego Dimensions
The crossover toys-to-life game Lego Dimensions developed by Traveller's Tales features content based on both the original Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. A "team pack" includes an additional level that recreates the events of the original film and adds Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort as a playable characters. A "story pack" offers an extended six-level story campaign retelling the events of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and includes Newt Scamander as a playable character. Additional "fun packs" add Tina Goldstein and Hermione Granger as playable characters.
Other merchandise
In 2022, The Lego Harry Potter brand has also produced Plush Toy Collection.
Reception
In 2020, The Lego Group reported that the Lego Technic, Lego Star Wars, Lego Classic, Lego Disney Princess, Lego Harry Potter and Lego Speed Champions, "The strong results are due to our incredible team," and that these themes had helped to push revenue for the first half of 2020 grow 7% to DKK 15.7 billion compared with the same period in 2019.
In 2019, Harry Potter and Hedwig (set number: 41615) was listed as one of The Top Ten best-selling Harry Potter toys in the UK for the 12 months ending May 2019.
In 2019, Hogwarts Great Hall (set number: 75954), Hogwarts Express (set number: 75955), Hogwarts Whomping Willow (set number: 75953), Quidditch Match (set number: 75956) and Harry Potter and Hedwig (set number: 41615) were listed on The Top Ten best-selling Harry Potter toys in the UK for the 12 months ending May 2019.
In March 2022, The Lego Group reported that the Lego City, Lego Technic, Lego Creator Expert, Lego Harry Potter and Lego Star Wars themes had earned for the full year of 2021. Revenue for the year grew 27 percent versus 2020 to DKK 55.3 billion and consumer sales grew 22 percent over the same period, outpacing the toy industry and driving market share growth globally and in largest markets.
On 28 September 2022, The Lego Group reported that the Lego Star Wars, Lego Technic, Lego Icons (formerly Creator Expert), Lego City, Lego Harry Potter and Lego Friends themes had earned for the six months ending 30 June 2022. Revenue for the period grew 17 percent to DKK 27.0 billion compared with the same period in 2021, driven by strong demand. Consumer sales grew 13 percent, significantly ahead of the toy industry, contributing to global market share growth.
In February 2023, Hogwarts Castle (set number: 71043) was listed on "The biggest Lego sets of all time" by Lego fansite Brick Fanatics.
In March 2023, The Lego Group reported that the Lego City, Lego Technic, Lego Icons, Lego Harry Potter and Lego Star Wars themes had earned for the full year of 2022. Revenue for the year grew 17 percent to DKK 64.6 billion and consumer sales grew 12 percent in 2022, achieving growth in all major market groups with especially strong performance in the Americas and Western Europe.
Awards and nominations
In 2001, Hogwarts Castle (set number: 4709) was awarded "Toy of the Year" and also "Activity Toy of the Year" by the Toy Association.
In 2010, Hogwarts Game was awarded "DreamToys" in the Games category by the Toy Retailers Association.
In 2018, Hogwarts Express and Great Hall Harry Potter were awarded "DreamToys" in the It's Showtime category by the Toy Retailers Association.
In 2019, Knight Bus was awarded "DreamToys" in the Movie Magic category by the Toy Retailers Association.
In 2019, Lego Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts Minifigure Series was awarded "Toy of the Year" and also "Collectible of the Year" by the Toy Association. Also included, Hogwarts Castle (set number: 71043) was awarded "Toy of the Year" and also "Specialty Toy of the Year" by the Toy Association.
In 2020, Hedwig (set number: 75979) was awarded "DreamToys" in the Licensed To Thrill category by the Toy Retailers Association.
In 2021, Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets (set number: 76389) was awarded "DreamToys" in the Licensed To Thrill category by the Toy Retailers Association.
In 2022, The Ministry of Magic (set number: 76403) was awarded "DreamToys" in the Film & TV Favourites category by the Toy Retailers Association.
See also
Lego Art
Lego DOTS
Lego Games
Lego Minifigures (theme)
Notes
References
Bibliography
Lego Harry Potter: Building the Magical World. Authored by Elizabeth Dowsett. Published by Dorling Kindersley, 2011.
Lego Harry Potter Magical Adventures Ultimate Sticker Book. Published by Dorling Kindersley, 2011.
The Harry Potter Lego Minifigure Catalog : 1st Edition. Authored by Christoph Bartneck. Published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012.
Lego(r) Harry Potter: Characters of the Magical World. Published by Dorling Kindersley, 2012.
Witches and Wizards Character Handbook (LEGO Harry Potter). Authored by Samantha Swank. Published by Scholastic Inc., 2018.
Harry Potter Build Your Own Adventure. Authored by Elizabeth Dowsett. Published by Dorling Kindersley, 2019.
Harry Potter The Magical Guide to the Wizarding World. Authored by Rosie Peet. Published by Dorling Kindersley, 2019.
Lego Harry Potter Build Your Own Adventure: With Lego Harry Potter Minifigure and Exclusive Model. Authored by Elizabeth Dowsett. Published by Dorling Kindersley, 2019.
Lego Harry Potter: A Magical Search and Find Adventure (Activity Book with Snape Minifigure). Authored by Ameet Studio. Published by Scholastic Inc., 2019.
Lego Harry Potter: Back to Hogwarts Activity Book + minifigure. Authored by Ameet Studio. Published by Scholastic Inc., 2019.
Harry Potter Magical Treasury: A Visual Guide to the Wizarding World. Authored by Elizabeth Dowsett. Published by Dorling Kindersley, 2020.
Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts Adventures. Published by Centum Books, 2020.
Adventure with Buckbeak! (Lego Harry Potter: Activity Book with Minifigure). Authored by Ameet Studio. Published by Scholastic Inc., 2020.
Lego (R) Harry Potter (TM) Magical Treasury : A Visual Guide to the Wizarding World (with exclusive Tom Riddle minifigure). Authored by Elizabeth Dowsett. Published by Dorling Kindersley, 2020.
External links
Lego Harry Potter at Lego.com
Harry Potter
Harry Potter games
Products introduced in 2001
Action-adventure video games by series
Video game franchises introduced in 2010
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%A5kallen%20Line
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Gråkallen Line
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The Gråkallen Line () is an suburban tram line located in Trondheim, Norway. As the only remaining part of the Trondheim Tramway, it runs from the city centre at St. Olav's Gate, via the suburban area Byåsen to Lian. It is designated Line 9 (previously Line 1), and is served by six Class 8 articulated trams. After the closure of the Arkhangelsk tramway in 2004, it became the world's northernmost tramway system.
The line was opened as the only private tramway in Trondheim by A/S Graakalbanen in 1924. At first it was built to Munkvoll, but extended to Ugla in 1925, and to Lian in 1933. Operations were taken over by the municipal Trondheim Trafikkselskap in 1972, but it was closed along with the rest of the tramway in 1988. In 1990, the private initiative AS Gråkallbanen opened the line, later known as Boreal Bane. Located at Munkvoll is the tramway museum and depot.
Service
The operating company Boreal Bane owns seven Class 8 trams out of the eleven delivered in 1984-85 for the then longer route. The trams are designated with numbers 90 to 100. Of the eleven delivered, Trams 93, 94, 95, 96, 97 and 99 remain in service. 91, 92, 98 and 100 have been scrapped, while 90 is out of service but remains at the depot. Four trams are required for the daily operation on the line on a fixed 15 minute headway, reducing to two trams running on a 30-minute headway in the evenings and the full day on Sundays. Heritage trams are available for chartered tours.
History
Establishment
During the 1910s, Fjellseter close to the peak Gråkallen had been one of the main recreational areas for Trondheim. The necessary initiative was taken by Robert Millar, chief of marketing at Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab. On 3 November, the first meeting was held, and Millar was chosen to lead an investigation committee. The company A/S Graakalbanen was founded on 6 September 1916, and Nils Christoffer Bøckman was elected chairman.
There were two suggestions for the route. The first was made by engineer Ferdinand Bjerke, who worked for the Norwegian State Railways, on behalf of the company. The line would connect to the city tramway at Ilevolden after following the Ila Line for Torvet, and continue up Byåsenveien as a street tram until Bergsli gate. Here it would continue in its own right-of-way, as a single track line up Nyveibakken, past Gamle Åsvei to Bygrensen, Breidablikk, turning west at Hoem, Rognheim and to Munkvoll. From Munkvoll it would continue south of Kyvannet and north of Lianvannet and then again head north to Fjeldseter.
The second suggestion was from the city planner, Trygve Thesen, in 1917. He proposed alternative routes. While the upper sections were identical or close to those of Bjerke, Thesen suggested making a large loop around Dyrborg, just west of Ila. This was expected to be the immediate growth area for the city, and would give an improved passenger base for the line. It would, however, increase the travel distance to the upper sections. The city planner presumed that the section within the city limit would be built by the municipal Trondhjems Elektricitetsværk og Sporvei, while the section in Strinda would be built by the new company. This would cost the city , while it would cost the company NOK 413,000.
Graakalbanen was sceptical about the suggestion from Thesen, since they would have to rent instead of of track from the city; this would increase the leasing fees from NOK 7,000 to 12,000. The company was also afraid of passengers "leaking" off at Wullumsgården south of the Dyrborg Loop, and walking to Ila. The Dyrborg suggestion would also increase the travel time from Torvet to Fjellseter from 36 to 57 minutes. However, the city planner's suggestion was cheaper (NOK 1,300,000 vs. NOK 1,630,000). Bøchman recommended Bjerke's suggestion, and the board agreed. After the hotel at Fjellseter burnt down in 1917, the line was chosen to only terminate at Lian.
At the same time the end terminal in the city centre was not yet determined. By terminating at Ilevolden, the company could choose any rolling stock, including the higher 1,200 V current used on the Ekeberg Line of Oslo. Should the trams continue they would need to use Trondheim Sporvei's 600 V, metre gauge and car width. However, Trondheim Sporvei had chosen to convert its system to wide cars at width. If the city chose to start the rebuilding of track from the current width, it would allow Graakalbanen to buy wide stock. Instead it was chosen to run the trams along the Ila Line to a new station at St. Olavs Gate. Here, the trams would have their recovery time, and return to the Ila Line along a loop through Dronningens gate. The loop was built by Trondheim Sporvei and cost the city NOK 54,000.
Construction
The first conveying started in 1917, and the following January the city engineer started construction, but this soon ended. In June 1919, the engineering company Grøndahl & Kjørholt took over the work, planning to be finished to Lian by 1921. However, by June 1920, the rising prices resulted in the money being used up. At the same time it turned out that the rolling stock was too much more expensive than expected; ordering of rolling stock was therefore delayed. In 1921, no construction was done on the line. Not before Trondhjems og Stridens Sparebank issued a loan of NOK 1.6 million was it possible to continue construction. This was based on mortgaging all assets, as well as a NOK 500,000 guarantee from the city council. While work previously had been along the whole route, it was then only concentrated on the section Ila–Munkvoll, where the depot would be located.
Tracks were delivered from the Norwegian State Railways, who were replacing their 25 kg/m track on the Meråker Line. The track length was . At the same time the company bought the truss bridge Funna Viaduct from the Meråker Line, for installation on the Gråkallen Line; it was about 20 metres too short, and a temporary wooden span was built to cover this. At Munkvoll a brick transformer station was built along with a wooden depot with three tracks and capable of nine trams and trailers.
Four trams and two trailers were ordered from Hannoversche Waggonfabrik (HaWa), with motors from Siemens. The GB Class 1 trams cost NOK 360,000, including some work trailers. The stock had bogies, were long and weighed , and had 4x . The chassis were delivered on 20 July 1924, while the motors came on 5 July. They were assembled at the Dalsenget Depot. Because of the wider bodies, all transport from the track at Ila to Dalsenget had to be done at night, so the trams would not meet other trams in the opposite track. The first test run was on 5 July, but failed due to a short circuit. A successful attempt was made on 9 July.
The tracks were completed in March, but not until the trams were delivered could service start. The tramway was opened on 18 July 1924 at 18:00. Ordinary service started the next day. The first weekend there were thousands of people who wanted to see the new trams, and demand exceeded capacity. Soon ridership dropped considerably.
Expansion
The initial service had departures once per hour. Trams left Munkvoll on the hour, and from St. Olavs gate on the half-hour. Weekend traffic was considerable, but ridership on weekdays was very limited. The management felt this was because Munkvoll was not close enough to the recreational areas of Bymarka, and proposed a quick expansion to Ugla. At the same time, the ticket price was set high compared to the city trams, at NOK 0.60 for adults. In 1924, there were 144.774 passengers.
The first expansion would come the following year. Construction of the line to Ugla had started, and was opened on 30 May 1925. It had a tavern and duck pond to attract riders. A branch was also laid to Kyvannet, from which ice was transported to the city center to be sold. The company continued to lose money.
Further expansions to Lian were also considered, but management was skeptical at having two destinations, since they would not create the necessary critical mass. Then the tavern and farm at Ugla burnt down in 1931, and the insurance company allowed the insurance money to be used for building at Lian. To finance the line extension, Graakalbanen decided to create a new company; A/S Ugla–Lian was organized in such a way that it would have no expenses, only income. A/S Ugla–Lian would build the line, and Graakalbanen would pay NOK 0.05 per passenger freighted on the line. Graakalbanen would cover all operating, maintenance and administrative expenses, even for the other company. Construction of the expansion was started in the autumn of 1932. The first test run was on 29 September 1933, and the line was taken into use on 28 October 1933. A number of recreational services grew up at Lian, including a ski jump and trotting in the winter, and bathing and rowing in the lake Lianvannet in the winter. Despite this, ridership grew slowly, but by 1937 it had passed the 1930-level.
War and growth
World War II would show the highest ridership on the line through history. With the rationing on petrol, soon only the electric trams operated. Cities without trams or trolleybuses were stuck without public transport. 1940 showed an increase to 884,000 passengers, and for the first time the company made a profit. Ridership continued to increase, with 1.2 million in 1941, and up to 2.16 million in 1945. Conductors had to be taken into use, and even women were employed. To save time on the route, the stations Ferstad, Kyvannet, Vestmarka and Herlofssonløypa were not served on the way up. In addition, an extra tram was operated from St. Olavs gate to Hoem.
During the war it was difficult to get spare parts. Trams could operate with only three of four motors, and during night there could not be any lights on. Two working trailers were rebuilt as a single passenger trailer. In addition, the company chose to order a tram and trailer from Skabo Jernbanevognfabrikk in 1941. The GB Class 2 was put into service on 9 June 1943 and cost NOK 289,000. An additional two trailers were delivered in 1947, and in 1950 a motor arrived so the first trailer could be rebuilt to a tram.
The high revenue during the war had given the company a large amount of cash, but also a worn down fleet. Each year, the profits were between NOK 143,000 and 430,000. During the war, the company A/S Ugla–Lian had been bought. With available cash, Graakalbanen started upgrading the infrastructure. Turning loops were built at St. Olavs gate and at Lian. In St. Olavs gate, a proper turning loop was not feasible, and in June 1946 a large loop that went down Dronningens gate for a block was opened. On 13 September 1947, the Lian loop was built, with a radius of only . At the same time, the small garage at Lian was expanded to house two instead of one wagons.
On 18 July 1947, the first (and only) double track section of the dedicated right-of-way was built. Inspired by Oslo, where all the suburban lines had this, was rebuilt between Breidablikk and Nordre Hoem. This gave a lot better regularity, since the two trams could meet anywhere along the section, and thus both trams would not become delayed if one was. By 1949, all the track had been upgraded to 35 kg/m, and the speed could be increased from to .
After the war, ridership stabilized at 1.7 million. At first the company operated with 30-minute headways, using trailers during the summer and in rush hour. Introducing 15-minute headways could not be done until six trams were available; so after the rebuilding of a trailer to a tram in 1950, the increased frequency was introduced. During the 1950s, the amount of recreational travel to Lian decreased, but this was compensated by increased traffic from new housing built along the line. By 1955, the commuter ridership exceeded the recreational ridership.
With the delivery of the new trailers in 1947, the capacity of the depot exceeded the fleet, so one tram was always stored at Lian. A new depot was therefore built on the other side of the tracks at Munkvoll. Construction started in 1952, and finished the following year. It had five tracks; three had places for storage of six wagons, while two were for the workshop that could service two trams simultaneously.
To supplement the aging stock, the GB Class 3 singe tram and trailer, from Hønefoss Karrosserifabrikk (Høka) was ordered in 1954. Delivered in September 1955, it was put into service in December. Because of the increased traffic, a new signaling system was introduced in 1957, and a double track was built from Bergsli gate to Ila. This section had been causing problems for cars, since the trams would operate on the wrong side of the road. To allow a future 10-minute headway, a new signaling system was installed in 1958 up to Ugla. Up until then, tokens had been used to regulate traffic.
Integration
In 1960, the sale of cars was deregulated, and anyone could purchase a car. At the same time, Trondheim started a merger process with the neighbouring municipalities, and plans were made to build large suburbs far from the city centre, that would be depopulated, and connect the suburbs with motorways. A new four-lane highway along Byåsenveien was opened in 1966. Traffic numbers fell rapidly, and the company needed to replace its aging fleet. Traffic patterns were also changing, since Lian to a greater extent was becoming a winter rather than summer destination. In 1963, Trondheim Sporvei rebuilt one of their trams so it could operate from Lade directly to Lian on holidays. In 1966, Graakalbanen was bought by the city, and Odd Hovdenak became director of both tram operators.
After being taken into public ownership, the company had more money to spend. A new turning loop was built at Munkvoll, and a 10-minute headway was introduced from St. Olavs gate to Munkvoll, and a 20-minute headway to Lian. Prices were reduced, and 1967 showed a 10% ridership increase. The signalling was improved with fixed blocks, and only Munkvoll–Lian still used tokens. The rolling stock was painted the same yellow and blue, but the coat of arms used by Trondheim Sporvei were not used on Graakalbanen.
Instead of purchasing new rolling stock for the Gråkallen Line, the city trams were to start operating on the line. However, there was a lack of material in Trondheim Sporvei, and not until 7 November 1966 could a TS Class 7 city tram be taken into use. This was supplemented with a trailer on 6 February 1967. Also, there was operated a direct route from Lian to Lade during the morning rush hour. In 1968, the company acquired five additional trams. However, Trondheim Sporvei had problems delivering the trams. With this deal in place, the oldest trams could be retired. However, from 30 June to 19 August 1968, Trondheim Sporvei needed the trams again, and the old Class 1 was back in service. The final run of the Class 1 in regular service was on 29 November 1968. From 19 May 1969 the trams lost their conductors.
Graakalbanen was on 1 January 1972 merged with Trondheim Sporvei to form Trondheim Trafikkselskap. This would allow the service to run through the city centre, and connect with other routes. From 28 January 1978, the line was numbered as 1/5 and went on the route Voldsminde–Ilevolden–Munkvoll–Lian, replacing former line 1. The terminus at St. Olavs gate was closed, and passengers were no longer offered a heated waiting room.
After the 10-minute headway was introduced on 13 April 1975, the section Ugla–Lian developed into a bottle neck. Six trams were used to handle the route between Voldsminde and Lian. An accident that occurred on the bottle neck caused substantial damage, and a fixed block signaling system was installed on the whole line.
More expansion?
During the 1960s, the Gråkallen Line experienced a large ridership increase from the Halset area. From 1956 to 1971, Halset was built out with large apartment blocks. These were the only apartment blocks along the line, as most of the route was along housing. By 1970 there were 10,500 people living along the line, and half of them were in the Munkvoll/Halset area. Graakalbanen suggested building a loop around Halset; from Munkvoll, it would follow Selsbakkveien, Allette Beyers vei, A. Andreassens vei and back into the Gråkallen Line at Rognheim. Total distance would be , and would cost NOK 1.5 million. Ridership was estimated to increase to 1.2 million.
The Norwegian Armed Forces were sceptical, and wanted the route moved. Instead a feeder bus was put into service by Trondheim Sporvei, but passengers had to pay for both the bus and the tram, so it only attracted 278 passengers. Instead it was suggested that a walk way should be built along Waldemar Aunes vei to Rognheim, shortening the walking distance from to , but this was never built. In 1969, Trondheim Sporvei applied for a bus concession on the route. Graakalbanen had a concession from 1952 to operate from Ugla to Haukåsen and Smistad, but had never started operation, and it was given to Trondheim Bilruter. Due to disagreements regarding whose concessions were being tampered with given a new route to Halset, Trondheim Bilruter received an extension of their concession from Havstad. From 21 November 1971, the Halset bus was in operation, served by two buses from Trondheim Bilruter, and one from Trondheim Trafikkselskap.
In 1979, a new suggestion was launched. As part of a four-line network connecting all the major suburbs, a new route was proposed branching off from Munkvoll and running through Kystad, Stavsted, Kolstad to Heimdal. The route was too expensive, and was not passed.
Closing and reopening
During the 1980s there was a lot of political debate about the future of the tram in Trondheim, and in 1983 the city council decided to close down the Elgeseter Line, and keep only one line between Lian and Lade. At the same time 11 new trams were ordered and a new depot built at Munkvoll, costing over NOK 100 million. But in 1988 the city council changed their minds and closed the tramway in Trondheim. The tracks between St. Olav's Street and Lademoen were removed, but the tracks at Lade were kept, as were the tracks between St. Olav's Street and Lian. The latter was because enthusiasts had plans of operating veteran trams as a heritage railway.
But fate had other plans for Gråkallbanen. The Trondheim tramway is one of only two in the world, along with the Cairo Tramway, to use the combination of metre gauge and 2.6 metre-wide cars. This made it practically impossible to sell the trams and finance the 20 new Scania buses that Trondheim Trafikkselskap needed to operate the bus route to Lian and Lade. In the end the 11 trams were not sold and instead a company owned by 1400 enthusiasts, AS Gråkallbanen, was created to operate the tram route on the only remaining line, that started in 1990. In 2004 Veolia Transport's division in Norway, Veolia Transport Norge, bought the company and have announced they will invest another NOK 10,7 million, after the purchase in improved infrastructure on Gråkallbanen. July 1, 2008 the company name changed from AS Gråkallbanen to Veolia Transport Bane AS. Since then the company was renamed Boreal Transport Bane AS in 2011, Boreal Transport Midt-Norge AS in 2012 and finally Boreal Bane AS in 2016.
On August 3, 2019, the line got a new number following the introduction of the new metrobuss system in Trondheim. The designation as Line 1 was handed over to a metrobuss line (Ranheim-Sentrum-Kattem) and Gråkallbanen got a new designation as Line 9.
Plans
Gråkallbanen is working on a number of plans as of 2006. These include an extension of the line to the harbour area via Olav Trygvasons street and Trondheim Central Station. A short stretch from St. Olavs gate to nearby Prinsenkrysset, regarded as part of this plan, was given the green light in 2006, the building was supposed to start in 2009, when the Nordre Avlastningsvei (northern bypass) was due to open and supposedly relieve the city centre from car traffic.
As of 2011 it has been decided to build the extension during the summer of 2012 when the city centre's main bus terminal is to be rebuilt. At the same time the whole section of track within the city centre will be rebuilt to meet the requirements of increased traffic and to remedy years of neglect.
It is stated by Gråkallbanen that they seek to modernize their fleet of six vehicles to low-floor, to allow wheelchair users to board the trams. However, as the current operation requires additional funding from the municipality, these plans are not currently financed. The municipality is to create a report on the funding of the line and its future projects.
Furthermore, there have been several calls for an additional light rail scheme based upon the current railway lines running through the town. Lately, connecting this light rail project with Gråkallbanen to form a tram-train system have been suggested but the different track widths (Gråkallbanen uses and the NSB lines ) might be a problem. A connecting PRT system in town has also been suggested.
References
Notes
Bibliography
External links
AS Gråkallbanen Company web site
Trondheim Trams with extensive background and many photos
Tram Travels: Gråkallbanen in Trondheim (GB)
Trondheim Tramway lines
Railway lines opened in 1924
Metre gauge railways in Norway
1924 establishments in Norway
Private railway lines in Norway
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action%20selection
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Action selection
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Action selection is a way of characterizing the most basic problem of intelligent systems: what to do next. In artificial intelligence and computational cognitive science, "the action selection problem" is typically associated with intelligent agents and animats—artificial systems that exhibit complex behaviour in an agent environment. The term is also sometimes used in ethology or animal behavior.
One problem for understanding action selection is determining the level of abstraction used for specifying an "act". At the most basic level of abstraction, an atomic act could be anything from contracting a muscle cell to provoking a war. Typically for any one action-selection mechanism, the set of possible actions is predefined and fixed.
Most researchers working in this field place high demands on their agents:
The acting agent typically must select its action in dynamic and unpredictable environments.
The agents typically act in real time; therefore they must make decisions in a timely fashion.
The agents are normally created to perform several different tasks. These tasks may conflict for resource allocation (e.g. can the agent put out a fire and deliver a cup of coffee at the same time?)
The environment the agents operate in may include humans, who may make things more difficult for the agent (either intentionally or by attempting to assist.)
The agents themselves are often intended to model animals or humans, and animal/human behaviour is quite complicated.
For these reasons action selection is not trivial and attracts a good deal of research.
Characteristics of the action selection problem
The main problem for action selection is complexity. Since all computation takes both time and space (in memory), agents cannot possibly consider every option available to them at every instant in time. Consequently, they must be biased, and constrain their search in some way. For AI, the question of action selection is what is the best way to constrain this search? For biology and ethology, the question is how do various types of animals constrain their search? Do all animals use the same approaches? Why do they use the ones they do?
One fundamental question about action selection is whether it is really a problem at all for an agent, or whether it is just a description of an emergent property of an intelligent agent's behavior. However, if we consider how we are going to build an intelligent agent, then it becomes apparent there must be some mechanism for action selection. This mechanism may be highly distributed (as in the case of distributed organisms such as social insect colonies or slime mold) or it may be a special-purpose module.
The action selection mechanism (ASM) determines not only the agent's actions in terms of impact on the world, but also directs its perceptual attention, and updates its memory. These egocentric sorts of actions may in turn result in modifying the agent's basic behavioural capacities, particularly in that updating memory implies some form of machine learning is possible. Ideally, action selection itself should also be able to learn and adapt, but there are many problems of combinatorial complexity and computational tractability that may require restricting the search space for learning.
In AI, an ASM is also sometimes either referred to as an agent architecture or thought of as a substantial part of one.
AI mechanisms
Generally, artificial action selection mechanisms can be divided into several categories: symbol-based systems sometimes known as classical planning, distributed solutions, and reactive or dynamic planning. Some approaches do not fall neatly into any one of these categories. Others are really more about providing scientific models than practical AI control; these last are described further in the next section.
Symbolic approaches
Early in the history of artificial intelligence, it was assumed that the best way for an agent to choose what to do next would be to compute a probably optimal plan, and then execute that plan. This led to the physical symbol system hypothesis, that a physical agent that can manipulate symbols is necessary and sufficient for intelligence. Many software agents still use this approach for action selection. It normally requires describing all sensor readings, the world, all of ones actions and all of one's goals in some form of predicate logic. Critics of this approach complain that it is too slow for real-time planning and that, despite the proofs, it is still unlikely to produce optimal plans because reducing descriptions of reality to logic is a process prone to errors.
Satisficing is a decision-making strategy that attempts to meet criteria for adequacy, rather than identify an optimal solution. A satisficing strategy may often, in fact, be (near) optimal if the costs of the decision-making process itself, such as the cost of obtaining complete information, are considered in the outcome calculus.
Goal driven architectures – In these symbolic architectures, the agent's behaviour is typically described by a set of goals. Each goal can be achieved by a process or an activity, which is described by a prescripted plan. The agent must just decide which process to carry on to accomplish a given goal. The plan can expand to subgoals, which makes the process slightly recursive. Technically, more or less, the plans exploits condition-rules. These architectures are reactive or hybrid. Classical examples of goal driven architectures are implementable refinements of belief-desire-intention architecture like JAM or IVE.
Distributed approaches
In contrast to the symbolic approach, distributed systems of action selection actually have no one "box" in the agent which decides the next action. At least in their idealized form, distributed systems have many modules running in parallel and determining the best action based on local expertise. In these idealized systems, overall coherence is expected to emerge somehow, possibly through careful design of the interacting components. This approach is often inspired by artificial neural networks research. In practice, there is almost always some centralised system determining which module is "the most active" or has the most salience. There is evidence real biological brains also have such executive decision systems which evaluate which of the competing systems deserves the most attention, or more properly, has its desired actions disinhibited.
is an attention-based architecture developed by Mary-Anne Williams, Benjamin Johnston and their PhD student Rony Novianto. It orchestrates a diversity of modular distributed processes that can use their own representations and techniques to perceive the environment, process information, plan actions and propose actions to perform.
Various types of winner-take-all architectures, in which the single selected action takes full control of the motor system
Spreading activation including Maes Nets (ANA)
Extended Rosenblatt & Payton is a spreading activation architecture developed by Toby Tyrrell in 1993. The agent's behaviour is stored in the form of a hierarchical connectionism network, which Tyrrell named free-flow hierarchy. Recently exploited for example by de Sevin & Thalmann (2005) or Kadleček (2001).
Behavior based AI, was a response to the slow speed of robots using symbolic action selection techniques. In this form, separate modules respond to different stimuli and generate their own responses. In the original form, the subsumption architecture, these consisted of different layers which could monitor and suppress each other's inputs and outputs.
Creatures are virtual pets from a computer game driven by three-layered neural network, which is adaptive. Their mechanism is reactive since the network at every time step determines the task that has to be performed by the pet. The network is described well in the paper of Grand et al. (1997) and in The Creatures Developer Resources. See also the Creatures Wiki.
Dynamic planning approaches
Because purely distributed systems are difficult to construct, many researchers have turned to using explicit hard-coded plans to determine the priorities of their system.
Dynamic or reactive planning methods compute just one next action in every instant based on the current context and pre-scripted plans. In contrast to classical planning methods, reactive or dynamic approaches do not suffer combinatorial explosion. On the other hand, they are sometimes seen as too rigid to be considered strong AI, since the plans are coded in advance. At the same time, natural intelligence can be rigid in some contexts although it is fluid and able to adapt in others.
Example dynamic planning mechanisms include:
Finite-state machines These are reactive architectures used mostly for computer game agents, in particular for first-person shooters bots, or for virtual movie actors. Typically, the state-machines are hierarchical. For concrete game examples, see Halo 2 bots paper by Damian Isla (2005) or the Master's Thesis about Quake III bots by Jan Paul van Waveren (2001). For a movie example, see Softimage.
Other structured reactive plans tend to look a little more like conventional plans, often with ways to represent hierarchical and sequential structure. Some, such as PRS's 'acts', have support for partial plans. Many agent architectures from the mid-1990s included such plans as a "middle layer" that provided organization for low-level behavior modules while being directed by a higher level real-time planner. Despite this supposed interoperability with automated planners, most structured reactive plans are hand coded (Bryson 2001, ch. 3). Examples of structured reactive plans include James Firby's RAP System and the Nils Nilsson's Teleo-reactive plans. PRS, RAPs & TRP are no longer developed or supported. One still-active (as of 2006) descendant of this approach is the Parallel-rooted Ordered Slip-stack Hierarchical (or POSH) action selection system, which is a part of Joanna Bryson's Behaviour Oriented Design.
Sometimes to attempt to address the perceived inflexibility of dynamic planning, hybrid techniques are used. In these, a more conventional AI planning system searches for new plans when the agent has spare time, and updates the dynamic plan library when it finds good solutions. The important aspect of any such system is that when the agent needs to select an action, some solution exists that can be used immediately (see further anytime algorithm).
Others
CogniTAO is a decision making engine it based on BDI (belief-desire-intention), it includes built in teamwork capabilities.
Soar is a symbolic cognitive architecture. It is based on condition-action rules known as productions. Programmers can use the Soar development toolkit for building both reactive and planning agents, or any compromise between these two extremes.
Excalibur was a research project led by Alexander Nareyek featuring any-time planning agents for computer games. The architecture is based on structural constraint satisfaction, which is an advanced artificial intelligence technique.
ACT-R is similar to Soar. It includes a Bayesian learning system to help prioritize the productions.
ABL/Hap
Fuzzy architectures The fuzzy approach in action selection produces more smooth behaviour than can be produced by architectures exploiting boolean condition-action rules (like Soar or POSH). These architectures are mostly reactive and symbolic.
Theories of action selection in nature
Many dynamic models of artificial action selection were originally inspired by research in ethology. In particular, Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen provided the idea of an innate releasing mechanism to explain instinctive behaviors (fixed action patterns). Influenced by the ideas of William McDougall, Lorenz developed this into a "psychohydraulic" model of the motivation of behavior. In ethology, these ideas were influential in the 1960s, but they are now regarded as outdated because of their use of an energy flow metaphor; the nervous system and the control of behavior are now normally treated as involving information transmission rather than energy flow. Dynamic plans and neural networks are more similar to information transmission, while spreading activation is more similar to the diffuse control of emotional / hormonal systems.
Stan Franklin has proposed that action selection is the right perspective to take in understanding the role and evolution of mind. See his page on the action selection paradigm.
AI models of neural action selection
Some researchers create elaborate models of neural action selection. See for example:
The Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab (CU Boulder).
The Adaptive Behaviour Research Group (Sheffield).
Catecholaminergic Neuron Electron Transport (CNET)
The locus coeruleus (LC) is one of the primary sources of noradrenaline in the brain, and has been associated with selection of cognitive processing, such as attention and behavioral tasks. The substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) is one of the primary sources of dopamine in the brain, and has been associated with action selection, primarily as part of the basal ganglia. CNET is a hypothesized neural signaling mechanism in the SNc and LC (which are catecholaminergic neurons), that could assist with action selection by routing energy between neurons in each group as part of action selection, to help one or more neurons in each group to reach action potential. It was first proposed in 2018, and is based on a number of physical parameters of those neurons, which can be broken down into three major components:
1) Ferritin and neuromelanin are present in high concentrations in those neurons, but it was unknown in 2018 whether they formed structures that would be capable of transmitting electrons over relatively long distances on the scale of microns between the largest of those neurons, which had not been previously proposed or observed. Those structures would also need to provide a routing or switching function, which had also not previously been proposed or observed. Evidence of the presence of ferritin and neuromelanin structures in those neurons and their ability to both conduct electrons by sequential tunneling and to route/switch the path of the neurons was subsequently obtained.
2) ) The axons of large SNc neurons were known to have extensive arbors, but it was unknown whether post-synaptic activity at the synapses of those axons would raise the membrane potential of those neurons sufficiently to cause the electrons to be routed to the neuron or neurons with the most post-synaptic activity for the purpose of action selection. At the time, prevailing explanations of the purpose of those neurons was that they did not mediate action selection and were only modulatory and non-specific. Prof. Pascal Kaeser of Harvard Medical School subsequently obtained evidence that large SNc neurons can be temporally and spatially specific and mediate action selection. Other evidence indicates that the large LC axons have similar behavior.
3) Several sources of electrons or excitons to provide the energy for the mechanism were hypothesized in 2018 but had not been observed at that time. Dioxetane cleavage (which can occur during somatic dopamine metabolism by quinone degradation of melanin) was contemporaneously proposed to generate high energy triplet state electrons by Prof. Doug Brash at Yale, which could provide a source for electrons for the CNET mechanism.
While evidence of a number of physical predictions of the CNET hypothesis has thus been obtained, evidence of whether the hypothesis itself is correct has not been sought. One way to try to determine whether the CNET mechanism is present in these neurons would be to use quantum dot fluorophores and optical probes to determine whether electron tunneling associated with ferritin in the neurons is occurring in association with specific actions.
See also
References
Further reading
Bratman, M.: Intention, plans, and practical reason. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press (1987)
Brom, C., Lukavský, J., Šerý, O., Poch, T., Šafrata, P.: Affordances and level-of-detail AI for virtual humans. In: Proceedings of Game Set and Match 2, Delft (2006)
Bryson, J.: Intelligence by Design: Principles of Modularity and Coordination for Engineering Complex Adaptive Agents. PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2001)
Champandard, A. J.: AI Game Development: Synthetic Creatures with learning and Reactive Behaviors. New Riders, USA (2003)
Grand, S., Cliff, D., Malhotra, A.: Creatures: Artificial life autonomous software-agents for home entertainment. In: Johnson, W. L. (eds.): Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents. ACM press (1997) 22-29
Huber, M. J.: JAM: A BDI-theoretic mobile agent architecture. In: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents'99). Seattle (1999) 236-243
Isla, D.: Handling complexity in Halo 2. In: Gamastura online, 03/11 (2005)
Maes, P.: The agent network architecture (ANA). In: SIGART Bulletin, 2 (4), pages 115–120 (1991)
Nareyek, A. Excalibur project
Reynolds, C. W. Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model. In: Computer Graphics, 21(4) (SIGGRAPH '87 Conference Proceedings) (1987) 25-34.
de Sevin, E. Thalmann, D.:A motivational Model of Action Selection for Virtual Humans. In: Computer Graphics International (CGI), IEEE Computer SocietyPress, New York (2005)
Tyrrell, T.: Computational Mechanisms for Action Selection. Ph.D. Dissertation. Centre for Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh (1993)
van Waveren, J. M. P.: The Quake III Arena Bot. Master thesis. Faculty ITS, University of Technology Delft (2001)
Wooldridge, M. An Introduction to MultiAgent Systems. John Wiley & Sons (2002)
External links
The University of Memphis: Agents by action selection
Michael Wooldridge: Introduction to agents and their action selection mechanisms
Cyril Brom: Slides on a course on action selection of artificial beings
Soar project. University of Michigan.
Modelling natural action selection, a special issue published by The Royal Society - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
Artificial intelligence
Functional analysis
Motor control
Motor cognition
Management cybernetics
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor%20Ostrom
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Elinor Ostrom
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Elinor Claire "Lin" Ostrom (née Awan; August 7, 1933 – June 12, 2012) was an American political scientist and political economist whose work was associated with New Institutional Economics and the resurgence of political economy. In 2009, she was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for her "analysis of economic governance, especially the commons", which she shared with Oliver E. Williamson. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics.
After graduating with a B.A. and Ph.D. in political science from UCLA, Ostrom lived in Bloomington, Indiana, and served on the faculty of Indiana University, with a late-career affiliation with Arizona State University. She was a Distinguished Professor at Indiana University and the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, as well as research professor and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity at Arizona State University in Tempe. She was a lead researcher for the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM CRSP), managed by Virginia Tech and funded by USAID. Beginning in 2008, she and her husband Vincent Ostrom advised the journal Transnational Corporations Review.
Since the 60s, Ostrom was involved in resource management policy and created a research center, which attracted scientists from different disciplines from around the world. Working and teaching at her center was created on the principle of a workshop, rather than a university with lectures and a strict hierarchy.
Ostrom studied the interaction of people and ecosystems for many years and showed that the use of exhaustible resources by groups of people (communities, cooperatives, trusts, trade unions) can be rational and prevent depletion of the resource without either state intervention or markets with private property.
Personal life and education
Elinor Claire Awan was born in Los Angeles, California as the only child of Leah Hopkins, a musician, and Adrian Awan, a set designer. Her parents separated early in her life, and Elinor lived with her mother most of the time. She attended a Protestant church with her mother and often spent weekends with her father's Jewish family. Growing up in the post-Depression era to divorced artisans, Ostrom described herself as a "poor kid." Her major recreational activity was swimming, where she eventually joined a swimming team and swam competitively until she started teaching swimming to earn funds to help put herself through college.
Ostrom grew up across the street from Beverly Hills High School, which she attended, graduating in 1951.
She regarded this as fortunate, for the school had a very high rate of college admittance. During Ostrom's junior year, she was encouraged to join the debate team. Learning debate tactics had an important impact on her ways of thinking. It allowed her to realize there are two sides to public policy and it is imperative to have quality arguments for both sides. As a high school student, Elinor Ostrom had been discouraged from studying trigonometry, as girls without top marks in algebra and geometry were not allowed to take the subject. No one in her immediate family had any college experience, but seeing that 90% of students in her high school attended college, she saw it as the "normal" thing to do. Her mother did not wish for her to attend college, seeing no reason for it.
She attended UCLA, receiving a B.A. (with honors) in political science at UCLA in 1954. By attending multiple summer sessions and extra classes throughout semesters, she was able to graduate in three years. She worked at the library, dime store and bookstore in order to pay her fees which were $50 per semester.
She married a classmate, Charles Scott, and worked at General Radio in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while Scott attended Harvard Law School. They divorced several years later when Ostrom began contemplating a Ph.D. After graduation, she had trouble finding a job because employers presumed that she was only looking for jobs as a teacher or secretary. She began a job as an export clerk after taking a correspondence course for shorthand, which she later found to be helpful when taking notes in face-to-face interviews on research projects. After a year, she obtained a position as assistant personnel manager in a business firm that had never before hired a woman in anything but a secretarial position. This job inspired her to think about attending graduate-level courses and eventually applying for a research assistantship and admission to a Ph.D. program.
Lacking any math from her undergraduate education and trigonometry from high school, she was consequently rejected for an economics Ph.D. program at UCLA. She was admitted to UCLA's graduate program in political science, where she was awarded an M.A. in 1962 and a Ph.D. in 1965. The teams of graduate students she was involved with were analyzing the political economic effects of a group of groundwater basins in Southern California. Specifically, Ostrom was assigned to look at the West Basin. She found it is very difficult to manage a common-pool resource when it is used between individuals. The locals were pumping too much groundwater and salt water seeped into the basin. Ostrom was impressed with how people from conflicting and overlapping jurisdictions who depended on that source found incentives to settle contradictions and solve the problem. She made the study of this collaboration the topic of her dissertation, laying the foundation for the study of "shared resources". The postgraduate seminar was led by Vincent Ostrom, an associate professor of political science, 14 years her senior, whom she married in 1963. This marked the beginning of a lifelong partnership named "love and contestation," as Ostrom put it in her dedication to her seminal 1990 book, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.
In 1961 Vincent Ostrom, Charles Tiebout, and Robert Warren published "The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas," which would go on to be an influential article and introduced themes that would be central to the Ostroms' work. However, the article aggravated a conflict with UCLA's Bureau of Governmental Research because, counter to the Bureau's interests, it advised against centralization of metropolitan areas in favor of polycentrism. This conflict prompted the Ostroms to leave UCLA. They moved to Bloomington, Indiana, in 1965, when Vincent accepted a political science professorship at Indiana University. She joined the faculty as a visiting assistant professor. The first course she taught was an evening class on American government.
Career
Ostrom was richly informed by fieldwork, both her own and that of others. During her PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles, she spent years studying the water wars and pumping races going on in the 1950s in her own dry backyard. In contrast to the prevailing rational-economic predictions of Malthusianism and the tragedy of the commons, she showed cases where humans were not trapped and helpless amid diminishing supplies. In her book Governing the Commons, she draws on studies of irrigation systems in Spain and Nepal, mountain villages in Switzerland and Japan, and fisheries in Maine and Indonesia.
Ostrom is probably best known for revisiting the so-called “tragedy of the commons" – a theory proposed by biologist Garrett Hardin in 1968. "In an article by the same name published in the journal Science, Hardin theorized that if each herdsman sharing a piece of common grazing land made the individually rational economic decision of increasing the number of cattle he keeps on the land, the collective effect would deplete or destroy the commons. In other words, multiple individuals—acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest—will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long-term interest for this to happen. Ostrom believes that the “tragedy” in such situations isn’t inevitable, as Hardin thought. Instead, if the herders decide to cooperate with one another, monitoring each other’s use of the land and enforcing rules for managing it, they can avoid the tragedy."Garrett Hardin believes that the most important aspect that we need to realize today is the need to abandon the principle of shared resources in reproduction. A possible alternative to the tragedy of the commons (shared needs) was described in Elinor Ostrom's book "Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action". Based on her fieldwork, the book demonstrates that there are practical algorithms for the collective use of a limited common resource, which solve the many issues with both government/regulation driven solutions and market-based ones. In 1973, Ostrom and her husband founded the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. Examining the use of collective action, trust, and cooperation in the management of common pool resources (CPR), her institutional approach to public policy, known as the Institutional analysis and development framework (IAD), has been considered sufficiently distinct to be thought of as a separate school of public choice theory. She authored many books in the fields of organizational theory, political science, and public administration. Elinor Ostrom was a dedicated scholar until the very end of her life. Indeed, on the day before she died, she sent e-mail messages to at least two different sets of coauthors about papers that she was writing with them. She was the chief scientific advisor for the International Council for Science (ICSU) Planet Under Pressure meeting in London in March, and Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Centre wrote that"Lin, up until the very end, was heavily involved in our preparations for the Nobel laureate dialogues on global sustainability we will be hosting in Rio 17th and 18th of June during the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit. In the end, she decided she could not come in person, but was contributing sharp, enthusiastically charged, inputs, in the way only she could.""Ostrom Facts", Nobel Prize.org
It was long unanimously held among economists that natural resources that were collectively used by their users would be over-exploited and destroyed in the long-term. Elinor Ostrom disproved this idea by conducting field studies on how people in small, local communities manage shared natural resources, such as pastures, fishing waters and forests. She showed that when natural resources are jointly used by their users, in time, rules are established for how these are to be cared for and they become used in a way that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.
Elinor Ostrom was appointed Professor of Political Science in 1974. She was the head of the department from 1980 to 1984, and then held the Arthur F. Bentley Chair of Political Science
She was senior research director of the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Distinguished Professor and Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences, and professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. The Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis was meant to utilize diverse scholars throughout economics, political science, and other fields to collaborate and attempt to understand how institutional arrangements in a diverse set of ecological and social economic political settings affected behavior and outcomes. The goal was not to fly around the world collecting data, rather it is to create a network of scholars who live in particular areas of the world and had strong interests in forest conditions and forest policy conducted the studies.
Ostrom's innovative and ground-breaking research was supported by National Science Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Hynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, U.S.A.I.D., the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the National Institute of Mental Health.
Ostrom has been involved in international activities throughout her long and productive career. She had experience in Kenya, Nepal and Nigeria, and also made research trips to Australia, Bolivia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, Poland and Zimbabwe. During workshops and research grants, she and her husband supported many international students, and visited researchers and policymakers. They did not have children of their own and used personal funds and efforts to receive grants to help others. In a 2010 interview, Ostrom noted that because they had no family to support, “I was not ever concerned about salary, so that’s never been an issue for me. For some colleagues who have big families, and all the rest, it’s a major issue.”
Ostrom was a founding member and first president of the IASC (International Association for the Study of the Commons).
Research
Ostrom's early work emphasized the role of public choice on decisions influencing the production of public goods and services. Among her better known works in this area is her study on the polycentricity of police functions in Indianapolis. Caring for the commons had to be a multiple task, organised from the ground up and shaped to cultural norms. It had to be discussed face to face, and based on trust. Dr. Ostrom, besides poring over satellite data and quizzing lobstermen herself, enjoyed employing game theory to try to predict the behaviour of people faced with limited resources. In her Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University—set up with her husband Vincent, a political scientist, in 1973—her students were given shares in a national common. When they discussed what they should do before they did it, their rate of return from their "investments" more than doubled. Her later, and more famous, work focused on how humans interact with ecosystems to maintain long-term sustainable resource yields. Common pool resources include many forests, fisheries, oil fields, grazing lands, and irrigation systems. She conducted her field studies on the management of pasture by locals in Africa and irrigation systems management in villages of western Nepal (e.g., Dang Deukhuri). Her work has considered how societies have developed diverse institutional arrangements for managing natural resources and avoiding ecosystem collapse in many cases, even though some arrangements have failed to prevent resource exhaustion. Her work emphasized the multifaceted nature of human–ecosystem interaction and argues against any singular "panacea" for individual social-ecological system problems.
Design principles for Common Pool Resource (CPR) institution
Ostrom identified eight "design principles" of stable local common pool resource management:
Clearly defining the group boundaries (and effective exclusion of external un-entitled parties) and the contents of the common pool resource;
The appropriation and provision of common resources that are adapted to local conditions;
Collective-choice arrangements that allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process;
Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators;
A scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules;
Mechanisms of conflict resolution that are cheap and of easy access;
Self-determination of the community recognized by higher-level authorities; and
In the case of larger common-pool resources, organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local CPRs at the base level.
These principles have since been slightly modified and expanded to include a number of additional variables believed to affect the success of self-organized governance systems, including effective communication, internal trust and reciprocity, and the nature of the resource system as a whole.
Ostrom and her many co-researchers have developed a comprehensive "Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework", within which much of the still-evolving theory of common-pool resources and collective self-governance is now located.
Environmental protection
According to the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, "Ostrom cautioned against single governmental units at global level to solve the collective action problem of coordinating work against environmental destruction. Partly, this is due to their complexity, and partly to the diversity of actors involved. Her proposal was that of a polycentric approach, where key management decisions should be made as close to the scene of events and the actors involved as possible." Ostrom helped disprove the idea held by economists that natural resources would be over-used and destroyed in the long run. Elinor Ostrom disproved this idea by conducting field studies on how people in small, local communities manage shared natural resources, such as pastures, fishing waters in Maine and Indonesia, and forests in Nepal. She showed that when natural resources are jointly managed by their users, in time, rules are established for how these are to be cared for and used in a way that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.
Ostrom's law
Ostrom's law is an adage that represents how Elinor Ostrom's works in economics challenge previous theoretical frameworks and assumptions about property, especially the commons. Ostrom's detailed analyses of functional examples of the commons create an alternative view of the arrangement of resources that are both practically and theoretically possible. This eponymous law is stated succinctly by Lee Anne Fennell as:
A resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory.
Awards and recognition
Ostrom was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and president of the American Political Science Association and the Public Choice Society. In 1999, she became the first woman to receive the prestigious Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science.
Ostrom was awarded the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award for Political Economy in 1998. Her presented paper, on "The Comparative Study of Public Economies", was followed by a discussion among Kenneth Arrow, Thomas Schelling, and Amartya Sen. She was awarded the John J. Carty Award from the National Academy of Sciences in 2004, and, in 2005, received the James Madison Award by the American Political Science Association. In 2008, she became the first woman to receive the William H. Riker Prize in political science; and, the following year, she received the Tisch Civic Engagement Research Prize from the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. In 2010, the Utne Reader magazine included Ostrom as one of the "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World". She was named one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2012.
The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) awarded its Honorary Fellowship to her in 2002.In 2008 she was awarded an honorary degree, doctor honoris causa, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
In July 2019, Indiana University Bloomington announced that as part of their Bridging the Visibility Gap initiative, a statue of Ostrom would be placed outside of the building which houses the university's political science department.
Nobel Prize in Economics
In 2009, Ostrom became the first woman to receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance", saying her work had demonstrated how common property could be successfully managed by groups using it. Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson shared the 10-million Swedish kronor (€990,000; $1.44 million) prize for their separate work in economic governance. As she had done with previous monetary prizes, Ostrom donated her award to the Workshop she helped to found.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Ostrom's "research brought this topic from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention...by showing how common resources—forests, fisheries, oil fields or grazing lands—can be managed successfully by the people who use them rather than by governments or private companies". Ostrom's work in this regard challenged conventional wisdom, showing that common resources can be successfully managed without government regulation or privatization.
In awarding Ostrom the Nobel Prize for the Analysis of Economic Governance, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences noted that her work "teaches us novel lessons about the deep mechanisms that sustain cooperation in human societies." Even if Ostrom's selection (along with co-recipient Oliver Williamson of the University of California, Berkeley) seemed odd to some, others saw it as an appropriate reaction to free-market inefficiencies highlighted by the 2008 financial crisis.
Death
Ostrom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October 2011. During the final year of her life, she continued to write and lecture, giving the Hayek Lecture at the Institute of Economic Affairs just eleven weeks before her death. She died at 6:40 a.m. Tuesday, June 12, 2012, at IU Health Bloomington Hospital at the age of 78. On the day of her death, she published her last article, "Green from the Grassroots," in Project Syndicate. Indiana University president Michael McRobbie wrote: "Indiana University has lost an irreplaceable and magnificent treasure with the passing of Elinor Ostrom". Her Indiana colleague Michael McGinnis commented after her death that Ostrom donated her share of the $1.4 million Nobel award money to the Workshop—the biggest, by far, of several academic prizes with monetary awards that the Ostroms had given to the center over the years. Her husband Vincent died 17 days later from complications related to cancer. He was 92.
Selected publications
Books
Chapters in books
Journal articles
Pdf version.
See also
Co-production of public services by service users and communities.
Institutional analysis and development framework (IAD)
List of Jewish Nobel laureates
References
Further reading
Ostrom, Vincent and Elinor Ostrom. "Rethinking Institutional Analysis: Interviews with Vincent and Elinor Ostrom." By Paul Dragos Aligica. Interview, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, 2003.
External links
On Collaboration Elinor Ostrom speaks on BBC The Forum
Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University
Elinor Ostrom Curriculum Vitae
Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity at Arizona State University
No Panaceas! Elinor Ostrom Talks with Fran Korten
including the Nobel Lecture on 8 December 2009 Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems
Elinor Ostrom news, photos and videos from The Herald-Times, Bloomington, Indiana.
Profile at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS).
Video of Annual Reviews Conversations Interview with Elinor Ostrom (2011).
Bonnie J. McCay and Joan Bennett, "Elinor Ostrom", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2014)
1933 births
2012 deaths
Nobel laureates in Economics
American Nobel laureates
Women Nobel laureates
20th-century American economists
21st-century American economists
Jewish American economists
Climate economists
Environmental economists
Information economists
New institutional economists
American women economists
Jewish American writers
21st-century American women writers
20th-century American writers
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American women political scientists
American political scientists
American Protestants
Articles containing video clips
Beverly Hills High School alumni
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Public commons
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
Deaths from cancer in Indiana
Deaths from pancreatic cancer
Members of the American Philosophical Society
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Oxford "-er"
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The Oxford "-er", or often "-ers", is a colloquial and sometimes facetious suffix prevalent at Oxford University from about 1875, which is thought to have been borrowed from the slang of Rugby School. The term was defined by the lexicographer Eric Partridge in his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (several editions 1937–61).
Rugger, footer and soccer
The "-er" gave rise to such words as rugger and the now archaic footer for Rugby football, while soccer was used for association football. Togger was widely used for the Torpids Eights races held in early Spring, and for the crews that rowed in them. In The Oxford Magazine of 27 February 1906, the Trinity College correspondent reported that "Our First Togger bumped Pembroke on Thursday, New College II on Saturday, Brasenose on Monday, Exeter on Tuesday. The Second Togger bumped Wadham on Thursday, Keble II on Friday, and St. Catherine's on Monday. We wish them continued success."
The term "soccer", derived from a transformation/emendation of the "assoc" in Association football, was popularised by a prominent English footballer, Charles Wreford-Brown (1866–1951). The first recorded use of "soccer" was in 1895 (or even earlier in 1892). Two years earlier The Western Gazette reported that "W. Neilson was elected captain of 'rugger' and T. N. Perkins of 'socker'" and Henry Watson Fowler recommended socker in preference to "soccer" to emphasise its correct pronunciation (i.e. hard "cc/ck"). In this context, he suggested that "baccy", because of the "cc" in "tobacco", was "more acceptable than soccer" (there being no "cc" in "Association"). "Socker" was the form that appeared in the first edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary (1911).
The sports writer E. W. Swanton, who joined the London Evening Standard in 1927, recalled that "Rugby football ... in those days, I think, was never called anything but rugger unless it were just football". Around the same time the Conservative Minister Leo Amery noted that, for his thirteen-year-old son Jack, "footer in the rain [was] a very real grievance" at Harrow School.
In literature
P. G. Wodehouse makes several references to footer in his early school stories, The Gold Bat (A & C Black, 1904), The White Feather (A & C Black, 1907) and Mike (A & C Black, 1909), all of which had first been serialised in The Captain before appearing in book form.
In Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (1945), Oxford undergraduate Anthony Blanche claims that "I was lunching with my p-p-preposterous tutor. He thought it very odd my leaving when I did. I told him I had to change for f-f-footer."
In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963), Wodehouse has Bertie Wooster being asked whether he was fond of rugger, to which he replied "I don't think I know him".
As late as 1972 the retired headmaster of a Hertfordshire grammar school recalled "the footer" (by which he meant rugby) having had a poor season in 1953–4.
What is and is not
Typically such words are formed by abbreviating or altering the original word and adding "-er". Words to which "-er" is simply suffixed to provide a word with a different, though related, meaning – such as "Peeler" (early Metropolitan policeman, after Sir Robert Peel) and "exhibitioner" (an undergraduate holding a type of scholarship called an exhibition) – are not examples. Nor are slang nouns like "bounder" or "scorcher", formed by adding "-er" to a verb. "Topper" (for "top hat") may appear to be an example, but as a word meaning excellent person or thing, existed from the early 18th century. Both "top hat" and "topper" as synonymous terms date from Regency times (c.1810–20) and Partridge (op. cit.) seems to suggest that the former, itself originally slang, may have been derived from the latter.
Words like "rotter" (a disagreeable person, after "rotten") are somewhere in between. Fiver and tenner (for five and ten pound note respectively) probably do fit the "-er" mould, as, more obviously, does oncer (one pound note), though this was always less prevalent than the higher denominations and is virtually obsolete following the introduction of the pound coin in 1983.
During the First World War the Belgian town of Ypres was known to British soldiers as "Wipers" (and this is still often used by the town's inhabitants if speaking English). This had some hallmarks of an "-er" coinage and the form would have been familiar to many young officers, but "Wipers" was essentially an attempt to anglicize a name () that some soldiers found difficult to pronounce. In the BBC TV series Blackadder Goes Forth (Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, 1988), a comedy series set in the trenches during the First World War, Captain Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) and Lieutenant George (Hugh Laurie) occasionally addressed Private Baldrick (Tony Robinson) as Balders.
A common extension of the "-er" (though here the schwa sound is usually spelled "-a" rather than "-er") is found in names containing a pronounced "r", e.g., "Darren", "Barry", etc. where in addition to the "-er", the "r"-sound is replaced by a "zz" so one gets "Dazza" from "Darren", "Bazza" from "Barry".
Test Match Special
The "-er" form was famously used on BBC radio's Test Match Special by Brian Johnston (1912–94). Johnston was ex-Eton and New College, Oxford, and widely known as Johnners. He bestowed nicknames on his fellow commentators on Test cricket: Blowers for Henry Blofeld (who was known in Australia as "Blofly"), Aggers (Jonathan Agnew), Bearders (scorer Bill Frindall, known also as "the Bearded Wonder") and McGillers (Alan McGilvray of the ABC). The habit extended to cricketers such as Phil Tufnell (Tuffers), but the "-ie" suffix is more common for commentating ex-players of this century, such as Michael Vaughan ("Vaughnie") or Shane Warne ("Warnie").
The former Hampshire County Cricket Club captain Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, whose most usual nickname was McCrackers, was sometimes addressed as Ingers when he made occasional appearances on TMS, and former Middlesex bowler and journalist Mike Selvey was referred to as Selvers. The programme's producer, Peter Baxter, cited Backers as his own nickname and Jenkers as that of commentator and cricketing journalist, Christopher Martin-Jenkins (though the latter was better known by his initials, "CMJ").
Following his death in 1994, the satirical magazine Private Eye published a cartoon of Johnston arriving at the gates of heaven with the greeting "Morning, Godders". An earlier Eye cartoon by McLachlan, reproduced in the 2007 edition of Wisden, included in its long caption a reference to former England bowler Fred Trueman as Fredders (in fact, his common nickname, bestowed by Johnston, was "Sir Frederick"), while yummers (i.e. "yummy") was applied to "another lovely cake sent in by one of our listeners". Blowers (Henry Blofeld) has continued the tradition, referring on one occasion to a particular stroke as inexplickers (inexplicable).
Other personal forms
Other "-er"s as personal names include:
Athers: Lancashire and England cricket captain Michael Atherton (b. 1968), who subsequently became a commentator on both radio and TV ("all cricket-lovers have crackpot theories, even Athers");
Beckers: former England football captain David Beckham (b. 1975) became known almost universally as "Becks" (and with his wife Victoria, formerly of the Spice Girls, as "Posh and Becks"), but there are some instances of his being referred to as "Beckers");
Beemer: Rich Beem, professional golfer, television commentator and analyst.
Betjers: as an undergraduate, the poet John Betjeman (1906–1984) was generally known as "Betjy" or "Betj", but Philip Larkin, among others, later adopted the "-er" form;
Blashers: the magazine Country Life referred to the explorer Colonel John Blashford-Snell (b. 1936) as "Blashers" (as in "Hats off to Blashers", reporting his having assisted in the design a hat for explorers);
Brackers: Football commentator Peter Brackley was known as "Brackers". Tim Wonnacott also used this form with reference to Bargain Hunt expert James Braxton (owner of Edgar Horns Auctioneers, Eastbourne) during the 2008 series of the programme.
Britters: American singer Britney Spears (b. 1981) was often described in the British press as "Britters". Unsurprisingly, her boyfriend when she first rose to fame, the singer Justin Timberlake (b. 1981), was Timbers.
Bozzer (or "Bozza"): British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (b. 1964)
Camers or Cammers: applied occasionally to British Prime Minister David Cameron (b. 1966), notably by bloggers or spoof writers and especially with reference to his educational background (Eton and Oxford);
Cheggers: broadcaster Keith Chegwin (1957-2017);
Chunners: Street Fighter video game character Chun-Li;
Cleggers: Nick Clegg (b. 1967), British Deputy Prime Minister 2010-2015: shortly after the formation of a coalition government, a cartoon by Peter Brookes of The Times, had Prime Minister David Cameron saying, "Polish these [boots], Cleggers, old son ...";
Crabbers: former Sunderland AFC local radio commentator Simon Crabtree;
Griggers: recounting how she met John Betjeman, Alice Jennings, a programme engineer at the BBC during the Second World War referred to producer Geoffrey Grigson (1905–85) as follows: "'John said, 'Who's that girl?' And Griggers from a great height said, 'That's your PE'";
Hatters was used by Private Eye with reference to Roy, Lord Hattersley (b. 1934), former Deputy Leader of the British Labour Party;
Jezza: former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and TV personality Jeremy Clarkson
From the 1960s and subsequently, Elanwy Jones of Collett Dickenson Pearce was known to her circle as Lanners;
Macca : musician Paul McCartney
Mozzer (or "Mozza"): musician Morrissey
Notters: during the Falklands War of 1982 Conservative MP and diarist Alan Clark referred to British Defence Secretary John Nott (b. 1932) as "poor old Notters";
Pragger Wagger: various holders of the title of Prince of Wales, probably originally referring to Edward VII when heir apparent;
Rampers: the Surrey (and former Middlesex) cricketer Mark Ramprakash (b. 1969): "I could not help wondering how 'Rampers' would have dealt with their ageing attack" (Bill Frindall, 2007);
Rodders for Rodney, as in the BBC radio comedy series, Beyond Our Ken (1958–64), when Hugh Paddick, playing the part of Charles, addressed his camp friend Rodney (Kenneth Williams): "Absolutely dolly, Rodders". Rodney Trotter in Only Fools and Horses is often referred to as Rodders by his brother Del Boy.
Tatters: the Yorkshire squire, Sir Tatton Sykes (1826-1913), father of politician and diplomat Sir Mark Sykes and great-great-grandfather of novelist and socialite Plum Sykes (Worcester College), was referred to in the novels of Robert Surtees as "Tatters" or "Old Tat";
Thickers: John Thicknesse, cricket correspondent of the London Evening Standard 1967–96;
Tinners: Peter Tinniswood (1936–2003), TV scriptwriter and author of Tales from the Long Room;
Tollers: the Oxford nickname of writer J.R.R. Tolkien (1892–1973);
Tuffers: Middlesex and England cricketer Phil Tufnell (b. 1966)
Twitters: nickname of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon (1831–1890), British Colonial Secretary in the 1860s-70s, on account of his twitchy behaviour;
Whiters: used privately by broadcaster Carol Vorderman to address Richard Whiteley (1943–2005), her co-presenter of Countdown;
Widders: former British Government Minister Ann Widdecombe (b. 1947) was so described by journalist Hugo Vickers.
Woolers: sports journalist Ian Wooldridge (1932–2007).
Oxford
University and City locations
"-er" forms of Oxford locations include:
Adders: Addison's Walk, Magdalen College;
All Soggers: All Souls (as, e.g., in the Letters of Philip Larkin);
Bodder: Bodleian Library;
Compers and Benders: Compline and Benediction, Magdalen College;
Deepers: the beer cellar of Lincoln College, officially "Deep Hall";
the Giler: the street St Giles'; also St Giles' Café;
Jaggers: Jesus College;
memugger: memorial, particularly the Martyrs' Memorial, which has also been referred to as Maggers Memoggers;
Radder: Radcliffe Camera;
Staggers: St Stephen's House;
Stanners: members of St Anne's College;
Wuggers (or sometimes, Wuggins): Worcester College.
Other Oxonian forms
Bonners was undergraduate slang for bonfire (c. 1890s), possibly, as Partridge suggests, an allusion to Bishop Edmund Bonner of London (c. 1500–1569) who was involved in the burning of alleged heretics under Queen Mary I.
Bullers for the University Police, or bulldogs: for example, "The [University] proctors ... go about accompanied by small, thickset men in blue suits and bowler hats, who are known as bullers" (Edmund Crispin (1946) The Moving Toyshop).
Bumpers for a bumps race in rowing was in use at both Oxford and Cambridge from about the turn of the 20th century and may have arisen first at Shrewsbury School.
Congratters (or simply, gratters), now very dated as a form of congratulations, was recorded by Desmond Coke (1879–1931) in Sandford of Merton (1903).
Cuppers is an inter-collegiate sporting competition, derived from "cup".
Divvers referred to divinity as a subject of study, as, for example, when John Betjeman, as an undergraduate in 1928, published "a special 'Divvers' number of The University News, complete with cut-out Old and New Testament cribs in the form of shirt cuffs to enable candidates to cheat in the exam".
Eccer (pronounced ekker) for exercise.
Sonners was the nickname of William Stallybrass, the inter-war principal of Brasenose.
Other examples
Brekker, breakker or brekkers (for breakfast) is a coinage from the 1880s still in occasional use. In 1996, Jessica Mitford (1917–1996) in one of her final letters to her sister, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, referred to "proper boiled eggs for breakker". Shampers (champagne) occurs frequently, often spelt champers: "They like champers up north".
At Cambridge University, cleaning staff who change bed linen and towels in college rooms are referred to as "bedders".
Simon Raven (1927–2001), describing an episode on military service in the late 1940s, referred several times to a particular brigadier as "the Brigger".
Terms from Harrow School include bluer (blue blazer) and yarder (school yard).
The common abbreviation 'bant' is an archaism - the word banter people hold to have been derived from actually being slang itself, a cruel victim of the Oxford 'er'. The original word "bant" refers to a drinking toll exacted on those passing from the main quadrangle of University College, Oxford to its secondary Radcliffe 'quad' between the hours of 7 and 10 PM, The tollgate itself being the entrance to a shared student room, and the toll being the rapid consumption of an alcoholic beverage.
A flat-sided conker (fruit of a horse-chestnut) is known as a cheeser, an "-er" contraction of "cheese-cutter". The names applied to conkers that have triumphed in conker fights are arguably "-er" forms ("one-er", "twelver", etc), though "conker" itself is derived from a dialect word for the shell of a snail.
20th century novelists
There are few "-ers" in the books of P. G. Wodehouse, though, with reference to a boundary in cricket scoring four runs, his poem, "The Cricketer in Winter" contained the line, "And giving batsmen needless fourers" (which he rhymed with "more errs"). The "-er" was evident also in the school cricketing stories of E. F. Benson: "Owlers (this, of course, was Mr Howliss)" (David Blaize, 1916). In the two Chimneys novels of Agatha Christie, a pompous Cabinet Minister was nicknamed Codders because of his bulging eyes (presumably an allusion to the cod fish).
Evelyn Waugh referred to his books Remote People (1931) and Black Mischief (1932) as Remoters and Blackers and to Madresfield Court, the country seat of the Earls Beauchamp, as Madders.
Locations
Evidence of badders for the racquet sport of badminton is largely anecdotal, as it is in respect of the horse trials held since 1949 in the grounds of Badminton House, Gloucestershire.
The same is true of Skeggers (the Lincolnshire seaside resort of Skegness, famously described in a railway poster of 1908 as "so bracing") and Honkers, for the former British colony of Hong Kong, though this form (probably late 20th century) has appeared on a number of websites and in print and Wodehouse's first employer, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC, founded 1865), is sometimes referred to in the City of London as Honkers and Shankers.
The stadium at Twickenham in South West London, used for major Rugby Union fixtures, including the annual Oxford v. Cambridge 'Varsity match, is often abbreviated to Twickers and journalist Frank Keating has referred to the annual lawn tennis championships at Wimbledon as Wimbers.
The Gloucestershire town of Cheltenham is sometimes reduced to Chelters, particularly by visitors to the Cheltenham Gold Cup horse races.
Chatsworth, seat of the Dukes of Devonshire, has been referred to as Chatters in Private Eye.
Further examples
When Roald Dahl was at Repton School (1929–34) the captain of a sport would award colours by saying "graggers [i.e. congratulations] on your teamer" to the selected boy.
Test Match Special aside, by the mid-20th century the "-er" was being replaced by snappier nicknames. Thus, in the stories of Anthony Buckeridge (1912–2004), set in a preparatory school of the 1950s, Jennings was "Jen", and not "Jenners". Even so, in the Harry Potter books of J. K. Rowling (b. 1965), Dudley Dursley was addressed as Dudders.
The adjective butters, meaning ugly (an abbreviation of "everything but 'er face"), is a 21st-century example of the "-er" as "street" slang, as in "She's well butters, innit". This is similar in concept to the well-established starkers (stark naked). The origin of bonkers (initially meaning light-headed and, latterly, crazy) is uncertain, but seems to date from the Second World War and is most likely an "-er" coinage derived from "bonk" (in the sense of a blow to the head). Similarly, crackers is probably derived from "cracked" and ultimately from "crazy"; Partridge cited "get the crackers" as a late 19th-century slang for "to go mad"
The late 20th century form, probably Australian in origin, that gave rise to such nicknames as "Bazza" (Barry Humphries's character Barry McKenzie), "Gazza" (Paul Gascoigne), "Hezza" (Michael Heseltine), "Prezza" (John Prescott), "Bozza" (Boris Johnson), "Jezza" (Jeremy Clarkson), "Wozza" (Antony Worrall Thompson), "Wazza" (Wayne Rooney), and "Mozza" (Morrissey) has some similarities to the Oxford "-er". "Macca" for Sir Paul McCartney and others is another variant, McCartney's former wife Heather Mills having been referred to in the press as "Lady Macca" (or sometimes "Mucca"). In Private Eyes occasional spoof romance, Duchess of Love, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall addressed her husband, Prince Charles, as "Chazza", while he referred to her as Cammers'''''.
Notes
1875 introductions
Slang
Terminology of the University of Oxford
Suffixes
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th%20Infantry%20Regiment%20%28United%20States%29
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10th Infantry Regiment (United States)
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The 10th Infantry Regiment is a regiment in the United States Army first formed in 1855. Formerly a standard line regiment that served the United States in the American Civil War and again in World War II and into the Cold War, the 10th Infantry Regiment is now a garrison regiment housing training cadre and trainees undergoing Basic Combat Training with the United States Army.
History
Since its inception, the 10th Infantry Regiment has been famous for its mobility and lethality both of which it displayed in conflicts ranging from the Civil War to WWII. The Regiment's rich battle history and success in war directly correlates with its historically high-quality leadership which all started with the inspirational first commander of the regiment, COL Edmund Brooke Alexander.
The regiment was first commissioned as the 10th Infantry on 3 March 1855 and was officially organized in April 1855 at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. The regiment was first commanded by Colonel Edmund B. Alexander, serving from 1855 to 1869. During his tenure, COL Alexander guided the Regiment through the Indian Wars and Civil War. He is also the man responsible for coining the regimental motto- Courage and Fidelity, which is an excerpt from his famous "Order of the Day" speech, given upon presentation of the colors to the Regiment and prior to deployment to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, the first duty station of the 10th Infantry Regiment. The Regiment's rich battle history and success in war directly correlates with its historically high-quality leadership, which all started with the inspirational first Commander of the Regiment, Colonel Alexander. 25 September 1855, Colonel Alexander, commanding the six-month-old 10th Infantry Regiment, read his order of the day to the cocky, confident group of men assembled on the parade grounds of Carlisle Barracks. He began:
The first Command Sergeant Major of the regiment was Command Sergeant Major Charles C. Monton. At some point the Regiment was transferred to Fort Snelling in the Minnesota Territory for garrison duty. From there it was sent West to Utah in 1857 for the Utah War by President James Buchanan. Post Civil War the Regiment was reassigned to the Department of the Northwest in June 1865 taking command of its posts; Fort Snelling, Fort Ridgely, Fort Ripley, Fort Abercrombie, Fort Rice, and Fort Wadsworth. In 1869 the regiment was consolidated with elements of the 26th Infantry Regiment after having served in the Civil War. It was assigned to the 14th Division on 5 July 1918 and stayed there until it was relieved from assignment in 1919.
The regiment was inactively stationed at Camp Sherman, Ohio from December 1921 until June 1922 when it was reassigned to Fort Knox again on active duty. In 1923 it was assigned to the 5th Infantry Division and stayed there through World War II.
After World War II, the regiment was stationed in Kentucky on inactive duty. In 1947 it was moved to South Carolina until 1951, when it was then stationed at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, Pennsylvania. Due to Cold War escalations, it was sent to West Germany in 1953 on active duty. Four years later it was relieved from assignment and reorganized as a parent regiment under the Combat Arms Regimental System. In 1989 it was again reorganized, this time under the United States Army Regimental System, and transferred to the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command.
The regiment was divided into three separate battalions. For the most part, they served in the same theaters. However, there are some slight differences in the active service of these battalions.
Regimental colors
The regimental colors of the 10th Infantry Regiment are sewn on a blue background representing infantry. The American Bald Eagle holds an olive branch for peace and arrows for war. There are thirteen leaves and thirteen arrows representing the original thirteen colonies. The eagle faces the olive branch as a sign that all Soldiers seek peace. The Regimental Motto and Crest are also present.
Regimental commanders
COL E.B. Alexander (1855 - 1869)
COL H.B. Clitz (1869 - 1885)
COL Henry Douglas (1885 - 1891)
COL R. H. Offery (9 March - October 1891)
COL R. E. Pearson (1891 - 1899)
COL E. P. Ewers (1899 - 1901)
COL S. H. Lincoln (1901 - 1902)
COL C. N. Noble (1902 - 1906)
COL Henry Green (1906 - 1914)
COL W. F. Blauvelt ( May 1914 - November 1914)
COL S. W. Miller (1914 - 1916)
COL D.B. Devore (1916 - 1917)
COL E. A. Root (1917 - 1918)
COL R. C. Grimstead (1918 - 1919)
COL R. C. Langdon ( July 1919 - September 1919)
COL J. P. O'Neal (1919 - 1920)
COL Willis Vline ( May 1920 - October 1920)
COL W. F. Cleary (October 1920 - March 1921)
COL D. B. Devere ( November 1920 - March 1921)
COL R. M. Brambila (1921 - 1924)
COL J. F. Gohn (1922 - 1924)
COL Dana T. Merrill (1924 - 1927)
COL W. H. Waldron (1927 - 1929)
COL F. S. Young (1929 - 1932)
COL Edward Creft ( 1932 - 1933)
COL Dana T. Merrill (1933 - 1935)
COL Charles L. Mitchell (1935 - 1937)
COL Rowan P. Lemly (February 1937 - March 1938)
LTC Herbert A. Wadsworth (1938)
COL Robert P. Bell (1943)
COL W. M. Breckinridge (1944 - 1945)
Regimental crest
The 10th Regimental Insignia is known as the "Bug" because the combination of the "X" and saber appear to be an insect's head, tail, and legs, respectively. The Bug consists of an argent (silver) circle, representing continuity, super-imposed on a roman numeral "X". The argent circle reads Courage and Fidelity, the Regimental motto, and the roman numeral MDCCCLV (1855), the year the Regiment formed. The sword in its scabbard is a weapon of the 10th Roman Legion, and shows that the Regiment activated in peace time.
1st Battalion
The 1st battalion of this regiment was stationed at Fort Ord, California from 1961 until February 1962 when it went on active duty at Fort Carson in Colorado, where it remained until 1970. It was then relieved of its duty and reassigned to the 4th Infantry Division. Its headquarters were last transferred in 1996 to United States Army Training and Doctrine Command and activated at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. It is no longer active.
2nd Battalion
Originally constituted as Company B, 10th Infantry on 3 March 1855, the Battalion first went to the New Mexico Territory in 1862. The Battalion participated in frontier duty there until enlisted in the Army of the Potomac to suppress Rebel advances during the Civil War. The Battalion participated in every major Civil War battle and won the aforementioned blue and gray campaign streamers for its efforts. Following the Civil War, 2nd Battalion participated in the Indian Wars, Spanish-American War and was active in the Philippine Insurrection. In World War II, the 2nd Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment earned a French Croix de Guerre with Palm for the crossing of the Seine River: "A unit possessing fine qualities of skill in maneuvers and heroism. Near Fountainbleau, on 23 and 24 August 1944, it crossed the Seine under fire from mortars and artillery, and established a bridgehead on the opposite bank. In spite of furious counterattacks, it succeeded in breaking the enemy vise, thus permitting the main body of Allied troops to continue its advance in the liberation of French territory. The 2nd battalion was inactivated 1 June 1957 at Fort Ord, California, and relieved from assignment to the 5th Infantry Division. After the same duties, it was activated 23 April 1960 in the Panama Canal Zone. Finally, its headquarters were transferred 4 June 1987 to the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command and activated at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. The unit is currently commanded by LTC Benjamin L. Shumaker, with CSM Russell L. Odonnell. 2nd Battalion, 10th Infantry Lineage
Constituted 3 March 1855 in the Regular Army as Company B, 10th Infantry
Organized in June 1855 at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania
Consolidated 23 June 1869 with Company B, 26th Infantry (see ANNEX), and consolidated unit designated as Company B, 10th Infantry
(10th Infantry assigned 5 July 1918 to the 14th Division; relieved in February 1919 from assignment to the 14th Division; assigned 24 March 1923 to the 5th Division [later redesignated as the 5th Infantry Division])
Inactivated 31 October 1929 at Fort Thomas, Kentucky
Activated 1 October 1933 at Fort Hayes, Ohio
Inactivated 20 September 1946 at Camp Campbell, Kentucky
Activated 15 July 1947 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina
Inactivated 30 April 1950 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina
Activated 1 March 1951 at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, Pennsylvania
Inactivated 1 September 1953 at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, Pennsylvania
Activated 25 May 1954 in Germany
Inactivated 1 June 1957 at Fort Ord, California, and relieved from assignment to the 5th Infantry Division
Redesignated 1 July 1957 as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2d Battle Group, 10th Infantry, assigned to the 10th Infantry Division, and activated in Germany
(organic elements concurrently constituted and activated)
Inactivated 14 June 1958 at Fort Benning, Georgia, and relieved from assignment to the 10th Infantry Division
Activated 23 April 1960 in the Canal Zone
Reorganized and redesignated 19 February 1962 as the 2d Battalion, 10th Infantry, and assigned to the 5th Infantry Division
Relieved 15 December 1970 from assignment to the 5th Infantry Division and assigned to the 4th Infantry Division
Inactivated 21 March 1973 at Fort Carson, Colorado, and relieved from assignment to the 4th Infantry Division
Headquarters transferred 4 June 1987 to the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command and activated at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
ANNEX
Constituted 3 May 1861 in the Regular Army as Company B, 2d Battalion, 17th Infantry
Organized in October 1862 at Fort Preble, Maine
Reorganized and redesignated 16 December 1866 as Company B, 26th Infantry
Consolidated 23 June 1869 with Company B, 10th Infantry, and consolidated unit designated as Company B, 10th Infantry
Campaign Participation Credit
Civil War: * Peninsula; Manassas; Antietam; Fredericksburg; * Chancellorsville; * Gettysburg; * Wilderness; * Spotsylvania; * Cold Harbor; * Petersburg; New Mexico 1862; Virginia 1862; * Virginia 1863
Indian Wars: Comanches; * Apaches
War with Spain: * Santiago
Philippine Insurrection: * Streamer without inscription
World War II: * Normandy; * Northern France; * Rhineland; * Ardennes-Alsace; * Central Europe
Decorations
The 2nd Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment earned the French Croix de Guerre with Palm for the crossing of the Seine River: "A unit possessing fine qualities of skill in maneuvers and heroism. Near Fountainbleau, on 23 and 24 August 1944, it crossed the Seine under fire from mortars and artillery, and established a bridgehead on the opposite bank. In spite of furious counterattacks, it succeeded in breaking the enemy vise, thus permitting the main body of Allied troops to continue its advance in the liberation of French territory."
3rd Battalion
After 19 March 1959, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Battle Group, 10th Infantry were withdrawn from the Regular Army, allotted to the Army Reserve, and assigned to the 83d Infantry Division. It was almost immediately reactivated and consolidated with the 1st Battalion, 331st Infantry. It was later reorganized and redesignated 15 April 1963 as the 3d Battalion, 10th Infantry. In 1967, it was allotted to the regular army, and transferred to the 5th infantry division. Finally, its headquarters were transferred 4 June 1987 to the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command and activated at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
Today, the 3rd Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment conducts Basic Combat Training. The five subordinate companies conduct the transformation of civilian volunteers into competent, confident, and disciplined Soldiers who live the Army Values and are physically and mentally prepared to successfully complete the next phase of initial entry training.
4th Battalion
Constituted 3 March 1855 in the Regular Army as Company D, 10th Infantry and organized in June 1855 at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.
Consolidated 25 July 1869 with Company D, 26th Infantry and consolidated unit designated as Company D, 10th Infantry
(10th Infantry assigned 5 July 1918 to the 14th Division; relieved in February 1919 from assignment to the 14th Division; assigned 24 March 1923 to the 5th Division [later redesignated as the 5th Infantry Division])
Inactivated 31 October 1929 at Fort Thomas, Kentucky
Activated 1 October 1933 at Fort Hayes, Ohio
Inactivated 20 September 1946 at Camp Campbell, Kentucky
Activated 15 July 1947 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina
Inactivated 30 April 1950 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina
Activated 1 March 1951 at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, Pennsylvania
Inactivated 1 September 1953 at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, Pennsylvania
Activated 25 May 1954 in Germany
Inactivated 1 June 1957 at Fort Ord, California, and relieved from assignment to the 5th Infantry Division; concurrently redesignated as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Battle Group, 10th Infantry
Activated 19 February 1962 in the Panama Canal Zone (organic elements concurrently constituted and activated)
Reorganized and redesignated 1 October 1962 as the 4th Battalion, 10th Infantry, and assigned to the 193d Infantry Brigade
Inactivated 1 October 1983 in Panama and relieved from assignment to the 193d Infantry Brigade
Headquarters transferred 4 June 1987 to the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command and activated at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
Inactivated 15 April 1996 at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
Redesignated 1 October 2005 as the 4th Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment
Activated 26 January 2009 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina
Source:
Military service
Military action
The 10th Infantry regiment saw extensive service through several wars. Its first major tour of service was in the Civil War. Afterwards the regiment was used in the Indian wars, the Spanish and Philippine wars, and finally saw action in World War II.
Civil War:
The Regiment's first Civil War battle was at Val Verde, in 1861, while on duty in New Mexico. Then, because of a Rebel advance into Union territory, the Regiment traveled nearly 2000 miles to the main theater and fell under the command of the Army of the Potomac. The impressive re-deployment from the east illustrates the 10th's mobility - a trait that would distinguish the Regiment from its contemporaries for several years. The Regiment earned thirteen battle streamers during the Civil War. The regiment saw the most action in its history during the civil war and participated in several battles listed below.
Peninsula Campaign;
Manassas;
Battle of Antietam;
Battle of Fredericksburg;
Battle of Chancellorsville;
Battle of Gettysburg;
Battle of the Wilderness;
Battle of Spotsylvania;
Battle of Cold Harbor;
Battle of Petersburg;
New Mexico 1862;
Virginia 1862;
Virginia 1863
Indian Wars:
After the Civil War, the regiment was used to combat several hostile tribes in the Indian wars.
Comanche Wars;
Apache Wars
Spanish–American War:
The end of the Civil War took the 10th back to frontier duty, protecting settlers and suppressing banditry in the west. The year 1898 brought the Spanish–American War. The 10th Infantry Regiment was among the first to see action in Cuba. On 1 July 1898, the 10th was chosen to lead the charge up San Juan Hill to post the Stars and Stripes on its heights.
Step off point: Tampa, FL
Battle of Santiago de Cuba
Philippine–American War:
Following duty in Cuba, the Regiment deployed to the Philippines to help suppress the insurrection. There followed months of small engagements against the Moros in the untamed jungles. The Regiment earned a battle streamer for the Philippine Insurrection.
World War I
During "The Great War", the 10th Infantry Regiment had the important mission of Canal Guard. This position allowed the 10th to regulate shipments to the front lines, and it provided a checkpoint for the Allies to control possible enemy shipments. In 1918, the 10th Infantry Regiment distributed its personnel to other regiments that fought on all fronts at the end of World War I.
World War II:
On 9 July 1944, the 10th landed at Les Dunes de Varreveille, France, and moved up the coast of Montebourg, relieving the 18th Infantry Regiment on 15 July. During this time, the 10th distinguished itself in open warfare and assaults on fortified positions; thus dubbing a new motto: "When the going gets tough for everyone else, it's just getting right for us!" Perhaps the most significant contribution the 10th gave to the Allied effort in World War II was repulsing the German counter-offensive after the Battle of the Bulge. The 10th Infantry saw heavy action across Western Europe during World War II including:
Invasion of Normandy;
Northern France;
Rhineland;
Battle of the Bulge;
Central Europe
World War II Statistics for 10th Infantry Regiment
Total battle casualties for the 10th in WWII: 7,124
1,500 bloody miles, across 20 European rivers, and through the harsh winter of 1944, it had been a long hard journey, fraught with the hazards of bitter front line combat and the remarkable challenges of human resiliency.
The 10th boarded the S.S. Sea Porpoise for an 8-day voyage to NY then on to Fort Campbell, KY.
Unit honors
The 10th Infantry Regiment earned the French Croix de Guerre with Palm from the French Government for actions surrounding the Moselle River crossing: "A unit animated to the highest degree with the spirit of sacrifice and always in the front in battle. Picked to carry out a surprise action in the course of its operations from 9 to 15 September 1944, in the region of Arnaville and Army, it succeeded in placing two battalions on the right bank of the Moselle in the middle of the night on terrain where progress was difficult due to heavy rainfall. Counterattacked at dawn by a powerful enemy, it succeeded in holding its position in spite of heavy losses due to a lack of antitank arms. After six days of uninterrupted combat, it occupied the village of Army and forced the enemy to fall back."
The 2nd Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment earned a second French Croix de Guerre with Palm for the crossing of the Seine River: "A unit possessing fine qualities of skill in maneuvers and heroism. Near Fountainbleau, on 23 and 24 August 1944, it crossed the Seine under fire from mortars and artillery, and established a bridgehead on the opposite bank. In spite of furious counterattacks, it succeeded in breaking the enemy vise, thus permitting the main body of Allied troops to continue its advance in the liberation of French territory."
Persons of noteworthy contribution
Edmund Brooke Alexander (6 October 1802 – 3 January 1888) was an officer in the United States Army in the Mexican-American War through the American Civil War who rose to the rank of Brevet Brigadier General in 1865.
COL Alexander was born in Haymarket, Virginia and was an 1823 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. In March 1855, promoted to Colonel, Alexander was appointed as Commander of the new 10th Infantry which participated in the Utah Expedition in 1858.
COL Alexander was the very first Commander of the 10th Infantry Regiment, serving from 1855 to 1869. During his tenure, COL Alexander guided the Regiment through the Indian Wars and Civil War. He is also the man responsible for coining the regimental motto- Courage and Fidelity, which is an excerpt from his famous "Order of the day" speech, given upon presentation of the colors to the regiment and prior to deployment to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, the first duty station for the 10th Infantry Regiment.
The Regiment's rich battle history and success in war directly correlates with its historically high-quality leadership, which all started with the inspirational first Commander of the Regiment, COL Alexander.
25 September 1855, COL Alexander, commanding the six-month-old 10th Infantry Regiment, read his order of the day to the cocky, confident group of men assembled on the parade grounds of Carlisle Barracks. He began:
William Mattingly Breckinridge (1905–1996) held various leadership positions in the 10th Infantry including Regimental Executive Officer and Regimental Commander during World War II (WWII). WWII marked the last foreign conflict that the 10th Infantry Regiment served in direct support of.
Breckinridge's father was a captain in the 10th Infantry Regiment at the time of his birth. After being promoted to the rank of Major, he was assigned as Executive Officer of the 2nd Battalion and finally as its Regimental Commander.
A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he was a likely candidate for transfer to other jobs during WWII, with the likelihood of promotion. He feared that might happen and was open in letting it be known that he wanted to remain with his regiment. It was his regiment more than others could possess it or fully appreciate its deep significance to him. Breckinridge was assigned to the 10th Infantry Regiment at Fort Thomas, in Kentucky. He recalled that his father had 14 years with the 10th. As he said later: "...that suited me all right... after all, I had a soft spot in my heart for the 10th Infantry. I'd already spent nine years with it as a child".
The pride, selfless service, camaraderie, esprit de corps, and recognized high performance of the 10th Infantry through WWII and beyond is unequivocally linked to the servant leadership of Breckinridge. 1,500 bloody miles, across 20 European rivers, and through the harsh winter of 1944–1945, it had been a long hard journey, fraught with the hazards of bitter front line combat and the remarkable challenges of human resiliency. The 10th Infantry, under the command of MG Breckinridge, saw heavy action across Western Europe during World War II including:
Invasion of Normandy
Northern France
Rhineland
Battle of the Bulge/Ardennes-Alsace
Central Europe
Roy Arthur Crumrine (1917-2001)
Captain Crumrine served with distinction first as an enlisted soldier in the Pacific theater, and later becoming a commissioned officer in 2nd Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment. Captain Crumrine was Commander of F company during the Battle of Metz. For his actions during World War II he was awarded, the Combat Infantryman's Badge, two Purple Hearts, and a total of five Bronze Stars.
Medal of Honor recipients
Theodore Schwan
Rank and organization:
First Lieutenant, 10th U.S. Infantry. Place and date: At Peebles Farm, Va., 1 October 1864. Entered service at: New York. Born: 9 July 1841, Germany. Date of issue: 12 December 1898.
Citation:
At the imminent risk of his own life, while his regiment was falling back before a superior force of the enemy, he dragged a wounded and helpless officer to the rear, thus saving him from death or capture.
Charles Patterson Cantrell
Rank and organization:
Private, Company F, 10th U.S. Infantry. Place and date: At Santiago, Cuba, 1 July 1898. Entered service at: Nashville, Tenn. Born: 13 February 1874, Smithville, Tenn. Date of issue: 22 June 1899.
Citation:
Gallantly assisted in the rescue of the wounded from in front of the lines and under heavy fire from the enemy.
Alfred Polond
Rank and organization:
Private, Company F, 10th U.S. Infantry. Place and date: At Santiago, Cuba, 1 July 1898. Entered service at: Lapeer, Mich. Birth: Lapeer, Mich. Date of issue: 22 June 1899.
Citation:
Gallantly assisted in the rescue of the wounded from in front of the lines and while under heavy fire of the enemy.
Andrew Jonson Cummins:
Rank and organization:
Sergeant, Company F, 10th U.S. Infantry. Place and date: At Santiago, Cuba, 1 July 1898. Entered service at: Columbus, Ohio Birth: Alexandria, Ind. Date of issue: 22 June 1899. Citation:
Gallantly assisted in the rescue of the wounded from in front of the lines and under heavy fire of the enemy.
William G. Keller:
Rank and organization:
Private, Company F, 10th U.S. Infantry. Place and date: At Santiago de Cuba, 1 July 1898. Entered service at: Buffalo, N.Y. Birth: Buffalo, N.Y. Date of issue: 22 June 1899.
Citation:
Gallantly assisted in the rescue of the wounded from in front of the lines and under heavy fire of the enemy.
James Joseph Nash:
Rank and organization:
Private, Company F, 10th U.S. Infantry. Place and date: At Santiago, Cuba, 1 July 1898. Entered service at: Louisville, Ky. Birth: Louisville, Ky. Date of issue: 22 June 1899.
Citation:
Gallantly assisted in the rescue of the wounded from in front of the lines and under heavy fire of the enemy.
Image gallery
See also
List of United States Regular Army Civil War units
Notes
https://history.army.mil/books/R&H/R&H-10IN.htm
External links
Website of 2nd Battalion 10th Infantry Regiment - United States Army website
0010
Military units and formations established in 1855
United States Regular Army Civil War units and formations
Military units and formations of the United States in the Indian Wars
10th Infantry Regiment
1855 establishments in Pennsylvania
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mort%20K%C3%BCnstler
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Mort Künstler
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Mort Künstler (born August 28, 1927) is an American artist known for his illustrative paintings of historical events, especially of the American Civil War. He was a child prodigy, who, with encouragement from his parents, became a skilled artist by the time he was twelve. Today he is considered the "best-known and most respected historical artist in the country."
Künstler began his career in the 1950s as a freelance artist, illustrating paperback book covers and men's adventure magazines. In 1965 he was commissioned by National Geographic to create what became his first historic painting. He also created posters for movies such as The Poseidon Adventure and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. And by the 1970s he was painting covers for Newsweek, Reader's Digest, and other magazines, with the bulk of his work during that period in advertising art.
While many of his early magazine illustrations were for public entertainment, Künstler eventually began creating military art. In 1977, his first major gallery exhibition brought new attention to his talents as a historical artist. By the 1980s he was acclaimed as America's foremost Civil War artist, and would eventually create over 350 Civil War paintings alone. Some of his paintings have changed opinions about the accuracy of early famous paintings by others, such as Emmanuel Leutze's famous Washington Crossing the Delaware. Besides his Civil War paintings, he created historical art of the American Revolution through the Korean and Vietnam wars, along with paintings of World War II. He painted historical events such as the Oklahoma Land Rush and new immigrants on Ellis Island.
Collections of Künstler's work are published as limited-edition prints, and his artistic output places him at the forefront of contemporary historical realism. NASA made him their official artist for the Space Shuttle Columbia. In 1982, CBS-TV had him do a painting for the 3-part mini-series The Blue and the Gray, and in 1993 a one-hour television special, Images of the Civil War - The Paintings of Mort Künstler, was shown on the A&E TV network. He has received numerous honors and awards, and at least nine books are dedicated to featuring his artwork. Some experts see him as the next Norman Rockwell.
Early years and education
Künstler was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1927 and raised there during the Great Depression. His parents had Polish and Austrian roots and were of Jewish heritage. Their name derived from the German word "künstler," which means "artist." His great-grandfather was given that name by the Tsar of Russia as thanks after he created a carving of him when he ruled Germany (which never happened).
His father was an amateur artist, and both his parents saw his artistic talent at the age of two and a half. His father encouraged his son, who was often home sick, by setting up still lifes for him to draw. His mother also encouraged his budding talent by enrolling him in Saturday classes at the Brooklyn Museum. He said "My mother was a schoolteacher, and she would take me to the museums by subway every Saturday morning."
By the time he was in kindergarten he could already "draw very well," he says. And when he was twelve, he adds, "I could draw almost as well as I can today." His talent in art was further supported when he was at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. There, he along with a number of classmates, were inspired by their art teacher, Leon Friend, who had also written a book on graphic design.
After graduating high school he enrolled at Brooklyn College to study art, although his main focus changed away from art and instead toward athletics. He was diver on the swimming team and a hurdler on the track team, and sports now dominated his life. He earned awards for basketball, diving, football and track, and ultimate honors in the Brooklyn College Sports Hall of Fame. He then received a basketball scholarship from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he continued to focus on sports.
But after his father suffered a heart attack, he returned to New York to help his family, and enrolled in the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He studied to become a fine art illustrator, and graduated after three years. During his senior year he met his wife-to-be, Deborah, who was then a freshman at the school. They married soon after he graduated.
Among the artists whose work he studied that would influence his later career were Norman Rockwell, Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington.
Early jobs
After graduating from Pratt he worked as a freelance artist in New York, where he tried to get assignments from book and magazine publishers. That goal became difficult at the time, which led him to work instead as an apprentice at a studio, where he ran errands, cleaned up and touched up paintings by other artists. Künstler wanted to be a professional illustrator, but discovered that the early 1950s was a bad time to enter the field, since photography and television were replacing the need for artists. And the few magazines that still relied on artists were folding.
However, he did find a niche market as a freelancer for adventure magazines, which still appreciated his art: “Fortunately for me and other artists, some of them, like the men’s adventure magazines, would still prefer having paintings made for their covers and interior illustrations.” He continued doing those throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, although to make ends meet he had to live with his parents, who supported him during this early period: “I worked 12 hour days, 15 hour days, sometimes seven days a week. Almost always six days a week, from nine o’clock in the morning to ten or eleven at night.”
Eventually he began to share a studio with another already established adventure artist, George Gross, whose family was friends with his. “I used to call him Uncle George and I chose him as my mentor.” George, 22 years his senior, had also attended Pratt Institute, and his father had a successful art career. As a result, says Künstler, “I wasn’t just a kid working out of his house anymore... George sort of took me under his wing, and he taught me whatever he could. It was a wonderful thing for me.”
1950s1960s
Künstler began working full-time as a freelance artist, illustrating magazine covers and paperback fiction adventure books, typically oriented toward men, such as Sports Afield, Outdoor Life, and Stag. Künstler credits the experience gained from illustrating men’s adventure magazines in the 1950s and 1960s with teaching him how to compose and tell a story, which he says prepared him for his later work.
He received his first assignment to do a historic painting from National Geographic magazine in 1965. He was to paint an illustration for a story about the history of St. Augustine, Florida. He traveled to Florida, spent an afternoon with the two National Park Service historians at the National Historic Site “Castillo de San Marcos” to learn whatever he could, before beginning. Künstler's later historical paintings would also rely on collaboration with experts who would guide and provide him with the historic facts he needed before beginning.
1970s
In the 1970s, Künstler painted covers for Newsweek, Reader's Digest and other magazines, although the bulk of his work during this period came from doing advertising art.
He also did the box covers for Aurora models.
He illustrated a number of movie posters for adventure films, such as The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974). In 1975 Künstler created the illustration for a MAD Magazine back cover depicting women's liberation; several issues later, he crafted a front cover which parodied the movie Jaws
By the early 1970s, his paintings were attracting the attention of serious art collectors, which led him to begin retaining the reproduction rights to his original paintings. In 1975 he submitted a number of paintings to galleries, all of which sold, to his surprise. In 1977 his military art drew attention from even more important galleries, which made him widely recognized as an accurate historical artist.
The first major gallery to give him a one-man show was the prestigious Hammer Galleries in New York City. He would have 13 additional one-man shows at the gallery in subsequent years, while his work was also being exhibited in museums nationwide. Armand Hammer, founder of Hammer Galleries, supported, encouraged and promoted Künstler's work, helping him become recognized as one of America's leading historical artists. Hammer said "his paintings have continually confirmed his talent, and the caliber of Künstler's overall artistic output has now placed him at the forefront of contemporary realism."
As a result of major galleries and museums exhibiting his work, his career soon took on new dimensions. From his early popularity as an illustrator for pulp and popular magazines, then to movie posters, National Geographic images, and now to fine art historical paintings and prints, along with books of images, he was acknowledged as one of the few remaining artists of historical subjects.
1980 to present
In 1982, after getting a commission from CBS-TV to do a painting for the 3-part mini-series, The Blue and the Gray (televised November 1982,) Künstler's interest turned towards the Civil War. By 1988 he was concentrating almost entirely on Civil War subjects, which eventually made him the “most collected Civil War artist in America.”
His focus on that war led to him having the first one-man Civil War exhibitions at venues such as the Gettysburg National Battlefield, New York's Nassau County Museum of Art in 1998, the North Carolina Museum of History, Richmond's Museum of the Confederacy and other centers of art and history. They included images of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg,
His exhibition at the Nassau County Museum, which lasted seven weeks, attracted more than 30,000 visitors, surpassing the previous attendance record set by a Picasso exhibition. The success of that exhibition led the museum to hold a second one-man show of his work in 2006.
To create his paintings, he undertook careful and painstaking research into the settings and events he would paint. It meant he needed to consult with expert historians and walk the actual battlefields before drawing them, always looking for landmarks to incorporate into the artwork. This obsession to detail, he says, came from his experience illustrating men's magazines and his work for National Geographic.
In preparation for his 1992 painting, “The Gunner and the Colonel,” for instance, he researched the exact uniforms the soldiers wore and even the weather on that day, to learn which way the wind was blowing so the flags were unfurled in the right direction. With each new painting, Künstler says he takes on the role of a historian:
His battle of Gettysburg painting, titled “High Water Mark,” was unveiled at the Gettysburg Battlefield Museum on the 125th anniversary of that climactic confrontation. The original was reproduced with 750,000 limited-edition prints, all of which sold out after two months. But Künstler also painted individual soldiers in periods of personal crisis, as he did of Stonewall Jackson after Jackson learned that a close friend's 5-year-old daughter had died.
With collections of his work published as limited edition prints and sold nationwide. Historians including James M. McPherson would state:
Künstler takes a month or two to complete a painting, with many selling for over $100,000. Limited edition prints often sell out quickly. The American Print Gallery's limited edition of 4,150 of Moonlight and Magnolias was sold out in three weeks after publication. By 2015, Künstler had painted more than 350 Civil War subjects. He painted his final Civil War painting in 2015, depicting the end of the war, titled "LaGrange vs. LaGrange."
Washington Crossing
Some of his paintings have revised opinions of many about the accuracy of earlier paintings by others. One of Kunstler's more recent paintings has, according to recent historians, corrected some obvious inaccuracies of one America's most famous, the 1851 painting by Emmanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware, depicting Washington's 1776 surprise attack on the 30,000 German soldiers who were fighting for the British.
Künstler devoted two months of research with the aid of military experts and historians, besides visiting the location himself, before completing the painting in 2011, titled “Washington's Crossing.” Among the inaccuracies Künstler corrected was the fact that Washington would not have been able to stand in a rowboat in daylight during a snowstorm, since it would have capsized. Nor would there be small icebergs in the water or the flag shown in the painting to have been used, since it was not adopted until the following year.
Historian and author David Hackett Fischer said that the painting by Künstler was “quite accurate...He got more right about the crossing than any other image,” which included more than 200 previous paintings depicting that event.
Although the new image is about 4 feet wide and 3 feet high, compared to Leutze's, which is about 21 feet wide and 12 feet high, Künstler says it is “the most important painting I've ever done." Civil War historian Harold Holzer, formerly with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which owns the original Leutze painting, called Künstler "the best-known and most respected historical artist in this country."
Other works
His later work covered a wider range of subject, including all the wars from the American Revolution through the Korean and Vietnam wars, with many paintings of World War II. He painted historical events such as the Oklahoma Land Rush and he tried to humanize emotional settings by paintings of new immigrants at Ellis Island or Teddy Roosevelt celebrating the 4th of July. Some experts feel that it was Künstler's ability to humanize such moments which distinguished his works from most other historical artists.
He also painted subjects which illustrated American technological advances, such as dramatic illustrations of the Space Shuttle Columbia, for which NASA made him their official artist. His paintings recorded its manufacture, launching and landing.
In 1998, his paintings were exhibited at The North Carolina Museum of Art and at other U.S. museums, including the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, and the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond.
Among the eight books featuring his work, is the 1986 coffee-table book The American Spirit: The Paintings of Mort Künstler, which contains nearly 200 images and commentary written by historian Henry Steele Commager. An updated edition of The American Spirit was published in 1994.
Awards and honors
1992. Painted a United States postage stamp depicting the Buffalo Soldiers.
1993. a one-hour television special with Stacy Keach entitled Images of the Civil War: The Paintings of Mort Künstler, was shown on the A&E network. (DVD released in 2014)
1999. Virginia officially declared a “Mort Künstler Day.”
2000. Virginia Governor James Gilmore officially opened an exhibition at Richmond's Museum of the Confederacy. The exhibit, titled, The Confederate Spirit: The Paintings of Mort Künstler, was the first one-man exhibition that the museum had ever held.
2001. Made official artist for the motion picture Gods and Generals.
2001. He received the Henry Timrod Southern Culture Award.
2002. Künstler became the first artist to be honored by a six-month, one-man exhibition at the new National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
2003. He received the Jefferson Davis Southern Heritage Award, both by the Military Order of the Stars and Bars.
2003. A residence hall at Timber Ridge School - a residency academy for special students in Winchester, Virginia, was named Mort Künstler Hall in his honor, because of his art assistance.
2004. Named an official artist for the H. L. Hunley, a submarine of the Confederate States of America, at which time he unveiled a new painting of the vessel during ceremonies in Charleston, South Carolina.
2004. Commissioned to furnish all the artwork for the Middletown, Ohio, Veterans Memorial, which was unveiled on July 4, 2004.
2011. His depiction of George Washington crossing the Delaware River was unveiled at the New York Historical Society on December 26, 2011, the 235th anniversary of the actual event, to great acclaim.
Bibliography
Images of the Civil War: the Paintings of Mort Künstler (1992),
Gettysburg: The Paintings of Mort Künstler (Text by James M. McPherson) (1993),
The American Spirit: The Paintings of Mort Kunstler (1994)
Jackson & Lee: Legends in Gray (1995),
Mort Künstler's Old West. Cowboys. (1998),
Mort Künstler's Old West. Indians. (1998),
Gods and Generals: the Paintings of Mort Künstler (2002),
The Civil War Paintings of Mort Künstler (2006),
For Us the Living: The Civil War in Paintings and Eyewitness Accounts (2010),
Museums and institutions who have examples of his work
Pritzker Military Museum & Library
References
Other sources
Official website
American Gallery showing art by Mort Kunstler
Early men's magazine art by Kunstler
Crossing the Delaware, More Accurately
Mort Künstler at American Art Archives
King James Gallery of Mort Kunstler art
1931 births
Living people
20th-century American painters
21st-century American painters
21st-century American male artists
20th-century American illustrators
American male painters
American people of Austrian-Jewish descent
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American war artists
Film poster artists
Jewish American artists
Abraham Lincoln High School (Brooklyn) alumni
Brooklyn College alumni
Pratt Institute alumni
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
21st-century American Jews
20th-century American male artists
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20films%20set%20in%20Berlin
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List of films set in Berlin
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Berlin is a major center in the European and German film industry. It is home to more than 1000 film and television production companies and 270 movie theaters. Three hundred national and international co-productions are filmed in the region every year. Babelsberg Studios and the production company UFA are located outside Berlin in Potsdam.
The city is also home of the European Film Academy and the German Film Academy, and hosts the annual Berlin International Film Festival which is considered to be the largest publicly attended film festival in the world. This is a list of films whose setting is Berlin.
1920s
1922
Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler), 1922 – first (silent) film about the character Doctor Mabuse from the novels of Norbert Jacques, by Fritz Lang.
1924
The Last Laugh (Der Letzte Mann), 1924 – the aging doorman at a Berlin hotel is demoted to washroom attendant but gets the last laugh, by F.W. Murnau.
1925
Slums of Berlin (Die Verrufenen), 1925 – an engineer in Berlin is released from prison, but his father throws him out, his fiancée left him and there is no chance to find work. Directed by Gerhard Lamprecht.
Variety (Varieté), 1925 – circus melodrama set in Berlin, with the circus scenes in the Berlin Wintergarten, by Ewald André Dupont.
1926
The Last Horse Carriage in Berlin (Die letzte Droschke von Berlin), 1926 – showing the life of an old coachman in Berlin still driving the droshky during the time when the automobile arises. Directed by Carl Boese.
People to Each Other (Menschen untereinander), 1926 – in a typical Berlin town house the residents manifold lives from different social backgrounds are shown. Directed by Gerhard Lamprecht.
1927
Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt), 1927 – expressionist documentary film of 1920s Berlin by Walter Ruttmann.
Metropolis, 1927 – Berlin-inspired futuristic classic by Fritz Lang.
1928
Refuge (Zuflucht), 1928 – a lonely and tired man comes home after several years abroad, lives with a market-woman in Berlin and starts working for the Berlin U-Bahn. Directed by Carl Froelich.
1929
Asphalt, 1929 – the Berlin underworld touches a policeman's life, film noir classic by Joe May.
Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness (Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück), 1929 – depicts the cruelty of poverty in Wedding district and Communism as a rescuing force that reaches a mother and a child too late. Directed by Phil Jutzi.
1930s
1930
Cyanide (Cyankali), 1930 – a poor female office employee in Berlin gets pregnant, but abortion is not allowed in the Weimar Republic. So she goes to a quack doctor who applies toxic potassium cyanide to her. Directed by Hans Tintner.
People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag), 1930 – avant-garde look at daily life in Berlin, screenplay by Billy Wilder and Curt Siodmak.
The Three from the Filling Station (Die drei von der Tankstelle), 1930 – three friends are broke, so they sell their car and open a filling station in Berlin. Then they all fall in love with the same girl. Directed by Wilhelm Thiele.
1931
1914 (1914, die letzten Tage vor dem Weltbrand), 1931 – after the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria – during the July Crisis – Wilhelm II in Berlin, Nicholas II in Russia and the Sovereigns and diplomats of other Great powers unsuccessfully try to prevent World War I. Directed by Richard Oswald.
Berlin-Alexanderplatz, 1931 – first film adaption of the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz from Alfred Döblin, directed by Phil Jutzi.
The Captain from Köpenick (Der Hauptmann von Köpenick), 1931 – directed by Richard Oswald and based upon the play The Captain of Köpenick by Carl Zuckmayer. The play was based on the true story of Wilhelm Voigt.
Emil and the Detectives (Emil und die Detektive), 1931 – adventure film based on the novel Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner. Director: Gerhard Lamprecht.
M, 1931 – Berlin thriller by Fritz Lang; beginnings of film noir and the endings of expressionism.
The Man in Search of His Murderer (Der Mann, der seinen Mörder sucht), 1931 – a man in Berlin plunged in debt makes a suicide attempt and has to hire a murderer to kill him within twelve hours. But in the same night he falls in love with a girl who wants to stop the appointed killer. Directed by Robert Siodmak.
1932
Grand Hotel, 1932 – nothing ever happens at the Grand Hotel. Directed by Edmund Goulding. Academy Award for Best Picture (1931–1932). Filmed in Hollywood.
Kuhle Wampe, 1932 – about a working-class family in Berlin in 1931 where survival is difficult during the Great Depression. Directed by Slatan Dudow.
1933
Hitlerjunge Quex, 1933 – Hans Steinhoff propaganda drama about a boy in the Hitler Youth.
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse), 1933 – Berlin thriller by Fritz Lang.
Tugboat M 17 (Schleppzug M 17), 1933 – the skipper of a tugboat on the river Havel falls for a female thief in Berlin and leaves his family for her. Directed by Heinrich George and Werner Hochbaum.
1936
The Violet of Potsdamer Platz (Das Veilchen vom Potsdamer Platz), 1936 – a flower girl working at Potsdamer Platz can resolve a financial deception. Directed by Johann Alexander Hübler-Kahla.
1937
Charlie Chan at the Olympics, 1937 – Charlie Chan trails spies to Berlin during the 1936 Summer Olympics. Starring Warner Oland.
Dangerous Crossing (Gleisdreieck), 1937 – at Gleisdreieck station a woman wants to throw herself under a subway train but is saved by a railway official. By Robert A. Stemmle.
The Divine Jetta (Die göttliche Jette), 1937 – a typical Berlin revue singer gets celebrated at the Königsstädtisches Theater when a young Earl wants to marry her and take her to his home in Tyrol. Directed by Erich Waschneck.
His Best Friend (Sein bester Freund), 1937 – a policeman in Berlin finds a German Shepherd, buys it from its owner and trains it to become a police dog. During one operation though, their collaboration gets challenged. Directed by Harry Piel.
1938
The Four Companions (Die vier Gesellen), 1938 – after graduation, four female art students in Berlin attempt to set up their own advertising agency. They swear an oath to concentrate on business, but then each of them finds secretly a husband to marry. Directed by Carl Froelich.
A Night in May (Eine Nacht im Mai), 1938 – a young woman in Berlin had to turn in her driver's license and gets involved in an accident when she drives anyway. A young man convinces her to flee with him onto a bus tour to Wannsee. Directed by Georg Jacoby.
Olympia (Parts 1 & 2), 1938 – strikingly aesthetic propaganda by Leni Riefenstahl.
The Roundabouts of Handsome Karl (Die Umwege des schönen Karl), 1938 – a young waiter comes to Berlin in 1930 to serve at the best wine restaurant, and he tries unsuccessfully to get into high society. Directed by Carl Froelich.
The Stars Shine (Es leuchten die Sterne), 1938 – musical revue about a young secretary who leaves the country and travels to Berlin to seek work as an actress. Directed by Hans H. Zerlett.
Urlaub auf Ehrenwort, 1938 – four soldiers have a brief furlough in Berlin late in 1918, on their promise to return to their troop train in time. Propaganda film by Karl Ritter
1940s
1940
Night Train to Munich, 1940
Wunschkonzert, 1940 – during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin a young girl and a Luftwaffe Fliegerleutnant meet and fall in love. They want to marry, but he receives orders to go to the Condor Legion. Three years later they meet again during World War II via the popular radio music show Wunschkonzert für die Wehrmacht. Directed by Eduard von Borsody.
1941
Friedemann Bach, 1941 – Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, is shown as a gifted son trying to escape his father's shadow. After Friedemann was rejected as a musician in several cities, he lives a miserable life in Berlin where he died in 1784. Directed by Traugott Müller.
The Gasman (Der Gasmann), 1941 – a gas meter reader in Berlin during World War II is suspected of being a foreign spy. Directed by Carl Froelich.
(Berlin – Wie es war), late 1930s documentary view of Berlin by Leo de Laforgue. First shown in 1950.
1942
Andreas Schlüter, 1942 – biopic on famous architect Andreas Schlüter who built the Berlin Stadtschloss for Frederick I of Prussia during the 18th century. Directed by Herbert Maisch.
Berlin Correspondent, 1942 – an American radio correspondent is hunted for sending coded messages out on the airwaves from Berlin. Directed by Eugene Forde.
Die Entlassung, 1942 – showing the growing estrangement between Emperor Wilhelm II and Reichskanzler Otto von Bismarck, Bismark's dismissal in Berlin in March 1890 and the intrigues by Geheimrat von Holstein from Auswärtiges Amt. Directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner.
The Great Love (Die große Liebe), 1942 – a Wehrmacht Oberleutnant is stationed in North Africa as a fighter pilot. While in Berlin to deliver a report he sees a popular Danish singer on the stage of a cabaret theatre and starts a painful relationship with her. It was Germany's most successful motion picture produced during the second world war. Directed by Rolf Hansen.
Two in a Big City (Zwei in einer großen Stadt), 1942 – a sergeant from the Wehrmacht and a nurse (working at the local Red Cross station) meet accidentally at Friedrichstraße station and spend one day together in Berlin. Directed by Volker von Collande.
1943
I Entrust My Wife to You (Ich vertraue dir meine Frau an), 1943 – a man asks a friend to keep a jealous watch over his wife in Berlin during a business trip with his secretary, what causes several adventures for the caring friend. Directed by Kurt Hoffmann.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1943 – in 1902, a British Lieutenant is on leave from the Boer War and travels to Berlin to work against anti-British propaganda. After a duel with a German officer the two recover near Stölpchensee and become friends for the next 40 years. Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
Melody of a Great City (Großstadtmelodie), 1943 – a young and talented female photographer from a provincial Bavarian town comes to Berlin and falls in love with a very busy journalist. Directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner.
1944
The Buchholz Family (Familie Buchholz), 1944 – based on the novels by Julius Stinde. During the German Empire the resolute mother of a Berlin middle-class family wants to get her two daughters married befitting their social rank, and she writes her first novel about her experiences. Directed by Carl Froelich.
Es lebe die Liebe, 1944 – a famous operetta star wants to engage a Spanish dancer for his Apollo Theater in Berlin, but she gets ill for one year. After her mandatory break she comes to Berlin and creeps into his theatre and his life under a different name. Directed by Erich Engel.
Marriage of Affection (Neigungsehe), 1944 – following Familie Buchholz, the resolute mother Buchholz tries unsuccessfully to marry her remaining daughter via a marriage advertisement in the newspaper, but the daughter celebrates a secret wedding with a painter on Heligoland island. Directed by Carl Froelich.
Philharmoniker, 1944 – in late 1920s Berlin the financial situation of Berlin Philharmonic orchestra is precarious. One of the violinists leaves the orchestra to play in a light music ensemble, but returns after Nazi Machtergreifung. Directed by Paul Verhoeven.
Under the Bridges (Unter den Brücken), 1944/45 – two men and a woman shipping on the river Havel shortly before Berlin gets totally destroyed. Directed by Helmut Käutner.
1945
Fall of Berlin – 1945, 1945 – Soviet propaganda documentary film about the Battle of Berlin. Footage of the actual battle is shown, as the Red Army fights the Nazis, building by building. The assault on the Reichstag ends with the famous photograph, raising the Red Flag over the Reichstag. Directed by Yuli Raizman and Yelizaveta Svilova.
Hotel Berlin, 1945 – near the close of World War II, a member of the German underground escapes from the Gestapo and takes shelter at Hotel Berlin. Directed by Peter Godfrey.
1946
Murderers Among Us (Die Mörder sind unter uns), 1946 – the first post-WWII Trümmerfilm. Directed by Wolfgang Staudte.
Somewhere in Berlin (Irgendwo in Berlin), 1946 – drama about children in post-war Berlin. Directed by Gerhard Lamprecht.
1947
And the Heavens Above Us (...und über uns der Himmel), 1947 – a man comes home after World War II into destroyed Berlin and starts working as a black market trader. With Hans Albers, directed by Josef von Báky.
In Those Days (In jenen Tagen), 1947 – in this Rubble film an old car built in 1933 tells its story and episodes from its seven owners, mostly located in Berlin, during the years of Nazi Germany. Directed by Helmut Käutner.
Marriage in the Shadows (Ehe im Schatten), 1947 – a German actor is successful in Berlin during the Nazi era, but extreme pressure is applied on him by the authorities to divorce his Jewish wife, also an actress. When she is going to be deported, they take poison together. Based on the life of Joachim Gottschalk and directed by Kurt Maetzig.
Raid (Razzia), 1947 – crime thriller about black market traders in Berlin. A spy forewarns everybody before the police arrives and a police commissar gets murdered. Directed by Werner Klingler.
1948
Berlin Express, 1948 – murder mystery with scenes from bombed-out Frankfurt and Berlin, directed by Jacques Tourneur.
The Berliner (Berliner Ballade), 1948 – daily life of a veteran home from the war. Director Robert A. Stemmle.
A Foreign Affair, 1948 – romantic comedy set in Berlin during the Allied occupation; stars Jean Arthur and Marlene Dietrich; directed by Billy Wilder.
Germany, Year Zero (Deutschland im Jahre Null), 1948 – filmed in German amidst the ruins of the bombed-out city of Berlin, then dubbed into Italian (with subtitles). A masterpiece of neo-realism, by Roberto Rossellini.
Street Acquaintances (Straßenbekanntschaft), 1948 – in postwar Berlin, young women want to make a living and long for men, joy and love. But in their promiscuity they often become the carrier for sexually transmitted diseases. Directed by Peter Pewas.
Und wieder 48, 1948 – students of the Humboldt University of Berlin take part as extras in a movie about the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. Directed by Gustav von Wangenheim.
1949
The Cuckoos (Die Kuckucks), 1949 – five orphaned siblings in destroyed Berlin cannot find a domicile for longer periods. So they refurbish with high personal contribution a villa in Grunewald district, though the legal position concerning property is not clear. Directed by Hans Deppe.
Girls in Gingham (Die Buntkarierten), 1949 – the fate of a typical working-class family in Berlin between 1883 and 1949 facing child labour, trade union engagement, war, depression, unemployment and the rise and fall of Nazism. Directed by Kurt Maetzig.
Our Daily Bread (Unser täglich Brot), 1949 – about the difficult life of an extended family in destroyed Berlin in 1946. Directed by Slatan Dudow.
Rotation, 1949 – showing the life of a mechanic in Berlin between 1920 and 1945. During the Third Reich, as a member of the Nazi Party, he aids a resistance group in printing anti-war propaganda and is finally turned into the authorities by his own son who is a frenetic member of the Hitler Youth. Directed by Wolfgang Staudte.
1950s
1950
The Big Lift, 1950 – stars Montgomery Clift in the Berlin Air Lift. Film by George Seaton.
The Fall of Berlin, 1950 – two-part Soviet propagandistic feature film. The plot revolves around the history of the Great Patriotic War and the Battle of Berlin, focusing on the role that Joseph Stalin played in the events. Directed by Mikheil Chiaureli.
1951
Zugverkehr unregelmäßig, 1951 – a member of the Volkspolizei and a supervisor at Berlin S-Bahn are friends and roommates. But one day the supervisor quits his job and collaborates with agents from West Berlin who sabotage the S-Bahn services to embarrass the GDR. Directed by Erich Freund.
1952
All Clues Lead to Berlin, 1952 – Film noir about a young American lawyer who discovers a gang of counterfeiters in Berlin and gets hunted himself. By František Čáp.
Frauenschicksale, 1952 – a dandy and womanizer from West Berlin seduces women in East Berlin who are looking for happiness and a good man. One of them gets pregnant, another woman steals for him. Directed by Slatan Dudow.
Story of a Young Couple (Roman einer jungen Ehe), 1952 – a young married couple – both actors – work in Cold War Berlin. She is on location in East Berlin, and he works at a theatre in West Berlin. As they hold more and more opposed views on politics, art and society, their marriage is in danger of breaking up. Directed by Kurt Maetzig.
1953
The Man Between, 1953 – stars James Mason. Atmospheric East/West thriller filmed in bomb-torn Berlin. Directed by Carol Reed.
No Way Back (Weg ohne Umkehr), 1953 – in 1945 a Red Army officer discovers a frightened girl huddled in a Berlin cellar. He gives her a safe escort home and wins her gratitude. Seven years later they meet again in the divided city. Directed by Victor Vicas.
Die Unbesiegbaren, 1953 – from 1889 to 1890 August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht as members of the Social Democrats at Reichstag fight against the Anti-Socialist Laws shoulder to shoulder with workers from Borsig locomotive works in Berlin.
1954
Alarm in the Circus (Alarm im Zirkus), 1954 – two boys from West Berlin are too poor for higher education and they are both desperate to purchase real boxing gloves. A gangster offers to pay them if they would assist him to steal valuable horses from a circus in East Berlin. Directed by Gerhard Klein.
Canaris, 1954 – portrays real events during World War II when Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr in Berlin, was arrested and executed for his involvement with the 20 July Plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler. Directed by Alfred Weidenmann.
Captain Wronski (Rittmeister Wronski), 1954 – an indebted Polish cavalry captain works undercover in 1930s Berlin to discover Nazi Germany's plans against his homeland by seducing secretaries at the Ministry of the Reichswehr. Based on the life of Jerzy Sosnowski and directed by Ulrich Erfurth.
Emil and the Detectives (Emil und die Detektive), 1954 – adventure film directed by Robert A. Stemmle, based on the novel Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner.
The Life of Surgeon Sauerbruch (Sauerbruch – Das war mein Leben), 1954 – showing the work of famous senior surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch at the teaching hospital Charité in Berlin with several flashback scenes about his former labour. Directed by Rolf Hansen.
Night People, 1954 – during the Cold War a counter-intelligence officer of the United States Army has to recover a young G.I. in Berlin who was hauled off to the East by the Soviets. Directed by Nunnally Johnson.
1955
The Devil's General (Des Teufels General), 1955 – a Luftwaffe General, who is critical of the Third Reich in 1941 Berlin, is slowly suspect of what may be treason. Based on the play by Carl Zuckmayer and directed by Helmut Käutner.
Hotel Adlon, 1955 – episodic movie about the exclusive Hotel Adlon, Unter den Linden, before World War II, its guests and the working staff. Directed by Josef von Báky.
I Am A Camera, 1955 – set in the early 1930s depicting Weimar Berlin from the writings of Christopher Isherwood; film by Henry Cornelius.
Jackboot Mutiny (Es geschah am 20. Juli), 1955 – about the failed July 20 Plot to kill Adolf Hitler by a bomb placed at Wolf's Lair by Claus von Stauffenberg, which led to the execution of several resistance group members at the Berlin Bendlerblock. Directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.
The Last Ten Days (Der letzte Akt), 1955 – about the last days of Adolf Hitler at the Führerbunker during the Battle of Berlin. Directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.
The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (Der 20. Juli), 1955 – feature film on the failed July 20, 1944 attempt at assassinating Adolf Hitler. The film has a realism that comes close to the style of a documentary. Directed by Falk Harnack.
Die Ratten, 1955 – based upon the play The Rats by Gerhart Hauptmann and telling the story of a destitute Polish woman in Berlin who sells her illegitimate baby for a few hundred Deutsche Mark to a childless forwarder's wife. Directed by Robert Siodmak.
The Three from the Filling Station (Die drei von der Tankstelle), 1955 – three friends are broke, so they sell their car and open a filling station in Berlin. Then they all fall in love with the same girl. Directed by Hans Wolff.
1956
A Berlin Romance (Eine Berliner Romanze), 1956 – about youth urban life in the divided city of Berlin. The film is a love story about a seventeen-year-old East German saleswoman and an unemployed auto mechanic from West Berlin. Directed by Gerhard Klein.
The Captain from Köpenick (Der Hauptmann von Köpenick), 1956 – directed by Helmut Käutner and based upon the play The Captain of Köpenick by Carl Zuckmayer. The play was based on the true story of Wilhelm Voigt.
Teenage Wolfpack (Die Halbstarken), 1956 – a portrait of rebellious young people in Berlin during the 1950s. Directed by Georg Tressler.
Treffpunkt Aimée, 1956 – a group of criminals smuggles PVC declared as cement from East Berlin to West Berlin until the Volkspolizei becomes suspicious. Directed by Horst Reinecke.
1957
, 1957 – during the Wirtschaftswunder two unsuccessful and unequal brothers plan a bank robbery in Berlin by digging a tunnel. Directed by Werner Klingler.
Berlin, Schoenhauser Corner (Berlin – Ecke Schönhauser...), 1957 – drama by Gerhard Klein about anti-establishment teens in East Berlin.
The Devil Strikes at Night (Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam), 1957 – based on the true story of Bruno Lüdke, a supposed serial killer who murdered women during the Nazi era. An investigator in 1944 Berlin who starts to get a thread which leads to Lüdke is frustrated by Nazi authorities who feel that revealing the truth will undermine the people's faith in the system. Directed by Robert Siodmak.
Different from You and Me (Anders als du und ich / Das dritte Geschlecht), 1957 – a young man in postwar Berlin discovers his homosexuality but his own family tries very hard to set him straight. Directed by Veit Harlan.
Don't Forget My Little Traudel (Vergeßt mir meine Traudel nicht), 1957 – a lonely 17-year-old girl escapes from a children's home, comes to Berlin and upsets the life of a teacher and a policeman sharing the same flat. Directed by Kurt Maetzig.
Lissy, 1957 – a poor girl from a working-class family in Berlin-Wedding marries a successful Nazi. But her social advancement gets along with the loss of old friends. Directed by Konrad Wolf.
Old Barge, Young Love (Alter Kahn und junge Liebe), 1957 – a skipper leads a small group of barges travelling from Berlin to Waren. Directed by Hans Heinrich.
Queen Louise (Königin Luise), 1957 – depicts the life of Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in Berlin, the wife of Frederick William III of Prussia, and her stand against Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars. Directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner.
Die Schönste, 1957 – two boys in West Berlin stash their own mothers' jewellery to find out whether the ladies are still admirable or not. Directed by Ernesto Remani.
Sheriff Teddy, 1957 – a boy has to move with his family from West Berlin to East Berlin, but has problems to assimilate. His new friend helps him not to become a delinquent minor. Directed by Heiner Carow.
Spring in Berlin, 1957 – two days in Berlin. Directed by Arthur Maria Rabenalt.
1958
, 1958 – a young factory worker in West Berlin is a lady-killer and does not believe in true love until he meets the love of his life during a bet. Directed by Georg Tressler.
Fräulein, 1958 – German woman and American officer caught up in the end of and aftermath of World War II in Berlin. Directed by Henry Koster.
Iron Gustav (Der eiserne Gustav), 1958 – based on the novel by Hans Fallada and telling the true story of horse-drawn cabman Gustav Hartmann from Wannsee district who drove sensationally to Paris in 1928 to demonstrate against the rise of the motorcar taxicab. Directed by George Hurdalek.
My Wife Makes Music (Meine Frau macht Musik), 1958 – a revue singer in East Berlin paused for several years because of her family when she meets an Italian star who brings her back to theatre. But her husband is not amused about her new career. Directed by Hans Heinrich.
Nasser Asphalt, 1958 – a young reporter in West Berlin discovers that his employer, a respected and prosperous journalist, invented a sensational story of German soldiers who supposedly survived for six years in a demolished bunker in Poland. Directed by Frank Wisbar.
, 1958 – biography of famous chanson and operetta composer Walter Kollo working at the Berliner Theater and the Admiralspalast. Directed by his son Willi Kollo; grandson and opera tenor René Kollo played his own grandfather.
Sun Seekers (Sonnensucher), 1958, released 1972 – after being arrested in a police raid in 1950 Berlin, two young prostitutes are sent to the mines of Wismut Company. There, Germans and Soviets work together to extract Uranium for the use of the Soviet Union. Directed by Konrad Wolf.
Tatort Berlin, 1958 – illustrates the advantage for criminals with the still passable inner German border but also the problems with separate police investigations inside Berlin. In the movie a new jurisdiction is seen to help with the resocialisation of former petty criminals into the system of the GDR. Directed by Joachim Kunert.
The Young Lions, 1958 – a German ski instructor is hopeful that Adolf Hitler will bring new prosperity to Germany, so when war breaks out he joins the Wehrmacht and travels to Berlin several times. In another story line two soldiers befriend each other during their U.S. Army draft physical examination and attend basic training together. Directed by Edward Dmytryk.
1959
Goods for Catalonia (Ware für Katalonien ), 1959 – a group of smugglers transfers cameras, lenses and field glasses made in GDR via East Berlin to West Berlin and then to Barcelona. Based upon the true story of criminal and directed by Richard Groschopp.
Interview mit Berlin, 1959 – for the 10th anniversary of the GDR produced documentary on contemporary economical and cultural life in Berlin. Directed by Max Jaap.
Love's Confusion (Verwirrung der Liebe), 1959 – a medical student at Berlin Humboldt University misses his girlfriend at a masquerade and finds a new girl. His former girlfriend takes the former boyfriend of the student's new girl instead. Before wedding they again switch partners. Directed by Slatan Dudow.
Reportage 57, 1959 – drawing on negative depictions of Halbstarke and Rock 'n' roll in West Berlin in its critiques of the West. Directed by János Veiczi.
Sie nannten ihn Amigo, 1959 – in 1939 a refugee from a Nazi concentration camp is discovered by some boys in Berlin. The son of a communist helps him, gets arrested himself and sent to a concentration camp. Directed by Heiner Carow.
Ten Seconds to Hell, 1959 – focuses on a half-dozen German POWs who return to a devastated Berlin and find employment as a bomb disposal squad, tasked with clearing the city of unexploded Allied bombs. Directed by Robert Aldrich.
1960s
1960
Am grünen Strand der Spree, 1960 – five friends meet in a bar in postwar Berlin and share their experiences during World War II. Directed by Fritz Umgelter.
Freddy and the Melody of the Night (Freddy und die Melodie der Nacht), 1960 – a singing taxi driver in West Berlin helps to catch two criminals who unsuccessfully attacked a cash transport, and he falls in love with a flower girl. Directed by Wolfgang Schleif.
Sweetheart of the Gods (Liebling der Götter), 1960 – biographical film based on the life of German film actress Renate Müller. Torn between her success during the early Nazi era and her love to a Jewish diplomat she dies in 1937 under mysterious circumstances. Directed by Gottfried Reinhardt.
We Cellar Children (Wir Kellerkinder), 1960 – about people in postwar Berlin, their careers during the Wirtschaftswunder and what they did before 1945 during the Nazi era. Directed by Hans-Joachim Wiedermann.
1961
(Flucht nach Berlin), 1961 – to escape the formation of a Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft, a farmer and a communist agitator in East Germany try to flee to West Berlin. Directed by Will Tremper.
My Husband, the Economic Miracle (Mein Mann, das Wirtschaftswunder), 1961 – to bring his daughter to her senses, a Wirtschaftswunder tycoon in West Berlin celebrates a sham marriage with a Hungarian actress. But after the wedding his wife starts to lick him into shape. Written by Dieter Hildebrandt and directed by Ulrich Erfurth.
One, Two, Three, 1961 – Cold War before The Wall, comedy by Billy Wilder.
Two Among Millions (Zwei unter Millionen), 1961 – a love story in Berlin shortly before the Berlin Wall is built. Directed by Wieland Liebske and Victor Vicas.
1962
The Bread of Those Early Years (Das Brot der frühen Jahre), 1962 – telling the story of a young man in West Berlin during the Wirtschaftswunder. Directed by Herbert Vesely.
Escape from East Berlin, 1962 – drama about a group of people from East Berlin who dig a tunnel under Berlin Wall to take refuge in West Berlin. Directed by Robert Siodmak.
Her Most Beautiful Day (Ihr schönster Tag), 1962 – a typical feisty female concierge in Berlin has to learn that her own children do not prosper as desired. Directed by Paul Verhoeven.
Midnight Revue (Revue um Mitternacht), 1962 – a film producer shuts a writer, a composer, a dramatic adviser and a stage designer into a villa, but they can manage to escape. Another young composer and a production assistant have to bring them back to finish the revue movie. Directed by Gottfried Kolditz.
The Punch to the Jaw (Der Kinnhaken), 1962 – a woman lives in East Berlin and works in a West Berlin bar when the Wall is built in 1961. Directed by Heinz Thiel.
Star-Crossed Lovers (Königskinder), 1962 – two children from working-class families in Berlin have sworn to marry each other. When they grow older, after the Nazis rose to power, he is arrested for being a Communist, but she joins the underground party to continue his work. Directed by Frank Beyer.
The Tunnel, 1962 – acclaimed NBC documentary about an escape tunnel under the Berlin Wall, by Reuven Frank.
...und Deine Liebe auch, 1962 – two friends love the same girl. One of them is working as an electrician in East Berlin, the other is a cab driver in West Berlin. When the Wall is built, the girl has to make a decision. Directed by Frank Vogel.
1963
(Die endlose Nacht), 1963 – six people are stuck at Berlin Tempelhof Airport because of deep fog. Directed by Will Tremper.
For Eyes Only, 1963 – spy film about a double agent from the Stasi who is placed in the West German headquarters of MID. He regularly travels to Berlin, and he finally can carry the United States plans to invade the GDR to East Germany. Directed by János Veiczi.
1964
Emil and the Detectives, 1964 – adventure film directed by Peter Tewksbury, based on the novel Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner.
Gigant Berlin, 1964 – documentary movie about West Berlin made 1957–1963, showing the building of Berlin Wall, and John F. Kennedy and Marlene Dietrich visiting the cosmopolitan city. Directed by Leo de Laforgue.
Wolf Among Wolves (Wolf unter Wölfen), 1964 – the four-part TV film based on the novel Wolf Among Wolves by Hans Fallada describes the Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic in 1923 which led to widespread unemployment, homelessness, starvation and rioting in Berlin. Directed by Hans-Joachim Kasprzik.
1965
Berlin um die Ecke, 1965 – about conflicts between young and old metal workers in East Berlin. Directed by Gerhard Klein and first shown in 1990.
Born in '45 (Jahrgang '45), 1965 – a young couple from Prenzlauer Berg tries to get a divorce. He drifts through the city while she suffers from separation. Directed by Jürgen Böttcher and first shown in 1990.
The Dirty Game, 1965 – the US intelligence chief in Europe relates the stories of three different operations during the Cold War that he was involved in with colleagues in Berlin, Paris, Rome and Djibouti. Directed by Christian-Jaque, Werner Klingler, Carlo Lizzani and Terence Young.
Karl Liebknecht (Part 1: Solange Leben in mir ist, 1965; Part 2: Trotz alledem!, 1972) – two part film about the German Communist leader Karl Liebknecht. Directed by Günter Reisch.
El niño y el muro, 1965 – film about a child and The Wall, directed by Ismael Rodríguez.
The Rabbit Is Me (Das Kaninchen bin ich), 1965 – the brother of a young waitress in East Berlin is sentenced to three years in prison because of "subversive agitation", and therefore she is not allowed to study. To find out the truth, the waitress starts a secret relationship with the judge. Directed by Kurt Maetzig and first shown in 1989.
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, 1965 – Cold War classic set on both sides of The Wall, from the book by John le Carré, directed by Martin Ritt.
1966
Funeral in Berlin, 1966 – spy film from the book by Len Deighton starring Michael Caine, directed by Guy Hamilton.
, 1966 – comedy about the panderer and crime environment in 1925 Berlin during the Weimar Republic. Directed by Wolfgang Staudte.
, 1966 – a tramway driver in West Berlin is fired by the BVG because of 'his health status' though he never was ill. To attract attention he abstracts tramcars by night and drives them through the city. Directed by Eugen York.
, 1966 – about a model discovering Berlins nightlife. By Will Tremper.
The Quiller Memorandum, a 1966 spy film starring George Segal, directed by Michael Anderson.
Torn Curtain, 1966 – Cold War thriller set in East Berlin, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
1967
Casino Royale, 1967 – comedy spy film spoofing James Bond in which Bond's estranged daughter has to travel to East Berlin to infiltrate a Soviet counterintelligence agency. Directed by Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Val Guest and Richard Talmadge.
Hallo, Du altes Spreeathen, 1967 – musical revue about an elderly Berlin organ grinder and his daughter visiting goddess Luna, with many famous songs paying homage to the city. Directed by Wernfried Hübel.
Ein Lord am Alexanderplatz, 1967 – telling the story of a marriage swindler and his daughter in Berlin during the time when the Alexanderplatz was rebuilt and the Fernsehturm was erected. Directed by Günter Reisch.
Der tapfere Schulschwänzer, 1967 – a schoolboy in East Berlin decides to skip school, incidentally discovers a fire, alerts the fire department but runs off before they can note down his personal data. The firefighters manage to save two infants from burning and search for the young hero. Directed by Winfried Junge.
Wedding Night in the Rain (Hochzeitsnacht im Regen), 1967 – a young female hairdresser and horse fan from the Baltic Sea comes to East Berlin to become a jockey at Rennbetrieb Hoppegarten. To get a flat she marries a moped rider she just met the day before. Directed by Horst Seemann.
1968
Berliner Antigone, 1968 – during World War II a young woman is sentenced to death at Plötzensee Prison by the People's Court because she stole the dead body of her insurgent brother from the Anatomic Institute to bury him secretly. Based on the novel by Rolf Hochhuth and directed by Rainer Wolffhardt.
A Dandy in Aspic, a 1968 espionage film set in East and West Berlin, directed by Anthony Mann.
I Was Nineteen (Ich war neunzehn), 1968 – a nineteen-year-old Red Army soldier's experiences as the Soviets advance into Berlin at the close of World War II, directed by Konrad Wolf.
Ich – Axel Cäsar Springer, 1968–1970 – the life and work of conservative publisher Axel Springer and the rise of Axel Springer Verlag from the early beginnings in Hamburg until the expansion to West Berlin, seen from a propagandistic East German point of view. Directed by Achim Hübner, Ingrid Sander and Helmut Krätzig.
(Quartett im Bett), 1968 – nonsense movie about the 1968 bohemian society in Kreuzberg district. Directed by Ulrich Schamoni.
The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz, 1968 – Cold War spy farce about an East German Olympic athlete who defects. Director George Marshall.
1969
Der Kerl liebt mich – und das soll ich glauben?, 1969 – an erratic young woman in West Berlin can not pay her rent and hooks up with a criminal, antiques smuggling man. Directed by Marran Gosov.
Liberation, 1969 – five-part movie on the liberation of the Soviet Union and the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War, focusing on the Battle of Kursk, the Lower Dnieper Offensive, Operation Bagration, the Vistula–Oder Offensive and the Battle of Berlin. Directed by Yuri Ozerov.
1970s
1970
, a 1970 spy film starring Darren McGavin, directed by David Lowell Rich.
Gentlemen in White Vests (Die Herren mit der weißen Weste), 1970 – a criminal comes home to West Berlin and gets hunted by a retired judge and his friends. Directed by Wolfgang Staudte.
He, Du!, 1970 – a dedicated female teacher in East Berlin calls a meeting when she realizes that the younger pupils are not any more touched by the events happening in the novel Naked Among Wolves. Directed by Rolf Römer.
Me, a Groupie (Ich – ein Groupie), 1970 – two blonde English girls hook up with rock musicians and travel through Europe smuggling drugs. When they finally reach West Berlin the journey ends in a drug orgy. Directed by Erwin C. Dietrich.
1971
Husaren in Berlin, 1971 – Hungarian hussars under András Hadik occupy Berlin for one day in the 1757 Berlin raid during the Seven Years' War before the Prussian Army arrives. Directed by Erwin Stranka.
Ich werde dich töten, Wolf, 1971 – a young woman travels to West Berlin to kill her former boyfriend. On the journey she looks back on the relationship with him when she murdered his wife at Grunewald Tower. Directed by Wolfgang Petersen.
It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives (Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt), 1971 – follows the adventures of a young man in Berlin who discovers gay culture but also discrimination and fear. Directed by Rosa von Praunheim.
KLK Calling PTZ – The Red Orchestra (KLK an PTX – Die Rote Kapelle), 1971 – after Hitler's rise to power, a group of regime opponents called Red Orchestra consolidates under the leadership of Harro Schulze-Boysen and Arvid Harnack in Berlin. They gather intelligence and pass it on to other countries. In August 1942, the Gestapo arrests Boysen and cracks down on the spy ring. Directed by Horst E. Brandt.
Our Willi Is the Best (Unser Willi ist der Beste), 1971 – now retired and being hard-pressed for money, a former tax collector in West Berlin becomes a door-to-door salesman. But his selling methods to distribute home appliances are quite contentious. Directed by Werner Jacobs.
1972
Cabaret, 1972 – set in the early 1930s depicting Weimar Berlin from the writings of Christopher Isherwood; film by Bob Fosse.
(Liebe Mutter, mir geht es gut), 1972 – a metalworker moves from Württemberg to West Berlin, does not like the disunity among the workers there and mobilises his co-workers to fight for their rights. Directed by Christian Ziewer.
Florentiner 73, 1972 – a young pregnant woman hunting for a room in East Berlin finds a furnished through room in Pankow district. The landlady is like a mother to her, and she gets more and more integrated into the collective of the apartment house. Directed by Klaus Gendries.
Her Third (Der Dritte), 1972 – a mother in her mid-thirties in East Berlin has two children from two different men. She now decides to find "her third" husband herself and not leaving it up to fate. Directed by Egon Günther.
Leichensache Zernik, 1972 – in 1948 a young woman is murdered in a Berlin forest. Police stations in the different sectors of Berlin discuss about responsibility what provokes the killer to proceed. Directed by Gerhard Klein and Helmut Nitzschke.
Der Mann, der nach der Oma kam, 1972 – after grandmothers remarriage an artist family in East Berlin has to find a new home help and nanny and hires a young talented man who turns out to be a postgraduate writing about emancipation. Director: Roland Oehme.
Memories of a Summer in Berlin (Erinnerung an einen Sommer in Berlin), 1972 – American novelist Thomas Wolfe visits the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin where his enthusiasm for Germany and its merits changes to scepticism. Based on a chapter of the novel You Can't Go Home Again and directed by Rolf Hädrich.
Shot on Command – The Sass Brothers, Once Berlin's Big Crooks (Auf Befehl erschossen – Die Brüder Sass, einst Berlins große Ganoven), 1972 – Franz and Erich Sass from Moabit district become the most famous and innovative bank robbers during 1920s Berlin. After a series of criminal acts in Denmark they get arrested, extradited to Nazi Germany and executed. Directed by Rainer Wolffhardt.
1973
Berliner Bettwurst, 1973/1975 – by Rosa von Praunheim.
The Death of Adolf Hitler, 1973 – details the last ten days of Hitler's life as World War II comes to an end and Allied troops are closing in on the Berlin Führerbunker. Directed by Rex Firkin.
Hitler: The Last Ten Days, 1973 – depicting the days leading up to Adolf Hitler's suicide. Directed by Ennio De Concini.
The Legend of Paul and Paula (Die Legende von Paul und Paula), 1973 – love story set in East Berlin by Heiner Carow.
1974
Der Leutnant vom Schwanenkietz, 1974 – three-part movie on the life and work of an ambitious Volkspolizei-Abschnittsbevollmächtigter in East Berlin who puts things straight and tries to rehabilitate former criminals. Directed by Rudi Kurz.
Neues aus der Florentiner 73, 1974 – following Florentiner 73, the young woman in Pankow gives birth to a baby, has to find the right husband and experiences rising support by the collective in her apartment house. Directed by Klaus Gendries.
One or the Other of Us (Einer von uns beiden), 1974 – psychological thriller takes place in West Berlin, with scenes near the wall. Director Wolfgang Petersen.
Salon Kitty, 1974 – covering the events of the Salon Kitty Incident, where the Sicherheitsdienst took over a brothel in Charlottenburg between 1939 and 1942, had the place wire tapped and all the prostitutes replaced with trained spies in order to gather data on various members of the Nazi party and foreign dignitaries. Directed by Tinto Brass.
Top Hat (Chapeau Claque), 1974 – a young former Top hat manufacturer became insolvent and lives now as a man of independent means and rummage collector in his house in Grunewald district together with a listless young girl. Directed by Ulrich Schamoni.
1975
Everyone Dies Alone (Jeder stirbt für sich allein), (1975 in German; 1976 in English) – Hans Fallada's novel based on the lives of Otto and Elise Hampel, who undertook acts of civil disobedience against Nazism in 1940. Directed by Alfred Vohrer.
Inside Out, 1975 – heist thriller in which a gang led by former American and German soldiers recovers Nazi gold buried in Berlin during WWII.
Under the Pavement Lies the Strand (Unter dem Pflaster ist der Strand), 1975 – two Berlin actors are accidentally locked in the rehearsal hall for one night. He tries to seduce her; she puts him off. Together they have to face the loss of ideals from the German student movement. Directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms.
1976
Hostess, 1976 – a young woman in East Berlin is leading sight-seeing tours, and she rejects her boyfriends' proposal of marriage due to his lovelessness. Directed by Rolf Römer.
Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture, 1976 – documentary about Berlin's cultural scene during the Weimar Republic, by Gary Conklin.
Nelken in Aspik, 1976 – a totally untalented advertising artist in East Berlin climbs the social ladder by just remaining silent after a mischance with his teeth. Directed by Günter Reisch.
1977
Die Comedian Harmonists – Sechs Lebensläufe, 1977 – two-part documentary on the lives of five singers and a pianist who met 1928 in Friedenau district and formed the ensemble Comedian Harmonists. Directed by Eberhard Fechner.
Drei Damen vom Grill, 1977 – grandmother, mother and daughter run a Currywurst takeaway in West Berlin at Nollendorfplatz, later in Westend and finally in Moabit Markthalle. Directed by Thomas Engel, Hans Heinrich and others.
Liebeserklärung an Berlin, 1977 – two-part documentary about people loving Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR. The movie portraits construction workers, members of the Volkspolizei, lavatory attendants, students, industrial workers, children and others who talk about their life, about rebuilding the city and developing a socialistic society. Directed by Uwe Belz.
The Serpent's Egg, 1977 – an unemployed Jew in 1923 Berlin is offered a job by a professor performing medical experiments, foreshadowing Nazi human experimentation. Directed by Ingmar Bergman.
Stroszek, 1977 – based on the life of and played by Bruno Schleinstein. A street performer and petty criminal in West Berlin gets released from prison, but is unable to start a new life. Together with his girlfriend, a prostitute, and his elderly neighbor, he moves to Wisconsin, but can not forge ahead. Directed by Werner Herzog.
1978
(Die allseitig reduzierte Persönlichkeit – Redupers), 1978 – a female freelance press photographer has to survive at subsistence level with her daughter in West Berlin when she becomes part of a project to deliver photos of Berlin. Directed by Helke Sander.
Despair, 1978 – against the backdrop of the Nazis' rise, a Russian émigré and chocolate magnate in Berlin goes slowly mad. Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Du und icke und Berlin, 1978 – a typical eleven-year-old girl from East Berlin wants to find a new father and makes a match between her mother and a construction worker. Directed by Eberhard Schäfer.
Just a Gigolo (Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo), 1978 – a Prussian officer returns home to Berlin following the end of World War I. Unable to find employment elsewhere, he works as a gigolo in a brothel run by a Baroness. With David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich, by David Hemmings.
, 1978 – a man and his friends establish a baggage transportation service between the Berlin railway terminal stations before World War I. The movie in 13 parts is based on the novel by Hans Fallada and directed by Herbert Ballmann.
, 1978 – having been divorced for one year, a lonely man in East Berlin tries to reconquer his former wife and pretends to be pursued by the Volkspolizei. But the reworking of their old problems becomes complicated. Directed by Frank Beyer.
1979
David, 1979 – in 1938 the son of a Jewish rabbi is sent from his home in Legnica to Berlin to learn mechanics and agriculture. During World War II he can hide in the city until he manages to escape to Palestine. Directed by Peter Lilienthal.
(Das Ende des Regenbogens), 1979 – a 17 year old Berlin boy turns prostitute and petty thief. Despite the attempts of a social worker to help, the boy runs into real trouble when a burglary goes awry. Directed by .
Für Mord kein Beweis, 1979 – the dead body of a woman from Prenzlauer Berg found at Langer See leads the Volkspolizei to a hiding doctor who practised during the Nazi Euthanasia programme at Dachau concentration camp. Directed by Konrad Petzold.
Geheime Reichssache, 1979 – documentary on the trials of August 1944, led by Roland Freisler and held by the People's Court at the Kammergericht in the aftermath of the 20 July plot that year. Directed by Jochen Bauer.
(Die große Flatter), 1979 – three-part movie on two young men who grow up in a difficult family background in a settlement for socially disadvantaged in Charlottenburg-Nord. Their residential milieu drives them to petty crime, but they dream of moving away. Based on the novel of Leonie Ossowski and directed by Marianne Lüdcke.
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Die Ehe der Maria Braun), 1979 – a woman trying to make a life in the aftermath of WWII by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Pinselheinrich, 1979 – episodes from the life of famous Berlin illustrator Heinrich Zille. Zille gets dismissed from his work, starts to live from his humorous and socially critical drawings but uses his earnings and rising fame to help people who are poorer than him. Directed by Hans Knötzsch.
Die Schulmädchen vom Treffpunkt Zoo, 1979 – Schulmädchen-Report-like comedy about schoolgirls meeting friends at Berlin Zoologischer Garten railway station in West Berlin. One of the girls loves a male prostitute and junkie and tries to help him with money. Directed by Walter Boos.
The Third Generation (Die dritte Generation), 1979 – a black comedy about the activities of the third generation of the left wing terror group RAF in Berlin. Written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Verführungen, 1979 – after a Status Quo concert at Deutschlandhalle, an unoriented teenage couple in West Berlin meets the would-be juvenile owner of an unsuccessful antiques shop. But their friendship leads to disappointment. Directed by Michael Verhoeven.
1980s
1980
Backhouse Bliss (Glück im Hinterhaus), 1980 – a fairly well-off librarian in his mid-forties with two children and a boring marriage in Berlin leaves his family for his intern. But the spark doesn't show up in his day-to-day life. Directed by Herrmann Zschoche.
Berlin Alexanderplatz, 1980 – 1920s Berlin, film of the novel written by Alfred Döblin. Made for television film (in 14 episodes) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
, 1980 – love story between an older architect and a young student, set against the backdrop of the housing struggles in West Berlin. Director: Rudolf Thome.
Fabian, 1980 – in the late 1920s Berlin a copywriter observes the night life with his friend, gets unemployed during the Great Depression, but meets a new girlfriend. When his friend commits suicide and his girlfriend leaves him for a film career, he loses his livelihood. Based on the novel by Erich Kästner and directed by Wolf Gremm.
Put on Ice (Kaltgestellt), 1980 – a teacher in West-Berlin gets neutralized during the time of Anti-Radical Decree and dragnet investigation when he wants to throw light on the death of a spy sent to his school by the Verfassungsschutz. Directed by Bernhard Sinkel.
Solo Sunny, 1980 – portraits the life of a girl singing in a band in East Berlin, directed by Konrad Wolf.
Ullasa Paravaigal, 1980 – The protagonist visits Berlin and rest of Europe as a part of overseas tour for a change over of his mind due to his tragic past with his friend, who pretends to have mental disorder. The film written by Panchu Arunachalam, produced by S. P. Thamizharasi and directed by C. V. Rajendran.
1981
Als Unku Edes Freundin war, 1981 – during the 1920s a circus driven by Sinti comes to the outskirts of Berlin. A Sinti girl becomes the friend of a poor German boy who tries to buy a bicycle to earn money for his family as a paperboy. Based on the novel Ede und Unku by Alex Wedding. Directed by Helmut Dziuba.
Am Wannsee ist der Teufel los, 1981 – young Punks, Rockers and Poppers are heading for Wannsee, where they are getting in conflict with middle-class citizens and the police. Directed by Caspar Harlan.
Angels of Iron (Engel aus Eisen), 1981 – dramatizes the true story of a Berlin gang of thieves led by juvenile Werner Gladow with his partner in crime, former hangman Gustav Völpel, during the time of the Berlin Blockade and Airlift 1948–49. Directed by Thomas Brasch.
Berlin Tunnel 21, 1981 – a former American officer leads an attempt to build a tunnel underneath The Wall as a rescue route. Directed by Richard Michaels.
The Bunker, 1981 – depicting the events surrounding Adolf Hitler's last weeks in and around the Führerbunker in Berlin. Directed by George Schaefer.
Christiane F. – We Children from Bahnhof Zoo (Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo), 1981 – 1970s portrayal of West Berlin's drug scene by Uli Edel.
Lili Marleen, 1981 – during the Third Reich a German singer (based on the life of Lale Andersen), famous for singing Lili Marleen, and a Swiss Jewish composer (based on Rolf Liebermann), who actively helps an underground group of German Jews, form a forbidden love, although she lives an assimilated life in Berlin. Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
The Man in Pyjamas, 1981 – after watching TV with his wife, a man from Wilmersdorf district goes to the cigarette machine in pyjamas. On the street he gets caught by the police and the complications begin. Directed by Christian Rateuke and Hartmann Schmige.
Possession, 1981 – a woman left her family and the husband starts following his wife to find out the truth. Directed by Andrzej Żuławski.
(Kalt wie Eis), 1981 – a young criminal in West Berlin takes the rap for a gang of motorbike thieves and ends up in jail. Nearly insane with frustration he makes a violent escape to be with his girlfriend. Directed by Carl Schenkel.
Taxi zum Klo, 1981 – groundbreaking film documenting gay culture in West Berlin by Frank Ripploh.
1982
Ace of Aces (L'as des as), 1982 – the coach of the French Boxing team travels to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. But before the competition he is asked to help a persecuted Jewish family to escape from Bavaria to Austria. Directed by Gérard Oury.
, 1982 – the life of an actress in West Berlin gets crazy when she quits her job at Schiller Theater. A stage director wants to work with her at the Hebbel Theater, but he dies before rehearsals begin. Directed by Thomas Brasch.
Familie Rechlin, 1982 – a typical Berlin family lives at Hackescher Markt, but shortly before the wall is built, the daughter and her husband move to Ruhleben-Spandau in West Berlin. After the wall is erected the two parts of the family get alienated from another in two different systems. Directed by Vera Loebner.
(Der Mann auf der Mauer), 1982 – a man in East Berlin tries unsuccessfully to get over Berlin Wall. After he is ransomed by the West-German Government, he wants for his beloved wife. Directed by Reinhard Hauff.
Sabine Kleist, Aged Seven... (Sabine Kleist, 7 Jahre...), 1982 – a seven-year-old girl has spent her childhood in an orphanage after her parents died in an accident. When one of the women in charge at the orphanage leaves to have a baby, the girl runs away, wanders through East Berlin, but finds no one to take her in. Directed by Helmut Dziuba.
Spuk im Hochhaus, 1982 – in the 18th century a landlord and a landlady always rob their guests. So they are accursed to do seven good deeds exactly 200 years later in modern East Berlin. Directed by Günter Meyer.
1983
City of Lost Souls (Stadt der verlorenen Seelen), 1983 – by Rosa von Praunheim.
Conrad: The Factory-Made Boy (Konrad aus der Konservenbüchse), 1983 – when a woman in Neukölln district opens the tin that was delivered by a factory, a well-behaved 7-year-old "instant boy" climbs out. When the factory spots the wrong delivery, the new son has to learn impertinence. Directed by Claudia Schröder.
Frontstadt, 1983 – fragmentary portrait on young people's lives in West Berlin. Directed by Klaus Tuschen.
Island of Swans (Insel der Schwäne), 1983 – a fourteen-year-old boy has to move from an idyllic small town to the developing area of Berlin-Marzahn where his father works as a construction worker and where he must find his way in a completely new environment and surrounded by strange people. Directed by Herrmann Zschoche.
Non Stop Trouble with Spies (Der Schnüffler), 1983 – a naive taxi driver in West Berlin is asked to bring a Russian man to East Berlin. When they arrive, the man turns out to be already dead and the driver is suspected of being a CIA spy. Back in West Berlin he is accused of being a KGB agent, and so the imbroglio begins. Directed by Ottokar Runze.
Octopussy, 1983 – James Bond film starring Roger Moore and directed by John Glen.
White Star, 1983 – a former rock 'n' roll band manager tries very aggressively to promote a young musician in West Berlin, but the punk audience does not like the synthpop-style music. Directed by Roland Klick.
(Kanakerbraut), 1983 – several days in the life of an unemployed man in Kreuzberg district, spending his days with peep shows, local pub, loose contacts, sitting at home and occasional jobs. Directed by .
A Woman in Flames (Die flambierte Frau), 1983 – leaving her upper class, boring marriage, a woman in West Berlin is drawn to the idea of becoming a call girl and a disrespectful dominatrix. But then she falls in love with a charming gigolo. Directed by Robert van Ackeren.
Zille and Me (Zille und ick), 1983 – musical film using fictional episodes from the life of famous Berlin social-critical painter Heinrich Zille around the year 1900. Directed by Werner W. Wallroth.
1984
Forbidden, 1984 – about a wealthy German countess who hides her Jewish boyfriend in her apartment in Berlin during World War II. Directed by Anthony Page.
The Jesse Owens Story, 1984 (TV) – biographical film of the life and times of 1936 Olympics star Jesse Owens, by Richard Irving.
(Sigi, der Straßenfeger), 1984 – a street sweeper finds a box with 300.000 Deutsche Mark and a compromising photo of his boss what evokes several adventures. With Harald Juhnke, by Wolf Gremm.
The Wannsee Conference (Die Wannseekonferenz), 1984 (TV) – German film about the infamous WWII conference in Berlin-Wannsee where the Final Solution to exterminate the Jews was planned. Directed by Heinz Schirk.
1985
The Berlin Affair (Interno Berlinese / Leidenschaften), 1985 – in 1938 the wife of a rising Nazi diplomat in Berlin falls in love with the daughter of the Japanese Ambassador. Her husband finds out and moves to break up the affair, but also gets enamoured of the girl. Based upon the novel Quicksand and directed by Liliana Cavani.
Demons (Dèmoni), 1985 – horror movie about people in a Berlin cinema transforming into demons. Directed by Lamberto Bava.
(Einmal Ku’damm und zurück), 1985 – a woman from East Berlin falls in love with a Swiss cook working at the Swiss embassy, travels with him secretly to Kurfürstendamm, but opts to stay at her side of the wall. Directed by Herbert Ballmann.
The Holcroft Covenant, 1985 – 40 years after the Battle of Berlin, an architect of German origin from New York City has to meet a German conductor at Berliner Philharmonie to establish a charitable foundation for Holocaust survivors with Nazi money. Directed by John Frankenheimer.
Kein Mord, kein Totschlag, 1985 – documentary showing authentic police and fire service emergency operations in Wedding district, with family grudges, suicide attempts, noise disturbances etc. Directed by Uwe Schrader.
, 1985 – a young guitar player in Berlin wants to become a famous musician and attempts to establish a band. Featuring punk band Die Ärzte and singer Nena; directed by Michael Laux.
Westler, 1985 – telling the story of a homosexual student from West Berlin who falls in love with a guy from East Berlin. Directed by Wieland Speck.
Wild Geese II, 1985 – based on the 1982 novel The Square Circle by Daniel Carney, in which a group of mercenaries are hired to spring Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison. Directed by Peter R. Hunt.
1986
Du mich auch, 1986 – in West-Berlin a Swiss guitar player and a female saxophonist from Berlin live and work together. They perpetually discuss about staying together or separating and look up to couples who live together permanently. Directed by Helmut Berger, Anja Franke and Dani Levy.
Fatherland, 1986 – a protest singer is a persona non grata in East Germany, he emigrates to West Berlin and gets exploited by an American record company. Together with a young French journalist he travels to Cambridge to find his father who turns out to be a former Nazi war criminal. Directed by Ken Loach.
Liebling Kreuzberg, 1986–1998 – series with five seasons, altogether 58 episodes. Leading actor: Manfred Krug as a Berlin lawyer. Director: Werner Masten.
, 1986 – comedy about a paper hanger in East Berlin who buys a counterfeit West-German passport, which he does not use to escape from East Germany, but to provide his crafts enterprise with wallpaper material from West-Berlin. Directed by Peter Timm.
Rosa Luxemburg, 1986 – Polish socialist and marxist Rosa Luxemburg dreams about revolution during the era of German Wilhelminism. While Luxemburg campaigns relentlessly for her beliefs, getting repeatedly imprisoned in Germany and Poland, lovers and comrades betray her until she is assassinated in Berlin together with Karl Liebknecht in 1919. Directed by Margarethe von Trotta.
1987
Claire Berolina, 1987 – portrait of Claire Waldoff who became a famous cabaret singer in 1920s Berlin and was a close friend of composer Walter Kollo, writer Kurt Tucholsky and illustrator Heinrich Zille. She was an important part of cultural and lesbian life in Berlin until the Nazi Machtergreifung ended her success. Directed by Klaus Gendries.
In der Wüste, 1987 – showing one day in the life of a jobless Chilean in West-Berlin spending time with his Turkish friend and searching for food and love. Based on a novel by Antonio Skármeta and directed by Rafael Fuster Pardo.
, 1987 – two-part docudrama about a man and a woman who meet in Berlin and look back on their love story in the fascistic Reichshauptstadt between 1937 and 1945. Directed by .
Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin), 1987 – drama about an angel falling in love with a human, which also concerns the divided city and its fate by Wim Wenders.
1988
Cycling the Frame, 1988 – documentary and art film following Tilda Swinton and her thoughts as she circumnavigates West Berlin alongside the Wall on a bicycle. Directed by Cynthia Beatt and remade in 2009.
A Father's Revenge, 1988 – two Americans (played by Brian Dennehy and Ron Silver) are hunting German terrorists. Directed by John Herzfeld.
Hanussen, 1988 – while recovering from being wounded during World War I, the Doctor discovers that Austrian Klaus Schneider possesses empathic powers. After the war, Schneider changes his name into Erik Jan Hanussen and goes to Berlin to perform as a hypnotist and mind reader. When he predicts Adolf Hitler's Machtergreifung and the Reichstag fire, the Nazis murder him. Directed by István Szabó.
Judgment in Berlin, 1988 – based on the book Judgment in Berlin telling the story of the LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking from Gdańsk to West Berlin and the subsequent 1979 trial conducted in the United States Court for Berlin; stars Martin Sheen and Sean Penn. Directed by Leo Penn.
Kai aus der Kiste, 1988 – during the hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic 1923 in Berlin a boy and his friends start a campaign of competitive advertising for an American chewing gum brand and use the resources of the metropolis for it. Based upon the novel by Wolf Durian and directed by Günter Meyer.
Linie 1, 1988 – film of the 1986 musical Linie 1 about U-Bahn (subway) Linie 1 in West Berlin, by Reinhard Hauff.
(Das Mikroskop), 1988 – a software engineer in Berlin and his girlfriend, a flower seller, have problems with their relationship. He wants to take inspiration from a chance acquaintanceship but she fights for a real family with children. Directed by Rudolf Thome.
The Passenger – Welcome to Germany (Der Passagier – Welcome to Germany), 1988 – in 1942 a group of KZ prisoners is cast as extras for a Nazi propaganda film. Many years later one of them returns to West Berlin to produce a documentary on this incident and his own involvement. Directed by Thomas Brasch.
Ein Schweizer namens Nötzli, 1988 – a Swiss clerk works at a chemical plant in West Berlin for 26 years without opportunity for advancement when he finds an innominate recommendatory letter and serves it straight to his director. Directed by Gustav Ehmck.
1989
(Der Bruch), 1989 – in 1946 several burglars want to break into the Deutsche Reichsbahn building in Berlin to steal money from the safe. Directed by Frank Beyer.
Coming Out, 1989 – deals with the process of the protagonists in East Berlin coming out as gay. Premiered in East Berlin on 9 November 1989, the night the Berlin Wall fell. Directed by Heiner Carow.
flüstern & SCHREIEN, 1989 – documentary on parts of the Berlin and East German rock music scene of the late 1980s, from well-established bands like Silly, to alternative rock bands like Feeling B or Chicoree/Die Zöllner. Directed by Dieter Schumann.
The Grass Is Greener Everywhere Else (Überall ist es besser, wo wir nicht sind), 1989 – facing the lack of prospects in their hometown Warsaw, two young people dream of living in the United States. To reach their target they do casual and illegal work in Berlin. Directed by Michael Klier.
(Der Philosoph), 1989 – a philosopher in Berlin almost withdrew from the world to concentrate on his Heraclitus studies, having no relationship for eight years. When he wants a new suit for a lecture about his new book, he meets three sisters who share a house and invite him to move in to stay with them in polygamy. Directed by Rudolf Thome.
Spider's Web (Das Spinnennetz), 1989 – based on the 1923 novel by Joseph Roth and focused on a young opportunistic Leutnant who suffered personal and national humiliation during the downfall of the German Empire, and now becomes increasingly active in the right-wing underground of the early 1920s Berlin. Directed by Bernhard Wicki.
, 1989 – three school day friends meet after several years again in Wedding district and talk about their unsuccessful lives including a broken family, homicide and excessive indebtedness. Directed by .
1990s
1990
Die Architekten, 1990 – an architect in his late thirties receives his first challenging and lucrative commission to design a cultural center for a satellite town in East-Berlin when more and more people leave East Germany wearily in the late 1980s. Directed by Peter Kahane.
Dana Lech, 1990 – a Polish woman lives in West Berlin with her German-Italian friend when she meets her previous Polish boyfriend from Warsaw during the fall of the Berlin Wall. Directed by Frank Guido Blasberg.
Der doppelte Nötzli, 1990 – following Ein Schweizer namens Nötzli, the doltish Swiss returns to Berlin to take over the "hotel" of his twin brother who died suddenly. But after his arrival he has to realize that it is in fact a brothel with illicit earnings. Directed by Stefan Lukschy.
Dr. M, 1990 – in the future Berlin is shocked by a series of spectacular suicides. A policeman's investigations lead him to a beautiful, enigmatic woman and the revelation of a sinister plot to manipulate the population through mass hypnosis. Directed by Claude Chabrol.
Der König von Kreuzberg, 1990 – showing the life of a young Turkish man in Berlin who is of the opinion that he can fly. Director: Matthias Drawe.
Latest from the DaDaeR (Letztes aus der DaDaeR), 1990 – after the Peaceful Revolution in 1989 two clowns are released from a prison in Köpenick to satirize East German life in its final days and the arrival of the German reunification. Directed by Jörg Foth.
, 1990 – documentary on the last days and the deconstruction of Berlin Wall. Directed by Jürgen Böttcher.
Ode to Joy and Freedom (Ode an die Freiheit), 1990 – documentary on the events of the Peaceful Revolution in October and November 1989 in Berlin, when the citizens of the GDR demonstrated for a political change and freedom to travel, which led to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, die Wende and finally to German reunification. Directed by Beate Schubert.
The Plot to Kill Hitler, 1990 – a historical recreation of the 1944 attempt by several German High Command Officers led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg to assassinate Adolf Hitler and take control of the German government. Directed by Lawrence Schiller.
1991
, 1991 – documentary on the old Kiez of Prenzlauer Berg and its inhabitants between May and July 1990 before the German treaty of monetary, economic and social union came into force, with the Deutsche Mark replacing the East German Mark. Directed by .
(Zwischen Pankow und Zehlendorf), 1991 – a musical 11-year-old girl shuttles between her mother's home in eastern Pankow and her grandmother's house in western Zehlendorf during the 1950s to take piano lessons until her father returns from war captivity. Directed by Horst Seemann.
Company Business, 1991 - A CIA operative (Gene Hackman) and a KGB operative (Mikhail Baryshnikov) must learn to trust each other as they make their way from East Berlin to France seeking answers and trying to stay alive as they find themselves being used as pawns by their respective governments.
, 1991 – a 15-year-old girl escapes to West Berlin via Hungary with her mother shortly before the fall of Berlin Wall and becomes a petty criminal to afford an own apartment. Director: .
Salmonberries, 1991 – in 1969 a woman tried to escape over Berlin Wall, but her husband got shot. She emigrates to Alaska, but when the Wall falls she travels back to Berlin 21 years later with a friend to find peace in her heart. Directed by Percy Adlon.
Something to Do with the Wall, 1991 – Berlin Wall documentary shot just before and after its fall, by Ross McElwee and Marilyn Levine.
, 1991 – a famous actor left the stage in 1968 to protest against Prague Spring. During the late 1980s as a more and more deranged he opens his house in Wilhelmsruh for punks and resistance fighters against the GDR. Directed by Egon Günther.
Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue (Wer hat Angst vor Rot, Gelb, Blau?), 1991 – about painters in Berlin. By .
1992
Liberators Take Liberties (BeFreier und Befreite), 1992 – interviews with German women who were raped by Soviet soldiers during the Battle of Berlin in April and May 1945, what caused pregnancies, abortions, illegitimate children, break down in relationships, stigmatization of the women and suicides. Directed by Helke Sander.
The Little Punker (Der kleene Punker), 1992 – animation movie about a poor punk in Berlin who starts to form a band with his friends to perform at Brandenburg Gate. Director: Michael Schaack.
Never Sleep Again (Nie wieder schlafen), 1992 – three women travel to Berlin to attend the wedding of a female friend and discover the recently reunited city. Directed by Pia Frankenberg.
Shining Through, 1992 – World War II spy film directed by David Seltzer, starring Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith.
1993
Faraway, So Close! (In weiter Ferne, so nah!), 1993 – sequel to Wings of Desire (1987), angels desire to be human, by Wim Wenders.
The Innocent, 1993 – a joint CIA/MI6 operation to build a tunnel under East Berlin during the Cold War. Directed by John Schlesinger.
The Ivory Tower (Der Elfenbeinturm), 1993 – M. works as a cook in a trendy Berlin restaurant. To say that his kitchen is busy like hell would be an understatement. Entering into a premature midlife crisis, he decides to turn his life around and write the great novel that he always felt inside him. Director: Matthias Drawe.
(Prinz in Hölleland), 1993 – a jester is giving a puppet theatre performance about a homosexual prince for the junkies at Kottbusser Tor station. Director: Michael Stock.
1994
Charlie & Louise – Das doppelte Lottchen, 1994 – two girls meet on the trip to a language school in Scotland. When they find out that they are identical twins who got separated very early, they decide to switch roles. The girl from Berlin returns to Hamburg and vice versa. Based on the novel Das doppelte Lottchen by Erich Kästner and directed by Joseph Vilsmaier.
George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin, 1994 (TV) – stirring colour documentary of the American campaign, including footage from Berlin, by George Stevens Jr.
Linsenstraße, 1994–1998 – Director: Christiane Nalezinski.
1995
Aus der Mitte, 1995 – documentary about young people in post-wall Berlin by Peter Zach.
, 1995 – the loss of his car and his selected woman drives a yuppie in Berlin into a little massacre among prostitutes. Directed by Oskar Roehler.
The Promise (Das Versprechen), 1995 – two young lovers in Berlin are separated when the Berlin wall goes up in 1961, and their stories intertwine during the three decades to German reunification. Directed by Margarethe von Trotta.
Silent Night (Stille Nacht – Ein Fest der Liebe), 1995 – sensing their relationship is crumbling, a policeman avoids celebrating Christmas with his girlfriend and travels to Paris. Alone in their Berlin flat, she decides to drop her second lover, but her boyfriend is ringing up her constantly from Paris. Directed by Dani Levy.
A Trick of Light (Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky), 1995 – shows the birth of cinema in Berlin where Max Skladanowsky and his brother Emil built a projector. Directed by Wim Wenders.
1996
Beyond Silence (Jenseits der Stille), 1996 – the daughter of deaf-mute parents is hearing, fluent in sign language and serves as an interpreter for her parents. After she receives a clarinet from her aunt, she discovers the world of music and wants to study at a music conservatory in Berlin. Directed by Caroline Link.
Boomtown Berlin, 1996–2003 – series of 22 movies about the changing metropolis and about people searching for happiness in Berlin. Made by students of the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin for Sender Freies Berlin.
(Der kalte Finger), 1996 – a young telephone operator at a hospital in Berlin has a second job at a sex hotline. One of her customers seems to let his imagination run wild, but nobody knows that other women have to die for that. Directed by .
, 1996 – documentary on the art project Wrapped Reichstag by Christo and Jeanne-Claude who worked to convince the officials from 1971 to 1994 until the project of wrapping the Reichstag building could be realized in 1995. Directed by Jörg Daniel Hissen and Wolfram Hissen.
The Glamorous World of the Adlon Hotel (In der glanzvollen Welt des Hotel Adlon), 1996 – docudrama on Louis Adlon who was sent to devastated Berlin in May 1945 by William Randolph Hearst to write sensational stories from the Hotel Adlon. Directed by Percy Adlon.
Störung Ost, 1996 – documentary on the former punk subculture in East Berlin and the persecution people suffered from the Government of the German Democratic Republic. Directed by Mechthild Katzorke and Cornelia Schneider.
1997
Berlin – Moskau, 1997 – a member of the Senate of Berlin wants to sell a train full of contaminated grain to the Russian mafia via a haulier. But his daughter and her boyfriend can uncover the fraud. Directed by Wolfgang F. Henschel.
(Geschwister – Kardeşler), 1997 – showing the life and problems of three Turkish siblings in Berlin. Director: Thomas Arslan.
Comedian Harmonists, 1997 – a biopic about the successful German vocal group Comedian Harmonists founded in 1927 in Berlin during the Golden Twenties and domiciled there until the three Jewish members were banned from stage by the Nazi Reichsmusikkammer in 1934. Directed by Joseph Vilsmaier.
Der Hauptmann von Köpenick, 1997 – directed by Frank Beyer and based upon the play The Captain of Köpenick by Carl Zuckmayer. The play was based on the true story of Wilhelm Voigt.
Life Is All You Get (Das Leben ist eine Baustelle), 1997 – romantic comedy in post-unification Berlin, by Wolfgang Becker.
Love Story: Berlin 1942, 1997 – documentary of the love affair between Felice Schragenheim and Lilly Wust, by Catrine Clay.
Magass, 1997 – surreal comedy by Daryush Shokof. The film is about a blacklisted artist, his four romances and their pet "a Fly" which becomes their "flying angel".
Obsession, 1997 – a female musician in Berlin is in love with a French medical scientist when she meets an English chiseller, falls also in love with him and starts a love triangle. Directed by Peter Sehr.
Silvester Countdown, 1997 – a young Berlin couple has increasing problems to cultivate their relationship. Even on a short trip to Warsaw around the turn of the year they switch between quarrelling and getting along with each other. Directed by Oskar Roehler.
1998
Angel Express, 1998 – about people restlessly seeking for the ultimate experience in late nineties Berlin. Directed by Rolf Peter Kahl.
The Berlin Airlift: First Battle of the Cold War, 1998 – documentary containing many personal recollections and eyewitness accounts of the massive humanitarian, military, and political effort known as the Berlin Airlift. Directed by Robert Kirk.
Break Even (Plus-minus null), 1998 – a lonely building worker in Berlin falls in love with a Bosnian prostitute and she asks him to marry her for the residence authorisation. Directed by Eoin Moore.
The Final Game (Das Finale), 1998 – terrorists cause a mass panic during the final of the DFB Cup at Berlin Olympic Stadium. Directed by Sigi Rothemund.
A Letter Without Words, 1998 – reconstructing the life of a wealthy, Jewish amateur filmmaker in Berlin during the 1920s and early 1930s on the basis of authentic filmic material presented by her granddaughter. Directed by Lisa Lewenz.
Live Shot (Gehetzt – Der Tod im Sucher), 1998 – a TV reporter and his trainee in Berlin are shooting for scandalous reports. When they investigate the kidnapping of a publisher's stepdaughter, they get hunted themselves. Directed by Joe Coppoletta.
Memory of Berlin, 1998 – autobiographical essay film by John Burgan.
Run Lola Run (Lola rennt), 1998 – drama with three alternate realities in post-reunification Berlin by Tom Tykwer.
(Solo für Klarinette), 1998 – in a Berlin apartment house a man is found ruffianly murdered with a clarinet. A burnt out police inspector follows a suspicious but mysterious woman and falls for her. Directed by Nico Hofmann.
1999
Aimée & Jaguar, 1999 – lesbian love story set against the backdrop of war-time Berlin, by Max Färberböck.
Apokalypso – Bombenstimmung in Berlin, 1999 – a bomb specialist runs against time to save Berlin from an atomic catastrophe, planned by a fanatic sect. Directed by Martin Walz.
Berlin – Ecke Bundesplatz, 1999–2012 – long term documentary film project about (middle-class and other) people living around the Bundesplatz in Wilmersdorf district. Filming began in 1985. Directors: Hans-Georg Ullrich and Detlef Gumm.
(Götterdämmerung – Morgen stirbt Berlin), 1999 – at a building site in Berlin a time bomb is found. A historian believes that a complete series of bombs was placed there by a Nazi special force to destroy Berlin at the end of World War II and that someone is still taking care of the bombs. Directed by Joe Coppoletta.
, 1999 – a Turkish man in Berlin is unable to devote himself to anything other than being a criminal and a drug dealer. Directed by Thomas Arslan.
, 1999 – a poor Finnish guitarist travels to Berlin. There he falls in love with a female Hamburger seller from Saxony and meets other unsuccessful people. Director: Hannu Salonen.
The Einstein of Sex (Der Einstein des Sex), 1999 – follows the life of Jewish doctor Magnus Hirschfeld who was a sexologist, a gay socialist and who established the first Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin in 1919. Directed by Rosa von Praunheim.
(Helden wie wir), 1999 – showing life in East Berlin between 1968 and 1989. A young Stasi officer falls in love with a former school friend who is now critical of the regime. Directed by Sebastian Peterson.
Lola and Billy the Kid, 1999 – a 17-year-old Turkish boy in Berlin discovers that he is homosexual, which provokes severe problems with his traditional family. Directed by Kutluğ Ataman.
Nightshapes (Nachtgestalten), 1999 – about socially deprived people in Berlin. Directed by Andreas Dresen.
Paths in the Night (Wege in die Nacht), 1999 – after German reunification, a former factory manager in East Berlin gets jobless. While his wife works in a bar, he becomes mentor to two young vigilantes who punish troublemakers in Berlin U-Bahn at night. Directed by Andreas Kleinert.
Snow on New Year's Eve (Schnee in der Neujahrsnacht), 1999 – episodes from the 1999 Silvester night in Berlin, where a radio announcer calls people to bring their New Year's resolutions to fruition during the last hours of the old year. Directed by .
Sonnenallee, 1999 – a teen comedy set in the East Berlin of the 1970s by Leander Haußmann.
Der Tunnel, 1999 – documentary on four students in West Berlin digging a tunnel under Berlin Wall towards East Berlin in 1962 to rescue 29 people. Directed by Marcus Vetter.
2000s
2000
alaska.de, 2000 – after a teenage girl moved to a miserable Plattenbau settlement in Hohenschönhausen district, she witnesses accidentally a murder. But afterwards she falls in love with one of the delinquents. Directed by Esther Gronenborn.
(Bonhoeffer – Die letzte Stufe), 2000 – though theologian, writer and Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer could stay in the United States, he returns to Berlin in 1939 and becomes a member of the Resistance in the Abwehr. In 1943 he gets arrested by the Gestapo and in 1945 murdered at Flossenbürg concentration camp. Directed by Eric Till.
Cold Is the Breath of Evening (Kalt ist der Abendhauch), 2000 – an 83-year-old woman in Zehlendorf looks back on her young days when she had a secret love affair with her brother-in-law and conceived a child from him. Based on a novel from Ingrid Noll and directed by Rainer Kaufmann.
England!, 2000 – a soldier was exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl disaster and contracted a disease. On a last journey to England he becomes stranded in Berlin, searching for his former companion. Directed by Achim von Borries.
Heimspiel, 2000 – documentary on the famous professional ice hockey team Eisbären Berlin at Wellblechpalast, its devoted supporters and the new role of the former club from the East in reunited Germany. Directed by Pepe Danquart.
No Place to Go (Die Unberührbare), 2000 – after the Peaceful Revolution a communist female writer moves from Munich to Berlin and tries to start a new life. But she has to realise that her view of the former GDR was too euphemistic. Based on the life of Gisela Elsner and directed by her son Oskar Roehler.
(Zurück auf Los!), 2000 – a group of homosexual men in Prenzlauer Berg district has to get along with love, AIDS, disability, unemployment and alcoholism. Directed by Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss.
A Tale of two Cities (Der Flaneur von Berlin – Eine Erzählung von zwei Städten), 2000 – portrait on famous photographer Henry Ries who took pictures of the Berlin Air Lift. In 1999 he returned to Berlin and searched for his own past. Directed by Manfred Wilhelms.
Three Chinamen with a Double Bass (Drei Chinesen mit dem Kontrabass), 2000 – after a druggy party night a young architect finds his fiancé dead in his flat. Together with two friends he has to get rid of the corpse – in busy Berlin-Mitte. Directed by Klaus Krämer.
Trust Me (Freunde), 2000 – two former childhood friends meet again under different circumstances in Berlin: One of them became a gangster and the other is a policeman who has to convict his old friend. Directed by .
2001
, 2001 – two days in the life of several young visitors of Berlin's Love Parade. The movie uses scenes from the 2000 electronic dance music festival and parade around Victory Column and Straße des 17. Juni. Directed by Roman Kuhn.
Berlin Babylon, 2001 – documentary film on the reconstruction projects after the fall of the Wall, directed by Hubertus Siegert.
Berlin is in Germany, 2001 – drama about an East German political prisoner released from jail in post-unification Germany and now must come to terms with the geographic, political, and cultural displacements of Berlin in the 1990s. A film by Hannes Stöhr.
Conspiracy, 2001 – film directed by Frank Pierson, made for HBO (television) USA, about the Wannsee Conference plan to exterminate the Jews during WWII.
The Days Between (In den Tag hinein), 2001 – a 22-year-old waitress lives with her brother and his family, and with her spontaneous character she is the direct opposite to her disciplined boyfriend. When she meets a Japanese student, she drifts with him through Berlin. Directed by Maria Speth.
Emil and the Detectives (Emil und die Detektive), 2001 – adventure film directed by Franziska Buch, based on the novel Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner.
Female 2 Seeks Happy End (Frau2 sucht HappyEnd), 2001 – a doleful radio personality and one of his female listeners meet in a chat room and discuss their former, painful relationships. In autumnal Berlin they learn to relinquish and to establish new ties. Directed by Edward Berger.
(Der schöne Tag), 2001 – about a girl in Berlin who wants to become an actress and makes her living by dubbing movies. By Thomas Arslan.
, 2001 – a divorced and lonely woman leads a corner shop in Berlin-Mitte where customers can talk about their problems. Directed by Michael Klier.
Invincible (Unbesiegbar), 2001 – true story of a Jewish strongman in 1932 Berlin by Werner Herzog.
Julietta (Julietta – Es ist nicht wie du denkst), 2001 – an 18-year-old high-school graduate from Stuttgart gets unconscious at Love Parade Berlin. A DJ pulls her out of a fountain and rapes her. When she gets pregnant, she does not know what her saviour did to her. Directed by .
(Mondscheintarif), 2001 – an emancipated woman in her twenties living in Berlin is waiting wishfully for a one-night stand lover to call her again and experiences a rising depression. Directed by .
My Sweet Home, 2001 – an American has persuaded his German girlfriend to marry him, after just one month of knowing each other. Now they celebrate their Polterabend with various immigrants in a Berlin bar. Directed by Filippos Tsitos.
(Wie Feuer und Flamme), 2001 – in 1982 a 17-year-old girl from West Berlin travels to East Berlin to her grandmother's funeral and falls in love with the leader of a punk clique, which evokes severe problems. Director: .
(Mein langsames Leben), 2001 – the movie follows the slow-going life of a young woman in Berlin during summer. Directed by Angela Schanelec.
Planet Alex, 2001 – episodic movie filmed at Alexanderplatz where the stories of several characters intertwine within a period of 24 hours. Directed by Uli M Schueppel.
, 2001 – based on the true story of brothers Franz and Erich Sass from Moabit district, who became the most famous and innovative bank robbers during 1920s Berlin. Directed by .
Taking Sides (Der Fall Furtwängler), 2001 – conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler stays in Nazi Germany rather than flee, and experiences consequences after the war. Film by István Szabó.
The Tunnel (Der Tunnel), 2001 – dramatization of a collaborative tunnel under the wall in the 1950s. Film by Roland Suso Richter.
What to Do in Case of Fire? (Was tun, wenn's brennt?), 2001 – police hunt down radicals whose bomb goes off 12 years late. Film by Gregor Schnitzler.
Der Zimmerspringbrunnen, 2001 – after years of unemployment and uselessness a man in East Berlin creates a very successful Ostalgie item – a tabletop fountain consisting of a Fernsehturm Berlin model on a plate in the form of the GDR map. Directed by Peter Timm.
2002
Berlin Symphony (Berlin: Sinfonie einer Großstadt), 2002 – the remake of Ruttmanns classic by Thomas Schadt shows one day in Berlin some years after the German reunification.
Big Girls Don't Cry (Große Mädchen weinen nicht), 2002 – two girls in Berlin have been best friends since childhood. But as they step into adulthood, their perfect friendship gets harshly tested by several unfortunate events. Directed by Maria von Heland.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, 2002 – depicting the life of game show producer Chuck Barris, who claimed to have also been working for the CIA. After a mission in Berlin to assassinate a communist, Barris is held captive by the KGB and gets swapped with a Soviet agent. Directed by George Clooney.
Führer Ex, 2002 – two friends want to escape from East Germany, are caught and kept enclosed in a Berlin prison where one of them becomes a Neo-Nazi. Directed by Winfried Bonengel.
Der Glanz von Berlin, 2002 – documentary about three cleaning ladies in Berlin and their personal dreams. Directed by Judith Keil and Antje Kruska.
(Halbe Miete), 2002 – a computer hacker in Berlin steals information from foreign computers. When his paranoid girlfriend dies in the bathtub, he escapes to Cologne where he invades private flats to eat and to take a shower. Directed by .
(Hotte im Paradies), 2002 – a young panderer in Berlin has already two prostitutes working for him, but they don't earn enough money to fund his expensive way of life. So he acquires a new prosperous girl, but she gets kidnapped by a Russian competitor. Directed by Dominik Graf.
Naked (Nackt), 2002 – three couples in Berlin meet for dinner and start an erotic identification game. Directed by Doris Dörrie.
Ripley's Game, 2002 – an art framer from the Veneto who is dying of leukemia travels several times to Berlin to get medical examinations, and there he also assassinates mobsters on behalf of others. This attracts the mobsters' associates to his own family. Based on Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith and directed by Liliana Cavani.
Starbuck Holger Meins, 2002 – documentary on Holger Meins who started to study cinematography at Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin and became a terrorist in the Red Army Faction. Directed by Gerd Conradt.
Tattoo, 2002 – two police detectives in Berlin hunt a ritualistic serial killer murdering people with tattoos and skinning them for a mysterious collector. Directed by Robert Schwentke.
Unternehmen Paradies, 2002 – atmospheric documentary movie about the cityscape, residents, visitors and the political and cultural life of Berlin by Volker Sattel.
2003
Alltag, 2003 – depicting life in the Turkish neighborhood of Kreuzberg. Directed by Neco Celik.
Anatomy 2, 2003 – a medical horror story, directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky.
Angst (Der alte Affe Angst), 2003 – the different attitudes toward life lead a sensitive stage director and his beautiful girlfriend in Berlin to constant fights and conflicts. Directed by Oskar Roehler.
, 2003 – a female photo-journalist is after a ripper in Berlin who could be a taxi driver. Directed by Urs Egger.
Berlin Blues (Herr Lehmann), 2003 – a portrait of typical people in Berlin-Kreuzberg during the 1980s. Director: Leander Haußmann.
Distant Lights (Lichter), 2003 – reflects on the situation at the border between Poland and Germany around Frankfurt (Oder) and Słubice. One man from a group of Ukrainians can manage to cross the border illegally and reaches finally Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. Directed by Hans-Christian Schmid.
Good Bye, Lenin!, 2003 – award-winning bittersweet comedy about the reunification, by Wolfgang Becker.
, 2003 – a violent girl in Berlin-Wedding is sentenced to several days of community work at a flat-sharing community with handicapped persons. Director: .
Learning to Lie (Liegen lernen), 2003 – based on the novel of Frank Goosen and telling the love stories of a young man driving several times to Berlin, beginning with a school trip. Director: .
(Rot und Blau), 2003 – a respected architect – a great mother and wife – has a good life in Berlin when her daughter from a relationship with a Turkish immigrant some 25 years ago appears. Directed by Rudolf Thome.
Rosenstrasse, 2003 – flashback retelling of the events of the 1943 Rosenstrasse protest, by Margarethe von Trotta.
Soloalbum, 2003 – about a young music editorial journalist in Berlin. Directed by Gregor Schnitzler.
We (Wir), 2003 – a group of school friends meet real life in Berlin after final secondary-school examinations and before the beginning of studies. Directed by .
2004
A2Z, filmed 2004 – an old man and his Lolita are committed to kill each other that very day, directed by Daryush Shokof.
Alles auf Zucker! (Go for Zucker), 2004 – comedy with Ossi-Wessi and secular-orthodox Jewish themes. Director Dani Levy.
Berliner Maifestspiele, 2004 – Director: Nives Konik.
The Bourne Supremacy, 2004 – American spy mystery thriller with many scenes filmed / set in Berlin. Directed by Paul Greengrass.
Chasing Liberty, 2004 – on an official trip to Prague, the daughter of the President of the United States meets a handsome young man and escapes with him to Venice and to Love Parade in Berlin. Shortly after she fell in love with him she has to realize that he is just another Special Agent. Directed by Andy Cadiff.
Downfall (Der Untergang), 2004 – film depicting the last days of Hitler and the Battle of Berlin, set in and around the "Führerbunker", directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.
The Edukators (Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei), 2004 – film depicting the encounter of three anti-capitalist activists and a wealthy businessman in Berlin-Zehlendorf. Directed by Hans Weingartner.
EuroTrip, 2004 – an American teenager travels across Europe with his friends in search of his German pen pal. When he cannot find her in her home town Berlin, he follows her to Rome. Directed by Jeff Schaffer.
Herzlutschen, 2004 – in Friedrichshain district a young lightheaded man searches for a new abode, but meets a depressive hippie girl who constantly faints. At the same time a young journalist searches for a submerged Nobel Prize winner. Directed by Joost Renders.
Jargo, 2004 – a coming of age film about a young male who experiences culture shock from moving from Saudi Arabia to Berlin. Directed by Maria Solrun.
Love in Thoughts (Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken), 2004 – about the so-called Steglitz student tragedy in 1927, when two young men made a suicide pact under the influence of alcohol, music and sex, leading to a tragedy. Directed by Achim von Borries.
Meine schönsten Jahre, 2004 – eight-part Ostalgie movie about a man looking back to the year 1983 when he was 13 years old and lived in a Plattenbau settlement in East Berlin. Directed by Edzard Onneken and Ulli Baumann.
Muxmäuschenstill, 2004 – follows a vigilante who lives in Berlin and used to study philosophy. The do-gooder wants to bring justice to criminals in his own way, but becomes a wrongdoer himself. Director: Marcus Mittermeier.
Olga, 2004 – German Jewish communist militant Olga Benário comes to Berlin in 1925 where she helps organize Otto Braun's escape from Moabit prison. After years in Moscow she is sent to Brazil with Luís Carlos Prestes, but the insurrection fails. Benário is extradited to Nazi Germany and murdered at Bernburg Euthanasia Centre. Directed by Jayme Monjardim.
Olga Benario – Ein Leben für die Revolution, 2004 – docudrama on the life of Olga Benário, from her early years in Munich over the rescue of Otto Braun from Moabit prison, her relationship to revolutionary Luís Carlos Prestes, the birth of her daughter Anita Leocádia at Berlin Barnimstraße Women's Prison until her death at Bernburg Euthanasia Centre. Directed by Galip Iyitanir.
Rhythm Is It!, 2004 – documents a project by the Berlin Philharmonic principal conductor Simon Rattle and choreographer Royston Maldoom to popularize classical music by staging a performance of Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring with 250 children from Berlin's public schools. Directed by Thomas Grube and Enrique Sánchez Lansch.
(Das Zimmermädchen und der Millionär), 2004 – a millionaire owns the luxurious Berlin Hotel Ritz for a short period of time. But when he arrives he is considered to be a temporary waiter, instructed for service and falls in love with a waitress. Directed by .
, 2004 – documentary on four young actors studying at Berlin Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts and taking first steps into professional acting. Directed by Andres Veiel.
, 2004 – the Berlin HipHop scene, rappers have 24 hours to stage a megaconcert, by Till Hastreiter.
Stauffenberg, 2004 – about Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Directed by Jo Baier.
Die Stunde der Offiziere, 2004 – a semi-documentary movie telling in chronological order about the German resistance attempts to kill Adolf Hitler and seize power in Germany in the July 20 plot of 1944. Directed by Hans-Erich Viet.
Der Teufel von Rudow, 2004 – horror film about a couple in Rudow district investigating mysterious incidents dealing with a man caged in their neighbour's house. Director: Ulrich Meczulat.
Venussian Tabutasco, 2004 – life of people in a building is seen through a "glass elevator" going up and down the floors of the building, Directed by Daryush Shokof.
Walk on Water, 2004 – an Israeli hitman working for Mossad has to find an aging Nazi war criminal in Berlin but has in the meantime formed a profound friendship with two young German grandchildren of the senile man. Directed by Eytan Fox.
(Frau fährt, Mann schläft), 2004 – an outwardly perfect and prosperous family in Berlin moves to Potsdamer Platz, but gets confused when the eldest son dies suddenly from an aneurysm. Directed by Rudolf Thome.
2005
(Vom Suchen und Finden der Liebe), 2005 – a composer and a female singer meet in Berlin and think they found the love of their life. When they separate after several years, the composer commits suicide and the singer follows him to release him from the underworld. Based on the Orpheus story and directed by Helmut Dietl.
(Die Luftbrücke – Nur der Himmel war frei), 2005 – historic drama about a difficult love affair between a German secretary working at the Berlin Tempelhof Airport and an American general during the Berlin Airlift 1948–1949. Directed by Dror Zahavi.
Antibodies (Antikörper), 2005 – a police officer from a small village wants to solve the murder of a 12-year-old girl, travels to Berlin to talk to a pederast serial killer and slowly begins to explore his own dark side. Directed by Christian Alvart.
(Stadt als Beute), 2005 – episode film about the lives of three actors rehearsing a play at a Berlin backyard theatre. Directed by Miriam Dehne, Esther Gronenborn and .
Flightplan, 2005 – the husband of a female U.S. aircraft engineer dies under mysterious circumstances while the family lives in Berlin. When the mother flies back to New York City with his coffin, her six-year-old daughter suddenly vanishes on the plane. Directed by Robert Schwentke.
Ghosts (Gespenster), 2005 – a female end-of-teenage orphan with mental problems starts a new job as a garden cleaner in Berlin and meets two mysterious women. Directed by Christian Petzold.
Ich bin ein Berliner, 2005 – a professional cheater in Berlin creates the story that he is an illegitimate son of John F. Kennedy from the 1963 visit to West Berlin. When a journalist starts to investigate the story, it turns out to be true. Directed by Franziska Meyer Price.
KlassenLeben, 2005 – documentary on a project in Schöneberg district to integrate four disabled children into a regular school form. Directed by Hubertus Siegert.
Die letzte Schlacht, 2005 – docudrama about the Battle of Berlin from April to May 1945, based on genuine stories of contemporary witnesses. Directed by Hans-Christoph Blumenberg.
Lord of War, 2005 – a Ukrainian-American gunrunner comes to a Berlin Arms Fair in 1983 to meet a famous international arms dealer. During the late 1980s and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union he becomes one of the worldwide most successful market actors. Directed by Andrew Niccol.
Netto, 2005 – a middle-aged loser in Prenzlauer Berg tries to accept the challenge of life when his 15-year-old son moves in and helps him with job applications and interviews. Directed by Robert Thalheim.
(Keine Lieder über Liebe), 2005 – a young film director from Berlin attends a concert tour to make a documentary movie on his brother singing in a rock band. During the tour the director wants to find out if his own girlfriend had an affair with his brother in the past. Directed by Lars Kraume.
Speer und Er, 2005 – three-part docudrama about Adolf Hitler and his General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital, Albert Speer, their plans to convert Berlin into Welthauptstadt Germania and Speers imprisonment at Spandau Prison after the Nuremberg Trials. Directed by Heinrich Breloer.
Spiele der Macht – 11011 Berlin, 2005 – a female political scientist becomes counsellor of the Chancellor of Germany who transfers some of his power to her. Directed by Markus Imboden.
Summer in Berlin (Sommer vorm Balkon), 2005 – two women struggle with life, and a man. Director Andreas Dresen.
Wir waren niemals hier, 2005 – documentary on Berlin rock band . Directed by Antonia Ganz.
2006
18.15 Uhr ab Ostkreuz, 2006 – trashy parody on Miss Marple about a retired teacher from Haselhorst district witnessing a horrible murder on a passing Berlin S-Bahn train. Directed by Jörn Hartmann.
Altlastpalast, 2006 – the story of the Palace of the Republic and its deconstruction in 2006 to make room for the reconstruction of the Berlin Stadtschloss. Directed by Irina Enders.
Atomised (Elementarteilchen), 2006 – a molecular biologist in Berlin quits his job to go back into scientific research. His half brother voluntarily checks himself into a mental institution after having sexually harassed one of his students. Directed by Oskar Roehler.
Black Sheep (Schwarze Schafe), 2006 – tells in five episodes the stories of people in Berlin with financial problems. Director: Oliver Rihs.
(Die Mauer – Berlin '61), 2006 – telling the story of a family in Berlin who was divided during the day when the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. Directed by Hartmut Schoen.
(Tornado – Der Zorn des Himmels), 2006 – two-part fictional drama on a young meteorologist returning from the US to Berlin, who predicts a tornado sweeping over the capital city. Directed by .
Feiern, 2006 – documentary on people in Berlin who dedicate their lives to electronic dance music, nightclubs, parties and drugs. Directed by Maja Classen.
The Good German, 2006 – homage to film noir, set in 1945 Berlin during the Potsdam Conference, by Steven Soderbergh.
(Komm näher), 2006 – the relationship problems of several lonely persons in Berlin and the efforts to find a new love attachment. Director: .
The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen), 2006 – East Berlin's cultural scene before reunification, riddled by Stasi secret agents. Drama by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
Lucy, 2006 – about an 18-year-old girl in Berlin who has a baby and still lives with her own mother. Directed by Henner Winckler.
Nicht böse sein!, 2006 – documentary on three addicted men who share a flat in Kreuzberg district. Directed by Wolfgang Reinke.
P05 – Protection 05: Jugend in Kreuzberg, 2006 – Directors: Nives Konik, Marc Konik.
Rage (Wut), 2006 – the rise of a conflict between a liberal German middle-class family in Tempelhof district and a Turkish gang leader results in brutal vigilantism. Directed by Züli Aladag.
(Der Rote Kakadu), 2006 – young love and friendship in 1961 East Germany; partly set in the Kopenhagener Straße. Director Dominik Graf.
Riding Up Front (Schöner Leben), 2006 – at Christmas Eve several residents and visitors in Berlin try very hard to get happy. Directed by Markus Herling.
Tough Enough (Knallhart), 2006 – a film about the run-down district of Berlin-Neukölln. Directed by Detlev Buck.
, 2006 – a former model who is now totally broke has to survive in her car in Christmassy Berlin. Directed by Birgit Möller.
Where Is Fred? (Wo ist Fred?), 2006 – in order to catch a basketball from Alba Berlin, the favorite team of his girlfriend's son, a foreman poses as a disabled fan using a wheelchair. When he catches the ball, he also catches the attention of a young female filmmaker. Directed by Anno Saul.
(Du hast gesagt, dass Du mich liebst), 2006 – a retired woman in Berlin who has been a professional swimmer during her young days meets a younger writer after she responded to his lonely hearts ad. Directed by Rudolf Thome.
2007
(Berliner Reigen), 2007 – a fictional view on society in Berlin in 10 episodes in the style of a round dance. Based on the play La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler and directed by Dieter Berner.
BerlinSong, 2007 – documentary on six young musicians from around the world who have settled in Berlin and written songs about their favourite places in the city. Directed by Uli M Schueppel.
Drifter, 2007 – documentary showing the life of homeless children in Berlin mired in drug addiction and child prostitution. Directed by Sebastian Heidinger.
Du bist nicht allein, 2007 – a portrait of people living in a tower block with council flats in East Berlin. Directed by Bernd Böhlich.
, 2007 – in 1982, an East German woman tries to flee with her two daughters to the West but they get caught. Although the mother gets redeemed from prison by the West German government, the children are sent to adoptive parents. She subsequently demonstrates at length at Checkpoint Charlie to get back her daughters. Based on the true story of Jutta Fleck and directed by Miguel Alexandre.
KDD – Kriminaldauerdienst, 2007 – Directors: Matthias Glasner, Lars Kraume, Filippos Tsitos, Edward Berger, Andreas Prochaska and Züli Aladag.
Knut - Aus der Kinderstube eines Eisbären / Knut - Ein Eisbär entdeckt die Welt, 2007 – two-part documentary about cute little polar bear Knut who gets raised by his zookeeper Thomas Dörflein at Berlin Zoological Garden and subsequently becomes a beloved celebrity. Directed by Georg Berger, Daniel Remsperger and Andrea Stieringer.
Leroy, 2007 – a black afro guy in Berlin falls in love with a girl who has five Neo-Nazi brothers. Directed by Armin Völckers.
, 2007 – three unemployed men try to survive in Berlin and prepare for emigration to Norway. Directed by Clemens Schönborn.
(Max Minsky und ich), 2007 – a nerdy Jewish girl in Berlin gets straight A's, except for gym. To meet her dream prince, she has to take basketball lessons to join her school's girls team. Directed by Anna Justice.
My Führer – The Really Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler (Mein Führer – Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler), 2007 – comedy about Adolf Hitler and his preparation together with his Jewish acting coach for a big New Year's speech. Directed by Dani Levy.
Pool of Princesses (Prinzessinnenbad), 2007 – documentary about three teenagers in Berlin's Kreuzberg district, by Bettina Blümner.
Rabbit Without Ears (Keinohrhasen), 2007 – a yellow press reporter in Berlin is sentenced to 300 hours of community service at a daycare center where he falls in love with the female center's manager. Director: Til Schweiger.
(Das Inferno – Flammen über Berlin), 2007 – a fire breaks out in the Fernsehturm Berlin and a chaos erupts among the trapped. A disgraced former firefighter helps to rescue the visitors. Directed by .
Reclaim Your Brain (Free Rainer – Dein Fernseher lügt), 2007 – driven by viewing rates, the producer of soap operas, talk shows and reality television at a commercial broadcasting company in Berlin realizes the absurdity of his job. So he quits and establishes a system to manipulate the audience measurement, causing a cultural revolution. Directed by Hans Weingartner.
The Reichsorchester (Das Reichsorchester), 2007 – documentary about the role of Berlin Philharmonic orchestra during the Third Reich, by Enrique Sánchez Lansch.
Shootback Heimat Kreuzberg, 2007 – Directors: Nives Konik, Marc Konik.
wegen Nelly, 2007 – Director: Jonathan Bölling.
Wrong Number, 2007 – a New Yorker in Berlin dials a wrong number, the girl on the other end is curiously receptive and their subsequent conversations become seemingly spontaneous and personal. Directed by Lewis Häusler.
2008
1st of May: All Belongs to You (1. Mai – Helden bei der Arbeit), 2008 – episodic movie on several people who meet during the International Workers' Day and the traditional riots in Kreuzberg district. Directed by Jan-Christoph Glaser, Carsten Ludwig, Sven Taddicken and Jakob Ziemnicki.
The Baader Meinhof Complex (Der Baader Meinhof Komplex), 2008 – retells the story of the early years of the West German far-left terror group RAF showing the murder of Benno Ohnesorg in West-Berlin during the visit of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the bombing of the Axel Springer AG until the set of events called German Autumn. Directed by Uli Edel.
(Berlin am Meer), 2008 – telling the story of students in Berlin working as Disc jockeys and sharing a flat. Directed by Wolfgang Eissler.
Berlin Calling, 2008 – Berlin's electronic music scene, a tragicomedy in the Berlin of today. Written and directed by Hannes Stöhr.
Cherry Blossoms (Kirschblüten – Hanami), 2008 – a long-married Bavarian couple travels to Berlin to see the children, and afterwards to the Baltic Sea where the mother dies. The father tries to make up for the loss of his wife and travels to Japan to see the Butoh dance. Directed by Doris Dörrie.
Cloud 9 (Wolke Neun), 2008 – a woman in the middle of her 60s living in Berlin has been married for 30 years when she starts a secret love affair with a man aged 76. Directed by Andreas Dresen.
(Evet, ich will!), 2008 – several multicultural couples in a Berlin tower block want to get married but experience severe problems. Directed by Sinan Akkuş.
Heroes from the Neighbourhood (Helden aus der Nachbarschaft), 2008 – the female host of an unsuccessful TV show in Berlin is searching for new participants. Directed by Jovan Arsenic.
Love, Peace & Beatbox, 2008 – documentary on the rising beatboxing subculture in Berlin. Directed by Volker Meyer-Dabisch.
(Märzmelodie), 2008 – about the relationship problems of several couples in Berlin. Directed by .
(Das Wunder von Berlin), 2008 – about a family in East Berlin who experiences the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Directed by Roland Suso Richter.
SubBerlin – Underground United, 2008 – documentary on the famous Berlin underground techno club and record label Tresor which became famous after 1991 in the vaults of a former department store. Directed by Tilmann Künzel.
This Is Berlin Not New York, 2008 – artists from New York and Berlin create original artworks, director Ethan Minsker.
Valkyrie, 2008 – historical thriller by Bryan Singer based on the July 20, 1944 plot by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler with the conspirators operating out of Berlin.
(Warten auf Angelina), 2008 – a paparazzo and an obsessive fan become pals while staking out Brangelina's apartment in Berlin. Directed by .
A Woman in Berlin (Anonyma – Eine Frau in Berlin), 2008 – film of the diary A Woman in Berlin by Marta Hillers depicting the rape of many Berlin women by the Soviets in 1945, by Max Färberböck.
2009
24 Hours Berlin (24 h Berlin – Ein Tag im Leben), 2009 – the 24 hours documentary shows the personal life of 50 different people in Berlin. Directed by Volker Heise.
24 Stunden Schlesisches Tor, 2009 – a film team talking to people passing by at Schlesisches Tor station in Kreuzberg district for 24 hours. Directed by Anna de Paoli and Eva Lia Reinegger.
Auf der anderen Seite der Leinwand – 100 Jahre Moviemento, 2009 – documentary on the famous Moviemento repertory cinema in Kreuzberg district, which was founded in 1907 and developed a huge impact on the cultural environment and the work of young filmmakers. Directed by Bernd Sobolla.
(Liebe Mauer), 2009 – a female student in West Berlin falls in love with a soldier from the NVA border troops in East Berlin during the year 1989. Directed by .
Berlin 36, 2009 – telling the fate of Jewish track and field athlete Gretel Bergmann in the 1936 Summer Olympics. Directed by Kaspar Heidelbach.
Berlin – Lost In Time And Space, 2009 – documentary on the music scene in West Berlin between 1970 and 1989 with F.M. Einheit, Kid Congo Powers, David Bowie, Die Haut, Ideal, Nina Hagen, Einstürzende Neubauten, Ton Steine Scherben and others. Directed by Oliver Schwabe.
(Jenseits der Mauer), 2009 – in 1974 a couple from East Germany tries to flee, and they are allowed to leave in case they give their daughter up for adoption and spy for Stasi in West Germany. In November 1989 they meet again when Berlin Wall falls at Bornholmer Straße border crossing. Directed by Friedemann Fromm.
Catapult (Achterbahn), 2009 – documentary movie about carny Norbert Witte and his family, his futile attempts to run and develop the Berlin Spreepark amusement park and his fall after smuggling cocaine from Peru to Germany. Directed by Peter Dörfler.
The City Named Desire (Sehnsucht Berlin), 2009 – documentary of the city as seen by famous artists, temporary Berliners. Written and directed by Peter Zach.
Comrade Couture (Ein Traum in Erdbeerfolie), 2009 – the protagonists of the official and underground fashion scene in East Berlin during the 1980s look back on their bohemian and unadapted way of life. Directed by Marco Wilms.
, 2009 – docudrama on the life of Rudi Dutschke, the most prominent spokesperson of the German student movement of the 1960s, and on his work in West Berlin. Directed by Stefan Krohmer.
Flucht in die Freiheit – Mit dem Mut der Verzweiflung / Flucht in die Freiheit – Mit allen Mitteln, 2009 – two-part documentary on spectacular attempts to escape over Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989. Directed by Jörg Müllner and Oliver Halmburger.
, 2009 – a boy from a street gang in Neukölln falls in love with a wealthy and ballet dancing girl. But he has to help his older brother to repay the debt to a drug dealer. Directed by Rainer Matsutani.
Hans im Glück, 2009 – portrait of Berlin bass player Hans Narva, his music, his family and a life spent fighting the rules – whoever defines them. Directed by .
Hilde, 2009 – biographical film depicting the life of famous German actress and singer Hildegard Knef. In 1966 Hildegard Knef prepares for a concert in Berlin and thinks back to the beginnings of her career at UFA. Directed by Kai Wessel.
I've Never Been Happier (So glücklich war ich noch nie), 2009 – an incurable impostor gets released from prison and tries to live a normal life in Berlin but lapses back into crime and falls in love with a beautiful but shy prostitute. Directed by Alexander Adolph.
Im Kopfstand zum Glück, 2009 – the documentary accompanies four city dwellers in Berlin who meet at a modern yoga studio during their training to become yoga teachers. Directed by Irene Gräf.
In Berlin, 2009 – the documentary follows the life and work of several persons engaged in the Berlin cultural sector and politics. Directed by Michael Ballhaus and Ciro Cappellari.
The International, 2009 – a finance thriller directed by Tom Tykwer.
The Invisible Frame, 2009 – 21 years after Cycling the Frame Tilda Swinton again follows the course of former Berlin Wall on a bicycle to discover what has changed in the meantime. Directed by Cynthia Beatt.
Losing Balance (Draußen am See), 2009 – a 14-year-old girl in Berlin has to face the breakup of her by then happy family. Shortly before the dark abyss she decides to take her future into her own hands and takes a very courageous step. Directed by Felix Fuchssteiner.
, 2009 – a man working at the Berlin Zoo wants to start a career as a comedian. Directed by Gernot Roll and Mario Barth.
Men in the City (Männerherzen), 2009 – about the personal problems of several men in Berlin who exercise at a fitness centre. Directed by Simon Verhoeven.
Ninja Assassin, 2009 – a disillusioned Japanese assassin is looking for retribution against his former mentor. In Berlin he meets a female Europol agent investigating political murders carried out by the same old Ninja clan where the assassin was trained as a child. Directed by James McTeigue.
Off Ways (Elektrokohle (Von Wegen)), 2009 – in December 1989, industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten played its first concert in East Berlin at VEB Elektrokohle Lichtenberg. 20 years later the protagonists and fans look back on the locations and the cultural impact of the event. Directed by Uli M Schueppel.
, 2009 – a young woman poet in Berlin marries her three best friends successively, but only with her third husband she finds happiness and peace. Directed by Rudolf Thome.
Rabbit à la Berlin, 2009 – the documentary movie tells the story of the Berlin Wall but from point of view of a group of wild rabbits which inhabited the zone between the two walls separating West Berlin from East Berlin during the Cold War. Directed by Bartosz Konopka.
Rabbit Without Ears 2 (Zweiohrküken), 2009 – following Rabbit Without Ears, everyday routine has entered the relationship between the reporter and his girlfriend after two years. By Til Schweiger.
Saturn Returns, 2009 – a privileged female North American expat in contemporary Berlin, living a life of post punk hedonism, roams the streets with her best friend. Together they use the city like a playground, a stage, and a never ending party. Director: Lior Shamriz.
2010s
2010
, 2010 – a female filmmaker takes two young actors to a huge, run-down apartment in Berlin-Mitte to prepare a movie about love and sex. Directed by Rolf Peter Kahl.
, 2010 – a housewife is deceived by her husband publicly and has to find a new home and life with her daughter in Kreuzberg district. Directed by .
, 2010 – documentary about a park in Berlin's Neukölln district, directed by Nana Rebhan.
Blackout (380.000 Volt – Der große Stromausfall), 2010 – an electrical power outage in Berlin causes a riot and looting in the city. Directed by Sebastian Vigg.
Boxhagener Platz, 2010 – about family life and problems in East Berlin in 1968 while at the same time in West Berlin the students are protesting. Director: Matti Geschonneck.
(Zivilcourage), 2010 – a senior bookseller does not know much about his problematic Berlin quarter until he is involved in a brutal assault. Directed by Dror Zahavi.
The Coming Days (Die kommenden Tage), 2010 – in the year 2020 the world is dominated by resource wars and a more and more encapsulated Western world. The daughter of a wealthy Berlin family tries to live a normal life, but her sister and a friend get involved in a civilization threatening terror group. Directed by Lars Kraume.
The Debt, 2010 – in 1965 three Mossad agents find a Nazi war criminal in East Berlin and kidnap him for a trial in Israel. But the escape via Wollankstraße station fails, the former "Surgeon of Birkenau" can flee and the agents have to fudge their story. Based on the Israel movie The Debt and directed by John Madden.
The Drifter (Eine flexible Frau), 2010 – a 40-year-old female architect in Berlin loses her job and has to get along with identity, job centre and the loss of her social status. Directed by Tatjana Turanskyj.
Friendship!, 2010 – two young filmmakers from East Berlin are glad that the Wall came down. One of them searches for his own father and so they travel adventurously to San Francisco in 1989. Directed by Markus Goller.
The Hairdresser (Die Friseuse), 2010 – a female hairdresser in Marzahn district struggles with her own overweight, the separation from her husband, the difficult foundation of a hairdresser's shop and a rising multiple sclerosis. Directed by Doris Dörrie.
Im Angesicht des Verbrechens, 2010 – movie in 10 parts following the stories of characters in and around the Russian mafia in Berlin. Directed by Dominik Graf.
In the Shadows (Im Schatten), 2010 – focuses on a burglar in Berlin who gets released from prison and wants to contact his old partner, but the former partner sets two killers on him. Directed by Thomas Arslan.
Jew Suss: Rise and Fall (Jud Süß – Film ohne Gewissen), 2010 – in 1939 Nazi Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels invites director Veit Harlan, actor Ferdinand Marian and others to Berlin Ordenspalais and drives them to produce the infamous propaganda film Jud Süß. Directed by Oskar Roehler.
(Das Leben ist zu lang), 2010 – an unsuccessful Jewish filmmaker in Berlin gets the chance to film his own script. But then he realizes that his own life and story is just part of a film directed by Dani Levy.
Neukölln Unlimited, 2010 – documentary about three siblings' daily lives in Berlin's Neukölln district, directed by Agostino Imondi and Dietmar Ratsch.
Night Shifts (Nachtschichten), 2010 – documentary portrait of several people in Berlin who mainly work or come out during night, such as security guards, homeless people, DJs and graffiti sprayers. Directed by Ivette Löcker.
Rammbock: Berlin Undead (Rammbock), 2010 – a horror movie about zombies attacking people in Berlin. Directed by Marvin Kren.
Shahada, 2010 – the fates of three Muslims in Berlin collide during Ramadan as they struggle to find their place between faith and modern life in western society. Directed by Burhan Qurbani.
Single by Contract (Groupies bleiben nicht zum Frühstück), 2010 – a 17-year-old girl in Berlin falls in love with the lead singer of a band named Berlin Mitte. But he has signed a contract to stay a single person to enhance band marketing. Directed by Marc Rothemund.
Three (Drei), 2010 – centered on a 40-something couple in Berlin who, separately, fall in love with the same man. Directed by Tom Tykwer.
We Are the Night (Wir sind die Nacht), 2010 – horror film about a group of female vampires in Berlin. Directed by Dennis Gansel.
Weissensee, 2010–2015 – the story of two different families in East Berlin during the 1980s. One family is loyal to the socialistic system while the other family is quite critical. Directed by Friedemann Fromm.
When We Leave (Die Fremde), 2010 – highlights the problem of honor killings by depicting the drama of a Turkish family living in Berlin. Directed by Feo Aladag.
Zeiten ändern dich, 2010 – biographical film on the life and work of Anis Mohamed Youssef Ferchichi, who grew up in Tempelhof district and became famous rapper Bushido. Directed by Uli Edel.
2011
, 2011 – several street children in Berlin talk about their daily life, referring not only to drug addiction and physical/traumatic injuries, but also to their talents and dreams. Directed by .
The Big Eden, 2011 – documentary on the legendary playboy and bon viveur Rolf Eden who became the most famous owner of dance halls and nightclubs in West Berlin after 1957, his dazzling life and his numerous muses. Directed by Peter Dörfler.
Blissestrasse, 2011 – the story of a group of young American Christians on a mission to Berlin to try to bring the Germans back to Jesus. Directed by Paul Donovan.
Blutzbrüdaz, 2011 – two friends in Berlin start an underground rap duo and they get discovered by Sony Music Entertainment. But artistic compromises lead to an alienation between the friends. Featuring Sido and B-Tight, directed by Özgür Yildirim.
(Abgebrannt), 2011 – a poor and overstrained Turkish single mother from Wedding district receives a cure on Fehmarn island with her three children. But her drug smuggling friend finds her up there as well. Directed by .
Christopher and His Kind, 2011 – tells the story of Christopher Isherwood's life in Berlin in the early 1930s. The film was adapted by Kevin Elyot from Isherwood's autobiography of the same title. Directed by Geoffrey Sax.
Cracks in the Shell (Die Unsichtbare), 2011 – a shy female drama student suffers from not being seen but gets the leading part in a play at Berlin Volksbühne theater. The famous stage director turns out her injured being and she awakens to her femininity, but she also loses her own strengths. Directed by Christian Schwochow.
Don 2, 2011 Bollywood film, – a sequel to 2006 hit Don: The Chase Begins Again. An action-thriller featuring Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra. Story revolves around a robbery in Berlin's DZB. Directed by Farhan Akhtar.
Dr. Ketel – Der Schatten von Neukölln, 2011 – in the near future a man works as an underground doctor and modern medical Robin Hood in Neukölln district until he is hunted by the security. Directed by Linus de Paoli.
(Abschied von den Fröschen), 2011 – from 1996 to 1998 filmmaker Ulrich Schamoni documents in a video diary the two last years of his life in and around his house in Grunewald district, where he also filmed several of his movies, before he dies of leukaemia. Directed by Ulrike Schamoni.
Hotel Desire, 2011 – erotic movie about a hotel maid in Berlin who did not have sex for several years when she unintentionally breaks into a blind painter's hotel room. Directed by Sergej Moya. Starring Saralisa Volm.
Hut in the Woods (Die Summe meiner einzelnen Teile), 2011 – after a burnout, a maths genius from Berlin is released from mental hospital. But his job and girlfriend are away, so he starts to build a hut to live in the woods. Directed by Hans Weingartner.
If Not Us, Who? (Wer wenn nicht wir), 2011 – during the early 1960s, Bernward Vesper and Gudrun Ensslin move from Tübingen to West Berlin to study and publish literature. During the German student movement he drops out while she becomes a terrorist in the Red Army Faction. Directed by Andres Veiel.
(Im Himmel, unter der Erde – Der jüdische Friedhof Weißensee), 2011 – documentary portrait about the Jewish Weißensee Cemetery in Weissensee district, the history of the Jews in Berlin and their culture. Directed by .
Kokowääh, 2011 – story of a man in Berlin who meets his eight-year-old daughter the first time and learns that she will live with him now. Directed by and starring Til Schweiger.
Mauerjahre – Leben im geteilten Berlin, 2011 – documentary on the political, cultural and daily life in divided Berlin between 1961 and 1990. Directed by Reinhard Joksch.
(Männerherzen … und die ganz ganz große Liebe), 2011 – following Men in the City and showing the same group of men in Berlin who have to fight for their beloved women. Directed by Simon Verhoeven.
One Night in Berlin, 2011 – a female drug addict on the run has one night to find her estranged, homeless father on the streets of Berlin, and under cover of darkness the secrets of their East German past come to light. Starring Beate Malkus and Helmuth Meier-Lautenschläger. Directed by Kivmars Bowling.
(Die Relativitätstheorie der Liebe), 2011 – several couples in Berlin (all played by the same two actors) try to find or keep love and respect. Directed by Otto Alexander Jahrreiss.
Rent Boys (Die Jungs vom Bahnhof Zoo), 2011 – documentary on male child prostitutes around Berlin Zoologischer Garten. Directed by Rosa von Praunheim.
(Fenster zum Sommer), 2011 – a woman from Berlin travels to her family in Finland with her new friend. At one night she experiences a leap back in time and awakes in Berlin in the past with her old friend. She tries to modify the past, but this attempt is not in any case crowned with success. Based on the novel by Hannelore Valencak and directed by Hendrik Handloegten.
Swans, 2011 – father and son travel to Berlin to visit the mother of the family who is in hospital in a coma. The son discovers the dark side of the city and develops a secret passion for his mother's flatmate. Directed by .
The Tragic Life of Gloria S. (Das traurige Leben der Gloria S.), 2011 – a filmmaker wants to do a documentary on a jobless Hartz IV welfare recipient. The film team starts to document the life of an apparently poor woman, but after some weeks they realize that the protagonist is a professional actress. Directed by Christine Groß and Ute Schall.
Unknown, 2011 – a drama thriller directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.
, 2011 – documentary about the illegal and criminal graffiti trainwriter scene in Berlin. Directed by Björn Birg and Henrik Regel.
Urban Explorer, 2011 – horror-thriller film about four young urban explorers who meet up in Berlin via the internet to explore the subterranean relicts of Nazi Germany. But when tragedy strikes the group's leader, they soon realize not all things go according to plan. Directed by Andy Fetscher.
(Rubbeldiekatz), 2011 – a young actor at Berlin Vaganten Bühne theater wants to play in a Hollywood Nazi movie filmed in Berlin and Babelsberg Studio. So he dresses up like a woman, gets a female role and falls in love with the female lead. Directed by Detlev Buck.
2012
, 2012 – documentary following the creators of famous techno club "Bar 25". Directed by Britta Mischer and .
Berlin Dance Battle, 2012 – a young street dancer comes to Berlin to take part at an underground dance battle. But he has to find a group first and he has to learn much. Directed by Robert Franke.
, 2012 – five young people live with relish a new excessive and bohemian life in Berlin. Directed by .
Berliner Tagebuch, 2012 – immigrants and artists from several countries living in Berlin are asked why the metropolis became a new home and a source of inspiration for them. Directed by Rosemarie Blank.
(Glück), 2012 – a female refugee from Eastern Europe, working as a prostitute, and a homeless punk with his dog form a relationship in Berlin. Directed by Doris Dörrie.
Cause I Have the Looks (Weil ich schöner bin), 2012 – together with her mother, a Colombian teenager lives illegally in Berlin and attends school regularly. When they get in contact with the police they have to hide and need the help of friends. Directed by .
A Coffee in Berlin (Oh Boy!), 2012 – portrait of a young man who drops out of university and ends up wandering the streets of Berlin. Directed by Jan Ole Gerster.
(Puppe, Icke & der Dicke), 2012 – a courier returns from Paris to Berlin and gives two hitchhikers a ride. One of them is a fat dumb man, the other is a blind French girl searching for the father of her unborn baby in Berlin. Directed by .
(Staub auf unseren Herzen), 2012 – a young and unsuccessful actress in Berlin fights to cut the cord from her overbearing mother. Directed by .
Fuck for Forest, 2012 – the documentary follows Fuck for Forest, a non-profit environmental organization in Berlin, which raises money for rescuing the world's rainforests by producing pornographic material or having sex in public. Directed by Michal Marczak.
(Kaddisch für einen Freund), 2012 – a Jewish senior and a Lebanese boy in Kreuzberg district are enemies. But when they get in danger of losing their homes they start to work together. Directed by .
Move (3 Zimmer/Küche/Bad), 2012 – eight friends in Berlin support each other to relocate and to find new partners. Directed by Dietrich Brüggemann.
Our Little Differences (Die feinen Unterschiede), 2012 – a successful doctor for artificial insemination in Berlin has to help his Bulgarian cleaning lady to release her grown-up daughter. Directed by Sylvie Michel.
(Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein), 2012 – the female owner of a delicatessen shop in Kreuzberg is difficult, superstitious, pessimistic and quarreling with her childhood. But when she meets a photographer with a touchy dog, her life changes. Based upon the book from Paul Watzlawick and directed by Sherry Hormann.
Russian Disco (Russendisko), 2012 – based on the book by Wladimir Kaminer and telling the story of three young Jewish Russians who come to Berlin in 1990 seeking for work, love and a new perspective. Directed by Oliver Ziegenbalg.
St George's Day, 2012 – two elderly and famous British Cousin gangsters have angered a Russian competitor. To reconcile him and to pay their debts they undertake an audacious diamond heist in Berlin. Directed by Frank Harper.
, 2012 – a Bavarian chauffeur in Berlin is engaged by a Swiss investor to become editor-in-chief of a new online tabloid newspaper on politicians in the capital city. Directed by Helmut Dietl.
2013
An Apartment in Berlin (Ein Apartment in Berlin), 2013 – three young Jewish people from Israel are asked by a German filmmaker to live in a flat in Prenzlauer Berg district, from where a Jewish family was deported in 1943. Directed by .
The Berlin File, 2013 – a North Korean agent in Berlin is betrayed and cut loose when a weapons deal is exposed. Directed by Ryoo Seung-wan.
La Deutsche Vita, 2013 – documentary on Italians living in Berlin. Thousands come every year to stay and many of them have to decide whether they are still immigrants or already Berliners. Directed by Alessandro Cassigoli and Tania Masi.
Einer fehlt, 2013 – everybody in his street in Prenzlauer Berg district knows the kindly greeting old man, but nobody knows much about him. When he dies the neighbours miss him and collect money to pay for his funeral. Directed by .
The Fifth Estate, 2013 – in 2007, Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg meet for the first time at Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. The whistleblowers and supporters publish significant secret information on WikiLeaks what receives praise as well as criticism. Directed by Bill Condon.
, 2013 – a young man from the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern provincial backwater is forced by his family to absolve a practical training in Berlin and to live with his cousin. Directed by .
, 2013 – four unemployed men who receive Hartz IV fight against capitalism, gentrification, and they want to save their former Kindergarten in Prenzlauer Berg district. Directed by Julian Tyrasa.
(Das Adlon. Eine Familiensaga), 2013 – drama in three parts on the legendary Berlin Hotel Adlon and the family of its founder Lorenz Adlon from 1907 until the reopening in 1997. Directed by Uli Edel.
, 2013 – a reserved young man's ex-girlfriend has set his flat in Berlin on fire and also stalks him while he tries to build up a normal relationship with his new girlfriend. Directed by .
Kokowääh 2, 2013 – following Kokowääh, the father has now to live with his daughter and her mother, because he became jobless and wants to become a film producer. Directed by and starring Til Schweiger.
(Nacht über Berlin), 2013 – a Jewish doctor and SPD-deputy at Reichstag faces the rising rows between Communists and Nazis in Berlin, the growing antisemitism, the Nazi Machtergreifung until the Reichstag fire, followed by the end of the key civil liberties in 1933. Directed by .
(Hai-Alarm am Müggelsee), 2013 – after a shark bit off the bath attendant's forearm at lake Müggelsee, the politicians set up a committee, and a shark hunter is engaged. Directed by Leander Haußmann and Sven Regener.
Sources of Life (Quellen des Lebens), 2013 – during the 1960s an emancipated writer neglects her son, so he grows up alternately with his grand parents in Franconia and his negligent father in West Berlin. Directed by Oskar Roehler and based upon his own life without his mother Gisela Elsner.
(Das merkwürdige Kätzchen), 2013 – A family in a house, and a chain of events that take place, on an ordinary evening that they plan to have dinner with relatives. Directed by .
(Woyzeck), 2013 – the story of Woyzeck by Georg Büchner transferred into modern Berlin-Wedding district. Woyzeck is exploited by a dehumanised doctor and an Arabian restaurant owner, dreams of being just with Marie and their child, but catches her coquetting with a mafia boss. Directed by .
(Ummah – Unter Freunden), 2013 – after being wounded in a failed operation against Neo-Nazis, a young undercover Verfassungsschutz agent is sent to Neukölln district where he becomes friends with two Turkish Arab electrical device dealers. Directed by .
West, 2013 – in 1978 a single mother can escape from East Germany to West Berlin. At Marienfelde refugee transit camp she is confronted with her past by Allied Secret Services. Directed by Christian Schwochow.
Wetlands (Feuchtgebiete), 2013 – a body fluid-obsessed teenager in Berlin has an anal fissure and ends up stuck in the hospital where she charms a handsome male nurse and schemes to reunite her parents. Directed by .
2014
Amour Fou, 2014 – between 1809 and 1811 Heinrich von Kleist meets Henriette Vogel in Berlin and his love for Henriette begins to blossom. He asks her to join him in death when she is diagnosed with uterine cancer. They commit suicide together at the Kleine Wannsee. Directed by Jessica Hausner.
Anderson, 2014 – documentary on Sascha Anderson who became an iconic member of the cultural underground scene in Prenzlauer Berg during the 1980s and at the same time spied on all his friends for the Stasi. Directed by Annekatrin Hendel.
Berlin Stories, 2014 – writers and literary critics analyse and discuss famous Berlin novels and the impact that the metropolis had and still has on authors who live in the city or stayed for a period of time. Directed by Simone Dobmeier and Torsten Striegnitz.
(Ein blinder Held – die Liebe des Otto Weidt), 2014 – during the Holocaust blind factory owner Otto Weidt leads a broom and scrubber workshop at Hackesche Höfe where he hides Jews. By bribing Gestapo officials and driving to concentration camps he can save the lives of several people. Directed by .
Citizenfour, 2014 – starting in Berlin, filmmaker Laura Poitras begins to research a documentary on state-controlled observation and whistleblowers when she receives e-mails from Edward Snowden. Together with Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill she travels to Hong Kong to interview him.
Daughters (Töchter), 2014 – a mother comes to Berlin to search for her missing daughter. While she cannot find her, a homeless girl is longing for her friendship. Directed by .
Dragan Wende - West Berlin, 2014 – an eccentric Yugoslav had a good time in West Berlin working as a nightclub doorman and enjoying privileges. After the fall of Berlin Wall he has to cope with a living as underdog. Directed by Lena Müller and Dragan von Petrovic.
Frauenherzen, 2014 – the lives of five women with totally different ways of living but similar relationship problems encounter in Berlin during one week. Directed by Sophie Allet-Coche.
Die Insel – Westberlin zwischen Mauerbau und Mauerfall, 2014 – two-part documentary on the specific situation of West Berlin behind the Iron Curtain between 1961 and 1989. Directed by Stefan Aust and Claus Richter.
(Das Ende der Geduld), 2014 – a dedicated juvenile magistrate initiates the "Neuköllner Modell" against juvenile delinquency that streamlined procedures and targeted an appearance before court within 3–5 weeks. In 2010 she hangs herself in a forest. Based on the life and book of Kirsten Heisig and directed by Christian Wagner.
Mein Berlin, dein Berlin, 2014 – several artists from East and West Berlin meet and show each other the places where they grew up in the divided city. Directed by Tim Evers and Jens Staeder.
Mietrebellen, 2014 – documents the transformation of Berlin from a tenants city into a popular investment target and tenants struggling against their displacement, what culminates in a new urban protest movement. Directed by Gertrud Schulte Westenberg and Matthias Coers.
A Most Wanted Man, 2014 – espionage-thriller set basically in Hamburg dealing with Islamist terrorism and money laundering. Minor scenes such as a meeting in the Internal ministry are set in Berlin. Featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman and directed by Anton Corbijn.
(Bornholmer Straße), 2014 – after the famous press conference on November 9, 1989 by Günter Schabowski thousands of East Germans begin gathering at Bornholmer Straße border crossing. Because of the non-distinctive command status Lieutenant-Colonel Harald Jäger opens Berlin Wall. Directed by Christian Schwochow.
Spirit Berlin, 2014 – a young and inwardly disrupted man visits several spiritual and religious groups in Berlin to find peace. Finally he finds the love of a female young and beautiful Yoga teacher. Directed by Kordula Hildebrandt.
Welcome Goodbye, 2014 – documentary on the growing tourism in Berlin and connected problems like rising prices, housing shortage, gentrification and hostility toward tourists. Directed by Nana Rebhan.
Who Am I – No System Is Safe, 2014 – thriller about a hacker group that gears towards international prominence. Featuring Tom Schilling, Elyas M'Barek and Trine Dyrholm. Directed by Baran bo Odar.
2015
Berlin East Side Gallery, 2015 – documentary on the famous Berlin Wall memorial East Side Gallery, its origin in 1990, the reconstruction, and the constant threat by building projects like Mediaspree. Directed by Karin Kaper and Dirk Szuszies.
Victoria, 2015 – a young Spanish woman meets four strange guys in nightly Berlin and gets roped by them into a bank robbery. Shot in a single continuous take and directed by Sebastian Schipper.
(Tod den Hippies!! Es lebe der Punk), 2015. Directed by Oskar Roehler.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E., 2015 – In the early 1960s, CIA agent Napoleon Solo and KGB operative Illya Kuryakin participate in a joint mission against a mysterious criminal organization, which is working to proliferate nuclear weapons. Directed by Guy Ritchie.
Bridge of Spies, 2015 – During the Cold War, an American lawyer is recruited to defend an arrested Soviet spy in court, and then help the CIA facilitate an exchange of the spy for the Soviet captured American U2 spy plane pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Directed by Steven Spielberg.
, 2015 – music film, documentary about the avant-garde music scene in West-Berlin and the squats scene during the decade 1979-1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Directed by Jörg A. Hoppe, Klaus Maeck and Heiko Lange.
2016
Captain America: Civil War, 2016 – Bucky Barnes, Captain America, and Black Panther chase in the tunnel, then they go to the Joint Terrorist Centre to confront to Everett Ross.
Jason Bourne, 2016 – Jason Bourne goes to Berlin in search of information.
2017
Babylon Berlin, 2017 – crime-drama television series that takes place in 1929 Berlin during the Weimar Republic. It follows a police inspector on who is on a secret mission to dismantle an extortion ring, and a young stenotypist who is aspiring to work as a police inspector. Co-directed by Tom Tykwer, Hendrik Handloegten, and Achim von Borries.
Charité, TV series that takes place in 1888/1889 in Berlin at Charité and between 1943 and 1945 in Berlin at Charité
Atomic Blonde
Kundschafter des Friedens, 2017 - four former agents of the Stasi from Berlin are hired by the BND to rescue the kidnapped president of a fictional former Soviet Republic. Directed by Robert Thalheim.
2018
Suspiria (2018 film)
2020s
2020
HAGER (2022)
A police officer sets out to find a drug that gives its users Visions of hell.
Directed by Kevin Kopacka
2022
The Contractor, 2022 – An ex-marine working as a private black ops contractor is betrayed by his employers.
John Wick: Chapter 4
See also
1920s Berlin
Berlin Film Festival
Cinema of Germany
European cinema
German Expressionism
List of German films
List of fiction set in Berlin
Ufa
:Category:Films shot in Berlin
References
!
Culture in Berlin
Berlin
History of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin-related lists
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty%20Place
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Liberty Place
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Liberty Place is a skyscraper complex in Philadelphia. The complex is composed of a 61-story, skyscraper called One Liberty Place, a 58-story, skyscraper called Two Liberty Place, a two-story shopping mall called the Shops at Liberty Place, and the 14-story Westin Philadelphia Hotel.
Prior to the construction of Liberty Place, there was a gentlemen's agreement not to build any structure in Center City higher than the statue of William Penn on top of Philadelphia City Hall. The tradition lasted until 1984 when developer Willard G. Rouse III of Rouse & Associates announced plans to build an office building complex that included two towers taller than City Hall. There was a great amount of opposition to the construction of the towers with critics believing breaking the height limit would lead to construction of many more tall skyscrapers, ruining the livability and charm of Center City. Despite the opposition, construction of One Liberty Place was approved and the first phase of the project began in 1985 and was completed in 1987. One Liberty Place became the city's first skyscraper. The iconic design and spire make the complex a recognizable part of the Philadelphia skyline.
Phase 2 of the project included Two Liberty Place, a hotel, a shopping mall, and a parking garage. Construction began 1988, after Cigna agreed to lease the entirety of the skyscraper for use as that company's world headquarters. Construction was completed in 1990, making Two Liberty Place the second-tallest building in the city. The two towers held their place as first- and second-tallest buildings in Philadelphia until the Comcast Center was topped off in 2007, which was surpassed in 2017 by the Comcast Technology Center. Liberty Place was received enthusiastically by critics and led to the construction of other tall skyscrapers giving Philadelphia what architecture critic Paul Goldberger called "one of the most appealing skylines of any major American city".
Liberty Place was designed by architect Helmut Jahn and his firm Murphy/Jahn. The steel and blue glass skyscrapers were heavily influenced by New York City's Chrysler Building. The major influence is the spire made of gabled angular setbacks. Two Liberty Place's spire is shorter and squatter, a design influenced by the needs of tenant Cigna. In the 2000s, Cigna reduced its presence in the tower, which led to the owners converting the upper floors into 122 luxury condominiums. Below the two towers is the 289 room Westin hotel and the Shops at Liberty Place. The main feature of the mall is a round atrium topped by a large glass dome.
History
Planning and controversy
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, there was a gentlemen's agreement not to build any structure in Center City higher than the statue of William Penn on top of Philadelphia City Hall. The tradition lasted until the 1980s when developer Willard G. Rouse III of Rouse & Associates announced plans to build an office building complex that included two towers taller than City Hall. Prior to any development plans, Rouse wanted to acquire prime real estate in Philadelphia and he eyed a block in Center City occupied by parking lots and several small buildings. The Oliver Tyrone Pulver Corp. also eyed the land for development and the company and Rouse both vied for the block of land by buying small lots throughout the site. Neither developer was able to acquire enough contiguous space to build a large office building, so after a lawsuit and failed negotiations, the two developers agreed to an organized bidding war for each other's properties. Under the rules agreed upon, the highest bidder would get the option to buy the other's property. Rouse won the auction in 1983 for an undisclosed amount. Originally, Rouse envisioned a $US150 million 38-story skyscraper, but on April 5, 1984 Rouse officially announced his plans to build a complex that would include two office towers, one 65 stories the other 55 stories, a hotel, and retail space. Rumors and local lore speculate Rouse spent so much money buying the land that he had to build something that justified the expense.
Opposition to the project had begun before the April 5 official announcement at a Planning Commission meeting. The meeting was attended by 300 people and a number of attendees were opposed or skeptical of the idea that the skyscrapers would be taller than City Hall. Critics feared breaking the gentlemen's agreement would lead to the development of more tall skyscrapers that would end up dwarfing City Hall and changing the makeup of the city. Critic of the plan and former Philadelphia city planner Edmund Bacon said, "Once [the height ceiling is] smashed, it's gone." A phone poll conducted by the Philadelphia Daily News had callers opposing breaking the height barrier by 3,809 to 1,822. A Philadelphia Inquirer editorial feared the skyscrapers would ruin downtown. The location of City Hall was intended as the city's center from the city's founding, and critics feared taller buildings would move the city's center away from City Hall. Critics of breaking the height ceiling favored the smaller scale of the cityscape and felt that a Philadelphia with skyscrapers would affect the livability of the city. Edmund Bacon and Center City civic leaders said that Philadelphia owes its livability and charm to its low profile. Chairman of the City Planning Commission, Graham S. Finney, noted that there was a general feeling that the sky above the city was considered a public space. Supporters of breaking the height limitation noted that the project would bring needed jobs and business to Center City and that shorter buildings were already blocking views of City Hall from certain directions.
A planning commission meeting was held on May 3 to decide if they would approve skyscrapers that break the height limit. Executive director of the commissioners, Barbara J. Kaplan, said the project had "substantial merit" and "that there is an opportunity here we should not pass up." She cited that the project would create 12,000 jobs and US$15 million in tax revenue. Opponent Lee Copeland, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Fine Arts, said the height limit was "a kind of Philadelphia golden rule which is part of the spirit and tradition of our past." The meeting ended with the commission deciding to prevent buildings taller than City Hall while it studies the issue for one year. In May, the Philadelphia City Council announced its support for the project because of the jobs it would create. On June 13, Philadelphia mayor Wilson Goode came out in favor of the project. He proposed the creation of a special ordinance that would allow buildings taller than City Hall between 16th and 20th Streets and the north side of Chestnut Street and the south side of John F. Kennedy Boulevard. Upset at the mayor's support for the project, Edmund Bacon resigned from a commission about Philadelphia's future. Bacon called the complex "a total disaster," adding that, "It absolutely decimates the scale of Center City, and once it's been done, there's no stopping it."
Construction
Phase 1 of the complex, called One Liberty Place, broke ground on May 13, 1985. One Liberty Place would be the tallest structure of the complex. The skyscraper became the tallest structure in Philadelphia on September 10, 1986, when the first steel columns of the skyscraper's 44th floor were installed. One Liberty Place was topped off on December 12 with a ceremony that included a laser light show and Mayor Goode, who said the tower "breaks the status quo of the city and says we arrived". On March 27, 1987, Robert Heenan, Jr., a 22-year-old glazier, fell 42 stories to his death after his safety line snapped when it got caught in a hoist mechanism. A month later, on May 27, the tower's spire was placed at the top of the building. Placing the spire was delayed when it was discovered sections of the spire didn't align with each other and had to be re-welded. Conrail became the first major tenant to lease space when it signed its lease in December 1985, but by April 1987 only twenty percent of the building was leased. Conrail became the first tenant to move in when the building officially opened on August 17.
One Liberty Place was only about one-third full by the end of 1987 when plans for Two Liberty Place were given the green light after Cigna agreed to relocate its 4,400 employees from 15 different Philadelphia buildings to the skyscraper. Cigna agreed to lease the entire of Two Liberty Place on December 14. Phase 2 of the complex broke ground on February 16, 1988 with a ceremony that included thousands of purple, blue, and white balloons being released. Phase two of the project consisted of the remainder of the Liberty Place complex, the Two Liberty Tower, a Ritz-Carlton Hotel, a two-story shopping mall, and a parking garage. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel opened on November 5, 1990, and the shopping mall, called Shops at Liberty Place, opened a week later on November 13. The mall opened during an economic downturn and a quarter of the mall space was vacant. Fifty stores and fourteen restaurants leased space when the mall opened. Two Liberty Place finished construction by the end of the year.
Completion and later years
In 1990, Rouse sold his interest in One Liberty Place to Japanese insurance company Chyoda. Also, in 1995, the owners of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, which included Rouse, defaulted on its US$64 million loan. After a sheriff's auction on December 4 of that year, the creditor, Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, took ownership of the property. The hotel again changed ownership in 1996 when Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association agreed to sell all its hotel properties to Starwood. In 1999 One Liberty Place, Two Liberty Place, and the Shops of Liberty Place were put up for sale. At the time, One Liberty Place was owned by Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association and Chyoda. Two Liberty Place was owned by a partnership led by Willard Rouse called 1650 Market Associates, and the Shops of Liberty Place was owned jointly by the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association and 1650 Market Associates. One Liberty Place and the Shops at Liberty Place were sold later that year to Sunbelt Management a Palm Beach Gardens, Florida firm owned by German businessman Hugo Mann. Sunbelt acquired the property for a bargain price of US$250 million. The bargain price was a result of One Liberty Place being 99.9 percent leased at the time of the sale and the majority of long-term leases signed when the real estate market was depressed. Rents for One Liberty Place were around US$10 lower than competing office buildings. Two Liberty Place was struggling to find a buyer because it was uncertain Cigna would renew its lease which would expire in 2006.
In January 1999, the Ritz-Carlton announced it would not be renewing its lease at its Liberty Place location and would be relocating to Two Mellon Center. The St. Regis Hotels & Resorts hotel took its place later that year. The St. Regis wasn't able to maintain the same room rates as Philadelphia's other luxury hotels and was re-branded as the Westin in February 2000, now focusing on business travelers. In June 2002, Two Liberty Place was sold to Shorenstein Properties of San Francisco. The sale was reported to be for $US200 million and included Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association continuing as first-mortgage lender. On April 26, 2004, Cigna announced it would remain in Two Liberty Place after getting millions of dollars in incentives from the city and state, though would be leasing less space. With vacant, Shorenstein Properties and Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association sold their interests in Two Liberty Place to private equity firm America's Capital Partners and its partner residential developer Falcone Group for US$151 million.
Shortly after buying Two Liberty Place, America's Capital Partners announced it would be converting the top floors of the skyscraper into luxury condominiums. The Residences at Two Liberty officially opened March 7 with the sample units finished. Conversion of the upper floors on the remaining 122 condominiums began that same month. In 2008, newly moved-in condominium owners were outraged at the plan of putting two Unisys signs with illuminated red letters more than halfway up two sides of Two Liberty Place. Information technology company Unisys was planning to make four floors of the skyscraper its corporate headquarters and the signs were part of its plan to re-brand the company. The Philadelphia Zoning Board eventually rejected the sign idea, and Unisys ended up not moving its headquarters out of Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, noting the economy – and not rejection of the sign – was the basis for the decision.
The Westin Philadelphia was sold by Starwood in November 2005 to HEI Hotels & Resorts. In 2006, HEI Hospitality spent US$10 million on renovating the hotel which included updating the decor and adding wireless internet access. On June 18, 2007, a new skyscraper, the Comcast Center was topped off and officially became the tallest building in the city. The Comcast Center ended One Liberty Place's 19-year place as Philadelphia's tallest building. In September 2009, Eola Capital acquired America's Capital Partners' entire office building portfolio, including the office portion of Two Liberty Place. Parkway Properties Inc. bought Eola's property-management business and office properties in 2011. The Teacher Retirement System of Texas, also part of the transaction, would own 70 percent of the building while Parkway would hold 19 percent stake in the building. Utah Retirement Systems, a public pension fund, also owns an 11 percent stake in the skyscraper. In October 2016, Coretrust Capital Partners LLC of Los Angeles acquired the office portion of Two Liberty Place by purchasing controlling interests in multiple ownership entities for $219 million. The seller was a partnership advised and led by Parkway Properties, Inc. of Orlando, Florida (NYSE: PKY).
Architecture
Liberty Place is a building complex consisting of two skyscrapers, a hotel, parking garage, and a shopping mall that connects the structures. Located in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Liberty Place was designed by Chicago-based architectural firm Murphy/Jahn. Architect Helmut Jahn designed One Liberty Place and was a consulting architect for the rest of the complex. The two skyscrapers are constructed with a steel structure held up with eight large pillars on the buildings' perimeters and a central core that contains the elevators. The perimeter pillars are connected to keep the towers rigid while allowing for the maximum amount of interior space. The exterior of the towers are made up of granite, aluminium, and glass panels, with the amount of glass used increasing at the towers' spires. The majority of the exteriors on the lower levels and rest of the complex is made of stone.
The Bank of the Southwest Tower (Houston, Texas; never built) was also originally designed by Helmut Jahn and served as the primary inspiration for the design of both Liberty Place towers, as well as for such iconic towers as Frankfurt's MesseTurm.
One Liberty Place
Located on the corner of Market and 17th Streets, One Liberty Place, built between 1985 and 1987, is 61 stories tall. At , it is the third-tallest building in Philadelphia. One Liberty Place contains , with an average floor size of . Helmut Jahn is an admirer of American eclecticism and Art Deco; when designing Liberty Place, he used New York City's Chrysler Building as a reference. Rouse said that he calls it the "Son of Chrysler" because of the similarity in design. The most notable similarity to the Chrysler Building is the spire that crowns the skyscraper. One Liberty Place's spire is made up of four gabled setbacks leading up to a 2-ton, steel spire on top. Instead of curved setbacks like on the Chrysler Building, One Liberty Place's setbacks use straight angular edges.
Like the Chrysler Building, One Liberty Place has a square shape with recessed corners. The facade is also inspired by the Chrysler Building, using glass and aluminum to invoke the Chrysler Building's horizontal and vertical shapes along the building's core. The facade's color ranges between grays, silver, and metallic blues and uses horizontal bands of granite and glass to de-emphasize the visual impact of the height of the tower. The building's lobby features white and gray marble imported from Italy. The elevator lobby and the elevator cabs echo the shape of the building's spire while the elevator doors feature abstraction of One Liberty Place itself.
Two Liberty Place
Two Liberty Place is based on the same influences as its counterpart tower and uses a similar shape and matching facade. Located at the corner of 16th and Chestnut Streets, Two Liberty Place is making it the fourth-tallest building in the city. The 58-story skyscraper is shorter than its counterpart, but also contains about of space. Two Liberty Place's spire contains fewer gabled setbacks giving the tower a more squat appearance, but allowing about the same amount of interior space as One Liberty Place. The design of the spire was a result of the building's intended tenant Cigna which wanted the large floor space.
Floors 37 and 40 to 57 is about of condominium space. Floors 38, 39 and 58 are mechanical floors. The 122 luxury condominiums, called The Residences at Two Liberty, are the highest in the city, with condominiums located between above ground level. Every condominium unit features a cappuccino machine, Italian-made Snaidero kitchen cabinetry, Miele appliances, and concierge service. The 37th floor contains a full spa and sauna, pool, and a gourmet restaurant called R2L which opened on January 21, 2010. The restaurant occupies and can seat almost 300. The condominiums range in price from US$800,000 for a 40th-floor single bedroom to more than US$15 million for a penthouse. Because of low sales of the condos, the top portion of the building was to be converted into a boutique hotel in 2013. Due to low interest in the hotel, the top 10 floors of The Residences (floors 48–57) were to be converted into 60 condo units in 2015. Two Liberty Place's lobby was originally specifically designed for Cigna which used to lease the entire building. After Cigna reduced its presence in the tower, three separate lobbies were created, each with its own elevator bank, one for Cigna, one for the other corporate tenants, and the third for the residents.
Hotel and mall
The Westin Philadelphia is a 14-story hotel located on 17th Street. The Westin contains 289-rooms, of meeting space, a ballroom, and a restaurant. Near the entrance of the Westin on 17th Street is the entrance to Liberty Place's underground parking garage. The four-story garage, which also has an entrance on 16th street, has room for 750 cars.
The Shops at Liberty Place contains . The two-story mall faces Chestnut Street between 16th and 17th Street. The mall was designed to contain between 80 and 85 stores, including a food court area. The mall's main feature is a round atrium that is topped by a large glass dome. The dome is actually in the shape of a tetracontagon allowing a large amount of light into the mall and allows views of the Liberty Place towers and the PNC Bank Building. The glass dome is based on the main conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden.
Reception and legacy
The construction of One Liberty Place radically changed the Philadelphia skyline. While critics were upset the building would be taller than City Hall, flat-topped office buildings nearly as tall had surrounded much of City Hall. With the construction of One Liberty Place, Philadelphia now had a definable skyline that it had not had since City Hall was obscured. The breaking of the gentlemen's agreement paved the way for other skyscrapers taller than City Hall. After One Liberty Place was approved, a building boom of tall office skyscrapers in Center City such as the Mellon Bank Center and Commerce Square began. This construction boom, which lasted until the early 1990s, turned the West Market Street district into the city's premier office location and gave what architecture critic Paul Goldberger called "one of the most appealing skylines of any major American city". The success of Liberty Place, along with helping expose an extortion scheme involving a city councilman, helped turn developer Willard Rouse into "Public Hero No. 1" in Philadelphia during the late 1980s.
On April 5, 1984, The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote: "By 'gentlemen's agreement' (the statue of William Penn atop City Hall) remains highest. It is a supremacy that must be maintained, for philosophical and aesthetic and, indeed, economic reasons - density caused by towering skyscrapers is one of the surest ways to render a downtown ruinously overbuilt while its fringes wither." In 1990, the Inquirer took it all back, noting that Rouse transformed Philadelphia's skyline to near universal acclaim. In 1987, Paul Goldberger called One Liberty Place the best skyscraper Helmut Jahn has ever designed and the best skyscraper built in Philadelphia since the PSFS Building. Goldberger noted that "The skyline of Philadelphia, far from being destroyed by One Liberty Place, is in fact given new life by this building. The skyline has been transformed from one of the flattest of any American city to one of the richest." He praised the shape which he said "strikes a remarkable balance between dignity and verve". He was critical that the building was too busy with too many panels and stripes, but acknowledge it was more restrained than other of Helmut Jahn's buildings.
Two Liberty Place was less warmly received by critics. Goldberger said that despite the similarity in appearance, Two Liberty was "as much of a slab as a tower, with a spire that looks as if it was plopped awkwardly on top instead of having grown naturally out of the building's overall form." He also criticized giving One Liberty Place a smaller, similar twin which he said gives the complex an odd look.
A story of the "curse" of Billy Penn sprang up after Philadelphia sports teams failed to win championship games after the construction of One Liberty Place. The "curse" stated that no Philadelphia sports team will win a championship while a building rises taller than the statue of William Penn on City Hall. Construction of the Comcast Center included a small statue of William Penn on the tower's highest point, and in 2008 the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series, effectively proving the "curse".
Tenants
One Liberty Place
One Liberty Place's first two tenants were railroad company Conrail and the law firm Hoyle, Morris & Kerr. Occupying the building between August 1987 and 1992, Conrail leased about . Hoyle, Morris & Kerr leased and moved into the tower in November 1987. Law firm Reed Smith Shaw & McClay also moved into the skyscraper in 1987. The law firm leases on floors 24 through 27. Another law firm, White and Williams, leased space in 1990. The firm occupies on floors 15 through 20.
Other tenants include American International Group, which leases , global management consulting firm ZS Associates, and pharmaceutical consulting firm Campbell Alliance. Brokerage firm Smith Barney leases at One Liberty Place on the 42nd and 43rd floors, high-profile plaintiff law firm Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett and Bendesky leases space on the 52nd floor, and JPMorgan Chase began leasing space on the 47th floor in 1998.
New tenants in the 2000s include Pelino & Lentz, which leased in 2005 and Clark Capital, which moved into on the 53rd floor in January 2006. Kleinbard Bell & Brecker leased on the 46th floor in 2007 and Baker Tilly has leased on the 44th and 45th floors since 2008. Past tenants include Pennrose Properties LLC, intellectual property law firm Woodcock Washburn, Logan Capital Management, Chubb Corp., law firm Duane Morris, and Cigna, which leased until it consolidated space in Two Liberty Place in 2006.
One Liberty Place is leased and managed by Cushman & Wakefield. The management office is located on the 6th floor. Cushman & Wakefield's Philadelphia office is also housed in One Liberty Place on the 33rd floor.
Paris-based Montparnasse 56 Group (M56) announced in 2014 that it would open an observation deck on the 57th floor of One Liberty Place. The One Liberty Observation Deck, also called Philly from the Top, opened to the public on November 28, 2015, but has been permanently closed as of September 2021. The observation deck is fully enclosed and offers 360-degree panoramic views of the city from 883 feet above street level, which was prior to its closing the highest public access level in Philadelphia as of 2016.
Two Liberty Place
Cigna leased the entirety of Two Liberty Place from its opening to 1999, when it sold its property and casualty unit to ACE Limited By 2007, Ace Ltd. had left for 436 Walnut St. and Cigna had shrunk its presence in the tower to . What was not converted into condominium space in 2007 was the first office space in Two Liberty open for leasing in the skyscraper's history.
Law firm Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott moved into in January 2007 and BremnerDuke Healthcare moved into the tower in 2008. Unisys Corp. originally intended to make Two Liberty Place its headquarters but never moved in. The nearly of space Unisys leases is being subleased to others. Tenants subleasing from Unisys include real estate brokerage firm Studley, Inc., which previously had leased space in One Liberty Place. Studley Inc. occupies on the 34th floor and moved into the skyscraper in 2010. Law firm Duffy and Keenan leased space in 2008, Grosvenor Capital Management leased also in 2008, law firm Kutak Rock leased space on the 28th floor in July 2009, and in 2009 law firm Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney moved into Two Liberty Place, occupying of the 31st, 32nd, and 33rd floors of the tower. Other tenants include law firm Elliott Greenleaf and Republic First Bancorp.
Notable residents of The Residences at Two Liberty include Tom Knox, who paid US$7.68 million for a condominium, and Chase Lenfest, son of media entrepreneur H. F. Lenfest, who paid US$7.68 million for a penthouse. Bon Jovi lead guitarist Richie Sambora spent US$3.58 million for a luxury condominium of the 52nd floor. Other residents have included former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels, former Philadelphia 76ers player Andre Iguodala, and executives from Comcast, GlaxoSmithKline, and Cigna. As a result of slow sales, the top floors (48–57) of the Residences at Two Liberty Place were going to be converted into a boutique hotel. Due to low interest in using the space as a hotel, plans for the hotel were scrapped, and instead, the raw floors were being converted into 60 condo units in 2015.
See also
List of tallest buildings in Philadelphia
List of tallest freestanding steel structures
References
External links
One Liberty Place
Two Liberty Place
One Liberty Place on CTBUH Skyscraper Center
Two Liberty Place on CTBUH Skyscraper Center
Westin Philadelphia
Shops at Liberty Place
Buildings and structures completed in 1987
Buildings and structures completed in 1990
Shopping malls established in 1990
Shopping malls in Pennsylvania
Skyscraper office buildings in Philadelphia
Westin hotels
Center City, Philadelphia
Residential skyscrapers in Philadelphia
Skyscraper hotels in Philadelphia
Helmut Jahn buildings
Multi-building developments in Philadelphia
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim%20Pope
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Tim Pope
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Timothy Michael Pope (born 12 February 1956) is a film director most known for his music videos, for having directed feature films, and for a brief pop career.
Early life and career
Pope grew up in the north London suburb of Enfield.
Both his parents were bankers, and he has a sister, Amanda. He always knew that he wanted to make films, boasting in an interview once, "Even my dreams came with dirt on them, like my Standard-8 movies". He attended St Andrew's primary school, Cecil Road, Enfield, and then went to St Michael's boarding school in Otford, Kent, returning to north London to attend Latymer Grammar School, Haselbury Road. While still attending Latymer, he participated in the first ever Film Studies O-level and was featured in the Evening Standard as "Tim Pope, aged seventeen, who wants to be a film director".
To achieve this aim, he began to attend Saturday morning film classes at Hornsey College of Art.
Here he was able to experiment freely with cameras, spending much time photographing various happenings. His first school film was entitled Voyage, which was shot on a 16mm Bolex camera – and another equally absurd creation was the film Canine Excrement, where he is purported to have followed a dog around the then bombsites of Seven Sisters, waiting for the inevitable to happen.
Pope applied to many film colleges, realising that film was something he seriously wanted to devote his life to, and having been turned down by many, he finally attended Ravensbourne College of Art & Design, Bromley. The course was more TV-oriented, and Pope achieved his highest course marks when a brief was set to create an idea to a piece of music. He chose Frank Zappa's "I'm the Slime" from his album Over-Nite Sensation (1973).
When Pope left college, two years later, he found himself unemployable and, after a period of working for Williams & Glynn's bank in Islington, he got his first job with HyVision, a company in Covent Garden that trained politicians to appear on TV. One of the many people he worked with, apart from Trevor McDonald, Melvyn Bragg, and others, was the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey, whom his boss, Stanley Hyland, trained to appear on the BBC's Panorama programme. Pope says that he left 10 Downing Street with the same camera and then went to Guildford to film the ska band The Specials on stage. Terry Hall, the lead singer, was later to be one of Pope's many clients, as a pop promo director.
Middle career
While still at HyVision, in 1979 Pope met Alex McDowell, who ran Rocking Russian, a company that designed T-shirts and record sleeves from a studio in Berwick Street. Alex had designed Iggy Pop's album sleeve for Soldier and Pope was a massive Iggy Pop fan. (Pope later became a close friend to the singer and worked with him many times). The duo went on to form a very successful and long-lasting relationship with McDowell as production designer and Pope as director – before McDowell emigrated to America in the mid-1980s to become a movie production designer for people like Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton.
At about this time, pop videos were starting to be made more frequently by directors like Russell Mulcahy (Duran Duran), David Mallet (David Bowie), and Brian Grant (Olivia Newton-John). Pope decided to turn his hand to this new form. His first attempts at rock video were shot in Carnaby Street and in Putney Bridge's tunnels on a non-broadcast format for the single "Cut Out the Real" by Jo Broadbery and the Standouts, as well as its B-side. After unsuccessfully pitching many videos (and with very little to show as his own work), he was finally engaged to make Soft Cell's first video for Some Bizzare Records, Non-Stop Exotic Video Show, which was a companion release to their debut album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. The collection was originally issued on VHS, Betamax, and laserdisc in 1982, and re-issued on DVD in 2004. The video for "Bedsitter" had Pope's trademark individuality, as it featured the band's singer, Marc Almond, wearing shirts that matched the walls behind him. In many ways, it is considered this video bears all the major hallmarks of a Pope video: individuality, linear progression in terms of story, and a slight psychedelic feel. (Pope has many names for different genres of videos and this type he calls a narrative/atmospheric. He has lectured all over the world on the subject, including at London's National Film Theatre.)
More Some Bizzare videos followed with Soft Cell, including "Say Hello and Wave Goodbye" and thereafter an entire album of videos for their debut album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, including the infamous "Sex Dwarf" that featured a handful of real-life prostitutes, their pimp, a trainee doctor in leather trousers, and a handful of maggots that Pope chucked in during, causing a riot when the prostitutes fled from the St John's Wood film studio. The video was later seized by the Scotland Yard Pornography Squad, but handed back soon after, as it was realized that hype was more at play than real facts about the video's contents. The video is considered a cult classic and is even banned from TV programmes about banned videos. It was probably this Some Bizarre video that earned Pope his early reputation as a 'bad boy'.
Videos for the Cure
By 1982, and with a few more videos made, (Scottish band Altered Images, Nancy Nova, Jersey pub-rockers-financed-by-a-millionaire "Volcano", etc.) Pope met The Cure's singer Robert Smith. Their work together was to prove that directors could be constantly innovative, on a factory-line basis. Pope ultimately directed over 37 videos for the group, including many of their most famous songs – "Let’s Go To Bed" (1982), "Close To Me" (1985), "Just Like Heaven" (1987), "Friday I’m in Love", (1992), "Wrong Number" (1997). He also directed the 35mm movie of "The Cure in Orange", which captures their performance at the eponymous theatre in the south of France.
"I Want to be a Tree"
Pope released his own song in 1984, "I Want to be a Tree", The single's b-side was "The Double Crossing of Two-Faced Fred" (a choral verse poem he had written and performed at Latymer, a few years earlier) and, on the 12" version, "Elephants".
Pope described the project as "a real piss-take of what was going on in America", prompted by people referring to "Tim Pope Videos", and said that he "felt really strongly that they were not Tim Pope videos, they were Cure videos or Siouxsie videos or whatever". Over the 1983 Christmas holidays, Pope and a friend, Charles Gray, recorded what Pope described as "this really stupid song" that they had co-written years earlier as teenagers. Pope made an accompanying video for his showreel, asking several of the artists he worked with (the Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Soft Cell, Talk Talk, The Style Council, Paul Young and Freur) to "come along and slag me off on the showreel". He then played the artists the song, while filming their reactions to it. The Old Grey Whistle Test screened the video, which Pope says resulted in several record deals being offered.
In between commitments to the Cure, The Glove and Siouxsie and the Banshees, Robert Smith found time to play most of the instruments on a new recording of "I Want To Be A Tree". Released on the Fiction label, and produced by its manager Chris Parry, the song reached number 34 in the British charts.
Work in the U.S.
Pope was invited to the United States for the first time in 1983 by Neil Young who asked him to film the video for his song "Wonderin'". Young personally drove him around Los Angeles on a guided tour to see the sights, using the car that was ultimately to feature in the famous "Wonderin'" video, filmed with its idiosyncratic speed-up, speed-down style. Pope shot many more videos for Young until 1997. He said of the experience: "I thought it was everyone’s lot to be brought to America and driven around by iconic pop stars in flash motors."
He also shot many more videos in the United States for various bands, including Hall & Oates, Iggy Pop and Wendy & Lisa, as well as more bands in the UK: The The, David Bowie, Strawberry Switchblade, Men Without Hats, Talk Talk, Paul Weller, Siouxsie and the Banshees and others.
Pope's career in commercials began at this time, too, and he soon achieved a worldwide reputation, shooting for clients all over the world.
In 1989, Pope directed the TV comedy series The Groovy Fellers which he co-wrote with Squeeze keyboardist and TV presenter Jools Holland and comedian Rowland Rivron, about a Martian (played by Rivron) who lands in England and is shown around the country by Holland, being presented with many of the eccentricities of life peculiar to the United Kingdom. The TV series was one of the first to use members of the public and also featured David Steel, Michael Heseltine and Sir Patrick Moore. The Martian lands naked in episode 1, walks into a pub, and the series climaxes with a car chase with Holland and the Martian attempting to answer the question "Why are we here on Planet Earth?" with the police in hot pursuit. The programme was produced by Border Television for Channel 4.
Later career
In 1991, Pope directed his first short film, Phone, that led directly to his being asked by the Weinstein Brothers of Miramax to make The Crow: City of Angels for them. Phone starred Bill Pullman, along with Linda Blair and Amanda Plummer. The film earned many awards from around the world, and was based on a real-life phone prank that Pope came across on a tape in a skip behind a strip club in Hollywood Boulevard.
He continued working on videos, spending more time in America. He worked with many new bands of the period, though old clients like Neil Young, David Bowie, The The and The Cure continued to request his services.
The Crow: City of Angels put Pope together again with production designer Alex McDowell and the duo gave the film an individual look and feel. It reached number one in the American movie charts, though Pope refused to do the commentary on the DVD, saying the studio had tampered with his film too much.
He directed David Bowie's 50th birthday celebration at Madison Square Gardens in 1997, working with Bowie to construct the show over a long period. The show featured other artists, including Pope's old friend Robert Smith, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, Frank Black, the Foo Fighters and Lou Reed.
Shortly afterwards, Pope read and bought the rights for The Last King of Scotland and brought Oscar winner Forest Whitaker to the project as Idi Amin (though he left the project due to differences on the progress of the film, in particular with the studio wanting to use writer Joe Penhall).
2000 to present
Pope returned to London from Hollywood and continued with his career making commercials.
In 2005, Pope was awarded a CADS lifetime achievement award by the music industry and after a prolonged and self-imposed period of 12 years, he returned to making videos again, working with The Darkness, KT Tunstall, The Kaiser Chiefs and Fatboy Slim.
In March 2008, Pope re-united with Neil Young to film In London which captures Young and his band during their multi-night engagement at the Hammersmith Odeon. The film was premiered in 2019 on Young's personal archives site.
In 2013, Pope embarked with The Cure to film their "LatAm" tour across South America and Mexico, and a tour film is expected to be produced later with material both off and on stage.
In 2018, Pope filmed a documentary on Sheridan Smith called Sheridan Smith: Coming Home.
On July 7, 2018 Pope directed the "Anniversary: 1978-2018 - Live in Hyde Park London" concert the Cure performed as part of the British Summer Time concert series. The concert was released on dvd as part of the six disc set of "Curaetion 25 - Anniversary", released in October 2019.
He directed The The's The Comeback Special - Live at the Royal Albert Hall in 2018. It was released on dvd/blu ray in October 2021.
Personal life
He now lives with his family in Henfield in West Sussex.
Music video filmography (incomplete)
Adrian Belew and David Bowie "Pretty Pink Rose" (1990)
Altered Images "I Could Be Happy" (1981)
Amanda Palmer "The Killing Type" (2012)
Bad Manners "Samson and Delilah" (1982)
The Bangles "Eternal Flame" (1988)
The Beautiful South "Good as Gold (Stupid as Mud)" (1994)
Blue Zoo "Cry Boy Cry" (1982)
Bonnie Tyler and Todd Rundgren "Loving You's a Dirty Job but Somebody's Gotta Do It" (1985)
Bow Wow Wow "Do You Wanna Hold Me" (1983)
Bronski Beat "C'mon! C'mon!" (1986)
Bryan Ferry "Help Me" (1986)
Bryan Ferry and David Gilmour "Is Your Love Strong Enough" (Legend soundtrack) (1986)
The Cars "Magic" (1984)
China Crisis "Wishful Thinking" (1983)
China Crisis "Christian" (1983)
The Christians "Words" (1989)
The Christians "I Found Out" (1990)
The Creatures "Miss the Girl" (1983)
The Creatures "Right Now" (1983)
The Cure "Let's Go to Bed" (1982)
The Cure "The Love Cats" (1983)
The Cure "The Walk" (1983)
The Cure "The Caterpillar" (1984)
The Cure "Close to Me" (1985)
The Cure "In Between Days" (1985)
The Cure "Killing an Arab" (1986)
The Cure "Boys Don't Cry" (1986)
The Cure "Jumping Someone Else's Train" (1986)
The Cure "A Night Like This" (1986)
The Cure "In Orange" (1986)
The Cure "Catch" (1987)
The Cure "Why Can't I Be You?" (1987)
The Cure "Just Like Heaven" (1987)
The Cure "Hot Hot Hot!!!" (1988)
The Cure "Lullaby" (1989)
The Cure "Fascination Street" (1989)
The Cure "Lovesong" (1989)
The Cure "Pictures of You" (1990)
The Cure "Close to Me · Remix" (1990)
The Cure "Never Enough" (1990)
The Cure "Friday I'm in Love" (1992)
The Cure "High" (1992)
The Cure "Wrong Number" (1997)
The Darkness "One Way Ticket" (2005)
The Darkness "Is It Just Me?" (2006)
The Darkness "Girlfriend" (2006)
David Bowie "Time Will Crawl" (1987)
David Bowie "I Can't Read" (1997)
David Bowie "Space Oddity" (2019)
Dead or Alive "I'd Do Anything" (1983)
The Dream Academy "Life in a Northern Town" (1984)
Everything but the Girl "When All's Well" (1985)
Faith Brothers "A Stranger on Home Ground" (1985)
Fatboy Slim "Slash Dot Dash" (2004)
Frankmusik "Better Off as Two" (2009)
Freur "Doot-Doot" (1983)
Hall & Oates "Adult Education" (1984)
Hazell Dean "Back in My Arms (Once Again)" (1984)
Herbert Grönemeyer "Full Moon" (1988)
Ian McCulloch "Proud to Fall" (1989)
James "Sometimes" (1993)
Jim Noir "Eanie Meany" (2006)
John Parr "Magical" (1985)
Josh Abrahams and Amiel Daemion "Addicted to Bass" (2002)
Julian Lennon "Say You're Wrong" (1985)
Kaiser Chiefs "Everyday I Love You Less and Less" (2005)
Kim Wilde "Dancing in the Dark" (1983)
Kissing the Pink "Watching Their Eyes" (1982)
Kissing the Pink "Mr. Blunt" (1982)
Kissing the Pink "Radio On" (1984)
KT Tunstall "Another Place to Fall" (2006)
Les Rita Mitsouko and Sparks "Singing in the Shower" (1988)
Live "I Alone" (version 1: Slow Motion version) (1994)
Marc Almond "The Boy Who Came Back" (1984)
Marc Almond "You Have" (1984)
Marc Almond "Bitter Sweet" (1988)
Marc Almond "A Kind of Love" (2017)
Men Without Hats "I Like" (1983)
Men Without Hats "The Safety Dance" (1983)
Men Without Hats "Where Do the Boys Go?" (1984)
Men Without Hats "Pop Goes the World" (1987)
Men Without Hats "Moonbeam" (1987)
Ministry "Revenge" (1983)
Modern Romance "Walking in the Rain" (1983)
The Mood "Paris Is One Day Away" (1982)
Ned's Atomic Dustbin "Not Sleeping Around" (1992)
Neil Young "Touch the Night" (1986)
Neil Young "Weight of the World" (1986)
Neil Young "People on the Streets" (1986)
Neil Young and Crazy Horse "This Town" (1996)
Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks "Cry, Cry, Cry" (1983)
Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks "Wonderin'" (1983)
Nick Drake "River Man" (2004)
The Nymphs "Sad and Damned" (1991)
Paul McCartney "This One" (1989)
Peter Murphy "The Sweetest Drop" (1992)
Pop's Cool Love "Free Me" (1992)
The Pretenders "2000 Miles" (1983)
The Pretenders "Thin Line Between Love and Hate" (1983)
The Psychedelic Furs "Love My Way" (1982)
The Psychedelic Furs "Here Come Cowboys" (1984)
The Psychedelic Furs "Heaven" (1984)
The Psychedelic Furs "The Ghost in You" (1984)
The Psychedelic Furs "Angels Don't Cry" (1986)
Queen "It's a Hard Life" (1984)
The Questions "Building on a Strong Foundation" (1984)
Re-Flex "How Much Longer?" (1985)
Reverend and the Makers "He Said He Loved Me" (2007)
Ric Ocasek "Emotion in Motion" (1986)
Rock and Hyde "Dirty Water" (1987)
Roger Taylor "Man on Fire" (1984)
Roman Holliday "Stand By" (1983)
Roman Holliday "Don't Try to Stop It" (1983)
Roman Holliday "Motormania" (1983)
Rush "Afterimage" (1984)
Seven Mary Three "Make Up Your Mind" (1997)
Siouxsie and the Banshees "Dear Prudence" (1983)
Siouxsie and the Banshees "Swimming Horses" (1984)
Siouxsie and the Banshees "Dazzle" (1984)
Siouxsie and the Banshees "Cities in Dust" (1985)
Soft Cell "Frustration" (1980)
Soft Cell "Tainted Love" (1981)
Soft Cell "Bedsitter" (1981)
Soft Cell "Memorabilia" (1981)
Soft Cell "Secret Life" (1981)
Soft Cell "Entertain Me" (1981)
Soft Cell "Seedy Films" (1981)
Soft Cell "Sex Dwarf" (Original Banned Version) (1982)
Soft Cell "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" (1982)
Soft Cell "Torch" (1982)
Soft Cell "What?" (1982)
Soft Cell "Where the Heart Is" (1982)
Soft Cell "Soul Inside" (1983)
Soft Cell "Down in the Subway" (1984)
Space Monkey "Can't Stop Running" (1983)
Spear of Destiny "The Wheel" (1983)
The Stranglers "96 Tears" (1990)
Strawberry Switchblade "Since Yesterday" (1984)
Strawberry Switchblade "Let Her Go" (1985)
Stump "Charlton Heston" (1988)
The Style Council "Speak Like a Child" (1983)
The Style Council "Money-Go-Round" (1983)
The Style Council "Long Hot Summer" (1983)
The Style Council "A Solid Bond in Your Heart" (1983)
The Style Council "My Ever Changing Moods" (1984)
The Style Council "Groovin'" (1984)
The Style Council "Shout to the Top!" (1984)
The Style Council "Walls Come Tumbling Down!" (1985)
Talk Talk "It's My Life" (1984)
Talk Talk "Dum Dum Girl" (1984)
Talk Talk "Such a Shame" (1984)
Talk Talk "Life's What You Make It" (1985)
Talk Talk "Living in Another World" (1986)
Talk Talk "I Believe in You" (1988)
The The "Twilight of a Champion" (1987)
The The "Out of the Blue (Into the Fire)" (1987)
The The "Slow Train to Dawn" (1987)
The The "Gravitate to Me" (1989)
The The "Kingdom of Rain" (1990)
The The "Jealous of Youth" (1990)
The The "Dogs of Lust" (1993)
The The "Slow Emotion Replay" (1993)
The The "Love Is Stronger Than Death" (1993)
The The "Pillar Box Red" (2002)
Tim Pope "I Want to Be a Tree" (1984)
Tim Scott McConnell "Swear" (1983)
Tin Machine "You Belong in Rock n' Roll" (1991)
Tin Machine "Baby Universal" (1991)
Tom Tom Club "Suboceana" (1989)
Tracie "Give It Some Emotion" (1983)
Tygers of Pan Tang "Love Potion No. 9" (1982)
Vegas "She" (1992)
Vegas "Walk into the Wind" (1993)
Visage "Pleasure Boys" (1982)
Voice of the Beehive "I Walk the Earth" (1988)
Wendy & Lisa "Waterfall" (1987)
Wendy & Lisa "Sideshow" (1988)
Wham! "Young Guns (Go for It)" (1982)
Wilko Johnson and Roger Daltrey "I Keep It to Myself" (2014)
References
External links
Tim Pope's official website
Tim Pope – "I Want To Be A Tree" Video
1956 births
Living people
British music video directors
Fiction Records artists
People educated at The Latymer School
People from Henfield
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism%20of%20Wikipedia
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Criticism of Wikipedia
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Most criticism of Wikipedia has been directed toward its content, community of established users, and processes. Critics have questioned its factual reliability, the readability and organization of the articles, the lack of methodical fact-checking, and its political bias. Concerns have also been raised about systemic bias along gender, racial, political, corporate, institutional, and national lines. In addition, conflicts of interest arising from corporate campaigns to influence content have also been highlighted. Further concerns include the vandalism and partisanship facilitated by anonymous editing, clique behavior (from contributors as well as administrators and other top figures), social stratification between a guardian class and newer users, excessive rule-making, edit warring, and uneven policy application.
Criticism of content
The reliability of Wikipedia is often questioned. In Wikipedia: The Dumbing Down of World Knowledge (2010), journalist Edwin Black characterized the content of articles as a mixture of "truth, half-truth, and some falsehoods". Oliver Kamm, in Wisdom?: More like Dumbness of the Crowds (2007), said that articles usually are dominated by the loudest and most persistent editorial voices or by an interest group with an ideological "axe to grind".
In his article The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (2012), Timothy Messer–Kruse criticized the undue-weight policy that deals with the relative importance of sources, observing that it showed Wikipedia's goal was not to present correct and definitive information about a subject but to present the majority opinion of the sources cited. In their article You Just Type in What You are Looking for: Undergraduates' Use of Library Resources vs. Wikipedia (2012) in an academic librarianship journal, the authors noted another author's point that omissions within an article might give the reader false ideas about a topic, based upon the incomplete content of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is sometimes characterized as having a hostile editing environment. In Common Knowledge?: An Ethnography of Wikipedia (2014), Dariusz Jemielniak, a steward for Wikimedia Foundation projects, stated that the complexity of the rules and laws governing editorial content and the behavior of the editors is a burden for new editors and a license for the "office politics" of disruptive editors. In a follow-up article, Jemielniak said that abridging and rewriting the editorial rules and laws of Wikipedia for clarity of purpose and simplicity of application would resolve the bureaucratic bottleneck of too many rules. In The Rise and Decline of an Open Collaboration System: How Wikipedia's Reaction to Popularity is Causing its Decline (2013), Aaron Halfaker said the over-complicated rules and laws of Wikipedia unintentionally provoked the decline in editorial participation that began in 2009—frightening away new editors who otherwise would contribute to Wikipedia.
There have also been works that describe the possible misuse of Wikipedia. In Wikipedia or Wickedpedia? (2008), the Hoover Institution said Wikipedia is an unreliable resource for correct knowledge, information, and facts about a subject, because, as an open-source website, the editorial content of the articles is readily subjected to manipulation and propaganda. The 2014 edition of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's official student handbook, Academic Integrity at MIT, informs students that Wikipedia is not a reliable academic source, stating, "the bibliography published at the end of the Wikipedia entry may point you to potential sources. However, do not assume that these sources are reliable use the same criteria to judge them as you would any other source. Do not consider the Wikipedia bibliography as a replacement for your own research."
Accuracy of information
Not authoritative
Wikipedia acknowledges that the encyclopedia should not be used as a primary source for research, either academic or informational. The British librarian Philip Bradley said, "the main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, the publishers have to ensure that their data are reliable, as their livelihood depends on it. But with something like this, all that goes out the window." Likewise, Robert McHenry, editor-in-chief of Encyclopædia Britannica from 1992 to 1997, said that readers of Wikipedia articles cannot know who wrote the article they are reading—it might have been written by an expert in the subject matter or by an amateur. In November 2015, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger told Zach Schwartz in Vice: "I think Wikipedia never solved the problem of how to organize itself in a way that didn't lead to mob rule" and that since he left the project, "People that I would say are trolls sort of took over. The inmates started running the asylum."
Comparative study of science articles
In "Internet Encyclopaedias Go Head-to-head", a 2005 article published in the scientific journal Nature, the results of a blind experiment (single-blind study), which compared the factual and informational accuracy of entries from Wikipedia and the Encyclopædia Britannica, were reported. The 42-entry sample included science articles and biographies of scientists, which were compared for accuracy by anonymous academic reviewers; they found that the average Wikipedia entry contained four errors and omissions, while the average Encyclopædia Britannica entry contained three errors and omissions. The study concluded that Wikipedia and Britannica were comparable in terms of the accuracy of its science entries. Nevertheless, the reviewers had two principal criticisms of the Wikipedia science entries: (i) thematically confused content, without an intelligible structure (order, presentation, interpretation); and (ii) that undue weight is given to controversial, fringe theories about the subject matter.
The dissatisfaction of the Encyclopædia Britannica editors led to Nature publishing additional survey documentation that substantiated the results of the comparative study. Based upon the additional documents, Encyclopædia Britannica denied the validity of the study, stating it was flawed, because the Britannica extracts were compilations that sometimes included articles written for the youth version of the encyclopedia. In turn, Nature acknowledged that some Britannica articles were compilations, but denied that such editorial details invalidated the conclusions of the comparative study of the science articles.
The editors of Britannica also said that while the Nature study showed that the rate of error between the two encyclopedias was similar, the errors in a Wikipedia article usually were errors of fact, while the errors in a Britannica article were errors of omission. According to the editors of Britannica, Britannica was more accurate than Wikipedia in that respect. Subsequently, Nature magazine rejected the Britannica response with a rebuttal of the editors' specific objections about the research method of the study.
Lack of methodical fact-checking
Inaccurate information that is not obviously false may persist in Wikipedia for a long time before it is challenged. The most prominent cases reported by mainstream media involved biographies of living people.
The Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident demonstrated that the subject of a biographical article must sometimes fix blatant lies about his own life. In May 2005, an anonymous user edited the biographical article on American journalist and writer John Seigenthaler so that it contained several false and defamatory statements. The inaccurate claims went unnoticed from May until September 2005 when they were discovered by Victor S. Johnson Jr., a friend of Seigenthaler. Wikipedia content is often mirrored at sites such as Answers.com, which means that incorrect information can be replicated alongside correct information through a number of web sources. Such information can thereby develop false authority due to its presence at such sites.
In another example, on March 2, 2007, MSNBC.com reported that then-New York Senator Hillary Clinton had been incorrectly listed for 20 months in her Wikipedia biography as having been valedictorian of her class of 1969 at Wellesley College, when she was not. The article included a link to the Wikipedia edit, where the incorrect information was added on July 9, 2005. The inaccurate information was removed within 24 hours after the MSNBC.com report appeared.
Attempts to perpetrate hoaxes may not be confined to editing existing Wikipedia articles, but can also include creating new articles. In October 2005, Alan Mcilwraith, a call center worker from Scotland, created a Wikipedia article in which he wrote that he was a highly decorated war hero. The article was quickly identified as a hoax by other users and deleted.
There have also been instances of users deliberately inserting false information into Wikipedia in order to test the system and demonstrate its alleged unreliability. Gene Weingarten, a journalist, ran such a test in 2007, in which he inserted false information into his own Wikipedia article; it was removed 27 hours later by a Wikipedia editor. Wikipedia considers the deliberate insertion of false and misleading information to be vandalism.
Neutral point of view and conflicts of interest
Wikipedia regards the concept of a neutral point of view as one of its non-negotiable principles; however, it acknowledges that such a concept has its limitations its NPOV policy states that articles should be "as far as possible" written, "without editorial bias". Mark Glaser, a journalist, also wrote that this may be an impossible ideal due to the inevitable biases of editors. Research has shown that articles can maintain bias in spite of the neutral point of view policy through word choice, the presentation of opinions and controversial claims as facts, and framing bias.
In August 2007, a tool called WikiScanner—developed by Virgil Griffith, a visiting researcher from the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico—was released to match edits to the encyclopedia by non-registered users with an extensive database of IP addresses. News stories appeared about IP addresses from various organizations such as the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Republican Congressional Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Diebold, Inc. and the Australian government being used to make edits to Wikipedia articles, sometimes of an opinionated or questionable nature. Another story stated that an IP address from the BBC itself had been used to vandalize the article on George W. Bush. The BBC quoted a Wikipedia spokesperson as praising the tool: "We really value transparency and the scanner really takes this to another level. Wikipedia Scanner may prevent an organization or individuals from editing articles that they're really not supposed to." Not everyone hailed WikiScanner as a success for Wikipedia. Oliver Kamm, in a column for The Times, argued instead that:
WikiScanner reveals conflicts of interest only when the editor does not have a Wikipedia account and their IP address is used instead. Conflict-of-interest editing done by editors with accounts is not detected, since those edits are anonymous to everyone except some Wikipedia administrators.
Scientific disputes
The 2005 Nature study also gave two brief examples of challenges that Wikipedian science writers purportedly faced on Wikipedia. The first concerned the addition of a section on violence to the schizophrenia article, which was little more than a "rant" about the need to lock people up, in the view of one of the article's regular editors, neuropsychologist Vaughan Bell. He said that editing it stimulated him to look up the literature on the topic.
Another dispute involved the climate researcher William Connolley, a Wikipedia editor who was opposed by others. The topic in this second dispute was "language pertaining to the greenhouse effect", and The New Yorker reported that this dispute, which was far more protracted, had led to arbitration, which took three months to produce a decision. The outcome of arbitration was for Connolley to be restricted to undoing edits on articles once per day.
Exposure to political operatives and advocates
While Wikipedia policy requires articles to have a neutral point of view, it is not immune from attempts by outsiders (or insiders) with an agenda to place a spin on articles. In January 2006, it was revealed that several staffers of members of the U.S. House of Representatives had embarked on a campaign to cleanse their respective bosses' biographies on Wikipedia, as well as inserting negative remarks on political opponents. References to a campaign promise by Martin Meehan to surrender his seat in 2000 were deleted, and negative comments were inserted into the articles on United States Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, and Eric Cantor, a congressman from Virginia. Numerous other changes were made from an IP address assigned to the House of Representatives. In an interview, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales remarked that the changes were "not cool".
Larry Delay and Pablo Bachelet wrote that from their perspective, some articles dealing with Latin American history and groups (such as the Sandinistas and Cuba) lack political neutrality and are written from a sympathetic Marxist perspective which treats socialist dictatorships favorably at the expense of alternative positions.
In 2008, the pro-Israel group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) organized an e-mail campaign to encourage readers to correct perceived Israel-related biases and inconsistencies in Wikipedia. CAMERA argued the excerpts were unrepresentative and that it had explicitly campaigned merely "toward encouraging people to learn about and edit the online encyclopedia for accuracy". Defenders of CAMERA and the competing group, Electronic Intifada, went into mediation. Israeli diplomat David Saranga said Wikipedia is generally fair in regard to Israel. When it was pointed out that the entry on Israel mentioned the word "occupation" nine times, whereas the entry on the Palestinian people mentioned "terror" only once, he responded, "It means only one thing: Israelis should be more active on Wikipedia. Instead of blaming it, they should go on the site much more, and try and change it."
Israeli political commentator Haviv Rettig Gur, reviewing widespread perceptions in Israel of systemic bias in Wikipedia articles, has argued that there are deeper structural problems creating this bias: anonymous editing favors biased results, especially if the editors organize concerted campaigns of defamation as has been done in articles dealing with Arab-Israeli issues, and current Wikipedia policies, while well-meant, have proven ineffective in handling this.
On August 31, 2008, The New York Times ran an article detailing the edits made to the biography of Alaska governor Sarah Palin in the wake of her nomination as the running mate of Arizona Senator John McCain. During the 24 hours before the McCain campaign announcement, 30 edits, many of them adding flattering details, were made to the article by the user "Young_Trigg". This person later acknowledged working on the McCain campaign, and having several other user accounts.
In November 2007, libelous accusations were made against two politicians from southwestern France, Jean-Pierre Grand and Hélène Mandroux-Colas, on their Wikipedia biographies. Grand asked the president of the French National Assembly and Prime Minister to reinforce the legislation on the penal responsibility of Internet sites and of authors who peddle false information in order to cause harm. Senator Jean Louis Masson then requested the Minister of Justice to tell him whether it would be possible to increase the criminal responsibilities of hosting providers, site operators, and authors of libelous content; the minister declined to do so, recalling the existing rules in the LCEN law (see Internet censorship in France).
On August 25, 2010, the Toronto Star reported that the Canadian "government is now conducting two investigations into federal employees who have taken to Wikipedia to express their opinion on federal policies and bitter political debates."
In 2010, Al Jazeera's Teymoor Nabili suggested that the article Cyrus Cylinder had been edited for political purposes by "an apparent tussle of opinions in the shadowy world of hard drives and 'independent' editors that comprise the Wikipedia industry." He suggested that after the Iranian presidential election of 2009 and ensuing "anti-Iranian activities", a "strenuous attempt to portray the cylinder as nothing more than the propaganda tool of an aggressive invader" was visible. The edits following his analysis of the edits during 2009 and 2010, represented "a complete dismissal of the suggestion that the cylinder, or Cyrus' actions, represent a concern for human rights or any kind of enlightened intent," in stark contrast to Cyrus' own reputation as documented in the Old Testament and the people of Babylon.
Commandeering or sanitizing articles
Articles of particular interest to an editor or group of editors are sometimes modified based on these editors' respective points of views. Some companies and organizations—such as Sony, Diebold, Nintendo, Dell, the CIA, and the Church of Scientology—as well as individuals, such as United States Congressional staffers, were all shown to have modified the Wikipedia pages about themselves in order to present a point of view that describes them positively; these organizations may have editors who revert negative changes as soon as these changes are submitted.
The Chinese Wikipedia article on the Tiananmen Square massacre was rewritten to describe it as necessary to "quell the counterrevolutionary riots" and Taiwan was described as "a province in the People's Republic of China". According to the BBC, "there are indications that [such edits] are not all necessarily organic, nor random" and were in fact encouraged by the Chinese government.
Quality of presentation
Quality of writing
In a 2006 mention of Jimmy Wales, Time magazine stated that the policy of allowing anyone to edit had made Wikipedia the "biggest (and perhaps best) encyclopedia in the world".
In 2008, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that the quality of a Wikipedia article would suffer rather than gain from adding more writers when the article lacked appropriate explicit or implicit coordination. For instance, when contributors rewrite small portions of an entry rather than making full-length revisions, high- and low-quality content may be intermingled within an entry. Roy Rosenzweig, a history professor, stated that American National Biography Online outperformed Wikipedia in terms of its "clear and engaging prose", which, he said, was an important aspect of good historical writing. Contrasting Wikipedia's treatment of Abraham Lincoln to that of Civil War historian James McPherson in American National Biography Online, he said that both were essentially accurate and covered the major episodes in Lincoln's life, but praised "McPherson's richer contextualization ... his artful use of quotations to capture Lincoln's voice ... and ... his ability to convey a profound message in a handful of words." By contrast, he gives an example of Wikipedia's prose that he finds "both verbose and dull". Rosenzweig also criticized the "waffling—encouraged by the NPOV policy—[which] means that it is hard to discern any overall interpretive stance in Wikipedia history". While generally praising the article on William Clarke Quantrill, he quoted its conclusion as an example of such "waffling", which then stated: "Some historians ... remember him as an opportunistic, bloodthirsty outlaw, while others continue to view him as a daring soldier and local folk hero."
Other critics have made similar charges that, even if Wikipedia articles are factually accurate, they are often written in a poor, almost unreadable style. Frequent Wikipedia critic Andrew Orlowski commented, "Even when a Wikipedia entry is 100 percent factually correct, and those facts have been carefully chosen, it all too often reads as if it has been translated from one language to another then into a third, passing an illiterate translator at each stage." A comparative study of Wikipedia, Britannica and Simple Wikipedia in 2012 by Adam Jatowt and Katsumi Tanaka using a range of readability metrics on a subset of 90k articles from Britannica and 25k articles from both Wikipedia and Simple Wikipedia, revealed that Britannica tends to have articles that are 21% easier to read than Wikipedia, while Simple Wikipedia is on average 26% easier than Wikipedia. The authors attributed these differences to the fact that Wikipedia articles have multiple authors who may rarely collaborate towards a readable and coherent text unlike the case of Britannica.
A study of Wikipedia articles on cancer was conducted in 2010 by Yaacov Lawrence of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University. The study was limited to those articles that could be found in the Physician Data Query and excluded those written at the "start" class or "stub" class level. Lawrence found the articles accurate but not very readable, and thought that "Wikipedia's lack of readability (to non-college readers) may reflect its varied origins and haphazard editing". The Economist argued that better-written articles tend to be more reliable: "inelegant or ranting prose usually reflects muddled thoughts and incomplete information".
The Wall Street Journal debate
In the September 12, 2006, edition of The Wall Street Journal, Jimmy Wales debated with Dale Hoiberg, editor-in-chief of Encyclopædia Britannica. Hoiberg focused on a need for expertise and control in an encyclopedia and cited Lewis Mumford that overwhelming information could "bring about a state of intellectual enervation and depletion hardly to be distinguished from massive ignorance." Wales emphasized Wikipedia's differences and asserted that openness and transparency lead to quality. Hoiberg said he "had neither the time nor space to respond to [criticisms]" and "could corral any number of links to articles alleging errors in Wikipedia", to which Wales responded: "No problem! Wikipedia to the rescue with a fine article", and included a link to the Wikipedia article about criticism of Wikipedia.
Systemic bias in coverage
Wikipedia has been accused of systemic bias, which is to say its general nature leads, without necessarily any conscious intention, to the propagation of various prejudices. Although many articles in newspapers have concentrated on minor factual errors in Wikipedia articles, there are also concerns about large-scale, presumably unintentional effects from the increasing influence and use of Wikipedia as a research tool at all levels. In an article in the Times Higher Education magazine (London), philosopher Martin Cohen describes Wikipedia as having "become a monopoly" with "all the prejudices and ignorance of its creators," which he calls a "youthful cab-drivers" perspective. Cohen concludes that "[t]o control the reference sources that people use is to control the way people comprehend the world. Wikipedia may have a benign, even trivial face, but underneath may lie a more sinister and subtle threat to freedom of thought." That freedom is undermined by what he sees as what matters on Wikipedia, "not your sources but the 'support of the community."
Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis developed a statistical model to measure systematic bias in the behavior of Wikipedia's users regarding controversial topics. The authors focused on behavioral changes of the encyclopedia's administrators after assuming the post, writing that systematic bias occurred after the fact.
Critics also point to the tendency to cover topics in detail disproportionate to their importance. For example, Stephen Colbert once mockingly praised Wikipedia for having a longer entry on 'lightsabers' than it does on the 'printing press'. Dale Hoiberg, the editor-in-chief of Encyclopædia Britannica, said "People write of things they're interested in, and so many subjects don't get covered, and news events get covered in great detail. In the past, the entry on Hurricane Frances was more than five times the length of that on Chinese art, and the entry on Coronation Street was twice as long as the article on Tony Blair."
This approach of comparing two articles, one about a traditionally encyclopedic subject and the other about one more popular with the crowd, has been called "wikigroaning". A defense of inclusion criteria is that the encyclopedia's longer coverage of pop culture does not deprive the more "worthy" or serious subjects of space.
Notability of article topics
Wikipedia's notability guidelines, which are used by editors to determine if a subject merits its own article, and the application thereof, are the subject of much criticism. In May 2018, a Wikipedia editor rejected a draft article about Donna Strickland before she won the Nobel Prize in Physics in November of the same year, because no independent sources were given to show that Strickland was sufficiently notable by Wikipedia's standards. Journalists highlighted this as an indicator of the limited visibility of women in science compared to their male colleagues.
The gender bias on Wikipedia is well documented and has prompted a movement to increase the number of notable women on Wikipedia through the Women in Red WikiProject. In an article entitled "Seeking Disambiguation", Annalisa Merelli interviewed Catalina Cruz, a candidate for office in Queens, New York in the 2018 election who had the notorious SEO disadvantage of having the same name as a porn star with a Wikipedia page. Merelli also interviewed the Wikipedia editor who wrote the candidate's ill-fated article (which was deleted, then restored, after she won the election). She described the Articles for Deletion process and pointed to other candidates who had pages on the English Wikipedia despite never having held office.
Novelist Nicholson Baker, critical of deletionism, writes: "There are quires, reams, bales of controversy over what constitutes notability in Wikipedia: nobody will ever sort it out."
Journalist Timothy Noah wrote of his treatment: "Wikipedia's notability policy resembles U.S. immigration policy before 9/11: stringent rules, spotty enforcement". In the same article, Noah mentions that the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Stacy Schiff was not considered notable enough for a Wikipedia entry until she wrote her article "Know it All" about the Wikipedia Essjay controversy.
On a more generic level, a 2014 study found no correlation between the characteristics of a given Wikipedia page about an academic and the academic's notability as determined by citation counts. The metrics of each Wikipedia page examined included length, number of links to the page from other articles, and number of edits made to the page. This study also found that Wikipedia did not cover notable ISI highly cited researchers properly.
In 2020, Wikipedia was criticized for the amount of time it took for an article about Theresa Greenfield, a candidate for the 2020 United States Senate election in Iowa, to leave Wikipedia's Articles for Creation process and become published. Particularly, the criteria for notability were criticized, with The Washington Post reporting: "Greenfield is a uniquely tricky case for Wikipedia because she doesn't have the background that most candidates for major political office typically have (like prior government experience or prominence in business). Even if Wikipedia editors could recognize she was prominent, she had a hard time meeting the official criteria for notability." Jimmy Wales also criticized the long process on his talk page.
Partisanship
According to Haaretz, "Wikipedia has succeeded in being accused of being both too liberal and too conservative, and has critics from across the spectrum.", while also noting that Wikipedia is "usually accused of being too liberal". According to CNN, Wikipedia's ideological bias "may match the ideological bias of the news ecosystem."
U.S. commentators, mostly politically conservative ones, have suggested that a politically liberal viewpoint is predominant in the English Wikipedia. Andrew Schlafly created Conservapedia because of his perception that Wikipedia contained a liberal bias. Conservapedia's editors have compiled a list of alleged examples of liberal bias in Wikipedia. In 2007, an article in The Christian Post criticised Wikipedia's coverage of intelligent design, saying it was biased and hypocritical. Lawrence Solomon of National Review considered the Wikipedia articles on subjects like global warming, intelligent design, and Roe v. Wade all to be slanted in favor of liberal views. In a September 2010 issue of the conservative weekly Human Events, Rowan Scarborough presented a critique of Wikipedia's coverage of American politicians prominent in the approaching U.S. midterm elections as evidence of systemic liberal bias. Scarborough compares the biographical articles of liberal and conservative opponents in Senate races in the Alaska Republican primary and the Delaware and Nevada general election, emphasizing the quantity of negative coverage of Tea Party movement-endorsed candidates. He also cites criticism by Lawrence Solomon and quotes in full the lead section of Wikipedia's article on Conservapedia as evidence of an underlying bias.
In 2006, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said: "The Wikipedia community is very diverse, from liberal to conservative to libertarian and beyond. If averages mattered, and due to the nature of the wiki software (no voting) they almost certainly don't, I would say that the Wikipedia community is slightly more liberal than the U.S. population on average, because we are global and the international community of English speakers is slightly more liberal than the U.S. population. There are no data or surveys to back that." In 2007, Wales said that claims of liberal bias on Wikipedia "are not supported by the facts". Shane Greenstein and Feng Zhu analyzed 2012 era Wikipedia articles on U.S. politics, going back a decade, and wrote a study arguing the more contributors there were to an article, the less biased the article would be, and that based on a study of frequent collocations fewer articles "leaned Democrat" than was the case in Wikipedia's early years. Sorin Adam Matei, a professor at Purdue University, said that "for certain political topics, there's a central-left bias. There's also a slight when it comes to more political topics, counter-cultural bias. It's not across the board, and it's not for all things."
In February 2021, Fox News accused Wikipedia of whitewashing communism and socialism. In November 2021, the English Wikipedia's entry for "Mass killings under communist regimes" was nominated for deletion, with some editors arguing that it has "a biased 'anti-Communist' point of view", that "it should not resort to 'simplistic presuppositions that events are driven by any specific ideology", and that "by combining different elements of research to create a 'synthesis', this constitutes original research and therefore breaches Wikipedia rules." This was criticized by historian Robert Tombs, who called it "morally indefensible, at least as bad as Holocaust denial, because 'linking ideology and killing' is the very core of why these things are important. I have read the Wikipedia page, and it seems to be careful and balanced. Therefore, attempts to remove it can only be ideologically motivated – to whitewash Communism." Other Wikipedia editors and users on social media opposed the deletion of the article. The article's deletion nomination received considerable attention from conservative media. The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank, called the arguments made in favor of deletion "absurd and ahistorical". On December 1, 2021, a panel of four administrators found that the discussion yielded no consensus, meaning that the status quo was retained, and the article was not deleted. The article's deletion discussion was the largest in Wikipedia's history.
Hindutvas have accused Wikipedia of being anti-Hindu and anti-Indian.
National or corporate bias
In 2008, Tim Anderson, a senior lecturer in political economy at the University of Sydney, said Wikipedia administrators display an American-focused bias in their interactions with editors and their determinations of which sources are appropriate for use on the site. Anderson was outraged after several of the sources he used in his edits to the Hugo Chávez article, including Venezuela Analysis and Z Magazine, were disallowed as "unusable". Anderson also described Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy to ZDNet Australia as "a facade" and that Wikipedia "hides behind a reliance on corporate media editorials".
Racial bias
Wikipedia has been charged with having a systemic racial bias in its coverage, due to an underrepresentation of people of colour as editors. The President of Wikimedia D.C., James Hare, noted that "a lot of black history is left out" of Wikipedia, due to articles predominately being written by white editors. Articles that do exist on African topics are, according to some critics, largely edited by editors from Europe and North America and thus reflect their knowledge and consumption of media, which "tend to perpetuate a negative image" of Africa. Maira Liriano, of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, has argued that the lack of information regarding black history on Wikipedia "makes it seem like it's not important." San Francisco Poet Laureate Alejandro Murguía has stressed how it is important for Latinos to be part of Wikipedia "because it is a major source of where people get their information." In 2010, an analysis of Wikipedia edits revealed that Asia, as the most populous continent, was represented in only 16.67% of edits. Africa (6.35%) and South America (2.58%) were equally underrepresented.
In 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center criticized Wikipedia for being "vulnerable to manipulation by neo-Nazis, white nationalists and racist academics seeking a wider audience for extreme views." According to the SPLC, "[c]ivil POV-pushers can disrupt the editing process by engaging other users in tedious and frustrating debates or tie up administrators in endless rounds of mediation. Users who fall into this category include racialist academics and members of the human biodiversity, or HBD, blogging community. ... In recent years, the proliferation of far-right online spaces, such as white nationalist forums, alt-right boards and HBD blogs, has created a readymade pool of users that can be recruited to edit on Wikipedia en masse. ... The presence of white nationalists and other far-right extremists on Wikipedia is an ongoing problem that is unlikely to go away in the near future given the rightward political shift in countries where the majority of the site's users live." The SPLC cited the article "Race and intelligence" as an example of the alt-right influence on Wikipedia, stating that at that time the article presented a "false balance" between fringe racialist views and the "mainstream perspective in psychology." In 2022 The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on a researcher at Cleveland State University whose "home institution was essentially providing a soapbox for racist pseudoscience." The article states that he had some influence on "public misperceptions of race" as a result of heavy editing of an early version of Wikipedia's article on race and intelligence.
Gender bias and sexism
Wikipedia has a longstanding controversy concerning gender bias and sexism. Gender bias on Wikipedia refers to the finding that between 84 and 91 percent of Wikipedia editors are male, which allegedly leads to systemic bias. Wikipedia has been criticized by some journalists and academics for lacking not only women contributors but also extensive and in-depth encyclopedic attention to many topics regarding gender. Sue Gardner, former executive director of the Foundation, said that increasing diversity was about making the encyclopedia "as good as it could be". Factors cited as possibly discouraging women from editing included the "obsessive fact-loving realm", associations with the "hard-driving hacker crowd", and the necessity to be "open to very difficult, high-conflict people, even misogynists."
In 2011, the Wikimedia Foundation set a goal of increasing the proportion of female contributors to 25 percent by 2015. In August 2013, Gardner conceded defeat: "I didn't solve it. We didn't solve it. The Wikimedia Foundation didn't solve it. The solution won't come from the Wikimedia Foundation." In August 2014, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales acknowledged in a BBC interview the failure of Wikipedia to fix the gender gap and announced the Wikimedia Foundation's plans for "doubling down" on the issue. Wales said the Foundation would be open to more outreach and more software changes.
Writing in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Marie Vitulli states that "mathematicians have had a difficult time when writing biographies of women mathematicians," and she describes the aggressiveness of editors and administrators in deleting such articles.
Criticism was presented on this topic in The Signpost (WP:THREATENING2MEN).
Institutional bias
Wikipedia has been criticized for reflecting the bias and influence of media that are seen as reliable due to their dominance, and for being a site of conflict between entrenched or special institutional interests. Public relations firms and interest lobbies, corporate, political and otherwise, have been accused of working systemically to distort Wikipedia's articles in their respective interests.
Firearms-related articles
Wikipedia has been criticized for issues related to bias in firearms-related articles. According to critics, systematic bias arises from the tendency of the editors most active in maintaining firearms-related articles to also be gun enthusiasts, and firearms-related articles are dominated by technical information while issues of the social impact and regulation of firearms are relegated to separate articles. Communications were facilitated by a "WikiProject," called "WikiProject Firearms", an on-wiki group of editors with a common interest. The alleged pro-gun bias drew increased attention after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018. The Wikimedia Foundation defended itself from allegations of being host to opinion-influencing campaigns of pro-gun groups, saying that the contents are always being updated and improved.
Skeptical bias
In 2014, supporters of holistic healing and energy psychology began a Change.org petition asking for "true scientific discourse" on Wikipedia, complaining that "much of the information [on Wikipedia] related to holistic approaches to healing is biased, misleading, out-of-date, or just plain wrong". In response, Jimmy Wales said Wikipedia covers only works that are published in respectable scientific journals.
Wikipedia has been accused of being biased against views outside of the scientific mainstream due to influence from the skeptical movement. Social scientist Brian Martin examined the influence of skeptics on Wikipedia by looking for parallels between Wikipedia entries and characteristic techniques used by skeptics, finding that the result "does not prove that Skeptics are shaping Wikipedia but is compatible with that possibility."
Sexual content
Wikipedia has been criticized for allowing graphic sexual content such as images and videos of masturbation and ejaculation as well as photos from hardcore pornographic films found on its articles. Child protection campaigners say graphic sexual content appears on many Wikipedia entries, displayed without any warning or age verification.
The Wikipedia article Virgin Killer—a 1976 album from German heavy metal band Scorpions—features a picture of the album's original cover, which depicts a naked prepubescent girl. In December 2008, the Internet Watch Foundation, a nonprofit, nongovernment-affiliated organization, added the article to its blacklist, criticizing the inclusion of the picture as "distasteful". As a result, access to the article was blocked for four days by most Internet service providers in the United Kingdom. Seth Finkelstein writing for The Guardian argues that the debate over the album cover masks a structural lack of accountability on Wikipedia, in particular when it comes to sexual content. For example, the deletion by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales of images of lolicon versions of the character Wikipe-tan created a minor controversy on the topic. The deletion was taken as endorsement of the non-lolicon images of Wikipe-tan, which Wales later had to explicitly deny: "I don't like Wikipe-tan and never have." Finkelstein sees Wikipedia as composed of fiefdoms, which makes it difficult for the Wikipedia community to deal with such issues, and sometimes necessitates top-down intervention. The prevalence of displayed unexpected pornographic content when porn-unrelated search terms are entered on the connected site Wikimedia Commons is also a subject of criticism.
Exposure to vandals
As an online encyclopedia that almost anyone can edit, Wikipedia has had problems with vandalism of articles, which range from blanking articles to inserting profanities, hoaxes, or nonsense. Wikipedia has a range of tools available to users and administrators in order to fight against vandalism, including blocking and banning vandals and automated bots that detect and repair vandalism. Supporters of the project argue that the vast majority of vandalism on Wikipedia is reverted within a short time, and a study by Fernanda Viégas of the MIT Media Lab and Martin Wattenberg and Kushal Dave of IBM Research found that most vandal edits were reverted within around five minutes; however, they state that "it is essentially impossible to find a crisp definition of vandalism." While most instances of page blanking or the addition of offensive material are soon reverted, less obvious vandalism, or vandalism to a little-viewed article, has remained for longer periods.
A 2007 conference paper estimated that 1 in 271 articles had some "damaged" content. Most of the damage involved nonsense; 20% involved actual misinformation. It reported that 42% of damage gets repaired before any reader clicked on the article, and 80% before 30 people did so.
Privacy concerns
Most privacy concerns refer to cases of government or employer data gathering, computer or electronic monitoring; or trading data between organizations. According to James Donnelly and Jenifer Haeckel, "the Internet has created conflicts between personal privacy, commercial interests and the interests of society at large". Balancing the rights of all concerned as technology alters the social landscape will not be easy. It "is not yet possible to anticipate the path of the common law or governmental regulation" regarding this problem.
The concern in the case of Wikipedia is the right of a private citizen to remain private; to remain a "private citizen" rather than a "public figure" in the eyes of the law. It is somewhat of a battle between the right to be anonymous in cyberspace and the right to be anonymous in real life ("meatspace"). A particular problem occurs in the case of an individual who is relatively unimportant and for whom there exists a Wikipedia page against their wishes.
In 2005, Agence France-Presse quoted Daniel Brandt, the Wikipedia Watch owner, as saying that "the basic problem is that no one, neither the trustees of Wikimedia Foundation, nor the volunteers who are connected with Wikipedia, consider themselves responsible for the content."
In January 2006, a German court ordered the German Wikipedia shut down within Germany because it stated the full name of Boris Floricic, aka "Tron", a deceased hacker who was formerly with the Chaos Computer Club. More specifically, the court ordered that the URL within the German domain () may no longer redirect to the encyclopedia's servers in Florida at although German readers were still able to use the US-based URL directly, and there was virtually no loss of access on their part. The court order arose out of a lawsuit filed by Floricic's parents, demanding that their son's surname be removed from Wikipedia. The next month on February 9, 2006, the injunction against Wikimedia Deutschland was overturned, with the court rejecting the notion that Tron's right to privacy or that of his parents was being violated.
Criticism of the community
Role of Jimmy Wales
The community of Wikipedia editors has been criticized for placing an irrational emphasis on Jimmy Wales as a person. Wales's role in personally determining the content of some articles has also been criticized as contrary to the independent spirit that Wikipedia supposedly has gained. In early 2007, Wales dismissed the criticism of the Wikipedia model: "I am unaware of any problems with the quality of discourse on the site. I don't know of any higher-quality discourse anywhere."
Conflict of interest cases
A Business Insider article wrote about a controversy in September 2012 where two Wikimedia Foundation employees were found to have been "running a PR business on the side and editing Wikipedia on behalf of their clients."
Unfair treatment of women
In 2015, The Atlantic published a story by Emma Paling about a contributor who was able to obtain no relief from the Arbitration Committee for off-site harassment. Paling quotes a then-sitting Arbitrator speaking about bias against women on the Arbitration Committee.
In the online magazine Slate, David Auerbach criticized the Arbitration Committee's decision to block a woman indefinitely without simultaneously blocking her "chief antagonists" in the December 2014 Gender Gap Task Force case. He mentions his own experience with what he calls "the unblockable"abrasive editors who can get away with complaints against them because there are enough supporters, and that he had observed a "general indifference or even hostility to an outside opinion" on the English Wikipedia. Auerbach considers the systematic defense of vulgar language use by insiders as a symptom of the toxicity he describes.
In January 2015, The Guardian reported that the Arbitration Committee had banned five feminist editors from gender-related articles on a case related to the Gamergate controversy while including quotes from a Wikipedia editor alleging unfair treatment. Other commentators, including from Gawker and ThinkProgress, provided additional analysis while sourcing from The Guardians story. Reports in The Washington Post, Slate and Social Text described these articles as "flawed" or factually inaccurate, pointing out that the Arbitration case had not concluded as at the time of publishing; no editor had been banned. After the result was published, Gawker wrote that "ArbCom ruled to punish six editors who could be broadly classified as 'anti-Gamergate' and five who are 'pro-Gamergate'." All of the supposed were among the editors punished, with one of them being the sole editor banned due to this case. An article called "ArbitrationGate" regarding this situation was created (and quickly deleted) on Wikipedia, while The Guardian later issued a correction to their article. The Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation issued press statements that the Gamergate case was in response to the atmosphere of the Gamergate article resembling a "battlefield" due to "various sides of the discussion [having] violated community policies and guidelines on conduct", and that the committee was fulfilling its role to "uphold a civil, constructive atmosphere" on Wikipedia. The committee also wrote that it "does not rule on the content of articles, or make judgements on the personal views of parties to the case". Michael Mandiberg, writing in Social Text, remained unconvinced.
Croatian Wikipedia
On the Croatian Wikipedia, a group of administrators were criticized for blocking Wikipedians who were in favor of LGBT rights. In an interview given to Index.hr, Robert Kurelić, a professor of history at the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, has commented that "the Croatian Wikipedia is only a tool used by its administrators to promote their own political agendas, giving false and distorted facts". As two particularly prominent examples he listed the Croatian Wikipedia's coverage of Istrianism (a regionalist movement in Istria, a region mostly located in Croatia), defined as a "movement fabricated to reduce the number of Croats", and antifašizam (anti-fascism), which according to him is defined as the opposite of what it really means. Kurelić further advised "that it would be good if a larger number of people got engaged and started writing on Wikipedia", because "administrators want to exploit high-school and university students, the most common users of Wikipedia, to change their opinions and attitudes, which presents a serious issue".
In 2013, Croatia's Minister of Science, Education and Sports at the time, Željko Jovanović, called for pupils and students in Croatia to avoid using the Croatian Wikipedia. In an interview given to Novi list, Jovanović said that Jovanović has also commented on the Croatian Wikipedia editors – calling them a "minority group that has usurped the right to edit the Croatian-language Wikipedia".
Lack of verifiable identities
Scandals involving administrators and arbitrators
David Boothroyd, a Wikipedia editor and a Labour Party (United Kingdom) member, created controversy in 2009, when Wikipedia Review contributor "Tarantino" discovered that he committed sockpuppeting, editing under the accounts "Dbiv", "Fys", and "Sam Blacketer", none of which acknowledged his real identity. After earning Administrator status with one account, then losing it for inappropriate use of the administrative tools, Boothroyd regained Administrator status with the Sam Blacketer sockpuppet account in April 2007. Later in 2007, Boothroyd's Sam Blacketer account became part of the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee. Under the Sam Blacketer account, Boothroyd edited many articles related to United Kingdom politics, including that of rival Conservative Party leader David Cameron. Boothroyd then resigned as an administrator and as an arbitrator.
Essjay controversy
In July 2006, The New Yorker ran a feature by Stacy Schiff about "a highly credentialed Wikipedia editor". The initial version of the article included an interview with a Wikipedia administrator using the pseudonym Essjay, who described himself as a tenured professor of theology. Essjay's Wikipedia user page, now removed, said the following:
Essjay also said he held four academic degrees: Bachelor of Arts in religious studies (B.A.), Master of Arts in religion (M.A.R.), Doctorate of Philosophy in theology (Ph.D.), and Doctorate in Canon Law (JCD). Essjay specialized in editing articles about religion on Wikipedia, including subjects such as "the penitential rite, transubstantiation, the papal tiara"; on one occasion he was called in to give some "expert testimony" on the status of Mary in the Roman Catholic Church. In January 2007, Essjay was hired as a manager with Wikia, a wiki-hosting service founded by Wales and Angela Beesley. In February, Wales appointed Essjay a member of the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee, a group with powers to issue binding rulings in disputes relating to Wikipedia.
In late February 2007, The New Yorker added an editorial note to its article on Wikipedia stating that it had learned that Essjay was Ryan Jordan, a 24-year-old college dropout from Kentucky with no advanced degrees and no teaching experience. Initially Jimmy Wales commented on the issue of Essjay's identity: "I regard it as a pseudonym and I don't really have a problem with it." Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, responded to Wales on his Citizendium blog by calling Wales' initial reaction "utterly breathtaking, and ultimately tragic". Sanger said the controversy "reflects directly on the judgment and values of the management of Wikipedia."
Wales later issued a new statement saying he had not previously understood that "EssJay used his false credentials in content disputes." He added: "I have asked EssJay to resign his positions of trust within the Wikipedia community." Sanger responded the next day: "It seems Jimmy finds nothing wrong, nothing trust-violating, with the act itself of openly and falsely touting many advanced degrees on Wikipedia. But there most obviously is something wrong with it, and it's just as disturbing for Wikipedia's head to fail to see anything wrong with it."
On March 4, Essjay wrote on his user page that he was leaving Wikipedia, and he also resigned his position with Wikia. A subsequent article in The Courier-Journal (Louisville) suggested that the new résumé he had posted at his Wikia page was exaggerated. The March 19, 2007, issue of The New Yorker published a formal apology by Wales to the magazine and Stacy Schiff for Essjay's false statements.
Discussing the incident, the New York Times noted that the Wikipedia community had responded to the affair with "the fury of the crowd", and observed:
The Essjay incident received extensive media coverage, including a national United States television broadcast on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson and the March 7, 2007, Associated Press story. The controversy has led to a proposal that users who say they possess academic qualifications should have to provide evidence before citing them in Wikipedia content disputes. The proposal was not accepted.
Anonymity
Wikipedia has been criticised for allowing editors to contribute anonymously (without a registered account and using an auto-generated IP-labeled account) or pseudonymously (using a registered account), with critics saying that this leads to a lack of accountability. This also sometimes leads to uncivil conduct in debates between Wikipedians. For privacy reasons, Wikipedia forbids editors to reveal information about another editor on Wikipedia.
Criticism of process
Level of debate, edit wars, and harassment
The standard of debate on Wikipedia has been called into question by people who have noted that contributors can make a long list of salient points and pull in a wide range of empirical observations to back up their arguments, only to have them ignored completely on the site. An academic study of Wikipedia articles found that the level of debate among Wikipedia editors on controversial topics often degenerated into counterproductive squabbling:
In 2008, a team from the Palo Alto Research Center found that for editors who make between two and nine edits a month, the percentage of their edits being reverted had gone from 5% in 2004 to about 15%, and people who make only one edit a month were being reverted at a 25% rate. According to The Economist magazine (2008), "The behaviour of Wikipedia's self-appointed deletionist guardians, who excise anything that does not meet their standards, justifying their actions with a blizzard of acronyms, is now known as 'wiki-lawyering'." In regards to the decline in the number of Wikipedia editors since the 2007 policy changes, another study stated this was partly down to the way "in which newcomers are rudely greeted by automated quality control systems and are overwhelmed by the complexity of the rule system."
Another complaint about Wikipedia focuses on the efforts of contributors with idiosyncratic beliefs, who push their point of view in an effort to dominate articles, especially controversial ones. This sometimes results in revert wars and pages being locked down. In response, an Arbitration Committee has been formed on the English Wikipedia that deals with the worst alleged offenders—though a conflict resolution strategy is actively encouraged before going to this extent. Also, to stop the continuous reverting of pages, Jimmy Wales introduced a "three-revert rule", whereby those users who reverse the effect of others' contributions to one article more than three times in a 24-hour period may be blocked.
In a 2008 article in The Brooklyn Rail, Wikipedia contributor David Shankbone contended that he had been harassed and stalked because of his work on Wikipedia, had received no support from the authorities or the Wikimedia Foundation, and only mixed support from the Wikipedia community. Shankbone wrote, "If you become a target on Wikipedia, do not expect a supportive community."
David Auerbach, writing in Slate magazine, said:
Wikipedia has also been criticized for its weak enforcement against perceived toxicities among the editing community at various times. In one case, a longtime editor was nearly driven to suicide following online abuse from editors and a ban from the site before being rescued from the suicide attempt.
In order to address this problem the Wikimedia Foundation planned to institute a new rule of conduct aimed at combating 'toxic behavior'. The development of the new rule of conduct would take place in two phases. The first will include setting policies for in-person and virtual events as well as policies for technical spaces including chat rooms and other Wikimedia projects. A second phase outlining enforcement when the rules are broken is planned to be approved by the end of 2020, according to the Wikimedia board's plan.
Consensus and the "hive mind"
Oliver Kamm, in an article for The Times, said Wikipedia's reliance on consensus in forming its content was dubious:
Wikimedia advisor Benjamin Mako Hill also talked about Wikipedia's disproportional representation of viewpoints, saying:
Wikimedia trustee Dariusz Jemielniak says:
In his article, "Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism" (first published online by Edge: The Third Culture, May 30, 2006), computer scientist and digital theorist Jaron Lanier describes Wikipedia as a "hive mind" that is "for the most part stupid and boring", and asks, rhetorically, "why to pay attention to it?" His thesis says:
Lanier also says the current economic trend is to reward entities that aggregate information, rather than those that actually generate content. In the absence of "new business models", the popular demand for content will be sated by mediocrity, thus reducing or even eliminating any monetary incentives for the production of new knowledge.
Lanier's opinions produced some strong disagreement. Internet consultant Clay Shirky noted that Wikipedia has many internal controls in place and is not a mere mass of unintelligent collective effort:
Excessive rule-making
Various figures involved with the Wikimedia Foundation have argued that Wikipedia's increasingly complex policies and guidelines are driving away new contributors to the site. Former chair Kat Walsh was quoted in a 2009 article as criticizing the project, saying, "It was easier when I joined in 2004... Everything was a little less complicated... It's harder and harder for new people to adjust." Wikipedia administrator Oliver Moran views "policy creep" as the major barrier, writing that "the loose collective running the site today, estimated to be 90 percent male, operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase participation in Wikipedia and broaden its coverage". According to Jemielniak, the sheer complexity of the rules and laws governing content and editor behavior has become excessive and creates a learning burden for new editors. In 2014 Jemielniak suggested actively rewriting, and abridging, the rules and laws to decrease their complexity and size.
Social stratification
Despite the perception that the Wikipedia process is democratic, "a small number of people are running the show", including administrators, bureaucrats, stewards, checkusers, mediators, arbitrators, and oversighters. In an article on Wikipedia conflicts in 2007, The Guardian discussed "a backlash among some editors, who argue that blocking users compromises the supposedly open nature of the project, and the imbalance of power between users and administrators may even be a reason some users choose to vandalise in the first place" based on the experiences of one editor who became a vandal after his edits were reverted and he was blocked for edit warring.
See also
References
Further reading
Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur. Doubleday/Currency, 2007. (substantial criticisms of Wikipedia and another web 2.0 projects).
Rafaeli, Sheizaf & Ariel, Yaron (2008). "Online motivational factors: Incentives for participation and contribution in Wikipedia." In A. Barak (ed.), Psychological aspects of cyberspace: Theory, research, applications (pp.243–267). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
External links
A Compendium of Wikipedia Criticism – Wikipediocracy
The Geographically Uneven Coverage of Wikipedia – Oxford Internet Institute – University of Oxford
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Doncaster Tramway
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Doncaster Corporation Tramways was an electric tramway network serving the town of Doncaster, England. It was authorised in 1899, and the first route to Bentley opened in 1902. This remained separated from the rest of the system until North Bridge was built to carry traffic over the Great Northern Railway main line to Edinburgh. Soon afterwards, deep mining of coal began in the area, and several extensions to the system were made between 1913 and 1916 to serve new communities which developed around the pit heads. The Racecourse route was unusual, in that it had balloon loops at both ends to enable almost continuous running on race days, a feature that was not common in England, and only found favour in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s.
From 1913 to 1919, the tramways were reasonably profitable, but suffered from lack of maintenance during World War I, and the poor construction methods used to lay the track. The system had been financed by loans repayable over 40 years, and with the track needing replacement after half of that period, it was uneconomic to carry out the work. The Corporation decided to replace the system with motor buses in 1922, but in 1926 concluded that trolleybuses would be more economical. The first route of the Doncaster trolleybus system was again that to Bentley, opened in 1928, and by 1931, all of the authorised routes had been converted. The tramway to Brodsworth continued in use until 1935, when it was replaced by motor buses. Trolleybuses ran for somewhat longer than the trams had, with the system finally closing in 1963.
The service was provided by a total of 47 tramcars, all but one of them being double-deck vehicles running on 4-wheel chassis. Most were supplied by the Electric Railway and Tramway Carriage Works of Preston, or their successor, the United Electric Car Company. One single-deck vehicle was purchased second-hand in 1917 in an attempt to reduce costs on the unprofitable Avenue Road route, but local crews would not allow one-man operation, and it saw little use. The cars were stabled in two depots on Greyfriars Road. The main depot was built for the opening of the system, and the second in 1920 to house cars bought for an extension to Rossington which did not go ahead.
History
Public transport in Doncaster began in 1887, when an undertaker called J G Steadman started running horse buses in the town. Two years later, the grocers Hodgson & Hepworth also started running buses, to be joined by J Stoppani soon afterwards. Between them, the buses served Avenue Road, Balby, Bentley, Hexthorpe, Hyde Park and the Racecourse. There had been proposals for a horse tramway in 1878, and another for a tramway to Balby in 1895, but neither scheme had progressed past the planning stage. However, in 1898 a more serious contender appeared, when British Electric Traction proposed tramways serving Avenue Road, Balby, Bentley and Hexthorpe, and began applying for permission to build them.
Doncaster Corporation at the time were planning to build a power station to supply a municipal lighting scheme, and an electric tramway would make that more economic, using electricity all day, rather than only when it was dark. They were keen to operate their own services, and so proposed an alternative. British Electric Traction then withdrew their scheme, but offered to run the Corporation's system for them, an offer which was declined. They were probably the first Council to apply for powers for a tramway using the provisions of the Light Railways Act 1896, rather than the Tramways Act 1870. A hearing took place in Doncaster in February 1899, at which the Great Northern Railway objected to a level crossing with their line from London to Edinburgh. This was upheld, and the route to Bentley was to be detached from the rest of the system until a bridge could be built. The proposed budget for the scheme was £70,000. The works were authorised by the Doncaster Corporation Light Railways Order 1899, and after a fact-finding visit to Kingston upon Hull, they decided to use Hull's rather quirky system of centre-grooved rail, becoming the only other tramway in the country to do so. Joints in the track were cut diagonally, to make for a smoother ride over the joint.
Construction of the standard gauge network began in 1901, and in order to cut costs, the foundations were not made as substantial as they should have been, resulting in ongoing problems with the track for years afterwards. The Council borrowed money to fund the scheme, with the loans to be paid back over forty years, which was a longer period than the life expectancy of the track. The rails were bought from Belgium, while the points were provided by Hadfields of Sheffield. The first parts of the town to benefit from the tramway were in the south west, with a route from Station Road along St Sepulchre Gate to Balby High Street, and a branch from Hexthorpe Road to reach Old Hexthorpe, which opened on 2 June 1902. Later that month, the tramway from St Sepulchre Gate along Hall Gate, South Parade and Bennetthorpe Road to the Racecourse opened on 30 June. A short branch from St Sepulchre Gate to Jarrett Street followed on 1 August, and this was extended in October to Childers Street in the Hyde Park area. The tracks along Bentley Road to Bentley High Street opened on 27 October, but that part of the system remained isolated because of the lack of a crossing over the railway. Next to open was the tramway along Nether Hall Road to Avenue Road on 15 January 1903, and a short branch from this line along Beckett Road on 17 August. Another short branch from St Sepulchre Gate to Oxford Street opened on 25 November 1903, but was not profitable, and closed after two years.
Several additional Light Railway Orders were required to authorise extensions and deviations to the original plans. These were obtained in 1902, 1903, 1911 and 1914. These did not include the connection of the Bentley route to the rest of the system, which was authorised as part of the powers obtained in 1908 to build North Bridge. This period saw the development of deep coal mining in the area, and the extensions were to serve new communities that grew up around the pit heads. The 1911 Order saw extensions from Bentley to New Bentley, which opened on 20 March 1913, and from Balby to Warmsworth, which followed on 4 February 1915. The 1914 Order authorised a line to Brodsworth, another mining village, which opened on 21 February 1916. Rather than run along the roads, the Brodsworth route was built on a reserved formation alongside the Great North Road, past Scawthorpe and Woodlands.
The plans for the tramway had envisaged single track with passing places, but it was realised that this would be inadequate particularly for the Racecourse route, which saw tens of thousands of people needing transport to and from the races. The Board of Trade was able to authorise doubling of the track without recourse to Parliament. The 1902 Order had also allowed a siding to be built beside the stands, and although most of the route was double track, the section at the bottom end of High Street was not, as it was too narrow. The vast crowds of St Leger Day in 1902 showed that getting trams to the Station Road terminus under these conditions was almost impossible, and the 1903 Order sought to address this issue. The Racecourse siding became a balloon loop, and another loop was constructed at the town end, enabling cars to pass through the High Street section in one direction only and return to the Racecourse via another single track along Printing Office Street and Priory Place. Few other loop terminals were constructed in England, and they only came into general use in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s.
The disadvantage of using an unusual type of rail surfaced when the North Bridge was being built, as steel manufacturers were not interested in producing such a small quantity of rail, and the 225 tons required were bought from Hull. The bridge was due to be opened on 12 May 1910, but the death of King Edward VII six days earlier meant that the opening ceremony was cancelled, and it opened without formal celebration. The Brodsworth route was debated in 1911–12, and there were moves to use trolleybuses rather than trams. The Tramways Committee visited the newly-opened trolleybus systems in Bradford and Leeds to see them in operation. They were sufficiently impressed, that when the Council reconsidered the route, there were eleven votes for trams and seven for trolleybuses. A proposal to use motor buses was defeated by a larger margin.
Demise
In the early 1920s, there was increasing competition from private motor buses, and the Corporation decided to close down the tramways. They obtained powers to run their own motor buses in 1922, and purchased their first six vehicles from the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company. The trams on the Avenue Road route were replaced by motor buses on 1 May 1925, and the service was extended to Wheatley Hills at the same time. However, the Corporation took the decision in 1926 to replace the trams with trolleybuses, and obtained powers to convert their lines to this new form of traction. The Brodsworth route was excluded from this, but the Wheatley Hills route was included, even though the trams had already been replaced. The powers were enshrined in the Doncaster Corporation Act 1926, and Clough, Smith & Co. were contracted to modify the overhead wiring. Driver training for the trolleybuses took place in spring 1928 on the Racecourse route. As the conversion of the wiring was not complete, they ran for part of the way with one trolley boom running on the tramway wire and the other connected to a skate that ran on the tram tracks to complete the electrical circuit.
The first route where the conversion was completed was that to Bentley, where the trams ceased to run on 21 August 1928. Next to go was the Hexthorpe route on 30 June 1929 and the Beckett Road route on 30 July 1929. On 15 January 1930, the Racecourse and Hyde Park services terminated, and in March 1931, trolleybuses replaced motor buses on the route to Wheatley Hills. Balby and Warmsworth services were withdrawn on 25 July 1931, leaving just the trams on the Brodsworth service. These continued to run until 1935, but during April, cars 40 and 47 caught fire, with No.40 being partially destroyed. The final trams ran on 8 June, but it seems likely that the service was provided by both trams and motor buses from 23 March, since when the final eight trams were sold for scrap, only four of them were in working order.
Finance
The initial construction was financed by loans, to be paid back over 40 years. The Oxford Street route was not profitable, and for the 27-day period beginning 7 December 1903, just £15 was raised by carrying 3,633 passengers. By contrast, the Balby route carried over 46,000 passengers in the same period, yielding £187. The results of the extension of the Bentley route to New Bentley were dramatic, with revenue rising from £3,700 in 1911 to £67,160 in 1913. Prior to 1913, there had only been two years where the accounts had shown a small surplus, but from 1913 to 1919 the enterprise was profitable. 1919 was the most profitable year, but there were underlying problems. Levels of traffic had risen because of the war, but costs had risen at a faster rate. Fares had been fixed by the enabling legislation, as prices were stable at the time, and there was no concept of coping with inflation. Parliament made partial provision for this with the passing of the Tramways (Increase of Charges) Act 1920, but individual tramways still had to apply to adjust their fares. Doncaster made an application in 1920 and was successful.
The Bentley line closed largely due to economic pressures. There had been complaints about the track since 1912, due to its poor construction. In 1922, West Yorkshire County Council announced that it intended to relay the road at a higher level, and this would have involved moving the tracks. Doncaster were faced with the problem that this was uneconomic, as the original loans would not be repaid for a further 20 years, and traffic receipts would not cover the finance costs of the original loans and of new ones required to the replace the worn-out track. The Bentley route was one of the most profitable, but if it was uneconomic to reconstruct it, then it would not be so for any of the other routes either. Trolleybuses initially solved this conundrum, since they did not require the track to be reconstructed, and revenue on the Bentley route increased by 50 per cent when they were introduced, while for the rest of the system it was around 38 per cent.
Tram depots
When the system was proposed, there were plans to build three depots. One was to be on Greyfriars Road, with a second using part of the Wool Market. However, this latter location was abandoned, and no work took place. The Greyfriars Road depot was located at , near to the power station and the east end of North Bridge. Because trams could not cross the Great Northern Railway on the level, a temporary stabling place was provided for four trams in an old barn at Marshgate, to the west of the railway. This was not in a good state of repair, and blew down in late 1904 or early 1905, to be replaced by a new shed which could hold three cars.
When an extension from the Racecourse to Rossington was planned in 1919, ten new trams were ordered, and since the existing depot would not be large enough, an annexe was planned. Although the Rossington link did not go ahead, the order for the trams could not be cancelled, and so they and the annexe arrived in 1920. This was also known as the Car Repairing Shed, and was located on the north side of Greyfriars Road, next to Frenchgate at . The main depot had seven running roads with a paintshop at the eastern end, while the smaller annexe had three running roads.
Fleet
For the opening of the system, 15 trams were acquired from the Electric Railway and Tramway Carriage Works of Preston, which were mounted on Brill 4-wheeled trucks. Doncaster had originally planned to order single-deck cars, but opted instead for a standard design. The staircases were reversed, running from the inner end of the front or rear platform and curving around the outside edge of the vehicle. This was followed by two batches of five cars each in 1903, giving a total of 25 cars to work the service. Cars 5 to 16 and 22 to 25 were fitted with top covers in four batches between 1907 and 1913. Most of the top covers were built by Dick, Kerr, but the third batch was supplied by Brush. When the top covers were fitted, the stairs were replaced by direct ones. Dick, Kerr had supplied the controllers for all of these vehicles, but they were later replaced by equipment from British Thomson-Houston. At least two of these trams had their trucks lengthened to between 1913 and 1915. Two more were fitted with new Peckham P22 trucks in 1922, with a wheelbase of .
The Electric Railway and Tramway Carriage Works changed their name to the United Electric Car Company in 1908, and a batch of seven vehicles were purchased from them in 1913, six fitted with Peckham P22 trucks, and the final one, No.32, running on a
Warner Patent radial truck. This design of truck did not perform well, and it was replaced by an Peckham P35 truck in 1925. Another batch of four similar cars with Peckham P22 trucks were delivered in 1915–16, although the records are somewhat ambiguous about the year in which they actually arrived. All of these vehicles had top covers but open balconies at the outside ends.
The next car was obtained second-hand from Erith Urban District Council Tramways in 1917. It was a single-deck vehicle, and was designed to be one-man operated. It was intended for use on the unprofitable Avenue Road route, as a way of cutting costs, but local crews insisted that a 2-man crew was needed, and so it was little used. Some sources suggest it was withdrawn in 1918, but new advertisements were fitted in 1921, and it was relicensed in 1922, so this date is unlikely. It was scrapped in October 1925.
The final batch of ten cars were ordered from English Electric for an extension to Rossington, and the order could not be cancelled when the extension plan was abandoned. They ran on Peckham P22 trucks. Besides the passenger vehicles, two works vehicles were also owned by the Corporation. The first was a water car and sweeper, bought in 1902, and equipped with two large water tanks to wet and sweep the dusty roads of the time. The brushes were powered by an additional electric motor. In winter it was used to sweep snow from the tracks, and was fitted with Jarrards rail scrapers, which removed debris from the grooves in the rails. There was also a former horse tram, which was built in 1903 and bought from York around 1912 for use as a trailer for sand and salt.
Future
In January 2013 it was announced that a proposed trial of Tram-train's linking Rotherham's Parkgate with Sheffield could lead to a similar scheme being rolled out in Doncaster. The extension of the Sheffield Supertram network to Rotherham using tram-trains was officially a Department of Transport experiment to prove the concept. The scheme was subject to delays and cost overruns, with the opening date pushed back from December 2015 to December 2018, and the cost rising from £15 million to £75 million. Despite the fact that the new vehicles could operate from an overhead supply at either 750V DC or 25kV AC, the decision was taken to electrify the National Rail section at 750V DC. There were significant interference issues, which led in part to the cost overrun. In 2019 a Sheffield City Region document outlined plans for an integrated rail network, including the extension of the Rotherham tram-train link to Doncaster and onwards to the Lakeside shopping complex, the Doncaster Sheffield Airport and Bawtry. The timeline that formed part of the report suggested that the section to Doncaster could be completed by 2028.
Bibliography
References
External links
Doncaster Corporation Tramways at the British Tramway Company Badges and Buttons website.
Tramway
Tram transport in England
Rail transport in Doncaster
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal%20Gear%20Solid%3A%20Portable%20Ops
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Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
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Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, officially abbreviated MPO, is a 2006 action-adventure stealth video game developed by Kojima Productions and published by Konami for the PlayStation Portable. The game was directed by Masahiro Yamamoto and written by Gakuto Mikumo, with series creator Hideo Kojima acting as producer.
While not the first Metal Gear game for the PSP, unlike the previously released Metal Gear Acid and its sequel, as well as the Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel, it retains the action-based play mechanics from the mainline series. Set in 1970, six years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the game follows the exploits of Naked Snake after he finds himself captured in Colombia by the now renegade FOX unit.
Gameplay
Portable Ops draws heavily from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, utilizing the camera system from the Subsistence edition of the game. The main addition to MPO is the Comrade System. Instead of the solo missions of previous MGS games, MPO goes for a squad-based approach, with Snake having to recruit allies and form a team of trained specialists. Before each mission, the player must compose a four-man squad. The squad is then sent into battle. Each member of Snake's squad has their own strengths and weaknesses. While some units are best utilized on the battlefield, others may specialize in producing items, healing allies, or providing intel for each of the game's maps.
During missions, the player controls only one squad member at a time. Squad members not in use will hide themselves inside a cardboard box, and can be swapped into play when the player-controlled character finds a hiding spot, where he or she will hide in a cardboard box.
A variety of methods can be employed to expand one's squad. If an enemy character is tranquilized or stunned, they can be dragged to a waiting vehicle and captured. After a few in-game days, the captured soldier will become a member of Snake's team. The player can also drag enemy characters to any ally waiting in a cardboard box, where, through the use of a transceiver frequency, or by giving the cardboard box a "nudge", the ally will transport the enemy for the player, saving stamina. Alternatively, by accessing the PSP in certain hotspots using the system's Wi-Fi feature, soldiers and even special bonus characters can be recruited. The PSP GPS Receiver can also be used to similar effect. Since the player's team consists primarily of former enemy soldiers and personnel, generic characters can walk among their own kind undetected as long as the player avoids suspicious actions such as pointing a gun or being spotted by an enemy of another type. Characters that can be recruited by the player include Soviet soldiers, FOX unit members, high-ranking officers, scientists, engineers and government officials. In addition to the standard male characters, the player can recruit and control women scientists and officers as well. The player can also recruit the GRU, KGB and Ocelot unit soldiers from MGS3, but these are only attainable by AP Scan.
Characters who are killed in combat are eliminated from the player's squad permanently. "Unique characters" (i.e. characters important to the game's story, who can only be added into the player's squad by fulfilling certain tasks) are exempt from this rule. If a unique character is wounded in combat, they are sent to an infirmary to recover, making them unusable for a few in-game days. The player can also restart or abort a mission at any moment.
Another new feature is the surround indicator added to the game's HUD. Similar to the radar in previous titles, the surround indicator allows players to determine the relative proximity of enemy soldiers by the noises they make. The surround indicator is composed of two circles; the outer circle displays the noises made by enemies and inner circle displays noises made by the player's character.
The game contains a Wi-Fi-enabled multiplayer mode, which is an expansion of the "Metal Gear Online" mode previously featured in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. The player's performance in the Online Mode may affect their performance in the single player campaign; the player can recruit and trade soldiers from beaten opponents, or vice versa. Additionally, certain multiplayer options result in recruits being removed from the one's single player roster permanently.
In contrast to the console games in the series, the cutscenes that drive the story are not rendered using the usual real time engine. Instead, they are presented using an animated comic style consisting of hand-drawn artwork by artist Ashley Wood. This style was previously utilized in Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel. The game also features voice acting, consisting of returning cast members from Snake Eater and new actors. However, mission briefings and CODEC calls are text only.
Plot
Setting
Portable Ops takes place in 1970, six years after Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. It follows the soldier Naked Snake (David Hayter/Akio Ōtsuka) who is forced to fight off his former unit, FOX, after they instigate a revolt in a South American base. In his fight he meets Roy Campbell (David Agranov/Toshio Furukawa), a surviving member of the Green Berets team that was sent to investigate the affair. Snake's former teammates including his commanding officer Major Zero (Jim Piddock/Banjō Ginga), Para-Medic (Heather Halley/Houko Kuwashima) and Sigint (James C. Mathis III/Keiji Fujiwara) return as the support crew as they are suspected for treason alongside Snake.
The main antagonist is Gene (Steven Blum/Norio Wakamoto), the current commander of the FOX unit who seeks to establish his own military nation. He is a product of the Successor Project that aimed to artificially create the perfect commander, patterned after The Boss. He is assisted by Lt. Cunningham (Noah Nelson/Daisuke Gōri), an expert in interrogation techniques. (who is later revealed to be a double agent of the Pentagon sent to tarnish the CIA's reputation) Gene also has a protégé named Elisa (Tara Strong/Saori Goto) who is gifted with extraordinary psychic abilities, implied to be the result of exposure to nuclear fallout during the Kyshtym disaster. Elisa has dissociative identity disorder and has developed a second personality called "Ursula", whose psychic abilities are stronger than her "Elisa" personality. As "Ursula", she works as a member of FOX, while her "Elisa" personality is a medic who takes care of Null and an informant for Snake. Snake meets Elisa, who initially tells Snake that she and Ursula are twin sisters, only to later learn the truth. Two FOX members previously associated with Snake include Null (Larc Spies/Jun Fukuyama), a teenage assassin trained to be the perfect soldier. and Python (Dwight Schultz/Yusaku Yara), a former war buddy of Snake who was previously presumed dead during the Vietnam War.
Other characters include Ghost (Brian Cummings/Naoki Tatsuta), an informant who comes into contact with Snake, revealing the existence of ICBMG, the new Metal Gear prototype, Ocelot (Josh Keaton/Takumi Yamazaki), a former Spetsnaz Major who assists Gene from behind-the-scenes, EVA (Vanessa Marshall/Misa Watanabe), a spy for the PLA who assisted Snake in Snake Eater, and Raikov (Charlie Schlatter/Kenyu Horiuchi), a GRU Major. Teliko Friedman (Kari Wahlgren/Yūko Nagashima) and Venus (Kathryn Fiore/Rika Komatsu), the heroines from Metal Gear Acid and Metal Gear Acid 2 respectively, can both be added to the player's squad by either: completing certain side-missions or by starting the second playthrough with save data from their respective games.
Story
In 1970, six years after the events of Snake Eater, Naked Snake's former team, FOX unit, has broken their allegiance with the CIA and gone rogue. Snake is also targeted by the FOX unit, which has sent renegade FOX unit soldiers to capture him. The game begins with the torture and interrogation of Snake by one of the FOX members, Lieutenant Cunningham. Lt. Cunningham is trying to locate the missing half of the Philosopher's Legacy, with the United States Government having already acquired the other half of the Legacy from the Soviet Union at the conclusion of Snake Eater. Snake is imprisoned in a cell next to Roy Campbell, the sole survivor of an American Green Beret team sent in to investigate the base. Snake learns through Roy that they are on the San Hieronymo Peninsula (a Russian transliteration of "San Jerónimo Peninsula") or "La Península de los Muertos", the site of an abandoned Soviet missile silo in Colombia.
The two escape and Snake makes his way to a communications base, where he attempts to contact his old CO, Major Zero. Instead, he is greeted by his old FOX comrades Para-Medic and Sigint, who reveal that Snake and Zero are being charged for treason and that the only way for Snake to be exonerated from the charges is to find and apprehend the leader of the rebellion, Gene. To complicate matters, Gene has also convinced most of the Soviet soldiers stationed at the base to join their side by simply taking over the chain of command belonging to a Soviet unit which was secretly stationed inside the Colombian territory. In order to complete his mission, Snake must persuade enemy soldiers to join his ranks due to the scale of his mission.
Snake and his squad defeat the top members of the FOX unit and eventually they make their way into Gene's guesthouse. Snake learns many things on his way. Cunningham was working for the Pentagon and wanted Snake to push Gene into launching a nuke at the Soviet Union to tarnish the CIA's reputation and to prolong the Cold War. Gene was actually aware of this plan from the beginning due to information from Ocelot. Gene really wanted to launch a nuke at America to destroy the Philosophers and to make his nation of soldiers, "Army's Heaven".
Gene kills Elisa, who with her dying breath tells Snake “Your son will bring the world to ruin. Your son will save the world.” Snake destroys an experimental model of the ICBMG (the Metal Gear model) codenamed RAXA and eventually defeats Gene, destroying the finished ICBMG model afterward. After Gene is defeated he gives Snake the funds, equipment, personnel, and all other information regarding "Army's Heaven". On his return home, Snake is awarded for his actions, he then establishes FOXHOUND afterwards. Elsewhere, Ocelot kills the DCI (Director of Central Intelligence) and takes documents containing the identities of the Philosophers in an effort to "end them".
In the post-credits epilogue, Ocelot speaks with an unknown man on the phone, they are plotting to use the Legacy to fulfill their own agenda. Ocelot actually wanted the trajectory data of the nuke to point to the DCI, in order to black mail the DCI into giving Ocelot the documents containing the true identities of the Philosophers. Ocelot agrees to join his new employer's project under the condition that Snake/Big Boss participates as well.
Development
The game was conceptualized when the Kojima Productions staff decided to make the first Metal Gear Solid chapter rather than another spin-off for the PlayStation Portable. Hideo Kojima had the idea of the player being able to recruit comrades with the Wi-Fi play. As a result, the game was specifically designed for a portable platform, rather than a home console. Most of the staff had previously worked in the spin-off Metal Gear Acid 2 making Portable Ops their first time doing a main installment. Their biggest challenge was adapting the play mechanics from Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (the latest console installment at the time) to Portable Ops as the PlayStation Portable lacked a right analog. Since players cannot spin the camera with the PlayStation Portable the game added a sound indicator system that helps them to see where there are enemies. Impressed with Ashley Wood's work in Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel the studio asked his collaboration to illustrate the events accompanied with voice-overs from the story replacing the typical use of real time graphics previously used for cutscenes.
Placement in the series' canon
MPO is notably the first Metal Gear game for a portable platform that was written to be part of the series' main continuity. However, the game was not directed nor written by Hideo Kojima (who at the time was leading the development of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots on PlayStation 3), but by a separate team led by Masahiro Yamamoto and written by Japanese novelist Gakuto Mikumo. The marketing for MPO attempted to distance the game from prior Metal Gear entries on portable platforms, particularly the 2D action game Metal Gear: Ghost Babel for the Game Boy Color and the turn-based Metal Gear Acid series also on PSP (both which were set in their own alternate continuity), with one promotional video on the official English website (narrated by Ryan Payton, Kojima Productions' international coordinator at the time) referring to MPO as "a true action-based chapter in the Metal Gear Saga." This would carry over with the promotion of the series' 20th Anniversary campaign, in which MPO was packaged alongside the three mainline MGS games at the time as part of a box set released in Japan, and later on with the release of MGS4, in which the Metal Gear Solid 4: Database (a downloadable encyclopedia for the PS3 covering the lore of the Metal Gear series up to that point) include entries for characters, items and events depicted in MPO. Kojima also claimed that MPO was a necessary component to the story of MGS4, to the extent that he refused to finalize the story for MGS4 until after the story for MPO was finalized.
This would change when Kojima started the development of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (or MGSPW), a later action-based entry also released on the PSP. Unlike MPO, MGSPW was directed and written by Kojima, much like the numbered console entries of the series. Set four years after the events of MPO, MGSPW would be written as a direct sequel to MGS3 and the events of MPO are only given one brief direct mention by one character. Kojima describes MGSPW as a true mainline installment in the series, contrasting it with MPO and the Acid series (which he regards as spinoffs). The official timelines and retrospectives published by Kojima Productions since then tend to omit MPO as a canonical entry, with the 25th Anniversary page going as far as to describe MGSPW as the "first game in the canonical Metal Gear Saga released for the PlayStation Portable platform",<ref name=truthmgspw>{{cite web|url=http://www.konami.jp/mg25th/truth/mgspw.html|title=Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on "The Truth Behind Metal Gear Solid|language=ja|quote=本作は『メタルギア』サーガ（本史）初の携帯ゲーム機プレイステーション・ポータブル用ソフトである。|access-date=2016-02-06|archive-date=2016-01-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160110032604/http://www.konami.jp/mg25th/truth/mgspw.html|url-status=live}}</ref> while the summary of MGSPW on the main page describing Metal Gear ZEKE as the "world's first Metal Gear." Kojima would later clarify his stance on MPO, saying that he views the series' canon from an authoritative status, setting apart the Metal Gear games that he personally worked on (which carry the "A Hideo Kojima Game" byline) from the games that he only worked on as a producer or didn't have a direct involvement in its development.
Release
The game was first released in North America on December 5, 2006. In Japan, it was released two weeks later, on December 21, in two limited edition packages, with both of them sharing most of its unique bonus content, such as a special camouflage for the PlayStation Portable, as well as a set of three original lapel pins.
In Europe, the game was set to be released in April, yet it was delayed for a month. In the United Kingdom, the game could only be released on May 25, 2007, after it was revealed that the required BBFC rating was missing, forcing retailers to send back their stocks. The added features for the European release included new maps for the single-player campaign and multiplayer mode, characters, missions, player careers, as well as a new "Boss Rush" mode.
On November 1, 2009, the game was released digitally on the PlayStation Store on the PSP in all three regions. In June 2016, the game PSP digital version of the game was also made available for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV.
Soundtrack
The musical score of Portable Ops was composed by Norihiko Hibino, Takahiro Izutani, Yoshitaka Suzuki, Kazuma Jinnouchi, Nobuko Toda and Akihiro Honda. The ending theme ("Calling To The Night") was composed by Akihiro Honda and arranged by Norihiko Hibino and Akihiro Honda, with vocals by Natasha Farrow and lyrics by Nobuko Toda. "Calling to the Night" was later featured in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as an iPod track, and Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Brawl as one of the songs played on the Shadow Moses Island stage. The song was used in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker as a playable in-game track via the Walkman tool. The soundtrack was first released in Japan on December 20, 2006.
ReceptionMetal Gear Solid: Portable Ops received positive reviews. The game scored an average of 86.95% based on 43 reviews on GameRankings and an 87/100 based on 54 reviews on Metacritic. IGN and GameSpot in particular both awarded the game 9 out of 10.
The game sold 230,321 copies after two weeks on sale in Japan.
Portable Ops PlusMetal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus (officially abbreviated MPO+) is a stand-alone expansion of the original MPO, focused primarily on online play. It was first announced on July 17, 2007 and was released in Japan on September 20, 2007, in North America on November 13, 2007 and in Europe on March 28, 2008. A digital version was released on the PlayStation Store in 2009.MPO+ include new general and unique character types from other MGS titles, as well as new items and weapons, new multiplayer maps, and new game modes. While MPO+ does not require the original MPO, players who have save data from the original game can transfer their squad to the expansion and any unique character that the players recruit in the original MPO since their initial save file was created will be added automatically in MPO+ if detected. The following changes have been made to the game.
The player can now recruit up to 200 soldiers. Soldiers now have new careers and skill levels. Players can also obtain textbook items that can raise the stats of their recruits.
The story campaign has been eliminated and a new "Infinity Mission" mode has been added in its place, consisting of four difficulty levels. The initial Easy setting consists of a tutorial explaining the rules and mechanics of this new campaign, while the three subsequent settings (Normal, Hard and Extreme) consists of a series of randomly generated stages set in locations from the original MPO that the player's team must clear in succession. During certain stages, the player is given a special challenge such as reaching the goal without being seen or survive an alert phase for a certain period. After clearing a special challenge, the player is allowed to sort his team and replace any of its members and gear with soldiers or items procured in previous stages. The player is also given a choice to suspend their game and resume from where they left off at a later time. If the player successfully complete every stage in Infinity Mission or uses a Fulton balloon to escape, they will retain every soldier, item and experience points acquired since the mission started (conversely, any item or soldier lost during the mission will be permanently lost as well). However, if the player fails or aborts the mission, the player's squad will be set to the way it was before the mission began (undoing any deaths that occurred as well).
If the game detects save data from the original MPO, a boss rush mode will be unlocked in which a team chosen by the player must face against all the bosses from the original MPO successively. Clearing the boss rush will add any boss character from the original MPO who hasn't already been added to the player's team, although any team member killed during the process will be removed from the roster as well.
Old Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4 and Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2 are now unlockable for completing Infinity Mission mode on Normal and Hard respectively, along with Roy Campbell when completing Extreme. Johnny the Guard from Metal Gear Solid 3 can also be found as a random prisoner in certain stages.
The player can now have Elisa and Ursula in their army at the same time. In the original MPO, the player was only allowed to have Elisa or Ursula, but not both, since in the game's story the two characters were different personalities of the same person.
Any unique characters that are killed in action will be eliminated from the team. However, lost unique characters will have a probability of showing up in Infinity Mission as random prisoners, giving the opportunity for the player to recover any of them when the opportunity arrives.
New soldier types can be recruited such as female Soviet soldiers, the arctic Genome Soldiers from the original Metal Gear Solid and the various enemy soldier types from MGS2. There are also female members of the Ocelot Unit from MGS3, but these can only be recruited through the game's "AP Scout" feature, in which the player recruit soldiers through LAN access points.
Five new maps have been added to the multiplayer mode, including a recreation of Rex Hangar from the original MGS. The Western Wilderness and Ravine stages, previously exclusive to the European version of the original MPO'', are now available in every regional release as well.
Notes
References
External links
Official MPO website
Official MPO+ website
2006 video games
Action-adventure games
Cold War video games
Dissociative identity disorder in video games
Interquel video games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
PlayStation Portable games
PlayStation Portable-only games
PlayStation Network games
Stealth video games
Video games developed in Japan
Video games featuring female protagonists
Video games produced by Hideo Kojima
Video games scored by Norihiko Hibino
Video games scored by Takahiro Izutani
Video games set in Colombia
Video games set in 1970
Alternate history video games
Video games with expansion packs
Metal Gear spin-off games
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great%20British%20Menu
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Great British Menu
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Great British Menu is a BBC television series in which top British chefs compete for the chance to cook one course of a four-course banquet.
Format
Series one and two were presented by Jennie Bond, the former BBC Royal correspondent, whereby each week, two chefs from a region of the UK create a menu. In series three and four, both narrated by Bond but with no presenter, three chefs from a region of the UK create a menu; only the two with the best scores went through to the Friday judging. In series five and six, the fifth narrated by Bond while the sixth is narrated by Wendy Lloyd, three chefs from a region of the UK create a menu, with in kitchen judging undertaken by a past contestant chef; only the two with the best scores go through to the Friday judging.
In each series, the Friday show is when chefs present all courses of their menu to a judging panel, tasted and judged by Matthew Fort, Prue Leith and Oliver Peyton. One chef each week goes through to the final, where the judges taste the dishes again and award them marks out of ten.
In series one and two, the three dishes that have scored the highest for each course of the finals are then shortlisted for public vote via televoting. In series three and four, the shortlisting rule was dropped, so all dishes scored by the judges are then sent to the public vote. Judges' scores represent one half of the overall score, and public vote represents the other half. The Guardian critic Karina Mantavia in May 2007 criticised the public vote system as incompatible to food that viewers could see onscreen but not taste in-person.
Starting from series five, a fourth judge, usually either a veteran chef or a guest related to a brief, is introduced, replacing public vote. Since series eight, the fourth judge addition extends to regional heats.
Up until series six, the finalists can replace only one course dish of their own menus with a newer one. They can adjust or tweak other dishes but cannot completely change them.
On 28 October 2016, it was confirmed that Prue Leith was leaving the show and would be replaced by Andi Oliver for series 12 in 2017.
On 1 October 2019, Susan Calman was announced as the new presenter for series 15. Filming took place in Stratford-upon-Avon and was completed in November 2019. The show was broadcast in spring 2020. For Christmas 2020 special series and thereafter, Andi Oliver stepped down as a judge and has replaced Calman as the presenter.
On 7 February 2021, it was announced that Rachel Khoo would be joining as a new judge when the series returns in spring 2021.
On 6 September 2021, it was announced that the whole judging panel would be changed with Matthew Fort and Oliver Payton leaving after being on the show since the beginning and Rachel Khoo after one series. The new judging panel will consist of former GBM champion Tom Kerridge, chef and restaurateur Nisha Katona and comedian and food podcaster Ed Gamble.
Series 1 (2006)
The birthday meal for the Queen was on 16 June 2006 and for 300 people, so each dish created had to be suitable for a summer banquet. All recipes have been published in a book by Dorling Kindersley.
Contestants
John Burton Race and Michael Caines (won heat) represent the South West of England
Antony Worrall Thompson and Galton Blackiston (won heat) represent the Midlands and the East of England
Marcus Wareing (won heat) and Simon Rimmer represent the North of England
Paul Rankin and Richard Corrigan (won heat) represent Northern Ireland
Tom Lewis and Nick Nairn (won heat) represent Scotland
Angela Hartnett and Bryn Williams (won heat) represent Wales
Gary Rhodes and Atul Kochhar (won heat) represent South East of England
Final week
The three dishes that have scored the highest for each course in the finals are then put to the public vote. In the first series, it was decided that a chef could only win one course overall, therefore any chef who won the public vote for a particular course was then eliminated from any subsequent courses they had been shortlisted for. As the results for all four courses were announced on the same day, some chefs were eliminated under this rule.
Final result
Starter: Richard Corrigan – Smoked salmon with Irish soda bread, woodland sorrel and cress (recipe)
Fish: Bryn Williams – Pan-fried turbot with cockles and oxtail (recipe)
Main: Nick Nairn – Loin of roe venison with rosti, celeriac, cabbage, carrot and game gravy (recipe)
Dessert: Marcus Wareing – Custard tart with Garibaldi biscuits (recipe)
Great British Christmas Menu (2006)
From 11 to 15 December 2006, a special Christmas series was shown. This involved the four winning chefs creating a four course Christmas dinner that viewers could prepare at home.
Unlike the original series, only one chef was able to be crowned the winner and there was no special prize at stake (i.e. the meal would not be cooked for the Queen). The final result was decided by the judges and a viewers' vote; 30p from calls made in order to vote was donated to Children in Need.
Final result
1st – Richard Corrigan (Northern Ireland)
2nd – Marcus Wareing (England), Nick Nairn (Scotland)
4th – Bryn Williams (Wales)
Series 2 (2007)
Broadcasting of series 2 started on 2 April 2007. The format was the same as before, with the winning chefs from each region from series one taking on new challengers. The final menu was cooked at the British Embassy in Paris at an Ambassadors' Dinner.
Contestants
Week 1 – 2 April to 6 April – Galton Blackiston and Sat Bains (won heat) represent the Midlands and the East of England
Week 2 – 9 April to 13 April – Bryn Williams (won heat) and Matt Tebbutt represent Wales
Week 3 – 16 April to 20 April – Nick Nairn and Jeremy Lee (won heat) represent Scotland
Week 4 – 23 April to 27 April – Richard Corrigan (won heat) and Noel McMeel represent Northern Ireland
Week 5 – 30 April to 4 May – Atul Kochhar (won heat) and Stuart Gillies represent the South East of England
Week 6 – 7 May to 11 May – Michael Caines and Mark Hix (won heat) represent the South West of England
Week 7 – 14 May to 18 May – Marcus Wareing and Mark Broadbent (won heat) represent the North of England
Final week
The rule to eliminate a winning chef of one course from any subsequent courses was dropped, as highlighted by Mark Hix winning both the main course and dessert.
Final result
Starter: Sat Bains – Ham, egg and peas (recipe)
Fish: Richard Corrigan – Whole poached wild salmon and duck egg dressing with wheaten bread and country butter (recipe)
Main: Mark Hix – Rabbit and crayfish stargazy pie (recipe)
Dessert: Mark Hix – Perry jelly and summer fruits with elderflower ice cream (recipe)
Series 3 (2008)
Broadcasting of series 3 began on 17 March 2008. The chefs competed for the opportunity to cook a four-course dinner held in June 2008, at the restaurant at the top of the iconic "Gherkin" building in London. The host was the chef Heston Blumenthal and his guests included top chefs from around the world along with gourmets and celebrities who represent a cross section of modern Britain.
The series began with seven special programmes in which Great British Menu judge Matthew Fort travelled around the UK, selecting the two chefs who would go through to represent their region in the competition.
Contestants
Southwest: Richard Guest, Chris Horridge, Elisha Carter and Chris Wicks
Northern Ireland: Danny Millar, Noel McMeel, Liz Moore and Nick Price
London and the South-east: Jason Atherton, Jake Watkins, Adebola Adeshina and Atul Kochhar
Wales: Angela Hartnett, Chris Chown, Stephen Terry and James Sommerin
North: Mark Broadbent, Michael Wignall, Nigel Haworth and Anthony Flinn
Scotland: Michael Smith, Matthew Gray, Tony Singh and Tom Kitchin
Central region: Aaron Patterson, Sat Bains, Rupert Rowley and Glynn Purnell
Heats
Central region: Sat Bains vs Glynn Purnell (Winner)
Wales: Angela Hartnett vs Stephen Terry (Winner)
North of England: Nigel Haworth (Winner) vs Anthony Flinn
Scotland: Tom Kitchin (Winner) vs Matt Gray
Northern Ireland: Danny Millar (Winner) vs Noel McMeel
South-West: Chris Horridge (Winner) vs Elisha Carter
South-East: Jason Atherton (Winner) vs Atul Kochhar
Final week
Starting from this series, all dishes scored by the judges in the finals are sent to public vote.
Final result
Starter: Jason Atherton – Bacon, lettuce and tomato with croque monsieur (recipe)
Fish: Stephen Terry – Organic salmon and smoked salmon with crab fritters and cockle 'popcorn' (recipe)
Main: Jason Atherton – Dexter beef fillet, ox cheek, smoked potato puree and marrow bone (recipe)
Dessert: Glynn Purnell – Strawberries with tarragon and black pepper honeycomb with burnt English cream surprise (recipe)
Series 4 (2009)
Series 4 began on 30 March 2009 and revolved around cooking a meal for British service personnel (sailors/marines/soldiers/airmen and women) returning from the War in Afghanistan. A chef from a previous series came back in this series to act as a mentor, giving the two chefs from their region guidance and advice. They were in the kitchen and acted as an unofficial fourth judge.
The North region was split this time into two groups: North-East and North-West.
Heats
Central: Glynn Purnell (won heat) vs Daniel CliffordSat Bains as mentor
Scotland: Tom Kitchin (won heat) vs Alan MurchisonJeremy Lee as mentor
North East: Kenny Atkinson (won heat) vs Ian MatfinMarcus Wareing as mentor
Northern Ireland: Danny Millar (won heat) vs Clare SmythRichard Corrigan as mentor
South West: Shaun Rankin (won heat) vs Nathan OutlawMark Hix as mentor
Wales: James Sommerin (won heat) vs Stephen TerryBryn Williams as mentor
North West: Nigel Haworth (won heat) vs Aiden ByrneMarcus Wareing as mentor
South East: Tristan Welch (won heat) vs Mark SargeantJason Atherton as mentor
Final week
Final result
Starter: Kenny Atkinson – Salad of Aberdeen Angus beef, carrots, horseradish and Shetland Black potatoes (recipe)
Fish: Glynn Purnell – Masala spiced monkfish with red lentils, pickled carrots and coconut (recipe)
Main: Nigel Haworth – Lonk lamb Lancashire hotpot, pickled red cabbage, carrots and leeks (Northcote | Luxury Hotel and Michelin Star Restaurant in Lancashire)
Dessert: Shaun Rankin – Treacle tart with Jersey clotted cream and raspberry ripple coulis (recipe)
Series 5 (2010)
Series 5 began on 6 April 2010 with a double episode. In this series, the participating chefs were challenged to find food producers they had not previously used, basing their search around a National Trust property in their region, with the aim to source as many of their ingredients as possible from the property itself or the surrounding area. The banquet was for producers of British food and The Prince of Wales was the guest of honour.
Heats
The format of the heats changed this year. Instead of only two chefs being present for all the heats for their region, in this year three chefs competed in the "courses" section of their heats, with two going forward to cook for the judges in the "judging" episode. As in series four, a previous participant returned each week, but with the added responsibility of scoring each chef's four courses. The chef with the lowest score at the end of the "courses" episodes was eliminated, and the remaining two cooked for the judges.
Final week
In the final week running up to the banquet, the chefs cooked one course per day. Starting from this series, a fourth judge was introduced to score the dishes alongside the judges, replacing public vote.
Instead of being ranked from first to eighth place, the top three chefs were all given a possible dish at the banquet, thus allowing the judges to have more choice when choosing the menu at the end of the week.
Guest judges
Starter: Richard Corrigan
Fish: Glynn Purnell
Main: Jason Atherton
Dessert: Marcus Wareing
Final result
Starter: Lisa Allen – Wild rabbit and leek turnover with piccalilli (recipe)
Fish: Kenny Atkinson – Mackerel with gooseberries (recipe)
Main: Tom Kerridge – Slow-cooked Aylesbury duck with duck fat chips and gravy (recipe)
Dessert: Niall McKenna – Poached rhubarb with strawberry jelly, yellow man and lavender ice-cream (recipe)
Great British Waste Menu (2010)
A one-off, 90 minute documentary-style programme was broadcast in December 2010, Great British Waste Menu was made to highlight and discourage food wastage in Britain. In addition to showing several examples of such wastage, the programme challenged four chefs (GBM regulars Richard Corrigan and Angela Hartnett, plus Matt Tebbutt and Simon Rimmer) to create a three-course menu plus canapes from food destined to be discarded by producers, supermarkets, restaurants and regular households. Regular series judges Matthew Fort, Oliver Peyton and Prue Leith and the series's special guest, food critic Jay Rayner, judged the results. The final menu, served as a banquet for sixty people, comprised:
Starter: Samosa canapes (Simon Rimmer)
Fish: Fresh Kent fish wrapped in courgette with a pork ratatouille (Richard Corrigan)
Main: British beef with a beef consommé and summer vegetables (Matt Tebutt)
Dessert: Ginger floating island with British summer fruits (Angela Hartnett)
Dustbin Award (for best overall dish): Richard Corrigan
Series 6 (2011)
Series 6 of The Great British Menu started on 4 April 2011. The theme for the series was sharing and communities, with chefs being asked to cook food that encouraged people to come together. During the series, chefs visited and cooked for a number of community groups.
The filming started on 15 March 2011.
Heats
Final week
In the final week running up to the banquet the chefs cooked one course per day but instead of being ranked first to eighth place the top three chefs were all given a possible dish at the banquet, thus allowing the judges to have more choice when choosing the menu at the end of the week.
Guest judges
Starter: Glynn Purnell
Fish: Richard Corrigan
Main: Marcus Wareing
Dessert: Angela Hartnett
Final result
Starter: Chris Fearon – "Season, Shake and Curry On coronation chicken"
Fish: Aktar Islam – "Sea bass with battered soft shell crab"
Main: Tom Kerridge – "Hog roast"
Dessert: Paul Ainsworth – "Taste of the Fairground"
This result made Tom Kerridge the first chef on the Great British Menu to cook the main course twice, as well as being the first chef to cook a pork dish for the main course on the final menu.
Series 7 (2012)
Series 7 of The Great British Menu began on 9 April 2012 with Scotland being the first region to cook. The theme for the series was the Olympics to celebrate the games coming to London. The chefs were tasked with creating a menu that captured the Olympic spirit and during the series they met up with Olympians from the UK to gain inspiration and advice for their menu.
Heats
Final week
in the final week, the winning eight chefs battled for their dishes to be part of the final banquet menu. Each day, the chefs cooked one of their courses for the four judges, who each marked the dish out of a possible ten points. The three highest-scoring dishes for each course went forward for consideration for the final menu. Unlike previous finals weeks, the judges eliminated some dishes based on their performance in the previous round; unless the chefs had made significant changes in response to the feedback received at the regional final, the judges did not wish to taste and score the unsuitable course a second time. The Olympic banquet was shown in the final show, which was broadcast on 8 June, with all four dishes being prepared and presented for 100 guests.
Guest judges
Starter: Richard Corrigan
Fish: Marcus Wareing
Main: Tom Kerridge
Dessert: Angela Hartnett
Final result
Starter: Colin McGurran – "Quails in the Wood" (recipe)
Fish: Phil Howard – Cornish mackerel with oysters, mussels, winkles and samphire (recipe)
Main: Daniel Clifford – Slow poached chicken, sweetcorn egg, spinach with bacon and peas (recipe)
Dessert: Simon Rogan – Poached pears, atsina cress snow, sweet cheese ice cream and rosehip syrup (recipe)
Daniel Clifford was the first person to win the main course with chicken
Series 8 (2013)
Series 8 of The Great British Menu, titled Great British Menu Does Comic Relief, commenced on 28 January 2013, with the banquet hosted for people associated with the Comic Relief charity event, held at the Royal Albert Hall.
Heats
Final week
The final week saw the winning eight chefs battle for their dishes to be part of the final banquet menu, but in the main course, the judges added a ninth "wild card" chef, the defeated Central area finalist, Richard Bainbridge, as they thought that his dish was worthy enough to be included for the banquet. Each day, the chefs cooked one of their courses for the four judges, who each marked the dish out of a possible ten points, but in a twist for this series, all the other chefs marked each other's dishes and put their votes in a ballot box. The average score from the chefs was then added to the scores from the judges, who like in the heats, were joined by a comedy guest for each course.
Guest judges
Starter: Patricia Hodge
Fish: Ronni Ancona
Main: Ade Edmondson
Dessert: Charlie Higson
The three highest-scoring dishes for each course went forward for consideration for the final menu, but in a final twist, as the judges could not decide which dessert dish should go to the banquet, they decided that both Richard and Daniel's dishes deserved to be put forward to the banquet, with them serving to half the guests each. The Comic Relief banquet was shown in the final show, which was broadcast on 29 March, with all five dishes being prepared and presented for 80 guests.
Final result
Starter: Tom Aikens – "Chicken Egg, Egg Chicken"
Fish: Aiden Byrne – "Prawn Cocktail"
Main: Michael Smith – "I Love Kids, But I Couldn't Eat a Whole One"
Dessert: Richard Davies and Daniel Clifford – "Strawberries and Cream" and "Going Out With A Bang"
Series 9 (2014)
Series 9 of The Great British Menu, titled Great British Menu: The D-Day Banquet, commenced on 7 April 2014, with the banquet hosted for people who fought on D-Day, of which it was the 70th anniversary in 2014. The banquet was broadcast on 6 June. It was held at St. Paul's Cathedral.
Heats
Final week
In the final week, the winning nine chefs battled for their dishes to be part of the final banquet menu, but in the dessert, Tom Sellers was taken ill, so only eight chefs competed on that day. Each day, the chefs cooked one of their courses for the four judges, who each marked the dish out of a possible ten points, and like the last series, all the other chefs marked each other's dishes and put their votes in a ballot box. The average score from the chefs was then added to the scores from the judges, who like in the heats, were joined by a D-Day veteran for each course. One other added twist was that before the final marks were given, the chefs and judges each saw what the top three would have been if only the chefs were marking.
Guest judges
Starter: George Batts
Fish: Ken Sturdy
Main: Baroness Trumpington
Dessert: Celia Sandys
The three highest-scoring dishes for each course went forward for consideration for the final menu. The D-Day banquet was shown in the final show, which was broadcast on 6 June, with all four dishes being prepared and presented for the veterans and special guest, David Cameron.
Final result
Starter: Adam Simmonds – "Your Share"
Fish: Emily Watkins – "We Shall Fight Them On The Beaches"
Main: James Durrant – "Blitz Spirit"
Dessert: Colin McGurran – "Homage To The Dickin Medal"
Series 10 (2015)
On 10 June 2015, it was announced that Series 10 of Great British Menu would be broadcast "later in the summer" with the chefs battling it out to cook a course at the banquet at Drapers' Hall in London to celebrate 100 years of the Women's Institute. The series eventually began on 3 August 2015.
Heats
Final week
In the final week, the winning eight chefs battled for their dishes to be part of the final banquet menu. Each day, the chefs cooked one of their courses for the four judges, who each marked the dish out of a possible ten points, and like the previous two series, all the other chefs would be marking each other's dishes and putting their votes in a ballot box. The average score from the chefs was then added to the scores from the judges, who like in the heats, were joined by a WI member for each course. Another added twist was that before the final marks were given, the chefs and judges each saw what the top three would have been if only the chefs were marking.
In another twist for this series, due to the fact that the chefs are cooking for the WI, the judges revealed that only "perfect dishes" would make the shortlist, and unlike the mandatory three in the previous series, for some courses, there might be more or less than that.
Guest judges
Starter: Angela Baker
Fish: Kirsty Bowen
Main: Felicity Cloake
Dessert: Mary Gwynn
The shortlisted dishes for each course went forward for consideration for the final menu. The WI Centenary banquet was shown in the final show, which was broadcast on 9 October, with all four dishes being prepared and presented for the WI guests.
Final result
Starter: Rich Bainbridge – "We All Stand For Jerusa-lamb"
Fish: Michael O'Hare – "Emancipation"
Main: Matt Gillan – "Teaching And Preaching"
Dessert: Rich Bainbridge – "Inspiring Women"
Series 11 (2016)
On 30 May 2016, it was announced that Series 11 of Great British Menu would also be broadcast "later in the summer" with the chefs this time cooking in the dining room of the House of Commons in London to celebrate the "Great Britons" of Elizabeth II. The series began on 29 August 2016.
Heats
Final week
In the final week, the winning eight chefs battled for their dishes to be part of the final banquet menu. Each day, the chefs cooked one of their courses for the four judges, who each marked the dish out of a possible ten points, and like recent series, all the other chefs marked each other's dishes and put their votes in a ballot box. The average score from the chefs was then added to the scores from the judges, who like in the heats, were joined by a veteran for each course. As with recent series, before the final marks were given, the chefs and judges each saw what the top three would have been if only the chefs were marking.
Guest judges
Starter: Lady Claire MacDonald OBE
Fish: Tim Hayward
Main: John Williams
Dessert: Grace Dent
As with the previous series, if certain dishes were thought to be more banquet-worthy than all the other dishes, then the dishes would immediately advance to the banquet.
Final result
Starter: Mark Abbott – "Ordinary To Extraordinary"
Fish: Tommy Banks – "Preserving The Future"
Main: Mark Froydenlund – "A Celebration Of Rose Veal"
Dessert: Adam Reid – "Golden Empire"
Series 12 (2017)
The chefs had to cook for a banquet in celebration of the 140th anniversary of Wimbledon. This was the first series with Andi Oliver as a judge, replacing Prue Leith.
Heats
Final week
In the final week, the winning eight chefs battled for their dishes to be part of the final banquet menu. Each day, the chefs cooked one of their courses for the four judges, who each marked the dish out of a possible ten points, but in a change to recent series, the chefs no longer had a vote on the dishes. In a further twist, the result for each course was announced at the end of each day, rather than a shortlist of a few dishes being carried forward to the end of the week. In the event of a dead heat, the three regular judges would decide which dish went through to the banquet.
Guest judges
Starter: Sue Barker
Fish: Tim Henman
Main: Gordon Reid
Dessert: Annabel Croft
Final result
Starter: Pip Lacey – "Whatever The Weather"
Fish: Tommy Banks – "Turbot With Strawberries & Cream"
Main: Michael Bremner – "The Grass Is Greener"
Dessert: Selin Kiazim – "Honouring Venus Rosewater Champions"
Series 13 (2018)
The 2018 Great British Menu was about celebrating 70 years of the National Health Service (NHS), with 24 chefs attempting to win a place on the final banquet menu, to cook "A Feast To Say Thank You" for people of the NHS to be held in the Great Hall of St Bartholomew's Hospital.
Heats
Final week
In the final week, the winning nine chefs battle for their dishes to be part of the final banquet menu. Each day, the chefs cooked one of their courses for the four judges, who each marked the dish out of a possible ten points. As with the previous series, the chefs no longer had a vote on the dishes, and the result for each course was announced at the end of each day, rather than a shortlist of a few dishes being carried forward to the end of the week. In the event of a dead heat, the three regular judges would decide which dish went through to the banquet. After the four winning chefs had been announced, the judges revealed that for the first time ever, the guests at the banquet would vote for their favourite dish and a Champion of Champions would be crowned.
Guest judges
Starter: Rangan Chatterjee
Fish: Chris Ogden
Main: Tom Lynch
Dessert: Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent
Final Result
Starter: James Cochran – "Cep-tional"
Fish: Ellis Barrie – "Bun in the Oven"
Main: Tom Brown – "Poor Man's Goose"
Dessert: Chris Harrod – "Tea and Cake"
Champion of Champions: James Cochran
Series 14 (2019)
In the 2019 Great British Menu, 24 chefs competed to serve a course at Abbey Road Studios for the 50th anniversary of the last time that The Beatles played together.
The kitchen had moved to a new location in Stratford-upon-Avon and, in a change to the transmissions, instead of being five 30-minute shows broadcast between Monday to Friday, the shows became two 1-hour shows on Wednesday and Thursday, with the starter and fish courses on the Wednesday and the main and dessert courses on Thursday, with the judging being unchanged as a 30-minute show on Fridays.
Heats
Final week
As in the previous series, all eight chefs cooked all their menus and each course winner was picked at the end of each day. Following the announcement of all the course winners, the judges confirmed that they also wanted the chefs to create vegetarian options of their meals and, like the previous year, there was also a "Champion of Champions" vote with all the diners.
Guest judges
Starter: Martin Kemp
Fish: Kanya King (with assistance from Novelist)
Main: Andrew Ridgeley
Dessert: Peter Hook
Final result
Starter: Luke Selby – "The British Invasion"
Fish: Tom Anglesea – "Lost Souls in a Fish Bowl"
Main: Adam Reid – "Comfort Food 'Sounds' Good"
Dessert: Lorna McNee – "Lime and Sunshine, There's Enough for Everyone"
Champion of Champions: Lorna McNee
Series 15 (2020)
In the 2020 Great British Menu, many changes were announced to the format. The comedian Susan Calman became the host and hosted in the kitchens at Stratford-upon-Avon. Also, for the first time since series 3, each region had four chefs, instead of three. Each chef was to cook six courses, instead of the usual four. As well as the traditional starter, fish course, main course and dessert, each chef had to create two other courses, which although not marked by the judges, could be used as a tie-breaker if needed. They were an amuse-bouche at the beginning, and a pre-dessert palate cleanser between the main and dessert courses.
The theme for the series was children's literature with the banquet due to be held at Exeter College, Oxford, and each region had its own sub-theme towards the brief.
As with the previous series, the shows were 1 hour long with the amuse-bouche, starter and fish courses on the Wednesday and the main, pre-dessert and dessert courses on Thursday, with the judging being unchanged as a 30-minute show on Fridays. The main difference was that one chef was eliminated after the fish course on day 1, with another chef eliminated after the dessert on day 2.
Heats
Final week
The winning eight chefs cook their courses in celebration of nearly 200 years of British children's literature.
Guest judges
Starter: Cressida Cowell
Fish: Malorie Blackman
Main: Anthony Horowitz
Dessert: Greg James (with assistance from Chris Smith)
Final result
Amuse-bouche: Ruth Hansom – "Golden Snitch"
Starter: Alex Greene – "The Potato, The Onion, The Cheese and The Wardrobe"
Fish: Niall Keating – "Witches of the Northern Lights"
Main: Tom Barnes – "Beatrix Potter's Herdwick Lamb"
Pre-dessert: Kerth Gumbs – "Snozzcumbers and Frobscottle"
Dessert: Alex Greene – "The Incredible Edible Book"
Champion of Champions: Niall Keating
Although Ruth Hansom and Kerth Gumbs did not win any of the courses, Ruth's fish course and Kerth's dessert course were the two highest-scoring runners-up, so they were invited to cook the Amuse-bouche and Pre-dessert respectively.
Great British Christmas Menu (2020)
From 1 to 24 December 2020, a special Christmas series was shown. Andi Oliver stepped down from the judging panel and began presenting the series, replacing Susan Calman, and comedian Kerry Godliman took Andi's place as a special guest judge. Twelve previous winners of the show competed to cook their dishes for a six-course banquet originally located at York Hospital. In the first round of each course, various eight of those veteran chefs were selected, and one group of four judges double-blind the other group's dishes in the first rounds. Top three dishes of their respective courses (or four for canapé) are selected for the second round in the judging panel. Godliman is a vegetarian, so chefs cooked vegetarian alternatives of their courses for her.
The main banquet was cancelled due to restrictions during the pandemic, so mini banquets occurred in various areas, while some other units of the six-course meal were home-delivered. The filming of the banquet occurred at a gazebo outside the Hospital under tier-two restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Guest judges
Canapé and starter: Vicky Hall
Fish and main course: Tim Spector
Dessert and petit four: Beverley Knight
Final result
Canapé: James Cochran – "T'was the Night Before Christmas"; Alex Greene – "Christmas Tree Bauble"; Lisa Goodwin-Allen – "Retro Christmas Canape"
Starter: Alex Greene – "Not Mushroom under this Tree"
Fish: Tom Barnes – "Smoked Salmon Over Pine"
Main course: Lisa Goodwin-Allen – "Christmas Fallow Deer Feast"
Dessert: Lisa Goodwin-Allen – "Christmas Snowglobe (Thank You)"
Petit four: Tommy Banks – "The Night Before Christmas"
Series 16 (2021)
Series 16 began on 24 March 2021. The theme of the competition was innovation, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Sir Tim Berners-Lee creation of the World Wide Web. The series also marked the debut of Rachel Khoo as a judge, with Andi Oliver hosting following the series' Christmas Special. The banquet was due to be held at Jodrell Bank Observatory, Cheshire, but as COVID-19 restrictions were still in effect at the time of the series' filming, the banquet was instead held outdoors in a marquee, with full social distancing measures in place.
The first course was referred to as canapés for this season, rather than the amuse-bouche from the last season.
Heats
Final week
The winning eight chefs cook their courses in celebration of British innovation.
Guest judges
Starter: Phil Wang
Fish: Zoe Laughlin
Main: Carol Vorderman
Dessert: Ed Gamble
Final result
Starter: Alex Bond – "The Founding Father"
Palate cleanser: Jude Kereama – "Double Dose Palate Booster"
Fish: Roberta Hall-McCarron – "Maxwell's Colour Wheel"
Main: Oli Marlow – "Special Delivery"
Dessert: Dan McGeorge – "Give A Dog A Bone"
Petit four: Jude Kereama – "Planetary Petit Four"
Champion of Champions: Dan McGeorge
The Canapé and the Pre-dessert were not scored but were awarded to Jude Kereama as the highest runner-up. However, Jude's canapé was changed to be served as a palate cleanser after Alex's starter, and Jude's pre-dessert was changed to be served as a petit four after Dan's dessert.
Series 17 (2022)
Series 17 began on 1 February 2022. The theme of the competition is Great British Broadcasting, coinciding with the 100 year anniversary of the BBC beginning radio broadcasts. The series also saw a whole new judging panel with Ed Gamble, Nisha Katona and former GBM champion Tom Kerridge becoming the new judges, whilst Andi Oliver remained as host. The banquet was held at Alexandra Palace, London, where the BBC's first television broadcast took place in 1936.
In another change to recent series, the heats were shown on Tuesday–Thursday, and the judging episode was extended from a 30 minute episode to a 1 hour episode.
For the first time ever on the series, one of regional heats (South West) consists of all four female chefs in the line-up.
Heats
Final week
The winning eight chefs cook their courses in celebration of British broadcasting.
Guest judges
Starter: Steve Pemberton
Fish: Floella Benjamin
Main: Alison Steadman
Dessert: Huw Edwards
Final result
Canapé: Sally Abé – (Tarlet of whipped chicken with elderberry and port jelly)
Starter: Nathan Davies – "Merlin's Potion"
Fish: Spencer Metzger – "Be Careful What You Fish For"
Main: Spencer Metzger – "First Impressions"
Pre-dessert: Sally Abé – (Yoghurt sorbet ice lolly, based around It's a Sin)
Dessert: Chris McClurg – "A 'Trifle' Derry Girls"
Champion of Champions: Spencer Metzger ("Be Careful What You Fish For")
Sally Abé was the highest placed chef not to cook one of the main plates, so she was chosen to cook her canapé and pre-dessert courses.
Series 18 (2023)
Series 18 began on 31 January 2023. The theme of the competition is British Animation & Illustration, coinciding with the 65th anniversary of the creation of Paddington Bear. The judges and host remained the same as 2022, although for the South West Judging episodes, Marcus Wareing substituted for Tom Kerridge.
Heats
Final week
The winning eight chefs cook their courses in celebration of animation and illustration.
Guest judges
Starter: Kulvinder Ghir
Fish: Peter Lord
Main: Sir Lenny Henry
Dessert: Morwenna Banks
Final result
Canapé: Will Lockwood
Starter: Avi Shashidhara - “Scrambled Snake by the Lake”
Fish: Nick Beardshaw - “A Moon Shaped Pool”
Main: Tom Shepherd - "Cow Pie"
Dessert: Adam Handling - "Food Fight"
Cheese course: Will Lockwood
Champion of Champions: Adam Handling - "Food Fight"
Series 19 (Eurovision Week)
Transmissions
See also
List of Great British Menu chefs
References
External links
"How much can it cost chefs to take part in Great British Menu?" (12 June 2017) at The Staff Canteen
2006 British television series debuts
2000s British cooking television series
2010s British cooking television series
2020s British cooking television series
BBC Television shows
British cooking television shows
Cooking competitions in the United Kingdom
English-language television shows
Reality cooking competition television series
Hospitality industry in the United Kingdom
Television series by All3Media
Television series by Optomen
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/456th%20Bombardment%20Group
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456th Bombardment Group
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Activated in June 1943 as a heavy bombardment group. Trained with B-24 Liberators for duty overseas. Moved to Italy, December 1943 – January 1944. Began combat with Fifteenth Air Force in February 1944, operating chiefly against strategic targets until late in April 1945. Early operations included attacks against such objectives as marshalling yards, aircraft factories, railroad bridges, and airdromes in Italy, Austria, and Romania.
Received a Distinguished Unit Citation for performance at Wiener Neustadt, Austria on 10 May 1944: when other groups turned back because of adverse weather, the 456th proceeded to the target and, withstanding repeated attacks by enemy interceptors, bombed the manufacturing center. Helped to prepare the way for and supported the invasion of Southern France during July and August 1944. At the same time, expanded previous operations to include attacks on oil refineries and storage facilities, locomotive works, and viaducts in France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, and the Balkans.
Received second DUC for a mission in Hungary on 2 July 1944 when the group braved severe fighter attacks and antiaircraft
fire to bomb oil facilities at Budapest. In April 1945 bombed gun positions, bridges, roads, depots, and rail lines to support US Fifth and British Eighth Army in their advance through Italy. Transported supplies to airfields in northern Italy after V-E Day. Returned to the US in July 1945.
The 456th relocated to Smoky Hill Army Air Field, Salina, Kansas, on 17 August 1945. Put under control of Second Air Force, for conversion to a B-29 Superfortress group and operations against Japan, and re-designated 456th Bombardment Group, Very Heavy. The Pacific War ended before the conversion was completed, however, and the group was inactivated on 17 October 1945.
See 456th Bombardment Wing page for additional lineage and history
The 456th Bomb Group (Heavy) was an air combat unit of the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War. A "heavy bombardment group," the 456th operated B-24 Liberator aircraft and was known unofficially as "Steed's Flying Colts," after its commander.
The 456th Bomb Group flew 249 bombing missions from Italy while assigned to the Fifteenth Air Force. Its members earned two Presidential Unit Citations for valor in combat and participated extensively in the strategic bombing campaign against oil production targets including Ploieşti, Romania, that resulted in high bomber losses.
Inactivated at the end of the war and allotted to the Air Force Reserve, the group was reactivated twice as a bomb and troop carrier group, and later had its lineage and history bestowed on a like-numbered wing of the United States Air Force.
Organization of the 456th Bomb Group (H)
The 456th Bomb Group (Heavy) was created ("constituted") on 14 May 1943, by Special Order of the Second Air Force as a bomber unit planned for future deployment to the Eighth Air Force in the United Kingdom.
Group Commanders of the 456th Bomb Group:
Col. Thomas W. Steed (14 July 1943 – 19 May 1945),
Lt. Col. Robert C Whipple, (19 May 1945 – 30 August 1945),
Col. George E. Henry, (31 August 1945 – 3 September 1945),
Col. John W White, (4 September 1945 – 17 October 1945).
Deputy Commander Lt.Col. Russell was in temporary command from July – October 1944, in the absence of Col. Steed.
Deputy Group Commanders (air echelon commanders): Lt.Col. Harmon Lampley, Jr. (3 September 1943 – 28 March 1944); Lt.Col. Joseph G. Russell (1 June 1944 – unk); Lt.Col. Chester R. Ladd (1945—unk).
Executive officers (ground echelon commanders): Lt.Col. Walter C. Phillips (14 July 1943 – November 1944); Lt.Col. Leonard A. Weissinger (November 1944 – June 1945)
Four heavy bomb squadrons were constituted at the same time and assigned to the group:
744th Bomb Squadron (H)
Commanders: Capt. John R. Sinclair (14 July 1943 – 9 March 1944), Major Robert L. Reid (10 March 1944 – August 1944), Major Joseph N. Jacobucci (August 1944 – unk), Capt. William S. Rawls (dates unknown)
745th Bomb Squadron (H)
Commanders: Capt. William H. McKee (14 July 1943 – ?), Major Louis M. Abernathy (dates unk), Lt.Col. David H. Cissna (October 1944-unknown), Major John S. Chandler (dates unknown)
746th Bomb Squadron (H)
Commanders: Major Paul T. Golden (14 July 1943 – March 1944), Capt. Frederick W. Hyde (March 1944—unknown), Lt.Col. Samuel W. Parks (dates unknown)
747th Bomb Squadron (H)
Commanders: Major Benjamin F. Kelly (14 July 1943 – unknown), Capt. Richard R. Clark (unknown—10 May 1944, killed in action), Major William B. Clark (11 May 1944 – 5 November 1944, killed in action), Major Lewis T. Phillips (6 November 1944 – June 1945), Harold Lewis
Training history and movement overseas
Formation
The group and its four squadrons were activated without personnel or equipment on 1 June 1943, at Wendover Field, Utah. On 14 July 1943, the location of the group was changed to Gowen Field, Idaho, where a cadre of 66 officers and 237 enlisted men was assigned, transferred from the 29th Bomb Group at Gowen. Colonel Steed, formerly chief of staff of the IV Bomber Command, took command on the same date. While at Gowen Field, and at its next two stations, the 456th received additional personnel drawn from the 18th Replacement Wing at Salt Lake City, Utah, and the 470th Bomb Group, Mountain Home Army Air Field, Idaho. The air echelon (consisting at that time of key flying staff and four aircrews) was sent to the Army Air Force School of Applied Tactics at Orlando Army Air Base, Florida, for a four-week course of specialized cadre training in field operations and combat tactics.
On 30 July 1943, the group's ground echelon moved to Bruning Army Air Field, Nebraska, where it remained until 8 October. The air echelon joined the group at Bruning in mid-August and received four B-24D aircraft for familiarization flights.
The air echelon left Bruning on 5 September 1943, for Kearns Army Air Base, Utah, and on 29 September moved by train to Muroc Army Air Base, California, where it would remain until its designated overseas deployment date of 1 December. The ground echelon followed on 8 October. By 1 November, to train approximately 70 crews, the 456th had received only 28 aircraft, all old and half of them grounded for maintenance or lack of spare parts. The shortage of aircraft hampered the training efforts not only of its flying personnel but also its maintenance units.
The 456th received only a minimal amount of unit training in navigation, high altitude bombing, and gunnery, but its most serious training deficiency was a lack of high altitude formation flying using heavily loaded aircraft (as it would in combat). In all the group received only three of the normal six months of unit POM ("Preparation for Overseas Movement") training.
Despite the group's lack of preparation, and the refusal by Colonel Steed to certify its combat readiness to POM inspectors, the 456th's air echelon was ordered to discontinue training. The ground campaign in Italy had captured Foggia and its network of potential airfields, and seven groups of Liberators originally slated for the Eighth Air Force, including the 456th, had been diverted by General Arnold to the new bases then under construction.
The air echelon was ordered to fly its training aircraft to Hamilton Field, California, beginning 3 December 1943, while the ground echelon entrained for movement to a port of embarkation. At the time of its deployment, the 456th had reached its full strength of 377 officers and 1,627 enlisted men.
Movement to Italy
At Hamilton Field the air echelon received 61 new B-24H Liberator bombers over a period of several weeks. Traveling individually between December and February, the aircraft flew to Italy using the South Atlantic Ferry Route, established by Pan American Airways in the 1930s: Palm Beach, Florida; Puerto Rico; Trinidad; Belém and Natal, Brazil; Dakar, French West Africa; Marrakech and Casablanca, French Morocco; Oran, Algeria; and Tunis, Tunisia, where it waited while construction was completed on its airfield. On 30 January 1944, at Dakar, one of the 456th's aircraft exploded while taking off, killing nine of the ten crew members.
The ground echelon arrived at Camp Patrick Henry, Virginia, on 4 December, underwent final processing, and sailed in a convoy from Newport News, Virginia on 15 December aboard three Liberty ships. The convoy passed through the Strait of Gibraltar on 5 January 1944, divided into two sections, and reached the Italian ports of Taranto on 11 January and Naples, 19 January.
On 23 January, the ground echelon traveled by open truck in wet, freezing weather to the new base (code-named "Newbox") on the Tavoliere near the Adriatic Sea, eighteen miles (29 km) southeast of Foggia. The airbase was constructed on a nationalized estate called Incarnata Farm (), less than a mile north of the village of Stornarella and approximately two miles southwest of the larger town of Stornara; it received the name of the larger city as its location. Stornara airbase was centered in a cluster of airfields of its parent and newly activated 304th Bomb Wing and two other heavy bomber wings of the Fifteenth Air Force surrounding the city of Cerignola.
Staff officers immediately began requisitioning farmhouses for administrative buildings and setting up tent encampments in nearby olive groves for the living quarters. With some improvised improvements, the 456th lived in tents throughout its fifteen months at Stornara (for several months, the ground crews lived in infantry shelter halves until a sufficient number of squad-sized tents became available). Stonara's single runway was in length and oriented north-to-south, with taxiways on either side and revetments for 62 aircraft placed along them. The runways and taxiways were covered with steel matting called pierced steel planking, or PSP.
On 26 January, the 456th group headquarters reached Stornara and activated the base. The group's bombers began arriving from Tunisia on 1 February. On a training familiarization flight on 6 February another B-24 was lost, crashing into a mountain while flying in clouds, killing all aboard including three aircraft commanders.
Combat operations and tactics
The original group identification aircraft markings for the 456th Bomb Group, located on the outward side of the B-24's twin tail fins, consisted of a black diamond symbol superimposed on a white circle (marking of the 304th Bombardment Wing) on the fin's upper half, and the number 3 in white on the lower half. In May 1944, with the numbers of olive drab aircraft diminishing rapidly by combat attrition and operational wear, the Fifteenth Air Force adopted a system of color bands and symbols. The 456th's markings then became a long black diamond on the upper half, and the entire lower half painted bright red (the 456th's group color). The upper surface of a bomber's rear horizontal stabilizer, on which the tail fins were mounted, was similarly marked, with the left stabilizer painted red and the right having the diamond symbol.
Within the 456th Group, individual aircraft were identified initially by numbers painted on their noses, with sets of two-digit numbers assigned to squadrons ("numbers in squadron"), but this system was later discontinued and a non-standard pattern of three-digit numbers employed (usually, but not always, the last three numbers of an airplane's USAAF serial number). Late in the war some squadrons adopted letter identification painted on the rear fuselage, but this was not systematized, and many aircraft had no individual identification at all.
In combat
The 456th Bomb Group flew its first combat mission on 10 February 1944, less than two weeks after reaching Italy. The U.S. Fifth Army had conducted an amphibious landing at Anzio on 22 January to outflank the German Gustav Line, and the German Army had begun counterattacks against the beachhead. The 456th was tasked to attack a German command post near Grottaferrata and encountered no opposition, but when the group reached the target area, they found it completely obscured by clouds and returned without dropping their bombs.
Continuing poor weather conditions prevented further missions for another week, during which time the group continued flight training in combat formations. The 456th employed the six-combat box tactical formation favored by the Fifteenth Air Force to maximize defense against intercepting Luftwaffe fighters (for a detailed description see six-box formation). When the weather cleared on 17 February, the 456th repeated its earlier mission to bomb the command post at Grottaferrata. Although judging the results of bombing as successful, the 456th was engaged by nine fighters and severe flak, suffering its first combat losses as two bombers were shot down.
On six of its first ten missions weather conditions were poor and no bombs were dropped. On 15 March the group was one of several which bombed Monte Cassino in support of Fifth Army operations. The second unit of the 456th dropped its bombs in error on Allied troops, for which the deputy group commander was removed.
The 456th struck its first strategic target, the aircraft engine plant at Steyr, Austria, on 3 April, and on 12 April encountered its first severe air combat with German fighters. Over 100 intercepted the mission to the airfield at Bad Vöslau, Austria, and in a 40-minute battle shot down three Liberators. Four more were lost to 65 fighters on a 21 April mission to Bucharest, Romania.
Raids on Ploieşti and oil production
The 456th made the first of ten attacks on Ploieşti oil facilities on 5 May 1944, losing three aircraft, including one when a crewman bailing out of a stricken bomber knocked part of the wing off another in the same formation.
The 456th earned the first of two Distinguished Unit Citations on 10 May for a mission to bomb the aircraft factory at Wiener Neustadt, Austria, for attacking despite severe losses (five shot down and the remaining 26 damaged) after the other groups on the mission turned back because of bad weather. On 23 May, returning from a mission in which they were unable to bomb, two Liberators collided in mid-air directly over the base, killing all but one of the 20 crewmen aboard and dropping live bombs on the field.
On 22 June 1944, the 456th Bomb Group began flying a four-box 40-aircraft diamond formation to concentrate its bombing pattern for greater accuracy. On 2 July, the group earned its second DUC on a mission to bomb the Shell Oil refinery at Budapest, Hungary. 31 aircraft bombed the previously-untouched refinery at mid-morning and three minutes after bomb release, before reassembly in the new formation, were attacked by 50 Bf 109s and 10 Fw 190s of Luftwaffe gruppe JG.302 and Hungarian Air Force 101 Puma Group. The second box of the 456th bore the brunt of the attacks, with the 744th Bomb Squadron losing six of nine bombers in the target area and a seventh damaged beyond repair. 36 airmen were killed or missing and 24 captured, the largest single-day loss for the group.
Beginning 8 July, the first crews of the 456th completing the 50 missions required for a combat tour by the Fifteenth Air Force began returning to the United States. The last crew among the original 68 to be lost in combat went down on 20 July.
The last of 19 missions against Romanian oil production occurred 18 August. Missions of the Oil Campaign of World War II continued against at Odertal, Germany (); Moosbierbaum and Vienna, Austria; Most, Czechoslovakia; and Blechhammer, Poland, with 26 bombers lost on 23 missions. Bombing of German lines of communication, particularly marshalling yards and railroad bridges, remained a priority to the end of the war.
After August 1944 the 456th did not lose another aircraft to fighter defenses, but losses continued to accumulate from anti-aircraft fire. In the remaining nine months of operations 43 bombers were lost, most to flak. Three or more bombers were lost on five missions, including 11 November, when three planes crashed into the Adriatic after being recalled from a mission. In February 1945, the 456th began flying two missions per day, termed Red and Blue.
The last combat loss in the group occurred on 25 April 1945, at Linz, Austria. The following day, while General of the Army Henry H. Arnold, commanding general of the USAAF, was visiting the base, the 456th flew its last mission of the war against a transportation depot at Tarvisio, Italy, and scored a bombing accuracy of 100%, matched by only one other group in Europe (the 467th Bomb Group, also a B-24 unit, of the Eighth Air Force had accomplished it on 13 April 1945).
Statistical summary of operations
Bombing summary
At the close of the 456th's European operations, its group statistical officer issued a summary of its combat operations. During its 249 bombing missions, the 456th flew a cumulative total of 7,272 sorties and dropped 13,939 tons of bombs on Axis targets. 45% of this total was dropped on lines of communication targets, 18% on oil production and storage, 14% on airfields, 12% on industrial infrastructure, 6% on troop concentrations, and 5% on targets of opportunity or other types. The 456th had the highest average percentage of bombing accuracy within the 304th Bomb Wing and progressed from an average of 20.1% accuracy (bombs falling within of the aiming point) in its first full month of operations to 71.9% during its last full month of operations. This accuracy average was higher than all but one Eighth Air Force group.
Maintenance summary
The 456th averaged a maintenance rate of 83% for daily availability of aircraft for mission assignments, again the highest within the 304th Wing.
Losses and casualties
The 456th had 117 bombers destroyed or written off as salvage during its overseas assignment. Of this number, 91 were lost in combat (20 shot down by fighters, 56 by flak, and 15 by unknown means), with 74 of those crashing in Axis-controlled territory, 10 in the Adriatic Sea, 2 in Switzerland, 3 in Soviet-controlled territory in Poland, one on the island of Vis, and one over Italy. 18 aircraft were destroyed in non-combat related accidents: 4 in flying crashes, 4 on take-offs, 6 on landings, 2 in a mid-air collision over the base, and 2 in accidents while on the ground. 8 battle-damaged aircraft were written off as beyond economical repair. 36 of the original 61 bombers were destroyed and all but one of the rest taken out of service as "war weary".
3,267 aircrew served in the 456th Bomb Group during the war. 1,079 or 33% were aboard aircraft destroyed. 331 airmen were killed in action, 206 remain missing in action, 271 were made prisoners-of-war, 6 were interned in Switzerland until the end of hostilities, 108 evaded capture and returned to duty, and 49 returned to base. Of the 108 evadees, 9 evaded capture in Italy, 10 in Hungary, and 89 in Yugoslavia. 26 of the original 68 combat crews and 17 of the first 27 replacement crews were shot down. The group, equivalent to an infantry regiment, equalled or exceeded the killed-in-action of 15 ground force divisions.
Its members were awarded one Distinguished Service Cross, 19 Silver Stars, 215 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and over 2,000 Air Medals.
All figures per Capps
Honors and campaigns
Honors
Distinguished Unit Citation, World War II
Wiener Neustadt, 10 May 1944
Budapest, 2 July 1944
Campaigns
Air Offensive, Europe
Rome-Arno
Normandy
Northern France
Southern France
North Apennines
Rhineland
Central Europe
Po Valley
Post-war history
The 456th relocated to Smoky Hill Army Air Field, Kansas, on 17 August 1945, for conversion to the Boeing B-29 Superfortress and operations against Japan, and was redesignated as the 456th Bombardment Group, Very Heavy. The war ended before the conversion was completed, however, and the group was inactivated on 17 October 1945.
The 456th was activated again as an reserve unit of the United States Air Force. From 1 July 1947 to 27 June 1949, at McChord Air Force Base, Washington, the 456th Bomb Group operated B-29's.
The group returned to the regular Air force from 1 December 1952 to 1 March 1955, as the 456th Troop Carrier Group, Medium as the operations group for the 456th Troop Carrier Wing operating Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar transports in both a standard airlift and research mission, based at Miami International Airport, Florida where it replaced the 435th Troop Carrier Group, a reserve unit activated for the Korean War on 1 December 1952. The group moved to Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina on 15 August 1953 and was inactivated there on 1 March 1955.
Commanders of the post-war 456th Group were: Col. Leonard J. Barrow, Jr. (c. December 1952), LtCol. Malcolm P. Hooker (c. February 1953), Col. Jay D. Bogue (1953 – 1 March 1955).
The honors and lineage of the group were temporarily bestowed on the 456th Strategic Aerospace Wing (later the 456th Bombardment Wing) at Beale Air Force Base, California. The 456th included the 744th Bombardment Squadron among its subordinate units.
Lineage
Constituted as 456th Bombardment Group (Heavy) on 14 May 1943
Activated on 1 June 1943
Redesignated 456th Bombardment Group, Heavy c. 6 March 1944
Redesignated 456th Bombardment Group, Very Heavy on 5 August 1945
Inactivated on 17 October 1945
Activated on 12 July 1947 in the reserve
Inactivated on 27 June 1949
Redesignated 456th Troop Carrier Group, Medium on 15 October 1952
Activated on 1 December 1952
Inactivated on 1 March 1955
Assignments
IV Bomber Command, 1 June–December 1943
304th Bombardment Wing, January 1944 – July 1945
Second Air Force, 1 August-17 October 1945 (attached to: 17th Bombardment Operational Training Wing after 17 August 1945)
Fourth Air Force, 17 August 1947 – 27 June 1949
456th Troop Carrier Wing, 1 December 1952 – 1 March 1955
Components
744th Bombardment Squadron (later 744th Troop Carrier Squadron) 1 June 1943 – 17 October 1945; 12 July 1947 – 27 June 1949; 1 December 1952 – 1 March 1955<ref name=Maurer732>Maurer, Combat Squadrons, p. 732</ref>
745th Bombardment Squadron (later 745th Troop Carrier Squadron): 1 June 1943 – 17 October 1945; 12 July 1947 – 27 June 1949; 1 December 1952 - 1 March 1955
746th Bombardment Squadron (later 746th Troop Carrier Squadron): 1 June 1943 – 17 October 1945; 12 July 1947 – 27 June 1949; 1 December 1952 – 1 March 1955
747th Bombardment Squadron (later 747th Troop Carrier Squadron): 1 June 1943 – 17 October 1945; 12 July 1947 – 27 June 1949
Stations
Wendover Field, Utah, 1 June 1943
Gowen Field, Idaho, 14 July 1943;
Bruning Army Air Field, Nebraska, c. 30 July 1943
Kearns Army Air Field, Utah, c. 11 September 1943
Muroc Army Air Field, California, October–December 1943
Cerignola Airfield, Italy, January 1944
Stornara Airfield, Italy, January 1944 – July 1945
Sioux Falls Army Air Field, South Dakota, 1 August 1945
Smoky Hill Army Air Field, Kansas, 17 August-17 October 1945
McChord Air Force Base, Washington, 12 July 1947 – 27 June 1949
Miami International Airport, Florida, 1 December 1952
Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina, 25 July 1953 – 16 October 1955
Shiroi Air Base, Japan, 10 November 1955 – 1 March 1955
Aircraft
Consolidated B-24 Liberator, 1943–1945
Boeing B-29 Superfortress, 1945
Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar, 1 December 1952 – 1 March 1955
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Doorley, Captain Paul A. 456th Bombardment Group (Heavy): Final Statistical Report, 1 February 1944 to 8 May 1945.
Further reading
Ambrose, Stephen E. (2001), The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys who Flew the B-24s Over Germany. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster. .
Capps, Robert S. (1997), Flying Colt: Liberator Pilot in Italy. Alexandria, Virginia: Manor House. .
Capps, Robert S. (1994), 456th Bomb Group (H): Steed's Flying Colts 1943–1945. Paducah, Kentucky: Turner Publishing. .
Dorr, Robert F. (2000), B-24 Liberator Units of the Fifteenth Air Force''. Botley, Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing. .
External links
Bombardment groups of the United States Army Air Forces
Military units and formations established in 1943
Bombardment groups of the United States Air Force
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Price%20Is%20Right%20%28British%20game%20show%29
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The Price Is Right (British game show)
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The Price Is Right is a British game show based on the US version of the same name. It originally aired on ITV from 24 March 1984 to 8 April 1988 and was hosted by Leslie Crowther. The show later briefly moved to Sky One for one series as The New Price is Right from 4 September 1989 to 31 August 1990 with Bob Warman as the host.
The show returned to ITV, as Bruce's Price is Right, from 4 September 1995 to 16 December 2001, with Bruce Forsyth hosting for seven series consisting of 116 episodes. Another series aired from 8 May 2006 until 12 January 2007, this time hosted by Joe Pasquale. Two one-off specials aired as part of ITV's Gameshow Marathon in September 2005 and April 2007. On 30 December 2017, it was revived for a one-off pilot hosted by Alan Carr on Channel 4.
In June 2019, it was announced that The Price Is Right had been chosen as one of the country's five all-time favourite game shows to be "supersized and rebooted" in new series Alan Carr's Epic Gameshow commissioned by ITV. A seven-episode series was filmed at dock10 studios and broadcast in May 2020.
Crowther era (The Price is Right)
Leslie Crowther hosted the original UK version, having beaten Joe Brown to the role of host after both recorded pilot episodes. It was also notable for being produced by William G. Stewart (of later Fifteen to One fame), who made the occasional cameo appearance. The Crowther version is popular with fans of the show for its near-campiness, frenetic pace, glamour, and the endearing presentation skills of its host, not for its cheaper prizes (which were forced on it by the Independent Broadcasting Authority's prize limits). Its format was nearly identical to that of CBS's daytime show in the United States. It initially used the Big Wheel to decide who would go through to the Range Finder (Scoring 100 won £500 and a bonus spin which awarded an additional £1,000 for spinning 100 or £250 for landing on an adjacent section), but the IBA forced Central to abandon this because of the lack of pricing skill involved. While the show had to go off air for a while during its first season due to an electricians' strike, the format was adapted to fit into a much more tightly regulated UK broadcasting environment.
After this ruling was made, the show replaced the Big Wheel rounds with a game called "Supermarket", a game loosely based on the American version's "Grocery Game" pricing game. The three contestants were shown an assortment of small retail items, such as groceries or hardware, and had 15 seconds to select up to four apiece. Duplicates of each item were provided to allow multiple contestants to select the same one if desired; however, contestants could take no more than one of any item. The prices of the chosen items were revealed and added up, and the contestant who came the closest to £20 (high or low) advanced to the Showcase.
Series two saw the Big Wheel return for a spin-off to see who would have the option of bidding or passing on the first showcase; each contestant had to take two spins. If a person scored 100, £400 would be donated to charity on their behalf, and Leslie would ask the person a consumer-related question to win £100 for him/herself. The winner was the contestant who came closer to 100 in either direction.
The Crowther version later replaced Supermarket and the Big Wheel called with the "Showcase Showdown", where all six on-stage contestants played a series of estimated-guess questions and the person farthest away from the actual prize was eliminated. This was done until the last two contestants were left, and they then advanced to the Range Finder.
The final round, the Range Finder, was played largely the same way as on the Showcase finale on the American version. In the first season, the winner would not win the largest prize in their showcase if their winning guess was not within 10% of the showcase total. In subsequent seasons, the game was played with 1972–74 United States rules (no Double Showcase rule), while it did use the rule for a double overbid.
Pricing Games
Any Number (used numbers 1–9 with all values having three digits each)
Bargain Bar ("Barker's Bargain Bar" in the U.S.)
Blank Cheque (Now known as "Check Game" in the U.S.)
Bonus Game
(The) Card Game
Check-Out
Cliffhanger ("Cliff Hangers" in the U.S.)
(The) Clock Game
Danger Price
Dice Game
Escalator ("Walk of Fame" in the U.S., except only one prize could be won; the player had to choose whether to keep the last item won or try for the next one)
Five Price Tags
Give or Keep
Hi Lo (played with small prizes instead of grocery items.)
Hole in One
Lucky 7 (played with seven £1 coins for a prize with a three-digit price.)
Master Key
Matchmaker (not based on any U.S. game; a pricing game in name only, as it actually involved memory, with six prizes available.)
Money Game (played for a vehicle with a three-digit price.)
Most Expensive (an original game later introduced in the US as "Easy as 1, 2, 3"; not the U.S.'s "Most Expensive"; contestants only won the most expensive prize.)
One Away
Partners (loosely based on The Phone Home Game.)
The Penny Drops ("Penny Ante" in the U.S.)
Permutation (not based on any U.S. game; played much like Balance Game II.)
Pick-a-Pair (played with small prizes instead of grocery items.)
Punch a Bunch
Race Game
Range Game
Safecracker ("Safe Crackers" in the U.S.)
Secret X (contestant has three chances to win up to two X's in addition to the one given at the outset.)
Side by Side (not based on any US game; not related to the U.S.'s Side by Side in any way.)
Squeeze Play (played for a three-digit prize; players remove two numbers instead of one from a set of five digits or one number from a set of four.)
Switcheroo (played for four two-digit prizes and one three-digit prize.)
Take Two
Temptation
Ten Chances (played for two two-digit prizes and one three-digit prize.)
3 in a Row (not based on any U.S. game; played for a three-digit prize, using a grid of nine two-digit prizes.)
3 Strikes
Tic~Tac~Toe (functionally a variation on Joker with the pricing portion of On the Nose.)
Time-Play (a variation on Clock Game; played for three three-digit prizes in ascending order of price.)
Trade Up ("Trader Bob" in the U.S.)
Announcer
Simon Prebble (1984–1988)
Models
Marie-Elise Grepne (1984–1985)
Jacqueline Bucknell (1984–1986)
Julia Roberts (1984–1986)
Denise Kelly (1984–1988)
Sandra Easby (1985)
Cindy Day (1986–1988)
Carol Greenwood (1986–1988)
Gillian de Terville (1986–1988)
Elsa O'Toole (1986)
Judy Bailey (1986–1988)
Laura Calland (1987–1988)
Sarah Wynter (1988)
Warman era (The New Price is Right)
The second version hosted by Bob Warman is considered to be a precursor to the third version hosted by Bruce Forsyth, as it was a half-hour and used the Showcase range game. Having premiered shortly after Leslie Crowther's version went off the air, it retained many elements from the set and props, but was somewhat "Americanized". The show was hence called "The New Price is Right" and had a red, yellow and green pound sign. The Warman version also had slightly better and more expensive prizes than the Crowther version due to the program's shorter length, in-show sponsorship, and lighter government regulation of satellite television channels. The show also had a light border in the opening (mimicking the American version), used US music (including the opening theme, the Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour theme and Concentration car cues, to name a few), and had more colour on the set.
The Showcase round was played considerably differently: After three games and a single Showcase Showdown at the Big Wheel (in which spinning 100 earned a bonus spin worth a bonus prize), the Showdown winner selected a range at random from £250 to £1,000; if the bid was within the selected range of the price of the presented showcase without going over, they won the Showcase.
Pricing Games
Bargain Bar
Cliffhanger
Danger Price
Five Price Tags (played with grocery items, and players are given a free pick at the start.)
Hi Lo
Lucky 7 (played with seven tokens.)
Money Game (played for a car, as in America.)
Pick-a-Pair (played with grocery items.)
Race Game
Side by Side (not based on any American pricing game, including "Side by Side".)
Switcheroo
Ten Chances
Announcers
Bobby Bragg
Al Sherwin
Models
Suzie Marlowe
Tracie Williams
Katrina Maltby
Julie Broster
Peitra Caston
Brian Tattersall
Forsyth era (Bruce's Price is Right)
When it started in 1995, Bruce's Price is Right was one of the first shows to fully take advantage of the Independent Television Commission's lifting of the prize limits and the general deregulation of the UK broadcasting environment. The Showcase Showdown was played on the Big Wheel (objections to lack of skill no longer being a factor), with the highest-scoring contestant on one spin or a combination of two spins going through to the Range Finder, and any contestant who scored 100 on one spin or a combination of two spins would win £1,000. The ranges for the Range Finder in this version went from £1,000 to £5,000. (Unlike the other three versions, this version did not involve any bonus spin.)
Although, it was only in a half-hour format with three pricing games per show (the Crowther show had been an hour long with six games), it still gave away more valuable prizes each week than the previous ITV version had done (for example, it was possible for a contestant to win two cars, one in a pricing game and one in the showcase, which would have been utterly unthinkable on British TV in the 1980s). Cars offered were usually superminis, from makers like Daihatsu and Daewoo, or models like a Ford Ka or Mazda Demio, but small sports cars like a Hyundai Accent or Vauxhall Tigra were offered on occasion.
On the Forsyth version, the game Plinko was played to very different rules from the US version; considerably less money could be won, and contestants could risk their cash winnings on one final Plinko chip in hopes of adding a car or other large prize to their winnings (the cash spaces on the board were replaced with alternating "WIN" and "LOSE" tags). Landing on "LOSE" would lose all the money accumulated, while landing on "WIN" won the car or other large prize plus the money. (Ant and Dec's Gameshow Marathon used these rules for their playing of Plinko, with an extra choice of a pound sign in addition to "WIN" and "LOSE", so that landing in the pound sign slot would double the winnings. Vernon Kay's extra chip, however, landed in a "WIN" slot.)
Many European versions of the show that debuted after the Forsyth version based their games and sound cues on that show. The main theme, an update of the US theme, and the "come on down" music are from the short-lived 1994 US syndicated version.
Forsyth initially opened this version with a modified version of his trademark line of "Nice to see you, to see you...NICE!" (where the audience yells the word "nice" at the end) adding "...and it's nice to meet the stars of our show, whoever you are!" In later series the original line was used, followed by "Let's meet the stars of our show, whoever you are!"
The Forsyth incarnation was a co-production between Yorkshire Television and Fremantle (UK) Productions (formerly Talbot Television), and not made by Central like its predecessor.
Pricing Games
Introduced Series 1 (1995)
Cliffhanger ("Cliff Hangers" in the US; contestants were told that the prices increased as the game progressed.)
Clock Game (rules modified after Series 1 so that all prizes ended in either '0' or '5'.)
Danger Price (contestant could not win the prize that cost the danger price.)
Double Price Tags ("Double Prices" in the US.)
Hole in One (played with four small prizes instead of six grocery products, uses two-putt rule.)
Master Key
Money Game
Most Expensive (contestant only won the most expensive prize.)
One Right Price (regularly played for two cars, though the contestant could only choose one.)
Pathfinder
Pick-a-Pair (played with the prizes themselves instead of with grocery products.)
Plinko
Race Game (played with a 30-second timer.)
Secret "X" (except on earliest playings, contestants had three chances to win the two additional Xs.)
Swap ("Switch?" in the US; contestant could only win one prize they would choose.)
Switcheroo (a non-car game)
Introduced Series 2 (1996)
Check-Out
Lucky Seven (modified so that no numbers appeared in the price more than once.)
Make Your Move
Pick-a-Number
Introduced Series 3 (1997)
Credit Card (contestant won the three prizes they picked, and only one prize can create a loss and may still win the game; rules modified later on so that they also kept the remaining money on the card)
Most Expensive (replaced original "Most Expensive" from Series 1; now a renamed version of "Easy as 1, 2, 3".)
Split Decision (used the game's timed format.)
Three Strikes ('one strike in the bag' rule implemented from Series 5 onward.)
Introduced Series 4 (1998)
Any Number
Bruce's Bargain Bar ("Barker's Bargain Bar" in the US, contestant only won one of the prizes.)
Hi Lo (played for two prizes, contestants chose one prize if game was won.)
Introduced Series 5 (1999)
Joker
Side by Side
Price Tags ("Barker's Markers"/"Make Your Mark" in the US)
Introduced Series 6 (2000)
Clearance Sale
Let 'em Roll (except on earliest playings, the number of rolls was determined using a grocery product and three price choices.)
Push Over (the blocks went "to Australia" according to Bruce.)
Introduced Series 7 (2001)
No new games were introduced.
Announcer
Peter Dickson (1995–2001)
Models
Kimberley Cowell (1995–2001)
Emma Noble (1995–1998)
Emma Steadman (1995–2001)
Brian Tattersall (1995–1998)
Simon Peat (1998–2001)
Lea Kristensen (1998–2001)
Ant and Dec's Gameshow Marathon (The Price is Right)
On 17 September 2005, as part of a celebration of the 50th birthday of ITV, Ant & Dec hosted a one-off revival of The Price is Right as part of Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon; they also hosted revivals of several other game shows that were once popular on the ITV network. The original titles were from the Central version, however the Yorkshire Television logo was used instead.
Announcer
Peter Dickson (2005)
Games played
Cliffhanger (Carol Vorderman); game won
Plinko (Vernon Kay); gamble taken and extra prize (car) won
Race Game (Ruby Wax); one prize out of four won
Other results
Carol Vorderman won the Showcase Showdown and proceeded to win her showcase.
Pasquale era (The Price is Right)
Talkback Thames debuted a revival on ITV on 8 May 2006, this time with former I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! winner Joe Pasquale as host. It followed the same gameplay format as Bob Warman and Bruce Forsyth's versions, with Range Finder ranges going from £500 to £3000 (sometimes £4000), and the Showcase Showdown adapted the bonus spin from the Warman version, with a car at stake; later replaced by the £1000 bonus. It had a very "panto" feel to it, and it relies on nostalgia of the Crowther version, which was known for its cheap prizes because of the regulations of the time. Joe's tour manager, Ray Tizzard, made appearances as his "twin" in various pricing games.
The show expanded to an hour from 3 July 2006. This involved three games being played, a Showcase Showdown, three more games, another Showcase Showdown, and then, the winners from both showdowns take part in the 'Pasquale Finale', a spin-off on the wheel to see who will go through to the Range Finder. In addition, prior to this, the maximum range in the Range Finder increased to £4000, as the budget increased.
After the first three games and Showcase Showdown, Contestants' Row was cleared of people, and a new set of four contestants was called down. (This differs from the US version, which keeps all contestants in Contestants' Row who do not go on stage.)
In all versions of the programme, a perfect bid in Contestants' Row resulted in a £100 bonus in either cash or, in the Warman version, gift certificates.
Pricing Games
Any Number
Cliffhanger ("Cliff Hangers" in the US.)
Danger Price
Deck of Cards ("Card Game" in the US; introduced when the show went hour-long.)
Easy as 1, 2, 3
Find the Lady ("Shell Game" in the US, played here with playing cards, including a Queen.)
Half & Half ("Money Game" in the US.)
Hi Lo
Hole in One
Joe's Bargain Bar ("Barker's Bargain Bar" in the US.)
Joe's Lucky Bag ("3 Strikes" in the US.)
Joe Ker (introduced when the show went hour-long; known as "Joker" in the US.)
Lucky 7 ("Lucky Seven" in the US; introduced when the show went hour-long; follows the same rules as Bruce Forsyth's version, although not always played for a car.)
On the Nose
One Right Price (not the US' 1 Right Price; actually more similar to the US' Double Prices, with three choices, so you could call it "Triple Prices".)
One Wrong Price
Pick a Number
Pick-a-Pair (played with only four items.)
Plinko
Price Tags ("Five Price Tags" in the US; introduced when the show went hour-long.)
Push Over
Safecracker ("Safe Crackers" in the US.)
Side by Side
Swap ("Switch?" in the US; like Bruce Forsyth's version, contestants can only win one prize, and they select the one they want.)
Take 2
Walk the Line (the grocery portion of Let 'em Roll with five items; based on the high-low game on Play Your Cards Right with prices of grocery items instead of playing cards; to win, a contestant must correctly run the board with no mistakes.)
Announcers
Peter Dickson (2006–2007)
Mike Hurley (2006–2007) (occasional cover for Peter Dickson)
Models
Natalie Denning (2006-2007)
Amanda Robbins (2006–2007)
Richard Kyte (2006–2007)
Natalie Pike (2006–2007)
Merchandise
A DVD game based on this version of the show was released by Circle Studio in November 2006.
Cancellation
ITV chiefs cancelled The Price is Right at the end of its latest run on 12 January 2007, citing the fact that while The Paul O'Grady Show on Channel 4 regularly attracted over 2.5 million viewers, Pasquale only managed to pull in 800,000.
Vernon Kay's Gameshow Marathon (The Price is Right)
After the success of Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon in 2005, ITV brought the show back, this time hosted by Vernon Kay, a contestant in the first series. Vernon Kay's Gameshow Marathon began on 7 April 2007 with The Price is Right.
Contestants
Michael Le Vell (Coronation Street actor)
Jamelia (Singer)
Graeme Le Saux (Footballer)
Wendy Richard (Former EastEnders actress)
Ben Shephard (TV presenter)
Andrea Catherwood (The Sunday Edition presenter)
The winner of the show was Graeme Le Saux, who as a result advanced to the quarter-final of the show. The five remaining contestants returned in the next week's show, Blockbusters, to battle for the second spot in the quarter-final round.
Announcer
Peter Dickson (2007)
Carr era (The Price is Right)
On 30 December 2017, the revival was a one-off pilot filmed at Dock10 studios that aired as a Christmas special on Channel 4 hosted by Alan Carr and was announced by Tony Hirst. According to a press release by FremantleMedia, Carr said "I'm so excited to be the new host of The Price is Right. It's proper bucket list territory for me as I loved it when I was growing up and now for me to be at the helm of such a legendary show is a dream come true. It just leaves me with one thing to say … COME ON DOWN!". Viewers had praised Carr's hosting ability as they took it to Twitter by demanding it to become a full series. However, it has been declined since then.
After five pricing games (Cliffhangers, Pay the Rent, Plinko, Bonkers and Clock Game), those five players spun the wheel with the Showcase Showdown winner going through to the Showcase Final which was played exactly the same way as on Bruce’s Price Is Right. Scoring exactly 100 on the wheel won £100. A tie would be broken via spin-off with no bonus for spinning 100.
Announcer
Tony Hirst
Models
Nichola Dixon
Dorretta Maynard
Zoe Nicholas
Alan Carr's Epic Gameshow (The Price is Right)
On 30 May 2019, ITV ordered a series called Alan Carr's Epic Gameshow (also known as Epic Gameshow) hosted by Alan Carr and filmed at dock10 studios, who had previously hosted a reboot of The Price is Right on Channel 4 in 2017 where like Gameshow Marathon, it would see five classic game shows being supersized and brought back such as Play Your Cards Right, The Price is Right, Take Your Pick, Strike it Lucky and Bullseye. However, unlike GSM this would feature only civilian contestants hoping to win either a big cash reward or top of the range prizes instead of celebrities playing for their favourite charities along with a viewer at home (except the first episode which was Play Your Cards Right).
According to the press release, Carr said "It is such a privilege for me to be involved in these truly iconic shows that have brought so much joy to my childhood. A little bit nostalgia but a whole load of fun. Big shoes to fill I know, these shows should be back on telly for a whole new generation to sit down and enjoy with their family just like I did all those years ago!"
It was originally set to air in April 2020 but as of 15 May 2020, it has not aired. However, on 29 May 2020, it was later announced that it will start airing on 6 June 2020. Additionally, there were also announcements that a celebrity edition of Play Your Cards Right and another Christmas special of The Price is Right were also in the works. Just like the regular editions from the 80s, 90s and the early 2000s, the episode featured regular civilians as contestants with an exact bid in contestant's row earning that contestant £200. The five pricing games that were played in the episode were:
Cliffhangers
Hole in One
Any Number
Plinko
Push Over
(NOTE: In Cliffhangers, the face of the mountain climber is supposed to resemble its host Alan Carr, it also never revealed the actual price of the Popcorn Maker after the contestant's win when it was in fact £50)
Announcer
John Sachs (2020)
Models
Matt Peacock (2020)
Rachel Trevaskis (2020)
Kimberley Williams (2020)
The three players closest to each item up for bids got to spin the big wheel in which 100 won only £1000. The winner then played the showcase final with a static range of £3000. The ply goes to a brand new bonus round called the "Epic Showcase".
Epic Showcase
Similar to the Warman era, the biggest difference here is that there were no random range choice of any kind as the range was a flat £3000 but still coming within the range without going over won the showcase.
Transmissions
Crowther era (The Price is Right)
Warman era (The New Price Is Right)
Forsyth era (Bruce's Price Is Right)
Pasquale era (The Price is Right)
Carr era (The Price is Right)
References
External links
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The Price is Right (1984–1988) at BFI.
Bruce's Price is Right at BFI.
The Price is Right (2006–2007) at BFI.
The Price is Right (2017) at Channel 4.
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1984 British television series debuts
2007 British television series endings
1980s British game shows
1990s British game shows
2000s British game shows
British television series based on American television series
English-language television shows
ITV game shows
Sky UK original programming
Channel 4 game shows
Television shows produced by Central Independent Television
Television shows produced by Thames Television
Television series by Fremantle (company)
Television series by ITV Studios
Television series by Reg Grundy Productions
Television series by Yorkshire Television
British television series revived after cancellation
The Price Is Right
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5035886
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard%20M.%20Berman
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Richard M. Berman
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Richard Miles Berman (born September 11, 1943) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Education and early career
Berman received his Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University in 1964. He earned his Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law in 1967. He received a Diploma of Comparative Law in 1968 and a Diploma of International Law in 1970 from the University of Stockholm Faculty of Law, where he also served as Assistant to the Dean of Foreign Students. He received a Master of Social Work from Fordham University in 1996. He went into private practice at Davis Polk & Wardwell in 1970. In 1974, he became Executive Assistant to United States Senator Jacob K. Javits in 1974. (In 1977, he was named Executive Director of the New York State Alliance to Save Energy, co-chaired by Senators Javits and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. A year later, he was appointed General Counsel and Executive Vice President of the Warner Cable Corporation, a position he held until 1986, when he returned to private practice as a partner of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae. Berman currently serves on the board of directors of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations Alumni Association.
Judicial career
Berman was appointed by Mayor Giuliani as judge of the New York State Family Court for Queens County (1995 to 1998). On May 21, 1998, he was named by President Bill Clinton to a seat on the District Court for the Southern District of New York. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 21, 1998. Berman assumed senior status on September 11, 2011. He is a member of the New York State-Federal Judicial Council, which is concerned with issues of interest to the state and federal judiciary. Berman served as Chairman of the Council from 2011 to 2012.
Legislative service
Berman served as Executive Assistant to United States Senator Jacob K. Javits from 1974 to 1978.
Notable cases
U.S. District Court
United States v. Owens et al
In September 2018, four individuals were charged in the “Panama Papers” conspiracy with unlawfully evading U.S. tax laws. Two of four defendants pleaded guilty to the charges. The remaining two defendants have not appeared in the S.D.N.Y. proceedings.
United States v. Epstein
In July 2019, Berman was assigned the case of financier Jeffrey Epstein who was charged with Sex Trafficking and Conspiracy to Commit Sex Trafficking. On July 18, 2019, Berman denied Epstein’s bail application, finding that he posed a danger to the community and that he was also a flight risk. On July 23, 2019, Epstein attempted suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (“MCC”) and on August 10, 2019 he committed suicide at the MCC. On August 27, 2019, Berman conducted a public hearing on the government's motion to dismiss the case. Twenty-seven alleged victims, along with the government and defense counsel, participated at the hearing. On August 29, 2019, Berman granted the motion to dismiss.
Ortiz v. United States
In March 2019, Berman denied an inmate's habeas corpus petition to vacate his six-year sentence. The Court held that the New York Penal Law § 120.05(7), or Second Degree Assault by a Convicted Prisoner, was a "crime of violence" under the United States Sentencing Guidelines and that Petitioner had waived his right to appeal.
Duka v. U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission
In August 2015, Berman enjoined the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from continuing its securities law administrative proceedings against Barbara Duka, finding that the SEC's administrative law judges had been appointed in violation of the Appointments Clause in the U.S. Constitution. Upon appeal, the injunction was dissolved based upon the Second Circuit's holding in SEC v. Tilton that parties "must await a final SEC order before raising their Appointments Clause claim in federal court." On June 21, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States in Lucia v. SEC resolved a "circuit split" and ruled that the SEC's ALJs are officers of the United States and, as Berman had also concluded, subject to the Appointments Clause.
United States v. Rahimi
In October 2017, Berman presided over the criminal jury trial of Ahmad Khan Rahimi, also known as the "Chelsea bomber." Rahimi was convicted of all counts related to the September 2016 bombing in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City, in which 31 people were injured. Rahimi was sentenced on February 13, 2018 to life in prison.
United States v. Atilla
In November and December 2017, Berman presided over the criminal jury trial of Turkish citizen Mehmet Hakan Atilla. Atilla was convicted of 5 out of 6 counts in the Indictment, including conspiracies to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran and to defraud the United States, and bank fraud. Atilla was sentenced on May 16, 2018 to 32 months in prison.
NFL Management Council v. NFL Players Association ("Deflategate")
Berman presided over New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's case involving a four-game suspension levied against him by the National Football League for Brady's alleged role in the 2015 "Deflategate" matter. After unsuccessful efforts to bring about a settlement, Berman overturned Brady's suspension in an opinion dated September 3, 2015, finding significant legal deficiencies attending Brady's suspension. These included the NFL's disregard of the rules and penalties regarding handling of footballs once they have left the locker room; denial of the opportunity for Brady to examine one of the two lead NFL investigators; and denial of access to investigative files. On April 25, 2016, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed on the grounds that the Players Association had signed an arbitration agreement, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's authority to implement the suspension. In dissent, Chief Judge Robert Katzmann determined that it was improper for the NFL Commissioner to review in arbitration his own decision to suspend Brady.
United States v. Kurniawan
Berman has presided over two landmark wine cases. One involved Rudy Kurniawan, who was convicted of counterfeiting fine wines in December 2013 following a jury trial, and sentenced to a term of incarceration.
Swedenburg v. Kelly
The second wine case involved a challenge to New York State liquor laws which prohibited out of state wineries from selling directly to consumers within New York. In November 2002, Berman held that New York's direct ban on such out of state wine sales was unconstitutional, as "[t]he New York regime constitutes a cut and dry example of direct discrimination against interstate commerce." The ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in Granholm v. Heald.
United States v. Siddiqui
Berman presided over the case against Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani citizen and graduate of MIT and Brandeis University, who was convicted by a jury in 2010 of attempted murder of U.S. officials in Afghanistan, and sentenced to lengthy incarceration.
New York Taxi Workers Alliance v. New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission
In September 2007, Berman denied the NYC cab driver association's application to prevent the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission from requiring that all taxicabs must be installed with credit- and debit-card readers.
MacWade v. Kelly
In December 2005, following a bench trial, Berman ruled that random police searches of riders' backpacks and bags on the New York City subway system do not violate the U.S. Constitution.
Gershkovich v. Iocco
Alex Gershkovich, a photographer involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, sued two NYPD officers and the City of New York claiming that he was arrested without probable cause while photographing police activity in a public place. Berman, in a summary judgment decision dated July 17, 2017, determined that the right to record police activity in public areas was "clearly established" at the time of Gerskovich's arrest. The parties reached a settlement in November 2017.
Gordon v. Softech International, Inc.
After having determined that the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994 ("DPPA") is not a "strict liability" statute, Berman presided over the civil jury trial against defendants Arcanum Investigations, Inc. and its executive director. On April 24, 2015, the jury found that defendants, who are resellers of DMV information were not liable. They had used reasonable care in providing plaintiff's information to a third party. By summary order, dated April 15, 2016, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the judgment entered in connection with the jury's verdict.
United States v. D'Souza
Berman presided in the Dinesh D'Souza campaign finance case in May 2014. On the eve of trial, D'Souza pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, (arranging straw donors), and was sentenced in September 2014 to five years of probation, $30,000 fine, and community service.
Ideal Steel Supply Corporation v. Anza
In June 2002, Berman dismissed a civil RICO suit against National Steel Supply, Inc., finding that plaintiff Ideal Steel failed to show that it had relied upon National Steel Supply's alleged misrepresentations to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. The decision was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 5, 2006.
United States v. Leekin
In July 2008, Berman presided over the criminal case against Judith Leekin, who pleaded guilty to defrauding New York City and New York State adoption agencies out of $1.68 million in foster care funds. Leekin also had mistreated and willfully endangered her (11) adopted special needs children. Berman sentenced Leekin to 130 months in prison. She was also prosecuted for child abuse in Florida.
Dimmie v. Carey
In April 2000, Berman dismissed the infringement suit brought against pop singer Mariah Carey, finding that the plaintiff, Rhonda Dimmie, the holder of a copyright for the song Be Your Hero, had failed to show that Carey, the copyright-holder for the song Hero, had knowledge of or infringed upon plaintiff's recording.
Johnson v. Johnson
In January 2011, Berman presided over a trial in which a father sought the return of his child from New York to Vicenza, Italy pursuant to the Hague Convention of the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Following a bench trial, Berman found that Italy was not the habitual residence of the child, who also strenuously objected to being returned to Italy.
Family Court Case
In the Matter of Shawna E.
In January 1998, as a New York State family court judge, Berman removed two children from the custody of then professional baseball player Carl Everett and his wife. The Everetts had consented to findings of child neglect following the discovery of bruises on their daughter at the Shea Stadium child care center.
U.S. District Court 3 Judge Panels
Rodriguez v. Pataki
Berman was part of a three-judge panel that heard challenges to the redistricting plan enacted by the New York State Legislature following the 2000 census. Following a bench trial in November 2003, the three-judge panel found that New York's redistricting plan did not violate the Voting Rights Act or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In November 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed by summary order.
Nitke v. Gonzales
Berman was part of a three-judge panel that heard challenges to obscenity provisions of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. In July 2005, the Court found that the Act was not overbroad and did not violate the First Amendment. In March 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed by summary order.
U.S. Circuit Court Opinions
Carpenters Pension Trust Fund of St. Louis v. Barclays PLC
In April 2014, Berman—sitting by designation on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit—authored the panel's opinion reinstating a securities fraud class action brought by pension funds against Barclays PLC and former Barclays' CEO Robert Diamond. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants had knowingly submitted false and inaccurate information to establish LIBOR rates during the class period of August 2007 through January 2009. The Court adopted the principle that "so long as the falsehood remains uncorrected, it will continue to taint the total mix of available public information, and the market will continue to attribute the artificial inflation to the stock, day after day."
Evans v. Books-A-Million
In August 2014, Berman—sitting by designation on a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit—heard the appeal of an employee who had been terminated from her job. The Court of Appeals held that the district court correctly awarded summary judgment to plaintiff on her COBRA claims and to Books-A-Million with respect to plaintiff's Title VII and Equal Pay Act claims, but erred in dismissing plaintiff's FMLA claims. The Court of Appeals found that "[i]if a trial court refuses to grant further legal or equitable relief to a plaintiff who insists that such relief is necessary to make the plaintiff whole, it must articulate its rationale."
New England Insurance Co. v. Healthcare Underwriters Mutual Insurance Co.
In July 2002, Berman—sitting by designation on a panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals—heard the appeal of New England Insurance Company, following the district court's reversal of a jury verdict in favor of New England Insurance. The Second Circuit reinstated the jury verdict. "We necessarily disagree with the 'clear liability' language []introduced by the district court in deciding Healthcare's post-trial application for judgment as a matter of law. As noted, 'clear liability' was specifically rejected and abandoned [and] there is no case since Pavia in which a court held that a finding of clear liability was given conclusive or totally dispositive weight."
Publications and Teaching
Berman has authored a number of articles about children, including A Team Model To Identify Child Abuse, Seven Steps To Protect Children, Community Service for Juvenile Offenders, and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. Published in the New York Law Journal, these articles offer guidance in developing improved models for identifying child abuse, bolstering the child welfare system, implementing community service-based sentencing options for juvenile offenders, and improving the process for obtaining special immigrant juvenile status.
Berman's efforts in improving media access to the Family Court system and promoting community service have been cited in the New York Daily News and Newsday. See, e.g., Sun Also Rises in Family Court, Helping Other Helps Teens, Embracing Community Service for Juveniles, and A New Way Out of Trouble.
Berman lectured about the "Rule of Law" before judges in Albania in 2013. He has also moderated a panel discussion of the "Rule of Law" at an international legal symposium in Istanbul, Turkey in 2014.
Federal Court Involvement in Supervised Release
Berman has been actively involved in the supervised release of defendants whom he sentenced to incarceration. Drawing upon his MSW studies and Family Court experience, his project has produced positive supervised release outcomes (regarding recidivism/desistance and successful termination of supervision) which are detailed in four written reports, dated April 2021, September 2021, April 2022, and October 2022. The reports include case studies and "steps" judges can take to improve supervision results. They are available at The Regulatory Review. On October 15, 2021, Berman also participated on a panel with the Honorable L. Felipe Restrepo for the Penn Program on Regulation titled How Judges Can Make a Difference in the Success of Supervised Release.
Awards
Berman received the National Association of Social Workers (NYC) Emerald award for 20 years of leadership as a licensed social worker and judge on March 28, 2019.
See also
List of Jewish American jurists
References
External links
1943 births
Living people
Cornell University alumni
New York University School of Law alumni
Fordham University alumni
Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
United States district court judges appointed by Bill Clinton
Lawyers from New York City
Davis Polk & Wardwell lawyers
20th-century American judges
21st-century American judges
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruvian%20Primera%20Divisi%C3%B3n
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Peruvian Primera División
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The Peru First Division (; known simply as First Division, and Liga 1 Betsson for sponsorship reasons), officially known as Liga 1, is the top flight of association football in Peru. It has been referred to as Torneo Descentralizado since 1966, when the first teams residing outside the Lima and Callao provinces were invited to compete in the inaugural league national competition.
The main sponsor is the Spanish telecommunications brand Movistar. There are 20 teams in the division of a league that operates on a system of promotion and relegation determined at the end of the season with the Segunda División and the Copa Perú. Seasons run from February to December with each team playing 44 matches. The league is organized by Asociación Deportiva de Fútbol Profesional () (ADFP)
The Peruvian Football League was founded on an amateur basis and organized in 1912 into the two tiers of Primera División and the Segunda División. Editions from 1912 to 1921 were played by clubs based in Lima and Callao. In 1922 the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF) was created and in 1926 it organized its first amateur championship. The Primera División became professional in 1951. In 1966, the first true national league was founded and continues.
As of the win by current champion Alianza Lima in the 2022 season, the league championship has gone to 21 different clubs, though a majority (71 of 106 championships) have been won by just three clubs: Universitario (26), Alianza Lima (25), and Sporting Cristal (20).
History
First clubs
Football was introduced in Peru in the 19th century by British residents in Lima. The early players were British residents, British sailors that stopped at the port in Callao, or upper class Peruvians were introduced to the sport on their travels. The first recorded football match in Lima was played on 7 August 1892 between British residents and Peruvians at the club ground Santa Sofía belonging to the Lima Cricket and Lawn Tennis club. Interest in sport slowly grew among the upper class Peruvians who established clubs, such as Lima Cricket & Lawn Tennis and Regatas Lima club dedicated their sporting activities to cricket and tennis, and aquatic sports. Additional clubs would follow: Lawn Tennis club, Unión Cricket, and Unión Ciclista Lima. Football would gain a following: Unión Cricket would be the inaugural club to include football in their activities. Other clubs would follow.
Just before the turn of the 20th century, football was encouraged among students that began to hold small inter-scholastic championships. The first football club in Peru was Association FBC, founded on 20 May 1897 by students from different schools. Several other schools and students started their own football clubs. One club founded on 9 June 1902 by cricket enthusiasts from the Instituto Chalaco was Atlético Chalaco. They started to play football and become a representative team of Callao. Conversely, some educational institutions, like Universidad San Marcos would adopt a system of competition among clubs formed of faculty of each its colleges. Their competitions started as early as 1899. In time one faculty team would separate from the university to form their own independent football club, known today as Universitario. Clubs unaffiliated with educational institutions started to form. One of these clubs was Sport Alianza—today Alianza Lima—which was founded by Italians and Chinese of the working class of Lima in 1901 although their available records date from around 1912.
Creation of the Liga Peruana de Fútbol
After a period of time of random play competition among clubs, the idea of a league and championship status developed. In 1912, club Sporting Miraflores invited several other clubs in Lima and Callao to participate in the formation of a football league. Those clubs that accepted established the la Liga Peruana de Fútbol (Peruvian Football League); teams from Callao declined the invitation. The inaugural season in 1912 established two divisions; Primera División and Segunda División, both of 8 clubs. The Primera División composed of Lima Cricket, Association FBC, Miraflores Sporting, Jorge Chávez N°1, Sport Alianza, Escuela Militar de Chorrillos, Sport Inca and Sport Vitarte while the Segunda División composed Atlético Grau N°1, Atlético Peruano, Carlos Tenaud N°1, Carlos Tenaud N°2, Sport Libertad Barranco, Sport Magdalena, Sporting Lima y Unión Miraflores. Lima Cricket inaugurated the tournament championship title; Association finished second.
The first edition was a relative success despite some minor setbacks. For instance, Escuela Militar de Chorrillos withdrew from the tournament in the middle of the season after only have earned 1 point. The second edition of the Liga Peruana had Jorge Chávez N°1 reach the top. The following year Lima Cricket would tally a second title. Sport José Gálvez—who refused to participate in 1912—won consecutive championships in 1915 and 1916. In 1917 Sport Juan Bielovucic championed the Liga. Sport Alianza would earn its first titles in 1918 and 1919. Sport Inca and Sport Progreso won the 1920 and 1921 seasons respectively. The league ran uninterrupted for 10 seasons until La Liga Peruana de fútbol temporarily disbanded due to disagreements. Between 1922 and 1925 no championships were played.
Creation of the Federación Peruana de Fútbol
The Peruvian Football Federation was founded in 1922 and restarted the Peruvian football league in 1926 with the addition of teams from Callao. Unfortunately, the two championships in 1926 and 1927 suffered drawback as teams withdrew from the league mid-season. Of the 11 competing teams, Sport Progreso was crowned champion. Because many clubs withdrew from the tournament, Sport Progeso only played 6 games. The following season, Alianza Lima conquered its third title; they had already won two back-to-back titles in 1918 and 1919. This season featured 8 teams. As in 1926, the league did not finish properly and Alianza Lima won after winning its 3 matches. In 1928, the federation increased the number of teams to 19 and separated them into 2 groups. 5 teams advanced to second stage where the winner was league champion. The first Clásico took place in this season. In the second stage Alianza Lima faced the newly invited Federación Universitaria. The match was a 1–0 win for Federación Universitaria and began the biggest rivalry in the history of Peruvian football. At the end of the second stage, Federación Universitaria and Alianza Lima were tied for first place which led to two extra matches between them to declare the 1928 champion. The first match was a 1–1 draw and the second was a 2–0 win for Alianza Lima.
Following a second-place finish in their first division debut, Federación Universitaria would go on to win their first title in 1929. In 1930, the federation experimented with a new format. They separated the teams in 3 groups of 4 teams. The winner of each group advanced to the championship group to define the season champion. The three finalists were Atlético Chalaco, Alianza Lima, and Federación Universitaria. Atlético Chalaco would go on to win Callao's first title. Alianza Lima won the next three seasons. In 1934, Universitario de Deportes won its second championship. In this regard, there is a controversy about the team that should have been awarded the title that year. Some argue that the champion should have been Alianza Lima, while another position maintains that the title corresponds to Universitario de Deportes. Apart from this discussion, the Peruvian Football Federation, the Professional Football Sports Association of Peru recognize Universitario as the champion of 1934. In 1935, the title would go back to Callao after Sport Boys–founded in 1927 and debuted in 1933–defeated the 4 teams it was competing against. In 1936, no championship was contested due to the participation of Peru in the Summer Olympics in Berlin. The championship returned in 1937 to be won by Sport Boys. The Peru national team that competed in Berlin was made up of mostly footballers who played in Sport Boys. One of the few exceptions was Teodoro Fernández who played for Universitario and scored 6 goals in 2 games. Deportivo Municipal, another club that would become a traditional team in Peruvian football, won its first championship in 1938 and a second in 1940 whilst Universitario a tallied four titles by winning in 1939 and 1941. Prior to 1939, teams played all other teams once in the course of the season. For the 1939, 1940, and 1941 seasons, teams played all others twice instead—a double round-robin tournament.
In 1941 the Asociación No Amateur (Non-Amateur Association) took the stand as the league's organizer and renamed the league Campeonato de Selección y Competencia. In 1942, Sport Boys won a third championship, finishing one point ahead of Deportivo Municipal. In this season, a single round-robin tournament was performed but the double round-robin returned next season. Deportivo Municipal lifted their third league trophy in 1943, and began to consolidate their place in Peruvian football. In 1944, a new champion was crowned by the name of Sucre. Universitario returned to the top after winning consecutive title between 1945 and 1946. In 1947 Atlético Chalaco won its last top flight division title. 1948 saw Alianza Lima taste glory again after trophyless seasons since their conquests between 1931 and 1934. 1949 and 1950—won by Universitario and Deportivo Municipal respectively—were the last two championships played before football would become a professional sport in Peru. Between 1946 and 1949, a triple round-robin tournament was employed until in 1950 the double round-robin system made its return. Midway through the 20th century, most of the clubs which had founded La Liga Peruana de fútbol had disappeared from the top flight and five teams had become the dominant forces in Peru; Alianza Lima, Universitario de Deportes, Deportivo Municipal, Sport Boys and Atletico Chalaco.
Professional league and Descentralizado
In 1951 the top flight of Peruvian football earned professional status and the organization of the league was handed over to the ACF or Asociación Central de Fútbol (Central Football Association). Sport Boys won the first professional championship. In next 4 years, Alianza Lima rose to conquer 3 titles in 1952, 1954 and 1955. In addition, one-time champion Sucre won a second championship in 1953. The professional era saw the rise of a new team that would rival the five dominant clubs of the amateur era. During the course of Peruvian football, Rimac-based Sporting Tabaco was a regular contender. However, in December 1955, the brewery Backus and Johnston founded Sporting Cristal to represent them in the top flight. In their debut in professional football, Sporting Cristal won their first championship in 1956. The following season, a relatively unknown club by the name of Centro Iqueño won the championship. In addition, the 1957 season employed a new tournament format. After the double round-robin stage, the 10 teams were split into 2 groups for a further 4 matches. The top 5 would play for the season title and the bottom 5 for preventing relegation. This format would be used until 1959, between 1964 and 1965 (a similar format would be employed in 1969 and 1970). Sport Boys won a fifth title in 1958 while Universitario won an eighth in 1959.
The 1960 season had a new attractive feature to Peruvian football; the champion would qualify to the newly created Copa de Campeones—today Copa Libertadores. Universitario de Deportes was the first Peruvian club to compete in the South American continental tournament after winning the 1960 season. In 1962 the ACF ended its run and the ADFP took its place as the current organizer of the league. In 1965, the runner-up would join the champion in the Copa Libertadores as CONMEBOL expanded the continental tournament. Up until 1965, only clubs based in Lima or Callao competed. Therefore, in 1966 the Asociación decided to expand the league outside Lima and Callao leading the championship to be renamed the Campeonato Descentralizado (Decentralized Championship). Atlético Grau of Piura, Melgar of Arequipa, Octavio Espinosa of Ica, and Alfonso Ugarte de Chiclín of Trujillo were the first four Peruvian clubs from the country interior to be invited to play in the top flight of Peruvian football, expanding it to 14 teams. The twist in this first Descentralizado was that only the best placed club outside Lima and Callao would remain in the first division; the other three would be relegated along with 1 Lima/Callao-based team. Miguel Grau—finished sixth—remained in the first division while Universitario was crowned first Descentralizado champion. With the new national championship, the Copa Perú was created to promote clubs outside the capital hub along with the Segunda División which promoted clubs from Lima and Callao. The first Copa Perú was played in 1967—prior to the start of the 1967 Descentralizado—returning Alfonso Ugarte de Chiclín and Octavio Espinoza to the top flight in addition to newcomer Juan Aurich of Chiclayo. Universitario would go on to win the second edition of the Torneo Descentralizado. However, in this season, only one club from the country interior was relegated instead of three.
In the Torneo Descentralizado's third edition, improvements were made by the teams outside the capital hub, also known as provincianos to denote the clubs originate from the provinces of Peru. Notably Juan Aurich of Chiclayo tied with Sporting Cristal at the end of the season for first place. The championship was to be defined in a single playoff match in the Estadio Nacional. Sporting Cristal won the playoff 2–1 but Juan Aurich, as runner-up, qualified for the Copa Libertadores, being the first provinciano to do so. In 1969, the tournament suffered a minor change in the format. The tournament was played with 14 teams, as had been since 1966, however after the first leg of the round robin matchups, the table was split into two parts, with the top 6 fighting for the national title and the bottom 8 avoiding relegation. Universitario won their third Descentralizado title totalizing thirteen Primera División titles.
In 1970, the national championship would modify the previous season's format. After the clubs played each other in a double round-robin tournament, the clubs would be separated into two groups of 7 each, then playing an additional double round-robin tournament to determine the champion. Sporting Cristal finished first obtaining their fourth league title, tying Deportivo Municipal's record. For the 1971 season, the championship was expanded to 16 teams. Universitario won the season title reaching fourteen Primera División titles, tying arch-rivals Alianza Lima in first division titles. Universitario's participation in the following season's Copa Libertadores would lead to an appearance in the continental finals against Independiente of Argentina, defeating Alianza Lima, Universidad de Chile and Unión San Felipe in the first group stage as well as defending champion Nacional and three-time champion Peñarol in the second group stage. In the first leg of the finals, they would draw in Lima 0–0 and lose 2–1 in Avellaneda. As in the 1972 Copa Libertadores, Universitario would finish second in the Descentralizado of 1972 to Sporting Cristal, tying Sport Boys 5 title record.
Starting in 1984, the regional leagues would be employed which would be a complex system which featured up to 40 teams from all over the country.
In 1997 the tournament format was modified again, this time employing a similar system being used in Argentina at the time. The general idea of the system was to divide the season into two tournaments called the Apertura and Clausura tournaments. At the end of the season the tournament winners faced in a season final for the championship title. The 1997 season did not have a final after Alianza Lima won both tournaments automatically winning the 1997 title ending an 18-season title drought. At the end of the 2008 season this format was abolished due to the lack of championship playoffs in 2007 and 2008. The 2009 season employed a new liguilla format including a regular season between 16 teams which would qualify to two groups depending on their placement at the end of the regular season. The winners of each group would dispute a two-legged final at the end of the season to determine the national champion.
In 2018 the Peruvian Football Federation announced that the league would be restructured, called "Liga de Fútbol Profesional" and organized by the national federation itself instead of the ADFP, starting with the 2019 edition.
As of 2022, Universitario, Alianza Lima and Sporting Cristal have won 26, 25 and 20 official league titles respectively. They are regarded as the Big Three of Peru. However, other teams have risen to new heights. In particular, a team from Cusco, Cienciano, has been the only Peruvian team to win international tournaments (Copa Sudamericana 2003 and Recopa Sudamericana 2004), though it has yet to win the domestic league title. Other notable teams include Melgar, Binacional, Juan Aurich and Unión Huaral, which are the only non-capital teams to have won a national championship.
Most seasons
Below is the list of clubs that have appeared in Torneo Descentralizado since its inception in 1966 until the 2023 season. The teams in bold compete in Liga 1 currently. The year in parentheses represents the most recent year of participation at this level. Alianza Lima, Sporting Cristal and Universitario are the only teams that have played in every season of Descentralizado.
58 seasons: Alianza Lima (2023), Sporting Cristal (2023), Universitario (2023)
54 seasons: Melgar (2023)
50 seasons: Sport Boys (2023)
44 seasons: Deportivo Municipal (2023)
40 seasons: Cienciano (2023)
36 seasons: Juan Aurich (2017)
30 seasons: Alianza Atlético (2023)
27 seasons: León de Huánuco (2015)
24 seasons: Carlos A. Mannucci (2023), Unión Huaral (2006)
23 seasons: Coronel Bolognesi (2009), UTC (2023)
22 seasons: CNI (2011)
19 seasons: Atlético Torino (1997), Defensor Lima (1994), Universidad San Martín (2022)
18 seasons: Alfonso Ugarte (1991), Atlético Grau (2023)
17 seasons: Deportivo Junín (1990)
16 seasons: Unión Minas (2001), Universidad César Vallejo (2023)
15 seasons: Sport Huancayo (2023)
14 seasons: ADT (2023), Ayacucho (2022), Octavio Espinosa (1991)
13 seasons: Atlético Chalaco (1985)
12 seasons: Deportivo Wanka (2004), José Gálvez (2013), San Agustín (1996)
11 seasons: Cusco (2023)
10 seasons: Unión Comercio (2023)
7 seasons: Cantolao (2023), Defensor ANDA (1990), Defensor Arica (1972)
6 seasons: Atlético Huracán (1990), Binacional (2023), Diablos Rojos (1991), Juventud La Joya (1990), Juventud La Palma (1987)
5 seasons: Deportivo Cañaña (1991), Internazionale (1991), José Pardo (1975), Mina San Vicente (1991), Porvenir Miraflores (1971), Sport Áncash (2009)
4 seasons: AELU (1991), Alianza Universidad (2021), Centro Iqueño (1969), Libertad (1991), Deportivo Hospital (1991), Deportivo Pucallpa (1988), Estudiantes de Medicina (2004)
3 seasons: 15 de Septiembre (1990), Alipio Ponce (1990), Atlético Universidad (2005), Aurich–Cañaña (1996), Aurora (1991), Ciclista Lima (1996), Comerciantes Unidos (2018), Deportivo SIMA (1973), Guardia Republicana (1996), Hungaritos Agustinos (1988), Juvenil Los Ángeles (1991), Mariscal Sucre (1968), Sport Coopsol Trujillo (2002), Total Chalaco (2010), Unión Tarapoto (1991)
2 seasons: Alfonso Ugarte de Chiclín (1967), Atlético Belén (1990), Carlos Stein (2022), Chacarita Versalles (1990), Chanchamayo (1985), Cobresol (2012), Deportivo Bancos (1991), Deportivo Morba (1991), Deportivo Pacífico (1991), Deportivo Tintaya (1989), Hijos de Yurimaguas (1992), KDT Nacional (1969), La Loretana (1997), Los Espartanos (1986), Mariscal Nieto (1991), Rosario (2018), San Martín de Porres (1990), Sport Pilsen (1985), Unión Huayllaspanca (1991)
1 season: ADO (1971), Alcides Vigo (1997), Alianza Naval (1988), Atlético Minero (2008), Barrio Frigorífico (1974), Carlos Concha (1966), Defensor La Bocana (2016), Deportivo Comercio (1991), Deportivo Garcilaso (2023), Deportivo Llacuabamba (2020), IMI (1999), Lawn Tennis (1998), Los Caimanes (2014), Pacífico (2013), Pirata (2019), Piérola (1974), San Simón (2014), Social Magdalena (1989), Sport Loreto (2015), Sportivo Huracán (1973), Unión Pesquero (1974), Walter Ormeño (1974)
Division levels
Competition format and sponsorship
Domestic
The 2023 season will be played by 18 teams. The season will be divided into three stages: Torneo Apertura, Torneo Clausura, and the Playoffs.
The first and second stages will be two smaller Apertura and Clausura tournaments of 17 games each. Each team will play the other teams once during the Apertura tournament and once during the Clausura tournament in reversed order for a total of 34 matches. Points earned during the Apertura will not carry over during the Clausura. The winners of the Apertura and Clausura stages will qualify to the playoffs along with the top two teams of the aggregate table at the end of the season.
The playoffs to decide the national champion will be contested by four teams, which will play two semifinals with the winners playing the final. In every stage of the playoffs, the teams with the most points on the aggregate table will choose which leg they play as the home team. If the teams are tied in points after the two legs of the final, a third match on neutral ground will be played to decide the national champion. If a team wins both the Apertura and Clausura, the playoffs will not be played and that team will be declared as champion.
Qualification to international competitions will be as follows: the top four teams of the aggregate table will qualify for the Copa Libertadores, while the next four best teams in that table will qualify for the Copa Sudamericana. In case the Copa Bicentenario winners have already qualified for an international competition, the eighth best team in the aggregate table will also qualify for the Copa Sudamericana. The two teams with the fewest points in the aggregate table at the end of the season will be relegated.
A system of promotion and relegation exists between the Primera División and the Segunda División. The two lowest placed teams in Primera División are relegated to the Segunda División, and the top team from the Segunda División and Copa Perú promoted to Primera.
International
Eight teams participate in international competitions while they play the national championship. These international club fixtures take place during the week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Peru is allotted 4 spots in the Copa Libertadores and 4 in the Copa Sudamericana.
South American qualification
South America has two international competitions played every year. For 2019, Peru will have eight berths, four in the Copa Libertadores and four in the Copa Sudamericana.
Sponsorship
The Peruvian First Division is sponsored by Movistar TV (formerly known as Cable Mágico), hence the name Copa Movistar. They have had exclusive broadcasting rights since 2000.
Rivalries
Alianza Lima – Universitario (National derby)
Alianza Lima – Sporting Cristal (Modern derby)
Sporting Cristal – Universitario (Modern derby)
Deportivo Municipal – Universitario (Modern derby)
Cienciano – Melgar (Southern derby)
Carlos A. Mannucci – Juan Aurich (Northern derby)
Cienciano – Cusco (Modern Cusco derby)
Cienciano – Deportivo Garcilaso (Cusco derby)
Atlético Chalaco – Sport Boys (Callao derby)
Carlos A. Mannucci – Universidad César Vallejo (Trujillo derby)
Atlético Grau – Alianza Atlético (Piura derby)
Clubs
Currently, 19 clubs participate in the Liga 1, an increase of two from the 2019 season. Of these 20 clubs, only Universitario and Alianza Lima are owners of their home stadiums. The remaining 18 clubs are dependent upon the Instituto Peruano del Deporte for their local matches. 3 clubs operate as Sociedades Anónimas, the equivalent of a public limited company in the United Kingdom; these clubs are Universidad San Martín, Universidad César Vallejo and Sporting Cristal. The remaining 13 clubs operate as civil non-profit associations or asociaciónes civiles sin fines de lucro in Spanish. 7 of these clubs are from the Lima metropolitan area and the remaining clubs make up the 11 teams from the country's interior. Prior to the current 18-club Primera División, 14 teams competed in 2008, 12 between 2006 and 2007, and 16 between 2009 and 2018. In 1989 and 1990, the Primera División played with a record 44 teams.
Universitario and Alianza Lima have a clear advantage of titles won over the other clubs in Peru. Since 1912, they have won a combined total of 51 Primera División championships of the 111 seasons contested, 26 and 25 respectively. Sporting Cristal trails behind with 20 professional era titles since their debut in 1956 and further behind is the traditional Sport Boys having conquered 6 league titles. Universidad de San Martín de Porres challenged the dominance of the Big Three with back-to-back titles in 2007 and 2008 and a third in 2010. In addition, Binacional, Melgar, Juan Aurich, and Unión Huaral are the only clubs outside the metropolitan area of Lima to have won a national championship. Other noteworthy clubs to have won championships include 4-time winner Deportivo Municipal.
Universitario is the club with the longest spell in the Primera División, playing since 1928 when they debuted as Federación Universitaria and changing their name to Universitario de Deportes a few years later. They are followed by archrivals Alianza Lima who competed in the first edition of the Primera División but were relegated in 1938 and returning a year later for an uninterrupted spell since 1940. Melgar is the team with the longest run in the Primera División outside Lima, competing since 1971.
The oldest clubs currently participating in the Primera División is Alianza Lima which was founded at the beginning of the turn of the century in 1901. The newest club active in the Primera División include Binacional.
List of champions
Titles by club
There are 21 clubs who have won the Peruvian title.
Teams in bold compete in the Liga 1 as of the 2023 season.
Italics indicates clubs that no longer exist or disaffiliated from the FPF.
Record players
Most Appearances
It's the top ranking the footballers than more have played in the Primera División of the Peruvian football.
Top scorers
Hat-tricks
See also
Football in Peru
Peruvian Football Federation
List of football clubs in Peru
Supercopa Peruana
Copa Bicentenario
Torneo de Promoción y Reserva
Peruvian football league system
Liga 2
Copa Perú
Ligas Departamentales
Ligas Superiores
Ligas Provinciales
Ligas Distritales
Footnotes
A. Includes titles as "Federación Universitaria" (until 1932).
B. Includes titles as "Sport Alianza" (Liga).
C. Liga team from Lima, not to be confused with José Gálvez from Chimbote.
References
External links
Peruvian Football Federation
Peru – List of Champions at the RSSSF
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Top level football leagues of South America
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudun%20possessions
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Loudun possessions
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The Loudun possessions, known in French as the Possessed of Loudun Affair (Affaire des possédées de Loudun), was a notorious witchcraft trial that took place in Loudun, Kingdom of France, in 1634. A convent of Ursuline nuns said they had been visited and possessed by demons. Following an investigation by the Catholic Church, a local priest named Urbain Grandier was accused of summoning the evil spirits. He was eventually convicted of the crimes of sorcery and burned at the stake.
The case contains similar themes to other witchcraft trials that occurred throughout western Europe in the 17th century, such as the Aix-en-Provence possessions (France) in 1611 or the Pendle witches (England) in 1612 before reaching the New World by the 1690s.
Background
In its continuing efforts to consolidate and centralize power, the Crown under Louis XIII ordered the walls around Loudun, a town in Poitou, France, to be demolished. The populace were of two minds concerning this. The Huguenots, for the most part, wanted to keep the walls, while the Catholics supported the monarchy. In May 1632, an outbreak of the plague in Loudun claimed many lives. Together, the events contributed to an atmosphere of anxiety and apprehension in the divided town.
Urbain Grandier
Urbain Grandier was born at Rouvère towards the end of the sixteenth century. In 1617 he was appointed parish priest of St-Pierre-du-Marché in Loudun; and a canon at the Church of Sainte-Croix. Grandier was considered to be a good-looking man, wealthy, and well-educated. An eloquent and popular preacher, he incurred the envy of some of the local monks. As he did not support Cardinal Richelieu's policies, he was in favor of retaining the town's wall.
It was widely believed that Grandier had fathered a son by Philippa Trincant, the daughter of his friend, Louis Trincant, the King's prosecutor in Loudun.
According to Monsieur des Niau, Counsellor at la Flèche, Grandier had aroused the hostility of a number of husbands and fathers, some quite influential, by the dishonor he had brought to their families through relations with the female members of their households. (However, Niau's views may be understood as those of a participant in the subsequent proceedings who fully endorsed them.)
Around 1629, Jacques de Thibault, possibly a relative of Philippa, was quite vocal in expressing his opinion of Grandier's conduct with women. When Grandier demanded an explanation, Thibault beat him with a cane outside the Church of Sainte-Croix. In the course of the resulting trial, Thibault raised certain charges in his defense, causing the magistrates to turn Grandier over to the ecclesiastical court. The Bishop then prohibited Grandier from performing any public functions as priest for five years in the Diocese of Poitiers, and forever in Loudun. Grandier appealed to the court at Poitiers. As a number of witnesses retracted their statements, the case was dismissed without prejudice should new evidence be presented.
Loudun Ursulines
The Ursuline convent had been opened in Loudun in 1626. In 1632 prioress Jeanne des Anges presided over seventeen nuns, whose average age was twenty-five. The first reports of alleged demonic possession began about five months after the outbreak of plague in 1632, as it was winding down. While physicians and wealthy property owners had left town, (the physicians because there was nothing they could do), others attempted to isolate themselves. The convents had shut themselves behind walls, the nuns discontinued receiving parlor visitors. Grandier visited the sick and gave money to the poor.
A young nun said that she had had a vision of her recently deceased confessor, Father Moussant. Soon other nuns reported similar visions. Canon Jean Mignon, the convent chaplain who was also a nephew of Trincant, decided that a series of exorcisms was in order. In the town, the people were saying it was an "imposture."
The nuns claimed the demon Asmodai was sent to commit evil and impudent acts with them. During questioning about the supposed evil spirit thought to be possessing them, the nuns gave several answers as to who caused its presence: a priest, Peter, and Zabulon. It was after almost a week, on October 11, that Grandier was named as the magician responsible, though none of them had ever met him. Next, people who were asserted to be physicians and apothecaries were brought in. Canon Mignon informed the local magistrates of what was happening at the convent. Grandier filed a petition stating that his reputation was under attack and that the nuns should be confined. The Archbishop of Bordeaux intervened and ordered the nuns sequestered, upon which the appearances of possession seemed to subside for a time.
The nuns' increasingly extreme behavior: shouting, swearing, barking, etc. drew a considerable number of spectators. Eventually, Cardinal Richelieu decided to intervene. Grandier had already offended Richelieu by his public opposition to the demolition of the town walls, and his reputation for illicit relations with parishioners did not improve his standing with the cardinal. In addition, Grandier had written a book attacking the discipline of clerical celibacy as well as a scathing satire of the cardinal.
Investigation
Around the time of the nuns' accusations, Jean de Laubardemont was sent to demolish the town tower. He was prevented from doing so by the town militia, and upon returning to Paris reported on the state of affairs in Loudun including the recent disturbance at the Ursuline convent. In November 1633, de Laubardemont was commissioned to investigate the matter. Grandier was arrested as a precaution against his fleeing the area. The Commissioner then began to take statements from witnesses who said Grandier often mysteriously appeared at the convent at all hours, although no one knew how he was able to get inside. The priest was further accused of all manner of indecency. Laubardemont then questioned Grandier as to the facts and articles of accusation, and after having made him sign his statement and denials, proceeded to Paris to inform the Court. Letters from the Bailly of Loudun, Grandier's chief supporter, to the Procurator-General of the Parlement, in which it was asserted that the possessions were an imposture, were intercepted. The latter's reply was also seized.
Trial
Monsieur de Laubardemont returned to Loudun with a Decree of the Council, dated 31 May 1634, confirming all his powers and prohibiting Parlement and all other judges from interfering in the matter, and forbidding all parties concerned from appealing, under penalty of a fine of five hundred livres. Grandier, who had been held at the prison of Angers, was returned to Loudun. Laubardemont once again observed and interrogated the nuns, now dispersed among a number of convents.
The Bishop of Poitiers, after having sent several Doctors of Theology to examine the victims, came to Loudun in person, and over the next two and half months, he performed exorcisms, as did Father Tranquille O.F.M.Cap.
On June 23, 1634, the Bishop of Poitiers and M. de Laubardemont being present, Grandier was brought from his prison to the Church of St. Croix in his parish, to be present at the exorcisms. All the possessed were there likewise. As the accused and his partisans declared that the possessions were mere impostures, he was ordered to be himself the exorcist, and the stole was presented to him. He could not refuse, and therefore, taking the stole and the ritual, he received the pastoral benediction, and after the Veni Creator had been sung, commenced the exorcism in the usual form.
In August 1634, the case was heard before the local magistrates. It was alleged that Grandier had made a pact with the devil, and had invited someone to a witches' sabbat.
Grandier was found guilty of sorcery and placing evil spells to cause the possession of the Ursuline nuns; he was condemned to be burned at the stake.We have ordered and do order the said Urbain Grandier duly tried and convicted of the crime of magic, maleficia, and of causing demoniacal possession of several Ursuline nuns of this town of Loudun, as well as of other secular women, together with other charges and crimes resulting therefrom. For atonement of which, we have condemned and do condemn the said Grandier to make amende honorable, his head bare, a rope round his neck, holding in his hand a burning taper weighing two pounds, before the principal door of the church of St. Pierre-du-Marché, and before that of St. Ursula of this town. There on his knees, to ask pardon of God, the King, and the law; this done, he is to be taken to the public square of St. Croix, and fastened to a stake on a scaffold, which shall be erected on the said place for this purpose, and there to be burned alive...and his ashes scattered to the wind. We have ordered and so do order that each and every article of his moveable property be acquired and confiscated by the King; the sum of 500 livres first being taken for buying a bronze plaque on which will be engraved the abstract of this present trial, to be set up in a prominent spot in the said church of the Ursulines, to remain there for all eternity. And before proceeding to the execution of the present sentence, we order the said Grandier to be submitted to the first and last degrees of torture, concerning his accomplices.
Among other tortures, Grandier was subjected to "the boot".
Execution
Grandier was taken to the Court of Justice of Loudun. His sentence having been read to him, he earnestly begged M. de Laubardemont and the other Commissioners to mitigate the rigour of their sentence. M. de Laubardemont replied that the only means of inducing the judges to moderate the penalties was to declare at once his accomplices. The only answer he gave was that he had no accomplices.
Father Grandier was promised that he could have the chance to speak before he was executed, making a last statement, and that he would be hanged before the burning, an act of mercy. From the scaffold Grandier attempted to address the crowd, but the monks threw large quantities of holy water in his face so that his last words could not be heard. Then, according to historian Robert Rapley, exorcist Lactance caused the execution to deviate from the planned course of action—enraged by taunting from the crowd that gathered for the execution, Lactance lit the funeral pyre before Grandier could be hanged, leaving him to be burned alive.
The executioner then advanced, as is always done, to strangle him; but the flames suddenly sprang up with such violence that the rope caught fire, and Grandier fell alive among the burning wood.
The possessions failed to stop after Father Grandier's execution; as a result, public exorcisms continued. In his summary of the Loudun possessions, author Moshe Sluhovsky reports that these displays continued until 1637, three years after Grandier's death: "[t]he last departing demons left clear signs of their exit from her [Jeanne des Anges, the mother superior of the community] body, when the names Joseph and Mary miraculously appeared inscribed on des Anges's left arm." Having achieved his original goal, Richelieu terminated the investigations into the events at Loudun.
Some claim that it was actually Jeanne des Anges who had the public exorcisms stopped. Jeanne allegedly had a vision that she would be freed from the Devil if she made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Francis de Sales. She went to Annecy, then visited Cardinal Richelieu and King Louis XIII in 1638; the demons were apparently gone.
Post historical analysis
In 1679, the English philosopher John Locke concluded: "The story of the nuns of Lodun [sic] possessed, was nothing but a contrivance of Cardinal Richelieu to destroy Grandier, a man he suspected to have wrote a book against him, who was condemned for witchcraft in the case, and burnt for it. The scene was managed by the Capuchins, and the nuns played their tricks well, but all was a cheat."
Agénor de Gasparin suggests that the early so-called "demonic manifestations" were actually pranks played by some of the boarding students in an effort to frighten some of the nuns; and as the matters progressed, it was the chaplain Jean Mignon who introduced Grandier's name to the suggestible nuns.
Michel de Certeau attributes the symptoms of the nuns as due to some psychological disorder such as hysteria, and views the events in context of the shifting intellectual climate of 17th century France. Possession allowed the nuns to express their ideas, concerns, and fears through the voice of another. The events at Loudun played out over a number of years, and attracted a good deal of attention throughout France. In this sense it was a sort of political-theatre. Grandier serves as a scapegoat to deflect the Louduns' ambivalence regarding the central Parisian authority.
Aldous Huxley, in his non-fiction book, The Devils of Loudun, argued that the accusations began after Grandier refused to become the spiritual director of the convent, unaware that the Mother Superior, Sister Jeanne of the Angels, had become obsessed with him, having seen him from afar and heard of his sexual exploits. According to Huxley, Sister Jeanne, enraged by his rejection, instead invited Canon Jean Mignon, an enemy of Grandier, to become the director. Jeanne then accused Grandier of using black magic to seduce her. The other nuns gradually began to make similar accusations. However, Monsieur des Niau, Counsellor at la Flèche, said that Grandier applied for the position, but that it was instead awarded to Canon Jean Mignon, a nephew of Monsieur Trincant.
Augustin Calmet, among others, has compared this case to the pretended possession of Martha Broissier (1578), a case which garnered a great deal of attention in its day. This comparison is based in part on the circumstances surrounding the incidents as well as the examinations of the possessions in question, all of which indicate pretended possessions, in contrast to cases considered more legitimate such as the possession of Mademoiselle Elizabeth de Ranfaing (1621). In his treatise, Calmet states that the causes of the injustice committed at Loudun were a mixture of political ambition, the need for attention, and a basic desire to dispose of political opponents. Calmet places the blame for the tragedy in Loudun with Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of Louis XIII, and his goal of ruining Urbain Grandier, the Cure of Loudun.
Grandier's fate was likely sealed through obstructing the Cardinal's plan to demolish Loudun's fortifications, including the Castle of Loudun. The demolition, to be overseen by Jean de Laubardemont, was part of Richelieu's program of eliminating Huguenot strongholds by destroying local fortifications.
Both Protestant (Huguenot) and Catholic residents of Loudun were against the removal of their battlements, which would have left them unprotected against mercenary armies. Grandier cited the King's promise that Loudun's walls would not be destroyed, successfully preventing Laubardemont from demolishing the fortifications. Laubardemont promptly reported back to Richelieu with an account of the failed exorcisms, the libelous satire, and Grandier's obstruction of Richelieu's plans, thus setting the tragedy in Loudun and Grandier's demise in motion.
Media
The 1949 novel titled Drömmar om rosor och eld by the Swedish author Eyvind Johnson tells the story of the trial of Urbain Grandier, priest of the town who was tortured and burned at the stake in 1634. He was accused of being in league with the Devil and having seduced an entire convent of nuns.
The 1952 book titled The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley tells the same story.
John Whiting's 1961 theatre play The Devils (play), commissioned by Sir Peter Hall for the Royal Shakespeare Company, was based on Aldous Huxley's novel.
The Polish movie Mother Joan of the Angels from 1961 was loosely based on the Loudun events. The script is based on a novella by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz.
Krzysztof Penderecki's 1969 opera The Devils of Loudun (Die Teufel von Loudun), which premiered at the Hamburg State Opera, was based on Huxley's novel and Whiting's play.
Ken Russell's 1971 film The Devils was based on Huxley's novel and Whiting's play.
De Duivels van Loudun (1970) song by Louis Neefs.
See also
Aix-en-Provence possessions
Louviers possessions
Malleus Maleficarum
Urbain Grandier
Martha Broissier
Mother Joan of the Angels (film)
The Devils (film)
Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants (1751)
Further reading
Stephenson, Craig E., "The Possessions at Loudun", pp. 9 et seq., Possession: Jung's Comparative Anatomy of the Psyche, Routledge, Dec 6, 2012
References
External references
Bodin, Jean. The Witches and the Law. Witchcraft in Europe 1100–1700: A Documentary History. Ed. Alan C. Kors & Edward Peters. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1991.
de Certeau, Michel. The Possession at Loudun. University of Chicago Press. 2000. , .
Dumas, Alexander. Urbain Grandier, Celebrated Crimes – Available on Wikisource
Sidky, H. Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs, and Disease: An Anthropological Study of the European Witch-Hunts. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 1997.
1634 in law
Witch trials in France
1634 in France
Exorcism in Christianity
Demonic possession
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua%20Simon
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Joshua Simon
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Joshua Simon (born 1979, Tel Aviv), is a curator, writer, publisher, cultural critic, poet, filmmaker and public intellectual. He currently lives in Philadelphia, PA.
Simon curated exhibitions in museums and art spaces in Tel Aviv-Yafo, NYC, Melbourne, London, Zürich, Vienna, Berlin, and Amsterdam, among other places. Simon is former director and chief curator at MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam, Israel (2012- 2017), which made him the youngest museum director in the history of the country. Co-founding editor of the Tel Aviv-Yafo based Maayan publishing together with Roy Chicky Arad. His writing has been taught among other places at the Royal College of Art London, UK, Northwestern University Chicago, US, and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts Norway.
Art
Simon began curating in his rooftop apartment which he named The Free Academy Pavilion of Art, on Jaffa Rd. 3, Tel Aviv. The debut exhibition, I Slept With Ari Libsker (2001), gained mythical stature as several artists in it went on to become prominent cultural figures in the city and worldwide, namely Roee Rosen, Zoya Cherkassky and Roy Chicky Arad.
Simon is signed as curator on some seminal exhibitions in the Israeli art scene and internationally. In 2004 he curated Sharon, an exhibition which is considered the first to introduced a class reading to the imagery of the Occupation. In 2007, at the age of 28, Simon curated The Rear - The First Herzliya Biennial for Contemporary Art, which was a multi-venue art event at the Herzliya Museum of Art and in non-art spaces around the coastal city, with new works commissioned from 75 artists. That same year Simon co-curated with Maayan Strauss and Roy Chicky Arad the exhibition Doron, around a key Israeli collector Doron Sabag, and the relation of him being a key donor to museums to his business in human resources and the deteriorating workers rights in the local labor market. It has been argued that the fact that Sabag is on the board of directors of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, blocked Simon from being seriously considered for the position of chief curator at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art a decade later. In 2012 Simon curated together with Roy Chicky Arad and Ari Libsker the exhibition Iran in opposition to Israeli government plans to go to war with Iran.
Simon headed the theory studies at the Postgraduate program, Hamidrasha School of Art, Beit Berl College, which he helped to set up (2009-2014).
During his tenure at MoBY - Museums of Bat Yam, Simon initiated an international programming with group and solo-shows which traveled around the world. As director of MoBY, Simon put special emphasis on expanding outreach programs, developing funding options and facilities and cataloging the museum's collection.
Simon has worked with artists, writers and curators such as Hito Steyerl, Anri Sala, Anna Witt, Thomas Galler, Cristina Garrido, Nicole Wermers, Micah Hesse, Ohad Meromi, Olaf Nicolai, Francesco Finizio, Mika Rotenberg, Keren Cytter, Ari Libsker, Nimrod Kamer, Maayan Strauss, Vincent Vulsma, Harald Thys and Jos de Gruyter, Ekaterina Degot, Boyan, Elisheva Levy, Ariella Azoulay, Jan Verwoert, Ingo Niermann, Kerem Halbrecht, Lara Favaretto, Irit Rogoff, Caterina Riva, Omer Fast, Joseph Grima, Noam Yuran, Jodi Dean, Noa Yafe, Bini Adamczak, Slavoj Zizek, Aim Deuelle Luski, Michael E. Smith, Ruti Sela and Maayan Amir, Oliver Ressler, David Riff, Noa Tsaushu, Zoya Cherkassky, Simon Fujiwara, Doron Rabina, Avi Bohbot, Zachary Formwalt, Moshe Gershuni, Harun Farocki, Yael Bartana, Yair Garbuz, Boris Buden, and Roee Rosen, among others. His writing has been published in a wide range of publications: Springerin, Frieze, Afterall, Domus International, Modern Painters, Temporary Art Review, Artpress, Mousse Magazine, Art Actuel, e-flux journal, Public Seminar and Israeli Art magazine Studio.
Simon is a fellow at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, The New School, New York (2011-2013), and the Akademie de Künst der Welt, Cologne (2017).
Neomaterialism
The book Neomaterialism (2013), examines the meaning of materialism today, as materiality has been supposedly defeated by financial and digital operations. Since the so-called dematerialization of currencies and art practices in the late 1960s and early 1970, we have witnessed several shifts the book claims: the focus of labor has moved from production to consumption, the commodity has become the historical subject, and symbols now behave like materials (brands etc.). Neomaterialism explores the meaning of the world of commodities, and reintroduces various notions of dialectical materialism into the conversation on the subjectivity and vitalism of things. At the height of the influence of Object Oriented Ontology and speculative realism in contemporary art circles, the book provided a much needed critique of these trends of re-fetishization and de-contextualization. Putting debt at the center of the contemporary experience, the book explores our material culture following the 2008 crisis and the attempts to secure the art market. Simon put forward several concept in the book, such as the unreadymade, sentimental value, and the promise of the dividual as a means for a vocabulary in this new economy of meaning. Reflecting on the general intellect as labor and the subjugation of an overqualified generation to the neo-feudal order of debt finance — with a particular focus on dispossession and rent economy, post-appropriation display strategies and negation, the barricade and capital's technocratic fascisms—Neomaterialism merges traditions of epic communism with the communism that is already here.
Reception
Neomaterialism has been taught in several art programs around the world, and generated several reading groups in Europe, the UK and the US. Among the reactions to it Boris Groys wrote: "After a short period of ‘unbearable lightness of being,’ the social gravitation begins to be felt again. In his book Joshua Simon describes and analyzes the growing weight of the technical, economic, material basis of our society. The author's sensibility for today's Zeitgeist is at the same time entertaining and precise." Jan Verwoert, wrote for Frieze Magazine: "In his new book Neomaterialism, Joshua Simon perceptively argues that debt is the crux of the matter. Credit card purchases and mortgage settlements may feel abstract at first. But debt brings its material truth home to you: you do not own that new computer, TV, car or flat; they own you." Pelin Tan wrote in Domus Magazine: "Neomaterialism is a book that prevents us to fall into the pessimism of perceiving the thought of new materialism as a minimalist approach as well as to reconsider our practice as curators, architects and artists in a transversal way in order to create a further criticism not only of the modernist but also post-structuralist heritages of representation and subject-object relations." And Louis Moreno wrote in Onlineopen.org: "Perhaps Simon’s book represents a new form of guide to contemporary art. This is art as diagnostic toolkit, able to decipher the complex threats that lurk within the fixtures and fittings of everyday life […] Simon’s implicit suggestion that neomaterialist art embodies an auto-critique of financialised capitalism is fascinating."
The book had numerous print runs.
The New and Bad Art Gallery
In the summer of 2007 Simon and Arad opened together with artist Maayan Strauss The New and Bad Art Gallery in Tel Aviv, which presented a line-up of debut solo exhibitions by young female artists (Eden Bannet, Inbal Strauss, Noa Tsaushu, Oren Ben Moreh, Efrat Kedem and Fumio Sakurai), with two male exceptions (Nimrod Kamer and Know Hope). Initially planned to operate for six months, the gallery re-opened after a few months in Haifa under the directorship of Natalie Levin, and operated there for two years.
Notable concepts
Simon's work is often identified with several concepts -
The Curatorial
Unreadymade
The Overqualified
Dividual
Mesoscopic
Metastability
Publishing and Film
Since the late 1990s, Simon has been working closely with poet and writer Roy Chicky Arad on a number of initiatives in Tel Aviv. Together they founded The University of Shenkin and The Free Academy (for which Simon opened the Art Pavilion in his apartment), two platforms of nomadic study that were hosted by art schools and art festivals, theatres and schools. Out of these initiatives came out a travelling poetry reading program that Simon and Arad initiated, which in turn morphed into Guerilla Culture – a platform of poets and activists who organized poetry demonstrations and publications throughout the 2000s.
Parallel to these projects in poetry, since the 2000 Simon has been writing and directing short films as a member of the group of filmmakers Baboon, together with Tom Shoval, Daniel Adar, Michael Hanegbi, Adam Sanderson and Oren Shay. Simon's films were shown among other places on Arte/ZDF, Israeli channel 1 and channel 2, and in Anthology Film Archives, NYC, and in The Berlinale Film Festival, Mar Del Plata, Argentina, Rencontres Internationales Paris and Berlin, FIDMarseille France, Oberhausen IFF Germany, INVIDEO and Milan Short Film Festival, among other places. For his film The Radicals (2001), Simon was awarded The Jerusalem Cinematheque Award for Young Filmmaker.
In 2005 Simon and Arad formed Maayan Publishing, which publishes Maayan Magazine for Poetry, Literature and Ideas which they co-edit; Western (Maarvon) – New Film Magazine (which Simon edits); The New and Bad Contemporary Art Magazine (which they edit together with Natalie Levin); and a series for poetry books and original theatre plays.
Simon is the author of the poetry book National Citizens. In the first issue of Maayan he published a list called "The Prince", exploring his life and views on the world from A to Z. Since then he wrote essays for the magazine and translated for it songs by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger among others. Simon translated Mierle Landerman Ukeles "Maintenance Art Manifesto" (1969) into Hebrew on its 40th anniversary for The New and Bad Contemporary Art Magazine
Maarvon (Western) – New Film Magazine
Originally, Maarvon was intended as an extended supplement to Maayan Magazine dedicated to cinema and film, but eventually it grew to become an independent film magazine. On its board are key filmmakers, programmers and scholars such as Dan Shadur, Adam Aboulafia, Laliv Melamed, Dani Rosenberg, Nimrod Kamer, Ari Libsker, Tom Shoval, and Karin Rywkind Segal. The magazine also included a column by artist and filmmaker Roee Rosen (issues 1–6). While expanding the writing on contemporary cinema in Hebrew, the magazine made it its goal to look carefully into Israeli film history and present, with essays on sub-genres and rediscovered figures, funding conditions and theoretical blind spots, films by female filmmakers, overview of themes and styles. In recent issues the magazine has been focusing more and more on the shift from montage to the digital. It has dedicated special issues to filmmakers such as Jean Luc Godard, Alexander Kluge, Hito Steyerl, Harun Farocki and others, as they have portrayed the shift from visualising the totality of the social through montage to an exploration of the totality of capital in the digital. Parallel to these filmmakers, the magazine highlighted the work of Albert Serra, Jia Zhangke, Amos Guttman, Abderrahmane Sissako, Scandar Copti, Lisandro Alonso, Barry Jenkins, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Keren Yedaya, Hagar Ben-Asher, Pedro Costa, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Avi Mograbi, Peter Watkins, Roberto Rossellini, Sasha Grey, Russ Meyer, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Miguel Gomes, Dušan Makavejev, Matías Piñeiro, Ellida Geira, Kendrick Lamar, Claire Denis, Michal Bat-Adam. Simon also contributed to the magazine essays on Israeli cinema, on finance and psychosis, and on contemporary romantic comedies of the 2000s and Bromance movies, among other subjects.
Journalism
In the media magazine Firma (a supplement of Globes Financial News), Simon has published articles from 2000 to 2009 on various issues. Simon contributed to the culture section of the daily newspaper Globes with art reviews and interviews and was the newspaper's art critic and contributor to the paper's Op-Eds. In Firma, Simon served as editorial board member, ran a column "Reading the News" which was a focused on media critique, interviewed key figures of the local political scene such as Benjamin Netanyahu (Minister of Finance at the time), Ehud Olmert (Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor at the time), Avigdor Lieberman (Minister of Strategic Affairs at the time), Amir Peretz (Chairman of the General Organization of Workers in Israel at the time), Akiva Orr (key political figure of anti-Zionist Left in Israel since the 1960s), Shimshon Bichler (world renowned scholar of the political economy of Israel's military-financial complex), filmmaker Menachem Golan, as well as International philosopher Slavoj Zizek and many others.
In addition, from 2005 to 2009 Simon ran a weekly column in the now mythological metro weekly Ha-Ir (the Tel Aviv equivalent of The Village Voice). The column, "Close to Home," was key to define the changes the city has undergone in its leadership's attempt to position it as a Global City. In his column, Simon observed urban developments and gentrification trends, gave voice to right to the city movements and expanded on the intertwined political and architectural meaning of public sphere.
Select exhibitions
• In The Liquid – group exhibition, PrintScreen Media Art Festival, Holon Israel, Oct.-Nov. 2018
• Second Nature – group exhibition, the main exhibition at the fifth International Photography Festival, Tel Aviv (Nov.-Dec. 2017), Traveled to Gate3 gallery in Haifa (Feb.-April 2018)
• The Kids Want Communism – a two and a half year long program of exhibitions and events marking 99 years to the Soviet Revolution. A joint project of Tranzit, Prague; Free/Slow University of Warsaw; State of Concept, Athens; Škuc gallery, Ljubljana; Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv and MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam, with exhibitions also travelling to Westspace, Melbourne and Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien, Berlin (October 2015-November 2017)
• Roee Rosen: Group Exhibition – retrospective exhibition of the works of Roee Rosen, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel, January–April 2016, co-curated with Gilad Melzer
• Factory Fetish – group exhibition, Westspace Melbourne, Australia, November–December 2015, co-curated with Liang Luscombe
• Francesco Finizio: ARKPAKCRAFTRAFTCLINICCLUBPUB – solo exhibition, MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam, February–May 2015
• Ruti Sela – solo exhibition, MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam, April–July 2014; Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Feb.-March 2015
• Goods – group exhibition, MoBY – Museums of Bat Yam, November 2013, co-curated with Liz Hajaj
• ReCoCo – Life Under Representational Regimes – group exhibition, White Space - Office for Curating-Art-Theory, Zurich Feb. 2011; Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, May 2011; MoBY – Museums of Bat Yam, May 2013, co-curated with Siri Peyer
• Iran – group exhibition, The Spaceship at Hayarkon 70, Tel Aviv-Yafo, March–May 2012. co-curated with Ari LIbsker and Roy Chicky Arad
• Omer Fast – Satellites – solo exhibition, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, January–April 2012
• The Unreadymade – group exhibition, FormContent, London Dec. 2010-Jan. 2011
• The Invisible Hand – group exhibition, Sommer Contemporary Art Gallery, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Oct.-Dec. 2009
• Internazionale! – group exhibition, Left Bank: The Israeli Communist Party Culture Club, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Sep. 2008
• "Come to Israel: It’s Hot and Wet and We Have the Humus" – group exhibition, Storefront for Art and Architecture, NYC; April 2008
• The Rear – The 1st Herzliya Biennial of Contemporary Art, Israel, 2007
• Doron – group exhibition, Minshar College of Art, Tel Aviv-Yafo, 2006, co-curated with Maayan Strauss and Roy Chicky Arad
• Blanks – group exhibition, Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Nov. 2005, co-curated with Sergio Edelsztien
• Sharon – group exhibition, Teachers College of Technology, Tel Aviv-Yafo, 2004
• Amos Gitai – A Retrospective, travelling film program in Israeli cinematheques, 2003
• I slept with Ari Libsker - group exhibition, The Free Academy Pavilion of Art, Tel Aviv-Yafo, 2001
• 96 Elections – solo exhibition of Roy Chicky Arad, Tal Esther Gallery, Tel Aviv-Yafo, 2000
Authored books
National Citizens - Essays [אזרחים לאומיים], Tel Aviv: Havkin Publishing, 1998, 6 pp. (In Hebrew) [reprinted in: Hamidrasha Art Journal, Issue 11: Parody/Irony, 2008 (In Hebrew)]
National Citizens [אזרחים לאומיים], Tel Aviv: Shadurian Publishing, 2001, 80 pp. (In Hebrew)
Neomaterialism, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2013, 194 pp.
Edited books
Sea & Sun, catalogue for the Israeli Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2004, 124 pp.
With Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka, Turky Ammar, Roy Chicky Arad, Marwan Makhoul, Nir Nader, Yaara Shehori and Mati Shmuelof, Red – Class Poetry [אדומה – אסופה לשירה מעמדית], Maayan Publishing in partnership with Etgar, Hakivun Mizrah, 2007, 232 pp. (In Hebrew and Arabic)
With Roy Chicky Arad, Ronen Eidelman, Tomer Gardi, Nir Nader, Yaara Shehori, Mati Shmuelof and Boaz Yaniv, Out – Against The Attack on Gaza [לצאת – נגד ההתקפה על עזה], Maayan Publishing in partnership with Daka, Etgar, Guerilla Culture, Maarav and Sedek, 2008, 74 pp. (In Hebrew and Arabic)
With Manon Slome, The Aesthetics of Terror, New York and Milan: Charta Books, 2009, 104 pp.
United States of Palestine-Israel, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2011, 128 pp.
With Roy Chicky Arad, Good Energies – the Protocol of the Israeli Parliamentary Committee on Natural Gas Royalties, Maayan Publishing, 2011, 53 pp. [In Hebrew]
With Roy Chicky Arad, Ronen Eidelman, Ori Ensenberg, Roni Hirsch, Efrat Mishori, Nir Nader, Yudit Shahar, Yaara Shehori, Mati Shmuelof, The Revolution Song-Book - Tents Poetry [שירון המהפכה – שירת האוהלים], Maayan Publishing in partnership with Daka, Etgar, Erev-Rav and Guerilla Culture, 2011, 109 pp. (In Hebrew)
Ruti Sela: For The Record, Berlin: Archive Books, 2015, 224 pp.
With Ingo Niermann, Communists Anonymous, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2017, 292 pp.
Being Together Precedes Being: A Textbook for The Kids Want Communism, Berlin: Archive Books, 2019, 392 pp.
Select Articles
"Damn, We’re Sexy: Joshua Simon and Roy Chick Arad in conversation," Hamidrasha Art Journal , Issue 7: Education/Initiation, 2004 (In Hebrew)
"Il Principe – Autobiography," Maayan Magazine for Poetry Literature and Ideas, Issue 1, Winter 2004-5 (In Hebrew)
"Silence of the Lamps: on the films of Jos De Gruyter and Harald Thys," Afterall Journal, Issue 22, Fall 2009
"A Certain Tendency in Israeli Cinema," Maarvon – New Film Magazine, Issue 1, Winter 2005-6 (In Hebrew) [reprinted in English online on Slash Seconds:
"On the Aesthetics of Terror," in: Boris Groys and Peter Weibel (eds.), Medium Religion, ZKM: Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Autumn-Winter 2008
"White Picket Fence: Settlement and Suburbia, Geography and Real Estate," in: Ariella Azoulay (ed.), HomeLessHome, Museum on The Seam, Jerusalem Feb. 2010
"Neo-Materialism," three part essay on e-flux journal #20, #23, #26 (Nov. 2010; March 2011; Sep. 2011) ;
"Betrayal and the Curatorial," in: Jean-Paul Martinon (ed.), The Curatorial: A Philosophy of Curating, Bloomsbury Publishing, UK, 2013
"Shockwork: The Selfie and the Labour of the Overqualified," in: Journal, ICA, London, 2014:
"The Overqualified," Art Handler Magazine, Issue 1, NYC, 2015
"Debt and the Materiality of the Dividual," key note paper from the conference ‘Transversal Practices: Matter, Ecology and Relationality’, VI Conference on New Materialisms 27–29 September 2015, The Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. Published in: Springerin Magazine, Vienna, Austria, January 2016 [German and English]:
"The Dual Power of Arts Organizations," Temporary Art Review, November 2016:
"Neoliberal Politics, Protective Edge, and BDS," in: Kareem Estefan, Carin Kuoni, Laura Raicovich (eds.), Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency, and Cultural Production, OR Books, NYC, 2017
"From Value to Price, From Labor to Debt, From Revolution to Disruption," Public Seminar, The New School, NYC, Oct. 2017:
"Soviet Knowledge," Haokets for Social Critique, Nov. 2017 (In Hebrew)
"Phantom-Politics," in: Marina Grzinic (ed.), Border Thinking: Disassembling Histories of Racialized Violence, The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Sternberg Press, 2018
"The Postman Always Rings Twice: Why Does Post-History Repeat Itself?," in: Joshua Simon (ed.) Being Together Precedes Being: A Textbook for The Kids Want Communism, Berlin: Archive Books, 2019
"Speculation and Counter-Speculation." MaHKUscript: Journal of Fine Art Research, 3(1), p. 3, 2019:
"Gentlemen of the Spoon: The meaning of Netanyahu," Maayan Magazine, Issue 15, Summer 2019 (In Hebrew). Appeared online on Mekomit:
"The Way Things Are Organized: The Mesoscopic, The Metastable, The Curatorial," in: Paul O'Neill, Simon Sheikh, Lucy Steeds and Mick Wilson (eds.), Curating After The Global, MIT Press, 2019
Select short films
• Push Up Teaser (teaser for feature film starring Yael Grobglas, Omer Goldman and Danielle Kitzis), 2011
• Die Unsichtbare Hand (special commission from the Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, based on a poem by Daniel Falb), 2010
• Les mots et les choses (starring Yehuda Levi, Gili Saar and Roee Rosen), 2004
• My Room (documentary short commissioned by Channel 8 for science & culture), 2002
• The Radicals (starring Yaara Sharon, Roy Chicky Arad, Michael Hanegbi, Dan Shadur, Ari Libsker, Lior Levy, Michal Shalev), 2001
• Moments (documentary commissioned by Israeli Channel 1), 2001
• City Hole (starring Iva Kafri and Tomer Persico), 1999
References
External links
Maayan Magazine Website
the Doron exhibition (website)
The Radicals (film by Joshua Simon)
On The Barnes Foundation (website)
Vera List Center for Art and Politics website
AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE DER WELT website
Israeli film directors
Israeli curators
Israeli journalists
Living people
1979 births
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20rove%20beetle%20%28Staphylinidae%29%20species%20recorded%20in%20Britain
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List of rove beetle (Staphylinidae) species recorded in Britain
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The following is a list of the rove beetles recorded in Great Britain. For other beetles, see List of beetle species recorded in Britain.
Acidota crenata (Fabricius, 1793)
Acidota cruentata Mannerheim, 1830
Anthobium atrocephalum (Gyllenhal, 1827)
Anthobium unicolor (Marsham, 1802)
Anthophagus alpinus (Paykull, 1790)
Anthophagus caraboides (Linnaeus, 1758)
Deliphrum tectum (Paykull, 1789)
Eucnecosum brachypterum (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Geodromicus longipes (Mannerheim, 1830)
Geodromicus nigrita (P. W. J. Müller, 1821)
Lesteva hanseni Lohse, 1953
Lesteva longoelytrata (Goeze, 1777)
Lesteva monticola Kiesenwetter, 1847
Lesteva pubescens Mannerheim, 1830
Lesteva punctata Erichson, 1839
Lesteva sicula Erichson, 1840
Olophrum assimile (Paykull, 1800)
Olophrum consimile (Gyllenhal, 1810)
Olophrum fuscum (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Olophrum piceum (Gyllenhal, 1810)
Orochares angustatus (Erichson, 1840)
Philorinum sordidum (Stephens, 1834)
Phyllodrepoidea crenata Ganglbauer, 1895
Coryphium angusticolle Stephens, 1834
Eudectus whitei Sharp, 1871
Eusphalerum luteum (Marsham, 1802)
Eusphalerum minutum (Fabricius, 1792)
Eusphalerum primulae (Stephens, 1834)
Eusphalerum sorbi (Gyllenhal, 1810)
Eusphalerum sorbicola (Kangas, 1941)
Eusphalerum torquatum (Marsham, 1802)
Hadrognathus longipalpis (Mulsant & Rey, 1851)
Acrolocha minuta (Olivier, 1795)
Acrolocha sulcula (Stephens, 1834)
Acrulia inflata (Gyllenhal, 1813)
Dropephylla devillei Bernhauer, 1902
Dropephylla gracilicornis (Fairmaire & Laboulbène, 1856)
Dropephylla heerii (Heer, 1841)
Dropephylla ioptera (Stephens, 1832)
Dropephylla koltzei Jászay & Hlavac, 2006
Dropephylla vilis (Erichson, 1840)
Hapalaraea pygmaea (Paykull, 1800)
Hypopycna rufula (Erichson, 1840)
Micralymma marinum (Ström, 1783)
Omalium allardi Fairmaire & Brisout, 1859
Omalium caesum Gravenhorst, 1806
Omalium excavatum Stephens, 1834
Omalium exiguum Gyllenhal, 1810
Omalium italicum Bernhauer, 1902
Omalium laeviusculum Gyllenhal, 1827
Omalium laticolle Kraatz, 1858
Omalium oxyacanthae Gravenhorst, 1806
Omalium riparium C. G. Thomson, 1857
Omalium rivulare (Paykull, 1789)
Omalium rugatum Mulsant & Rey, 1880
Omalium rugulipenne Rye, 1864
Omalium septentrionis C. G. Thomson, 1856
Paraphloeostiba gayndahensis (Macleay, 1873)
Phloeonomus punctipennis C. G. Thomson, 1867
Phloeonomus pusillus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Phloeostiba lapponica (Zetterstedt, 1838)
Phloeostiba plana (Paykull, 1792)
Phyllodrepa floralis (Paykull, 1789)
Phyllodrepa nigra (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Phyllodrepa puberula Bernhauer, 1903
Phyllodrepa salicis (Gyllenhal, 1810)
Xylodromus concinnus (Marsham, 1802)
Xylodromus depressus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Xylodromus testaceus (Erichson, 1840)
Xylostiba bosnica (Bernhauer, 1902)
Xylostiba monilicornis (Gyllenhal, 1810)
Megarthrus bellevoyei (Saulcy, 1862)
Megarthrus denticollis (Beck, 1817)
Megarthrus depressus (Paykull, 1789)
Megarthrus hemipterus (Illiger, 1794)
Megarthrus prosseni Schatzmayr, 1904
Metopsia clypeata (P. W. J. Müller, 1821)
Proteinus atomarius Erichson, 1840
Proteinus brachypterus (Fabricius, 1792)
Proteinus crenulatus Pandellé, 1867
Proteinus laevigatus Hochhuth, 1871
Proteinus ovalis Stephens, 1834
Arrhenopeplus tesserula (Curtis, 1828)
Micropeplus caelatus Erichson, 1839
Micropeplus fulvus Erichson, 1840
Micropeplus porcatus (Paykull, 1789)
Micropeplus staphylinoides (Marsham, 1802)
Batrisodes adnexus (Hampe, 1863)
Batrisodes delaporti (Aubé, 1833)
Batrisodes venustus (Reichenbach, 1816)
Claviger longicornis P. W. J. Müller, 1818
Claviger testaceus Preyssler, 1790
Euplectus bescidicus Reitter, 1881
Euplectus bonvouloiri Reitter, 1881
Euplectus rosae Raffray, 1910
Euplectus brunneus (Grimmer, 1841)
Euplectus decipiens Raffray, 1910
Euplectus duponti Aubé, 1833
Euplectus infirmus Raffray, 1910
Euplectus karstenii (Reichenbach, 1816)
Euplectus kirbii Denny, 1825
Euplectus mutator Fauvel, 1895
Euplectus nanus (Reichenbach, 1816)
Euplectus piceus Motschulsky, 1835
Euplectus punctatus Mulsant, 1861
Euplectus sanguineus Denny, 1825
Euplectus signatus (Reichenbach, 1816)
Euplectus tholini Guillebeau, 1888
Plectophloeus erichsoni (Aubé, 1844)
Plectophloeus occidentalis Besuchet, 1969
Plectophloeus nitidus (Fairmaire, 1857)
Bibloporus bicolor (Denny, 1825)
Bibloporus minutus Raffray, 1914
Bibloplectus ambiguus (Reichenbach, 1816)
Bibloplectus delhermi Guillebeau, 1888
Bibloplectus minutissimus (Aubé, 1833)
Bibloplectus pusillus (Denny, 1825)
Bibloplectus spinosus Raffray, 1914
Bibloplectus tenebrosus (Reitter, 1880)
Amauronyx maerkelii (Aubé, 1844)
Trichonyx sulcicollis (Reichenbach, 1816)
Trimium brevicorne (Reichenbach, 1816)
Brachygluta fossulata (Reichenbach, 1816)
Brachygluta haematica (Reichenbach, 1816)
Brachygluta helferi (Schmidt-Göbel, 1836)
Brachygluta pandellei (Saulcy, 1876)
Brachygluta simplicior Raffray, 1904
Brachygluta sinuata (Aubé, 1833)
Brachygluta waterhousei (Rye, 1869)
Fagniezia impressa (Panzer, 1803)
Reichenbachia juncorum (Leach, 1817)
Rybaxis longicornis (Leach, 1817)
Bryaxis bulbifer (Reichenbach, 1816)
Bryaxis curtisii (Leach, 1817)
Bryaxis puncticollis (Denny, 1825)
Bythinus burrellii Denny, 1825
Bythinus macropalpus Aubé, 1833
Tychobythinus glabratus (Rye, 1870)
Tychus niger (Paykull, 1800)
Tychus striola Guillebeau, 1888
Pselaphaulax dresdensis (Herbst, 1792)
Pselaphus heisei Herbst, 1792
Phloeocharis subtilissima Mannerheim, 1830
Bolitobius castaneus (Stephens, 1832)
Bolitobius cingulatus (Mannerheim, 1830)
Bryophacis crassicornis (Mäklin, 1847)
Bryophacis rugipennis (Pandellé, 1869)
Bryoporus cernuus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Ischnosoma longicorne (Mäklin, 1847)
Ischnosoma splendidum (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Lordithon exoletus (Erichson, 1839)
Lordithon lunulatus (Linnaeus, 1761)
Lordithon thoracicus (Fabricius, 1777)
Lordithon trinotatus (Erichson, 1839)
Mycetoporus angularis Mulsant & Rey, 1853
Mycetoporus baudueri Mulsant & Rey, 1875
Mycetoporus bimaculatus Boisduval & Lacordaire, 1835
Mycetoporus clavicornis (Stephens, 1832)
Mycetoporus despectus A. Strand, 1969
Mycetoporus erichsonanus Fagel, 1965
Mycetoporus lepidus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Mycetoporus longulus Mannerheim, 1830
Mycetoporus monticola Fowler, 1888
Mycetoporus nigricollis Stephens, 1835
Mycetoporus piceolus Rey, 1883
Mycetoporus punctus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Mycetoporus rufescens (Stephens, 1832)
Parabolitobius inclinans (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Cilea silphoides (Linnaeus, 1767)
Lamprinodes saginatus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Sepedophilus bipunctatus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Sepedophilus constans (Fowler, 1888)
Sepedophilus immaculatus (Stephens, 1832)
Sepedophilus littoreus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Sepedophilus lusitanicus Hammond, 1973
Sepedophilus marshami (Stephens, 1832)
Sepedophilus nigripennis (Stephens, 1832)
Sepedophilus pedicularius (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Sepedophilus testaceus (Fabricius, 1793)
Tachinus bipustulatus (Fabricius, 1793)
Tachinus corticinus Gravenhorst, 1802
Tachinus elongatus Gyllenhal, 1810
Tachinus flavolimbatus Pandellé, 1869
Tachinus humeralis Gravenhorst, 1802
Tachinus laticollis Gravenhorst, 1802
Tachinus lignorum (Linnaeus, 1758)
Tachinus marginellus (Fabricius, 1781)
Tachinus pallipes (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Tachinus proximus Kraatz, 1855
Tachinus rufipennis Gyllenhal, 1810
Tachinus rufipes (Linnaeus, 1758)
Tachinus scapularis Stephens, 1832
Tachinus subterraneus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Tachyporus atriceps Stephens, 1832
Tachyporus chrysomelinus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Tachyporus dispar (Paykull, 1789)
Tachyporus formosus A. H. Matthews, 1838
Tachyporus hypnorum (Fabricius, 1775)
Tachyporus nitidulus (Fabricius, 1781)
Tachyporus obtusus (Linnaeus, 1767)
Tachyporus pallidus Sharp, 1871
Tachyporus pusillus Gravenhorst, 1806
Tachyporus quadriscopulatus Pandellé, 1869
Tachyporus scitulus Erichson, 1839
Tachyporus solutus Erichson, 1839
Tachyporus tersus Erichson, 1839
Tachyporus transversalis Gravenhorst, 1806
Trichophya pilicornis (Gyllenhal, 1810)
Habrocerus capillaricornis (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Actocharis readingii Sharp, 1870
Aleochara brevipennis Gravenhorst, 1806
Aleochara curtula (Goeze, 1777)
Aleochara lata Gravenhorst, 1802
Aleochara intricata Mannerheim, 1830
Aleochara ruficornis Gravenhorst, 1802
Aleochara bilineata Gyllenhal, 1810
Aleochara binotata Kraatz, 1858
Aleochara bipustulata (Linnaeus, 1761)
Aleochara verna Say, 1836
Aleochara obscurella Gravenhorst, 1806
Aleochara phycophila Allen, 1937
Aleochara grisea Kraatz, 1856
Aleochara punctatella Motschulsky, 1858
Aleochara spadicea (Erichson, 1837)
Aleochara cuniculorum Kraatz, 1858
Aleochara discipennis Mulsant & Rey, 1853
Aleochara fumata Gravenhorst, 1802
Aleochara funebris Wollaston, 1864
Aleochara inconspicua Aubé, 1850
Aleochara kamila Likovský, 1984
Aleochara lanuginosa Gravenhorst, 1802
Aleochara lygaea Kraatz, 1862
Aleochara maculata Brisout, 1863
Aleochara moerens Gyllenhal, 1827
Aleochara moesta Gravenhorst, 1802
Aleochara sanguinea (Linnaeus, 1758)
Aleochara sparsa Heer, 1839
Aleochara stichai Likovský, 1965
Aleochara tristis Gravenhorst, 1806
Aleochara villosa Mannerheim, 1830
Tinotus morion (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Acrotona aterrima (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Acrotona benicki (Allen, 1940)
Acrotona exigua (Erichson, 1837)
Acrotona muscorum (Brisout, 1860)
Acrotona obfuscata (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Acrotona parens (Mulsant & Rey, 1852)
Acrotona parvula (Mannerheim, 1830)
Acrotona pseudotenera (Cameron, 1933)
Acrotona pygmaea (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Acrotona sylvicola (Kraatz, 1856)
Acrotona troglodytes (Motschulsky, 1858)
Adota maritima (Mannerheim, 1843)
Alaobia gagatina (Baudi, 1848)
Alaobia hybrida (Sharp, 1869)
Alaobia linderi (Brisout, 1863)
Alaobia pallidicornis (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Alaobia scapularis (C. R. Sahlberg, 1831)
Alaobia sodalis (Erichson, 1837)
Alaobia subglabra (Sharp, 1869)
Alaobia taxiceroides Munster, 1932
Alaobia trinotata (Kraatz, 1856)
Alevonota aurantiaca Fauvel, 1895
Alevonota egregia (Rye, 1876)
Alevonota gracilenta (Erichson, 1839)
Alevonota rufotestacea (Kraatz, 1856)
Alianta incana (Erichson, 1837)
Aloconota cambrica (Wollaston, 1855)
Aloconota currax (Kraatz, 1856)
Aloconota eichhoffi (Scriba, 1867)
Aloconota gregaria (Erichson, 1839)
Aloconota insecta (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Aloconota mihoki Bernhauer, 1913
Aloconota planifrons (G. R. Waterhouse, 1864)
Aloconota subgrandis Brundin, 1954
Aloconota sulcifrons (Stephens, 1832)
Aloconota coulsoni (Last, 1952)
Aloconota languida (Erichson, 1837)
Aloconota longicollis (Mulsant & Rey, 1852)
Amidobia talpa (Heer, 1841)
Amischa analis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Amischa bifoveolata (Mannerheim, 1830)
Amischa decipiens (Sharp, 1869)
Amischa forcipata Mulsant & Rey, 1873
Amischa nigrofusca (Stephens, 1829)
Anopleta corvina (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Anopleta kochi (Roubal, 1937)
Anopleta puberula (Sharp, 1869)
Anopleta soedermani (Bernhauer, 1931)
Atheta aeneicollis (Sharp, 1869)
Atheta aquatica (C. G. Thomson, 1852)
Atheta aquatilis (C. G. Thomson, 1867)
Atheta brunneipennis (C. G. Thomson, 1852)
Atheta castanoptera (Mannerheim, 1830)
Atheta ebenina (Mulsant & Rey, 1874)
Atheta graminicola (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Atheta heymesi Hubenthal, 1913
Atheta hypnorum (Kiesenwetter, 1850)
Atheta incognita (Sharp, 1869)
Atheta laevicauda J. Sahlberg, 1876
Atheta triangulum (Kraatz, 1856)
Atheta xanthopus (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Atheta autumnalis (Erichson, 1839)
Atheta basicornis (Mulsant & Rey, 1852)
Atheta boletophila (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Atheta britanniae (Bernhauer & Scheerpeltz, 1926)
Atheta crassicornis (Fabricius, 1793)
Atheta diversa (Sharp, 1869)
Atheta divisa (Märkel, 1844)
Atheta euryptera (Stephens, 1832)
Atheta fungicola (C. G. Thomson, 1852)
Atheta harwoodi (Williams, 1930)
Atheta intermedia (C. G. Thomson, 1852)
Atheta liturata (Stephens, 1832)
Atheta nidicola (Johansen, 1914)
Atheta nigritula (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Atheta oblita (Erichson, 1839)
Atheta paracrassicornis Brundin, 1954
Atheta pilicornis (C. G. Thomson, 1852)
Atheta procera (Kraatz, 1856)
Atheta ravilla (Erichson, 1839)
Atheta strandiella (Brundin, 1954)
Atheta vaga (Heer, 1839)
Badura macrocera (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Badura puncticollis (Benick, 1938)
Bessobia excellens (Kraatz, 1856)
Bessobia fungivora (C. G. Thomson, 1867)
Bessobia monticola (C. G. Thomson, 1852)
Bessobia occulta (Erichson, 1837)
Boreophilia eremita (Rye, 1866)
Brundinia marina (Mulsant & Rey, 1853)
Brundinia meridionalis (Mulsant & Rey, 1853)
Cadaverota cadaverina (Brisout, 1860)
Cadaverota hansseni (Strand, 1943)
Callicerus obscurus Gravenhorst, 1802
Callicerus rigidicornis (Erichson, 1839)
Ceritaxa dilaticornis (Kraatz, 1856)
Ceritaxa pervagata (Benick, 1974)
Ceritaxa testaceipes (Heer, 1839)
Chaetida longicornis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Coprothassa melanaria (Mannerheim, 1830)
Dadobia immersa (Erichson, 1837)
Dalotia coriaria (Kraatz, 1856)
Datomicra canescens (Sharp, 1869)
Datomicra celata (Erichson, 1837)
Datomicra dadopora (C. G. Thomson, 1867)
Datomicra nigra (Kraatz, 1856)
Datomicra sordidula (Erichson, 1837)
Datomicra zosterae (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Dilacra luteipes (Erichson, 1837)
Dilacra vilis (Erichson, 1837)
Dimetrota aeneipennis (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Dimetrota atramentaria (Gyllenhal, 1810)
Dimetrota cauta (Erichson, 1837)
Dimetrota cinnamoptera (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Dimetrota ischnocera (C. G. Thomson, 1870)
Dimetrota laevana (Mulsant & Rey, 1852)
Dimetrota marcida (Erichson, 1837)
Dimetrota nigripes (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Dimetrota setigera (Sharp, 1869)
Dinaraea aequata (Erichson, 1837)
Dinaraea angustula (Gyllenhal, 1810)
Dinaraea linearis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Dochmonota clancula (Erichson, 1837)
Enalodroma hepatica (Erichson, 1839)
Geostiba circellaris (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Halobrecta algae (Hardy, 1851)
Halobrecta algophila (Fenyes, 1909)
Halobrecta flavipes C. G. Thomson, 1861
Halobrecta princeps (Sharp, 1869)
Hydrosmecta delicatissima (Bernhauer, 1908)
Hydrosmecta delicatula (Sharp, 1869)
Hydrosmecta eximia (Sharp, 1869)
Hydrosmecta fragilis (Kraatz, 1854)
Hydrosmecta longula (Heer, 1839)
Hydrosmecta subtilissima (Kraatz, 1854)
Liogluta alpestris (Heer, 1839)
Liogluta granigera (Kiesenwetter, 1850)
Liogluta longiuscula (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Liogluta microptera C. G. Thomson, 1867
Liogluta pagana (Erichson, 1839)
Lyprocorrhe anceps (Erichson, 1837)
Microdota aegra (Heer, 1841)
Microdota amicula (Stephens, 1832)
Microdota atomaria (Kraatz, 1856)
Microdota atricolor (Sharp, 1869)
Microdota benickiella (Brundin, 1948)
Microdota boreella (Brundin, 1948)
Microdota excelsa (Bernhauer, 1911)
Microdota glabricula (C. G. Thomson, 1867)
Microdota indubia (Sharp, 1869)
Microdota inquinula (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Microdota liliputana (Brisout, 1860)
Microdota minuscula (Brisout, 1860)
Microdota palleola (Erichson, 1837)
Microdota spatuloides (Benick, 1939)
Microdota subtilis (Scriba, 1866)
Mocyta amplicollis (Mulsant & Rey, 1873)
Mocyta clientula (Erichson, 1839)
Mocyta fungi (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Mocyta fussi (Bernhauer, 1908)
Mocyta orbata (Erichson, 1837)
Mocyta orphana (Erichson, 1837)
Mycetota fimorum (Brisout, 1860)
Mycetota laticollis (Stephens, 1832)
Nehemitropia lividipennis (Mannerheim, 1830)
Neohilara subterranea (Mulsant & Rey, 1853)
Notothecta confusa (Märkel, 1844)
Notothecta flavipes (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Oreostiba tibialis (Heer, 1839)
Ousipalia caesula (Erichson, 1839)
Pachnida nigella (Erichson, 1837)
Pachyatheta cribrata (Kraatz, 1856)
Pachyatheta mortuorum (C. G. Thomson, 1867)
Parameotica difficilis (Brisout, 1860)
Paranopleta inhabilis (Kraatz, 1856)
Philhygra arctica (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Philhygra britteni Joy, 1913
Philhygra debilis (Erichson, 1837)
Philhygra deformis (Kraatz, 1856)
Philhygra elongatula (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philhygra fallaciosa (Sharp, 1869)
Philhygra gyllenhalii (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Philhygra hygrobia (C. G. Thomson, 1856)
Philhygra hygrotopora (Kraatz, 1856)
Philhygra luridipennis (Mannerheim, 1830)
Philhygra malleus (Joy, 1913)
Philhygra melanocera (C. G. Thomson, ?
Philhygra obtusangula (Joy, 1913)
Philhygra palustris (Kiesenwetter, 1844)
Philhygra parca (Mulsant & Rey, 1873)
Philhygra scotica (Elliman, 1909)
Philhygra terminalis (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Philhygra volans (Scriba, 1859)
Plataraea brunnea (Fabricius, 1798)
Pycnota paradoxa (Mulsant & Rey, 1861)
Rhagocneme subsinuata (Erichson, 1839)
Schistoglossa aubei (Brisout, 1860)
Schistoglossa bergvalli Palm, 1968
Schistoglossa curtipennis (Sharp, 1869)
Schistoglossa gemina (Erichson, 1837)
Schistoglossa viduata (Erichson, 1837)
Thinobaena vestita (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Traumoecia picipes (C. G. Thomson, ?
Trichiusa immigrata Lohse, 1984
Xenota myrmecobia (Kraatz, 1856)
Thamiaraea cinnamomea (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Thamiaraea hospita (Märkel, 1844)
Autalia impressa (Olivier, 1795)
Autalia longicornis Scheerpeltz, 1947
Autalia puncticollis Sharp, 1864
Autalia rivularis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Deinopsis erosa (Stephens, 1832)
Diglotta mersa (Haliday, 1837)
Diglotta sinuaticollis (Mulsant & Rey, 1871)
Bohemiellina flavipennis (Cameron, 1920)
Borboropora kraatzii Fuss in Kraatz & Fuss, 1862
Cordalia obscura (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Falagria caesa Erichson, 1837
Falagria sulcatula (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Falagrioma thoracica (Stephens, 1832)
Myrmecocephalus concinnus (Erichson, 1839)
Myrmecopora brevipes Butler, 1909
Myrmecopora oweni Assing, 1997
Myrmecopora sulcata (Kiesenwetter, 1850)
Myrmecopora uvida (Erichson, 1840)
Gymnusa brevicollis (Paykull, 1800)
Gymnusa variegata Kiesenwetter, 1845
Bolitochara bella Märkel, 1844
Bolitochara lucida (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Bolitochara mulsanti Sharp, 1875
Bolitochara obliqua Erichson, 1837
Bolitochara pulchra (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Euryusa optabilis Heer, 1839
Euryusa sinuata Erichson, 1837
Leptusa fumida (Erichson, 1839)
Leptusa norvegica A. Strand, 1941
Leptusa pulchella (Mannerheim, 1830)
Leptusa ruficollis (Erichson, 1839)
Heterota plumbea (G. R. Waterhouse, 1858)
Pseudomicrodota paganettii (Bernhauer, 1909)
Pseudopasilia testacea (Brisout, 1863)
Rhopalocerina clavigera (Scriba, 1859)
Tachyusida gracilis (Erichson, 1837)
Thecturota marchii (Dodero, 1922)
Thecturota williamsi (Bernhauer, 1936)
Agaricochara latissima (Stephens, 1832)
Brachida exigua (Heer, 1839)
Encephalus complicans Stephens, 1832
Gyrophaena affinis Mannerheim, 1830
Gyrophaena bihamata C. G. Thomson, 1867
Gyrophaena congrua Erichson, 1837
Gyrophaena fasciata (Marsham, 1802)
Gyrophaena gentilis Erichson, 1839
Gyrophaena hanseni A. Strand, 1946
Gyrophaena joyi Wendeler, 1924
Gyrophaena joyioides Wüsthoff, 1937
Gyrophaena lucidula Erichson, 1837
Gyrophaena manca Erichson, 1839
Gyrophaena minima Erichson, 1837
Gyrophaena munsteri A. Strand, 1935
Gyrophaena nana (Paykull, 1800)
Gyrophaena poweri Crotch, 1867
Gyrophaena pseudonana A. Strand, 1939
Gyrophaena pulchella Heer, 1839
Gyrophaena rousi Dvorák, 1966
Gyrophaena strictula Erichson, 1839
Gyrophaena williamsi A. Strand, 1935
Anomognathus cuspidatus (Erichson, 1839)
Cyphea curtula (Erichson, 1837)
Homalota plana (Gyllenhal, 1810)
Silusa rubiginosa Erichson, 1837
Hygronoma dimidiata (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Cypha apicalis (Brisout, 1863)
Cypha aprilis (Rey, 1882)
Cypha discoidea (Erichson, 1839)
Cypha laeviuscula (Mannerheim, 1830)
Cypha longicornis (Paykull, 1800)
Cypha pulicaria (Erichson, 1839)
Cypha punctum (Motschulsky, 1857)
Cypha seminulum (Erichson, 1839)
Cypha tarsalis (Luze, 1902)
Holobus flavicornis (Lacordaire, 1835)
Oligota apicata (Erichson, 1837)
Oligota granaria Erichson, 1837
Oligota inflata (Mannerheim, 1830)
Oligota parva Kraatz, 1862
Oligota picipes (Stephens, 1832)
Oligota pumilio Kiesenwetter, 1858
Oligota punctulata Heer, 1839
Oligota pusillima (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Lomechusa emarginata (Paykull, 1789)
Lomechusa paradoxa Gravenhorst, 1806
Lomechusoides strumosus (Fabricius, 1775)
Drusilla canaliculata (Fabricius, 1787)
Myrmoecia plicata (Erichson, 1837)
Pella cognata (Märkel, 1842)
Pella funesta (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Pella humeralis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Pella laticollis (Märkel, 1845)
Pella limbata (Paykull, 1789)
Pella lugens (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Zyras collaris (Märkel, 1842)
Zyras haworthi Stephens, 1835
Myllaena brevicornis (A. H. Matthews, 1838)
Myllaena dubia (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Myllaena elongata (A. H. Matthews, 1838)
Myllaena fowleri A. Matthews, 1883
Myllaena gracilicornis Fairmaire & Brisout, 1859
Myllaena gracilis (A. H. Matthews, 1838)
Myllaena infuscata Kraatz, 1853
Myllaena intermedia Erichson, 1837
Myllaena kraatzi Sharp, 1871
Myllaena masoni A. Matthews, 1883
Myllaena minuta (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Dinarda dentata (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Dinarda hagensi Wasmann, 1889
Dinarda maerkeli Kiesenwetter, 1843
Dinarda pygmaea Wasmann, 1894
Homoeusa acuminata (Märkel, 1842)
Meotica anglica Benick in Muona, 1991
Meotica exilis (Knoch in Gravenhorst, 1806)
Meotica exillima Sharp, 1915
Meotica filiformis (Motschulsky, 1860)
Meotica pallens (Redtenbacher, 1849)
Amarochara bonnairei (Fauvel, 1865)
Amarochara forticornis (Boisduval & Lacordaire, 1835)
Amarochara umbrosa (Erichson, 1837)
Calodera aethiops (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Calodera nigrita Mannerheim, 1830
Calodera protensa Mannerheim, 1830
Calodera riparia Erichson, 1837
Calodera rubens (Erichson, 1837)
Calodera rufescens Kraatz, 1856
Calodera uliginosa Erichson, 1837
Cousya defecta Mulsant & Rey, 1875
Cousya longitarsis (C. G. Thomson, 1867)
Cousya nigrata (Fairmaire & Laboulbène, 1856)
Cousya nitidiventris (Fagel, 1958)
Crataraea suturalis (Mannerheim, 1830)
Dexiogyia corticina (Erichson, 1837)
Haploglossa gentilis (Märkel, 1844)
Haploglossa marginalis (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Haploglossa nidicola (Fairmaire, 1852)
Haploglossa picipennis (Gyllenhal, 1827)
Haploglossa villosula (Stephens, 1832)
Hygropora cunctans (Erichson, 1837)
Ilyobates bennetti Donisthorpe, 1914
Ilyobates nigricollis (Paykull, 1800)
Ilyobates propinquus (Aubé, 1850)
Ischnoglossa obscura Wunderle, 1990
Ischnoglossa prolixa (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Ischnoglossa turcica Wunderle, 1992
Mniusa incrassata (Mulsant & Rey, 1852)
Ocalea badia Erichson, 1837
Ocalea latipennis Sharp, 1870
Ocalea picata (Stephens, 1832)
Ocalea rivularis L. Miller, 1851
Ocyusa maura (Erichson, 1837)
Ocyusa picina (Aubé, 1850)
Oxypoda acuminata (Stephens, 1832)
Oxypoda alternans (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Oxypoda annularis Mannerheim, 1830
Oxypoda brachyptera (Stephens, 1832)
Oxypoda brevicornis (Stephens, 1832)
Oxypoda carbonaria (Heer, 1841)
Oxypoda elongatula Aubé, 1850
Oxypoda exoleta Erichson, 1839
Oxypoda ferruginea Erichson, 1839
Oxypoda flavicornis Kraatz, 1856
Oxypoda formiceticola Märkel, 1841
Oxypoda haemorrhoa (Mannerheim, 1830)
Oxypoda induta Mulsant & Rey, 1861
Oxypoda islandica Kraatz, 1857
Oxypoda lentula Erichson, 1837
Oxypoda longipes Mulsant & Rey, 1861
Oxypoda lurida Wollaston, 1857
Oxypoda mutata Sharp, 1871
Oxypoda nigricornis Motschulsky, 1860
Oxypoda nigrocincta Mulsant & Rey, 1875
Oxypoda opaca (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Oxypoda praecox Erichson, 1839
Oxypoda procerula Mannerheim, 1830
Oxypoda recondita Kraatz, 1856
Oxypoda soror C. G. Thomson, 1855
Oxypoda spectabilis Märkel, 1844
Oxypoda tarda Sharp, 1871
Oxypoda tirolensis Gredler, 1863
Oxypoda vittata Märkel, 1842
Phloeopora concolor Kraatz, 1856
Phloeopora corticalis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Phloeopora nitidiventris Fauvel, 1904
Phloeopora scribae Eppelsheim, 1884
Phloeopora testacea (Mannerheim, 1830)
Stichoglossa semirufa (Erichson, 1839)
Tetralaucopora longitarsis (Erichson, 1837)
Tetralaucopora rubicunda (Erichson, 1837)
Thiasophila angulata (Erichson, 1837)
Thiasophila inquilina (Märkel, 1842)
Brachyusa concolor (Erichson, 1839)
Dacrila fallax (Kraatz, 1856)
Dacrila pruinosa (Kraatz, 1856)
Dasygnypeta velata (Erichson, 1837)
Gnypeta caerulea (C. R. Sahlberg, 1831)
Gnypeta carbonaria (Mannerheim, 1830)
Gnypeta ripicola (Kiesenwetter, 1844)
Gnypeta rubrior Tottenham, 1939
Ischnopoda leucopus (Marsham, 1802)
Ischnopoda scitula (Erichson, 1837)
Ischnopoda umbratica (Erichson, 1837)
Tachyusa coarctata (Erichson, 1837)
Tachyusa constricta (Erichson, 1837)
Tachyusa objecta (Mulsant & Rey, 1870)
Thinonoma atra (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Arena tabida (Kiesenwetter, 1850)
Phytosus balticus Kraatz, 1859
Phytosus nigriventris (Chevrolat, 1843)
Phytosus spinifer Curtis, 1838
Placusa complanata Erichson, 1839
Placusa depressa Mäklin, 1845
Placusa pumilio (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Placusa tachyporoides (Waltl, 1838)
Scaphidium quadrimaculatum Olivier, 1790
Scaphium immaculatum (Olivier, 1790)
Scaphisoma agaricinum (Linnaeus, 1758)
Scaphisoma assimile Erichson, 1845
Scaphisoma boleti (Panzer, 1793)
Siagonium quadricorne Kirby, 1815
Coprophilus striatulus (Fabricius, 1793)
Deleaster dichrous (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Syntomium aeneum (P. W. J. Müller, 1821)
Anotylus clypeonitens (Pandellé, 1867)
Anotylus complanatus (Erichson, 1839)
Anotylus fairmairei (Pandellé, 1867)
Anotylus hamatus (Fairmaire & Laboulbène, 1856)
Anotylus insecatus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Anotylus inustus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Anotylus maritimus C. G. Thomson, 1861
Anotylus mutator (Lohse, 1963)
Anotylus nitidulus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Anotylus rugosus (Fabricius, 1775)
Anotylus saulcyi (Pandellé, 1867)
Anotylus sculpturatus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Anotylus tetracarinatus (Block, 1799)
Oxytelus fulvipes Erichson, 1839
Oxytelus laqueatus (Marsham, 1802)
Oxytelus migrator Fauvel, 1904
Oxytelus piceus (Linnaeus, 1767)
Oxytelus sculptus Gravenhorst, 1806
Platystethus alutaceus C. G. Thomson, 1861
Platystethus capito Heer, 1839
Platystethus cornutus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Platystethus degener Mulsant & Rey, 1878
Platystethus nitens (C. R. Sahlberg, 1832)
Platystethus nodifrons Mannerheim, 1830
Platystethus arenarius (Fourcroy, 1785)
Aploderus caelatus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Bledius subterraneus Erichson, 1839
Bledius limicola Tottenham, 1940
Bledius spectabilis Kraatz, 1857
Bledius tricornis (Herbst, 1784)
Bledius unicornis (Germar, 1825)
Bledius fergussoni Joy, 1912
Bledius subniger Schneider, 1900
Bledius bicornis (Germar, 1822)
Bledius jutlandensis Herman, 1986
Bledius diota Schiødte, 1866
Bledius furcatus (Olivier, 1811)
Bledius annae Sharp, 1911
Bledius arcticus J. Sahlberg, 1890
Bledius atricapillus (Germar, 1825)
Bledius crassicollis Lacordaire, 1835
Bledius defensus Fauvel, 1872
Bledius dissimilis Erichson, 1840
Bledius erraticus Erichson, 1839
Bledius femoralis (Gyllenhal, 1827)
Bledius filipes Sharp, 1911
Bledius fuscipes Rye, 1865
Bledius gallicus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Bledius longulus Erichson, 1839
Bledius occidentalis Bondroit, 1907
Bledius opacus (Block, 1799)
Bledius pallipes (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Bledius praetermissus Williams, 1929
Bledius terebrans (Schiødte, 1866)
Carpelimus bilineatus Stephens, 1834
Carpelimus corticinus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Carpelimus despectus (Baudi, 1869)
Carpelimus elongatulus (Erichson, 1839)
Carpelimus foveolatus (C. R. Sahlberg, 1832)
Carpelimus fuliginosus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Carpelimus gracilis (Mannerheim, 1830)
Carpelimus halophilus (Kiesenwetter, 1844)
Carpelimus impressus (Boisduval & Lacordaire, 1835)
Carpelimus lindrothi Palm, 1942
Carpelimus manchuricus (Bernhauer, 1938)
Carpelimus obesus (Kiesenwetter, 1844)
Carpelimus pusillus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Carpelimus rivularis (Motschulsky, 1860)
Carpelimus schneideri (Ganglbauer, 1895)
Carpelimus similis Smetana, 1967
Carpelimus subtilis (Erichson, 1839)
Carpelimus zealandicus (Sharp, 1900)
Manda mandibularis (Gyllenhal, 1827)
Ochthephilus andalusiacus (Fagel, 1957)
Ochthephilus angustior (Bernhauer, 1943)
Ochthephilus aureus (Fauvel, 1871)
Ochthephilus omalinus (Erichson, 1840)
Planeustomus flavicollis Fauvel, 1871
Planeustomus palpalis (Erichson, 1839)
Teropalpus unicolor (Sharp, 1900)
Thinobius bicolor Joy, 1911
Thinobius brevipennis Kiesenwetter, 1850
Thinobius ciliatus Kiesenwetter, 1844
Thinobius crinifer Smetana, 1959
Thinobius longipennis (Heer, 1841)
Thinobius major Kraatz, 1857
Thinobius newberyi Scheerpeltz, 1925
Thinodromus arcuatus (Stephens, 1834)
Oxyporus rufus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Dianous coerulescens (Gyllenhal, 1810)
Stenus aceris Stephens, 1833
Stenus fuscicornis Erichson, 1840
Stenus geniculatus Gravenhorst, 1806
Stenus glacialis Heer, 1839
Stenus impressus Germar, 1824
Stenus longitarsis Skeetle Beetle
Stenus ludyi Fauvel, 1855
Stenus ochropus Kiesenwetter, 1858
Stenus ossium Stephens, 1833
Stenus pallipes Gravenhorst, 1802
Stenus palustris Erichson, 1839
Stenus subaeneus Erichson, 1840
Stenus cicindeloides (Schaller, 1783)
Stenus fornicatus Stephens, 1833
Stenus fulvicornis Stephens, 1833
Stenus kiesenwetteri Rosenhauer, 1856
Stenus latifrons Erichson, 1839
Stenus oscillator Rye, 1870
Stenus similis (Herbst, 1784)
Stenus solutus Erichson, 1840
Stenus tarsalis Ljungh, 1810
Metastenus bifoveolatus Gyllenhal, 1827
Metastenus binotatus Ljungh, 1804
Metastenus brevipennis C. G. Thomson, 1851
Metastenus butrintensis Smetana, 1959
Metastenus canescens Rosenhauer, 1856
Metastenus flavipes Stephens, 1833
Metastenus nitidiusculus Stephens, 1833
Metastenus niveus Fauvel, 1865
Metastenus pallitarsis Stephens, 1833
Metastenus picipennis Erichson, 1840
Metastenus picipes Stephens, 1833
Metastenus pubescens Stephens, 1833
Metastenus umbratilis Casey, 1884
Metastenus argus Gravenhorst, 1806
Metastenus asphaltinus Erichson, 1840
Metastenus assequens Rey, 1844
Metastenus ater Mannerheim, 1830
Metastenus atratulus Erichson, 1839
Metastenus biguttatus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Metastenus bimaculatus Gyllenhal, 1810
Metastenus boops Ljungh, 1810
Metastenus calcaratus Scriba, 1864
Metastenus canaliculatus Gyllenhal, 1827
Metastenus carbonarius Gyllenhal, 1827
Metastenus circularis Gravenhorst, 1802
Metastenus clavicornis (Scopoli, 1763)
Metastenus comma LeConte, 1863
Metastenus contumax Assing, 1994
Metastenus europaeus Puthz, 1966
Metastenus fossulatus Erichson, 1840
Metastenus fuscipes Gravenhorst, 1802
Metastenus glabellus C. G. Thomson, 1870
Metastenus guttula P. W. J. Müller, 1821
Metastenus guynemeri Jacquelin du Val, 1850
Metastenus incanus Erichson, 1839
Metastenus incrassatus Erichson, 1839
Metastenus juno (Paykull, 1789)
Metastenus longitarsis C. G. Thomson, 1851
Metastenus lustrator Erichson, 1839
Metastenus melanarius Stephens, 1833
Metastenus melanopus (Marsham, 1802)
Metastenus morio Gravenhorst, 1806
Metastenus nanus Stephens, 1833
Metastenus nitens Stephens, 1833
Metastenus palposus Zetterstedt, 1838
Metastenus proditor Erichson, 1839
Metastenus providus Erichson, 1839
Metastenus pusillus Stephens, 1833
Metastenus subdepressus Mulsant & Rey, 1861
Metastenus brunnipes Stephens, 1833
Metastenus crassus Stephens, 1833
Metastenus formicetorum Mannerheim, 1843
Metastenus nigritulus Gyllenhal, 1827
Metastenus opticus Gravenhorst, 1806
Euaesthetus bipunctatus (Ljungh, 1804)
Euaesthetus laeviusculus Mannerheim, 1844
Euaesthetus ruficapillus Lacordaire, 1835
Pseudopsis sulcata Newman, 1834
Achenium depressum (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Achenium humile (Nicolai, 1822)
Astenus procerus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Astenus pulchellus (Heer, 1839)
Astenus serpentinus (Motschulsky, 1858)
Astenus immaculatus Stephens, 1833
Astenus lyonessius (Joy, 1908)
Hypomedon debilicornis (Wollaston, 1857)
Lathrobium brunnipes (Fabricius, 1793)
Lathrobium dilutum Erichson, 1839
Lathrobium elongatum (Linnaeus, 1767)
Lathrobium fovulum Stephens, 1833
Lathrobium fulvipenne (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Lathrobium geminum Kraatz, 1857
Lathrobium impressum Heer, 1841
Lathrobium longulum Gravenhorst, 1802
Lathrobium pallidipenne Hochhuth, 1851
Lathrobium pallidum Nordmann, 1837
Lathrobium rufipenne Gyllenhal, 1813
Lathrobium angusticolle Boisduval & Lacordaire, 1835
Lathrobium angustatum Boisduval & Lacordaire, 1835
Lathrobium quadratum (Paykull, 1789)
Lathrobium rufonitidum Reitter, 1909
Lathrobium terminatum Gravenhorst, 1802
Lathrobium zetterstedti Rye, 1872
Lithocharis nigriceps Kraatz, 1859
Lithocharis ochracea (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Lobrathium multipunctum (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Medon apicalis (Kraatz, 1857)
Medon brunneus (Erichson, 1839)
Medon castaneus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Medon dilutus (Erichson, 1839)
Medon fusculus (Mannerheim, 1830)
Medon piceus (Kraatz, 1858)
Medon pocofer (Peyron, 1857)
Medon ripicola (Kraatz, 1854)
Ochthephilum collare (Reitter, 1884)
Ochthephilum fracticorne (Paykull, 1800)
Ochthephilum jacquelini (Boieldieu, 1859)
Paederidus rubrothoracicus (Goeze, 1777)
Paederus caligatus Erichson, 1840
Paederus fuscipes Curtis, 1826
Paederus littoralis Gravenhorst, 1802
Paederus riparius (Linnaeus, 1758)
Pseudomedon obscurellus (Erichson, 1840)
Pseudomedon obsoletus (Nordmann, 1837)
Rugilus angustatus Geoffroy, 1785)
Rugilus erichsoni (Fauvel, 1867)
Rugilus geniculatus (Erichson, 1839)
Rugilus orbiculatus (Paykull, 1789)
Rugilus rufipes Germar, 1836
Rugilus similis (Erichson, 1839)
Rugilus subtilis (Erichson, 1840)
Scopaeus gracilis (Sperk, 1835)
Scopaeus laevigatus (Gyllenhal, 1827)
Scopaeus minutus Erichson, 1840
Scopaeus ryei Wollaston, 1872
Scopaeus sulcicollis (Stephens, 1833)
Sunius bicolor (Olivier, 1795)
Sunius melanocephalus (Fabricius, 1793)
Sunius propinquus (Brisout, 1867)
Atrecus affinis (Paykull, 1789)
Othius angustus Stephens, 1833
Othius laeviusculus Stephens, 1833
Othius lapidicola Märkel & Kiesenwetter, 1848
Othius punctulatus (Goeze, 1777)
Othius subuliformis Stephens, 1833
Bisnius cephalotes (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Bisnius fimetarius (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Bisnius nigriventris (C. G. Thomson, 1867)
Bisnius parcus (Sharp, 1874)
Bisnius pseudoparcus (Brunne, 1976)
Bisnius puella (Nordmann, 1837)
Bisnius scoticus (Joy & Tomlin, 1913)
Bisnius sordidus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Bisnius subuliformis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Cafius cicatricosus (Erichson, 1840)
Cafius fucicola Curtis, 1830
Cafius xantholoma (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Erichsonius cinerascens (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Erichsonius signaticornis (Mulsant & Rey, 1852)
Erichsonius ytenensis (Sharp, 1913)
Gabrius appendiculatus Sharp, 1910
Gabrius astutoides (A. Strand, 1946)
Gabrius bishopi Sharp, 1910
Gabrius breviventer (Sperk, 1835)
Gabrius exiguus (Nordmann, 1837)
Gabrius keysianus Sharp, 1910
Gabrius nigritulus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Gabrius osseticus (Kolenati, 1846)
Gabrius piliger Mulsant & Rey, 1876
Gabrius splendidulus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Gabrius trossulus (Nordmann, 1837)
Gabrius velox Sharp, 1910
Gabronthus thermarum (Aubé, 1850)
Neobisnius lathrobioides (Baudi, 1848)
Neobisnius procerulus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Neobisnius prolixus (Erichson, 1840)
Neobisnius villosulus (Stephens, 1833)
Philonthus addendus Sharp, 1867
Philonthus albipes (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus atratus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus carbonarius (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus cognatus Stephens, 1832
Philonthus concinnus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus confinis A. Strand, 1941
Philonthus coprophilus Jarrige, 1949
Philonthus corruscus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus corvinus Erichson, 1839
Philonthus cruentatus (Gmelin in Linnaeus, 1790)
Philonthus debilis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus decorus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus dimidiatipennis Erichson, 1840
Philonthus discoideus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus ebeninus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus fumarius (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Philonthus furcifer Renkonen, 1937
Philonthus intermedius (Lacordaire, 1835)
Philonthus jurgans Tottenham, 1937
Philonthus laminatus (Creutzer, 1799)
Philonthus lepidus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus longicornis Stephens, 1832
Philonthus mannerheimi Fauvel, 1869
Philonthus marginatus (O. F. Müller, 1764)
Philonthus micans (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus micantoides Benick & Lohse, 1956
Philonthus nigrita (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Philonthus nitidicollis (Boisduval & Lacordaire, 1835)
Philonthus parvicornis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus politus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Philonthus punctus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus quisquiliarius (Gyllenhal, 1810)
Philonthus rectangulus Sharp, 1874
Philonthus rotundicollis (Ménétriés, 1832)
Philonthus rubripennis Stephens, 1832
Philonthus rufipes (Stephens, 1832)
Philonthus sanguinolentus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus spinipes Sharp, 1874
Philonthus splendens (Fabricius, 1793)
Philonthus succicola C. G. Thomson, 1860
Philonthus tenuicornis Mulsant & Rey, 1853
Philonthus umbratilis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Philonthus varians (Paykull, 1789)
Philonthus ventralis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Rabigus pullus (Nordmann, 1837)
Remus sericeus Holme, 1837
Acylophorus glaberrimus (Herbst, 1784)
Astrapaeus ulmi (Rossi, 1790)
Euryporus picipes (Paykull, 1800)
Heterothops binotatus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Heterothops dissimilis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Heterothops minutus Wollaston, 1860
Heterothops niger Kraatz, 1868
Heterothops praevius Erichson, 1839
Quedius cinctus (Paykull, 1790)
Quedius aetolicus Kraatz, 1858
Quedius brevicornis (C. G. Thomson, 1860)
Quedius brevis Erichson, 1840
Quedius cruentus (Olivier, 1795)
Quedius fulgidus (Fabricius, 1793)
Quedius invreae Gridelli, 1924
Quedius lateralis (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Quedius longicornis Kraatz, 1857
Quedius maurus (C. R. Sahlberg, 1830)
Quedius mesomelinus (Marsham, 1802)
Quedius microps J. L. C. Gravenhorst, 1847
Quedius nigrocaeruleus Fauvel, 1874
Quedius puncticollis (C. G. Thomson, 1867)
Quedius scitus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Quedius truncicola Fairmaire & Laboulbène, 1856
Quedius xanthopus Erichson, 1839
Quedius plagiatus Mannerheim, 1843
Quedius balticus Korge, 1960
Quedius curtipennis Bernhauer, 1908
Quedius fuliginosus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Quedius levicollis (Brullé, 1832)
Quedius molochinus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Quedius simplicifrons Fairmaire, 1861
Quedius auricomus Kiesenwetter, 1850
Quedius boopoides Munster, 1923
Quedius boops (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Quedius fulvicollis (Stephens, 1833)
Quedius fumatus (Stephens, 1833)
Quedius humeralis Stephens, 1832
Quedius maurorufus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Quedius nemoralis Baudi, 1848
Quedius nigriceps Kraatz, 1857
Quedius nitipennis (Stephens, 1833)
Quedius persimilis Mulsant & Rey, 1876
Quedius picipes (Mannerheim, 1830)
Quedius plancus Erichson, 1840
Quedius riparius Kellner, 1843
Quedius schatzmayri Gridelli, 1922
Quedius scintillans (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Quedius semiaeneus (Stephens, 1833)
Quedius semiobscurus (Marsham, 1802)
Quedius umbrinus Erichson, 1839
Velleius dilatatus (Fabricius, 1787)
Creophilus maxillosus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Dinothenarus pubescens (De Geer, 1774)
Emus hirtus (Linnaeus, 17588)
Ocypus brunnipes (Fabricius, 1781)
Ocypus nitens (Schrank, 1781)
Ocypus olens (O. F. Müller, 1764)
Ocypus ophthalmicus (Scopoli, 1763)
Ocypus aeneocephalus (De Geer, 1774)
Ocypus fortunatarum (Wollaston, 1871)
Ocypus fuscatus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Ontholestes murinus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Ontholestes tessellatus (Geoffroy, 1785)
Platydracus fulvipes (Scopoli, 1763)
Platydracus latebricola (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Platydracus stercorarius (Olivier, 1795)
Staphylinus caesareus Cederhjelm, 1798
Staphylinus dimidiaticornis Gemminger, 1851
Staphylinus erythropterus Linnaeus, 1758
Tasgius globulifer (Geoffroy, 1785)
Tasgius melanarius (Heer, 1839)
Tasgius morsitans (Rossi, 1790)
Tasgius winkleri Bernhauer, 1906
Tasgius ater (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Tasgius pedator (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Gauropterus fulgidus (Fabricius, 1787)
Gyrohypnus angustatus Stephens, 1833
Gyrohypnus atratus (Heer, 1839)
Gyrohypnus fracticornis (O. F. Müller, 1776)
Gyrohypnus punctulatus (Paykull, 1789)
Hypnogyra angularis Ganglbauer, 1895
Leptacinus batychrus (Gyllenhal, 1827)
Leptacinus formicetorum Märkel, 1841
Leptacinus intermedius Donisthorpe, 1936
Leptacinus pusillus (Stephens, 1833)
Megalinus glabratus (Gravenhorst, 1802)
Nudobius lentus (Gravenhorst, 1806)
Phacophallus parumpunctatus (Gyllenhal, 1827)
Phacophallus pallidipennis (Motschulsky, 1858)
Xantholinus laevigatus Jacobsen, 1849
Xantholinus elegans (Olivier, 1795)
Xantholinus tricolor (Fabricius, 1787)
Xantholinus gallicus Coiffait, 1956
Xantholinus linearis (Olivier, 1795)
Xantholinus longiventris Heer, 1839
References
Rove beetles
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army%20of%20Sambre%20and%20Meuse
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Army of Sambre and Meuse
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The Army of Sambre and Meuse () was one of the armies of the French Revolution. It was formed on 29 June 1794 by combining the Army of the Ardennes, the left wing of the Army of the Moselle and the right wing of the Army of the North. Its maximum paper strength (in 1794) was approximately 120,000.
After an inconclusive campaign in 1795, the French planned a co-ordinated offensive in 1796 using Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's Army of the Sambre et Meuse and the Army of the Rhine and Moselle commanded by his superior, Jean Victor Marie Moreau. The first part of the operation called for Jourdan to cross the Rhine north of Mannheim and divert the Austrians while the Army of the Moselle crossed the southern Rhine at Kehl and Huningen. This was successful and, by July 1796, a series of victories forced the Austrians, commanded by Archduke Charles, to retreat into the German states. By late July, most of the southern German states had been coerced into an armistice. The Army of Sambre and Meuse maneuvered around northern Bavaria and Franconia, and the Army of the Rhine and Moselle operated in Bavaria.
Internal disputes between Moreau and Jourdan and with Jourdan's subordinate commanders within the Army of the Sambre and Meuse prevented the two armies from uniting. This gave the Austrian commander time to reform his own forces, driving Jourdan to the northwest. By the end of September 1796, Charles had permanently separated the two French armies, forcing Jourdan's command further northwest and eventually across the Rhine. On 29 September 1797, the Army of Sambre and Meuse was merged with the Army of the Rhine and Moselle to become the Army of Germany.
Background
Initially, the rulers of Europe viewed the 1789 revolution in France as an internal matter between the French king and his subjects. In 1790, Leopold succeeded his brother Joseph as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; by 1791, the danger to his sister, Marie Antoinette and her children, alarmed him. In August 1791, in consultation with French émigré nobles and Frederick William II of Prussia, Leopold's Declaration of Pillnitz articulated that the interests of the monarchs of Europe were as one with the interests of Louis and his family. He and his fellow monarchs threatened unspecified consequences if anything should happen to the royal family. French émigrés continued to agitate for support of a counter-revolution, and on 20 April 1792 the French National Convention declared war on Austria. In this War of the First Coalition (1792–1798), France ranged itself against most of the European states sharing its land or water borders, plus Portugal and the Ottoman Empire.
Although initially successful in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793, the French army lost some effectiveness during the Reign of Terror, during which its generals were intimidated or executed and many of the army's experienced officers left France for safer havens. Elements of the armies that were later formed into the Army of Sambre and Meuse participated in the conquest of the Dutch Republic and the siege of Luxembourg. The various elements of the army won a victory at the Battle of Fleurus on 16 June 1794. The merging of the forces into the Army of Sambre and Meuse was made official soon afterwards. Shortly after Fleurus, the position of the First Coalition in Flanders collapsed and the French armies overran the Austrian Netherlands and the Dutch Republic in the winter of 1794–1795. French and Coalition military strategy subsequently focused on the Rhine river as the principal line of defense: for each side, control of the opposite bank or at least, the river's principal crossings, was the basis of defensive strategy.
Geopolitical terrain
Geography
The Rhine River flows west along the border between the German states and the Swiss Cantons. The stretch between Rheinfall, by Schaffhausen and Basel, is the High Rhine (Hochrhein); it cuts through steep hillsides over a gravel bed, and moves in torrents in such places as the former rapids at Laufenburg. A few miles north and east of Basel, the terrain flattens. The Rhine makes a wide, northerly turn, in what is called the Rhine knee, and enters the so-called Rhine ditch (Rheingraben), part of a rift valley bordered by the Black Forest on the east and Vosges mountains on the west.
The Rhine looked different in the 1790s than it does in the twenty-first century; the passage from Basel to Iffezheim was "corrected" (straightened) between 1817 and 1875. Construction of a canal to control the water level occurred from 1927 to 1974. In 1790, the river was wild and unpredictable, in some places more than four times wider than in the twenty-first century, even under normal conditions. Its channels wound through marsh and meadow and created islands of trees and vegetation that were periodically submerged by floods. Systems of viaducts and causeways made access reliable at Kehl, by Strasbourg, and at Hüningen, by Basel. In 1796, the plain on both sides of the river, some wide, was dotted with villages and farms. At the furthest edges of the flood plain, especially on the eastern side, the old mountains created dark shadows on the horizon. Tributaries cut through the hilly terrain of the Black Forest, creating deep defiles in the mountains, and became rivulets through the flood plain to the river.
Politics
The German-speaking states on the east bank of the Rhine were part of the vast complex of territories in central Europe called the Holy Roman Empire. The number of territories in the Empire included more than 1,000 entities. Their size and influence varied, from the Kleinstaaten (little states) that covered no more than a few square miles to large and powerful states. The states and territories involved in late 1796 included the Breisgau (Habsburg), Offenburg and Rottweil (imperial cities), the princely states of Fürstenberg, Neuenburg and Hohenzollern, the Margraviate of Baden, the Duchy of Württemberg, and several dozen ecclesiastic polities. Rule varied: they included free imperial cities of different sizes, such as the powerful Augsburg and the minuscule Weil der Stadt; ecclesiastical territories, also of varying sizes and influence, such as the wealthy Abbey of Reichenau and the powerful Archbishopric of Cologne; and such dynastic states as Württemberg. When viewed on a map, the Empire resembled a Flickenteppich (patchwork carpet). Some states included non-contiguous pieces, the Habsburg domains and Hohenzollern Prussia also governed territories outside the Empire, such as the Habsburg territories in eastern Europe and northern Italy; for others, a village could belong predominantly to one polity but have a farmstead, a house or even one or two strips of land that belonged to another polity. There were also territories surrounded by France that belonged to Württemberg, such as the county of Solm, the archbishopric of Trier and Hesse-Darmstadt. Among the German-speaking states, the Holy Roman Empire's administrative and legal mechanisms provided a venue to resolve disputes between peasants and landlords, between and within jurisdictions. Through the organization of Imperial Circles (Reichskreise), groups of states consolidated resources and promoted regional and organizational interests, including economic cooperation and military protection.
Purpose and formation
Military challenges
By 1792 the armies of the French Republic were in a state of disruption; experienced soldiers of the Ancien Régime fought side by side with volunteers. Recruits, urged on by revolutionary fervor from the special representatives—agents of the legislature, sent to ensure cooperation among the military—lacked the discipline and training to function efficiently; frequently insubordinate, they often refused orders and undermined unit cohesion. After a defeat, they were capable of mutiny, as Théobald Dillon learned when his troops lynched him in 1792.
The problems of command became more acute following the 1793 introduction of mass conscription (levée en masse). French commanders walked a fine line between the security of the frontier and the Parisian clamor for victory. Add to this the desperate condition of the Army—in training, supplies and leadership—and the military leadership faced a crisis. They were constantly under suspicion from the representatives of the new regime and sometimes from their own soldiers. Failure to achieve unrealistic expectations implied disloyalty and the price of disloyalty was an appointment with Madame guillotine: several of the highest ranking generals, including the aged Nicolas Luckner, Jean Nicolas Houchard, Adam Philippe Custine, Arthur Dillon and Antoine Nicolas Collier, were killed. Francisco de Miranda's failure to take Maastricht landed him in La Force Prison for several years. Many of the old officer class had emigrated, forming émigré armies; the cavalry in particular suffered from their departure and the Hussards du Saxe and the 15éme Cavalerie (Royal Allemande) regiments defected en masse to the Austrians. The artillery arm, considered by the old nobility to be an inferior assignment, was less affected by emigration and survived intact.
Military planners in Paris understood that the upper Rhine Valley, the south-western German territories and Danube river basin held strategic importance for the defense of the Republic. The Rhine offered a formidable barrier to what the French perceived as Austrian aggression and the state that controlled its crossings controlled the river and access into the territories on either side. Ready access across the Rhine and along the Rhine bank between the German states and Switzerland or through the Black Forest, gave access to the upper Danube river valley. For the French, control of the Upper Danube or any point in between, was of immense strategic value and would give the French a reliable approach to Vienna.
Original formation
The basic unit of the army, the demi-brigade, mixed the men of the old army with the recruits from the levee en masse. Ideally, it was designed to include the regular infantry inherited from the old Royal regiments of the King, who were relatively well trained and equipped, dressed in white uniforms and wearing tarleton helmets, with the national guard units, who were less well-trained or equipped, with blue uniforms, and the fédéré volunteer battalions, who were poorly trained and equipped, with no uniform other than a red phrygian cap and a cockade of France. In 1794, the right flank of the Armies of the Center, later called the Army of the Moselle, the entirety of the Armies of the North and the Ardennes formed the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, on 29 June 1794. The remaining units of the former Army of the Center and the Army of the Rhine united initially on 29 November 1794 and formally on 20 April 1795, under command of General Jean-Charles Pichegru as the Army of the Rhine and Moselle. These were the French armies involved in the successes at Fleurus and the Lowlands, but the strength of the units had been enhanced by untrained conscripts.
Pressures exerted by the Coalition forces on the French front at the Rhine required the movement of the Army of Sambre and Meuse troops from the Fortress of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands into a unit on the middle Rhine. These units were reorganized into task forces that would engage the Austrian and Coalition forces directly in the Rhineland. Its paper strength equaled close to 83,000 men, although its actual strength was considerably less. By 1 October 1795, some of the troops had been assembled in five locations to form an advanced guard of 63,615, men commanded by the veteran General of Division François Joseph Lefebvre. General Louis Friant's division of 3,296 men remained at the Luxembourg fortress and General Antoine Morlot's division of 3,471 remained in Aachen.
Hochheim am Main (Zeilsheim and Niederliederbach)
Divisional position unnamed
Generals of Brigade Jean François Leval, Jean-Baptiste Jacopin and Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul
10th and 13th Demi-brigades Legere
8th, 90th and 119th Demi-brigades de Ligne
1st, 6th and 9th Chasseurs de Cheval
Total 12,618 men
Herdenheim and Helsheim
General of Division Jacques Louis François Delaistre de Tilly
General of Brigade Bernard Étienne Marie Duvignau and Jean Thomas Guillaume Lorge
23rd, 27th and 72nd Demi brigades de Ligne (3 battalions each)
Guard Unit Yonne (3 battalions)
12th Chasseurs de Chaval
Total: 9,861 men
Weilbach am Main
General of Division Paul Grenier
Generals of Brigade Henri Simon, Jean-Baptiste Olivié, and Christophe Ossvald
110th and 173rd Demi brigades de Ligne
112th and 172nd Demi brigades de Ligne (3 battalions each)
19th Chasseurs de Chaval
4th Hussars
Total 11,150 men
North bank of Main, by streams of Wicker and Weilbach
General of Division André Poncet
Generals of Brigade Jean-Baptiste Schlachter and Jean-de-Dieu Soult
53rd, 87th, 66th and 116th Demi brigades (3 battalions each)
7th and 11th Dragoons
Total: 9,384 men
Plateau west of Mainz
General of Division Jean Étienne Championnet
Generals of Brigade Claude Juste Alexandre Louis Legrand and Louis Klein
59th, 132nd and 181st Demi brigades de Ligne (3 battalions each)
1st and 12th Dragoon Regiments
total: 9,816 men
Biebrich and Kastel
General of Division Bernadotte
Generals of Brigade Charles Daurier and Gabriel Barbou des Courières
21st Demi-brigade de Legere
71st, 111th and 123rd Demi brigades de Ligne (3 battalions each)
2nd Hussars and 3rd Chasseurs de Chaval
Total: 8,223
Langenhain and Marxheim
General of Division Louis-Auguste Juvénal des Ursins d'Harville
6th, 8th, 10, and 13th Cavalry Regiments (four squadrons each)
Total 1,593 men
Ehrenbreitstein castle
General of Division François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers
Generals of Brigade Gilbert Bandy de Nalèche and Jean Hardy
1st, 9th, 21st, 26th and 178th Demi brigades de Ligne (3 battalions each)
11th Chasseurs de Chaval
31st Gendarmes (1 battalion)
Total 11,240 men
Dusseldorf
General of Division Claude-Sylvestre Colaud
Generals of Brigade Louis Bastoul and Charles Jean Theodore Schoenmezel
34th, 112th and 175th Demi brigade de Ligne (3 battalions each)
four composite battalions of unknown composition
2nd and 14th Dragoons
Total 8,911 men
Campaign of 1795
In 1795 the French sent the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, also called the northern army, and the Army of the Rhine and Moselle, sometimes called the southern army, in thrusts across the Rhine. After winning a bridgehead on the east bank, the northern French army under Jourdan advanced south to the Main River. On 8 September 1795, Jourdan's northern army crossed the Rhine north of Düsseldorf. Besieging the Bavarian garrison in Düsseldorf, the rest of the Army of Sambre and Meuse swept south as far as the Lahn River, by 20 September. Hemmed in by Lefebvre and 12,600 French troops, Count Hompesch surrendered the Bavarian garrison at Düsseldorf on 21 September.
Threatened by Jourdan's incursion, the Habsburg commander, François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt, shifted his army north to oppose him. This movement gave Pichegru the opportunity to move his army against the weakened rear guard of Clerfayt's force. Despite having a sizable garrison force, Baron von Belderbusch turned over Mannheim and its 471 guns to the Army of Rhine and Moselle after negotiations. The Austrians were furious at their ally but could do nothing to prevent the French from gaining this valuable bridgehead. Pichegru, the commander of the southern French army, proved uncooperative, which allowed Clerfayt to maneuver the bulk of the Austrian forces against Jourdan. Clerfayt crossed the Main to the east, gaining a dangerously exposed position on the French left flank. After being repulsed at Höchst, the French withdrew northwards, eventually abandoning the east bank of the Rhine.
Campaign of 1796
The campaign of 1796 was part of the French Revolutionary Wars in which republican France pitted itself against a fluid coalition of Prussians and Austrians and several other states of the Holy Roman Empire, the British, Sardinians, Dutch and royalist French emigres. The French had won several victories but the campaigns of 1793 through 1795 had been less successful. The Coalition partners had difficulty coordinating their war aims and their efforts faltered. In 1794 and 1795, French victories in northern Italy salvaged French enthusiasm for the war and forced the Coalition to withdraw further into Central Europe. At the end of the Rhine Campaign of 1795, the Habsburg Coalition and the French Republicans called a truce between their forces that had been fighting in Germany. The agreement lasted until 20 May 1796, when the Austrians announced that the truce would end on 31 May.
The Austrian Army of the Lower Rhine included 90,000 Habsburg and Imperial troops. The 20,000-man right wing, first under Duke Ferdinand Frederick Augustus of Württemberg, then later under Wilhelm von Wartensleben, stood on the east bank of the Rhine behind the Sieg River, observing the French bridgehead at Düsseldorf. The garrisons of Mainz Fortress and Ehrenbreitstein Fortress included 10,000 more. The remainder of the Imperial and Coalition army, the 80,000-strong Army of the Upper Rhine, secured the west bank behind the Nahe River. Commanded by Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, this force anchored its right wing in Kaiserslautern on the west bank, while the left wing under Anton Sztáray, Michael von Fröhlich and Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé guarded the Rhine from Mannheim to Switzerland. The original Austrian strategy was to capture Trier and to use their position on the west bank to strike at each of the French armies in turn. After news arrived in Vienna of Napoleon Bonaparte's successes in northern Italy, Wurmser was sent to there with 25,000 reinforcements and the Aulic Council gave Archduke Charles command over both Austrian armies in the Rhineland and ordered him to hold his ground.
Two French armies opposed the Imperial and Coalition troops. Jean Victor Moreau's commanded both armies, but the northern army, Sambre and Moselle, was large enough for a sub command: Jourdan. The 80,000-man Army of Sambre and Meuse held the west bank of the Rhine down to the Nahe and then southwest to Sankt Wendel. On the army's left flank, Jean Baptiste Kléber had 22,000 troops in an entrenched camp at Düsseldorf. The Army of the Rhine and Moselle, directly commanded by Moreau, was positioned behind (west of) the Rhine from Hüningen, where Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino commanded the furthest right wing, northward, along the Queich River near Landau, and with its left wing extended west toward Saarbrücken. The far right wing under.
The French plan called for a spring (April–May–June) offensive, during which two French armies would press against the flanks of the Coalition's northern armies in the German states and a third army approached Vienna through Italy. Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's army would push south from Düsseldorf, hopefully drawing troops toward themselves, while Moreau's army massed on the east side of the Rhine by Mannheim; a deft feint toward Mannheim caused Charles to reposition his troops. Once this occurred, Moreau's army executed a forced march south and, on 23 June, overwhelmed the bridgehead at Kehl. The Imperial troops there included only 7,000 troops recruited that spring from the Swabian Circle polities; despite their lack of experience and training, they held the bridgehead for several hours before retreating toward Rastatt. Moreau reinforced the bridgehead with his forward guard and his troops poured into Baden unhindered. In the south, by the Swiss city of Basel, Ferino's column moved quickly across the river and advanced (eastward) up the Rhine along the Swiss and German shoreline toward Lake Constance, spreading into the southern end of the Black Forest. Worried that his supply lines would be overextended or his army would be flanked, Charles retreated to the east. By the end of July, the entirety of the Swabian Circle, most of Bavaria, Franconia, Baden and Wuerttemberg had reached a separate peace with the French. which disarmed the Imperial army, and gave French free rein to demand supplies from the southern polities.
With Charles absent from the north, Jourdan recrossed the Rhine and drove Wartensleben behind the Lahn river. The Army of Sambre and Meuse defeated its opponents at Friedberg, Hesse on 10 July, while Charles was busy at Ettlingen. Jourdan captured Frankfurt am Main on 16 July. Leaving behind François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers with 28,000 troops to blockade Mainz and Ehrenbreitstein, Jourdan pressed up the Main River. Following Carnot's strategy, the French commander continually operated against Wartensleben's north flank, causing the Austrian general to fall back. Jourdan's army numbered over 46,000 men, while Wartensleben counted 36,000 troops; Wartensleben refused to attack the larger French force. Buoyed up by their forward movement and by the capture of Austrian supplies, the French captured Würzburg on 4 August. Three days later, the Army of Sambre and Meuse, under the temporary direction of Kléber, won another clash with Wartensleben at Forchheim on 7 August. Despite this success, though, the two French armies remained separated.
Losing the initiative in late summer
Archduke Charles saw that if he could unite with Wartenbsleben, he could pick off the French armies in succession. Having sufficient reinforcements and having transferred his supply line from Vienna to Bohemia, he moved north to unite with Wartensleben. With 25,000 of his best troops, Charles crossed to the north bank of the Danube at Regensburg. On 22 August 1796, Charles and Friedrich Joseph, Count of Nauendorf, encountered Bernadotte's division at Neumarkt. The outnumbered French were driven north west through Altdorf bei Nürnberg to the Pegnitz River. Leaving Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze with a division to pursue Bernadotte, the Archduke thrust north at Jourdan's right flank. The French fell back to Amberg as Charles and Wartensleben's forces converged on the Army of Sambre and Meuse. On 20 August, Moreau sent Jourdan a message vowing to closely follow Charles, which he did not do. In the Battle of Amberg on 24 August, Charles defeated the French and destroyed two battalions of their rear guard. The Austrians lost 400 killed and wounded out of 40,000 troops. Of a total of 34,000 soldiers, the French suffered greater losses of 1,200 killed and wounded plus 800 men and two colors captured. Jourdan retreated first to Sulzbach and then behind the Regnitz river where Bernadotte joined him on 28 August. Hotze and his Habsburg troops reoccupied Nürnberg and Jourdan, who had expected Moreau to keep Charles occupied in the south, found himself outnumbered.
Collapse in September 1796
As Jourdan fell back to Schweinfurt, he saw a chance to retrieve his campaign by offering battle at Würzburg, an important stronghold on the Main River. At this point, the petty jealousies and rivalries that had fostered in the Army over the summer came to a head. Jourdan had a spat with his wing commander Kléber and that officer suddenly resigned his command. Two generals from Kléber's clique, Bernadotte and Colaud, also made excuses to leave the army immediately. Faced with this mutiny, Jourdan replaced Bernadotte with General Henri Simon and divided Colaud's rebellious units among the other divisions. Jourdan marched south with 30,000 men of the infantry divisions of Simon, Jean Étienne Championnet, Paul Grenier and with Jacques Philippe Bonnaud's reserve cavalry. Lefebvre's division, 10,000-strong, remained at Schweinfurt to cover a possible retreat.
Anticipating Jourdan's move, Charles had already rushed his army toward Würzburg, where they engaged on 1 September. Marshaling the divisions of Hotze, Sztáray, Kray, Johann Sigismund Riesch, Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein and Wartensleben, the Austrians won the Battle of Würzburg on 3 September, forcing the French to retreat to the Lahn river. Charles lost 1,500 casualties out of 44,000 troops against 2,000 French casualties. The losses at Würzburg compelled the French to lift the siege of Mainz on 7 September and to move those troops to reinforce their lines further east. On 10 September, Marceau reinforced the Army of Sambre and Meuse with 12,000 troops that had been blockading the east side of Mainz. Jean Hardy's division from the west side of Mainz retreated to the Nahe river and dug in. The French government belatedly recognized the difficulties in which the Army of the Sambre and Meuse struggled and transferred two divisions commanded by Jacques MacDonald and Jean Castelbert de Castelverd from the idle Army of the North. MacDonald's division stopped at Düsseldorf while Castelverd's was placed in the French line on the lower Lahn. These reinforcements brought Jourdan's strength back to 50,000 but the French abandonment of the sieges at Mainz and later Mannheim and Philippsburg, released about 27,000 Habsburg troops to reinforce Charles' now overwhelming numbers. Moreau continued in the south to press toward Vienna, seemingly oblivious to Jourdan's situation.
Over the next few days, most of the Army of Sambre and Meuse returned to the west bank of the Rhine, except for a small rear guard. After his disastrous panic at Diez in which he prematurely abandoned a critical bridge position, Jean Castelbert de Castelverd held east bank entrenchments at Neuwied, Poncet crossed at Bonn while the other divisions retired behind the Sieg river. Jourdan handed over command to Pierre de Ruel, marquis de Beurnonville, on 22 September. Charles left 32,000 to 36,000 troops commanded by Franz von Werneck in the north, 9,000 more in Mainz and Mannheim to insure the Army did not recross the Rhine, and moved south with 16,000 men to intercept Moreau.
Reformation as the Army of Germany (1797)
Archduke Charles ruined the French strategy in the north; the Army of Sambre and Meuse withdrew across the river and remained inactive for the rest of the year. On 18 April 1797, with Napoleon's army threatening Vienna, Austria and France agreed to terms of an armistice, which was followed by five months of negotiation, leading to the Peace of Campo Formio which concluded the War of the First Coalition on 18 October 1797. The peace treaty was to be followed up by the Congress of Rastatt. Campo Formio's terms held until 1798, when both groups recovered their military strength and began the War of the Second Coalition. Despite the renewal of military action, the Congress continued its meetings in Rastatt until the assassination of the French delegation in April 1799. The Army of Sambre and Meuse remained in cantonment until 29 September 1797, when it was united with other units, to form the Army of Germany.
Commanders
Citations and notes
Sources
Bibliography
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Military units and formations established in 1794
Sambre-et-Meuse
Sambre-et-Meuse
1794 establishments in France
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castletown%20railway%20station
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Castletown railway station
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Castletown Railway Station (Manx: Stashoon Raad Yiarn Valley Chashtal) is an intermediate station on the Isle of Man Railway on the Isle of Man forming part of sole remaining section of the once extensive network that operated across the island. The station is the busiest of the railway's intermediate stations, being the closest to a number of local visitor attractions. In peak season service trains often pass here, making the station one of the railway's more active stopping places. The station occupies a site within walking distance of the main town and is in close proximity to the local playing fields.
Origins
This is an original station on the Isle of Man Railway situated on the north-eastern edge of the town of Castletown. When the railway was first constructed the town had until ten years previously been the island's capital and therefore a substantial station was provided. Although the most extensive intermediate stopping place on the line, it remains some distance from the town itself, being a brisk ten-minute walk to the centre of the town. One of the railway's considerations was originally to terminate at this station, but plans were made to extend the line so that the terminus would be on the quayside. These never came to fruition and the site of today's station is the original one. The size of the station site and associated buildings can be attributed to the town's importance as the capital of the island and seat of parliament until 1869 when Douglas was made the capital. In the intervening time there has been much development of residential areas so that today the station is considered to be in the town itself. In more recent times the town's close proximity to the island's only airport has ensured that it remains a busy residential and commercial area, being the nearest built-up area to the runways. Until 1967 the station was the closest to the airport, but the establishment of Ronaldsway Halt in that year effectively gave a more convenient place to alight for potential commuters.
Location
Despite the town's importance (it served as the island's capital until 1869, just five years before the railway's arrival) the railway station is some distance from the centre of the town, at the north-easterly side. The railway company considered many various alternative sites for the station before settling upon the location; a cursory view of a map of the line reveals that between the preceding station (Ballasalla) and the following one (Ballabeg) the line deviates considerably from its course. Despite this, the station has always been one of the most active on the line, providing a source of much freight and goods traffic over the years. Since the station was established the town has spread considerably to the extent that today is surrounded along one side by both residential and industrial premises, including a petrol station and car sales establishment. The main attractions of the town are a short walk from the station, an approximate five-minute walk from the station along the bank of the Silverburn River leading to the heart of the town which surrounds the inner harbour. The town itself was considered to be second only to Douglas in importance to the island; with its bustling harbour and active agricultural scene, the station's importance remained until the final days of operation with livestock being transported from the station's cattle dock (the remains of which are still visible today) until the final year the railway operated its full network in 1965, although the line did reopen to passengers only later. Close to the station are the local primary school at Victoria Road, the medical centre in the Sandfield Complex, the local Morton Hall, and Qualtrough's Timber Yard, all in walking distance.
Structures
Station Building
When the line opened in 1874 this station was furnished with a stone structure built in the distinctive grey limestone found at nearby Scarlett Pointon, (the original station at Port Erin was of identical design but construction was of local slate). The floor plan was an enlarged version of the wooden buildings used elsewhere on the Port Erin Line at Santon, Ballasalla and Colby; by the turn of the century it became apparent that this was insufficient for the requirements of this busy town and the station building was enlarged in 1903 to its present design. Facilities were improved considerably and the structure housed a station master's office, toilets and general and ladies waiting rooms. This was followed by the addition of a canopy and veranda (the latter lost in 1956) to the station building in 1910 to provide additional passenger shelter.
Goods Shed
The station was provided with a timber second class goods shed upon the opening in 1874, believed to be similar in construction to those elsewhere on the system; by the turn of the twentieth century it became apparent that the town was an important location for import of goods so, in 1902 a new stone-built structure with red brick quoins and detailing was constructed, identical to that provided at Port St. Mary. This featured rail access at both ends as well as doors at both rail and platform level and an exterior loading bank at the northern end. Until 1994 the rear siding at the station also extended far beyond its current limit, also serving the current car park and rear platform-height doors, this was removed in order to create additional car parking. This saw much use until the decline of the 1960s and later saw use as a camping hostel before returning to railway use in 2008 by which time a permanent way team were based there. Today the structure is used only for storage and is occasionally open to the public as part of railway events annually, when it is used to store goods stock and road vehicles. It became a listed structure in 2008.
Water Tower
Established in the earliest years of the railway, the original water tower at the station was constructed of local limestone, again quarried from nearby Scarlett Point and was fed from a well beneath it by means of a hand pump in the tank house beneath the tank itself. This was demolished in 1978 and owing to the depth of the well the majority of stonework was emptied into the hole as rubble, while some was retained to provide edging for new lawns and flower beds. It was not replaced until 1999 when the station served as a temporary terminus during short line workings. The new tank is of metal framed construction and is served by mains water; this facility is still used in conjunction with charter services, notably when No. 8 Fenella is used, having smaller side tanks which require replenishing more frequently, or when Ultimate Driving Experience trains call at the station. The current tank is sited to the south-west of the original.
Restoration Work
The station was extensively renovated in the winter of 1993/1994. A new peaked roof was constructed over the gentlemen's toilets, and the old wooden canopy removed and window apertures converted into archways. At this time the station master's office was halved in size to create a booking hall and a new internal ticket hatch installed, the original being blocked off the waiting room was also reopened, having been closed for over 30 years. The overhauled station was reopened with suitable ceremony later that year by local politician Phil Kermode who at the time was the minister with responsibility for the railway. During the winter of 2012 the partition in the booking hall was removed, recreating the full sized office, and the fireplace reinstated; the original ticket hatch was also brought back into use. In the summer months the station building is adorned with flower baskets and period features such as milk churns (a nod to the station's former importance for handling goods and freight traffic), reproduction notice boards and enamelled signage reinstated on the exterior walls based upon period photographs. This work was carried out by the Friends Of... group.
Displays
Locomotive Frames
The former goods shed exterior loading platform became the home in 1985 to the remaining component frames of the railway company's 1880 locomotive No. 7 Tynwald for display purposes, although many major components were by that time scrapped; the display consisted of the main frames, cylinders, coal bunker, with a set of carriage wheels substituting for the pony truck. The locomotive had not been used in traffic since 1947 and was purchased by the group in 1978 following the nationalisation of the railway, to save it from scrap. The frames were initially stored at Ballasalla Station, later being removed to Santon Station before being relocated here. They were owned by the now-defunct Isle Of Man Railways & Tramways Preservation Society, and for a period they were moved to off-site storage before being returned to the goods platform in the autumn of 2009 only to depart again in 2012 due to issues with railway's management and the owners. They now reside on the Southwold Railway in Suffolk and await restoration. There is currently nothing displayed on the platform although the Friends Of... group have future plans.
Triskelion
Also at the station, to the side of the goods shed in a gravelled raised section of the lawn is a large cast concrete Triskelion or Legs Of Mann at platform level, painted in a yellow and red colour scheme. It is believed that this piece was relocated from the long-closed stopping place at Peel Road on the Ramsey Line, and was relocated at some point prior to the closure of these other lines in 1968, and prior to 1975 when the Peel Road site was cleared. This feature originally had a gravel surround which was later replaced with grass. In 2012 the Friends Of... group restored the item, repainting it to a golden colour scheme with red gravelled surround to mimic the colourings on the national flag though it returned to its more familiar red, yellow and black setting in the spring of 2016. Originally the feature also had a large circular surround although this was beyond repair to be removed from the original site.
Other Items
On the rear goods siding, one of the railway's three breakdown cranes was stored for a number of years, being removed in 1991 and subsequently restored and placed on display at Union Mills on the site of the former railway station. This crane was constructed in 1893 by the Birmingham-based firm Richard C. Gibbins. Inside the station's waiting room are several framed displays charting various historical aspects of the railway featuring old photographs, framed tickets, maps and other historical documentation relating to the earliest days of the railway. A headboard commemorating the centenary of the adjacent Poulsom Park in 1996 is also mounted on the wall above the fireplace, several other pieces of ephemera are available to view at the station. For many years, there also featured large advertisement hoardings lining the down platform but these were removed in 1974 having become unsafe. An original signal windlass constructed by the Birmingham company A.J. Linley & Co., was also displayed on the up platform for many years, a similar version is extant and used to operate the unique slotted post semaphore signal which protects the station's southerly side.
Advertisement Hoarding
The Friends Of... volunteer group were successful in obtaining planning permission in 2016 to erect a replica advertisement hoarding up the up platform on the site and with fund from Culture Vannin began works shortly thereafter; after a number of setbacks, not least of which the various lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic, the large timber baulks were installed in early 2022 and as the season progressed further fundraising was achieved so that the remaining timber could be sourced and delivered to the site; by mid-September work began on erecting the hoarding itself with a view to completion in readiness for the railway's 150th anniversary in 2023.
Poulsom Park
To the northeasterly side of the station lies this park, provided and funded by a generous benefactor to the town and being established at around the same time as the railway and it is from this benefactor that the park takes its name; it consists of a large grassed area and is surrounded by perimeter railings within which are contained playground equipment for children and two football/rugby pitches which form the home grounds and changing rooms for the local clubs. The play equipment has been greatly improved in recent times, the standard slide and swings being replaced by a pirate ship-themed set of equipment. The park is accessed either from a wide path that passes underneath the railway at the south-western end, or via a set of steps accessed from the station platform. More recently the area has become home to a skateboard park which is viewable from the passing trains; this facility is popular with local children who use the facilities for both skate boarding and stunt bike racing. Such is the popularity of the park with travellers that it can be accessed directly from the line's northbound platform; the area is a popular site for campers in the summer months as well as being home to the local football and rugby teams who regularly play matches there. The brick-built changing rooms and club house facilities for the rugby team are located at the northern end of the park, close the skatepark. A macadam pathway around the perimeter of the play park, and sporting fields is a popular with walkers and a regular Walk & Talk event takes place here. In more recent times the park has been plagued by vandalism which has resulted in the installation of closed circuit television cameras to monitor and apprehend culprits.
Filming
The Ginger Tree
As part of a major adaptation of the Oswald Wynd novel in 1988 the station was used to film exterior scenes, together with several other locations on the line, which doubled for Russia during the revolution. The recessed canopy was dressed with luggage and artificial snow for numerous linking scenes, and locomotive No. 11 Maitland was memorably repainted into a matt black colour scheme as part of the filming, a scheme it retained for the remainder of that season. Much of the location work was filmed during the hours of darkness and the scenes shot at the station do not feature a train although one was present. At the present time the series has not been repeated nor is it available in any home media format. The production was made by the BBC.
Thomas & The Magic Railroad
The live-action film version of Thomas The Tank Engine was partially filmed at the station, forming the basis of Shining Time Station (itself a variation of the series screened in the U.S.) in the story and the building and its environs were considerably disguised for this purpose, with a temporary canopy being built in the place where the original had once stood; whilst being a temporary structure this canopy looked remarkably similar to the original which had been demolished some seven years previously. The distinctive limestone station building was completely encased in wooden cladding and finished in a brown and cream colour scheme for the duration. Between the filming the production company provided their own style station nameboards which were erected between shots for the convenience of passengers, the railway remaining operational throughout the period of filming. The goods shed was disguised as the local Cooperative Store and period cars and set dressings were featured in the station. Some of the scenes shot featuring Alec Baldwin (the 1st station master), Michael E. Rodgers (the 2nd station master) and Peter Fonda (the grandfather) were shot at this location. The railway was used extensively during filming, with Port St. Mary goods shed being transformed into a workshop for the purpose and other island locations were also used including the Tynwald Hill Inn at St. John's. The locomotives and carriages were however not featured in the finished motion picture.
Five Children & It
The station was again used for filming in 2005 when a live-action version of the Edith Nesbit story was filmed on the island, particularly in and around the town. For this, a temporary canopy was reinstated along the frontage of the station in a similar position to the original, and this remained in place through the majority of the peak season. the canopy was fitted with replica decorate fascia boards to match in with the extant versions. The film starred local resident Sir Norman Wisdom and the creature was voiced by Eddie Izzard. Scenes at the station retained the name of Castletown which are clearly discernable in the finished film. Upon completion of filming a number of smaller period props were retained at the station.
James May's Toy Stories
During June 2014 an episode of this series was filmed on the island as part of the T.T. races when a motorcycle constructed entirely of Meccano was driven around the famous mountain circuit. As part of the filming Oz Clarke took a footplate ride on locomotive No. 10 G.H. Wood alighting at the station where linking footage of the train and its crew was filmed.
Great Coastal Railway Journeys
In September 2021 a film crew visited the railway with former politician Michael Portillo to film and episode of the upcoming series on coastal railway journeys and briefly alighted at the station which was featured in the episode; filming also took place at Douglas, Port St. Mary and Port Erin while the episode also featured the electric railway at Groudle Glen and a number of other heritage locations on the island as well as a visit to Tynwald Court.
Timetabling
Since the establishment of the line in 1874 the station has been one of the key passing places for trains and remains so today; since 2015 it has been used for the passing of all timetabled services (prior to this Ballasalla Railway Station was favoured until its closure that November). It was common for the midday services to pass here since the nationalisation of the railway in 1978 and today many of the dining train excursions terminate here. In recent years a letter-coded timetable has been in place which sees trains passing here daily throughout the season with generally runs between the start of March and end of October annually. In both 2020 and 2021 services did operate but to a curtailed timetable owing to various lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 1975 the railway only operated between here and Port Erin and it acted as a terminus. The following year saw services extended to Ballasalla and in 1977 the full line reopened, again seeing use as a passing place. During major track work between 2000 and 2002 it again served as a temporary terminus. With work being carried out southwest of the station in 1967 it again acted as temporary terminus, and no trains operated in 1966 following cessation of Railway Company operations. Prior to this it was open throughout the year, though latterly the winter services were limited and occasionally substituted with bus services. Being a main hub on the south line the station remained open throughout the year though other smaller rural halts were not always kept open away from the peak season. A number of staff members were full time to deal with bookings, parcels, livestock, passing of trains and miscellaneous duties. It was common for the railway to issue a number of printed timetables throughout the year, with a short winter service, early spring, peak season, late season and autumn schedules prevailing. Provided with a long passing loop capable of holding twelve bogie vehicles on each side the station saw regular use for passing of trains as well as marshalling of goods stock in the two sidings, one of which remains connected to the goods shed, while the other was temporarily lifted in 2020 to allow for drainage work.
Events
The Royal Train (1972)
On 2 August 1972 members of the Royal Family boarded a special train at the station accompanied by dignitaries and officers of the Railway Company; accompanying Her Majesty The Queen and Prince Philip were three of their children, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward as well as Lord Mountbatten. They were introduced to key members of staff by lieutenant governor Peter Stallard, including the chairman William Lambden, chief engineer Donald Shaw and the locomotive crew and train staff. The train was hauled by No.13 Kissack and the party travelled in Royal Saloon F.36 (now on display in the Isle of Man Railway Museum in Port Erin) into Douglas Station, passing No.4 Loch where it was acting as standby locomotive. This represented only the second time the railway had conveyed royalty, the first being The Queen Mother who travelled on the Peel Line in 1963 using the same carriage by hauled by No.11 Maitland. On arrival in the capital Her Majesty also travelled on the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway riding tramcar No.44 which thereafter became known as the Royal Tram, painted in a patriotic red, white and blue scheme for the occasion.
Island At War (2010-2019)
Beginning in 2010 the station has taken part in an annual event, usually held on the third weekend of August, as part of a wartime recreation weekend staged by the railway. The station building and goods shed are dressed with period posters and memorabilia, with all traces of modern signage and additions being removed or concealed for the duration of the event. Anti-shatter tape is applied to the windows and historical recreation groups attend the site adding to the period atmosphere; themed music is played on the station's public address system and various music groups also attend throughout the weekend entertaining around the station site. At previous events there have also been stagings of un-exploded bombs, sandbag bunkers, field hospitals and other period dioramas. This weekend is one of the busiest of each season and attracts both locals and visitors. Local groups of scouts also attend the site, camping on the concourse and providing period foodstuffs such as rabbit stew to passengers. Similar events are staged of several other stations along the line during this event, notably at either termini at Douglas and Port Erin . In recent times similar themed events have also taken place at Cregneash Folk Museum operated by Manx National Heritage for which a shuttle bus service has been operated from Port St. Mary.
As Tinseltown (2010-2013)
In December 2010 the station was renamed for the first time as Tinseltown; this was carried out when it was used as the terminus for the railway's popular annual Santa Trains for the first time; these seasonal services had previously been terminated at Santon Station for many years. As part of a new initiative operated by Manx National Heritage, the local authority Castletown Commissioners and the railway the revamped services saw trains bring passengers to the station on an hourly basis for a short shuttle bus ride to Castle Rushen where Santa's Grotto was located in addition to traditional market stalls, fairground rides, an enchanted forest walk and snow machine. For these services the station was decorated with festive lights and music played, and adding to the festive feel of the station several of the services took place following an unusually heavy snowfall that blanketed the island in December 2010. As part of the experience the unusual step of allowing buses into the relatively small station car park was permitted and the Tinseltown Shuttle departed at regular intervals, echoing the latter years of Railway Company operation when Road Services buses called at the station at regular intervals when the rail-based services were restricted during the winter months. This theme and use of the station as a terminus was repeated in 2011 and 2012; in 2013 the grotto was based in the station's office; the decision was taken to revert festive services to Santon Station in 2014.
Commonwealth Youth Games (2011)
On Monday, 12 September 2011, the station played host to the official parties connected with the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games with the "culture day" prior to the closing ceremony of the event taking place in the town; to accommodate the vast numbers travelling on this occasion passenger services on the railway were suspended for the day whilst the competitors and officials were transported by rail to the station. The event has been a fixture of the sporting calendar taking place every four years since the inaugural event which took place in Edinburgh in the year 2000 and the 2011 event was the first time that the island has hosted the event. The event is designed as a small-scale version of the Commonwealth Games aimed at children and young people; past hosts have included Bendigo in Australia and Pune in India. The event saw the railway coping with its largest crowd on a single day for what may possibly be the first time since the annual influx of passengers on Tynwald Day ceased to be a major part in the railway's calendar after the Peel Line closed in 1968 when the railway stopped serving the village of St. John's where the outdoor ceremony is still held on 5 July each year. For the 2011 event, every serviceable steam locomotive on the railway was used (No. 4 Loch, No. 10 G.H. Wood, No. 12 Hutchinson and No. 13 Kissack all seeing service) together with all available coaches, which totalled 18 bogie carriages - the first time this number of coaches had been available since 1974 - including three newly refurbished coaches all of which are over one hundred years old. Once competitors arrived at the station they were transferred to the town square by four Wright Eclipse Gemini buses provided by the island's nationalised Bus Vannin arm of the transport division. All competitors attended specially prepared events at Castle Rushen before returning to the capital by rail.
For Southern 100 Ceremony (2015)
With ongoing regeneration works in the town's historic market square at the time of the event, the organisers of the Southern 100 motorcycle races held the closing ceremony and prize presentation for the 2015 outside the station; the road was cordoned off from Victoria Road to the station forecourt and a temporary dais installed on the approach lawn to the station to allow the event to take place. Several hundred people attended the event, which may become an annual sight at the station, and the Friends Of group provided refreshments. As part of the 2015 event the races marked their diamond jubilee resulting in record crowds attending the ceremony, at which Guy Martin was hailed as the overall winner, being a long-time supporter of the event, which is known widely as the "friendly races". Since this time the area immediately outside the station (known as "the triangle" between the two hostelries The Sidings and The Viking) has been used for a number of open-air events in conjunction with local events, notably a music venue in the summer of 2021.
Christmas Terminus (2013-Date)
Each December since 2013 the railway's dining train has operated regularly with a range of festive meal options and the majority of these services use the station as a terminus for both daytime and evening trains; the station is fitted with colourful festoon lighting and decorations are provided by the Friends Of... volunteer group each December and into January when it is common for afternoon tea, brunch and commuter services to call prior to the closure for maintenance.
Renamed Ballavolley Halt (2015)
During the 2015 Manx Heritage Transport Festival some of the stations along the route of the extant Port Erin Line were renamed as former stations of the Manx Northern Railway with Castletown being designated as Wild Life Park on 1 August 2015 only. The station's running in boards were covered with plastic signs denoting this, with selected other useful signage for passengers being removed for the duration of the event. One locomotive, No. 10 G.H. Wood was also temporarily renamed to appear as No. 5 Mona during the day, with other stations taking on dual roles, Port Erin becoming Ramsey and Douglas becoming St. John's; the request stops at both The Level and Ronaldsway Halt were not renamed, with bin liners covering the running in boards at these sites. The original halt at Ballavolley opened during the summer of 1965 upon the establishment of the Wild Life Park, consisting of a simple running in board and ground level grassed platform. It was again used during the brief reopening of the Ramsey Line 1967, taking its name from the nearby level crossing (the gatehouse of which remains extant today), being named "Ballavolley Halt - For Wild Life Park" rather than the "Wildlife Park" title used during the reenactment.
During Covid Pandemic (2020-2021)
Despite the railway closing during lockdown in March of 2020, the station remained open as a selling point for Bus Vannin "Go Card" top-ups and retail requirements; following a relaxation of restrictions the railway itself reopened in July 2020 and remained operational five days a week until the close of the season as scheduled on 1 November, whereafter the station again closed for the winter, being used a destination for various festive dining services throughout December. A second island lockdown took effect on 7 January 2021 and the following day the station's ticket office was once again reopened for Bus Vannin sales, the railway itself remaining closed during this period; the lockdown was lifted on 19 April and the station closed until the season commenced on 27 May. A limited timetable operated for the first few weeks of the season.
School Hill Station
Opened during strike action taken by employees of Bus Vannin during 2012, this temporary station was located approximately three-quarters of a mile to the south-west of the station and was used only by local school children attending Castle Rushen High School; it consisted of temporary scaffolding platform with a capacity for five carriages, and operated only when the buses were on strike, at which times special trains replaced the bus service. It was located close to the start-finish line of the Southern 100 circuit and was removed after a considerable time out of use in April 2014. This was the first "new" station on the line since the halt serving Lough Ned Country Park (between Douglas and Port Soderick) was established in 1979; this however was closed in 1986 upon the demise of the park. School Hill was fitted with a vinyl banner as a station running-in board in the current house style, featuring bilingual titling. When in operation the halt was staffed by a station attendant and control of it was via internal radio communication with the station. It was also used during two of the railway's Rush Hour events when a recreation Manx Northern Railway train consisting of the locomotive Caledonia and the Foxdale Coach briefly stopped there for photographic opportunities. Today there is no trace of the temporary on the site.
Environs
To the immediate north of the station is a stone-built footbridge which provide pedestrian access from the adjacent Poulsom Park to the privately owned King William's College; the railway passes underneath this structure. The southerly extent of the station sees the line pass over the Silverburn River by means of stone overbridge also constructed from local limestone; an occupational crossing titled Mill Road is beyond, being controlled by the station by automatic barriers. Until 2001 this was a staffed crossing and the gatekeepers' hut remains extant although disused. From this point the railway runs parallel to the by-pass road next to the route of the Southern 100 motorcycle racing circuit. In the station forecourt there are two public houses, namely The Viking to the left and The Sidings (free house) to the right. The latter was formerly known for many years as the Duck's Nest but the name was changed in 1996 gaining the name which acknowledges its close proximity to the railway station. A petrol station is located beyond these, and a car dealership whilst across the main road a sheltered housing complex is evident; the town itself, and the famous Castle Rushen, are a short walk from the station along the banks of the Silverburn River which runs through the town to the harbour.
Friend Of...
This group was formed in late 2010 by a group of local residents and the resident station master with a view to enhancing the station; small groups of volunteers occasionally meet at the station to carry out these improvements which to date have included the erection of a station flagpole (a traditional sight on many Isle of Man Railway station platforms) some painting of the station including the platform benches, provision of traditional blackboard signage to the station, and most significantly, the reinstatement of the coal fire in the waiting room for the first time in many years. The group continue to have an input to the upkeep of the station and will be donating concrete cast planters in the future for addition to the station's platforms. The group have, to date, spent many hours attending to the small details around the station, that which would not ordinarily fall under the jurisdiction of the railway's full-time staff. In 2012 the station won the commercial category of Castletown in Bloom, an annual competition, and took place in the Hidden Gardens event. The seasonal station master co-ordinates all activities and he can be contacted at the office whenever trains are in operation or by telephoning the station directly. The group always welcome new members and suggestions for further enhancement of the area; a number of photographic material and ephemera relating to the station have been donated since the group's formation and these can be found on display in the waiting room which is open whenever trains are running. In 2014 the group held its first Summer Fayre on the site, raising funds for various projects including the proposed reinstatement of the station's advertisement hoarding and a replica cattle dock. This was followed by an Easter Fayre in 2015 to tie in with the railway's annual Rush Hour event with a further summer event taking place in August. Since this time the summer fayre has taken place annually towards the end of August.
Model Railway (2014)
In the spring of 2014 an "N" gauge model railway layout was installed in the bay window of the stationmaster's office facing out onto the station's platform area, as an additional attraction to the site. The diminutive layout was based around the Great Western Railway and usually operated only in season when trains were calling at the station and at peak times. It was installed by the seasonal stationmaster as a project of the "Friends of..." group to complement the historical displays around the site and consisted of two independently operating loops with a variety of sidings, including a locomotive shed and yard, and goods yard with coaling area and was constructed to fit the small bay window of the stationmasters' office, viewable from outside by members of the public. The layout featured one station with island platforms and footbridge, a fire station complete with pumps and tower, a large spired church with graveyard, detailed allotments, a piggery, and a windmill which dominated the small area. The layout operated model locomotives of the Castle Class, Pendennis Castle and Drywyllin Castle which operated regularly, the similar Hall Class Albert Hall and Kinlet Hall, and a prototype Flying Banana railcar, as well as a number of early Pannier Tank engines, a Prairie Class, and an autocoach with 14XX tank engine all in Great Western livery. In addition a large range of bogie passenger stock operated and a rake of diminutive four-wheelers, all carrying the traditional chocolate and cream colour scheme of the pre-war Great Western Railway by and large. Private operator wagons and vans also featured on the layout, which had an integral goods yard. The layout was removed from the station in February 2016.
Model Railway (2020)
It was announced by the "Friends Of.." group in February 2020 that a new model railway exhibition was to be created by the volunteers using the former store room at the station and work began on establishing this upon easement of Covid-19 restrictions; the new layout is OO gauge and features three concentric loops, again being themed on the Great Western Railway and featuring a variety of locomotives and rolling stock; work remains ongoing on completing the layout and it was open for public view when trains are operating during the shortened 2020 railway season. Work has been ongoing since this time and the model was open for viewing throughout the shortened 2021 season.
Souvenir Shop
In the early part of 2016 the former station masters' office and parcels office was converted to become a souvenir shop; this entailed removal of some historical features from the Friends Of... collection; the shop is expected to be open in time for the Rush Hour event taking place in its traditional slot over the Easter Weekend. In addition to the usual array of gifts it is expected that the shop will stock the two models produced by Oxford Diecast, one of which is of locomotive No. 12 Hutchinson. The shop is also expected to stock a range of postcards, fridge magnets, posters, railwayana, clothing and publications and will effectively replace the more modest sales items previously sold on the site by the Friends Of... group until the close of the 2015 season. This will be the first time that a dedicated retail outlet has been established at any of the railway's intermediate stations, although there have previously been similar ventures at Douglas Station (until 1999) and the large shop at the entrance to the Isle of Man Railway Museum at Port Erin remains the main souvenir shop for the railway.
Route
See also
Other Stations
Locomotives
Rolling Stock
Level Crossings
Castletown
Old House Of Keys
Castle Rushen
Castletown Golf & Country Club
Nautical Museum
References
(date uncertain)
External links
Castletown Station
Isle Of Man Guide
Online Reference Guide
Railway stations in the Isle of Man
Railway stations opened in 1874
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy%20of%20the%20Mongolian%20People%27s%20Republic
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Economy of the Mongolian People's Republic
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On the eve of the 1921 revolution, Mongolia had an underdeveloped, stagnant economy based on nomadic animal husbandry. Farming and industry were almost nonexistent; transportation and communications were primitive; banking, services, and trade were almost exclusively in the hands of Chinese or other foreigners. Most of the people were illiterate nomadic herders, and a large part of the male labour force lived in the monasteries, contributing little to the economy. Property in the form of livestock was owned primarily by aristocrats and monasteries; ownership of the remaining sectors of the economy was dominated by Chinese or other foreigners. Mongolia's new rulers thus were faced with a daunting task in building a modern, socialist economy.
Periods
1921–1939
Mongolia's economic development under communist control can be divided into three periods: 1921–1939; 1940–1960; and 1961 to the present. During the first period, which the Mongolian government called the stage of "general democratic transformation," the economy remained primarily agrarian and underdeveloped. After an abortive attempt to collectivize herders, livestock remained in private hands. The state began to develop industry based on processing of animal husbandry products and crop raising on state farms. Transportation, communications, domestic and foreign trade, and banking and finance were nationalized with Soviet assistance; they were placed under the control of Mongolian state and cooperative organizations or Mongolian-Soviet joint-stock companies. Ulan Bator became the nation's industrial center.
1940–1960
During the second period, called the "construction of the foundations of socialism," agriculture was collectivized, and industry was diversified into mining, timber processing, and consumer goods production. Central planning of the economy began in 1931 with an abortive five-year plan and with annual plans in 1941; five-year plans began anew with the First Five-Year Plan (1948–52). Soviet aid increased, allowing the construction of the Trans-Mongolian Railway (the Ulan bator Railroad), and various industrial projects. Although industrial development still was concentrated in Ulan bator, economic decentralization began with the completion of the Ulan bator Railroad and the establishment of food processing plants in Aimag centers.
1960–1992
The third stage, which the government called the "completion of the construction of the material and technical basis of socialism," saw further industrialization and agricultural growth, aided largely by Mongolia's joining the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) in 1962. After the Sino-Soviet split, Chinese aid ceased, but continued with Soviet and Eastern European financial and technical assistance in the forms of credits, advisers, and joint ventures enabled Mongolia to modernize and to diversify industry, particularly in mining sector. New industrial centers were built in Baganuur, Choibalsan, Darkhan, and Erdenet, and industrial output rose significantly. Although animal husbandry was stagnant, crop production increased dramatically with the development of virgin lands by state farms. Foreign trade with Comecon nations grew substantially. Transportation and communications systems were improved, linking population and industrial centers and extending to more remote rural areas. By the late 1980s, Mongolia had developed into an agricultural-industrial economy, due to the efficiencies of a centrally planned and managed economy and communist foreign aid. Yet, Mongolian leaders decided to undertake a reform program modeled after the example of perestroika in the Soviet Union.
Role of the government
In the late 1980s, Mongolia had a planned economy based on socialist ownership of the means of production. According to the Constitution of the Mongolian People's Republic, socialist ownership has two forms: state ownership (of land and natural resources, economic facilities and infrastructure; and the property of all state organizations, enterprises, and institutions) and cooperative ownership (property of agricultural associations and other types of cooperatives). Private ownership was negligible in all sectors of the economy, except animal husbandry, but economic reforms adopted since 1986 gave greater leeway for individual and cooperative enterprises. The economy was directed by a single state national economic plan, which, when confirmed by the legislature, the State Great Khural, had the force of law. In accordance with the plan, the state annually drew up a state budget, which was confirmed and published in the form of a law. The Council of Ministers constitutionally was charged with planning the national economy; implementing the national economic plan and the state and local budgets; directing financial and credit policy; exercising a foreign trade monopoly; establishing and directing the activities of ministries and other state institutions concerned with economic construction; defending socialist production; and strengthening socialist ownership.
In December 1987 and January 1988, the top-level state economic organizations under the Council of Ministers were reorganized. The State Planning and Economic Committee was formed out of the former State Planning Commission, the State Labor and Social Welfare Committee, the State Prices and Standards Committee, and the Central Statistical Board. New economic entities were the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry; the Ministry of Environmental Protection; the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Supply; the Ministry of Light Industry; and the Ministry of Power, Mining Industry, and Geology. Unaffected by the reorganization were the Ministry of Social Economy and Services, the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Transport, the State Construction Committee, and the State Bank of the Mongolian People's Republic. Local government organizations—the executive committees of hurals—implemented economic plans and budgets, directed economic construction, and supervised the work of economic and cooperative organizations at their level.
Planning
Planning in communist-run Mongolia had an inauspicious start with the Five-Year Plan for 1931–35, which set unrealistically high targets for production and called for the collectivization of agricultural production. This plan was abandoned in 1932 in the face of widespread resistance to collectivization and the failure to meet production goals. Annual planning was introduced in 1941 in an effort to deal with wartime shortages. Five-year plans were reintroduced in 1948 with the First Plan. The Second Five-Year Plan (1953–57) was followed by the Three-Year Plan (1958–60). Regular five-year plans were resumed with the Third Five-Year Plan (1961–65), and they continued to be used afterward.
In the late 1980s, economic planning in Mongolia included long-term, five-year, and annual plans that operated on multiple levels. Planning originated with the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, which produced the guidelines for economic and social development for the five-year period corresponding to the party's congress. Based on these guidelines, the Standing Commission on Economic-Budget Affairs of the People's Great Hural drafted the five-year national and annual economic plans, which were approved by the People's Great Hural and became law. The Council of Ministers directed and implemented national planning through the State Planning and Economic Committee and through the Ministry of Finance. Planning for different sectors of the economy was conducted by relevant ministries and state committees; local plans were drawn up by local governmental organizations.
Mongolia's five-year plans were coordinated with those of the Soviet Union beginning in 1961 and with Comecon multilateral five-year plans beginning in 1976. Annual plan coordination with the Soviet Union, which was made official in signed protocols, began in 1971. Mongolian planners were trained by Soviet planners and cooperated with them in drafting long-term plans, such as the General Scheme for the Development and Location of the Mongolian People's Republic Productive Forces up to 1990, produced in the late 1970s; and the Longterm Program for the Development of Economic, Scientific, and Technical Cooperation Between the Mongolian People' Republic and the USSR for the Period up to 2000, signed in 1985.
National economic plans included general development goals as well as specific targets and quotas for agriculture, capital construction and investment, domestic and foreign trade, industry, labor resources and wages, retail sales and services, telecommunications, and transportation. The plans also focused on such social development goals and targets as improved living standards, population increase, cultural development, and scientific and technical development.
Budget
The Ministry of Finance prepared annual national budgets and provided guidance to the formulation of local budgets. The national budget included the budget of the central government, the budgets of aimag and city governments, and the budget of the national social insurance fund. The national budget grew with the expansion of the economy: In 1940 revenues were 123.9 million Tögrög and expenditures, 122.1 million tugriks; in 1985 revenues were 5,743 million tugriks and expenditures, 5,692.5 million tugriks.
The structure of the national budget changed between 1940 and 1985.
In 1940 some 34.6 percent of revenues came from the turnover tax (a value added tax on each transaction), 7.8 percent from deductions from profits, 16.7 percent from taxes on the population, and 40.9 percent from other kinds of income.
In 1985 nearly 63 percent of revenues came from the turnover tax, 29.9 percent from deductions from profits, 3.5 percent from deductions from the social insurance fund, 0.7 percent from taxes on the population, and 3.2 percent from other types of income.
In 1940 some 21.9 percent of expenditures went to develop the national economy; 19.7 percent to social and cultural programs; and 58.4 percent to defense, state administration, reserves, and other expenses.
In 1985 about 42.6 percent of expenditures went to developing the national economy; 38.7 percent to social and cultural programs; and 18.7 percent to defense, state administration, reserves, and other expenses.
The proposed 1989 budget had revenues and expenditures of 6.97 billion tugriks. Proposed expenditures for 1989 included 1.8 billion tugriks for developing agriculture, 2.1 billion for industry, and 1.6 billion for capital investment. Of the 2.76 billion tugriks proposed for social and cultural development, 1.16 billion was to go for education; 597.5 million for health, physical culture, and sports; 259.7 million for science, culture, and art; and 747.4 million for the social insurance fund. Subsidies to maintain stable retail prices totaled 213 million tugriks. Local budgets, through which 70 percent of social and cultural expenditures were funneled, totaled 3.46 billion tugriks.
Structure of the economy
Socialist development transformed Mongolia from a predominantly agrarian, nomadic economy in 1921 into a developing, agricultural-industrial economy in the late 1980s. In 1985 a reported 18.3 percent of produced national income was derived from agriculture, 32.4 percent from industry, 4.9 percent from construction, 11.2 percent from transportation and communications, 31.6 percent from domestic trade and services, and 1.6 percent from other sectors. Sixty percent of disposable national income went to consumption, and 40 percent went to accumulation. Fixed assets totaled about 38.9 billion tugriks, of which 66.5 percent were productive fixed assets, including livestock, and 33.5 percent were nonproductive. Industry and construction accounted for 38.1 percent of the productive fixed assets; agriculture, 16 percent; transportation and communications, 9 percent; and domestic trade and services, 3.4 percent. Investment totaled 4.624 billion tugriks, 97.9 percent of which went to the state sector, and 2.1 percent, to the cooperative sector. During the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1981–85), 68.9 percent of investments went into the productive sectors of the economy, and 31.1 percent, into nonproductive sectors. Industry and construction received 44.7 percent of investment during this period; agriculture, 13.9 percent; transportation and communications, 9.0 percent; and domestic trade and services, 1.3 percent. The Eighth Five-Year Plan (1986–90) called for increasing produced national income by 26 to 29 percent and for raising investment by 24 to 26 percent, of which 70 percent was to go to developing material production.
In the late 1980s, Mongolia was divided into three economic regions. The western region (Bayan-Ölgii, Khovd, Uvs, Zavkhan, and Govi-Altai aimags), with 21 percent of the nation's population, was predominantly agricultural. The western region had 32 percent of Mongolia's livestock and produced about 30 percent of its wool and meat. Local industry was engaged in processing of animal husbandry products, timber, minerals, and building materials. Transportation was predominantly by motor vehicles.
The central economic region (Arkhangai, Bayankhongor, Bulgan, Darkhan-Uul, Dornogovi, Dundgovi, Khövsgöl, Ömnögovi, Övörkhangai, Selenge, Töv aimags, and Ulan Bator) was the dominant producer. The region had 70 percent of Mongolia's population (including the cities of Darkhan, Erdenet, and Ulan Bator); 55 percent of its territory; 75 percent of its arable land; 90 percent of surveyed coal deposits; and 100 percent of copper, molybdenum, iron ore, and phosphate deposits. This region accounted for 80 percent of gross industrial production, 90 percent of light industrial production, and 80 percent of food industry production, 75 percent of coal production, and 100 percent of copper-molybdenum, iron ore, and phosphate mining. It also accounted for 60 percent of gross agricultural production, 60 percent of milk production, 50 percent of meat production, and 80 percent of grain, potato, and vegetable production.
The eastern economic region (Dornod, Khentii, and Sükhbaatar aimags) had 9 percent of Mongolia's population, 20 percent of the arable land, and 15 percent of the livestock. The region contributed 15 percent of gross meat production and 13 percent of wool production. Grain production on large state farms hewed out of virgin lands contributed 90 percent of the region's agricultural output. The major industrial center was Choibalsan, which produced 50 percent of regional gross industrial output.
Economic reforms
In the late 1980s, dissatisfaction with the economic stagnation of the last years of the former regime of Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal and the influence of the Soviet perestroika led Mongolia to launch its own program of economic reforms. This program had five goals: acceleration of development; application of science and technology to production; reform of management and planning; greater independence of enterprises; and a balance of individual, collective, and societal interests. Acceleration of development in general was to result from the attainment of the other four goals. Scientific research was being redirected to better serve economic development, with electronics, automation, biotechnology, and the creation of materials becoming the priority areas of research and cooperation with Comecon countries.
Reform of management and planning began in 1986 with the first of several rounds of reorganization of governmental bodies dealing with the economy. These changes rationalized and streamlined state economic organizations; reduced the number of administrative positions by 3,000; and saved 20 million tugriks between 1986 and 1988. The role of the central planning bodies was to be reduced by limiting the duties of the State Planning and Economic Committee to overseeing general capital-investment policy. The indicators specified in the five-year and the annual national economic plans also were to be decreased. State committees and ministries, rather than the State Planning and Economic Committee, were to decide upon machinery and equipment purchases. Decentralization of economic management also was to extend to aimag and city administrations and enterprises. These bodies were given greater autonomy in construction and production, and they also were held financially responsible for profits and losses.
Efforts to devolve economic decision making to the enterprise level began in 1986, when more than 100 enterprises began experimenting with financial autonomy (before then, enterprises operating with a deficit had been subsidized by the state). Enterprises were accountable for their own losses, and they were responsible for fulfilling sales contracts and export orders. The draft law on state enterprises, presented to the People's Great Hural in December 1988, was to extend greater independence in economic matters to all state enterprises and to lead to an economy that combined planning and market mechanisms.
Under provisions of the draft law, state enterprises were to be authorized to make their own annual and five-year plans and to negotiate with state and local authorities to pay taxes based on long-term quotas. State enterprises also were to sell output exceeding state orders and unused assets; to establish their own, or to cooperate with existing, scientific organizations to solve scientific and technical problems; to be financially responsible for losses, and to pay back bank loans; to set prices independently; to establish wage rates based on enterprise profitability; to purchase materials and goods from individuals, collectives, state distribution organizations, and wholesale trade enterprises; to establish direct ties with foreign economic organizations; to manage their own foreign currency; and to conduct foreign trade.
The draft law stipulated that enterprises were to be divided into two categories. National enterprises were to be the responsibility of ministries, state committees, and departments; local enterprises were to be supervised by executive committees of aimag and city administrations or members of local hurals. State and local bodies were not to interfere in the day-to-day decision making of enterprises, but they were responsible for ensuring that enterprises obeyed the law and that they did not suppress the interests of society. Enterprises were allowed to form three kinds of associations: production associations, scientific production associations, and enterprise associations to coordinate economic affairs. Finally, the draft law said that the state was the owner of state enterprises and that the labor collective was the lawful manager of a state enterprise. The labor collective was to elect a labor collective council, which was to ensure that the enterprise director (who acted on behalf of the collective and the state) met the interests of the collective in managing the enterprise. It was unclear how the relationship between the enterprise director and the labor collective would work out in practice.
Balancing the interests of society, the collective, and the individual entailed providing scope for individual and collective initiative to increase production and efficiency. Enlarging the scope for individual initiative had three aspects: linking wages to enterprise profitability, permitting output exceeding state plans to be sold for profit, and providing employment opportunities outside the state and the cooperative sectors. In 1988 wage scales dependent on enterprise revenues were introduced to the light and food industries and to the domestic trade sector, resulting in a reduction in materials utilized by those sectors. Beginning in late 1986, state farms and negdels (agricultural stations) were eligible for state payments for output exceeding the annual average growth rate for the previous five-year plan. Individual agricultural cooperative members and workers were allowed increasing numbers of privately held livestock. The draft law also stipulated that enterprises could sell production exceeding plan targets for their own profit. In 1987 the government began encouraging the formation of voluntary labor associations, auxiliary farms, and sideline production attached to enterprises, schools, and so forth to increase production of foodstuffs and consumer goods, to engage in primary processing of agricultural goods, and to provide services. The authorities permitted the formation of individual and family-based cooperatives; by 1988 there were 480 such cooperatives. Contracting among state farms and both agricultural cooperatives and families was permitted and was increasing in the late 1980s.
References
- Mongolia
External links
Present-day official website of the State Property Committee
Former communist economies
Economic history of Mongolia
Mongolian People's Republic
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford%20Crown%20Victoria%20Police%20Interceptor
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Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor
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The Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor (colloquially referred to as the CVPI, P71, or P7B) is a four-door, body-on-frame sedan that was manufactured by Ford from 1992 to 2011. It is the police car version of the Ford Crown Victoria and was the first vehicle to use the Ford Police Interceptor name.
From 1997 to 2013, the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor was the most widely used automobile in law enforcement fleets in North America, namely the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was also used for this purpose on a more limited scale in other regions, such as Europe and the Middle East.
History
After the discontinuation of the Chevrolet Caprice, the Ford Motor Company held a near-monopoly on the market for police vehicles in the United States and Canada for over a decade. The conventional rear-wheel drive, V8 power, and body-on-frame construction were considered advantageous for police use. The body-on-frame construction allowed inexpensive repairs after collisions without the need to straighten the chassis. Rear-wheel drive was deemed better for hard maneuvers and more robust than the front-wheel-drive competition for rough driving over curbs and other obstacles in the urban environment.
Although CVPIs were not sold directly to the general public by the manufacturer, they were widely available in North America as used vehicles after being decommissioned. The cars were in demand by taxi companies and others who wanted a safe, durable, and/or inexpensive car, and those who needed a car with a large back seat.
The CVPI came equipped with many heavy-duty parts, such as a revised transmission, and a engine. Used versions are normally stripped of any police decals, equipment, police radios, and emergency lights before being sold or auctioned to the public.
First generation (1992–1997)
Though the name has been officially in use since 1992, the 1979–1991 full-sized LTDs and LTD Crown Victorias used the "P72" production code designation for both fleet and taxi and police models, with the model itself being internally classified as S (similar to LX). From 1992 to 1997, the police car models of the Crown Victoria (both base and LX trims) were officially known as Crown Victoria P71s.
In the 1993 model year, the Crown Victoria was given a chrome front grille and a reflector strip between the taillights. Another minor restyle followed suit in 1995, with a new grille and taillights. To accommodate the design of the 1995 model's new taillights, the rear license plate was moved from the bumper to the trunk lid.
For 1996, the Crown Victoria badge on the front fenders was removed and the cars received a new steering wheel; 1997 models have a lighter blue interior color compared to prior years.
Second generation (1998–2011)
1998
For the 1998 model year, the Ford Motor Company restyled the Crown Victoria, eliminating the "aero" look that the first-generation Crown Victoria had from 1992 to 1997, adopting the more conservative styling of the Mercury Grand Marquis. Both cars included restyled front and rear end components. The 1998 police package P71 had a chrome grille, chrome door handle trim, chrome bumper strips, and a chrome-trimmed flat-black rear fascia with the "Crown Victoria" badge.
1999
In 1999, Ford introduced the "Crown Victoria Police Interceptor" name, with a badge on the trunk lid replacing the 1998 "Crown Victoria" badge. A chrome-trimmed gloss-black rear fascia, black door-handle trim, black bumper strips, and a gloss-black slatted grille were also introduced at this time. Finally, the new "Street Appearance Package", intended to make the CVPI look like a standard (P73) model, including chrome trimming and Crown Victoria badging, was introduced.
Midway through 1999, the taillights were also changed; 1998 and early 1999 models had a separate amber turn signal along the bottom edge of each taillight housing. Starting in mid-1999, the extra bulbs were eliminated and the turn signals returned to the combination of stop/turn setup with red lenses found in many North American cars. Although the lenses changed, the housings did not. They still had the chambers for the separate turn signals that early models had.
These chambers were now empty, leaving a perfect place to install in police cars strobe tubes that would not affect brake or turn-signal visibility. Fleet models equipped with the "Street Appearance Package" retained the amber turn signal until 2004, when all CVs changed to all-red taillights.
For 1999, a heavy duty 11.25" torque converter became standard equipment on all CVPIs. In comparison, the civilian Crown Victoria uses a 12" torque converter.
2000
For 2000, the rear fascia and taillights lost the chrome trim, and the gloss-black grille was dropped in favor of a flat-black slatted grille. The black painted mirror caps were now textured plastic, and the ECM received less aggressive calibration as Ford deemed 1999 P71 models as being too aggressively calibrated.
2001
Further alterations were made in 2001, but most importantly, the CVPI now received the “Performance Improved” 4.6L 2V V8 engine as standard equipment. It made 235 hp @4,750 RPM and 276 lb-ft of torque at 4,000 RPM. In a corresponding move, the ECM was once again re-calibrated and the P71 sported a more powerful 135/82 amp alternator. The 3.55:1 rear differential was also deleted in favor of a 3.27:1 unit.
All plastic bumper trim was deleted and a new honeycomb-style grille was made standard, replacing the slat-style grille. Street Appearance Package versions still maintained their chrome bumper trim and chrome slat style grille. Power adjustable pedals also became an option for 2001, as height diversity among officers joining police departments increased. Ford relocated the rear window defrost switch from the left side of the dash to the direct left of the HVAC controls. The Ford logo on the steering wheel was now blue instead of being color coded to the interior.
2002
There were no changes made to the 2002 CVPI aside from the addition of power mirrors as standard equipment.
2003 (Re-engineering)
At the 2002 New York International Auto Show, a 2003 Ford Police Interceptor concept was previewed featuring an all new exterior, mirror-mounted spotlights, a 300 hp V8 engine, reinforced front and rear bumpers made out of a mixture of stainless steel, polymer, and aluminum, as well as 18-inch alloy wheels.
While the exterior design of the 2003 concept vehicle was scrapped, the 2003 model year brought the most extensive changes to the Panther platform since its 1979 introduction. The 2003 model year introduced all new underpinnings with a re-designed and fully boxed hydro-formed steel frame, as well as an aluminum #2 cross-member. According to Ford, the new frame was 20% more resistant to vertical bending and allowed the vehicle to perform better in crashes. For more precise handling, the suspension was significantly revamped, with the addition of coil over front shocks, revised steering knuckles, revised upper and lower control arms, and mono tube rear shocks; the new rear shocks were now inverted and mounted to the outside of the frame rails. For more precise steering, the recirculating ball power steering system was replaced with an all new rack and pinion unit that was 22.5 pounds lighter than the outgoing setup. The brakes were also redesigned, with the addition of a quiet EBD brake booster that optimized front-rear brake bias; it also featured a mechanical panic assist. These changes contributed to 2003 and newer CVPIs having significantly better handling characteristics in comparison to their 2002 and older counterparts.
Several changes were also made under the hood. An engine knock sensor and revised engine tuning increased horsepower and torque ratings for the 2003 CVPI to 239 hp and 287 lb-ft of torque. Additionally, the entire exhaust system was re-designed, with exhaust hangers now mounted to the frame rails; this allowed for a reduction in interior noise. For improved carbon emissions, the EGR system was revamped, and the fuel system was now return-less. A larger 6-quart oil pan was also made standard, and the oil fill cap was moved to the passenger side valve cover. The intake manifold was revised and now included an aluminum coolant crossover and deeper intake runners. For better cooling, a new, variable speed electric cooling fan replaced the two-speed unit, and the power steering fluid reservoir was now mounted to the fan shroud. In a minor change, an accessory belt shield was fitted to the front of the engine, and a new engine cover that featured a silver "V8" emblem was introduced. Lastly, a larger 78 amp hour battery was now standard on the CVPI.
The interior was also slightly revised for 2003, with new front seating surfaces that featured improved cloth upholstery and larger headrests; seat-mounted side airbags also became an option. The standard vinyl rear bench and optional cloth rear bench also received new upholstery. Additionally, interior door panels and switch gear were also updated for better ergonomics.
Another notable change for 2003 was the addition of 7-hole 16x8 inch steel wheels, replacing the old concave 20-hole steel wheels. A 2003 model can be told apart from its 1998-2002 counterpart models by simply examining the wheels. Due to the new underpinnings, the wheels for the new cars had a much higher offset and look almost flat. Along with a new wheel design, new hubcaps were introduced. These new 7-hole steel wheels were eventually the subject of a recall.
2003 Mid-year De-contenting
Midway through the 2003 model year, Ford de-contented the CVPI along with the rest of the Panther platform line. The CVPI saw the removal of the remote locking fuel door, auto parking brake pedal release, foam insulators inside the headliner, silver "V8" emblem on the engine cover, and an engine compartment lamp. Ford estimated that de-contenting the Panther platform lineup would save US$4,000,000 in production costs per year. These changes took effect in December 2002, and vehicles produced after this date are often referred to as "2003.5" and "2003 Job #2" models.
2004
For 2004, the CVPI received its final horsepower upgrade, using a new air intake borrowed from the Mercury Marauder. The 2004–2011 CVPI is rated for 186.5 kW (254 PS; 250 hp) @4,900 RPM. This better-flowing air intake system also has an integrated 80 mm (3.1 in) mass airflow (MAF) sensor that is part of the airbox lid (but can be serviced individually). This allows for much more precise flow calibration and reduces the chances of air leakage. The P71 zip tube (the flexible rubber hose between the throttle body and MAF outlet) is also used to reduce NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) as well as transfer air from the airbox to the throttle body with minimal flow resistance. The 2004 CVPI also included a 200 amp heavy-duty alternator manufactured by Mitsubishi in Japan. The new alternator was computer controlled and featured a one-way decoupling pulley in order to remedy belt slippage on wide open throttle up shifts. The alternator has a characteristic whine under hard acceleration that can be mistaken for a mechanical issue.
The 3.55:1 rear axle returned as an option for 2004, and in a cost-cutting move, the standard heated mirrors were made optional, and the silver bumper trim found on Street Appearance Package models was removed.
2005
2005 introduced an optional fire suppression system, an industry first. It was touted to decrease the chances of a fire from starting in rear impact collisions. Vehicles equipped with a fire suppression system can be easily identified by a large encased button mounted on the headliner forward of the map lights. A new steering wheel was introduced for 2005, and the AM/FM radio antenna was removed from the rear window and moved to the rear quarter panel (only for the 2005 MY). The throttle body is no longer manually operated by a cable, but by an electronic drive-by-wire set up. This move also corresponded with the addition of a slightly updated, electronically controlled 4R70E transmission, which was only used for the 2005 model year. A heated PCV valve was made standard, as were front crash severity sensors with a weight sensing passenger airbag function. Midway through the model year, a 31-spline rear axle was introduced as standard equipment. A trunk circulation fan was offered as a factory option.
2006
2006 introduced a redesigned instrument cluster with an analog speedometer, tachometer, digital odometer with hour meter and trip meter features, and cross-compatibility with the civilian version's various features (these are normally locked out, but can be accessed through wiring modification). Kevlar-lined front doors were made optional on the CVPIs for the 2006 model year. Introduced in 2006 for P70/P72 Commercial Heavy Duty models and P71 Police Interceptor models was a standard 17-in steel wheel, replacing the previous 16-in wheels, plus new flat-gray wheel covers rather than chromed wheel covers as in previous years. Flex Fuel was made available as an option.
Mechanically, an updated and electronically controlled 4R75E transmission was introduced with better off the line performance than previous versions.
2007
No changes were introduced for the 2007 model year, aside from the rear shocks having returned to a right-side up design.
2008
For 2008, the Crown Victoria was restricted to fleet-only sales, and all Panther platform vehicles became Flex Fuel cars, making them compatible with E85 fuel. The CVPI also received keyless entry abilities.
2009
For the 2009 model year, the CVPI now had power pedals, side airbags, and federally mandated recessed window switches as standard equipment. The CVPI also received upgraded brakes for 2009, although specifics about them are not available. The confirmation flash that occurs when the doors are locked is now automatically disabled when the Courtesy Lamp Disable option is ordered. The confirmation flash was considered to be a safety issue because the lights would flash when officers exited the vehicle and locked the doors, potentially giving their presence away at night.
The car received new styled door moldings, and Ford placed a "Flex Fuel" badge in the lower right corner of the rear fascia. The Street Appearance Package also received the same new door moldings as found on the civilian-fleet-only Crown Victoria LX.
The 2009 CVPI now mandated the use of Mercon LV fluid in the 4R75E transmission.
2010
In 2010, the VIN code "P71" was replaced with "P7B". No other changes were made.
2011
2011 models received updated and larger front headrests along with the rest of the Crown Victoria line in order to comply with new front crash-rating standards. This was the last model year for the CVPI and no other changes were made from 2010. The final CVPI was purchased by the Kansas Highway Patrol in 2011.
Comparison with standard Crown Victoria
Both cars use the same 4.6 L 2V SOHC V8 (both Flex Fuel starting in 2008), Ford modular engine, and Ford four-speed automatic transmission. However, a few notable differences exist between the CVPI and a standard Crown Victoria or Grand Marquis.
Engine and drive train
All CVPIs are equipped with a larger capacity radiator along with external power steering, transmission, and engine oil cooler to reduce engine oil temperatures. This allows the vehicles to operate at high rpm/high loads for an extended period of time without the risk of engine oil overheating and subsequent engine damage. This engine oil cooler can be prone to seeping oil from the O-ring seals after the high-mileage operation encountered by CVPIs, particularly where damaged by road salt.
The Police Interceptor engine calibration includes a slightly higher idle speed (by around 40 rpm) and minor changes in the emissions settings. The computer is tuned for more aggressive transmission shift points, and the transmission itself uses a smaller heavy-duty 11.25" (1999-2011) torque converter compared to the 12" torque converter on a standard Crown Victoria. The EGR system is controlled differently on '03 and older vehicles than on non-police vehicles.
The 2004–2011 Police Interceptors are equipped standard with an open 3.27:1 rear axle (axle code Z5), with a traction-lock (Trac-Lok) 3.27:1 rear axle (axle code X5) optional, and are electronically limited to due to critical drive-line speed limitations. An optional 3.55:1 traction-lock rear axle ratio with 119 mph speed limiter was also available from 2004 to 2011 (axle code C6). The 1999-mid 2001 CVPIs were equipped with a standard 3.55:1 rear axle ratio and were limited to about . This compares to the standard non-P71 2.73 rear axle ratio with a speed limitation of for all "civilian" Crown Victorias.
Ford used an aluminum metal matrix composite driveshaft for the 1999–2001 CVPIs as a measure to allow safe operation at high speeds with the 3.55:1 gear ratio, but it was more expensive than the regular aluminum driveshafts and was eliminated with the 3.55:1 rear axle midway through the 2001 model year.
Horsepower/torque ratings
Ford CVPI 1/4 mile times (as tested by Michigan State Police).
Body and chassis
Another difference is Ford's "severe duty" shock absorbers that offer a stiffer ride than the standard Crown Victoria. They also have black steel wheels with stainless steel or chromed plastic hubcaps.
All CVPIs also come with T-409 stainless-steel, dual exhaust systems without resonators. Standard Crown Victorias come with a stainless-steel single exhaust system, while the Handling and Performance Package and LX Sport-equipped Crown Victorias have the same exhaust system as the CVPI, with the resonators. The resonators further reduce noise, vibration, and harshness without adding any restriction to the exhaust system. CVPIs have higher-rate coil springs, around of additional ground clearance, and thinner rear anti-roll bars (shared with the LX Sport) than the Handling and Performance Package Crown Victorias; the base Crown Victoria, beginning in 2003.5, does not have a rear anti-roll bar.
The bulk of police car modifications, such as installation of emergency lights, sirens, passenger seat dividers, and plastic rear bench seats, are offered as aftermarket modifications by third parties.
Interior
CVPIs came standard with manual cloth bucket seats, despite having the shifter on the steering column. This gap between seats is generally filled by a console holding radios, controls for emergency equipment, large firearms, and often a laptop computer or mobile data terminal. A velour split-bench seat was optional, with a power-adjustable driver's seat being optional on both the split bench and standard bucket seats. All front seat choices came with stab-proof seat backs. The rear seats were offered as a standard vinyl bench, however, both cloth and velour rear seats were optional. CVPIs came standard with heavy-duty flooring, but this could be removed in favor of carpeting. All CVPIs had a non-leather wrapped steering wheel, with cruise control being an available option throughout the model run. All CVPIs came standard with a basic four-preset AM/FM radio, however, there was the option to add either a cassette deck or CD player. The CVPI also had a calibrated speedometer. The trunk release button was located in the center of the dashboard as opposed to being on the driver door panel (some units were fitted with both of these). The CVPI was available with "dark mode", which disabled overhead interior lighting upon opening a door.
Identification
One way to distinguish most P71s is the small "Police Interceptor" badge that replaces the standard "Crown Victoria" markings on the trunk lid, although the Street Appearance Package (SAP) versions forego this badge, using the standard Crown Victoria marking. Police Interceptor badges are now available for purchase online, so this identifying technique is not as reliable as it once was.
SAP cars also use chrome trim rather than the black trim of normal CVPIs. P71s can also be identified by the dual exhaust and an analog 140 mph speedometer. The CVPI has an additional interior trunk release in the center of the dashboard with a prominent warning decal right below it, while the civilian version has it only on the driver's door.
All second-generation Crown Victorias made for civilian use have a five-digit horizontal keypad (known as SecuriCode) above the driver-side door handle, which can be used to lock/unlock the car and open its trunk. All P70, 71, and 72 Crown Victorias are assembled without this keyless entry system, so unless the driver door was damaged and had an improper replacement door installed, any Crown Victoria with a keypad is a civilian one, while any one without a keypad is a P70, 71, or 72 fleet Crown Victoria. The only completely infallible way to identify a CVPI is to look for the code "P71" in the VIN, or "P7B", as it was renamed in 2010.
Police Interceptors have the characters "P71" as the model code in the VIN, or "P7B" for 2010+ models, instead of P70 (stretched wheelbase), P72 (commercial heavy duty/taxi and fleet vehicles), P73 (base), P74 (LX), or P75 (1992 touring sedan).
Problems and criticism
Rear-end collision fires
Following the criticism of fires following highway-speed rear-end collisions, 2005 and later model CVPIs had an optional automatic fire suppression system and special "trunk packs" designed to prevent cargo from penetrating the fuel tank in a collision. Customers had to pay an additional $150 () per car for the trunk packs.
Wheels
Some problems arose with early 2003 CVPIs; the newly designed steel wheels rusted prematurely, and the rack and pinion steering units failed as early as 10,000 miles. This was not limited to the CVPI; some 2004 Mercury Marauders were also affected. A recall, initiated on March 1, 2007 (07S48), affected the steel wheels used on 2003–2005 CVPIs. Another issue with the wheels have been weld points that come loose, causing rapid air loss in tires and the potential for loss of control. A recall was issued after an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. However, the company has created anger among civilian owners of 2003+ Police Interceptors by refusing to honor the recall unless the vehicle is still being used in fleet service. The only way this problem could be addressed was if a civilian customer complained to a dealership about air leakage problems, an inability to balance the wheels properly, or a "nibble" or excessive vibration in the steering at speed. The issue was then addressed through the "Customer Satisfaction Program" that Ford initiated for the wheels. Ford ultimately resolved this issue on production cars in 2006 by introducing new 17-in steel wheels for their heavy-duty models.
Intake manifold
A common failure point on the Crown Victoria Police Interceptor was the intake manifold. Beginning in 1996, Ford used a plastic intake manifold manufactured by DuPont, which also had an integral plastic thermostat housing and anti-freeze crossover. As these vehicles were commonly used for emergency style driving and often endured long idling times, these intake manifolds quickly proved to be problematic. Cracks would develop along the thermostat housing area, causing anti-freeze leaks and overheating issues. Misfires have also been reported, as leaking anti-freeze may seep down into the spark plug wells. This resulted in a class action lawsuit against Ford. Beginning in 2003, a revised intake manifold with a bolt-on aluminum thermostat housing and anti-freeze crossover was produced and fitted to all new vehicles in an attempt to remedy the issue. While they were less failure prone, these intake manifolds proved to be problematic as well. Another common failure point on these intake manifolds was the rear heater hose fitting, located on the rear right side of the engine. It used a plastic nipple to connect the heater hose to the heater core. The plastic nipple would often split off from the intake manifold, causing rapid anti-freeze loss and overheating.
Steering shaft recall
In 2013, Ford Motor Company recalled 370,000 2005–2011 model year Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis, and Lincoln Town Car vehicles due to the possibility of steering loss. The recall only applied to vehicles sold in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. 15,000 of the affected vehicles were sold in Canada.
Discontinuation
In April 2011, Ford stopped accepting orders for the CVPI. Following the 2011 model year, due to its lack of electronic stability control, the Crown Victoria was no longer legal for sale in the United States and Canada; a short 2012 model year was produced solely for GCC/Middle East export. The last Crown Victoria Police Interceptor rolled off the assembly line in August 2011, and was sold to the Kansas Highway Patrol. The vehicle now resides in the agency's academy as a museum piece. This was followed by the final Crown Victoria to ever be produced on September 15, 2011, which was exported to Saudi Arabia. It was the very last vehicle to be produced at the St. Thomas Assembly Plant.
As CVPIs continue to be decommissioned across the United States, a significant number have gone on to be purchased by civilian owners. Some have also been preserved in museums in the United States and overseas.
Successor
On March 12, 2010, Ford Motor Company unveiled the Ford Police Interceptor Sedan. While sharing a nameplate with the Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, the Police Interceptor Sedan was a variant of the sixth-generation Ford Taurus, shifting from the long-running Panther chassis to an all-wheel drive version of the D3 architecture.
In a design decision, the Police Interceptor Sedan did not adopt the Taurus nameplate, as it was sold alongside the Ford Police Interceptor Utility, derived from the Ford Explorer. Along with heavier-duty components and a redesigned interior, the Police Interceptor Sedan adopted higher-performance steering and suspension tuning. The standard engine was a 3.5-L V6, but a 3.7-L V6 (shared with the Mustang) later became the standard power plant. A twin-turbocharged EcoBoost V6 (shared with the Taurus SHO) was also available as an option.
The Ford Police Interceptor Sedan was discontinued alongside the North American Ford Taurus model on March 1, 2019. The Ford Police Interceptor Utility remains in production as of 2022 as Ford's main police vehicle, sharing its design with the civilian market Ford Explorer.
Use outside North America
Europe
In Russia, the Main Directorate for Road Traffic Safety, popularly known under its historical abbreviation GAI (ГАИ), purchased 140 Crown Victoria P71s from 1994 to 1995. Part of the militsiya (now politisya), the vehicles were operated by the Road Patrol Service (DPS) as highway-patrol units around the greater Moscow area. The most powerful vehicles purchased by the DPS at the time (replacing Chaika-engined GAZ-24-10 Volgas), the Crown Victorias were used by the agency through the early 2010s. Its reliabity and comfortable seats were well-liked. Their use took place when Yury Luzhkov purchased the vehicles for the GAI. Second-generation CVPIs were reported to be used in other regional police forces such as in Sochi.
In 1999, the Ukrainian Militsiya in Chernihiv were provided first-generation Crown Victoria as humanitarian aid from Washington, D.C. According to official documents provided by the Militsiya, the vehicles were not widely used since June 2011. These vehicles were used by the local State Traffic Inspectorate. There was documentation submitted in 2014 regarding the potential write-off for the first-gen CVs in Cherihiv. There also sightings of CVPIs used by the Ukrainian Military Police.
In 2003, three CVPIs were bought by the French city of Montpellier. Purchased as part of an upgrade of the local Police Municipale, the Crown Victorias were selected for their durability, security, and safety. In 2008, they were put up for sale, as the American-designed police cars were found to be too wide for the city streets and too long for PM garages.
Belarus purchased first-generation Crown Victorias and Tauruses in the 1990s for the Belarusian Militisya. Most were later replaced with second-generation CVPIs. In 2017, it was reported from Belarus that at least one of their 2003 Ford CVPIs formerly used by the Militsiya were being sold under $USD3,994 () through the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs. They were formerly used by the Brest Regional Executive Committee.
Middle East
CVPIs were used by Middle Eastern law enforcement agencies, including those from the United Arab Emirates (via Dubai), Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Jordan.
In popular culture
As the Crown Victoria became increasingly ubiquitous within North America as a police vehicle, media from the 1990s through the 2010s followed suit and as a result the Crown Victoria and fictional vehicles resembling it became a common set-piece in television, cinema, and video games set in North America.
In Russia, the mid-1990s Crown Victoria became a symbol of Moscow's road militsiya for over a decade; the P71 is pictured on a DPS badge awarded for 15 years of service. The cars were featured in several movies and in a 1997-1998 TV show Perehvat (The Intercept), where they tried to intercept target automobiles on Moscow streets.
The 2019 film Crown Vic is named after the CVPI, and follows two LAPD officers pursuing a team of bank robbers; both use Ford Crown Victorias.
A documentary film titled Crown Vic: America's Most Iconic Car by filmmaker Dale Roossien is scheduled to be released in fall 2023. It is a full-length film documenting the Crown Victoria and its sister cars. It follows the legacy of the vehicle through its inception to its current cult-like following, focusing on the individuals who still drive the car today.
References
Further reading
External links
Ford Crown Victoria (U.S.): Police Interceptor | Commercial Version (includes long-wheelbase version)
1990s cars
2000s cars
2010s cars
Cars of Canada
Cars introduced in 1992
Ford Panther platform
Crown Victoria
Full-size vehicles
Police vehicles
Rear-wheel-drive vehicles
Sedans
ja:フォード・クラウンビクトリア
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5038075
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maramon%20Convention
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Maramon Convention
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The Maramon Convention, a Christian convention in Asia, is held at Maramon, Pathanamthitta, Kerala, India annually in February on the vast sand-bed of the Pampa River next to the Kozhencherry Bridge. It is organised by Mar Thoma Evangelistic Association, the missionary wing of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church.
The origin and growth of this annual get-together for one week at a stretch can be traced to the great revival movement which gathered momentum during the reformation period in the Syrian Churches of Kerala under the pioneering leadership of Abraham Malpan in the latter part of the 19th century. This brought about the transformation in resurgence of the ancient apostolic Churches in Kerala founded by St. Thomas the Apostle approximately in AD 52.
Cultural identity of Saint Thomas Christians
Saint Thomas in the Syriac-speaking culture of upper Mesopotamia and Syria the apostle was called Judas Thomas. Thomas (Tau'ma) means twin in Syriac.
Jawaharlal Nehru in his Glimpses of World History, 1934 wrote about Christianity in India:
"You may be surprised to learn that Christianity came to India long before it went to England or Western Europe, and when even in Rome it was a despised and proscribed sect. Within 100 years or so of the death of Jesus, Christian Missionaries came to South India by sea. They were received courteously and permitted to preach their new faith. They converted a large number of people, and their descendants have lived there, with varying fortune, to this day. Most of them belong to old Christian sects which have ceased to exist in Europe".
St. Ephraem, a Christian deacon and scholar, in AD 363 composed a poem that honors St. Thomas in that era's understanding:
"Blessed art thou, like a solar ray, India’s darkness doth dispel. Thou the great lamp, one among the Twelve, with oil from the cross replenished India’s night flooded with light. Oh Blessed Apostle, valiant Mar Thoma whom violent threats did not affright, Blessed apostle be thou praised, whom the Great King has sent that India to his one begotten thou shouldest espouse."
An ancient Indian non-Christian work Nagargarandhavaryola mentions St. Thomas:
In AD 52 "the foreigner Thomas Sanyasi came to our village, preached there causing pollution. We therefore came away from that village."
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.
(
We are VERY_sorry..
..we RETURN to where we came FROM..
....St.Thomas, disciple of Jesus of BETHLEHEM,..going back to the garden of genesis_chapter_02, near the rivers Tigris, Euphrates, pishon and gihon.
..just as the people_of_jacob stayed in Egypt till abram's appointed time on the promised_land.. SIMILARLY, we came here..but fleeing persecution..
....thank you for letting us stay..
......we now go back to the rivers of genesis_chapter_02.. Tigris and Euphrates..
.
Ann Abraham, N2500081_India..
.
Date of birth : 1973_february_16 (like the maramon_convention time..on THIS_page of Wikipedia..!!)
.
2023_May_21_09_48_AM_IST..
.
)
Mar Thoma Evangelistic Association
By 1877, there were two factions in the Malankara church, known as Bishop faction (Methran Kakshi) and Patriarch faction (Bava Kakshi). By a court verdict on 12 July 1889, Bishop faction lost all the properties. In this turbulent period, on 5 September 1888, 12 members of the Bishop faction formed a missionary group called "Mar Thoma Evangelistic Association". These 12 members are considered the founding fathers of the Maramon convention. The names of these 12 members are:-
Kottarathil Thomas Kasseessa, Chengannur
Edavamvelil Mathai, Eraviperoor.
Kottooreth Yohannan, Chengannur
Chempakasseril Kadavil Abraham, Kallissery
Chakkalayil Cherian Upadesi, Puthencavu
Chempakasseril Kadavil Mathuchen, Kallissery
Azhakinal Thommi, Kallooppara
Nathaniel Upadesi, Chengannur
Kurichiath (Vattadiyil) Ittiyavara, Niranam
Arangat Philipose, Maramon
Ottaplammoottil Kunju Mathew, Kallissery
Kochumannil Skariah, Edayaranmula
They met at the Kadavil Malika belonging to Chempakasseril Kadavil Abraham and Chempakasseril Kadavil Mathuchen (1860 - 1897). This house at Kallissery near Chengannur was built by their grandfather Unnittan Kathanar (1767 - 1852) and his son Abraham Kathanar (1822 - 1884) also known as Kadavil Achen, in the early 19th century. (The Kadavil Malika was reclaimed by the Marthoma church and renovated on 10 September 2005.)
Beginning
By 1894, a number of small supportive prayer group communions emerged and this paved a way for revival. They had regular meetings in various parishes. Because the number of people attending these meetings was growing; the need was addressed by deciding to have a meeting of these groups in a wider level at a central accessible place. This was a venue for dimensional spiritual edification that is applicable, biblically sound, ideal and value based for striving with the realities of the world and never a place for signs, wonders and miracles. During the 19th century, people began to occupy hilly places which resulted in felling of forests in and around the catchment area of Pampa river and started intensive cultivation of annual crops like tapioca, yams ... etc. This unplanned encroachment resulted in large scale soil erosion. Deep river with mud was filled with white sand, which turned to be congenial place to assemble for a gathering of masses. No need for any seating arrangement as people can sit on the neat white sand bed under roofs made by knitted coconut leaves. The duty of organising this meeting was given to the Mar Thoma Evangelistic Association and the first convention was held in 1895 at Maramon. Today the changing habitat and lesser focus on agriculture with rise of rubber plantation, the surfaced roads minimised soil erosion and a large scale sand mining for construction activities decreased the size of the sand bed to a great extent.
By 1900 reformers adopted the name Malankara Marthoma Suriyani Sabha also known as the Mar Thoma Church to encase its ancient lineage.
Pictures
This view of the 2008 convention is from Kozhencherry side. The Kozhencherry bridge is on the right. There are usually no empty spaces inside the Panthal (tent) so people stand outside and group around the shade to listen to the songs and messages.
This view of the 2009 convention is from Maramon side. The Kozhencherry bridge is on the left.
The first convention
The first convention was held for 10 days from 8 to 17 March 1895. The venue was the vast sand-bed of the Pampa River next to the Maramon church. The parishes in and around Maramon – Kozhencherry helped in making a very large panthal (tent) to accommodate about 10,000 people. The main speakers were David and Wordsworth. On an average 10,000 to 15,000 people attended these meetings. On the last day almost 25,000 attended. There were no proper roads during those days. So nearby houses accommodated the people from far away places. Some of them came in boats and used them as their shelter.
The convention at present
Maramon Convention is held for eight days during the first week of the Great Lent that usually falls in February. The tent has a seating capacity in excess of 160,000 people. They are seated on the dry sand bed. Old and weak are given sponsored-paid chairs to sit on. There is also a smaller tent erected next to the larger one for people with infants and with children below 5. All around the temporary tent there are prayer and rest sheds and other tents for various purposes related to the Church. Stalls for the sale of religious literature and other items, church mission advertisement and funding offices and restaurants are allowed to operate in the vicinity of the tent under the control of the Church authorities.
Programme
The Maramon Convention is pre-eminently an assembly of Christians who once a year come here for listening to the Word of God as read and expounded by Christian leaders from all over India as well as abroad. Introduction and promotion of Church activities and Preaching occupy the major part of the convention programme. In the morning there will be separate Bible study classes for Men, women, youth and children conducted by specially invited leaders. The mornings and afternoons are public meetings and in the evening, meetings are for men only. Four of the afternoon public meetings are for 'Facing the challenges of Social evils as Christians'. The choir leads the singing and the introduction of voguish songs and the whole gathering joins in singing. A hymn book with 101 hymns including 16 new ones are printed every year for the convention use. Everyday half an hour is spent for intercessory prayer. Also there are family gatherings, youth meetings and special gatherings after the afternoon session.
Leaders
In addition to the Metropolitan and Episcopas of the church, distinguished world-renowned speakers addressed this convention. The Revd Thomas Walker, England (1900–1912), Sadhu Sunder Singh, Punjab (1918), Dr. G. Sherwood Eddy (1919), Dr. E. Stanley Jones, USA (1920–1968), Dr. Toyohiko Kagawa, Japan (1938), John R. Mott, Nobel Peace Prize winner (1946) and President of World Alliance of YMCAs, Dr. Bob Pierce, founder and president of World Vision (1964 & 66), Astronaut Colonel James Irwin, who spent a few hours on the moon (1985), Dr. John Haggai, founder president of Haggai Institute (1973), Bishop Donald Jacobs, Mennonite church (1974), the Most Revd Dr. Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury (1986), the Most Revd Dr. George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury (1995), Mrs. Ann Lotts
( D/o Late Bily Graham), Rev. Dr. Theodore Williams, Dr. Samuel Kobia, WCC General Secretary (2007), Dr. Paul S. Rees (Ministry statesman), Revd Dr. A. B. Masilamani, Rev. Dr. Samuel Kamaleson (Veterinarian & Evangelist), and a host of others. Rev. Prof. Valson Thampu (author, preacher, and educationist)
History
2023
The head of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, Most Rev Dr Theodosius Mar Thomas Metropolitan spoke against the government for their handling of the cost-of-living crisis and failure to look after the citizens of Kerala.
2022
The Kerala government allowed up to 1500 adults to attend the convention, if they could show a negative test for Covid 19. The convention ran from 13-20 February.
2021
Kerala High Court ordered that the convention could go ahead on 14-21 February, but that Covid 19 protocol should be strictly followed; numbers were limited to 100 persons for indoor venues, and 200 persons for outdoor venues.
2020
The convention took a stance against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the National Population Register; this was due to a belief that such laws would lead to religious and caste divide.
2019
From 2019 onward, women were allowed to attend the evening events.
In the same year, the evening conventions were to be moved from Pampa river sand bed to the Mar Thoma Church Kozhenchery.
2018
The 123rd Maramon Convention, was scheduled from 11 to 17 February. The main speakers for the convention were Rt. Rev. Peter D. Eaton (Episcopalian Bishop, Southeast Florida Diocese); Rt. Rev. Dr. Soritua Nababan (Bishop Emeritus of Batak Christian Protestant Church, Indonesia and ex-officio of World Council of Churches) - cancelled; Bishop Robert Barron, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles - cancelled; Rev. Dr. Francis Sunderaraj, (Methodist minister, Chennai-Malaysia); Rev. Dr. Vinod Victor (CSI Church, Melbourne Diocese) and Evg. Dr.h.c. Ramachandran Rajkumar (Independent Evangelist, Logos Ministries, Delhi).
2017
The main speakers for the 122nd Maramon Convention were theologians, Cleophus J. LaRue Jr. (Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and NBCA minister); Leslie Griffiths (Methodist minister and Life peer), Edward-Mukondeleli Ramulondi (UPCSA Minister and Regional Director, Council for World Mission - Congregational Federation) and John Stephen Sadananda (CSI, Bishop Emeritus and Head of Serampore University College).
2016
The 121st Maramon Convention, is scheduled from 14 to 21 February. The theme of the convention is about living as Symbols of Christian Values in society and growing towards ecologically sustainable development, enhancing it with age-old practice of backyard farming and sustainable agriculture. Noted speakers that will deliver discourses at the convention are Bishop Daniel Thyagaraja, CSI Church, Sri Lanka; Rev Malcom T H Tan, Methodist Church, Singapore (Mission Society Trainer); Dr Leonard Sweet, Methodist Church, United States (Pastor & Theologian), Rev Francis Sundaraj, EFI, Chennai (Ecumenist) and Rev. D. Ratnakara Sadananda, CSI Church, Chennai (Gen. Secretary & Theologian).
Bishops attached to the Mar Thoma Church and other Churches will address various sessions of the meet. Heads of various Churches will address in the ecumenical sessions and various personalities attached to social welfare and empowerment like P. J. Kurien, D. Babu Paul...etc. will handle relevant topics.
2015
The 120th Maramon Convention was scheduled from 8 to 15 February. Main Speakers of the meeting are Bishop Ziphozihle D. Siwa, Methodist Church, S.A. (President of the South African Council of Churches and Revivalist); Rev. Dr. Leonard Sweet, USA (Semiotician & Best-selling Author) - cancelled - substituted by Rev. Fr. Dushantha Rodrigo, Church of Ceylon, Sri Lanka (Youth Ministry) and Pr. Dr. Sam T. Kamaleson, Tamil Nadu-USA (Evangelist, Mission Director, Musician, Lecturer, Ministry Mentor/Annan:-Elder brother)
Bishops of the Mar Thoma Church and various other Churches would address different sessions of the meet, including various personalities attached to Ecumenism.
Special Guest: Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of Antioch.
2014
The 119th Maramon Convention was from 9 to 16 February on the vast sand bed of the Pampa River near Kozhencherry. Main speakers, in addition to the bishops of the Mar Thoma Church were Bishop Dulip D Chikera (Sri Lanka), Rev. Peter Maiden (England) and Rev. Vyani Naibola (South Africa)
2013
The 118th Maramon Convention was from 10 to 17 February on the vast sand bed of the Pampa River. Main speakers, in addition to the bishops of the Mar Thoma Church were Rev. Canon Philip Mounstephen (U.K), Rev. Dr Walter Altmann (IECL, Brazil) and Rev. Andile Madodomzi Mbete (South Africa)
2012
The 117th Maramon Convention was held from 12 to 19 February on the vast sand-bed of the Pampa River next to the Kozhencherry Bridge.
at Maramon.
The main speakers were Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana (South Africa), Dr. Kang San Tan (Professor and Mission Director) and Dr. Martin Alphonse (Pastor and Professor, Methodist Church)
2011
The 116th Maramon Convention was held from 13 to 20 February. Main speakers were the bishops of the Mar Thoma Church; Most Rev. Roger Herft, Anglican Archbishop of Perth; Australia; Prof. Nyameko Barney Pityana, a human rights lawyer, theologian in South Africa and an exponent of Black theology; Dr. R. Rajkumar; Rev. Peter Maiden; Dr. Ulf Ekman.
2010
The 115th Maramon Convention was held from 14 to 21 February. On the opening day and on the last three days, the pandal (flat roof thatched by woven coconut leaves) that could accommodate almost 80,000 people overflowed and an equal number found accommodation under the tree shades on both sides of the river.
The speakers included the Bishops of the Mar Thoma Church; Bishop Robert M Solomon, (Methodist Church, Singapore); Reverend Canon Tim Dakin, (General Secretary of Church Missionary Society, England), Pr. Dr. Martin Alphonse (Tamil Nadu-USA) and Rev. Vinod Victor, (Youth Evangelist, Trivandrum, Kerala, India). Bishop Yoohanon Mar Chrysostom, Metropolitan of the Marthandom Diocese of Syro-Malankara Catholic Church addressed the Ecumenical Meeting and Bishop Sebastian Thekethecheril of the Latin Catholic Diocese of Vijayapuram addressed the Social Evils Awareness Meeting.
Most Rev. Joris Vercammen, Archbishop of Utrecht, president of the Union of Utrecht (of Old Catholic Church), bishops from the Malabar Independent Syrian Church and bishops of Church of South India attended the meetings.
Special programmes
Social activities
The MTEA attaches greater importance to a crusade against social evils like violence and domestic abuse, inequality and awareness of equity, displaced morale, extreme consumerism, frantic celebrity culture, chronic alcoholism and substance abuse with an Indo-centric perspective and globalist outlook. In fact an afternoon session in the convention is exclusively devoted for programmes against such evils to help people to stand against such evils, to support those who are in such states and to take up initiative to raise voice and root out such evils. Besides there are special sessions and programs for focus groups in ecumenical concerns, and promotion of organic and sustainable farming zest, dalit integration activities, transgender empowerment, women and children upliftment.
Missionary responsibilities
The Church is constantly stepping up through these conventions to fulfill the missionary responsibilities and It has spread as service activities from Tibetan Border and in the northern end of Uttar Pradesh, to Kanya Kumari (Cape Comerin) in the South. Several social service and income generating institutions of the Church owe their origin to this annual get together at Maramon. Destitute homes, Ashrams, mission centres, hospitals, leprosy clinics, schools, and colleges have been started in and outside Kerala. The messages of the Maramon Convention provides a revived ideological and experiential faith in accordance to the need of the laity and period of time.
Law and order
Police contingent is not required in the convention premises to maintain law and order, a vigilant committee of priests and elders circle around maintaining peace. Any changes in the convention program apart from the published daily program schedule through website is alerted through mobile messaging services for those who register, and important notices about lost items, wandered away children, bus timings, etc. are also alerted through this service from 2015.
Financial matter
The panthal (tent), and the sheds are the voluntary contributions of the parishes nearby. Early on, offerings were collected in every meeting. Now it is collected in four of the 21 general meetings and a special collection from parishes in foreign lands. The collection is distributed to various organisations and missions of the church and also for the Bible society and CSSM.
Conclusion
All those who come to the convention area experience peace, the spiritual liveliness that is spread around the panthal (tent) & the mobility of the masses with the sense of equality. The unbroken prayer of the laity is considered the grace behind the spiritual backbone of the convention. The Maramon Convention displays co-operation and union between different sections of Church in Kerala. It fosters an ecumenical outlook. It is also a source of spiritual inspiration and enlightenment for thousands.
See also
Marthoma Church
Kadavil Malika
Pathanamthitta
References
Further reading
Rev. George Alexander (Ed).(1995). Maramon Convention Sathapdhi Valum-'95.
Mathew, N.M. Malankara Marthoma Sabha Charitram, (History of the Marthoma Church), Volume II (2007). Volume III (2008) Pub. E.J.Institute, Tiruvalla.
Mar Thoma Sabha Directory. (1999) Pub. The Publication Board of The Mar Thoma Church, Tiruvalla, Kerala, India.
External links
mtconvention.com The official webpage for the convention
Maramon Convention daily program schedule
For Yesteryear Sermons with transcripts (Regional and Non-Regional Leaders) and downloadable audios for lower bandwidth.
Mar Thoma Evangelistic Association
Official website of Information And Public Relation Department Of Kerala Government
Christian conferences
Culture of Pathanamthitta district
Christianity in Kerala
Annual events in India
February events
Tourist attractions in Pathanamthitta district
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5040899
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20student%20federations%20in%20Pakistan
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List of student federations in Pakistan
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Student federations have been growing in popularity and significance in Pakistan over the past few years. This has been attributed to the increasing social disparity between the younger and older generation of the country. 66% of population of Pakistan is currently under the age of 30, and approximately only 5% of the population is over the age of 65. Researchers have noted the significance of political youth organizations in social environments such as these, and have project that the youth organizations in Pakistan will help define the future of the nation over the next few years. Reporters have noted that Pakistan's political climate is in a current state of divisive unrest. Political actions taken within the country have simultaneously sparked public celebrations and large-scale riots. Because of the demographics of the country, the population under age 30 has been very involved in these public actions, and the youth and student organizations have been prominent. A new student organization, mathematical society GPGC Haripur was formed on 1 January, 2023, under the patronage of Professor Naeem Akhtar Abbasi, chairmanship of Professor Aftab Ahmed, coordination of Professor Syed Bilal Shah and presidency of Syed Hamza Kazmi. The society has more than 30 members.
Background
The first student political group in Pakistan was the Muslim Students Federation. Started in 1947, as a student wing of the Muslim League, the Muslim Students Federation held prominence in Pakistan until the Muslim League splinted shortly after coming to power. The 1950s saw the rise of two kinds of political student parties; Left leaning Marxist parties like the Democratic Students Federation, and religious right wing parties like Anjuman Talba-e-islam and Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba. The leftist groups were not treated kindly by the ruling powers at the time, and in 1953 during a protest led by the Democratic Student Federation, the police shot into the crowd killing six students. The next year the same group was banned from the country for its possible ties to the Communist party of Pakistan, followed shortly thereafter by a ban of its successor group the All Pakistan Students Organization. These groups were succeeded by yet another leftist group, the National Students Federation, which continues on to this day.
The student unions in the 1960s were characterized primarily as a struggle for power between the Maoist-Soviet leaning left and the religious right, with the leftist National Students Federation and the National Students Organization coming out on top. The 1970s brought with it a rise in student political action as the 1974 Student Union Ordinance was passed. This Ordinance actually encouraged student activity on campus, and several prominent new student organizations came into existence and grew during this time. Meanwhile, the struggle between the Marxist and religious student associations grew, with both sides creating their own respective alliances, though both groups suffered from political infighting and splintering.
Through the late 1970s and into the 1980s the student groups began to clash violently with each other and the government.
Current issues
There are currently three major issues driving the political activist groups in Pakistan. These issues are a lack of educational opportunities, jobs, and ideological differences.
Education
The public education system has three major problems facing it right now. First, there is a shortage of teachers and schools within the country. Approximately 33% of the children in Pakistan are not attending school, and even the ones who are may not have an actual teacher in the classroom. Second, the public education system is outdated by over 30 years. The textbooks used in the majority of public schools were written in the 1980s and they tend to lead students to be more susceptible to adaptation to radical forms of Islam. Third is the stark difference between the private and public education systems. The top ten percent of the country send their children to private schools that speak English, instead of Urdu, and most children coming out of the private education system tend to be dismissive of their Urdu-speaking counterparts. This is creating a strong communication and familial rift between the educated population of Pakistan.
Jobs
The job market in Pakistan is not promising for students coming out of the education system. The unemployment rate in 2008 was estimated at 24.67%. This was attributed to a large part of the student population getting educated for technical jobs that are not in high demand in the country. Approximately 85% of Pakistanis only make $4 per day, which is not an appealing prospect to college graduates in Pakistan. This disparity of expectations is mobilizing factor behind a significant number of student federations.
Ideological differences
The student federations of Pakistan have been known to engage in fights over political, religious, ethnic, nationalist, and sectarian differences. Several students die each year in the physical confrontations that frequently break out between groups during protests.
Students Islamic Federations
Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba Pakistan (IJT)
Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba is the largest student organization founded just after the independence of Pakistan on 23 December 1947. Since then it has been struggling for the rights of the students and for eliminating the non-Islamic aspects from our schools, colleges, and universities. It is kind of affiliated with Jamat-e-Islami. It is mainly influenced by the ideology of Syed Ab-ul-Aala Maududi. It is the only student organization in Pakistan that is present throughout the country and Bangladesh, and at every level (school, college, university). Zinda ha Jamiat (Zinda ha)
Quwat hi Quwat (Jamiat), Quwat ka Nara (Jamiat), Mera laj dulara (Jamiat), Ankhon ka tara (Jamiat)
Nara e Takbir (Allah o Akbar)
Muslim Students Organization Pakistan (MSO)
Muslim Students Organization Pakistan (Urdu: مسلم سٹوڈنٹس آرگنائزیشن پاکستان) is a Islamic Students organization in Pakistan. It was founded on 11th January 2001. It has around 1500 units in Pakistan, covering all the four provinces of Pakistan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Mission
To propagate the real Islamic culture in each and every educational institution of Pakistan to bridge the gap between students of Universities & Madaris and to work for the rights of students To awake the youth about the realities of the betrayed persons who through politics are deceiving the nation and are doing such activities which are against our country… so MSO can be regarded as the movement of Self-awareness of the youth.
Jamiat Talba-e-islam Pakistan (JTI)
Jamiat Talba-e-Islam is an independent student organization of Pakistan under the supervision of Ulema-e-Haq i.e. Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F). It was founded by some students on 19 October 1969 at Jamia Hammadia, Lahore, Pakistan. Jamiat Talba-e-Islam Pakistan is working in Pakistan to eliminate the non-Islamic elements and secularism from the curriculum and teachings of the educational institutions of Pakistan.
Anjuman Talba-e-islam
Anjuman Talaba-e-Islam ("Islamic Organization of Students") is the non-political student organization founded on 20 January 1968 with respect to 20th Shawwal 1387 A.H at Sabz Masjid Sarafa Bazaar, Karachi, Pakistan by a group of students. In 1986 student union elections in all cities of Pakistan, ATI came forward as the leading victorious Student Organization by taking more than 80% results. The current President is Mubashar Hussain from karachi, Pakistan.
Pakistan Islamic Students Federation
It is unclear when the Pakistan Islamic Students Federation (PISF or APISF) was founded, though its internet presence was established on February 24, 2012. PISF is an Islamic group in Pakistan best known for its protests of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad, where they called for the public hanging of the Danish cartoonists.
Imamia Students Organization
Imamia Students Organisation is a Shi'a Muslim students organisation in Pakistan. It was founded by Dr. Mohammad Ali Naqvi on 22 May 1972 at University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore. In 2012 it had "around 1200 units in Pakistan," covering all the five provinces of Pakistan, Tribal areas, Azad Jamu, Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan.
Allegations were directed against ISO that they receive funding from Iran. ISO counters those allegations, stating that they only receive moral guidance from Iran.
Muslim Student Federation
Muslim Student Federation or MSF is a conservative Pakistani political group that was started on September 1, 1937, in Calcutta, India by the old All-India Muslim League. The group has a wing in Pakistan that is led by Rana Arshad. and Rana Hassnain leading in Punjab as senior vice president along with coordinator Green Tiger. The student federation has also been known to engage in fights previously with some of the progressive student federations and exhibit an independent mildly conservative nature.
In Pakistan MSF-N is aligned to the PML-N, which is a centre-right party.
Progressive and Marxist groups
The Struggle
The Struggle (Urdu: طبقاتی جدوجہد) is a Trotskyist, Leftist organization in Pakistan which was found in Netherlands by Lal Khan and other Pakistani activists. The group follows the ideology of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky.
It is the only organization working physically into people and politicizing students and workers.
The Struggle group has their own publication agency and has published numerous books and leaflets on topics including Marxist ideology, history of Marxist struggle in Pakistan, and various books covering history of Bolshevik revolution.
The Struggle's trade union front is known as Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign (PTUDC), and multiple other fronts working among Youth, including Revolutionary Students Front (RSF) and Unemployed Youth Movement. In 2015, youth and students fronts of the Struggle started a campaign to bring together prominent left-wing students and youth organizations from across the country on a single platform. It holds its regularly congress which are held every year to analyse the performance of The Struggle and to formulate new strategies for social change and revolution. In March 2013, Malala Yousafzai sent solidarity message to The Struggle congress.
Democratic Students Federation (DSF)
Democratic Students Federation founded in 1949, and being the oldest leftist student federation in Pakistan many other left leaning student political organizations can trace their heritage back to this group. The DSF was banned in 1956 because of its political association with the communist party, which resulted in several other student groups forming from its ashes, like the National Students Federation and the Liberal Students Federation. The DSF was allowed to reorganize in 1980, and grew in popularity because of its connection to the then powerful Soviet Union. This popularity faded after dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the group restructured itself in 2011 to adapt to more current issues. The groups stated mission is to, "bring back the balance of power to the students in universities which is formerly lost." Nowadays, both the NSF and ISF claim common heritage from the old DSF.
JUTT Student Federation
JUTT Students Federation was formed in 2010 as a faction/group that split off from the JUTT Students Federation.Chairman Ch Ijaz jutt And General Secretary Ch Umar Saleem Ghumman .
National Students Federation
National Students Federation (NSF) was formed from the remnants of the Democratic Students Federation when it was banned in 1956. The group is a self-proclaimed revolutionary left and centre-left student federation whose stated goals are to:
Struggle for a class free education system and all rights of the student community
Struggle for free education for all
Struggle for improvement in the conditions of all educational institutes
Promote peace, tolerance and unity amongst students
To link students with the international movements against capitalist, imperialist oppression.
In 2008 the group was reorganized during the Lawyers' Movement, and now primarily operates out of Punjab, though its values remain mostly the same and just like the old DSF gave birth to the powerful NSF recently in a similar way the NSF has helped give birth to the programme of the newly formed Insaf Student Federation (ISF).
Liberal Students Federation
Liberal Students Federation was formed in 1973 as a faction/group that split off from the National Students Federation.
Insaf Students Federation
This is the student federation of PTI and generally has links to the old NSF and considers itself on the left and centre left on the basic issues of students.
It is considered the Student body for PTI Insafains and its future leaders.
Peoples Students Federation
Peoples Students Federation is a students-led organisation attempts to mobilize the youth for Peoples Party candidates for the Youth Parliament. It also has the separate Trotskyist-Marxist wing, " International Marxist Tendency (IMT); the student wing, the Peoples Students, a student-outreach organization with the goal is Stalinism but recently its parent party is considered pro-American in Pakistani politics unlike the ISF and PTI.
All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organization
The All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organization (APMSO) is notable for being the student organization that created Pakistan's 4th Notional Political Party, the Mohajir Quami Movement, now called the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).
APMSO was founded by Altaf Hussain along with other students include Azeem Ahmed Tariq, Dr. Imran Farooq and others on Sunday, June 11, 1978 at Karachi University. Hussain also served as a first Chairman of the organization while Azeem Ahmed Tariq served as the first General Secretary of the organization.
While the APMSO platform has some liberal elements to it, at its core it is the ethnic political party of the Muhajir, an Urdu speaking people who immigrated from India in 1947. It was later renamed the All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organization (APMSO) and is still known by this name. It is arguably the most active and well-organised student union in Sindh public sector universities and organises many activities for general students.
Progressive Students Federation
Progressive Students Federation (PrSF) is a socialist, left-wing students’ organization based in Pakistan, formed in 2014.
Liberal democratic and politically unaligned groups
Balochistan Youth Action Committee
Balochistan Youth Action Committee (BYAC) is a youth-led group working in Balochistan to uplift the lives of rural communities. The group has activities around disaster relief, climate change, health, and education.
Pakistani Youth Movement
Pakistani Youth Movement was started sometime in 2010 for the stated goal of harnessing the educated youth of Pakistan to make the country a better place. The group claims to not have any ties to political or religious entities, and does not have the structured leadership normally found within a political party. The group has posted videos about their active role in giving relief to flood victim and their support of the Teach for Pakistan Movement in 2011.
Youth Association of Pakistan
Youth Association of Pakistan (YAP) is one of the leading youth organisation of Pakistan. This organisation was founded by Kashif Zaheer Kamboh and other youth leaders. YAP is working with youth of Pakistan to project the better image of Pakistan.
Pakistan Youth Council
Pakistan Youth Council (PYC) was started by Mian Muhammad Arfat in 2010, as a membership based democratically aligned youth organization. The group's mission is to, "create economic, political and social awareness among youth and enable them to protect and claim their rights e.g. education, health, employment and sports." The PYC has promoted the role of youth in politics through educational conferences and lobbying for age reduction for parliamentary candidacy.
Youth Parliament of Pakistan
Youth Parliament of Pakistan (YPP) is a democratically oriented activism group started in 2006. The group does not a political or religious affiliation, and primarily works on educating the youth of Pakistan about the ideas of democracy. In 2009, YPP started the Youth Action for Democracy in collaboration with the United Nations Democracy Fund. This project was aimed at increasing democratic education and youth participation in politics in the districts of Punjab, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Sindh, and Azad Jammu Kashmir.
Karachi Youth's Federation
Karachi Youth's Federation (KYF) is a youth organization of Karachi who is working to alliance youth patriotically for professional development and public welfare. Chairman Muhammad Umer Khan founded in 2008 on June 20. KYF is pro Pakistan and supporting Armed Forces for a good Civil Military Relations.
Independent youth participation
Many independent young people participates in politics either through social media activism or through election participation and their participation strengthens the democracy and provides the good image of the country
List of student federations, political alliances, and affiliations
Notable student federations include:
References
Students' federations of Pakistan
Students
Student
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange%20County%20Sheriff%27s%20Department%20%28California%29
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Orange County Sheriff's Department (California)
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The Orange County Sheriff's Department (OCSD) is the law enforcement agency serving Orange County, California. It currently serves the unincorporated areas of Orange County and thirteen contract cities in the county: Aliso Viejo, Dana Point, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Woods, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Stanton, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda.
The agency also provides law enforcement services to the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) system, and John Wayne Airport. OCSD also runs Orange County's Harbor Patrol, which provides law enforcement, marine fire fighting, search and rescue, and underwater search and recovery services along the county's of coastline and in the county's three harbors (Dana Point, Newport and Huntington).
The OC Sheriff is Don Barnes.
History
Early years
The Orange County Sheriff's Department came into existence on August 1, 1889, when a proclamation of the state legislature separated the southern portion of Los Angeles County and created Orange County. The entire department consisted of Sheriff Richard Harris and Deputy James Buckley, with an operating budget of $1,200 a year and a makeshift jail in the rented basement of a store in Santa Ana. They served a sparsely populated county of 13,000 residents, scattered throughout isolated townships and settlements. The problems faced by the first sheriff were typical for a frontier county – tracking down outlaws, controlling vagrancy, and attempting to maintain law and order across of farmland and undeveloped territory.
Since the county was expanding, the department grew with it. The Spurgeon Square Jail was opened by Sheriff Joe Nichols in 1897, and the Orange County Courthouse followed in 1901. Sheriff Theo Lacy (the second and fourth sheriff of Orange County, who served from 1890 to 1894 and from 1899 to 1911) was able to move from borrowed office space in Santa Ana to a dedicated headquarters in the courthouse that remained in operation until 1924.
When he took office in 1911, Sheriff Charles Ruddock commanded a staff of eight full-time deputies and jailers, serving a county of nearly 34,000 citizens. But the county's frontier past returned to haunt it on December 16, 1912, when Undersheriff Robert Squires became the first member of the department to be killed in the line of duty while part of a posse attempting to apprehend a violent fugitive.
The county's growing population brought new challenges. Most of the county had outlawed liquor by the time Sheriff Calvin Jackson took office in 1915. Raids of "blind pig" businesses that served as fronts for illegal liquor sales were commonplace. When Congress passed the 18th Amendment in 1920, Prohibition became the law of the land. Suppressing illegal liquor operations became a major focus for the department over the next decade.
By the time Sheriff Sam Jernigan took office in 1923, rum runners and bootleggers were commonplace along the coastline and in Orange County's harbors, using them as a base of operation for smuggling Canadian liquor into the country. Thanks to Jernigan's diligence, many of them ended up serving time in the new county jail on Sycamore Street in Santa Ana, a building that would serve as OCSD's main jail and headquarters for the next forty-four years. Jernigan remained in office until the end of the decade. By 1930, the department had grown to include eighteen full-time personnel with an operating budget of $49,582. The county's population was approaching 119,000, over half of which was scattered across a mostly rural landscape.
Sheriff Logan Jackson assumed office in 1931, and for the next eight years guided the department through a turbulent decade. The Long Beach earthquake of 1933 caused widespread damage throughout the county, especially in Santa Ana. In 1938, a week of intense rain overflowed the Santa Ana River, causing a massive flood that caused over $30 million in damage. The sheriff also had to deal with the Citrus Riots of 1936, an agricultural labor dispute that led to a strike and subsequent disturbance so large that Sheriff Jackson swore in over four hundred special deputies to help control the violence. Sheriff Jackson believed that the labor unrest, caused by the depressed wages of citrus workers, was fomented by Communists. On July 7, 1936, he issued a "Shoot to Kill" order, claiming "This is no fight between orchardists and pickers... it is a fight between the entire population of Orange County and a bunch of Communists." His actions created a reign of terror for striking citrus workers But Jackson's term in office also saw advancements for the department, such as an expansion of the Sycamore Jail that included the county's first radio dispatch center. One of his final acts as sheriff was to implement the wearing of uniforms and a standardized badge for all thirty of his deputies.
World War II and the Creation of the Reserve Bureau
Sheriff Jesse Elliott replaced Jackson in 1939, just as the Depression was ending and the county once again began to prosper. This peaceful time was cut short by the outbreak of World War II in 1941, which created challenges unlike any others in department history. Most of Orange County's peace officers left for war, leaving the department critically understaffed. This was made worse by the fact that in addition to his normal responsibilities, the sheriff was now required to assist with mandatory civil defense measures such as air raid drills and blackouts, as well as help police the seven wartime military bases within the county borders. Elliott suddenly found himself responsible for twice as many duties with only a fraction of his former staff to carry them out. To meet this need, he formed the Sheriff's Emergency Reserve, which eventually became the department's current Reserve Bureau.
Post-World War II
In 1946, retired NFL star and former deputy James A. Musick came home from the war and successfully ran for the office of sheriff, assuming command in 1947. He would serve as sheriff for the next twenty-eight years – the longest term in department history. When he took office, the county was still mostly rural, with a population of 216,000 served by a department of only seventy-six. During Musick's administration, a number of divisions and facilities were commissioned that remain active to this day. He implemented the county's first crime lab, its first Peace Officer's Training Center (now known as the Katella Facility), and the nation's first law enforcement Explorer post. The 1960s saw the construction of the Orange County Industrial Farm (later renamed the James A. Musick Jail Facility), the Theo Lacy Facility, and the headquarters and central jails still in use today. In response to the civil unrest of the late 1960s, Musick formed the Emergency Action Group Law Enforcement (EAGLE) team, a group of deputies with specialized training in various riot control and specialized tactics. Although the team disbanded several years later, certain platoons evolved into the modern-day SWAT, Hazardous Devices, and Mounted Patrol units. The department grew even larger when the Coroner's Office merged with it in 1971. By the time Musick retired in 1974, the county had expanded to a rapidly urbanizing population of over 1,400,000, with the department having grown to a staff of over 900.
Musick's handpicked successor was Brad Gates, who became sheriff in 1975. The department continued its rapid expansion during his administration, with the merging of two more agencies – the Orange County Harbor Patrol and the Stanton Police Department. In response to severe jail overcrowding, the Intake Release Center was opened in 1988, completing the modern-day Central Jails Complex. Gates also established the Air Support Bureau and created the Laser Village tactical training center, as well as the county's first DNA laboratory. The continuing urbanization of the county resulted in several cities incorporating and becoming contract patrol areas. Gates also steered the department through the challenges of a severe county bankruptcy in 1994. By the time he retired in 1999, the department had grown to over 3000 members.
Sheriff Carona
Sheriff Michael Carona took office in 1999 and oversaw a merger of the Orange County Marshal's Department (his former agency) with OCSD. His term brought additional department expansion, including a modernized Katella Facility and a new OCSD Academy in Tustin. Patrol cars were equipped with mobile computers, and anti-terrorism units were formed in response to the events of September 11, 2001. Carona received an initial surge in popularity due to the department's handling of high-profile cases such as the abduction and murder of Samantha Runnion. In 2007, Carona and former members of his executive staff were indicted on multiple corruption charges. He was convicted of a felony and entered Englewood Federal Correctional Institution in January 2011. Carona was released in May 2015 to complete his sentence by home confinement.
Carona's replacement, retired L.A. Sheriff's Commander Sandra Hutchens, was appointed by the County Board of Supervisors after a nationwide search for a suitable candidate. Hutchens reorganized the agency after assuming office and created new branches such as the Homeland Security Division, a unified command for the various bureaus responsible for the county's security. In 2016 the Board of Supervisors approved a contract expanding the department's budget, raising deputy salaries "8.5 percent" and costing taxpayers "an additional $62.2 million" overall.
Beds for Feds (2010-2019)
In 2010 OCSD and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reached an agreement that would allow federal detainees to be placed in Orange County Jail facilities and several county deputies to be cross trained as ICE Special Agents. While this contract was set to expire in July 2020, Sheriff-Coroner Don Barnes announced in 2019 that the County intended to terminate the contract early. Barnes explained that the decision was not politically motivated but rather a "business decision" due to the relatively small detainee population, and resulting scarcity of federal funding. Barnes also emphasized that ending this contract with ICE would open up more jail beds for residents living with mental illness, and allow county personnel to shift priorities from detaining immigrants to incarcerating the mentally ill.
Organization
The OCSD is divided into twenty divisions covering five organizational functions: Public Protection; Jail Operations; Technical Services such as investigations, coroner services, and emergency management; and Administrative and Support Services.
The Orange County Marshal's Department was absorbed by OCSD on July 1, 2000; then-Sheriff Michael Carona was the last Marshal. OCSD, under its Court Operations Division, now provides all security and law enforcement services (such as Bailiff services, weapons screening checkpoints and prisoner custody) to the county court system.
The OCSD currently has 1,460 sworn deputies and over 1,446 civilian personnel, with another 800 reserve personnel.
The department-issued sidearm is generally a Glock 17 (which is chambered for 9mm) with an attached Surefire weapon-mounted light. However deputies are also allowed to purchase and carry an approved sidearm of their own (in 9mm, 40 S&W or 45 ACP) and another favored sidearm by some is the Staccato P, which is also carried by Sheriff Barnes.
Command Staff
Executive Command
Sheriff-Coroner Don Barnes
Undersheriff Jeff Hallock
Administrative Services Command
Executive Director Brian Wayt
Communications and Technology
Financial/Administrative Services
Research and Development
Support Services
Custody Operations Command
Assistant Sheriff Jeff Puckett
Central Jail Complex
Musick Facility
Theo Lacy Facility
Intake Release Center and Transportation
Inmate Services
Professional Services Command
Assistant Sheriff Cory Martino
Court Services
Professional Standards
S.A.F.E.
Training
Force
Investigations Command
Assistant Sheriff Andrew Stephens
Field Operations Command
Edit
Assistant Sheriff John McCulloch
Airport Operations
North Operations
Southeast Operations
Southwest Operations
OCTA Police Services
Rank structure
Sworn
Sheriff-Coroner (1)
Undersheriff (1)
Assistant Sheriff (4)
Commander (13)
Captain (15) / Chief Deputy Coroner
Lieutenant / Assistant Chief Deputy Coroner
Sergeant / Supervising Deputy Coroner
Investigator
Master Field Training Officer
Deputy Sheriff II / Senior Deputy Coroner
Deputy Sheriff I / Deputy Coroner
Reserve Deputy Sheriff
Non-sworn
Sheriff's Special Officer II
Sheriff's Special Officer I
Sheriff's Crime Scene Investigators
Sheriff's Correctional Services Assistant
Sheriff's Community Services Officer
Sheriff's Correctional Services Technician
Sheriff's Crime Prevention Specialists
Sheriff's Professional Staff
Sheriff's Cadets
Explorers
Field Operations and Investigative Services
John Wayne Airport Police Services
John Wayne Airport Police Services provides responsive and professional service to John Wayne Airport. The Bureau consists of Deputy Sheriffs and Sheriff's Special Officers along with Explosive Detection Teams They pro-actively protect lives and property at this facility and respond to all calls for service promptly. In addition to these services they remain vigilant against threats (foreign or domestic) to ensure the security and safe operation of this facility. All Airport Police Services employees are expected to represent the department and John Wayne Airport in a friendly, helpful, and professional manner. The current head of John Wayne Airport Police Services is Commander Jared Dahl.
John Wayne Airport
Coroner
OC Crime Lab
Emergency Management
Homeland Security Division
The division is composed of five separate bureaus, each with a nexus to local homeland security. Each one is run by a lieutenant or administrative manager. These bureaus are led by Commander Brent Jasper.
Special Enforcement Bureau (SWAT section/Canine Services/Air-Support Unit/Hazardous Devices Unit/Tactical Arrest Team/Crisis Negotiators Team)
Mass Transit Bureau (OCTA /Explosive Detection Unit/Module-Rail section)
Marine Operations Bureau (Newport Beach Station/Dana Point Station/Sunset-Huntington Station)
Mutual-Aid Bureau (Counter Terrorism section-JTTF/Grants/Sheriff's Response Team)
Orange County Intelligence and Assessment Center
Orange County Harbor Patrol - Marine Operations
Orange County Harbor Patrol includes maritime security and enforcement of laws in Orange County's Harbors. Sheriff's personnel frequently work in conjunction with Federal Homeland Security, and United States Coast Guard for interdiction of contraband and human trafficking. The current head of Harbor Patrol is Orange County Harbormaster, Lieutenant Chris Corn.
Sunset Beach Harbor, California
Newport Harbor, California
Dana Point Harbor, California
Aircraft
The department's 5 helicopters are (3 Eurocopter AS350 B2 [or "A*Stars"] and 2 rescue UH-1H Huey's) use the radio call sign "Duke" (after actor and Newport Beach resident John Wayne) and, appropriately, use John Wayne Airport as their operational base. The original "Duke" helicopters (a pair of Boeing 500s) had an image of John Wayne riding atop a sheriff's badge (while waving his cowboy hat) painted on the fuselage. The Aviation Unit covers the 13 contract cities the department serves, unincorporated communities, as well as a contract with the Santa Ana police department.
OC Transit Police Services
The mission of the OCTA Transit Police Services is to maintain a safe and peaceful environment for OCTA customers and employees, and to ensure the security of OCTA property. The current head of OCTA Police Services is Lieutenant Miguel Sotelo.
Orange County Transit Authority
Investigations
The Investigations Division comprises the Criminal Investigations and Special Investigations Bureaus. The Criminal Investigations Division is based out of headquarters in Santa Ana, California. The Special Investigations division is stationed across the county headquarters, John Wayne Airport, and the Aliso Viejo station. The current head of the Investigations Division is Commander Anthony Benfield.
Criminal Investigations Bureau
Captain Rachel Puckett
Bank Robbery Apprehension Team
Computer Forensics Detail
Crime Analysis Detail
Cyber Crimes Detail
Economic Crimes
Family Protection Detail
Homicide Detail
Special Victims Detail
Special Investigations Bureau
Captain Rene De La Rosa
Gang Enforcement
Narcotics/Vice
Specialized Task Forces
Special Operations
Highway Interdiction Team
North Operations
North Operations includes patrol and investigative services for the northern boundaries of Orange County, this division is based out of Sheriff's Headquarters in Santa Ana, California. The current head of North Operations is Commander Brent Benson.
Emergency Communications Bureau
Captain Aaron Brady
Control One
Dispatch
North Patrol
Captain A.J. Patella
Unincorporated areas of
Anaheim
Brea
Costa Mesa
Garden Grove
La Habra
Newport Beach
Orange
Placentia
Santa Ana
Tustin
Communities of
Emerald Bay
Midway City
Rossmoor
Silverado Canyon
City of
Stanton
Villa Park
Yorba Linda
Security Bureau
The purpose of the Security Bureau is to provide uniform law enforcement presence at contracted county facilities
Captain William Longan
Contracted Facilities
Chief Executive Office
The Orange County Clerk-Recorder
Assessor and Treasury/ Tax Collector
County Social Services Agency
Child Support Services
Probation
Health Care Agency
Hall of Administration
North Investigations
North Investigations consists of general criminal investigations, in-custody court liaison and jail crimes. North Investigators are responsible for The City of Villa Park, county facilities, county parks, the unincorporated communities within North Operations, jail facilities, justice facilities, John Wayne Airport, and the Orange County Fairgrounds
Stanton Police Services
Stanton Police Services includes patrol and investigative services for the city of Stanton, California after the Stanton Police Department was absorbed by OCSD. The current head of Stanton Police Services is Captain Charlie Walters.
Stanton, California
Yorba Linda Police Services
The Sheriff's Department has provided law enforcement services to the City of Yorba Linda since January 2013 after the city decided not to renew its contract with the Brea Police Department. The current head of Yorba Linda Police Services is Captain Joses Walehwa
Yorba Linda
Southeast Operations
The Southeast Operations Division provides law enforcement services to southeast boundaries of Orange County. The division is based out of the Saddleback Station in the City of Lake Forest, California.
Contract Cities
Commander Kirsten Wintersheid
Cities of
Lake Forest, California
Mission Viejo, California
Rancho Santa Margarita, California
South Patrol
Captain Joe Vollmer
Communities of
Coto de Caza, California
Ladera Ranch, California
Las Flores, California
Ortega Highway
Trabuco Canyon, California
Wagon Wheel, California
Southwest Operations
The Southwest Operations Division provides law enforcement services to southwest boundaries of Orange County. The division is based out of the Aliso Viejo Station in the City of Aliso Viejo, California. The current head of Southwest Operations is Commander Virgil Asuncion.
Cities of
Aliso Viejo, California
Dana Point, California
Laguna Hills, California
Laguna Niguel, California
Laguna Woods, California
San Clemente, California
San Juan Capistrano, California
In 1993 San Clemente Police Department was absorbed into OCSD, however San Clemente only allows the former San Clemente Police Station to be used by deputies who patrol their city.
Training Division
The Training Division develops, schedules, and presents law enforcement training for sworn peace officers and professional staff. The department utilizes two training sites ensuring the best learning environment possible, depending on the specific needs of the course. Advanced officer training is primarily conducted at the Katella Facility in Orange. Academy and entry level training is primarily conducted at the Sheriff's Regional Training Academy in Tustin. The Orange County Sheriff's Department, as well as multiple local, state and even federal public safety agencies train at and utilize both sites. Extensive input from law enforcement and other leaders throughout the county help to mold the curriculum and training that is offered. Both facilities are often utilized seven days per week and include daytime and evening instruction. The division is led by Captain Brad Virgoe.
The Orange County Sheriff's Regional Training Academy is located in Tustin, California, on the site of the former Tustin Marine Corps Air Station. The facility opened in late 2007 and replaced the old academy on Salinas Avenue in Garden Grove which was no longer adequate due to overcrowding. [1] The Orange County Sheriff's Regional Training Academy produces highly trained and professional Deputy Sheriffs & Police Officers, Sheriff's Special Officers, and Correctional Services Assistants. Some training is also conducted at a Sheriff's facility on Katella Avenue in Orange, California.
The Katella Training Facility in Orange, California, houses the qualifications range, tactical range, administrative offices, advanced officer training, and elements of Homeland Security Division's Special Enforcement Bureau.
Some of the Orange County municipal agencies that send their recruit officers to OCSA include Newport Beach Police Department, Laguna Beach Police Department, Irvine Police Department, Costa Mesa Police Department, University of California Irvine Police Department, Fullerton Police Department, Garden Grove Police Department, Westminster Police Department, La Habra Police Department, Brea Police Department, Placentia Police Department, Tustin Police Department, and Orange Police Department.
Orange County residents are not the only recipients of the Orange County Sheriff's Academy's highly trained peace officers. Many Los Angeles County municipal police agencies send their recruits to be trained by the those at OCSA. Some of these agencies include; Beverly Hills Police Department, Santa Monica Police Department, University of California Los Angeles Police Department, Torrance Police Department, Hawthorne Police Department, Palos Verdes Estates Police Department, Redondo Beach Police Department, Manhattan Beach Police Department, South Gate Police Department, Burbank Police Department, Glendale Police Department, and more.
Jails
The OCSD Custody Operations Division operates four jails:
Central Men's Jail and Women's Jail - The Central Jail Complex, opened in 1968, is located next to the department offices in Santa Ana. It houses approximately 2,664 inmates. In January 2016, three inmates escaped from the jail.
Intake Release Center (IRC) - In 1988 as a part of the Central Jail Complex, the Intake Release Center was built to facilitate the intake and processing of inmates, and the including medical screening, booking, properidentification, and transfers between facilities. While it is a transitional facility, it also holds male and female inmates for brief periods.
Theo Lacy Facility - The TLF, located in the city of Orange, was originally built in 1960. A major expansion completed in 2006 brought its capacity to 3,100 inmates, making it the largest jail in the county.
James A. Musick Facility - A minimum security facility located on unincorporated county land near Lake Forest and Irvine, "The Farm" provides custodial and rehabilitative programs for 1256 adult male and female inmates.
Courts
After the Orange County Marshal's Department was absorbed by OCSD, the sheriff's department became responsible for providing court services. There are Sheriff's personnel stationed at the Justice Centers throughout the County. Sheriff's staff at the Justice Centers fulfill the vital mission of the Sheriff that include bailiff services in each courtroom and weapons screening operations in the lobby of each Justice Center. Each justice center houses a detention holding facility for inmates who are appearing in court each day. These detention facilities are staffed by Deputy Sheriffs. There are also Deputies assigned to the Civil Enforcement Bureau who handle services in every city of the county serving restraining orders and court subpoenas, conducting evictions, and effecting bench warrants. The Special Operations and Judicial Protection Unit provides specialized protective and investigative services to counter any threats, perceived or real towards the judiciary of the Superior Court of California, County of Orange. All of these personnel fall under the Court Operations Command of the OCSD Professional Services Command. The current heads of Court Operations are Commander Bradley Valentine and Commander Ehren Weidenkeller.
Orange County Sheriff's Offices are located at the following Superior Court of California facilities in the County of Orange:
Central Justice Center (CJC) in Santa Ana
Lamoreaux Family & Juvenile Law Justice Center (LJC) in Orange
North Justice Center (NJC) in Fullerton
West Justice Center (WJC) in Westminster
Harbor Justice Center (HJC) in Newport Beach
Costa Mesa Justice Complex (CMJC) in Costa Mesa
Orange County Sheriff's Department Explorer Post 449
In November 1959, Orange County Sheriff James A. Musick wanted "young men," who desired exposure in the field of law enforcement to be afforded the opportunity to do so. In a newspaper article he stated, "We organized the group after we found that other special interest Explorer Posts were taking our best young men from our high schools. We decided, rather than take what was left over after other fields of endeavor took the best, that we should start training young men of high school age now for a career in law enforcement."
Thus, the first Law Enforcement Exploring Post in the nation was established. Its purposes were, "To train young men of today for the future that awaits them in the law enforcement field of tomorrow. To stimulate young men's interest in law enforcement practices, the code of ethics, and the fine qualities of citizenship which are expected, to briefly explore all phases of law enforcement and to be a definite approach to juvenile decency." Post 449 began with twenty-eight explorers in Santa Ana who had to meet the qualifications of being "between 14 and 21, must maintain a "B" average in school, have a clean record, be of outstanding citizenship in their community and have a general reputation beyond reproach."
In 1973, after fifteen years of only young men being allowed in the Exploring program, Boy Scouts of America allowed young women to explore careers in law enforcement through membership in a Explorer Program. Maintaining the same high standards for qualification and training these young women diversified the Department's Post.
When the residents of contract cities and the unincorporated county area need help they call the Sheriff's Department; when the Sheriff's Department needs help they call on their Explorers. The Orange County Sheriff's Explorer Post supports deputies during road closures caused by natural disasters such as mudslides, floods and forest fires. They complete search missions where either missing persons or evidence is sought and are deployed to protect crime scene perimeters. This involvement, by the Explorers, allows patrol deputies to be available for calls for service.
Explorers are also used to assist in public education. They distribute brochures explaining changes in parking regulations or temporary street closures. During Bicycle Rodeo Events, Explorers demonstrate to children how to properly size and wear bicycle helmets. They offer child identification and crime awareness, through a "Kid-Print" program and assist in crime prevention demonstrations throughout the county.
The Department's Explorers serve the community by providing crowd and traffic control during Basic Academy Graduations, County Building Dedications, Mall grand openings, Community awareness fairs, 10 K runs, parades and a multitude of other charitable events. The Post's Color guard is used to present the flag at City Council and County Board of Supervisor meetings, as well as scouting and civic events.
The Orange County Sheriff's Department Explorers participate in Law Enforcement competitions throughout the state. Through the use of the Department's "Laser Village" and its Training Staff, Post 449 Explorers have learned skills which enabled them to win several awards in Felony Car Stop, D.U.I., Bomb Threat and Search and Building Search scenarios. The Explorers also compete in Tug-of War, Volleyball and Obstacle Course competitions.
Sheriff's personnel, who volunteer as Advisors for the Department's Post, contribute countless hours exposing youths to Law Enforcement Careers. Their commitment to the advancement of the Exploring program goes beyond the Department's Post. The Department's Advisors also serve on the County-wide Organization as Ranking Officials, Academy Directors, Tactical Training Officers and Instructors at the Explorer Academy. In addition to Orange County, these Advisors have trained and taught Explorers from Kern, Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and Ventura counties.
List of sheriffs
Richard T. Harris (1889–1891)
Theo Lacy (1891–1895)
Joe C. Nichols (1895–1899)
Theo Lacy (1899–1911)
Charles Ruddock (1911–1915)
Calvin E. Jackson (1915–1923)
Sam Jernigan (1923–1931)
Logan Jackson (1931–1939)
Jesse L. Elliott (1939–1947)
James A. Musick (1947–1975)
Brad Gates (1975–1999)
Mike Carona (1999–2008)
Jack Anderson (Assistant Sheriff, acting as Sheriff) (January–June 2008)
Sandra Hutchens (2008–January 7, 2019)
Don Barnes (January 7, 2019–Present)
See also
List of law enforcement agencies in California
References
External links
Orange County Sheriff's Department
Sheriffs' departments of California
1889 establishments in California
Government agencies established in 1889
Emergency services in Orange County, California
Government of Orange County, California
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%20Allerton%20Park
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Robert Allerton Park
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The Robert Allerton Park is a park, nature center, and conference center located in the rural Piatt County township of Willow Branch, (T 18 N, R 5 E) near Monticello, Illinois, on the upper Sangamon River. The park and manor house, The Farms, are attributed to owner Robert Allerton, industrialist heir, artist, art collector and garden designer. Robert donated the complex to the University of Illinois in 1946.
The National Park Service registered the Robert Allerton Estate as a National Historic Place on July 18, 2007. The Allerton Natural Area within the park was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1970.
As of 2007, the park was used by approximately 100,000 visitors per year. It has been described as "a vast prairie turned into a personal fantasy land of neoclassical statues, Far Eastern art, and huge European-style gardens surrounding a Georgian-Revival mansion".
About Robert Allerton
Robert Henry Allerton (1873–1964) was heir to a Chicago banking and stockyard fortune created by his father, Samuel Allerton (1828–1914), one of the founders of Chicago's Union Stock Yards. Robert was artistically inclined from his youth, and he studied art for four years in Munich, Paris and London. In 1897 he returned to Illinois and settled on one of the family's farms near Monticello. Two years later he began work on the imposing brick mansion. Throughout the next forty–seven years Robert Allerton transformed the country house, The Farms, into a central Illinois showplace estate, with activity climaxing in the 1920s and early 1930s. In 1932 John Gregg (1899–1986), who would become Robert Allerton's legally adopted son in 1960, was employed full time to design new gardens and interior features in the house and help with the farm management. Gregg had been working for Chicago society architect David Adler (1882–1949) until the effects of the stock market crash in 1929 caused a drop in house design commissions. Gregg took the Allerton surname in 1965 following Robert Allerton's death.
Allerton also pursued ties with the University of Illinois. In September 1920 while living at The Farms he was asked by the university to serve as an advisory member to the Campus Plan Commission. The commission finished its work by October 1922 with the completion of the plan for the area south of the Auditorium by Charles A. Platt (1861–1933) and was discharged at that time. In 1926 Allerton established the Allerton Scholarships in American architecture. Annually, he invited graduating students in architecture and landscape architecture to The Farms.
Gift to the University of Illinois
After the Great Depression, World War II, and U.S. federal income taxes made it more difficult to staff and operate stately homes like The Farms, the Allertons moved to Lawai-Kai (now Allerton Garden), Kaua'i, Hawaii, in 1946, after deeding the Piatt County property to the University of Illinois. At the time, taxes on Allerton land accounted for one-fifth of all tax revenue to support public works in the Willow Branch Township. The university, however, disputed its obligation to pay taxes on the estate, citing itself as a non-profit, tax exempt state institution. The Township, not wishing to lose a significant portion of its tax funding, protested. The university was found in 1949 to be in delinquency of unpaid real estate taxes. A later Illinois Supreme Court ruling resolved the matter: the university would make an annual payment in lieu of taxes to Piatt County. The public park and woodland acreage are today tax-exempt; only the income-generating farmland is taxed.
When deeded to the University on October 14, 1946, the 5,500 acre estate was worth approximately $1.3 million. Adjusted for inflation, it would be worth nearly $20 million in 2022 dollars.
The estate was logically divided into three areas. The principal area of 1,500 acres, originally known as the Woodland Property, was renamed the Robert Allerton Park. A smaller area of land located north of the park area was put to use for the Illinois 4-H Memorial Camp and its related recreational programs. Finally, the third and largest area composing 3,775 acres of land in eight different farms all north of the Sangamon river was farmed by tenants and the income used to support the rest of the park.
In 2007 the north farms were turned over to the University of Illinois Endowment in return for shares entitling the park to a percentage of the annual return on the endowment investments. The tenants are required to submit cash bids for leases on the land they farm.
The Allerton farms in Robert Allerton's time consisted of Piatt North No. 1-8 (PN No. 1-8) and Piatt South No. 1-6 (PS No. 1-6). PN No. 1 was the headquarters for the farm operations. The last of Allerton's buildings at this site were the c.1862 farmhouse, demolished in 2014, and the c.1912 Amenia wooden grain elevator that burned on 15 April 2015.
PN No. 2 became part of Allerton Park and has been used as a diversified farm. The c.1880 farmhouse was demolished in 2013, but several farm outbuildings remain. PN No. 1, 3-5, 7-8 are tenant farms turned over to the Endowment in 2007. PN No. 6 field acreage became part of PN No.4 when the farmstead buildings were demolished to make room for the WILL AM/FM/TV transmitter tower and equipment building in 1966.
Along with Robert Allerton's gift to the University of Illinois in 1946 he gave the six farms south of the Sangamon River to the Allerton Trust to be administered for the benefit of The Art Institute of Chicago. PS No. 1 was sold to the university in 1993 and added to Allerton Park. PS No. 2-3, 6 were sold to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources in 2000–2002. PS No. 4 and 5 were sold at auction in November 2000.
After the university took possession of the estate in October 1946 the park remained closed to the public because it lacked staff and amenities. The first event on the grounds was a gala garden party on 16 May 1947 to celebrate the inauguration of George D. Stoddard (1897–1981) as president of the University of Illinois. An open house on 24 May gave the public a glimpse of the future park, but the grounds remained closed until 1949.
Several years were required to prepare Allerton House as a conference center, with the first conference being held in June 1949. This was a Seminar on Educational Radio with participants from all over the United States and several foreign countries. The two-week conference was directed by university specialists in mass communications.
Allerton was a philanthropist for most of his life. Today, both Robert Allerton Park and Allerton Garden in Hawaii are open to the public. Allerton also made significant gifts and bequests to the Honolulu Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Gardens
Allerton Park's gardens consist of a 1/4-mile-long (0.4 km) formal garden, and a 1-mile-long (2 km) sculpture walk extending westward from the end of the formal garden. The gardens incorporate many pieces of sculpture and ornaments.
The gardens are laid out along an axis oriented on the course of the Sangamon River, which runs from northeast to southwest through the park. Directions in the park are generally given as if the axis was straight east and west.
Fu Dog Garden
This garden, featuring an array of 22 blue porcelain Fu Dog statues in front of white fir trees, was originally commissioned in 1932 to display Allerton's collection of the ceramic statues. The focal point of the garden is these 22 statues mounted on concrete pedestals. Standing behind the pedestals are opposing rows of fir trees that form the garden's outer border. To allow enough sunlight to reach the garden, the surrounding woods were cut back approximately 100 feet. North of this garden stands the House of the Golden Buddhas, a folly which permits an aerial view of the garden.
Herb Garden
Located behind the stable, the Herb Garden, also called the Kitchen Garden, is characterized by its many green herbs and a green porcelain Fu Dog statue. It was redone into its present form in 1997, and plantings were started in 1999. In the years since then a sundial, an urn and a Longshadow planter have been added. Plantings were removed from half the garden in order to use it as a staging area for the Allerton House roofing project in 2015–2016. This area was replanted in May 2019.
Brick Walled Garden
The oldest garden on the Allerton Estate, the Brick Walled Garden was constructed in 1902 and is characterized by its tall, red-brick walls. It was originally a vegetable garden with bean trellises and a dipping pool in the center for irrigation. In the 1940s the plantings were changed to grassy quadrants bordered with hedges. The pool was replaced by the present center feature, the Girl with the Scarf sculpture. The sculpture, a white concrete figure by Lili Auer (1904- ), was added to the garden in 1942.
Owing to the decay of the brickwork, the garden was restored in the summer of 2010. Large parts of the walls were entirely demolished and rebuilt. Eight stone fruit baskets and six orb finials, or globe stones, dating from 1905 were restored to the new walls. New walkways, including an ADA wheelchair ramp, were installed, along with new plants, flowers, espaliered apple trees, and other landscape elements. In 2019 the pea gravel walks were converted to hard pebble aggregate to make them wheelchair accessible.
Triangle Parterre Garden
This garden was defined by towering arborvitae trees and annual flowers in triangular hedge parterre patterns in recent years. In spring 2019 the garden was cleared of vegetation and replanted with new arborvitae and boxwood hedges to bring it more in scale with Robert Allerton's original design. On the gateposts at the east and west ends are two stone animal sculptures called Assyrian Lions patterned after an ancient prototype. A stair tower pavilion built in 1987 stands beside the common wall with the Peony Garden. This replaced an earlier tower built to enclose the stairs to the now closed Wall Walk along the Peony Garden.
Peony Garden
This garden was designed to showcase nearly 70 varieties of peonies and is enclosed on three sides with concrete walls. The north wall has a cantilevered Wall Walk intended to permit visitors an aerial view of the garden. Due to age and deterioration of the wall, the walkway was closed by the 1980s.
At the east end of the garden stands a limestone copy of the Three Graces sculpture by Germain Pilon (1535-1590) in the Louvre, Paris.
Chinese Maze Garden
The Chinese Maze Garden features two sets of hedges trimmed in a variation of the ancient Chinese symbol Shou, suggesting a maze. Two large fish fountain statues purchased by Robert Allerton in Peking (now Beijing) in 1930 sit in the center of each maze. Two stair towers outside the garden wall once permitted garden visitors access to an aerial view of the Maze from the Wall Walk. Unfortunately, the towers are no longer standing today.
A hosta garden occupies the tower sites. The wrought iron gates were designed by John Borie, and were originally located at the Brick Wall Garden.
Annual Garden
Located adjacent to the meadow, the Annual Garden is characterized by its colorful flower beds and the Marble Faun statue at the east end. This figure is based on a Roman original in the Naples Museum. In May 2015 a limestone obelisk was placed in each of the long beds as a decorative feature. These obelisks were designed and carved by Charles Laing (1878-1959) of Chicago for Robert Allerton, and were formerly on either side of the Allerton House entrance door. They were removed from the garden in spring 2019.
Sunken Garden
Before the Sunken Garden was created in 1915, the area had been used as the estate's garbage dump. An earlier design of the garden featured gazebos at either end. John Gregg Allerton redesigned the garden several times with the final version being completed in 1932. The garden is now a favorite spot for weddings, concerts and graduation ceremonies.
The Sunken Garden features a large, open grassy area sunken below the usual ground level, surrounded by walls and with four towering Balinese style gateways. Atop the gateways are bronzed Guardian Fish statues called shachi. They were thought to protect the home from fires. Robert Allerton purchased them in Japan where he had seen the originals at Nagoya Castle. Gateways and fish were added c.1931.
Features
House of the Golden Buddhas
Characterized by its golden Buddha statues, this structure is a two-story folly, the upper floor being an observation deck for the Fu Dog Garden. It is sometimes referred to as the "Fu Dog Tower". The lower part is an octagonal concrete tower built in 1917 that houses two gilded teakwood Buddhas from Thailand and a limestone sculpture of Hari-Hara, a Brahmin god. This sculpture is a copy of a 7th-century statue in the Musée Albert Sarraut in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. A circular iron stairway leads up to the ornate New Orleans style cast iron gazebo purchased and installed by Robert Allerton in 1924.
Glass doors and windows were added in 1986 for security, but the doors were removed in 2004. In summer 2007, extensive repairs were made to the tower, including restoration of the roof, and removal of the windows, which were not original to the building.
Avenue of the Musicians
Connecting the Maze Garden to the Sunken Garden, the Avenue of Musicians features a dozen statues representing various flute, drum, and stringed-instrument players. In 1912 this space was just a tree-lined avenue. The statues were moved from the Lost Garden located on the South Side of the park to this area in 1977. The present statues are copies of the originals purchased in England by Robert Allerton.
Sun Singer
The sculpture walk concludes with The Sun Singer, a copy of an Art Moderne bronze sculpted by Swedish artist Carl Milles (1875-1955) in 1919 to stand overlooking the harbor in Stockholm. Robert Allerton commissioned a reduced size copy in 1929, but the artist sent a 16-foot full−size casting instead. After the statue arrived John Gregg Allerton designed a three−tiered platform styled after the Altar of Heaven in the Forbidden City of Beijing as a base in 1932.
The statue depicts the Greek sun god Apollo. On his helmet is the winged horse Pegasus, and relief figures of the nine Muses surround the base. Under his right foot is a tortoise, an allusion to the first lyre made of tortoise shell by Hermes and given to Apollo.
The Sun Singer underwent a $39,000 restoration in June–July 2007 to remove vandal graffiti and restore the patina of the , sculpture.
Death of the Last Centaur
Located in the forest past the formal gardens, this statue by the French artist Emile-Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929) is of an allegorical scene, the death of Paganism. In a hazardous process seldom used today, the figure was cast in bronze to which gold had been added. Half man, half horse, the centaur represents the musician Chiron, who offered his own life in exchange for that of Prometheus, the benefactor of the human race in ancient Greek mythology.
After Robert Allerton purchased Death of the Last Centaur from Bourdelle in Paris in 1929, John Gregg Allerton designed this setting for it. The park's two major trails on the north side of the Sangamon River intersect here in the shape of a cross. A set of 60 concrete steps leads down toward the river, and four massive pillars stand at each end of the cross−path.
Death of the Last Centaur can also be reached by car on Old Timber Road. There is a small parking lot and a wooded path to the sculpture.
Frémiet Sculptures
Two bronze sculptures by the French artist Emmanuel Frémiet (1824-1910) were returned to Allerton Park in September 2016. The sculptures are not original Allerton pieces, but were donated to the University of Illinois in 1959 and subsequently placed along the park trails. They were loaned out for a traveling exhibition in 1980, moved from the park to the Krannert Art Museum in 1988, and finally placed in storage until new settings were created in the park.
Popularly called Gorilla Carrying off a Woman and Bear and Man of the Stone Age (Denicheur d'Oursons), they depict violent encounters between animals and Stone Age people. Subject to controversy since they were created in 1885 and 1887 because of the violent subject matter, they are however, immensely popular with park visitors who enjoy being surprised by finding them in the woods along the Orange Trail.
Reflecting Pond
The pond was designed to simulate the River Thames' reflection of Ham House, one of the models for Allerton House. The pond is fed by a natural ground spring. A concrete dam and spillway allow excess water to run off into the Sangamon River.
The pond has been stocked with small fish such as bluegills and has a large population of native frogs and turtles.
When Robert Allerton died in 1964 his ashes were scattered over Lawai-Kai Bay in Hawaii, and there is no grave marker for him. In 1965 a granite boulder with the inscription "ROBERT ALLERTON HE GAVE HIS WOODLAND HOME TO THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS FOR THE PEOPLE TO ENJOY AND TO ENRICH THEIR LIVES" was installed in the pond to commemorate his life.
Old Levee Road
When the original bridge over the Sangamon River was built in 1915 a levee was constructed across the floodplain north of the river to form a level approach to the bridge. The entrance drive including the levee was paved with a single lane brick farm-to-market road running east from the Gate House, south to Allerton Road (Route 6; C.R. 1450N) and on into Monticello to accommodate fully loaded wagons going into town. An unpaved lane ran alongside the brick for the return trip. Both lanes were paved with asphalt in 1981. Two brick columns topped with statues of the goddess Diana and her companion, an Ephebe, were placed at the southeast gate on Allerton Road. When the old bridge was replaced by a new bridge in 2012 the entrance drive through the park was designated Old Levee Road.
Pioneer Cemeteries
Two small family cemeteries established in the 1840s are located in the park. The Sheppard Family cemetery has ten markers for members of that family and several others. It is located south of the road to the Sun Singer.
The West Family cemetery has markers for members of the John West family who settled near Willow Branch creek, now in the South Side of the park. The cemetery is located north of County Road 1300 North.
Buildings
Robert Allerton Park contains three residences as well as a number of utility structures such as barns and greenhouses.
Allerton House (The Farms)
The section of the park north of the winding Sangamon River includes Allerton's 40-room (30,000 sq. ft.) stately home, The Farms.
Construction of the house began on June 13, 1899, and was mostly finished about a year later, in 1900, at a cost of approximately $50,000. Adjusted for inflation, his house would have cost approximately $1.3 million in 2011 dollars. By fall of 1900, though the interiors were not completely finished, Robert Allerton moved into his new house. Construction of the supporting structures: the stables (1901–02), greenhouses (1902), Gate House (1903), and Brick Walled Garden (1902), followed afterward.
The style is Georgian-Revival, influenced by the work done at the office of McKim, Mead, and White. The architect, John Borie (1869-1925), was likely influenced more by 17th century English country houses, such as Ham House. Borie and Allerton together studied many examples of English houses and gardens before deciding on the architecture and design of Allerton House and the surrounding gardens. Like many English country homes, the main entrance is on the side of the house instead of the front, in order to offer more privacy to those entering and exiting the house.
The exterior materials used for the house were Dutch bricks (Flemish bond) and Indiana limestone. The general contractor was from Chicago, William Mavor (1848-1904). The slate roofs of the house and stable were replaced with new Pennsylvania slate, copper flashing and lightning rods in August 2015–May 2016.
Today the house is used as a conference and retreat center, as well as a reception hall for weddings. In recent years, the house has been opened up for more events and is available to guests for overnight lodging as part of the Allerton Park Master Plan approved by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees in 2015.
Principal rooms
The House has five principal rooms, all located on the ground floor: the Gallery, the Library, the Butternut Room, the Pine Room, and the Oak Room. The purpose and names of some of these rooms have changed in the century since the house was built. Excepting the Gallery and the Library, all of these rooms have 12 ft ceilings. All of these rooms feature a fireplace, at least three windows, and a herringbone patterned hardwood floor.
The Gallery
The Gallery spans the entire length of the main house (excepting the servants' wing) and is approximately 90 feet long with a 14 ft ceiling height. It features a large marble fireplace, painted white pine paneling, and dentil crown molding. At the north end of the Gallery is the grand staircase that leads to the second story. Extending from the Gallery is the servants' wing, solarium, and the rest of the principal rooms. Above the fireplace hangs a portrait of Robert's father, Samuel Allerton (1828–1914), by Ellen Emmet Rand (1875–1941).
The Library
Originally called the Music Room on the architect's drawings, the Library is two stories tall and features a parquet patterned floor. Three large, floor to ceiling windows provide a view and entry to the back terrace. Later remodeling added a second-story balcony and bookshelves on the interior wall to replace most of the wall paneling.
The second floor balcony is kept locked because it contains many rare, first edition books, as well as books containing Mr. Allerton's signature. When the Allertons moved to Hawaii in the 1940s, they took most of their books with them except for about 2000 books in this collection. Besides Robert Allerton's personal books there are many that belonged to his stepmother Agnes Allerton (1858–1924) and members of her family. There is a hand-written card catalog of the collection.
Hanging in the library are architectural plans for a stone mantel that was never built (it doesn't exist today). The paneling shown in those plans also does not exist today; in its place are many bookshelves.
The limestone plaque on the outside Library facade above the French doors facing the Library Terrace has ROBERT HENRY ALLERTON and the date MDCCCC incised on the surface. This takes the place of a traditional cornerstone.
The Butternut Room
Known to be Robert Allerton's favorite room of the house, the Butternut Room was originally designated as the Dining Room. The room features butternut wall paneling. Above the fireplace hangs a portrait of Robert Allerton when he was around 24 years old, painted by his friend, Ellen Emmet Rand.
Window benches were designed for the room by John Gregg Allerton, and added in the 1930s.
The Pine Room
This room was originally labeled as the Library for the house. It is today named after its pine wall paneling.
Over the fireplace is a portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria (1609–1669), wife of King Charles I (1600–1649) of England, by an unknown artist. On the opposite wall is a copy of a portrait of King Philip II (1527–1598) of Spain by Titian.
The Oak Room
The smallest principal room, the Oak Room is located toward the back of the house, adjacent to the Library. It is so named for its oak wall paneling. A pair of French doors lead out to the back terrace. This room was marked as the Office on the original floor plans and was used for that purpose by Robert Allerton.
On the wall above the fireplace is a portrait of Robert's godmother, Anna Rathbone. Four floral paintings by Rainey Bennett (1907–1998), a friend of the Allerton family, are on the other walls.
Plans formerly hanging in the Gallery show a proposed, but never constructed, addition to the house that would have turned the Oak Room into an Octagonal Room and added a loggia.
Other rooms
Other rooms in the house include the breakfast room and upstairs bedrooms. The attached servants' wing held the pantry, kitchens, laundry, woodshed, and a refrigerated room. Rooms in this wing are used as offices for staff.
The Stable
Originally built for horses, the stable was converted for use as an automobile garage when motor cars came to replace horse-drawn carriages. The stable was originally disconnected from the main house. The Marble Hall, constructed in 1912, connects the house and stable. Today the stable is used as kitchens and large dining area for conference guests.
The stable facade facing the Library Terrace has two carved Indiana limestone masks designed by John Borie and located above the arched doorways leading out of a former conservatory area now called the Breakfast Room. These are known as the Masks of Pan, and are a variation of the European Green Man, a benevolent woodland spirit carved onto many cathedrals and public buildings. They are bearded smiling faces with leafy foliage hair and curling rams horns. Festoons of fruit are suspended from each horn.
House in the Woods
Located southwest of the formal gardens along Old Timber Road, this house has a blue-gray stucco exterior and some Georgian/Neo-Classical architectural elements. The Neo-Classical front door surround was formerly the entrance door of Allerton House, and was removed during the 1912 construction of the Marble Hall in that building.
Designed by Joseph Corson Llewellyn (1855-1932), this house was constructed in 1917 not of wood, the most common building material, but instead of hollow tile and blue-gray stucco. This was done to show that houses could be built of fire-proof materials without incurring additional expense.
The house was built on the site of the former Ashby family farm. Foundations of several of the farm buildings remain. On the north side of Old Timber Road can be seen the concrete foundation of a dairy barn that burned. The 4-H Memorial Camp boat house is built on part of the foundation of another barn. Other foundations can be found in the woods behind the house.
The house is located amongst a grove of evergreens, near the lake which forms the central axis of the 4-H Memorial camp.
Gate House
Architect John Borie designed this Colonial Revival style brick house built in 1903 as the residence of the head gardener. Its masonry exterior is composed of the same materials used in Allerton House, also designed by Borie. Today it stands at what originally was the end of the public road leading to Allerton's private grounds. After an exchange of lands, this road was no longer a public thoroughfare. When the estate became a public park the road was reopened as a county road (C.R. 1400N-575E) called Old Timber Road.
Rooms in the Gate House are now used to accommodate overnight visitors to the park.
The Gate House lawn, formerly the site of Robert Allerton's tennis court, is the scene of concerts during warm weather.
Music Barn
In 1993 the farmstead with house and outbuildings formerly known as the Allerton Farm Piatt South No. 1 was bought by the University of Illinois from the Allerton Trust and incorporated into the park. This area is west of the south entrance along Allerton Road. After several years as an Environmental Learning Center the circa 1890 Dutch style horse barn on the property was remodeled in 2005 into a music performance venue seating 175 in the hayloft. Ventilation is regulated by opening and closing the hay door. Because the barn has natural air-conditioning, concerts are held in the spring and autumn. It was the home of the Allerton Music Barn Festival, a classical music festival sponsored by the University of Illinois School of Music, every September from 2007 to 2014. In 2016 the Festival became part of the Allerton Park Concert Series.
Forests and meadows
The Allerton estate still encompasses hundreds of acres of forests and meadows which are used today by 4–H members, hunters, and hikers. A slate of charity runs, encompassing a 5K run, a 10K run and a half-marathon, are held annually in spring.
Southern Open space preserve
The section of the Robert Allerton Park south of the Sangamon River was left almost entirely natural open space preserve during the Allerton era. In response to a 1966 United States Army Corps of Engineers plan to build Oakley Dam downstream of Allerton Park on the Sangamon River, a grassroots organization called the Committee on Allerton Park (COAP) successfully campaigned to stop construction. This prevented what would have been the condemnation of a substantial portion of the park's riverine bottomland.
As protected natural space, the southern section of the Park contains a network of nature trails sloping down from parking areas toward the Sangamon River. Several of the trails have signs describing the floodplain river ecology of central Illinois. The southern section of the park and adjacent Sangamon River bottomland, a parcel of , was designated as the Allerton Natural Area, a U.S. National Natural Landmark, in 1970. The parcel was described in 1997 as 400 acres of upland oak-hickory forests, called "one of the oldest forest remnants in the Grand Prairie" and 600 acres of riverine bottomland, called "an exceptional floodplain forest of silver maple, cottonwood, and sycamore."
The southern section also contains a restored prairie, one of the oldest prairie restorations in Illinois, begun in 1955 and now approaching maturity.
Lost Garden
The Lost Garden was laid out in 1932 on an east–west axis in the southwestern part of the area now known as the South Side. It was intended as a strolling and picnic garden for Robert Allerton and his friends. Although this area is now woodland and part of the U.S. National Natural Landmark, in 1932 it was farmland formerly owned by the Benz family. In typical Allerton fashion the garden was a gravel walkway lined with trees, flowers and statuary. A rectangular Summer House pavilion with a circular stair to the roof designed by John Gregg was added in 1936.
Remote from everything else on the estate, the garden was difficult to maintain as a public area and was gradually dismantled after 1960. Statues were moved elsewhere; the Summer House deteriorated and was torn down in 1972. Today the site is a grassy path between two concrete pedestal bases. Two brick seating walls remain by the Summer House floor slab. The site may be reached from a parking lot along Allerton Road.
Notable events
The first automobile arrived at The Farms when Samuel Allerton presented Robert with a 1907 seven–passenger Stevens–Duryea Big Six Touring car. That car would be worth over $100,000 today.
Allerton Park was the venue for the Symposium on Principles of Self-Organization 8–9 June 1961 organised by Heinz von Foerster through the Biological Computer Laboratory based at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The massive central Illinois Valentine's Day ice storm struck Allerton Park on 14 February 1990, resulting in much damage and a four–day power outage.
The Illinois Natural History Survey sponsored the Biodiversity Blitz, a 24–hour all–species inventory at Allerton Park on 29–30 June 2001. Over 2000 species of plants and animals were identified and recorded.
In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, Allerton Park was selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places by the American Institute of Architects Illinois component (AIA Illinois) and was recognized by USA Today Travel magazine, as one of AIA Illinois' selections for Illinois 25 Must See Places.
References
External links
Robert Allerton Park - official University of Illinois Allerton website with events and information
Pictures from Inside the Robert Allerton House - pictures of the Allerton house interiors
Map of Allerton Park - shows locations of all major gardens, features, and buildings
Allerton Races - official web site with race dates and information
Illinois Great Places - Allerton Park
Society of Architectural Historians SAH ARCHIPEDIA entry on Allerton Park
Colonial Revival architecture in Illinois
Houses completed in 1900
National Natural Landmarks in Illinois
Parks in Illinois
Botanical gardens in Illinois
Sculpture gardens, trails and parks in the United States
Outdoor sculptures in Illinois
Protected areas of Piatt County, Illinois
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Nature centers in Illinois
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois
National Register of Historic Places in Piatt County, Illinois
1900 establishments in Illinois
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5041719
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiharu%20Habu
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Yoshiharu Habu
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is a professional shogi player and a chess FIDE Master. He is a former holder of the Ryūō, Meijin, Ōi, Ōza, Kiō, Ōshō and Kisei major titles. He was the first person to simultaneously hold seven major professional shogi titles at the same time and is the only person to qualify as a lifetime title holder for seven major titles. In January 2018, Habu became the first professional shogi player to be awarded Japan's People's Honour Award. In June 2023, he was elected to the board of directors of the Japan Shogi Association (JSA), and chosen by the board to be the JSA president.
Early life, amateur shogi and apprenticeship
Yoshiharu Habu was born in Tokorozawa, Saitama in 1970 and moved to Hachioji, Tokyo before entering kindergarten. Habu first encountered shogi in his first year of elementary school, when his classmates taught him how the shogi pieces move. He was so fascinated by the game that his mother entered him in a shogi tournament held at the Hachioji Shogi Club in the summer of 1978. Although Habu was eliminated during the preliminary rounds with a record of 1 win and 2 losses, his parents took him to the shogi club every weekend from October 1978. Habu improved so rapidly that he was promoted to amateur 5-dan in October 1981 at the age of eleven.
During his elementary school days, Habu regularly participated in regional and national shogi tournaments, mainly for children. At these tournaments, Habu played against several children of the same age who also became professional players, including Toshiyuki Moriuchi, Yasumitsu Satō and Manabu Senzaki. Those players born around 1970 are now known as the , not just because they were born in the same year, but also due to their outstanding achievements as players.
In July 1981, Habu qualified to participate in the as the youngest ever representative ever of the Tokyo Suburban Area, and won four tournaments for elementary school children the following August. In April 1982, Habu won the 7th . He expressed his desire to become a professional player and asked advice from Katsuyasu Nakajima, the owner of the Hachioji Shogi Club and a student of Tatsuya Futakami. Habu applied for admission into the Japan Shogi Association's apprentice school as Futakami's student and was accepted as a member in 1982.
Shogi professional
Habu became a 4-dan professional in 1985 at the age of 14. He was the third junior high school kid professional in shogi history following Hifumi Kato and Koji Tanigawa. In 1989, at the age of 19, Habu 6-dan won the Ryūō championship, defeating Akira Shima who led a 4-person shogi study group "Shimaken" in which Habu himself took part. This was the first time Habu won one of the seven major titles making him, at the time, the youngest titleholder ever. Although he lost the Ryūō title to Tanigawa the following year, Habu won the Kiō championship four months later in 1991. Since then he has held at least one of the seven major titles every year since then, and according to custom of the titleholder system he has, therefore, never been referred to by his dan ranking since winning that first championship in 1989.
Accumulating three wins in major championships (Ryūō in 1989, Kiō in 1991 and 1992), Habu actually did qualify for promotion to 9-dan in March 1992, but the existing promotion rules required him to be promoted to 8-dan first and then to wait one year before his next promotion. He was officially promoted to 9-dan on April 1, 1994.
In 1992 Habu won the Ōza championship defeating Bungo Fukusaki to hold two titles (Kiō and Ōza) simultaneously. He went on to hold the Ōza title for 19 terms in a row.
In 1996 (February 14 to July 30), Habu became the first professional to ever hold seven major titles (Meijin, Ryūō, Kisei, Ōi, Ōza, Kiō, and Ōshō) at the same time.
In July 2012, Habu won his 81st shogi title overall when he won in the Kisei title, becoming 1st on the all-time title-winners list, and surpassing the 80 of Yasuharu Ōyama.
In June 2014, Habu defeated the defending Meijin Toshiyuki Moriuchi 4 games to none to become the 72nd Meijin. Habu lost his Meijin title to Moriuchi in 2011 (69th Meijin match) and was unable to defeat Moriuchi and regain the title in both 2012 (70th Meijin match) and 2013 (71st Meijin match). By defeating Moriuchi, Habu not only moved into a tie with both Moriuchi and Yoshio Kimura for third place on the all time Meijin winner's list, he also became the first person the recapture the title for the third time.
In November 2014, Habu won his 1300 official game, becoming the fourth player to do so, the youngest player to do so (44 years and 1 month) and the fastest player to do since turning professional (28 years and 11 months). Habu's win came in his 1801 game as a professional and his winning percentage of 72.3 percent at the time is the all-time highest of any professional player to reach 1300 wins to date.
In December 2017, Habu defeated defending champion Akira Watanabe to win the 30th Ryūō title. It was Habu's seventh Ryūō title overall which qualified him for the title of Lifetime Ryūō. It also made Habu the first shogi professional to qualify for lifetime titles in seven major titles.
On January 5, 2018, Habu became the first shogi professional to be awarded Japan's People's Honor Award. In November 2018, it was announced that he was also awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon.
On November 21, 2018, Habu became the seventh shogi professional to play 2000 official games. At age 48 years and 1 month, Habu is the youngest to achieve the feat. He also accomplished it in 32 years and 11 months since obtaining professional status, thus becoming the fastest to do so. Furthermore, his overall winning percentage of .709 is also the highest among those who have previously reached the milestone.
On December 21, 2018, Habu lost the 31st Ryūō title to challenger Akihito Hirose 4 games to 3. The loss of the Ryūō title marked the first time in 27 years that Habu was a not one of professional shogi's major titleholders. A few days after losing the Ryūō title, the Japan Shogi Association announced that Habu had expressed his desire to be officially referred to as "Habu 9-dan" () instead of as "Ex-Ryūō Habu" (), the way Ex-Ryūō champions can choose to be referred to as throughout the year following their loss of the title.
Habu defeated Masataka Gōda on March 17, 2019, to win the 68th NHK Cup tournament. It was the eleventh time Habu won the tournament, and also the 45th non-major title championship of his career, which broke the previous record of forty-four championships he shared with Ōyama.
On June 4, 2019, Habu defeated Takuya Nagase to become the shogi professional with the most victories of all time with 1,434 wins. Habu tied Ōyama's record of 1433 career wins a little over a week earlier on May 23, but then lost his next game and his first chance to break the tie on May 30. Habu's 1,434 win came in his 2,027 game as a shogi professional and gave him an overall winning percentage of 0.708.
In 2022, Habu was demoted to B1 class after 29 consecutive terms ranked A class or higher. On June 16, 2022, in the first round of the 81st Meijin B1 ranking league, Habu defeated Takayuki Yamasaki to become the first shogi professional with 1,500 wins, extending his record for most wins by a shogi professional and giving him an overall winning percentage of 0.696. For this achievement, Habu was awarded the newly-created .
Habu won all six of his games in the 72nd Ōshō Challenger League (SeptemberNovember 2022) to earn the right to challenger Sōta Fujii for the later's Osho title in the 72nd Ōshō title match (JanuaryMarch 2023). It was the first meeting between the two in a major title match. The match was tied at two wins apiece after four games, but Fujii won the next two games to win the match 4 games to 2.
Playing style
Habu is an outstanding player of Static Rook strategies in both attack and defense, whether in early fight or slow game circumstances, but has also used Ranging Rook openings on occasion. Shogi professional Kiyokazu Katsumata has described Habu's as "a man who plays by applying the strong points of successive great masters as the circumstances demand, a man who combines all of the virtues of all the great masters".
Habu's favorite piece is the silver, which he finds vital for both attack and defense. His winning percentage when dropping golds and silvers on the squares 23 and 83 (or at 87 and 27 when playing White) is said to be high even though winning after such drops is generally considered to be quite difficult. For this reason, these squares are referred to by some in the shogi world as "Habu's zone".
He is well known for playing superb moves in disadvantageous positions in the endgame, with peculiar brinkmate sequences that other players seem unable to come up with, a characteristic that many young players called "Habu's magic", a label under which he has published a series of books.
His long time rival Toshiyuki Moriuchi said of him: "His greatness lies in that as those around him get stronger, he also gets stronger. He is completely obsessed with not letting there be any big difference in playing strength between himself and other shogi professionals."
Promotion history
The promotion history of Habu is as follows:
6-kyu: December 2, 1982
5-kyu: February 2, 1983 (6 wins, 3 losses)
4-kyu: March 28, 1983 (6 wins, no losses)
3-kyu: May 11, 1983 (6 wins, no losses)
2-kyu: July 7, 1983 (6 wins, no losses)
1-kyu: August 24, 1983 (6 wins, no losses)
1-dan: January 11, 1984 (12 wins, 4 losses)
2-dan: September 10, 1984 (14 wins, 5 losses)
3-dan: April 25, 1985 (12 wins, 4 losses)
4-dan: December 12, 1985 (13 wins, 4 losses)
5-dan: April 1, 1988 (for being promoted to Class C1 of Meijin ranking leagues)
6-dan: October 1, 1989 (for being the Ryu-oh challenger)
7-dan: October 1, 1990 (for being the Ryu-oh title holder, but needed to wait one year after 6-dan promotion)
8-dan: April 1, 1993 (for being promoted to Class A of the Meijin ranking leagues)
9-dan: April 1, 1994 (Qualified for rank in 1993 after holding a major title for three periods (years), but needed to wait one year after of 8-dan promotion before promoted to 9-dan)
Major titles and other championships
Major titles
There are eight major titles in shogi. Below is a list of number of times and years Habu has won each title.
Lifetime titles (qualified for, but awarded upon retirement or death): Lifetime Meijin, Lifetime Ryūō, Lifetime Kisei, Lifetime Ōi, Lifetime Ōza, Lifetime Kiō, Lifetime Ōshō. As a result of having qualified as Lifetime title holder for seven titles, Habu may be referred to as "Lifetime Seven Crown" () upon retirement.
Holds the record number of title match victories for the following titles: Kisei (tied with Ōyama and Nakahara), Ōi, Ōza, Kiō
Holds the record number of consecutive title match victories for the following titles: Kisei, Ōza, Kiō
Other tournaments
In addition to major titles, Habu has won the following non-title tournaments.
Lifetime titles: Lifetime NHK Cup Champion
Note: Tournaments marked with an asterisk (*) are no longer held.
Awards
Habu has received the following awards in recognition of his accomplishments throughout his career. The Annual Shogi Awards are awarded by the Japan Shogi Association to its members each year in recognition of performance during official play throughout the previous professional shogi year or shogi (April 1 to March 31). "Other awards" includes those awarded by the JSA for career accomplishments and those awarded governmental organizations, etc. for contributions made to Japanese society.
Annual Shogi Awards
14th Annual Awards (April 1986 — March 1987): Best Winning Percentage, Best New Player
15th Annual Awards (April 1987 — March 1988): Best Winning Percentage, Most Games Won, Fighting-spirit
16th Annual Awards (April 1988 — March 1989): Player of the Year, Best Winning Percentage, Most Games Won, Most Games Played, Most Consecutive Games Won
17th Annual Awards (April 1989 — March 1990): Player of the Year, Best Winning Percentage, Most Games Won, Most Games Played, Most Consecutive Games Won
19th Annual Awards (April 1991 — March 1992): Fighting-spirit
20th Annual Awards (April 1992 — March 1993): Player of the Year, Best Winning Percentage, Most Games Won, Most Games Played, Most Consecutive Games Won
21st Annual Awards (April 1993 — March 1994): Player of the Year
22nd Annual Awards (April 1994 — March 1995): Player of the Year, Most Games Won
23rd Annual Awards (April 1995 — March 1996): Player of the Year, Best Winning Percentage, Most Games Won, Special Award
24th Annual Awards (April 1996 — March 1997): Player of the Year
26th Annual Awards (April 1998 — March 1999): Player of the Year, Most Games Played
27th Annual Awards (April 1999 — March 2000): Player of the Year
28th Annual Awards (April 2000 — March 2001): Player of the Year, Best Winning Percentage, Most Games Won, Most Games Played, Most Consecutive Games Won
29th Annual Awards (April 2001 — March 2002): Player of the Year
30th Annual Awards (April 2002 — March 2003): Player of the Year, Most Games Won, Most Games Played
32nd Annual Awards (April 2004 — March 2005): Player of the Year, Most Games Won, Most Games Played
33rd Annual Awards (April 2005 — March 2006): Player of the Year, Most Games Played, Most Consecutive Games Won
34th Annual Awards (April 2006 — March 2007): Excellent Player, Game of the Year
35th Annual Awards (April 2007 — March 2008): Player of the Year, Most Games Won, Most Games Played, Game of the Year
36th Annual Awards (April 2008 — March 2009): Player of the Year, Game of the Year
37th Annual Awards (April 2009 — March 2010): Player of the Year
38th Annual Awards (April 2010 — March 2011): Player of the Year, Most Games Won
39th Annual Awards (April 2011 — March 2012): Player of the Year, Most Games Won, Most Games Played
40th Annual Awards (April 2012 — March 2013): Excellent Player, Most Games Won, Most Games Played, Game of the Year, Special Award
41st Annual Awards (April 2013 — March 2014): Excellent Player, Most Games Won, Most Games Played, Game of the Year
42nd Annual Awards (April 2014 — March 2015): Player of the Year, Game of the Year
43rd Annual Awards (April 2015 — March 2016): Player of the Year, Special Game of the Year
44th Annual Awards (April 2016 — March 2017): Excellent Player
45th Annual Shogi Awards (April 2017 — March 2018): Player of the Year, Game of the Year
46th Annual Shogi Awards (April 2018March 2019): Game of the Year
50th Annual Shogi Awards (April 2022March 2023): Fighting-spirit, Game of the Year
Other awards
1994: Tokyo Resident Culture Honor Award (Awarded by the Governor of Tokyo in recognition of cultural achievements by a Tokyoite)
1996: Prime Minister's Award (Awarded by then Japanese Prime Minister Ryūtarō Hashimoto in recognition of becoming the first person to hold all seven major shogi titles at the same time.
1999: Shogi Honor Award (Awarded by the JSA in recognition of winning 600 official games as a professional)
2003: Shogi Honor Fighting-spirit Award (Awarded by JSA in recognition of winning 800 official games as a professional)
2007: Special Shogi Honor Award (Awarded by the JSA in recognition of winning 1,000 official games as a professional)
2008: 56th Kikuchi Kan Prize (Awarded by the publishing company Bungei Shunju in recognition of cultural achievements)
2010: 25 Years Service Award (Awarded by the JSA in recognition of being an active professional for twenty-five years)
2018: People's Honor Award
2018: Medal with Purple Ribbon
2022: Special Shogi Honor Fighting Spirit Award (Awarded by JSA in recognition of winning 1,500 official games as a professional)
Year-end shogi prize money rankings
Since 1993, Habu has finished at the top of the year-end prize money rankings a total of 23 times (1993–96, 1998-2012, 2014–16, 2018), second twice (1997 and 2013), third once (2017), fifth twice (2019 and 2021) and sixth once (2020). All amounts are given in Japanese yen and consist of tournament winnings and other game fees received during the calendar year (January 1 to December 31). Habu did not finish in the Top Ten in 2022, marking the first time he did not do so since 1993.
1993: ¥100,630,000
1994: ¥112,970,000
1995: ¥165,970,000
1996: ¥161,450,000
1997: ¥101,820,000
1998: ¥114,660,000
1999: ¥78,720,000
2000: ¥105,950,000
2001: ¥115,190,000
2002: ¥110,480,000
2003: ¥129,100,000
2004: ¥112,720,000
2005: ¥103,910,000
2006: ¥93,760,000
2007: ¥81,320,000
2008: ¥107,110,000
2009: ¥112,780,000
2010: ¥115,760,000
2011: ¥98,860,000
2012: ¥91,750,000
2013: ¥72,810,000
2014: ¥114,990,000
2015: ¥119,000,000
2016: ¥91,500,000
2017: ¥50,070,000
2018: ¥75,520,000
2019: ¥39,990,000
2020: ¥24,910,000
2021: ¥32,360,000
JSA president
On April 4, 2023, then JSA president annoounced that he would not seek re-election when his term expired in at the beginning of June 2023. Later that same day, Habu released a statement through the JSA stating that he had submitted his application to be a candidate for the JSA board of directors scheduled to be selected at the next general meeting in June 2023. In the statement, Habu also stated that he decided to be a candidate for the first time because he wanted to "do all he could to help the JSA as it prepared to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2024". Habu's candidacy was approved by the board of directors election preparatory committee on April 26, and he was formally elected to the JSA board of directors and then subsequently selected to be JSA president by the other members of the board at the 74th JSA general meeting held on June 9, 2023.
Chess professional
Habu is also one of the best chess players in Japan, with a peak Elo rating of 2415 in February 2014.
In November 2014, he played former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in an exhibition match sponsored by the Japanese company Dwango. The two played two 25-minute rapid games with Habu losing both.
Personal life
In March 1996, Habu married actress and singer at Hato no Mori Hachiman Shrine in Sendagaya, Tokyo, not far from the head office of the Japan Shogi Association. The two had met for the first time in September 1994 and officially announced their engagement in July 1995. It was reported that 80 police officers were assigned to the ceremony due to the popularity of the two. , they have two daughters.
Publications
Habu has written numerous books, articles, etc. on shogi and various other topics. The vast majority of these are in Japanese, but there are some written in English.
Video games
Habu Meijin no Omoshiro Shōgi - Super Famicom video game
Saikyō Habu Shōgi - Nintendo 64 video game
Habu Yoshiharu Shogi de Kitaeru: Ketsudanryoku DS - Nintendo DS video game
i HABU Shogi - iPhone/iPod
Notes
References
External links
Yoshiharu Habu performs an IM norm in Paris: The 4th Saint Quentin en Yvelines Chess Tournament (15-22 April 2001)
ShogiHub: Professional Player Info · Habu, Yoshiharu
YouTube: Aesthetics of game : shogi, Japanese traditional culture Interview with Yoshiharu Habu
1970 births
Living people
Japanese shogi players
Japanese chess players
Professional shogi players from Saitama Prefecture
Professional shogi players from Tokyo Metropolis
Chess FIDE Masters
Meijin (shogi)
Ryūō
Kisei (shogi)
Ōi (shogi)
Ōza (shogi)
Kiō
Ōshō
Lifetime titles
People's Honour Award winners
Recipients of the Medal with Purple Ribbon
People from Hachiōji, Tokyo
People from Tokorozawa, Saitama
Shinjin-Ō
Ginga
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5041899
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958%2024%20Hours%20of%20Le%20Mans
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1958 24 Hours of Le Mans
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The 1958 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 26th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 21 and 22 June 1958, on the Circuit de la Sarthe. It was also the fifth round of the 1958 World Sports Car Championship, which was running to new regulations introduced at the beginning of the season. Some 150,000 spectators had gathered for Europe's classic sports car race, around the 8.38-mile course. The prospect of an exciting duel between Ferrari, Jaguar, Aston Martin and giantkiller Porsche was enough to draw large crowds to the 24 Hours race.
The race was dominated by fifteen hours of rain, three of which were torrential, marking a bad summer solstice. There were thirteen accidents, one killing gentleman-driver Jean-Marie Brussin. It marked the first ever overall win for an American and a Belgian driver and was the third win for the Scuderia Ferrari. The works Testarossas took over the lead in the third hour when, this year, it was the British challenge that ran out of steam. After their 1957 rout, the Italians took their revenge as Osca also won the Index of Performance.
Regulations
This year, the second under the new FIA Appendix C rules, a revision put a maximum engine size of 3.0 litres. This was an effort to limit the very high speeds of the new Maserati and Ferrari prototypes (and, indirectly ruling out the Jaguars) in the Sportscar Championship. The equivalence for forced-induction engines (supercharged or turbo) was reduced from x1.4 down to only x1.2 to encourage manufacturers to utilise that technology.
For the race itself, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) allowed an increase of a driver's stint to a maximum of 40 laps (from 36), although the 14-hour total limit was still in place. Pushing a car anywhere on the track, aside from in the pit-line, was now no longer allowed.
Following Colin Chapman's example for Lotus in the previous year, many cars adopted the ‘wraparound’ windscreen to meet the official dimension requirements. This year Chapman introduced tonneau-covers for the passenger seat to reduce draught and air resistance.
Entries
A total of 70 cars registered for the event, of which 59 were allowed to practice, to qualify for the 55 starting places event.
The duels of the previous years between Jaguar and Ferrari were trimmed back by the new engine restriction. Although those manufacturers arrived with new engines, it also made Aston Martin (fresh from their triumph on the 1000km of Nürburgring) much more competitive, already with its tried and tested 3-litre engine. In the main class, only Ferrari and Aston Martin sent works entries.
Although defending champions Jaguar had no works team, they developed the new short-stroke 3-litre XK-engine, using carburettors not fuel-injection, to meet the 3.0L regulations for their customer teams. It operated at around 5500–7000rpm, instead of the 4500–5800rpm of the previous bigger engines. Winners of the past two races the Ecurie Ecosse team had two cars, for Ninian Sanderson/’Jock’ Lawrence and Jack Fairman/Masten Gregory The three other privateers included former winners Duncan Hamilton driving with Ivor Bueb. Also using the new 3-litre Jaguar motor was the new, small British manufacturer Lister, with two cars. Brian Lister had already been very successful in Britain however his lead driver, Archie Scott-Brown had been tragically killed at a sports-car race at Spa-Francorchamps just three weeks earlier.
Ferrari again arrived with a mighty force with no less than eleven cars for their works and private teams. Just prior to the meeting, Enzo Ferrari decided not to enter his latest two prototypes, reasoning that his well proven 3-litre 12-cylinder Testa Rossa was just the car for the circuit, and his best drivers. The pairings mostly came from the Ferrari F1 works team: Mike Hawthorn/Peter Collins, Phil Hill/Olivier Gendebien and Wolfgang von Trips/Wolfgang Seidel (called in to replace Luigi Musso injured in the previous weekend's Belgian Grand Prix). A fourth car was planned but Gino Munaron was also injured. The factory was backed up by no less than six other privately entered Testa Rossas, including two for Luigi Chinetti’s new North American Racing Team (NART) and single entries for Le Mans regulars Equipe Nationale Belge and Equipe Los Amigos.
A 2-litre Ferrari was entered for the Mexican Rodriguez brothers. However, Ricardo was judged to be too young (16 years old) by the ACO, and not allowed to start so he was replaced by José Behra (Jean Behra’s brother).
Without its big engines and now in serious financial trouble, Maserati did not put in an effort this year, with only two private entries: in the 3-litre and a 2-litre classes.
The new regulations suited Aston Martin very well, as they had already been running 3-litre cars for several years. They entered three of their updated DBR1s, as well as a privateer entry for the Whitehead brothers running a three-year-old Aston Martin DB3S (the runner-up car in 1955). The strong driver line-up in the works team consisted of Stirling Moss/Jack Brabham, Tony Brooks/Maurice Trintignant and Roy Salvadori/ Stuart Lewis-Evans.
After its success in the previous year, Lotus returned with four works cars and two private entries. It was only a month after Cliff Allison came sixth after the team's auspicious F1 début at the Monaco Grand Prix. For this race, they put at least one car in 4 classes. The new Lotus 15 was designed by Frank Costin and carried several Coventry-Climax engine options: a 2-litre, 1.5-litre or even 750cc (for the affiliated Equipe Lotus France privateer team). Colin Chapman also got Coventry Climax to develop a new 741cc engine based on their 650cc lightweight boat engine. Finally, there were also a pair of older Lotus 11 models to contest the S-1100 class
The S-2000 class had a diverse group of eight entries: aside from the new Lotus and the privateer Maserati, AC returned with two entries, one based around a John Tojeiro design. NART had a Ferrari 500 TR, and the British company Peerless entered a true GT car, with a Triumph engine.
Porsche, having dominated the S-1500 class now broadened their focus by uprating two of their three works 718 RSKs with 1.6L engines. The 718RSK in the S-1500 was supported by three privately entered 550A cars. As well as a works Lotus there were two Alfa Romeo Giuliettas from the Italian Squadra Virgilio Conrero team.
The reduced S-1100 class was the preserve of the Coventry Climax engine – two Lotuses and a car from the new specialist designer John Tojeiro. There was a big field in the smallest S-750 class and dominated by works entries: defending champions Lotus had two cars; from France were three from Deutsch et Bonnet, four from Monopole and one from specialist VP-Renault. Italy had a pair of OSCAs and four from Stanguellini
Practice
After the success of the vintage cars in the previous year, this year on the Friday evening the ACO held a 1-hour regularity trial for classic Le Mans race-cars.
Qualifying was held over three sessions for a total of 660 minutes over the Wednesday and Thursday. Most of the qualifying runs took place on a dry track and the best time was achieved by Moss, who pushed his Aston Martin around in time of 4:07, averaging 121.7 mph. Next quickest were Brooks and most of his Aston Martin teammates, ahead of the rest of the field. Fastest Jaguar went to Fairman, who did 4 min 13 sec, a time matched by Hawthorn in his Ferrari. The others Ferraris were around the 4 min 20 sec mark.
The 2-litre Lotus 15 proved remarkably quick – Allison and debutante Graham Hill had the 4th and 5th fastest times in practice in a car virtually half the weight of the Ecosse Jaguars. In contrast the small works Lotus broke its new engine and had to switch to an FWC-spare.
As a comparison, some of the lap-times recorded during practice were:
Race
Start
It was a hot and sunny afternoon when the French tricolour fell at 4 pm. The first driver away was Moss in his Aston Martin – as lightning-quick off the line as usual – chased by his teammate Brooks and the Jaguars and Ferraris. Just 4½ minutes after his standing start, Moss came past at the end of the first lap with a quarter-mile, five-second, lead on Hawthorn, Brooks, von Trips, Gendebien and the Aston of Salvadori. The best Jaguar was tenth. At the end of the second lap, Sanderson brought in one of the Ecosse Jaguars with a broken piston. Five laps later, his teammate Fairman arrived with the same terminal problem. The rapid Allison/Hill 2-litre Lotus, so fast in practise, had also retired after only three laps with a blown head-gasket.
Moss was very fast – extending his lead by 3 seconds a lap over the pursuing Ferraris. Hawthorn, leading the pack, tried his hardest – setting the fastest lap of the race at 4min 08sec. After the first hour, Moss was leading Hawthorn by 26 sec. Then came von Trips, Brooks, Gendebien and Hamilton in his Jaguar, with only the first three on the lead lap. Behra's uprated Porsche was leading the 2-litre class, running in 11th ahead of bigger Ferraris, Jaguars and Listers and well ahead of the rest of their class. Meanwhile, the two OSCAs were leading the S-750 class as well as the Index of Performance. The Ecosse Jaguars were gone – the team blaming the ‘official’ fuel for burning out the pistons though it was traced to defective valvegear operation.
Such was Moss's pace, all the competitors with exception of the first three leaders, had been lapped at least once. In the next hour Moss extended his lead to 95 seconds. Hawthorn tried to keep up, but his car was now suffering from a slipping clutch, with von Trips and Brooks rapidly closing in on him. Then at 6.10pm just a lap before the first pit-stops were due, Moss stopped at the Mulsanne corner with a broken conrod. Hawthorn went to the pits for an extended stop and it was the other works Ferraris – Hill ahead of von Trips – who took up the lead positions, ahead of Brooks’ Aston Martin and Hamilton's Jaguar.
Soon after, the weather (which was to dominate the rest of the race) suddenly changed as an enormous storm swept across the circuit, flooding the track and reducing the visibility to nil. The track was soon awash and a terrible series of accidents began: between 6.30 and 10pm, no less than a dozen cars were involved in crashes. In the 3rd hour Maurice Charles lost control of his Jaguar in the downpour at Maison Blanche and was taken to hospital after being hit by two other cars. In the 5th hour as a second downpour started, Stuart Lewis-Evans tangled the second Aston Martin with a back-marker at Dunlop Curve doing terminal damage.
But the worst happened in the twilight just after 10pm when Jean-Marie Brussin (racing under the pseudonym “Mary”) lost control of his Jaguar going into the sweeping Dunlop curve after the pits, hitting the earth bank, rolling and ending up near the crest of the rise. Unsighted, the next car on the scene was Bruce Kessler’s NART Ferrari, running 5th, who smashed into the Jaguar and burst into flames. Kessler was fortunate to be thrown clear, receiving only heavy bruising and broken ribs, but Brussin was killed in the accident. Duncan Hamilton, running second at the time, was next to the scene but was alerted by an anonymous spectator throwing his hat onto the track – an action that Hamilton later considered possibly saved his life - by giving him just enough time to lift off and avoid the wrecked cars.
Night
Hamilton was driving extremely well in the wet and soon after 10pm had his Jaguar up to second and within the hour had taken the lead after the next scheduled pit-stops. Phil Hill recalled the night-time driving: "The volume of rain was amazing but I discovered that if I sat on the tool roll to prop myself up – no, we didn’t use seatbelts – and then tilted my head back and looked just over the tip of the windshield and under the bottom of my visor, the view wasn’t too bad." He also keenly listened out for the sound of downshifting gears from cars ahead to get an idea of the approaching Mulsanne corner at the end of the long straight.
Indeed, around 11.40pm von Trips (in the second-placed Ferrari) came to the high-speed Mulsanne kink and saw wreckage across the track and a driver lying unconscious on the road. Jean Hébert had been thrown clear when he rolled his Alfa Romeo avoiding a crashed car, and which had then caught fire. Von Trips stopped, ran back and pulled the Frenchman clear, as well as the biggest of the wreckage. When marshals ran up from the nearest post, he got back into his car and carried on his race. Hébert was not seriously injured.
Another major accident then occurred at the Dunlop curve just before midnight. American Jay Chamberlain crashed his Lotus also avoiding a spinning car. He was lucky to be picked off the track before François Picard, in the Equipe Los Amigos Ferrari, crashed into it and destroying both cars, although both Chamberlain and Picard only received minor injuries. At 12.15am Wolfgang Seidel slipped his Ferrari, running 3rd, off at Arnage. Although only suffering light damage, it was well and truly stuck in the thick mud. Seidel was later reprimanded for not making more of an effort to dig out the car. Hill, having taken over from Gendebien, drove exceptionally through the rain to catch and pass Hamilton's co-driver Ivor Bueb to go back into the lead. By 2.30am he had established a solid lap-and-a-half advantage.
Hawthorn and Collins finally retired at 2am – having driven back up to 9th after falling as low as 18th with their clutch problems. NART's last Ferrari running – the 2-litre 500 TR of Rodriguez / Behra - retired just before half-time with a holed radiator. At this point, there were just 26 cars left running, just half the field. The weather was not improving. Hill/Gendebien were still leading with Hamilton/Bueb a lap adrift. Now in third, some five laps behind the leader was the Aston Martin of Brooks/Trintignant, still going strong. The S-2000 Behra/Herrmann Porsche (proving very stable in the rain) had moved up to 4th overtaking the Whitehead brothers’ Aston Martin. The Halford/Taylor Lister was 6th with the Barth/ Frère Porsche in 7th leading the S-1500 class. Meanwhile, in the Index of Performance, it was a very close race between the works cars of de Tomaso's OSCA and Laureau's DB
Morning
Soon after 6am Trintignant, who had been running a solid 3rd through the night, was stopped by a broken gearbox. It ground to a halt at Mulsanne corner, where Moss had parked the sister car almost exactly twelve hours earlier.
Bruce Halford's Lister-Jaguar was running in 7th when it struck engine problems. Losing half an hour replacing the camshaft it then stopped on the Mulsanne straight. Watched by a crowd, and discreetly advised by his mechanic standing nearby, co-driver Brian Naylor spent over an hour repairing the gearbox on his own and bump-starting it again.
Hamilton had been running a solid 2nd place all morning but it was another heavy thunderstorm around noon that led to his retirement. Coming into Arnage he was suddenly confronted with a stationary Panhard in the road. Taking avoiding action, he lost control and rolled the Jaguar which landed upside-down straddling a water-soaked ditch. Once again, he was lucky as two spectators were nearby, sheltering from the heavy rain, and could pull out the unconscious Hamilton before he drowned. He was taken to hospital with concussion, minor cuts and leg injuries. Hamilton's accident had happened right in front of Hill and the Jaguar's demise left the Hill / Gendebien Ferrari with an enormous 10-lap lead over Whitehead's Aston Martin. The Porsche team had been having an outstanding race with the Behra / Herrmann 1.6L RSK up to 3rd despite, struggling with fading brakes. The 1.5L variant of Barth/Frère was a lap behind and the privateer Porsche of Carel de Beaufort in 5th.
Finish and post-race
By mid-afternoon the rain finally ceased, so it was rather ironic that the race ended in sunshine on a drying track. Hill crossed the finish line at 4pm, ending one of the wettest and most difficult 24 Heures du Mans in history. Second step on the podium went to the private-entry Aston Martin of the Whitehead brothers. Porsche completed its best Le Mans to date with a remarkable 3-4-5 result with the S-2000 and S-1500 class victories after so many of the bigger-engined cars failed.
The OSCA of de Tomaso/Davis won the S-750 class, finishing 11th overall, having been chased hard throughout the race by the DB-Panhard of Laureau/Cornet, eventually finishing only 2 laps ahead of them. Three DBs finished, however only a single representative from Lotus, Stanguellini and Monopole got to the finish line in this largest class. In contrast, both OSCAs finished and claimed a 1-2 success in the Index of Performance, giving both major trophies to Italian cars. Alejandro de Tomaso subsequently founded his own supercar company in the next year, with his racing wife, Coca-Cola heiress, Elizabeth Isabel Haskell. The new Tojeiro-AC eventually finished 8th, and second in S-2000 (the only other classified finisher in the class) but 31 laps behind the Porsche. Throughout Sunday Stoop and Bolton had battled loose handling, traced to the differential mountings gradually falling apart and had driven very cautiously in the bad weather. It managed to exactly meet its Index requirements with a ratio of 1.0, whereas the other AC, finishing 2 laps behind just missed out being classified. The Lister made it to the finish but its delays had also cost it too much time to be classified.
This was Ferrari's third win, and coincidentally, the 1954 second victory had also been a contest in the rain versus Duncan Hamilton's Jaguar. This time however none of the Jaguars or works Aston Martins finished. Despite the atrocious weather for most of the race, the race distance of winners Gendebien and Hill would still have given them fifth place in the previous year's race. For the fourth consecutive race, Hawthorn was the quickest driver over a single lap, but his best lap of 4’ 08 was well down on his 3’ 58.7 record of 1957. Sadly, this was the last Le Mans for the Ferrari works drivers: both Musso and Collins were killed in Grand Prix later in the year and, after retiring as the 1958 F1 World Champion, Hawthorn would also be killed within the next year. In a grim year it also saw the death of Peter Whitehead, killed in an accident when his half-brother was driving in the Tour de France Automobile.
Official results
Results taken from Quentin Spurring's book, officially licensed by the ACO
Class Winners are in Bold text.
Note *: Not Classified because of Insufficient distance covered
Did Not Finish
Did Not Start
Index of Performance
Note: Only the top ten positions are included in this set of standings. A score of 1.00 means meeting the minimum distance for the car, and a higher score is exceeding the nominal target distance.
24th Rudge-Whitworth Biennial Cup (1957/1958)
There were no eligible finishers for the Biennial Cup.
Statistics
Taken from Quentin Spurring's book, officially licensed by the ACO
Fastest Lap in practice – Moss, #2 Aston Martin DBR1/300 – 4m 07.3s; 195.85 kp/h (121.70 mph)
Fastest Lap: Hawthorn, #12 Ferrari 250 TR/58 - 4:08.0secs; 195.40 kp/h (121.42 mph)
Distance -
Winner's Average Speed -
Attendance – 150 000
Standings after the race
Championship points were awarded for the first six places in each race in the order of 8-6-4-3-2-1.
Manufacturers were only awarded points for their highest finishing car with no points awarded for additional cars finishing. Only the best 4 results out of the 6 races would be included for the final score. Total points earned, but not counted towards the championship, are given in brackets.
Citations
References
Spurring, Quentin (2011) Le Mans 1949-59 Sherborne, Dorset: Evro Publishing
Cannell, Michael (2011) The Limit London: Atlantic Books
Clarke, R.M. - editor (2009) Le Mans 'The Ferrari Years 1958-1965' Cobham, Surrey: Brooklands Books
Clausager, Anders (1982) Le Mans London: Arthur Barker Ltd
Fox, Charles (1973) The Great Racing Cars and Drivers London: Octopus Books Ltd
Hill, Phil (2004) Ferrari: A Champion's View Deerfield: Dalton Watson Fine Books
Laban, Brian (2001) Le Mans 24 Hours London: Virgin Books
Moity, Christian (1974) The Le Mans 24 Hour Race 1949-1973 Radnor, Pennsylvania: Chilton Book Co
External links
Racing Sports Cars – Le Mans 24 Hours 1958 entries, results, technical detail. Retrieved 13 February 2017
Le Mans History – Le Mans History, hour-by-hour (incl. pictures, YouTube links). Retrieved 13 February 2017
Sportscars.tv – race commentary. Retrieved 10 March 2017
World Sports Racing Prototypes – results, reserve entries & chassis numbers. Retrieved 13 February 2017
Unique Cars & Parts – results & reserve entries. Retrieved 10 March 2017
Formula 2 – Le Mans 1958 results & reserve entries. Retrieved 13 February 2017
YouTube English colour footage & engine sound (1½ mins). Retrieved 13 February 2017
YouTube English b/w footage (3 mins). Retrieved 13 February 2017
YouTube French colour footage (3 mins). Retrieved 13 February 2017
YouTube German colour footage, looking at Porsche (3 mins). Retrieved 13 February 2017
Le Mans
24 Hours of Le Mans races
Le Mans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive%20set%20theory
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Constructive set theory
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Axiomatic constructive set theory is an approach to mathematical constructivism following the program of axiomatic set theory.
The same first-order language with "" and "" of classical set theory is usually used, so this is not to be confused with a constructive types approach.
On the other hand, some constructive theories are indeed motivated by their interpretability in type theories.
In addition to rejecting the principle of excluded middle (), constructive set theories often require some logical quantifiers in their axioms to be set bounded, motivated by results tied to impredicativity.
Introduction
Constructive outlook
Preliminary on the use of intuitionistic logic
The logic of the set theories discussed here is constructive in that it rejects the principle of excluded middle , i.e. that the disjunction automatically holds for all propositions . As a rule, to prove the excluded middle for a proposition , i.e. to prove the particular disjunction , either or needs to be explicitly proven. When either such proof is established, one says the proposition is decidable, and this then logically implies the disjunction holds. Similarly, a predicate for in a domain is said to be decidable when the more intricate statement is provable. Non-constructive axioms may enable proofs that formally claim decidability of such (and/or ) in the sense that they prove excluded middle for (resp. the statement using the quantifier above) without demonstrating the truth of either side of the disjunction(s). This is often the case in classical logic. In contrast, axiomatic theories deemed constructive tend to not permit many classical proofs of statements involving properties that are provenly computationally undecidable.
The law of noncontradiction is a special case of the propositional form of modus ponens. Using the former with any negated statement , one valid De Morgan's law thus implies already in the more conservative minimal logic. In words, intuitionistic logic still posits: It is impossible to rule out a proposition and rule out its negation both at once, and thus the rejection of any instantiated excluded middle statement for an individual proposition is inconsistent. Here the double-negation captures that the disjunction statement now provenly can never be ruled out or rejected, even in cases where the disjunction may not be provable (for example, by demonstrating one of the disjuncts, thus deciding ) from the assumed axioms.
More generally, constructive mathematical theories tend to prove classically equivalent reformulations of classical theorems. For example, in constructive analysis, one cannot prove the intermediate value theorem in its textbook formulation, but one can prove theorems with algorithmic content that, as soon as double negation elimination and its consequences are assumed legal, are at once classically equivalent to the classical statement. The difference is that the constructive proofs are harder to find.
The intuitionistic logic underlying the set theories discussed here, unlike minimal logic, still permits double negation elimination for individual propositions for which excluded middle holds. In turn the theorem formulations regarding finite objects tends to not differ from their classical counterparts. Given a model of all natural numbers, the equivalent for predicates, namely Markov's principle, does not automatically hold, but may be considered as an additional principle.
In an inhabited domain and using explosion, the disjunction implies the existence claim , which in turn implies . Classically, these implications are always reversible. If one of the former is classically valid, it can be worth trying to establish it in the latter form. For the special case where is rejected, one deals with a counter-example existence claim , which is generally constructively stronger than a rejection claim : Exemplifying a such that is contradictory of course means it is not the case that holds for all possible . But one may also demonstrate that holding for all would logically lead to a contradiction without the aid of a specific counter-example, and even while not being able to construct one. In the latter case, constructively, here one does not stipulate an existence claim.
Imposed restrictions on a set theory
Compared to the classical counterpart, one is generally less likely to prove the existence of relations that cannot be realized. A restriction to the constructive reading of existence apriori leads to stricter requirements regarding which characterizations of a set involving unbounded collections constitute a (mathematical, and so always meaning total) function. This is often because the predicate in a case-wise would-be definition may not be decidable. Adopting the standard definition of set equality via extensionality, the full Axiom of Choice is such a non-constructive principle that implies for the formulas permitted in one's adopted Separation schema, by Diaconescu's theorem. Similar results hold for the Axiom of Regularity existence claim, as shown below. The latter has a classically equivalent inductive substitute.
So a genuinely intuitionistic development of set theory requires the rewording of some standard axioms to classically equivalent ones. Apart from demands for computability and reservations regrading of impredicativity, technical question regarding which non-logical axioms effectively extend the underlying logic of a theory is also a research subject in its own right.
Metalogic
With computably undecidable propositions already arising in Robinson arithmetic, even just Predicative separation lets one define elusive subsets easily. In stark contrast to the classical framework, constructive set theories may be closed under the rule that any property that is decidable for all sets is already equivalent to one of the two trivial ones, or . Also the real line may be taken to be indecomposable in this sense. Undecidability of disjunctions also affects the claims about total orders such as that of all ordinal numbers, expressed by the provability and rejection of the clauses in the order defining disjunction . This determines whether the relation is trichotomous. A weakened theory of ordinals in turn affects the proof theoretic strength defined in ordinal analysis.
In exchange, constructive set theories can exhibit attractive disjunction and existence properties, as is familiar from the study of constructive arithmetic theories. These are features of a fixed theory which metalogically relate judgements of propositions provable in the theory. Particularly well-studied are those such features that can be expressed in Heyting arithmetic, with quantifiers over numbers and which can often be realized by numbers, as formalized in proof theory. In particular, those are the numerical existence property and the closely related disjunctive property, as well as being closed under Church's rule, witnessing any given function to be computable.
A set theory does not only express theorems about numbers, and so one may consider a more general so-called strong existence property that is harder to come by, as will be discussed. A theory has this property if the following can be established: For any property , if the theory proves that a set exist that has that property, i.e. if the theory claims the existence statement, then there is also a property that uniquely describes such a set instance. More formally, for any predicate there is a predicate so that
The role analogous to that of realized numbers in arithmetic is played here by defined sets proven to exist according to the theory, and so this is a subtle question concerning term construction and the theories strength. While many theories discussed tend have all the various numerical properties, the existence property can easily be spoiled, as will be discussed. Weaker forms of existence properties have been formulated.
Some classical theories can in fact also be constrained so as to exhibit the strong existence property. Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the constructible universe postulate, , or with sets all taken to be ordinal-definable, , do have the existence property. For contrast, consider the theory given by plus the full axiom of choice existence postulate. Recall that this collection of axioms proves the well-ordering theorem, implying well-orderings exists for any set. In particular, this means that relations formally exist that establish the well-ordering of (i.e. the theory claims the existence of a least element for all subsets of with respect to those relations). This is despite the fact that definability of such an ordering is known to be independent of . The latter implies that for no particular formula in the language of the theory does the theory prove that the corresponding set is a well-ordering relation of the reals. So formally proves the existence of a subset with the property of being a well-ordering relation, but at the same time no particular set for which the property could be validated can possibly be defined.
Anti-classical principles
As mentioned above, a constructive theory may exhibit the numerical existence property, , for some number and where denotes the corresponding numeral in the formal theory. Here one must carefully distinguish between provable implications between two propositions, , and metalogical properties of the form . When adopting an established proof theoretical schema of the latter type as an inference rule and nothing new can be proven, one says the theory is closed under that rule.
One may instead consider adjoining the rule corresponding to the meta-theoretical property as an implication (in the sense of "") to , as a schema or in quantified form. A situation commonly studied is that of a fixed exhibiting the meta-theoretical property of the following type: For an instance from some collection of formulas of a particular form, here captured via and , one established the existence of a number so that . Here one may then postulate , where the bound is a number variable in language of the theory. For example, Church's rule is an admissible rule in first-order Heyting arithmetic and, furthermore, the corresponding Church's thesis principle may consistently be adopted as an axiom. The new theory with the principle added is anti-classical, in that it may not be consistent anymore to also adopt . Similarly, adjoining the excluded middle principle to some theory , the theory thus obtained may prove new, strictly classical statements, and this may spoil some of the meta-theoretical properties that were previously established for . In such a fashion, may not be adopted in , also known as Peano arithmetic .
The focus in this subsection shall be on set theories with quantification over a fully formal notion of an infinite sequences space, i.e. function space, as it will be introduced further below.
A translation of Church's rule into the language of the theory itself may here read
Kleene's T predicate together with the result extraction expresses that any input number being mapped to the number is, through , witnessed to be a computable mapping. Here now denotes a set theory model of the standard natural numbers and is an index with respect to a fixed program enumeration. Stronger variants have been used, which extend this principle to functions defined on domains of low complexity. The principle rejects decidability for the predicate defined as , expressing that is the index of a computable function halting on its own index. Weaker, double negated forms of the principle may be considered too, which do not require the existence of a recursive implementation for every , but which still make principles inconsistent that claim the existence of functions which provenly have no recursive realization. Some forms of a Church's thesis as principle are even consistent with the classical, weak so called second-order arithmetic theory , a subsystem of the two-sorted first-order theory .
The collection of computable functions is classically subcountable, which classically is the same as being countable. But classical set theories will generally claim that holds also other functions than the computable ones. For example there is a proof in that total functions (in the set theory sense) do exist that cannot be captured by a Turing machine.
Taking the computable world seriously as ontology, a prime example of an anti-classical conception related the Markovian school is the permitted subcountability of various uncountable collections. Adopting the subcountability of the collection of all unending sequences of natural numbers () as an axiom in a constructive theory, the "smallness" (in classical terms) of this collection, in some set theoretical realizations, is then already captured by the theory itself.
A constructive theory may also adopt neither classical nor anti-classical axioms and so stay agnostic towards either possibility.
Constructive principles already prove for any . And so for any given element of , the corresponding excluded middle statement for the proposition cannot be negated. Indeed, for any given , by noncontradiction it is impossible to rule out and rule out its negation both at once, and the relevant De Morgan's rule applies as above. But a theory may in some instances also permit the rejection claim . Adopting this does not necessitate providing a particular witnessing the failure of excluded middle for the particular proposition , i.e. witnessing the inconsistent . Predicates on an infinite domain correspond to decision problems. Motivated by provenly computably undecidable problems, one may reject the possibility of decidability of a predicate without also making any existence claim in .
As another example, such a situation is enforced in Brouwerian intuitionistic analysis, in a case where the quantifier ranges over infinitely many unending binary sequences and states that a sequence is everywhere zero. Concerning this property, of being conclusively identified as the sequence which is forever constant, adopting Brouwer's continuity principle strictly rules out that this could be proven decidable for all the sequences.
So in a constructive context with a so-called non-classical logic as used here, one may consistently adopt axioms which are both in contradiction to quantified forms of excluded middle, but also non-constructive in the computable sense or as gauged by meta-logical existence properties discussed previously. In that way, a constructive set theory can also provide the framework to study non-classical theories.
History and overview
Historically, the subject of constructive set theory (often also "") begun with John Myhill's work on the theories also called and .
In 1973, he had proposed the former as a first-order set theory based on intuitionistic logic, taking the most common foundation and throwing out the Axiom of choice as well as the principle of the excluded middle, initially leaving everything else as is. However, different forms of some of the axioms which are equivalent in the classical setting are inequivalent in the constructive setting, and some forms imply , as will be demonstrated. In those cases, the intuitionistically weaker formulations were consequently adopted. The far more conservative system is also a first-order theory, but of several sorts and bounded quantification, aiming to provide a formal foundation for Errett Bishop's program of constructive mathematics.
The main discussion presents sequence of theories in the same language as , leading up to Peter Aczel's well studied , and beyond. Many modern results trace back to Rathjen and his students.
is also characterized by the two features present also in Myhill's theory:
On the one hand, it is using the Predicative Separation instead of the full, unbounded Separation schema, see also Lévy hierarchy.
Boundedness can be handled as a syntactic property or, alternatively, the theories can be conservatively extended with a higher boundedness predicate and its axioms. Secondly, the impredicative Powerset axiom is discarded, generally in favor of related but weaker axioms. The strong form is very casually used in classical general topology.
Adding to a theory even weaker than recovers , as detailed below.
The system, which has come to be known as Intuitionistic Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (), is a strong set theory without . It is similar to , but less conservative or predicative.
The theory denoted is the constructive version of , the classical Kripke–Platek set theory without a form of Powerset and where even the Axiom of Collection is bounded.
Models
Many theories studied in constructive set theory are mere restrictions of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory () with respect to their axiom as well as their underlying logic. Such theories can then also be interpreted in any model of .
For a set theory context without infinite sets, constructive first-order arithmetic can also be taken as an apology for most axioms adopted in : The arithmetic theory is bi-interpretable with a weak constructive set theory, as also described in the article on Heyting arithmetic. One may arithmetically characterize a membership relation "" and with it prove - instead of the existence of a set of natural numbers - that all sets in its theory are in bijection with a (finite) von Neumann natural, a principle denoted . This context further validates Extensionality, Pairing, Union, Binary Intersection (which is related to the Axiom schema of predicative separation) and the Set Induction schema. Taken as axioms, the aforementioned principles constitute a set theory that is already identical with the theory given by minus the existence of but plus as axiom. All those axioms are discussed in detail below.
Relatedly, also proves that the hereditarily finite sets fulfill all the previous axioms. This is a result which persists when passing on to and minus Infinity.
As far as constructive realizations go there is a relevant realizability theory. Relatedly, Aczel's theory constructive Zermelo-Fraenkel has been interpreted in a Martin-Löf type theories, as sketched in the section on . In this way, theorems provable in this and weaker set theories are candidates for a computer realization.
More recently, presheaf models for constructive set theories have been introduced. These are analogous to presheaf models for intuitionistic set theory developed by Dana Scott in the 1980s. Realizability models of within the effective topos have been identified, which, say, at once validate full Separation, relativized dependent choice , independence of premise for sets, but also the subcountability of all sets, Markov's principle and Church's thesis in the formulation for all predicates.
Subtheories of ZF
Notation
Language
The propositional connective symbols used to form syntactic formulas are standard. The axioms of set theory give a means to prove equality "" of sets and that symbol may, by abuse of notation, be used for classes. Negation "" of elementhood "" is often written "", and usually the same goes for non-equality "". However, in a context with apartness relations, for example when dealing with sequences, the latter symbol is also used for something different.
Variables
Below the Greek denotes a proposition or predicate variable in axiom schemas and or is used for particular such predicates. The word "predicate" is sometimes used interchangeably with "formulas" as well, even in the unary case.
Quantifiers range over sets and those are denoted by lower case letters.
As is common, one may use argument brackets to express predicates, for the sake of highlighting particular free variables in their syntactic expression, as in "".
One abbreviates by and by . The syntactic notion of bounded quantification in this sense can play a role in the formulation of axiom schemas, as seen below.
Two ways to express disjointness capture many of the intuitionistically valid negation rules: . Using the above notation, this is a purely logical equivalence and below the proposition will furthermore be expressible as .
Express the subclass claim , i.e. , by .
The similar notion of subset-bounded quantifiers, as in , has been used in set theoretical investigation as well, but will not be further highlighted here.
Unique existence here means .
If there provenly exists a set inside a class, meaning , then one calls it inhabited. One may also use quantification in to express this as . The class is then provenly not the empty set, introduced below. While classically equivalent, constructively non-empty is a weaker notion with two negations and ought to be called not uninhabited. Unfortunately, the word for the more useful notion of 'inhabited' is rarely used in classical mathematics.
Classes
As is also common in the study of set theories, one makes use set builder notation for classes, which, in most contexts, are not part of the object language but used for concise discussion. In particular, one may introduce notation declarations of the corresponding class via "", for the purpose of expressing as . Logically equivalent predicates can be used to introduce the same class.
One also writes as shorthand for . For example, one may consider and this is also denoted .
Further extensions of such notation are in common used in set theory, giving meaning to statements like "", and so on.
For a predicate , trivially . And so follows that .
Through the use of a 2-ary predicate , a set may be characterized as holding for all , where the right hand side may depend on the actual variable , and possibly even on membership in itself.
The convenient notational relation between and functions akin to a simpler, special case of this. Axioms of the form postulate that the class of all sets for which holds actually forms a set, and this is sometimes less formally expressed as .
Equality
Denote by the statement expressing that two classes have exactly the same elements, i.e. , or equivalently . This is not to be conflated with the concept of equinumerosity also used below.
The following axiom gives a means to prove equality "" of two sets, so that through substitution, any predicate about translates to one of .
By the logical properties of equality, the converse direction holds automatically.
In a constructive interpretation, the elements of a subclass of may come equipped with more information than those of , in the sense that being able to judge is being able to judge . And (unless the whole disjunction follows from axioms) in the Brouwer–Heyting–Kolmogorov interpretation, this means to have proven or having rejected it.
As may be not decidable for all elements in , the two classes must a priori be distinguished.
Consider a predicate that provenly holds for all elements of a set , so that , and assume that the class on the left hand side is established to be a set. Note that, even if this set on the left informally also ties to proof-relevant information about the validity of for all the elements, the Extensionality axiom postulates that, in our set theory, the set on the left hand side is judged equal to the one on the right hand side.
The above analysis also shows that a statement of the form , which in informal class notation may be expressed as , is then equivalently expressed as . In particular, this means that such -theorems (e.g. the ones provable from full mathematical induction) enable treating the class defined on the right hand side of the equality to be used like the set on the left.
Alternative approaches
While often adopted, this axiom has been criticized in constructive thought, as it effectively collapses differently defined properties, or at least the sets viewed as the extension of these properties, a Fregian notion.
Modern type theories may instead aim at defining the demanded equivalence "" in terms of functions, see e.g. type equivalence. The related concept of function extensionality is often not adopted in type theory.
Other frameworks for constructive mathematics might instead demand a particular rule for equality or apartness come for the elements of each and every set discussed. Even then, the above definition can be used to characterize equality of subsets and .
Note that adopting "" as a symbol in a predicate logic theory makes equality of two terms a quantifier-free expression.
Merging sets
Define class notation for the pairing of a few given elements via disjunctions. E.g. is the quantifier-free statement , and likewise says , and so on.
Two other basic existence postulates given some other sets are as follows. Firstly,
Given the definitions above, expands to , so this is making use of equality and a disjunction. The axiom says that for any two sets and , there is at least one set , which hold at least those two sets.
With bounded Separation below, also the class exists as a set. Denote by the standard ordered pair model , so that e.g. denotes another bounded formula in the formal language of the theory.
And then, using existential quantification and a conjunction,
saying that for any set , there is at least one set , which holds all the members , of 's members .
The minimal such set is the union.
The two axioms are commonly formulated stronger, in terms of "" instead of just "", although this is technically redundant in the context of : As the Separation axiom below is formulated with "", for statements the equivalence can be derived, given the theory allows for separation using . In cases where is an existential statement, like here in the union axiom, there is also another formulation using a universal quantifier.
Also using bounded Separation, the two axioms just stated together imply the existence of a binary union of two classes and , when they have been established to be sets, denoted by or . For a fixed set , to validate membership in the union of two given sets and , one needs to validate the part of the axiom, which can be done by validating the disjunction of the predicates defining the sets and , for . In terms of the associated sets, it is done by validating the disjunction .
The union and other set forming notations are also used for classes. For instance, the proposition is written . Let now . Given , the decidability of membership in , i.e. the potentially independent statement , can also be expressed as . But, as for any excluded middle statement, the double-negation of the latter holds: That union isn't not inhabited by . This goes to show that partitioning is also a more involved notion, constructively.
Set existence
The property that is false for any set corresponds to the empty class, which is denoted by or zero, . That the empty class is a set readily follows from other axioms, such as the Axiom of Infinity below. But if, e.g., one is explicitly interested in excluding infinite sets in one's study, one may at this point adopt the
Introduction of the symbol (as abbreviating notation for expressions in involving characterizing properties) is justified as uniqueness for this set can be proven. As is false for any , the axiom then reads .
For a set , define the successor set as and write for . Its interplay with the membership relation has a recursive clause, in the sense that . By reflexivity of equality, , and in particular is always inhabited.
A sort of blend between pairing and union, an axiom more readily related to the successor is the Axiom of adjunction. This is all relevant for the standard modeling of individual Neumann ordinals.
A simple and provenly false proposition then is, for example, , corresponding to in the standard arithmetic model.
Again, here symbols such as are treated as convenient notation and any proposition really translates to an expression using only "" and logical symbols, including quantifiers. Accompanied by a metamathematical analysis that the capabilities of the new theories are equivalent in an effective manner, formal extensions by symbols such as may also be considered.
BCST
The following makes use of axiom schemas, i.e. axioms for some collection of predicates.
Some of the stated axiom schemas shall allow for any collection of set parameters as well (meaning any particular named variables ). That is, instantiations of the schema are permitted in which the predicate (some particular ) also depends on a number of further set variables and the statement of the axiom is understood with corresponding extra outer universal closures (as in ).
Separation
Basic constructive set theory consists of several axioms also part of standard set theory, except the Separation axiom is weakened.
Beyond the four axioms above, it postulates Predicative Separation as well as the Replacement schema.
This axiom amounts to postulating the existence of a set obtained by the intersection of any set and any predicatively described class .
For any proven to be a set, when the predicate is taken as , one obtains the binary intersection of sets and writes . Intersection corresponds to conjunction in an analog way to how union corresponds to disjunction.
When the predicate is taken as the negation , one obtains the difference principle, granting existence of any set . Note that sets like or are always empty. So, as noted, from Separation and the existence of at least one set (e.g. Infinity below) will follow the existence of the empty set (also denoted ).
Within this conservative context of , the Bounded Separation schema is actually equivalent to Empty Set plus the existence of the binary intersection for any two sets. The latter variant of axiomatization does not make use of a formula schema.
For a proposition , a recurring trope in the constructive analysis of set theory is to view the predicate as the subclass of the second ordinal .
If it is provable that holds, or , or , then is inhabited, or empty (uninhabited), or non-empty (not uninhabited), respectively.
Clearly, is equivalent to the proposition (in the model of the naturals this means being smaller than because, equivalently, ), while is equivalent to (so that, equivalently, ). The union that is part of the successor operation definition above may be used to express the excluded middle statement as . In words, is decidable if and only if the successor of is larger than the smallest ordinal . The proposition is decided either way through establishing how is smaller: By already being smaller than , or by being 's direct predecessor. Another way to express excluded middle for is as the existence of a least number member of the inhabited class .
If ones separation axiom allows for separation with , then is a subset, which may be called the truth value associated with . Two truth values can be proven equal, as sets, by proving an equivalence. In terms of this terminology, the collection of proof values can a priori be understood to be rich. Unsurprisingly, decidable propositions have one of a binary set of truth values.
The axiom schema of Predicative Separation is also called Bounded Separation, as in Separation for set-bounded quantifiers only. The scope of specified subsets that can be proven to exist is enriched with further set existence postulate. Bounded Separation is a schema that takes into account syntactic aspects of set defining predicates, up to provable equivalence. The permitted formulas are denoted by in the set theoretical Lévy hierarchy, in analogy to in the arithmetical hierarchy. (Note however that the arithmetic classification is sometimes expressed not syntactically but in terms of subclasses of the naturals. Also, the bottom level of the arithmetical hierarchy has several common definitions, some not allowing the use of some total functions. The distinction is not relevant on the level or higher. Finally note that a classification of a formula may be expressed up to equivalence in the theory.)
The schema is also the way in which Mac Lane weakens a system close to Zermelo set theory , for mathematical foundations related to topos theory. See also Kripke-Platek set theory.
No universal set
By a remark in the section on merging sets, a set cannot consistently ruled out to be a member of a class of the form . A constructive proof that it is in that class contains information. Now if is a set, then the class on the right is not a set. The following demonstrates this in the special case when is empty, i.e. when the right side is the universal class.
The following holds for any relation , giving a purely logical condition by which two terms and non-relatable
The expression is a bounded one and thus allowed in separation. By virtue of the rejection of the final disjunct above, , Russel's construction shows that . So for any set , Predicative Separation alone implies that there exists a set which is not a member of . In particular, no universal set can exist in this theory.
In a theory with the axiom of regularity, like , of course that subset can be proven to be equal to itself. As an aside, in a theory with stratification like Intuitionistic New Foundations, a universal set may exist because use of the syntactic expression may be disallowed in proofs of existence by, essentially, separation.
Already the special case implies that the subclass of the universal class is proper as well.
Predicativity
The restriction in the axiom is also gatekeeping impredicative definitions: Existence should at best not be claimed for objects that are not explicitly describable, or whose definition involves themselves or reference to a proper class, such as when a property to be checked involves a universal quantifier. So in a constructive theory without Axiom of power set, when denotes some 2-ary predicate, one should not generally expect a subclass of to be a set, in case that it is defined, for example, as in
,
or via a similar definitions involving any quantification over the sets . Note that if this subclass of is provenly a set, then this subset itself is also in the unbounded scope of set variable . In other words, as the subclass property is fulfilled, this exact set , defined using the expression , would play a role in its own characterization.
While predicative Separation leads to fewer given class definitions being sets, it must be emphasized that many class definitions that are classically equivalent are not so when restricting oneself to constructive logic. So in this way, one gets a broader theory, constructively.
Due to the potential undecidability of general predicates, the notion of subset and subclass is more elaborate in constructive set theories than in classical ones. This remains true if full Separation is adopted, as in the theory , which however spoils the existence property as well as the standard type theoretical interpretations, and in this way spoils a bottom-up view of constructive sets. As an aside, as subtyping is not a necessary feature of constructive type theory, constructive set theory can be said to quite differ from that framework.
Replacement
Next consider the
It is granting existence, as sets, of the range of function-like predicates, obtained via their domains. In the above formulation, the predicate is not restricted akin to the Separation schema, but this axiom already involves an existential quantifier in the antecedent. Of course, weaker schemas could be considered as well.
With the Replacement schema, this theory proves that the equivalence classes or indexed sums are sets. In particular, the Cartesian product, holding all pairs of elements of two sets, is a set. In turn, for any fixed number, the corresponding product expression, say , can be constructed as a set. The axiomatic requirements for sets recursively defined in the language are discussed further below. Equality of elements inside a set is decidable if the corresponding relation as a subset of is decidable, in which case is sometimes called discrete.
Replacement is not necessary in the design of a weak constructive set theory that is bi-interpretable with Heyting arithmetic . However, some form of induction is. Replacement together with Set Induction (introduced below) also suffices to axiomize hereditarily finite sets constructively and that theory is also studied without Infinity. For comparison, consider the very weak classical theory called General set theory that interprets the class of natural numbers and their arithmetic via just Extensionality, Adjunction and full Separation.
Replacement is relevant for function comprehension can be seen as a form of comprehension more generally. Only when assuming does Replacement already imply full Separation. In , Replacement is mostly important to prove the existence of sets of high rank, namely via instances of the axiom schema where relates relatively small set to bigger ones, .
Constructive set theories commonly have Axiom schema of Replacement, sometimes restricted to bounded formulas. However, when other axioms are dropped, this schema is actually often strengthened - not beyond , but instead merely to gain back some provability strength. Such stronger axioms exist that do not spoil the strong existence properties of a theory, as discussed further below.
The discussion now proceeds with axioms granting existence of objects which, in different but related form, are also found in dependent type theories, namely products and the collection of natural numbers as a completed set. Infinite sets are particularly handy to reason about operations applied to sequences defined on unbounded domains, say the formal differentiation of a generating function or the addition of two Cauchy sequences.
ECST
For some fixed predicate and a set , the statement expresses that is the smallest (in the sense of "") among all sets for which holds true, and that it is always a subset of such . The aim of the axiom of infinity is to eventually obtain unique smallest inductive set.
In the context of common set theory axioms, one statement of infinitude is to state that a class is inhabited and also includes a chain of membership (or alternatively a chain of supersets). That is,
.
More concretely, denote by the inductive property,
.
In terms of a predicate underlying the class so that , the latter translates to .
Write for the general intersection . (A variant of this definition may be considered which requires , but we only use this notion for the following auxiliary definition.)
One commonly defines a class , the intersection of all inductive sets. (Variants of this treatment may work in terms of a formula that depends on a set parameter so that .) The class exactly holds all fulfilling the unbounded property . The intention is that if inductive sets exist at all, then the class shares each common natural number with them, and then the proposition , by definition of "", implies that holds for each of these naturals. While bounded separation does not suffice to prove to be the desired set, the language here forms the basis for the following axiom, granting natural number induction for predicates that constitute a set.
The elementary constructive Set Theory has the axiom of as well as the postulate
Going on, one takes to denote the now unique smallest inductive set, an unbounded von Neumann ordinal. It contains the empty set and, for each set in , another set in that contains one element more.
Symbols called zero and successor are in the signature of the theory of Peano. In , the above defined successor of any number also being in the class follow directly from the characterization of the natural naturals by our von Neumann model. Since the successor of such a set contains itself, one also finds that no successor equals zero. So two of the Peano axioms regarding the symbols zero and the one regarding closedness of come easily. Fourthly, in , where is a set, can be proven to be an injective operation.
For some predicate of sets , the statement claims it for all subsets of the set of naturals, and the axiom now proves such sets do exist. Such quantification is also possible in second-order arithmetic.
The pairwise order "" on the naturals is captured by their membership relation "". It is important to note that the theory proves the order as well as the equality relation on this set to be decidable. Not only is no number smaller than , but induction implies that among subsets of , it is exactly the empty set which has no least member. The contrapositive of this proves the double-negated least number existence for all non-empty subsets of . Another valid principle also classically equivalent to it is least number existence for all inhabited decidable subsets. That said, the bare existence claim for the inhabited subset of is equivalent to excluded middle for , and a constructive theory will therefore not prove to be well-ordered.
Weaker formulations of infinity
Should it need motivation, the handiness of postulating an unbounded set of numbers in relation to other inductive properties becomes clear in the discussion of arithmetic in set theory further below. But as is familiar from classical set theory, also weak forms of Infinity can be formulated. For example, one may just postulate the existence of some inductive set, - such an existence postulate suffices when full Separation may then be used to carve out the inductive subset of natural numbers, the shared subset of all inductive classes. Alternatively, more specific mere existence postulates may be adopted. Either which way, the inductive set then fulfills the following predecessor existence property in the sense of the von Neumann model:
Without making use of the notation for the previously defined successor notation, the extensional equality to a successor is captured by . This expresses that all elements are either equal to or themselves hold a predecessor set which shares all other members with .
Observe that through the expression "" on the right hand side, the property characterizing by its members here syntactically again contains the symbol itself. Due to the bottom-up nature of the natural numbers, this is tame here. Assuming -set induction, no two sets have this property.
Also note that there are also longer formulations of this property, avoiding "" in favor unbounded quantifiers.
Number bounds
Adopting an Axiom of Infinity, the set-bounded quantification legal in predicates used in -Separation then explicitly permits numerically unbounded quantifiers - the two meanings of "bounded" should not be confused.
With at hand, call a class of numbers bounded if the following existence statement holds
This or the contrapositive variant
are statements of finiteness. For decidable properties, these are -statements in arithmetic, but with the Axiom of Infinity, the two quantifiers are set-bound. Denote an initial segment of the natural numbers, i.e.
for any and including the empty set, by
.
This set equals and so at this point "" is mere notation for its predecessor (i.e. not involving subtraction function).
To reflect more closely the discussion of functions below, write the above condition as
.
For a class , the logically positive unboundedness statement
is now also one of infinitude. It is in the decidable arithmetic case. To validate infinitude of a set, this property even works if the set holds other elements besides infinitely many of members of .
Moderate induction in ECST
Is instructive to recall the way in which a theory with set comprehension and extensionality ends up encoding predicate logic. Like any class in set theory, a set can be read as corresponding to predicates on sets. For example, an integer is even if it is a member of the set of even integers, or a natural number has a successor if it is a member of the set of natural numbers that have a successor.
For a less primitive example, fix some set and let denote the existential statement that the function space on the finite ordinal into exist. The predicate will be denoted below, and here the existential quantifier is not merely one over natural numbers, nor is it bounded by any other set. Now a proposition like the finite exponentiation principle and, less formally, the equality are just two ways of formulating the same desired statement, namely an -indexed conjunction of existential propositions where ranges over the set of all naturals. Via extensional identification, the second form expresses the claim using notation for subclass comprehension and the bracketed object on the right hand side may not even constitute a set. If that subclass is not provably a set, it may not actually be used in many set theory principles in proofs, and establishing the universal closure as a theorem may not be possible. The set theory can thus be strengthened by more set existence axioms, to be used with predicative bounded Separation, but also by just postulating stronger -statements.
The second universally quantified conjunct in the strong axiom of Infinity expresses mathematical induction for all in the universe of discourse, i.e. for sets. This is because the consequent of this clause, , states that all fulfill the associated predicate. Being able to use predicative separation to define subsets of , the theory proves induction for all predicates involving only set-bounded quantifiers. This role of set-bounded quantifiers also means that more set existence axioms impact the strength of this induction principle, further motivating the function space and collection axioms that will be a focus of the rest of the article. Notably, already validates induction with quantifiers over the naturals, and hence induction as in the first-order arithmetic theory .
The so called axiom of full mathematical induction for any predicate (i.e. class) expressed through set theory language is far stronger than the bounded induction principle valid in . The former induction principle could be directly adopted, closer mirroring second-order arithmetic. In set theory it also follows from full (i.e. unbounded) Separation, which says that all predicates on are sets. Mathematical induction is also superseded by the (full) Set induction axiom.
Warning note: In naming induction statements, one must take care not to conflate terminology with arithmetic theories. The first-order induction schema of natural number arithmetic theory claims induction for all predicates definable in the language of first-order arithmetic, namely predicates of just numbers. So to interpret the axiom schema of , one interprets these arithmetical formulas. In that context, the bounded quantification specifically means quantification over a finite range of numbers.
One may also speak about the induction in the two-sorted, first order theory of second-order arithmetic in a form explicitly expressed for subsets of the naturals. That class of subsets can be taken to correspond to a richer collection of formulas than the first-order arithmetic definable ones. In the program of reverse mathematics, all mathematical objects discussed are encoded as naturals or subsets of naturals. Subsystems of with very low complexity comprehension studied in that framework have a language that does not merely express arithmetical sets, while all sets of naturals particular such theories prove to exist are just computable sets. Theorems therein can be a relevant reference point for weak set theories with a set of naturals, predicative separation and only some further restricted form of induction. Constructive reverse mathematics exists as a field but is less developed than its classical counterpart. shall moreover not be confused with the second-order formulation of Peano arithmetic . Typical set theories like the one discussed here are also first-order, but those theories are not arithmetics and so formulas may also quantify over the subsets of the naturals. When discussing the strength of axioms concerning numbers, it is also important to keep in mind that the arithmetical and the set theoretical framework do not share a common signature. Likewise, care must always be taken with insights about totality of functions. In computability theory, the μ operator enables all partial general recursive functions (or programs, in the sense that they are Turing computable), including ones e.g. non-primitive recursive but -total, such as the Ackermann function. The definition of the operator involves predicates over the naturals and so the theoretical analysis of functions and their totality depends on the formal framework and proof calculus at hand.
Functions
General note on programs and functions
Naturally, the meaning of existence claims is a topic of interest in constructivism, be it for a theory of sets or any other framework.
Let express a property such that a mathematical framework validates what amounts to the statement
A constructive proof calculus may validate such a judgement in terms of programs on represented domains and some object representing a concrete assignment , providing a particular choice of value in (a unique one), for each input from . Expressed through the rewriting , this function object maybe be understood as witnessing the proposition. Consider for example the notions of proof in through realizability theory or function terms in a type theory with a notion of quantifiers. The latter captures proof of logical proposition through programs via the Curry–Howard correspondence.
Depending on the context, the word "function" may be used in association with a particular model of computation, and this is a priori narrower than what is discussed in the present set theory context. One notion of program is formalized by partial recursive "functions" in computability theory. But beware that here the word "function" is used in a way that also comprises partial functions, and not just "total functions". The scare quotes are used for clarity here, as in a set theory context there is technically no need to speak of total functions, because this requirement is part of the definition of a set theoretical function and partial function spaces can be modeled via unions. At the same time, when combined with a formal arithmetic, partial function programs provides one particularly sharp notion of totality for functions. By Kleene's normal form theorem, each partial recursive function on the naturals computes, for the values where it terminates, the same as , for some partial function program index , and any index will constitute some partial function. A program can be associated with a and may be said to be -total whenever a theory proves , where amounts to a primitive recursive program and is related to the execution of . Kreisel proved that the class of partial recursive functions proven -total by is not enriched when is added. As a predicate in , this totality constitutes an undecidable subset of indices, highlighting that the recursive world of functions between the naturals is already captured by a set dominated by . As a third warning, note that this notion is really about programs and several indices will in fact constitute the same function, in the extensional sense.
A theory in first-order logic, such as the axiomatic set theories discussed here, comes with a joint notion of total and functional for a binary predicate , namely . Such theories relate to programs only indirectly. If denotes the successor operation in a formal language of a theory being studied, then any number, e.g. (the number three), may metalogically be related to the standard numeral, e.g. . Similarly, programs in the partial recursive sense may be unrolled to predicates and weak assumptions suffice so that such a translation respects equality of their return values. Among finitely axiomizable sub-theories of , classical Robinson arithmetic exactly fulfills this. Its existence claims are intended to only concern natural numbers and instead of using the full mathematical induction schema for arithmetic formulas, the theories' axioms postulate that every number is either zero or that there exists a predecessor number to it. Focusing on -total recursive functions here, it is a meta-theorem that the language of arithmetic expresses them by -predicates encoding their graph such that represents them, in the sense that it correctly proves or rejects for any input-output pair of numbers and in the meta-theory. Now given a correctly representing , the predicate defined by represents the recursive function just as well, and as this only validates the smallest return value, the theory also proves functionality for all inputs in the sense of . Given a representing predicate, then at the cost of making use of , one can always also systematically (i.e. with a ) prove the graph to be total functional.
Which predicates are provably functional for various inputs, or even total functional on their domain, generally depends on the adopted axioms of a theory and proof calculus. For example, for the diagonal halting problem, which cannot have a -total index, it is -independent whether the corresponding graph predicate on (a decision problem) is total functional, but implies that it is. Proof theoretical function hierarchies provide examples of predicates proven total functional in systems going beyond .
Which sets proven to exist do constitute a total function, in the sense introduced next, also always depends on the axioms and the proof calculus. Finally, note that the soundness of halting claims is a metalogical property beyond consistency, i.e. a theory may be consistent and from it one may prove that some program will eventually halt, despite this never actually occurring when said program is ran. More formally, assuming consistency of a theory does not imply it is also arithmetically -sound.
Total functional relations
In set theory language here, speak of a function class when and provenly
.
Notably, this definition involves quantifier explicitly asking for existence - an aspect which is particularly important in the constructive context. In words: For every , it demands the unique existence of a so that .
In the case that this holds one may use function application bracket notation and write . The above property may then be stated as . This notation may be extended to equality of function values. Some notational conveniences involving function application will only work when a set has indeed been established to be a function.
Let (also written ) denote the class of sets that fulfill the function property. This is the class of functions from to in a pure set theory. Below the notation is also used for , for the sake of distinguishing it from ordinal exponentiation. When functions are understood as just function graphs as here, the membership proposition is also written . The boolean-valued are among the classes discussed in the next section.
By construction, any such function respects equality in the sense that , for any inputs from . This is worth mentioning since also more broader concepts of "operations" exist in the literature, which may not respect this. Variants of the functional predicate definition using apartness relations on setoids have been defined as well.
A subset of a function is still a function and the function predicate may also be proven for enlarged chosen codomain sets. As noted, care must be taken with nomenclature "function", a word which sees use in most mathematical frameworks. When a function set itself is not tied to a particular codomain, then this set of pairs is also member of a function space with larger codomain. This do not happen when by the word one denotes the subset of pairs paired with a codomain set, i.e. a formalization in terms of . This is mostly a matter of bookkeeping, but affects how other predicates are defined, question of size. This choice is also just enforced by some mathematical frameworks.
If both the domain and considered codomain are sets, then the above predicate only involves bounded quantifiers. Common notions such as injectivity and surjectivity can be expressed in a bounded fashion as well, and thus so is bijectivity. Both of these tie in to notions of size. Importantly, injection existence between any two sets provides a preorder. A power class does not inject into its underlying set and the latter does not map onto the former. Surjectivity is formally a more complex definition. Note that injectivity shall be defined positively, not by its contrapositive, which is common practice in classical mathematics. The version without negations is sometimes called weakly injective. The existence of value collisions is a strong notion of non-injectivity. And regarding surjectivity, similar considerations exist for outlier-production in the codomain.
Whether a subclass (or predicate for that matter) can be judged to be a function set, or even total functional to begin with, will depend on the strength of the theory, which is to say the axioms one adopts. And notably, a general class could also fulfill the above defining predicate without being a subclass of the product , i.e. the property is expressing not more or less than functionality w.r.t. the inputs from .
Now if the domain is a set, the function comprehension principle, also called axiom of unique choice or non-choice, says that a function as a set, with some codomain, exists well. (And this principle is valid in a theory like . Also compare with the Replacement axiom.) That is, the mapping information exists as set and it has a pair for each element in the domain. Of course, for any set from some class, one may always associate unique element of the singleton , which shows that merely a chosen range being a set does not suffice to be granted a function set.
It is a metatheorem for theories containing that adding a function symbol for a provenly total class function is a conservative extension, despite this formally changing the scope of bounded Separation.
In summary, in the set theory context the focus is on capturing particular total relations that are functional. To delineate the notion of function in the theories of the previous subsection (a 2-ary logical predicate defined to express a functions graph, together with a proposition that it is total and functional) from the "material" set theoretical notion here, one may explicitly call the latter graph of a function, anafunction or set function. The axiom schema of Replacement can also be formulated in terms of the ranges of such set functions.
Finitude
One defines three distinct notions involving surjections. For a general set to be (Bishop-)finite shall mean there is a bijective function to a natural. If the existence of such a bijection is proven impossible, the set is called non-finite. Secondly, for a notion weaker than finite, to be finitely indexed (or Kuratowski-finite) shall mean that there is a surjection from a von Neumann natural number onto it. Call a set subfinite if it is the subset of a finite set, which thus injects into that finite set. Thirdly, for a notion even weaker than finitely indexed, to be subfinitely indexed means to be in the surjective image of a subfinite set, and in this just means to be the subset of a finitely indexed set, meaning the subset can also be taken on the image side instead of the domain side. A set exhibiting either of those three notions can be understood to be majorized by a finite set, but in the second case the relation between the sets members is not necessarily fully understood, and in the third not even membership with respect to some superset it is necessary fully understood.
The claim that being finite is equivalent to being subfinite, for all sets, is equivalent to .
More finiteness properties for a set can be defined, e.g. expressing the existence of some large enough natural such that a certain class of functions on the naturals always fail to map to distinct elements in . One definition considers some notion of non-injectivity into . Other definitions consider functions to a fixed superset of with more elements.
Terminology for conditions of finiteness and infinitude may vary. Notably, subfinitely indexed sets (a notion necessarily involving surjections) are sometimes called subfinite (which can be defined without functions). The property of being finitely indexed could also be denoted "finitely countable", to fit the naming logic, but is by some authors also called finitely enumerable (which might be confusing as this suggest an injection in the other direction). Relatedly, the existence of a bijection with a finite set has not established, one may say a set is not finite, but this use of language is then weaker than to claim the set to be non-finite. The same issue applies to countable sets (not proven countable vs. proven non-countable), et cetera. A surjective map may also be called an enumeration.
Infinitude
The set itself is clearly unbounded. In fact, for any surjection from a finite range onto , one may construct an element that is different from any element in the functions range. Where needed, this notion of infinitude can also be expressed in terms of an apartness relation on the set in question. Being not Kuratowski-finite implies being non-finite and indeed the naturals shall not be finite in any sense. Commonly, the word infinite is used for the negative notion of being non-finite. Further, observe that , unlike any of its members, can be put in bijection with some of its proper unbounded subsets, e.g. those of the form for any . This validates the formulations of Dedekind-infinite. So more generally than the property of infinitude in the previous section on number bounds, one may call a set infinite in the logically positive sense if one can inject into it. A set that is even in bijection with may be called countably infinite. A set is Tarski-infinite if there is some chain of subsets such that each has some new elements compared to its predecessor. There are indeed plenty of properties characterizing infinitude even in classical and that theory does not prove all non-finite sets to be infinite in the injection existence sense, albeit it there holds when further assuming countable choice. without any choice even permits cardinals aside the aleph numbers, and there can then be sets that negate both of the above properties, i.e. they are both non-Dedekind-infinite and non-finite (also called Dedekind-finite infinite sets).
Call an inhabited set countable if there exists a surjection from onto it and subcountable if this can be done from some subset of . Call a set enumerable if there exists an injection to , which renders the set discrete. Notably, all of these are function existence claims. The empty set is not inhabited but generally deemed countable too, and note that the successor set of any countable set is countable. The set is trivially infinite, countable and enumerable, as witnessed by the identity function. Also here, in strong classical theories many of these notions coincide in general and, as a result, the naming conventions in the literature are inconsistent. An infinite, countable set is equinumeros to .
There are also various ways to characterize logically negative notion. The notion of uncountability, in the sense of being not countable, is also discussed in conjunction with the exponentiation axiom further below. Another notion of uncountability of is given when one can produce a member in the compliment of any of 's countable subsets. More properties of finiteness may be defined as negations of such properties, et cetera.
Characteristic functions
Separation lets us cut out subsets of products , at least when they are described in a bounded fashion. Given any , one is now led to reason about classes such as
Since , one has
and so
.
But be aware that in absence of any non-constructive axioms may in generally not be decidable, since one requires an explicit proof of either disjunct. Constructively, when cannot be witnessed for all the , or uniqueness of the terms associated with each cannot be proven, then one cannot judge the comprehended collection to be total functional.
Case in point: The classical derivation of Schröder–Bernstein relies on case analysis - but to constitute a function, particular cases shall actually be specifiable, given any input from the domain. It has been established that Schröder–Bernstein cannot have a proof on the base of plus constructive principles. So to the extent that intuitionistic inference does not go beyond what is formalized here, there is no generic construction of a bijection from two injections in opposing directions.
But being compatible with , the development in this section still always permits "function on " to be interpreted as a completed object that is also not necessarily given as lawlike sequence. Applications may be found in the common models for claims about probability, e.g. statements involving the notion of "being given" an unending random sequence of coin flips, even if many predictions can also be expressed in terms of spreads.
If indeed one is given a function , it is the characteristic function actually deciding membership in some set so that
and then by convention and as well as any equivalent of the formulas and with free may be referred to as a decidable property or set on . One may call a collection searchable for if existence is actually decidable,
Now consider the case . If , say, then the range of is an inhabited, counted set, by Replacement. However, the need not be again a decidable set itself, since the claim is equivalent to the rather strong . Moreover, is also equivalent to and so one can state undecidable propositions about also when membership in is decidable.
This also plays out like this classically in the sense that statements about may be independent, but any classical theory then nonetheless claims the joint proposition . Consider the set of all indices of proofs of an inconsistency of the theory at hand, in which case the universally closed statement is a consistency claim. In terms of arithmetic principles, assuming decidability of this would be - or arithmetic -. This and the stronger related , or arithmetic -, is discussed below.
Computable sets
Going back to more generality, given a general predicate on the numbers (say one defined from Kleene's T predicate), let again
Given any natural , then
In classical set theory, by and so excluded middle also holds for subclass membership. If the class has no numerical bound, then successively going through the natural numbers , and thus "listing" all numbers in by simply skipping those with , classically always constitutes an increasing surjective sequence . There, one can obtain a bijective function. In this way, the class of functions in typical classical set theories is provenly rich, as it also contains objects that are beyond what we know to be effectively computable, or programmatically listable in praxis.
In computability theory, the computable sets are ranges of non-decreasing total functions in the recursive sense, at the level of the arithmetical hierarchy, and not higher. Deciding a predicate at that level amounts to solving the task of eventually finding a certificate that either validates or rejects membership.
As not every predicate is computably decidable, also the theory alone will not claim (prove) that all unbounded are the range of some bijective function with domain . See also Kripke's schema.
Note that bounded Separation nonetheless proves the more complicated arithmetical predicates to still constitute sets, the next level being the computably enumerable ones at .
There is a large corpus of computability theory notions regarding how general subsets of naturals relate to one another. For example, one way to establish a bijection of two such sets is by relating them through a computable isomorphism, which is a computable permutation of all the naturals. The latter may in turn be established by a pair of particular injections in opposing directions.
Boundedness criteria
Any subset injects into . If is decidable and inhabited with , the sequence
i.e.
is surjective onto , making it a counted set. That function also has the property .
Now consider a countable, bounded set . With as above, it follows that
A set such that this loose bounding statement holds for all sequences taking values in (or an equivalent formulation of this property) is called pseudo-bounded. The intention of this property would be to still capture that is eventually exhausted, albeit now this is expressed in terms of the function space (which is bigger than in the sense that always injects into ). The related notion familiar from topological vector space theory is formulated in terms of ratios going to zero for all sequences ( in the above notation). For a decidable, inhabited set, validity of pseudo-boundedness, together with the counting sequence defined above, grants a bound for all the elements of .
The principle that any inhabited, pseudo-bounded subset of that is just countable (but not necessarily decidable) is always also bounded is called -. The principle also holds generally in many constructive frameworks, such as the Markovian base theory , which is a theory postulating exclusively lawlike sequences with nice number search termination properties. However, - is independent of .
Choice functions
Not even classical proves each union of a countable set of two-element sets to be countable again. Indeed, models of have been defined that negate the countability of such a countable union of pairs. Assuming countable choice rules out that model as an interpretation of the resulting theory. This principle is independent of - A naive proof strategy for that statement fails at the accounting of infinitely many existential instantiations.
A choice principle postulates that certain selections can always be made in a joint fashion so that they are also manifested as a single set function in the theory. As with any independent axiom, this raises the proving capabilities while restricting the scope of possible (model-theoretic) interpretations of the (syntactic) theory. A function existence claim can often be translated to the existence of inverses, orderings, and so on. Choice moreover implies statements about cardinalities of different sets, e.g. they imply or rule out countability of sets. Adding full choice to does not prove any new -theorems, but it is strictly non-constructive, as shown below. The development here proceeds in a fashion agnostic to any of the variants described next.
Axiom of countable choice (or ): If , one can form the one-to-many relation-set . The axiom of countable choice would grant that whenever , one can form a function mapping each number to a unique value. The existence of such sequences is not generally provable on the base of and countable choice is not -conservative over that theory. Countable choice into general sets can also be weakened further. One common consideration is to restrict the possible cardinalities of the range of , giving the weak countable choice into countable, finite or even just binary sets (). One may consider the version of countable choice for functions into (called or ), as is implied by the constructive Church's thesis principle, i.e. by postulating that all total arithmetical relations are recursive. in arithmetic may be understood as a form of choice axiom. Another means of weakening countable choice is by restricting the involved definitions w.r.t. their place in the syntactic hierarchies (say -). The weak Kőnig's lemma , which breaks strictly recursive mathematics as further discussed below, is stronger than - and is itself sometimes viewed as capturing a form of countable choice. In the presence of a weak form of countable choice, the lemma becomes equivalent to the non-constructive principle of more logical flavor, . Constructively, weak form of choice is required for well-behaved Cauchy reals. Countable choice is not valid in the internal logic of a general topos, which can be seen as models of constructive set theories.
Axiom of dependent choice : Countable choice is implied by the more general axiom of dependent choice, extracting a sequence in an inhabited , given any entire relation . In set theory this is again an infinite set of pairs, a subset of and one is granted to pass from several existence statements to a unique existence statement for every natural. An appropriate formulation of dependent choice is adopted in several constructive frameworks, e.g., by some schools that understand unending sequences as ongoing constructions instead of completed objects. At least those cases seem benign where, for any , next value existence can be validated in a computable fashion. The corresponding recursive function , if it exists, is then conceptualized as being able to return a value at infinitely many potential inputs , but these do not have to be evaluated all together at once. It also holds in many realizability models. In the condition of the formally similar recursion theorem, one is already given a unique choice at each step, and that theorem lets one combine them to a function on . So also with one may consider forms of the axiom with restrictions on . Via the bounded separation axiom in , the principle also is equivalent to a schema in two bounded predicate variables: Keeping all quantifiers ranging over , one may further narrow this set domain using a unary -predicate variable, while also using any 2-ary -predicate instead of the relation set .
Relativized dependent choice : This is the schema just using two general classes, instead of requiring and be sets. The domain of the choice function granted to exist is still just . Over , it implies full mathematical induction, which, in turn allows for function definition on through the recursion schema. When is restricted to -definitions, it still implies mathematical induction for -predicates (with an existential quantifier over sets) as well as . In , the schema is equivalent to .
-: A family of sets is better controllable if it comes indexed by a function. A set is a base if all indexed families of sets over it, have a choice function , i.e. . A collection of sets holding and its elements and which is closed by taking indexed sums and products (see dependent type) is called -closed. While the axiom that all sets in the smallest -closed class are a base does need some work to formulate, it is the strongest choice principle over that holds in the type theoretical interpretation .
Axiom of choice : This is the "full" choice function postulate concerning domains that are general sets containing inhabited sets, with the codomain given as their general union. Given a collection of sets such that the logic allows to make a choice in each, the axiom grants that there exists a set function that jointly captures a choice in all. It is typically formulated for all sets but has also been studied in classical formulations for sets only up to any particular cardinality. A standard example is choice in all inhabited subsets of the reals, which classically equals the domain . For this collection there can be no uniform element selection prescription that provably consistutes a choice function on the base of . Also, when restricted to the Borel algebra of the reals, alone does not prove the existence of a function selecting a member from each non-empty such Lebesgue-measurable subset. (The set is the σ-algebra generated by the finite intervals . It strictly includes those intervals, in the sense of , but in also only has the cardinality of the reals itself.) Striking existence claims implied by the axiom are abound. proves exists and then the axiom of choice also implies dependent choice. Critically in the present context, it moreover also implies instances of via Diaconescu's theorem. For or theories extending it, this means full choice at the very least proves for all -formulas, a non-constructive consequence not acceptable, for example, from a computability standpoint.
Diaconescu's theorem
To highlight the strength of full Choice and its relation to matters of intentionality, one should consider the classes
from the proof of Diaconescu's theorem. They are as contingent as the proposition involved in their definition and they are not proven finite. Nonetheless, the setup entails several consequences. Referring back to the introductory elaboration on the meaning of such convenient class notation, as well as to the principle of distributivity, . So unconditionally, as well as , and in particular they are inhabited. As in any model of Heyting arithmetic, using the disjunctive syllogism both and each imply . The two statements are indeed equivalent to the proposition, as clearly . The latter also says that validity of means and share all members, and there are two of these. As are are then sets, also by extensionality. Conversely, assuming they are equal means for any , validating all membership statements. So both the membership statements as well as the equalities are found to be equivalent to . Using the contrapositive results in the weaker equivalence of disjuncts . Of course, explicitly and so one actually finds in which way the sets can end up being different. As functions preserves equality by definition, indeed holds for any with domain .
In the following assume a context in which are indeed established to be sets, and thus subfinite sets. The general axiom of choice claims existence of a function with . It is important that the elements of the function's domain are different than the natural numbers in the sense that a priori less is known about the former. When forming then union of the two classes, is a necessary but then also sufficient condition. Thus and one is dealing with functions into a set of two distinguishable values. With choice come the conjunction in the codomain of the function, but the possible function return values are known to be just or . Using the distributivity, there arises a list of conditions, another disjunction. Expanding what is then established, one finds that either both as well as the sets equality holds, or that the return values are different and can be rejected. The conclusion is that the choice postulate actually implies whenever a Separation axiom allows for set comprehension using undecidable proposition .
Analysis of Diaconescu's theorem
So full choice is non-constructive in set theory as defined here. The issue is that when propositions are part of set comprehension (like when is used to separate, and thereby define, the classes and from ), the notion of their truth values are ramified into set terms of the theory. Equality defined by the set theoretical axiom of extensionality, which itself is not related to functions, in turn couples knowledge about the proposition to information about function values. To recapitulate the final step in terms function values: On the one hand, witnessing implies and and this conclusion independently also applies to witnessing . On the other hand, witnessing implies the two function arguments are not equal and this rules out . There are really only three combinations, as the axiom of extensionality in the given setup makes inconsistent. So if the constructive reading of existence is to be preserved, full choice may be not adopted in the set theory, because the mere claim of function existence does not realize a particular function.
To better understand why one cannot expect to be granted a definitive (total) choice function with domain , consider naive function candidates. Firstly, an analysis of the domain is in order. The surjection witnesses that is finitely indexed. It was noted that its members are subfinite and also inhabited, since regardless of it is the case that and . So naively, this would seem to make a contender for a choice function. When can be rejected, then this is indeed the only option. But in the case of provability of , when , there is extensionally only one possible function input to a choice function. So in that situation, a choice function would explicitly have type , for example and this would rule out the initial contender. For general , the domain of a would-be choice function is not concrete but contingent on and not proven finite. When considering the above functional assignment , then neither unconditionally declaring nor is necessarily consistent. Having identified with , the two candidates described above can be represented simultaneously via (which is not proven finite either) with the subfinite "truth value of " given as . As , postulating , or , or the classical principle here would indeed imply that is a natural, so that the latter set constitutes a choice function into . And as in the constructive case, given a particular choice function - a set holding either exactly one or exactly two pairs - one could actually infer whether or whether does hold. Vice versa, the third and last candidate can be captured as part of , where . Such a had already been considered in the early section on the axiom of separation. Again, the latter here is a classical choice function either way also, where functions as a (potentially undecidable) "if-clause". Constructively, the domain and values of such -dependent would-be functions are not understood enough to prove them to be a total functional relation into .
For computable semantics, set theory axioms postulating (total) function existence lead to the requirement for halting recursive functions. From their function graph in individual interpretations, one can infer the branches taken by the "if-clauses" that were undecided in the interpreted theory.
But on the level of the synthetic frameworks, when they broadly become classical from adopting full choice, these extensional set theories theories contradict the constructive Church's rule.
Regularity implies PEM
The axiom of regularity states that for every inhabited set , there exists an element in , which shares no elements with . As opposed to the axiom of choice, this existence claim reaches for an element of every inhabited set, i.e. the "domain" are all inhabited sets. Its formulation does not involve a unique existence claim but instead guarantees a set with a specific property.
As the axiom correlates membership claims at different rank, the axiom also ends up implying :
The proof from choice above had used a particular set . The proof in this paragraph also assumes Separation applies to and uses , for which by definition. It was already explained that and so one wants to prove excluded middle for the latter. This is defined using the clause , so that any given fulfills the disjunction . Now let be the postulated member with the empty intersection property. If , then , while otherwise . This establishes excluded middle for .
Demanding that the set of naturals is well-ordered with respect to it standard order relation imposes the same condition on the inhabited set . So the least number principle has the same non-constructive implication.
Arithmetic
The four Peano axioms for and , characterizing as a model of the natural numbers in the constructive set theory , have been discussed. The order "" of natural numbers is captured by membership "" in this von Neumann model and this set is discrete, i.e. also is decidable. But the theory does actually not enable primitive recursion in for function definitions of what would be (where "" here denotes the Cartesian product of set, not to be confused with multiplication above). Indeed, despite having the Replacement axiom, the theory does not prove the addition function to be a set function.
The first-order theory of Heyting arithmetic has the same signature and non-logical axioms as Peano arithmetic . In contrast, the signature of set theory does not contain addition "" or multiplication "". Next, it is clarified which set theory axiom may be asserted to prove existence of the latter as a function set, together with their desired relation to zero and successor. Far beyond just the equality predicate, the obtained model of arithmetic then validates
for any quantifier-free formula. Indeed, is -conservative over and double-negation elimination is possible for any Harrop formula.
Arithmetic functions from recursion
Going a step beyond , the axiom granting definition of set functions via iteration-step set functions must be added: For any set , set and , there must also exist a function attained by making use of the former, namely such that and . This iteration- or recursion principle is akin to the transfinite recursion theorem, except it is restricted to set functions and finite ordinal arguments, i.e. there is no clause about limit ordinals. It functions as the set theoretical equivalent of a natural numbers object in category theory.
This then enables a full interpretation of Heyting arithmetic in our set theory, including addition and multiplication functions.
With this, and are well-founded, in the sense of the inductive subsets formulation. Further, arithmetic of rational numbers can then also be defined and its properties, like uniqueness and countability, be proven.
Recursion from set theory axioms
Recall that is short for , where is short for the total function predicate, a proposition in terms of uses bounded quantifiers. If both sides are sets, then by extensionality this is also equivalent to . (Although by slight abuse of formal notation, as with the symbol "", the symbol "" is also commonly used with classes anyhow.)
A set theory with the -model enabling recursion principle, spelled out above, will also prove that, for any naturals and , the function spaces
are sets. Indeed, bounded recursion suffices, i.e. the principle for -defined classes. Conversely, the recursion principle can be proven from a definition involving the union of recursive functions on finite domains. Relevant for this is the class of partial functions on such that all of its members have a return values only up to some natural number bound, which may be expressed by . Existence of this as a set becomes provable assuming that the individual function spaces all form sets themselves. To this end
With this axiom, any such space is now a set of subsets of and this is strictly weaker than full Separation. Notably, adoption of this principle has genuine set theoretical flavor, in contrast to a direct embedding of arithmetic principles into our theory. And it is a modest principle insofar as when further assuming full induction or full exponentiation, taking to function spaces , or to n-fold Cartesian products, does preserve countability.
In plus finite exponentiation, the recursion principle is a theorem. Moreover, enumerable forms of the pigeon hole principle can now also be proven, e.g. that on a finitely indexed set, every auto-injection is also a surjection. As a consequence, the cardinality of finite sets, i.e. the finite von Neumann ordinal, is provably unique. Powersets of finite sets exist. The finitely indexed discrete sets are just the finite sets. In particular, finitely indexed subsets of are finite. Taking quotients or taking the binary union or Cartesian product of two sets preserve finiteness, sub-finiteness and being finitely indexed.
The set theory axioms listed so far incorporates first-order arithemtic and suffices as formalized framework for a good portion of common mathematics. The restriction to finite domains is lifted in the strictly stronger exponentiation axiom below. However, also that axiom does not entail the full induction schema for formulas with unbound quantifiers over the domain of sets, nor a dependent choice principle. Likewise, there are Collection principles that are constructively not implied by Replacement, as discussed further below. A consequence of this is that for some statements of higher complexity or indirection, even if concrete instances of interest may well be provable, the theory may not prove the universal closure.
Stronger than this theory with finite exponentiation is plus full induction. It implies the recursion principle even for classes and such that is unique. Already that recursion principle when restricted to does prove finite exponentiation, and also the existence of a transitive closure for every set with respect to (since union formation is ). With it more common constructions preserve countability.
General unions over a finitely indexed set of finitely indexed sets are again finitely indexed, when at least assuming induction for -predicates (with respect to the set theory language, and this then holds regardless of the decidability of their equality relations.)
Induction without infinite sets
Before discussing even classically uncountable sets, this last section takes a step back to a context more akin to . The addition of numbers, considered as relation on triples, is an infinite collection, just like collection of natural numbers themselves. But note that induction schemas may be adopted (for sets, ordinals or in conjunction with a natural number sort), without ever postulating that the collection of naturals exists as a set. As noted, Heyting arithmetic is bi-interpretable with such a constructive set theory, in which all sets are postulated to be in bijection with an ordinal. The BIT predicate is a common means to encode sets in arithmetic.
This paragraph lists a few weak natural number induction principles studied in the proof theory of arithmetic theories with addition and multiplication in their signature. This is the framework where these principles are most well understood. The theories may be defined via bounded formulations or variations on induction schemas that may furthermore only allow for predicates of restricted complexity. On the classical first-order side, this leads to theories between the Robinson arithmetic and Peano arithmetic : The theory does not have any induction. has full mathematical induction for arithmetical formulas and has ordinal , meaning the theory lets one encode ordinals of weaker theories as recursive relation on just the naturals. Theories may also include additional symbols for particular functions.
Many of the well studied arithmetic theories are weak regarding proof of totality for some more fast growing functions. Some of the most basic examples of arithmetics include elementary function arithmetic , which includes induction for just bounded arithmetical formulas, here meaning with quantifiers over finite number ranges. The theory has a proof theoretic ordinal (the least not provenly recursive well-ordering) of .
The -induction schema for arithmetical existential formulas allows for induction for those properties of naturals a validation of which is computable via a finite search with unbound (any, but finite) runtime. The schema is also classically equivalent to the -induction schema.
The relatively weak classical first-order arithmetic which adopts that schema is denoted and proves the primitive recursive functions total. The theory is -conservative over primitive recursive arithmetic .
Note that the -induction is also part of the second-order reverse mathematics base system , its other axioms being plus -comprehension of subsets of naturals. The theory is -conservative over . Those last mentioned arithmetic theories all have ordinal .
Let us mention one more step beyond the -induction schema. Lack of stronger induction schemas means, for example, that some unbounded versions of the pigeon hole principle are unprovable. One relatively weak one being the Ramsey theorem type claim here expressed as follows: For any and coding of a coloring map , associating each with a color , it is not the case that for every color there exists a threshold input number beyond which is not ever the mappings return value anymore. (In the classical context and in terms of sets, this claim about coloring may be phrased positively, as saying that there always exists at least one return value such that, in effect, for some unbounded domain it holds that . In words, when provides infinite enumerated assignments, each being of one of different possible colors, it is claimed that a particular coloring infinitely many numbers always exists and that the set can thus be specified, without even having to inspect properties of . When read constructively, one would want to be concretely specifiable and so that formulation is a stronger claim.) Higher indirection, than in induction for mere existential statements, is needed to formally reformulate such a negation (the Ramsey theorem type claim in the original formulation above) and prove it. Namely to restate the problem in terms of the negation of the existence of one joint threshold number, depending on all the hypothetical 's, beyond which the function would still have to attain some color value. More specifically, the strength of the required bounding principle is strictly between the induction schema in and .
For properties in terms of return values of functions on finite domains, brute force verification through checking all possible inputs has computational overhead which is larger the larger the size of the domain, but always finite. Acceptance of an induction schema as in validates the former so called infinite pigeon hole principle, which concerns unbounded domains, and so is about mappings with infinitely many inputs.
It is worth noting that in the program of predicative arithmetic, even the mathematical induction schema has been criticized as possibly being impredicative, when natural numbers are defined as the object which fulfill this schema, which itself is defined in terms of all naturals.
Exponentiation
Classical without the Powerset axiom is still consistent with all existing sets of reals being subcountable, and there even countable. Such a theory essentially amounts to second-order arithmetic.
Possible choice principles were discussed, a weakened form of the Separation schema was already adopted, and more of the standard axioms shall be weakened for a more predicative and constructive theory. The first one of those is the Powerset axiom, which is adopted in the form of the space of characteristic functions, itself tied to exactly the decidable subclasses. The following axiom is strictly stronger than its pendant for finite domains discussed above:
The formulation here again uses the convenient notation for function spaces, as discussed above. In words, the axiom says that given two sets , the class of all functions is, in fact, also a set.
This is certainly required, for example, to formalize the object map of an internal hom-functor like
Adopting existence statements like Exponentiation, i.e. function spaces being sets, quantification over the elements of certain classes of functions now only range over sets. The axiom directly enriches the domain of sets, but with it also enables the derivation of yet more, via bounded Separation, which in turn also strengthens other axioms. Notably, these bounded quantifiers now range over function spaces that are provably uncountable, and hence even classically uncountable. E.g. the collection of all functions where , i.e. the set of points underlying the Cantor space, is uncountable, by Cantor's diagonal argument, and can at best be taken to be a subcountable set. In this theory one may now also quantify over subspaces of spaces like , which may be understood as collections of decidable predicates, and which is a third order notion on the naturals. (In this section and beyond, the symbol for the semiring of natural numbers in expressions like is used, or written , just to avoid conflation of cardinal- with ordinal exponentiation.) Without further axioms, intuitionistic mathematics has models in recursive functions but also forms of hypercomputation. Such a theory does not prove a function space like to be not enumerable, in the sense of injections out of it.
Roughly, classically uncountable sets tend to not have computably decidable equality.
On countable sets
With Exponentiation, the union of all finite sequences over a countable set is now a countable set. For any countable family of counting functions together with their ranges, the theory proves the union of those ranges to be countable. In contrast, not assuming countable choice, even is consistent with the uncountable set being the union of a countable set of countable sets.
At last, any finitely indexed union of a family of subfinitely indexed resp. subcountable sets is itself subfinitely indexed resp. subcountable as well. Of course, many other theorems about the various function existence predicates hold, especially when assuming countable choice.
The set theory now proves the existence of any primitive recursive function in , and in particular in the uncountable function spaces out of . Indeed, with function spaces and the finite von Neumann ordinals as domains, we can model as discussed, and thus encode ordinals in the arithmetic. One then furthermore obtains the ordinal-exponentiated number as a set, which may be characterized as , the counted set of words over an infinite alphabet.
As far as comprehension goes, the dependent or indexed products are now sets. The theory now proves the collection of all the countable subsets of any set (the collection is a subclass of the powerclass) to be a set.
The class of subsets of a set
The characterization of the class of all subsets of a set involves unbounded universal quantification, namely . Here has been defined in terms of the membership predicate above. So in a mathematical set theory framework, the power class is defined not in a bottom-up construction from its constituents (like an algorithm on a list, that e.g. maps ) but via a comprehension over all sets. If is a set, that defining quantification even ranges over , which makes the axiom of powerset impredicative. The statement itself is .
The richness of the powerclass in a theory without excluded middle can best be understood by considering small classically finite sets. For any proposition , consider the subclass of (i.e. or ). It equals when can be rejected and it equals (i.e. ), when can be proven. But may also not be decidable at all. Consider three different undecidable proposition, none of which provenly imply another. They can ben used to define three subclasses of the singleton , none of which are provenly the same. In this view, the powerclass of the singleton, usually denoted by , is called the truth value algebra and does not necessarily provenly have only two elements.
With Exponentiation, being a set already implies Powerset for sets in general. The proof is via replacement for the association of to , and an argument why all subsets are covered.
The set , of functions taking values in (i.e. ) on a set , injects into the function space and corresponds to just the decidable subsets of .
If the theory proves above a set (as for example unconditionally does), then the subset of is a function with . To claim that is to claim that excluded middle holds for .
It has been pointed out that the empty set and the set itself are of course two subsets of . Whether also is true in a theory is contingent on a simple disjunction:
.
So assuming for just bounded formulas, predicative Separation then lets one demonstrate that the powerclass is a set. And so in this context, also full Choice proves Powerset.
Moreover, with bounded excluded middle, is in bijection with . See also the discussion of below.
Note that cardinal relations involving uncountable sets are also elusive in , where the characterization of uncountability simplifies to . For example, it is independent whether all such have , nor does it prove that , see continuum hypothesis and the related Easton's theorem.
Full Separation is equivalent to just assuming that each individual subclass of is a set. Assuming full Separation, both full Choice and Regularity prove .
Assuming in this theory, Set induction becomes equivalent to Regularity and Replacement becomes capable of proving full Separation.
Metalogic
While the theory does not exceed the consistency strength of Heyting arithmetic, adding Excluded Middle gives a theory proving the same theorems as classical minus Regularity!
Thus, adding Regularity as well as either or full Separation to gives full classical .
Adding full Choice and full Separation gives minus Regularity.
So this would thus lead to a theory beyond the strength of typical type theory.
Category and type theoretic notions
So in this context with Exponentiation, first-order arithmetic has a model and all function spaces between sets exist. The latter are more accessible than the classes containing all subsets of a set, as is the case with exponential objects resp. subobjects in category theory.
In category theoretical terms, the theory essentially corresponds to constructively well-pointed Cartesian closed Heyting pretoposes with (whenever Infinity is adopted) a natural numbers object. Existence of powerset is what would turn a Heyting pretopos into an elementary topos.
Every such topos that interprets is of course a model of these weaker theories, but locally Cartesian closed pretoposes have been defined that e.g. interpret theories with Exponentiation but reject full Separation and Powerset.
A form of corresponds to any subobject having a complement, in which case we call the topos Boolean. Diaconescu's theorem in its original topos form says that this hold iff any coequalizer of two nonintersecting monomorphisms has a section. The latter is a formulation of choice. Barr's theorem states that any topos admits a surjection from a Boolean topos onto it, relating to classical statements being provable intuitionistically.
In type theory, the expression "" exists on its own and denotes function spaces, a primitive notion. These types (or, in set theory, classes or sets) naturally appear, for example, as the type of the currying bijection between and , an adjunction.
A typical type theory with general programming capability - and certainly those that can model , which is considered a constructive set theory - will have a type of integers and function spaces representing , and as such also include types that are not countable. This is just to say, or implies, that among the function terms , none have the property of being a surjection.
Constructive set theories are also studied in the context of applicative axioms.
Analysis
In this section the strength of is elaborated on.
For context, possible further principles are mentioned, which are not necessarily classical and also not generally considered constructive.
Here a general warning is in order: When reading proposition equivalence claims in the computable context, one shall always be aware which choice, induction and comprehension principles are silently assumed.
See also the related constructive analysis, feasible analysis and computable analysis.
The theory proves uniqueness of Archimedean, Dedekind complete (pseudo-)ordered fields, with equivalence by a unique isomorphism. The prefix "pseudo" here highlights that the order will, in any case, constructively not always be decidable. This result is relevant assuming complete such models exist as sets.
Cauchy sequences
Exponentiation implies recursion principles and so in , one can comfortably reason about sequences , their regularity properties such as , or about shrinking intervals in . So this enables speaking of Cauchy sequences and their arithmetic. This is also the approach to analysis taken in .
Cauchy reals
Any Cauchy real number is a collection of such sequences, i.e. subset of a set of functions on constructed with respect to an equivalence relation. Exponentiation together with bounded separation prove the collection of Cauchy reals to be a set, thus somewhat simplifying the logically treatment of the reals.
Even in the strong theory with a strengthened form of Collection, the Cauchy reals are poorly behaved when not assuming a form of countable choice, and suffices for most results. This concerns completeness of equivalence classes of such sequences, equivalence of the whole set to the Dedekind reals, existence of a modulus of convergence for all Cauchy sequences and the preservation of such a modulus when taking limits. An alternative approach that is slightly better behaved is to work a collection of Cauchy reals together a choice of modulus, i.e. not with just the real numbers but with a set of pairs, or even with a fixed modulus shared by all real numbers.
Towards the Dedekind reals
As in the classical theory, Dedekind cuts are characterized using subsets of algebraic structures such as : The properties of being inhabited, numerically bounded above, "closed downwards" and "open upwards" are all bounded formulas with respect to the given set underlying the algebraic structure. A standard example of a cut, the first component indeed exhibiting these properties, is the representation of given by
(Depending on the convention for cuts, either of the two parts or neither, like here, may makes use of the sign .)
The theory given by the axioms so far validates that a Pseudo-order|pseudo-ordered field that is also Archimedean and Dedekind complete, if it exists at all, is in this way characterized uniquely, up to isomorphism.
However, the existence of just function spaces such as does not grant to be a set, and so neither is the class of all subsets of that do fulfill the named properties.
What is required for the class of Dedekind reals to be a set is an axiom regarding existence of a set of subsets and this is discussed further below in the section on Binary refinement.
In a context without or Powerset, countable choice into finite sets is assumed to prove the uncountability of the set of all Dedekind reals.
Whether Cauchy or Dedekind reals, fewer statements about the arithmetic of the reals are decidable, compared to the classical theory.
Constructive schools
Most schools for constructive analysis validate some choice and also -, as defined in the second section on number bounds. Here are some other propositions employed in theories of constructive analysis that are not provable using just base intuitionistic logic:
On the recursive mathematics side (the "Russian" or "Markovian" constructive framework with many abbreviations, e.g. ), first one has Markov's principle , which is a form of proof by contradiction motivated by (unbound memory capacity) computable search. This has notable impact on statements about real numbers, as touched upon below. In this school one further even has the anti-classical constructive Church's thesis principle , generally adopted for number-theoretic functions. Church's thesis principle expressed in the language of set theory and formulated for set functions postulates that these all correspond to computable programs that eventually halt on any argument. In computability theory, the natural numbers corresponding to indices of codes of the computable functions which are total are in the arithmetical hierarchy, meaning membership of any index is affirmed by validating a proposition. This is to say that such a collection of functions is still a mere subclass of the naturals and so is, when put in relation to some classical function spaces, conceptually small. In this sense, adopting postulate makes into a "sparse" set, as viewed from classical set theory. Subcountability of sets can also be postulated independently.
So on another end, on the Brouwerian intuitionist side (), there are bar induction, the decidable fan theorem saying decidable bars are uniform, which are amongst the weakest often discussed principles, Kripke's schema (with countable choice turning all subclasses of countable), or even Brouwer's anti-classical continuity principle, determining return values of what is established a function on unending sequences already through just finite initial segments.
Certain laws in both of those schools contradict , so that choosing to adopt all principles from either school disproves theorems from classical analysis. is still consistent with some choice, but contradicts the classical and , explained next. The independence of premise rule with set existence premises is not fully understood, but as a number theoretic principle it is in conflict with the Russian school axioms in some frameworks. Notably, also contradicts , meaning the constructive schools also cannot be combined in full. Indeed, some of the principles cannot be combined constructively simply because they together imply forms of , for example plus the countability of all subsets of the naturals. These combinations are then naturally also not consistent with further anti-classical principles.
Indecomposability
Denote the class of all sets by . Decidability of membership in a class can be expressed as membership in .
We also note that, by definition, the two extremal classes and are trivially decidable. Membership in those two is equivalent to the trivial propositions resp. .
Call a class indecomposable or cohesive if, for any predicate ,
This expresses that the only properties that are decidable on are the trivial properties. It is well studied in intuitionistic analysis.
The so called indecomposability schema (Unzerlegbarkeit) for set theory is a possible principle which states that the whole class is indecomposable. Extensionally speaking, postulates that the two trivial classes are the only classes that are decidable with respect to the class of all sets.
For a simple motivating predicate, consider membership in the first non-trivial class, which is to say the property of being empty. This property is non-trivial to the extent that it separates some sets: The empty set is a member of , by definition, while a plethora of sets are provenly not members of . But, using Separation, one may of course also define various sets for which emptiness is not decidable in a constructive theory at all, i.e. membership in is not provable for all sets. So here the property of emptiness does not partition the set theoretical domain of discourse into two decidable parts. For any such non-trivial property, the contrapositive of says that it cannot be decidable over all sets.
is implied by the uniformity principle , which is consistent with and discussed below.
Non-constructive principles
Of course and many principles defining intermediate logics are non-constructive. and , which is for just negated propositions, can be presented as De Morgan's rules.
More specifically, this section shall be concerned with statements in terms of predicates - especially weaker ones, expressed in terms of a few quantifiers over sets, on top of decidable predicates on numbers. Referring back to the section on characteristic functions, one may call a collection searchable if it is searchable for all its decidable subsets . This is a form of - for . Note that in the context of Exponentiation, such proposition on sets are now set-bound.
Particularly valuable in the study of constructive analysis are non-constructive claims commonly formulated in terms of the collection of all binary sequences and the characteristic functions on the arithmetic domain are well studied. Here is a decidable proposition at each numeral , but, as demonstrated previously, quantified statements in terms of may not be. As is known from the incompleteness theorem and its variations, already in first-order arithmetic, example functions on can be characterized such that if is consistent, the competing - disjuncts, of low complexity, are each -unprovable (even if proves the disjunction of the two axiomatically.)
More generally, the arithmetic -, a most prominent non-constructive, essentially logical statement goes by the name limited principle of omniscience . In the constructive set theory introduced below, it implies -, , the -version of the fan theorem, but also discussed below. Recall examples of famous sentences that can be written down in a -fashion, i.e. of Goldbach-type: Goldbach conjecture, Fermat's last theorem but also the Riemann hypothesis are among them. Assuming relativized dependent choice and the classical over does not enable proofs of more -statements.
postulates a disjunctive property, as does the weaker decidability statement for functions being constant (-sentences) , the arithmetic -. The two are related in a similar way as is versus and they essentially differ by .
in turn implies the so-called "lesser" version . This is the (arithmetic) -version of the non-constructive De Morgan's rule for a negated conjunction. There are, for example, models of the strong set theory which separate such statements, in the sense that they may validate but reject .
Disjunctive principles about -sentences generally hint at equivalent formulations deciding apartness in analysis in a context with mild choice or .
The claim expressed by translated to real numbers is equivalent to the claim that either equality or apartness of any two reals is decidable (it in fact decides the trichotomy). It is then also equivalent to the statement that every real is either rational or irrational - without the requirement for or construction of a witness for either disjunct. Likewise, the claim expressed by for real numbers is equivalent that the ordering of any two reals is decidable (dichotomy). It is then also equivalent to the statement that if the product of two reals is zero, then either of the reals is zero - again without a witness. Indeed, formulations of the three omniscience principles are then each equivalent to theorems of the apartness, equality or order of two reals in this way.
Yet more can be said about the Cauchy sequences that are augmented with a modulus of convergence.
A famous source of computable undecidability - and in turn also of a broad range of undecidable propositions - is the predicate expressing a computer program to be total.
Infinite trees
Through the relation between computability and the arithmetical hierarchy, insights in this classical study are also revealing for constructive considerations. A basic insight of reverse mathematics concerns computable infinite finitely branching binary trees. Such a tree may e.g. be encoded as an infinite set of finite sets
,
with decidable membership, and those trees then provenly contain elements of arbitrary big finite size. The so called Weak Kőnig's lemma states: For such , there always exists an infinite path in , i.e. an infinite sequence such that all its initial segments are part of the tree. In reverse mathematics, the second-order arithmetic subsystem does not prove . To understand this, note that there are computable trees for which no computable such path through it exists. To prove this, one enumerates the partial computable sequences and then diagonalizes all total computable sequences in one partial computable sequences . One can then roll out a certain tree , one exactly compatible with the still possible values of everywhere, which by construction is incompatible with any total computable path.
In , the principle implies and -, a very modest form of countable choice introduced above. The former two are equivalent assuming that choice principle already in the more conservative arithmetic context. is also equivalent to the Brouwer fixed point theorem and other theorems regarding values of continuous functions on the reals. The fixed point theorem in turn implies the intermediate value theorem, but always be aware that these claims may depend on the formulation, as the classical theorems about encoded reals can translate to different variants when expressed in a constructive context.
The , and some variants thereof, concerns infinite graphs and so its contrapositives gives a condition for finiteness. Again to connect to analysis, over the classical arithmetic theory , the claim of is for example equivalent to the Borel compactness regarding finite subcovers of the real unit interval. is a closely related existence claim involving finite sequences in an infinite context. Over , they are actually equivalent. In those are distinct, but, after again assuming some choice, here then implies .
Induction
Mathematical induction
It was observed that in set language, induction principles can read , with the antecedent defined as further above, and with meaning where the set always denotes the standard model of natural numbers. Via the strong axiom of Infinity and predicative Separation, the validity of induction for set-bounded or -definitions was already established and thoroughly discussed. For those predicates involving only quantifiers over , it validates induction in the sense of the first-order arithmetic theory. In a set theory context where is a set, this induction principle can be used to prove predicatively defined subclasses of to be the set itself. The so called full induction schema now postulates set equality of to all its inductive subclasses. As in the classical theory, it is also implied when passing to the impredicative full Separation schema. As stated in the section on Choice, induction principles such as this are also implied by various forms of choice principles.
The recursion principle for set functions mentioned in the section dedicated to arithmetic is also implied by the full induction schema over one's structure modeling the naturals (e.g. ). So for that theorem, granting a model of Heyting arithmetic, it represents an alternative to exponentiation principles.
Predicate formulas used with the schema are to be understood as formulas in first-order set theory. The zero denotes the set as above, and the set denotes the successor set of , with . By Axiom of Infinity above, it is again a member of . Beware that unlike in an arithmetic theory, the naturals here are not the abstract elements in the domain of discourse, but elements of a model. As has been observed in previous discussions, when accepting , not even for all predicatively defined sets is the equality to such a finite von Neumann ordinal necessarily decidable.
Set Induction
Like mathematical induction above, the strictly stronger full set induction the axiom is usually formulated as a schema in terms of predicates, and thus has a different character than induction principles proven from predicative set theory axioms. A variant of the axiom just for bounded formulas is also studied independently and may be derived from other axioms.
Here holds trivially and so this covers to the "bottom case" in the standard framework.
In , the axiom proves induction in transitive sets and so in particular also for transitive sets of transitive sets. The latter then is an adequate definition of the ordinals, and even a -formulation. Induction in turn enables ordinal arithmetic in this sense. Set induction allows definitions of class functions by transfinite recursion. The study of the various principles that grant set definitions by induction, i.e. inductive definitions, is a main topic in the context of constructive set theory and their comparatively weak strengths. This also holds for their counterparts in type theory. Replacement is not required to prove induction over the set of naturals from set induction, but that axiom is necessary for their arithmetic modeled within the set theory.
The axiom of regularity is a single statement with universal quantifier over sets and not a schema. As show, it implies , and so is non-constructive. Now for taken to be the negation of some predicate and writing for the class , induction reads
Via the contrapositive, set induction implies all instances of regularity but only with double-negated existence in the conclusion. In the other direction, given enough transitive sets, regularity implies each instance of set induction.
Metalogic
The theory formulated above can be expressed as with its collection axioms discarded in favour of the weaker Replacement and Exponentiation axioms. It proves the Cauchy reals to be a set, but not the class of Dedekind reals.
Call an ordinal itself trichotomous if the irreflexive membership relation "" among its members is trichotomous. Like the axiom of regularity, set induction restricts the possible models of "" and thus that of a set theory, as was the motivation for the principle in the 20's. But the constructive theory here does not prove a trichotomy for all ordinals, while the trichotomous ordinals are not well behaved with respect to the notion of successor and rank.
The added proof-theoretical strength attained with Induction in the constructive context is significant, even if dropping Regularity in the context of does not reduce the proof-theoretical strength.
Even without Exponentiation, the present theory with set induction has the same proof theoretic strength as and proves the same functions recursive. Specifically, its proof-theoretic large countable ordinal is the Bachmann–Howard ordinal. This is also the ordinal of classical or intuitionistic Kripke–Platek set theory.
It is consistent even with to assume that the class of trichotomous ordinals form a set. The current theory augmented with this ordinal set existence postulate proves the consistency of .
Aczel was also one of the main developers or Non-well-founded set theory, which rejects set induction.
Relation to ZF
The theory also constitutes a presentation of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory in the sense that variants of all its eight axioms are present. Extensionality, Pairing, Union and Replacement are indeed identical. Separation is adopted in a predicative form and with Infinity is stated in a strong formulation, as in the classical case, they already imply the Empty Set axiom. Exponentiation for finite domains and full mathematical induction are also implied by their stronger adopted variants. Without the principle of excluded middle, the theory here is lacking, in its classical form, full Separation, Powerset as well as Regularity. Accepting now exactly leads into the classical theory.
The following highlights the different readings of a formal theory. Let denote the continuum hypothesis and so that . Then is inhabited by and any set that is established to be a member of either equals or . Induction on implies that it cannot consistently be negated that has some least natural number member. The value of such a member can be shown to be independent of theories such as . Nonetheless, any classical set theory like proves there exists such a number.
Strong Collection
Having discussed all the weakened forms of the classical set theory axioms, Replacement and Exponentiation can be further strengthened without losing a type theoretical interpretation, and in a way that is not going beyond .
So firstly, one may reflect upon the strength of the axiom of replacement, also in the context of the classical set theory. For any set and any natural , there exists the product recursively given by , which have ever deeper rank. Induction for unbound predicates proves that these sets exist for all of the infinitely many naturals. Replacement "for " now moreover states that this infinite class of products can be turned into the infinite set, . This is also not a subset of any previously established set.
Going beyond those axioms also seen in Myhill's typed approach, consider the discussed constructive theory with Exponentiation and Induction, but now strengthened by the collection schema. In it is equivalent to Replacement, unless the powerset axiom is dropped. In the current context the strong axiom presented supersedes Replacement, due to not requiring the binary relation definition to be functional, but possibly multi-valued.
In words, for every total relation, there exists an image set such that the relation is total in both directions. Expressing this via a raw first-order formulation leads to a somewhat repetitive format. The antecedent states that one considers relation between sets and that are total over a certain domain set , that is, has at least one "image value" for every element in the domain. This is more general than an inhabitance condition in a set theoretical choice axiom, but also more general than the condition of Replacement, which demands unique existence . In the consequent, firstly, the axioms states that then there exists a set which contains at least one "image" value under , for every element of the domain. Secondly, in this axioms formulation it then moreover states that only such images are elements of that new codomain set . It is guaranteeing that does not overshoot the codomain of and thus the axiom is also expressing some power akin to a Separation procedure. The principle may be used in the constructive study of larger sets beyond the everyday need of analysis.
Metalogic
This theory without , without unbounded separation and without "naive" Power set enjoys various nice properties. For example, as opposed to with its subset collection schema below, it has the existence property.
Constructive Zermelo–Fraenkel
Binary refinement
The so called binary refinement axiom says that for any there exists a set such that for any covering , the set holds two subsets and that also do this covering job, . It is a weakest form of the powerset axiom and at the core of some important mathematical proofs.
Fullness below, for relations between the set and the finite , implies that this is indeed possible.
Taking another step back, plus Recursion and plus Binary refinement already proves that there exists an Archimedean, Dedekind complete pseudo-ordered field. That set theory also proves that the class of left Dedekind cuts is a set, not requiring Induction or Collection. And it moreover proves that function spaces into discrete sets are sets (there e.g. ), without assuming . Already over the weak theory (which is to say without Infinity) does binary refinement prove that function spaces into discrete sets are sets, and therefore e.g. the existence of all characteristic function spaces .
Subset Collection
The theory known as adopts the axioms of the previous sections plus a stronger form of Exponentiation. It is by adopting the following alternative to Exponentiation, which can again be seen as a constructive version of the Power set axiom:
An alternative that is not a schema is elaborated on below.
Fullness
For given and , let be the class of all total relations between and . This class is given as
As opposed to the function definition, there is no unique existence quantifier in . The class represents the space of "non-unique-valued functions" or "multivalued functions" from to , but as set of individual pairs with right projection in . The second clause says that one is concerned with only these relations, not those which are total on but also extend their domain beyond .
One does not postulate to be a set, since with Replacement one can use this collection of relations between a set and the finite , i.e. the "bi-valued functions on ", to extract the set of all its subsets. In other words being a set would imply the Powerset axiom.
Over , there is a single, somewhat clearer alternative axiom to the Subset Collection schema. It postulates the existence of a sufficiently large set of total relations between and .
This says that for any two sets and , there exists a set which among its members inhabits a still total relation for any given total relation .
On a given domain , the functions are exactly the sparsest total relations, namely the unique valued ones. Therefore, the axiom implies that there is a set such that all functions are in it. In this way, Fullness implies Exponentiation. It further implies binary refinement, already over .
The Fullness axiom, as well as dependent choice, is in turn also implied by the so-called Presentation Axiom about sections, which can also be formulated category theoretically.
Metalogic of CZF
has the numerical existence property and the disjunctive property, but there are concessions: lacks the existence property due to the Subset Schema or Fullness axiom. The existence property is not lacking when the weaker Exponentiation or the stronger but impredicative Powerset axiom axiom is adopted instead. The latter is in general lacking a constructive interpretation.
Unprovable claims
The theory is consistent with some anti-classical assertions, but on its own proves nothing not provable in . Some prominent statements not proven by the theory (nor by , for that matter) are part of the principles listed above, in the sections on constructive schools in analysis, on the Cauchy construction and on non-constructive principles. What follows concerns set theoretical concepts:
The bounded notion of a transitive sets of transitive sets is a good way to define ordinals and enables induction on ordinals. But notably, this definition includes some -subsets in . So assuming that the membership of is decidable in all successor ordinals proves for bounded formulas in . Also, neither linearity of ordinals, nor existence of power sets of finite sets are derivable in this theory, as assuming either implies Power set. The circumstance that ordinals are better behaved in the classical than in the constructive context manifests in a different theory of large set existence postulates.
Consider the functions the domain of which is or some . These are sequences and their ranges are counted sets. Denote by the class characterized as the smallest codomain such that the ranges of the aforementioned functions into are also itself members of . In , this is the set of hereditarily countable set , which is uncountable as it also contains all countable ordinals. does not prove such a set exists, even when countable choice is assumed.
Finally, the theory does not prove that all function spaces formed from sets in the constructible universe are sets inside , and this holds even when assuming Powerset instead of the weaker Exponentiation axiom. So this is a particular statement preventing from proving the class to be a model of .
Ordinal analysis
Taking and dropping set induction gives a theory that is conservative over for arithmetic statements, in that sense that it proves the same arithmetical statements for its -model . Adding back just mathematical induction gives a theory with proof theoretic ordinal , which is the first common fixed point of the Veblen functions for . This is the same ordinal as for and is below the Feferman–Schütte ordinal .
Exhibiting a type theoretical model, the full theory goes beyond , its ordinal still being the modest Bachmann–Howard ordinal.
Assuming the class of trichotomous ordinals is a set raises the proof theoretical strength of (but not of ).
Being related to inductive definitions or bar induction, the regular extension axiom raises the proof theoretical strength of . This large set axiom, granting the existence of certain nice supersets for every set, is proven by .
Models
The category of sets and functions of is a -pretopos. Without diverging into topos theory, certain extended such -pretopoi contain models of . The effective topos contains a model of this based on maps characterized by certain good subcountability properties.
Separation, stated redundantly in a classical context, is constructively not implied by Replacement. The discussion so far only committed to the predicatively justified bounded Separation. Note that full Separation (together with , and also for sets) is validated in some effective topos models, meaning the axiom does not spoil cornerstones of the restrictive recursive school.
Related are type theoretical interpretations.
In 1977 Aczel showed that can still be interpreted in Martin-Löf type theory, using the propositions-as-types approach. More specifically, this uses one universe and -types, providing what is now seen a standard model of in .
This is done in terms of the images of its functions and has a fairly direct constructive and predicative justification, while retaining the language of set theory. Roughly, there are two "big" types , the sets are all given through any on some , and membership of a in the set is defined to hold when .
Conversely, interprets .
All statements validated in the subcountable model of the set theory can be proven exactly via plus the choice principle -, stated further above.
As noted, theories like , and also together with choice, have the existence property for a broad class of sets in common mathematics.
Martin-Löf type theories with additional induction principles validate corresponding set theoretical axioms.
Soundness and Completeness theorems of , with respect to realizability, have been established.
Breaking with ZF
As a rule of inference, is closed under Troelstra's general uniformity for both and . One may adopt it as an anti-classical axiom schema, the uniformity principle denoted ,
This is also often formulated for . Now for a binary set of labels , implies the indecomposability schema , as noted.
One may postulate the subcountability of all sets. This already holds true in the type theoretical interpretation and the model in the effective topos. By Infinity and Exponentiation, is an uncountable set, while the class or even is then provenly not a set, by Cantor's diagonal argument. So this theory then logically rejects Powerset and of course .
Subcountability is also in contradiction with various large set axioms. (On the other hand, also using , some such axioms imply the consistency of theories such as and stronger.)
One may of course add a Church's thesis.
In 1989 Ingrid Lindström showed that non-well-founded sets can also be interpreted in Martin-Löf type theory, which are obtained by replacing Set Induction in with Aczel's anti-foundation axiom.
The resulting theory may be studied by also adding back the -induction schema or relativized dependent choice, as well as the assertion that every set is member of a transitive set.
Intuitionistic Zermelo–Fraenkel
The theory is adopting both the standard Separation as well as Power set and, as in , one conventionally formulates the theory with Collection below. As such, can be seen as the most straight forward variant of without .
So as noted, in , in place of Replacement, one may use the
While the axiom of replacement requires the relation to be functional over the set (as in, for every in there is associated exactly one ), the Axiom of Collection does not.
It merely requires there be associated at least one , and it asserts the existence of a set which collects at least one such for each such .
In classical , the Collection schema implies the Axiom schema of replacement. When making use of Powerset (and only then), they can be shown to be classically equivalent.
While is based on intuitionistic rather than classical logic, it is considered impredicative.
It allows formation of sets using the Axiom of Separation with any proposition, including ones which contain quantifiers which are not bounded. Thus new sets can be formed in terms of the universe of all sets, distancing the theory from the bottom-up constructive perspective. With this general Separation, it is easy to define sets with undecidable membership, namely by making use of undecidable predicates defined on a set.
Further, the power set axiom implies the existence of a set of truth values. In the presence of excluded middle, this set has two elements. In the absence of it, the set of truth values is also considered impredicative. The axioms of are strong enough so that full is already implied by for bounded formulas. In fact, it is ready implied by the particular formula , the principle that knowledge of membership of shall always be decidable, no matter the set. See also the previous discussion in the section on the Exponentiation axiom.
Metalogic
As implied above, the subcountability property cannot be adopted for all sets, given the theory proves to be a set.
The theory has many of the nice numerical existence properties and is e.g. consistent with Church's thesis principle as well as with being subcountable. It also has the disjunctive property.
with Replacement instead of Collection has the general existence property, even when adopting relativized dependent choice on top of it all. But just as formulated does not. The combination of schemas including full separation spoils it.
Even without , the proof theoretic strength of equals that of . And proves them equiconsistent and they prove the same -sentences.
Intuitionistic Z
Again on the weaker end, as with its historical counterpart Zermelo set theory, one may denote by the intuitionistic theory set up like but without Replacement, Collection or Induction.
Intuitionistic KP
Let us mention another very weak theory that has been investigated, namely Intuitionistic (or constructive) Kripke–Platek set theory .
It has not only Separation but also Collection restricted to -formulas, i.e. it is similar to but with Induction instead of full Replacement. The theory does not fit into the hierarchy as presented above, simply because it has Axiom schema of Set Induction from the start. This enables theorems involving the class of ordinals. The theory has the disjunction property.
Of course, weaker versions of are obtained by restricting the induction schema to narrower classes of formulas, say . The theory is especially weak when studied without Infinity.
Sorted theories
Constructive set theory
As he presented it, Myhill's system is a theory using constructive first-order logic with identity and three sorts, namely
sets, natural numbers, functions. Its axioms are:
The usual Axiom of Extensionality for sets, as well as one for functions, and the usual Axiom of union.
The Axiom of restricted, or predicative, separation, which is a weakened form of the Separation axiom from classical set theory, requiring that any quantifications be bounded to another set, as discussed.
A form of the Axiom of Infinity asserting that the collection of natural numbers (for which he introduces a constant ) is in fact a set.
The axiom of Exponentiation, asserting that for any two sets, there is a third set which contains all (and only) the functions whose domain is the first set, and whose range is the second set. This is a greatly weakened form of the Axiom of power set in classical set theory, to which Myhill, among others, objected on the grounds of its impredicativity.
And furthermore:
The usual Peano axioms for natural numbers.
Axioms asserting that the domain and range of a function are both sets. Additionally, an Axiom of non-choice asserts the existence of a choice function in cases where the choice is already made. Together these act like the usual Replacement axiom in classical set theory.
One can roughly identify the strength of this theory with a constructive subtheories of when comparing with the previous sections.
And finally the theory adopts
An Axiom of dependent choice, which is much weaker than the usual Axiom of choice.
Bishop style set theory
Set theory in the flavor of Errett Bishop's constructivist school mirrors that of Myhill, but is set up in a way that sets come equipped with relations that govern their discreteness.
Commonly, Dependent Choice is adopted.
A lot of analysis and module theory has been developed in this context.
Category theories
Not all formal logic theories of sets need to axiomize the binary membership predicate "" directly. A theory like the Elementary Theory of the Categories Of Set (), e.g. capturing pairs of composable mappings between objects, can also be expressed with a constructive background logic. Category theory can be set up as a theory of arrows and objects, although first-order axiomatizations only in terms of arrows are possible.
Beyond that, topoi also have internal languages that can be intuitionistic themselves and capture a notion of sets.
Good models of constructive set theories in category theory are the pretoposes mentioned in the Exponentiation section. For some good set theory, this may require enough projectives, an axiom about surjective "presentations" of set, implying Countable Dependent Choice.
See also
Axiom schema of predicative separation
Constructive mathematics
Constructive analysis
Constructive Church's thesis rule and principle
Computable set
Existence Property
Diaconescu's theorem
Epsilon-induction
Hereditarily finite set
Heyting arithmetic
Impredicativity
Intuitionistic type theory
Law of excluded middle
Ordinal analysis
Subcountability
References
Further reading
Aczel, P. and Rathjen, M. (2001). Notes on constructive set theory. Technical Report 40, 2000/2001. Mittag-Leffler Institute, Sweden.
External links
Laura Crosilla, Set Theory: Constructive and Intuitionistic ZF, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Feb 20, 2009
Benno van den Berg, Constructive set theory – an overview, slides from Heyting dag, Amsterdam, 7 September 2012
Constructivism (mathematics)
Intuitionism
Systems of set theory
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raavan%20%282010%20film%29
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Raavan (2010 film)
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Raavan is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language epic action-adventure film written and directed by Mani Ratnam, who also co-produced the film. It stars Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Vikram, while Govinda, Nikhil Dwivedi, Ravi Kishan and Priyamani in pivotal roles. It marks the Hindi film debuts of Vikram and Priyamani. The film follows the crux of the epic Ramayana, but with a modernized plot which reveals the perspective of Ravana.
Raavan was announced in February 2008, whilst Abhishek and Aishwarya's collaboration in the second time after Guru (2007), creating more anticipation. Shooting began soon after, and took place in various locations with a record number of extras in areas including Chalakudy, Kerala and Ooty, Tamil Nadu amongst other regions throughout India. The film's music was composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics written by Gulzar, the cinematography was handled by V. Manikandan and Santhosh Sivan, and editing is done by A. Sreekar Prasad.
The film was simultaneously released in Tamil as Raavanan with Vikram reprising Bachchan's role and playing the antagonist, Prithviraj Sukumaran reprising Vikram's role (which Abhishek Bachchan was supposed to play. Who opted out of the film as he was not fluent in Tamil)and playing the protagonist, while Aishwarya Rai reprising her role in Tamil as well. Both versions released simultaneously on 18 June 2010 worldwide. The film's premiere was held in London on 16 June 2010.
Plot
A naxalite named Beera Munda and his gang are busy distracting the cops, where police vehicles are set ablaze and women seduce cops into a trap whereby Beera's henchmen attacks and brutally kill them. Whilst on a boating trip, Raagini Sharma is kidnapped by Beera, where her husband SP Dev Pratap Sharma, is informed of the incident. It is revealed that Beera is a local hero in his village, who runs a parallel government in rural areas with his brothers – Mangal and Hariya. Though considered a naxalite by the local police, Beera is respected by the villagers. He actually kidnapped Raagini hoping to avenge the death of his sister Jamunia, where he brings her to a cliff to kill her. She refuses to die at his hands and jumps off the cliff into the water far below, hoping to kill herself, but to no avail.
This causes Beera to hold off the murder, being unable to kill someone who has no fear of death. Dev and his team enter the forests with the aid of Sanjeevani Kumar, a local forest guard. Despite searching deep in the forests, Dev is unable to hunt down Veera. Meanwhile, Raagini (who is actually suffering from Stockholm Syndrome) learns that Dev had led an encounter against Veera during Jamunia's wedding, where his shot grazed Beera in the neck. Fighting for his life, Beera is unable to protect his sister and is led out of the fiasco by his gang. The police pressurised Jamunia into revealing Veera's hideout. When she refused, she was subjected to torture and was physically assaulted by the cops. Beera returned home to find Jamunia depressed and traumatised. The next day, Jamunia committed suicide by drowning in a nearby well. Unhappy with the ways of leading the war causing distress to his gang, Hariya offers a truce to Dev, who initially seems to agree.
When Hariya arrives from his hideout, Dev shoots him to death revealing that he considers the destruction of Beera as more important than saving Raagini. Beera and Mangal are enraged and attack Dev's camp where they wipe out completely. A final confrontation ensues between Beera and Dev on a rickety bridge where Beera triumphs over Dev, but leaves him as Dev told that he is leaving him alive because of Raagini. Dev manages to extricate himself out and finds Raagini bound and tied up with Veera leaving her. While returning to their hometown, Dev accuses Raagini of infidelity and informs her that Beera actually told him. Furious, Raagini leaves Dev to meet Beera through Mangal, where she manages to meet him and asks him about the accusation. Beera denies the accusation, where the duo quickly realises that Dev lied, hoping Raagini would lead him to his hideout. Dev appears with a police team and confronts Beera. Raagini tries to save Beera, but he pushes her out of the line of fire, and is shot multiple times, where Beera falls to his death with a smile while Ragini is distraught.
Cast
As per the opening credits order:
Abhishek Bacchan as Beera Munda, a Naxalite (a character based on Ravana)
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Ragini Sharma / Mahua (a character based on Sita)
Govinda as Sanjeevani Kumar (a character based on Lord Hanuman)
Vikram as Dev Pratap Sharma IPS, Additional Superintendent of Police a character based on Sri Rama
Nikhil Dwivedi as DSP Hemant Sinha (a character based on Lakshmana)
Ravi Kishan as Mangal, Beera's brother (a character based on Kumbhakarna)
Priyamani as Jamuni, Beera's sister (a character based on Shurpanakha)
Ajay Gehi as Hariya, Beera's younger brother (a character based on Vibhishana)
Sachin Khedekar (cameo)
Pankaj Tripathi as Gulabiya, a transgender woman in the village
Tejaswini Kolhapure as Dulari
Anshika Srivastav as Puniya
Faisal Rashid as Rajeshwar Tiwari aka Guddu, Jamuni's lover (a character based on Vidyutjihva)
Chintu Mohaptra as Photographer
Alpa Joshi as Tiwari's wife
Mangal Kekre as Jamuni's mother (a character based on Kaikashi)
Manoj Mishra as Ranjit, Beera's spy (a character based on Shuka and Sarana)
Production
Development
During the making of his 2007 biopic Guru starring Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Mani Ratnam had finalised a script for his next directorial venture titled Lajjo. Based on a short story by Ismat Chughtai, it was a musical period film set in the desert and was to star Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor in the lead. Though the film was slated to go on floors after the release of the former, there were reports of a fall-out between Ratnam and Khan due to creative differences. While cinematographer P. C. Sreeram denied the reports, the film's would-be lyricist Gulzar said there were actually problems with acquiring the copyright of the story, and composer A. R. Rahman even confirmed to having completed 80% of the film score. Yet, the project was put on the back burner for reasons unknown.
Following the critical and commercial success of Guru, Ratnam announced his next film in February 2008. A modern-day retelling of the mythological epic Ramayana, the film again features the real life couple in the lead. The film was initially planned to be made only in Hindi and the idea for the Tamil version came later. In January 2009, while the film was in the making, it was further decided to dub the Tamil version to Telugu making it a tri-lingual. While the film was yet to be titled, it was widely reported in the media that the Tamil version was titled Ashokavanam in reference to the place where Sita was held captive by Ravana. Subsequently, the film was titled Raavan in Hindi and Raavanan in Tamil. While the plot is inspired by Ramayana, the story is narrated from Ravana's perspective making him the protagonist. The film is centered on the 'Ashokavanam' episode where Ravana kidnaps Sita and keeps her in Asokavanam. Later Rama ventures to save his wife and bring her back.
Casting
Bachchan and Vikram were roped in for the contrasting leads. Rai plays the female lead in both versions of the film.
Manikandan was hired as the film's cinematographer; however, he walked out in May 2009 and was replaced by Santosh Sivan. The editing was done by Sreekar Prasad. Rai's costumes were exclusively designed by fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee. Choreography was by Ganesh Acharya, Brinda, Shobana, and Astad Deboo. Peter Hein and Shyam Koushal choreographed the action sequences and Samir Chanda took care of production design.
Filming
Raavan was shot in numerous locations around India including the forests of Karnataka (Tumkur), Kerala (Athirappilly Falls), Ooty, Jhansi, Kolkata, Mahabaleshwar and in the Malshej Ghats in Maharashtra.
Principal photography commenced in October 2008, in the forests near Kochi, Kerala. A few scenes were filmed at Athirappilly Falls, Ratnam's favourite location. Incidentally, he has shot for the songs 'Jiya Jale' in Dil Se.. and 'Barso Re' in Guru at the same location. Forest officials banned the shooting at Malayattoor, an eco-tourism centre, for violating rules and constructing temporary huts, delaying the shoot for 11 days until the issues were resolved on 22 October 2008, while laying down reworked rules. The second leg of the shooting at Ooty that began in December 2008 was also delayed as local cab drivers protested the use of film federation (FEFSI) vehicles which affected their business, forcing a dejected Ratnam to call off the shoot temporarily and move on to Hogenakkal Falls. In February 2009, the crew advanced to Kolkata where the song 'Kalvare' was shot by the banks of Hooghly at Agarpara. Later, as the shooting resumed and progressed at Ooty, Ratnam fell ill in April 2009 and was hospitalised at Apollo Hospitals, causing a further delay of 47 days until filming resumed in June 2009 following his recovery. As the numerous delays affected his other projects, DOP Manikandan walked out in May and was replaced by Santosh Sivan. By July, the crew moved back to Kerala, to reshoot a few scenes at Chalakudy as Ratnam was reportedly unsatisfied after seeing the rushes. This time around, heavy rains played spoilsport leading to another delay in filming. Moreover, when an elephant brought for the shoot ran amok killing the mahout, the Animal Welfare Board served a show cause notice to the production company (Madras Talkies) for not taking permission to use elephants.
The film began its last schedule in August 2009 at the Malshej Ghats in Maharashtra where the climax sequence was shot, the final encounter taking place on a wooden bridge. Production designer Samir Chanda built three identical bridges to facilitate the scene to be captured from different angles. Though initially planned to be built either in Sri Lanka, Australia or South Africa, the bridge was constructed in Mumbai to reduce costs. While bad weather and heavy rains disrupted shoot for a few days, the forest department filed cases against some crew members for trespassing. The film went into post-production by the end of 2009.
Numerous action sequences were performed by the actors. The actors suffered from real cuts and bruises so they didn't need make up. The stunts were directed by Mani Ratnam and choreographed by Peter Hein, who received a Filmfare action award for the Hindi versions of Ghajini and Anniyan. For his introduction scene, the protagonist has to jump from a 90-foot high cliff near the Hogenakkal Falls into the river below. This risky dive was performed by a body double, Balram, a Bangalore based former national diving champion. Kalarippayattu, a martial art form origaniting from Kerala, was also featured in the film. Sunil Kumar, a Kalari gym trainer from Kozhikode, trained the actors. Dancer Astad Deboo choreographed a passionate chase scene and a tandav dance between Abhishek and Aishwarya for the film.
Music
The soundtrack for the film was composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics penned by Gulzar. It features six songs and an additional song that was performed by Rahman at the audio launch. It was released on 24 April 2010 by T-Series.
The additional track performed by Rahman, titled "Jaare Ud Jaare", was not included in the CD. The song was cited to be an "instant composition": "The night before the launch, Rahman closeted himself in his Mumbai studio and worked through the night to compose the song." This song is believed to be included in the later stages. The soundtrack also features three additional songs that were featured in the movie.
Release
Raavan, along with its simultaneously made Tamil version Raavanan, was released on 18 June 2010.
Reception
Critical response
Among Indian film critics, Raavan received mixed reviews and responses. Rajeev Masand of IBN gave the film 1.5/5 and said, "Despite some eye-watering camerawork and a stunning action piece in the film's climax, the film -- especially its first half -- is a carelessly edited mess of long scenes that make little sense when strung together." Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL rated it 2.5/5 and stated, "Raavan is more a choreographed musical-cum-psychological drama but without proper character backing. What makes the movie worth watching is the peaks in the second half, of course apart from the imagery." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama rated it 1.5/5 and said, "On the whole, Raavan is a king-sized disappointment, in terms of content." Sukanya Venkatraghavan of Filmfare rated the film 3/5 and said, "Raavan has its moments but it lacks depth. The first half is fairly riveting but the second half slowly slips into a coma." Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India rated it favourably at 3.5/5, saying, "There are enough punches in the second half to keep the momentum going, but by and large, the film scores mostly on art and aesthete." Raja Sen of Rediff rated it 2/5 and said, "Raavan truly and tragically fails us is in taking one of our greatest epics, and making it unforgivably boring." Parimal Rohit of Buzzine Bollywood said, "Raavan is ultimately a clever film, as it pushed the envelope on how one goes about defining who is good and who is evil."
, Raavan holds a 46% approval rating among the audience. Cath Clarke of The Guardian gave the film a rating of 2/5 and found it sexist, while New York Post critic Lou Lumenick wrote, "If you're not a fan of Bollywood movies – which have long resisted crossover attempts in this country despite the success of hybrids such as Slumdog Millionaire — Mani Ratnam's action melodrama Raavan probably isn't going to make a convert out of you." However, Frank Lovece of Film Journal International found it a "cracklingly stylish, suspenseful psychological drama" with "a visual sense that evokes David Fincher at his darkest", and admired the dance numbers, "one taking place somewhat naturalistically at a wedding, the other essentially a stunning war dance."
The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times likewise gave it positive reviews: Rachel Saltz of the former made it a Times "Critic's Pick" and lauded Ratnam as "a talented visual storyteller who directs action crisply and fills the screen with striking images" including "an eye-popping climactic battle", while Kevin Thomas of the latter said the film "is replete with dizzying camerawork, myriad complications, violent mayhem, broad humor, [the] usual musical interludes, a cliffhanging climactic confrontation and a finish that strikes a note of poignancy."
Box office
Raavan opened "below expectations" at the Indian box office, with the Hindi version earning Rs 60.1 million on its opening day. In North America, Raavan opened in 120 theaters and ranked No. 15 on the domestic weekend box office chart with $760. Box Office India declared the film a Flop.
Unlike its Hindi counterpart, which tanked at the box office, the Tamil version tasted success in the South. During its opening weekend on 15 screens in Chennai, it was the number one film and netted , an opening weekend record then. Though the film opened to packed houses, it slumped a little due to mixed reviews but later picked up following a local holiday. The film collected $8 million at the box office in the first month of release including $400,000 from Kerala. It went on to make over 600 million at the worldwide box office and remained one of the top Tamil grossers of the year. Uk opening weekend. UK boxoffice second week. New York boxoffice.
Accolades
6th Apsara Film & Television Producers Guild Awards
Won
Apsara Award for Best Cinematography – V. Manikandan (shared with Guzaarish)
Apsara Award for Best Re-recording – Tapan Nayak
Apsara Award for Best Visual Credits – Srinivas Karthik Kotamraju
Apsara Award for Best cinematography – Santosh Sivan
Nominated
Apsara Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role (Female) – Priya Mani
2011 Zee Cine Awards
Nominated
Best Actor in a Negative Role – Abhishek Bachchan
3rd Mirchi Music Awards
Nominated
Upcoming Male Vocalist of The Year – Mustafa Kutoane and Kirti Sagathia – "Beera"
Song representing Sufi tradition – "Ranjha Ranjha"
Best Programmer & Arranger of the Year – A. R. Rahman – "Ranjha Ranjha"
Best Background Score of the Year – A. R. Rahman
References
External links
Official trailers
Indian epic films
Indian action adventure films
Indian romantic action films
Films set in India
2010s Hindi-language films
Indian multilingual films
Films scored by A. R. Rahman
Films directed by Mani Ratnam
Films set in forests
Films shot in Chalakudy
2010 multilingual films
2010 films
2010s action adventure films
Reliance Entertainment films
Films shot in Thrissur
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba
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Cuba
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Cuba ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos, 4,195 islands and cays surrounding the main island belong to the country. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both the American state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of both Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. The official area of the Republic of Cuba is (without the territorial waters) but a total of including the exclusive economic zone. Cuba is the second-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti, with over 11 million inhabitants.
The territory that is now Cuba was inhabited as early as the 4th millennium BC, with the Guanahatabey and Taíno peoples inhabiting the area at the time of Spanish colonization in the 15th century. From the 15th century, it was a colony of Spain, and slavery was abolished in 1886, remaining a Spanish colony until the Spanish–American War of 1898, when Cuba was occupied by the United States and gained independence in 1902. In 1940, Cuba implemented a new constitution, but mounting political unrest culminated in a coup in 1952 and the subsequent dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The Batista government was later overthrown in January 1959 by the 26th of July Movement during the Cuban Revolution. That revolution established communist rule under the leadership of Fidel Castro. The country was a point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, and a nuclear war nearly broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba faced a severe economic downturn in the 1990s, known as the Special Period. In 2008, Fidel Castro retired as president after 49 years of leadership of Cuba. Raúl Castro was elected as his successor. Raúl Castro retired as president on 19 April 2018 and Miguel Díaz-Canel was elected president by the National Assembly following parliamentary elections. Raúl Castro retired as First Secretary of the Communist Party in April 2021 and Miguel Díaz-Canel was elected as his successor.
Cuba is one of a few extant Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist states, in which the role of the vanguard Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Cuba has an authoritarian regime where political opposition is not permitted. Censorship of information is extensive and independent journalism is repressed in Cuba; Reporters Without Borders has characterized Cuba as one of the worst countries in the world for press freedom.
Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America. It is a multiethnic country whose people, culture and customs derive from diverse origins, including the Taíno Ciboney peoples, the long period of Spanish colonialism, the introduction of enslaved Africans and a close relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Cuba is a founding member of the United Nations, G77, Non-Aligned Movement, Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, ALBA, and Organization of American States. It has currently one of the world's few planned economies, and its economy is dominated by the tourism industry and the exports of skilled labor, sugar, tobacco, and coffee. Cuba has historically—both before and during communist rule—performed better than other countries in the region on several socioeconomic indicators, such as literacy, infant mortality and life expectancy. Cuba has a universal health care system which provides free medical treatment to all Cuban citizens, although challenges include low salaries for doctors, poor facilities, poor provision of equipment, and the frequent absence of essential drugs. In 2023, according to a recent study by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), 88% of the population in Cuba is living in extreme poverty.The traditional diet in Cuban households is of international concern due to micronutrient deficiencies and lack of diversity, as highlighted by the World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nations, rationed food meets only a fraction of daily nutritional needs for many Cubans, leading to health issues.
Etymology
Historians believe the name Cuba comes from the Taíno language; however, "its exact derivation [is] unknown". The exact meaning of the name is unclear, but it may be translated either as 'where fertile land is abundant' (cubao), or 'great place' (coabana).
Fringe theory writers who believe that Christopher Columbus was Portuguese state that Cuba was named by Columbus for the town of Cuba in the district of Beja in Portugal.
History
Pre-Columbian era
The Caribbean ground sloths, one of the last survivors of the pleistocene megafauna, lived in Cuba possibly until 2660 BCE.
Before the arrival of the Spanish, Cuba was inhabited by two distinct tribes of indigenous peoples of the Americas: the Taíno (including the Ciboney people), and the Guanahatabey.
The ancestors of the Taíno migrated from the mainland of South America, with the earliest sites dated to 5,000 BP.
The Taíno arrived from Hispaniola sometime in the 3rd century A.D. When Columbus arrived, they were the dominant culture in Cuba, having an estimated population of 150,000. It is unknown when or how the Guanahatabey arrived in Cuba, having both a different language and culture than the Taíno; it is inferred that they were a relict population of pre-Taíno settlers of the Greater Antilles.
The Taíno were farmers, as well as fishers and hunter-gatherers.
Spanish colonization and rule (1492–1898)
After first landing on an island then called Guanahani, Bahamas, on 12 October 1492, Christopher Columbus commanded his three ships: La Pinta, La Niña and the Santa María, discovering Cuba on 27 October 1492, and landing in the northeastern coast on 28 October. (This was near what is now Bariay, Holguín Province.) Columbus claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain and named it Isla Juana after John, Prince of Asturias.
In 1511, the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa. Other settlements soon followed, including San Cristobal de la Habana, founded in 1514 (southern coast of the island) and then in 1519 (current place), which later became the capital (1607). The indigenous Taíno were forced to work under the encomienda system, which resembled the feudal system in medieval Europe. Within a century, the indigenous people were virtually wiped out due to multiple factors, primarily Eurasian infectious diseases, to which they had no natural resistance (immunity), aggravated by the harsh conditions of the repressive colonial subjugation. In 1529, a measles outbreak in Cuba killed two-thirds of those few natives who had previously survived smallpox.
On 18 May 1539, conquistador Hernando de Soto departed from Havana with some 600 followers into a vast expedition through the American Southeast, starting in Florida, in search of gold, treasure, fame and power. On 1 September 1548, Gonzalo Perez de Angulo was appointed governor of Cuba. He arrived in Santiago, Cuba, on 4 November 1549, and immediately declared the liberty of all natives. He became Cuba's first permanent governor to reside in Havana instead of Santiago, and he built Havana's first church made of masonry.
By 1570, most residents of Cuba comprised a mixture of Spanish, African, and Taíno heritages. Cuba developed slowly and, unlike the plantation islands of the Caribbean, had a diversified agriculture. Most importantly, the colony developed as an urbanized society that primarily supported the Spanish colonial empire. By the mid-18th century, there were 50,000 slaves on the island, compared to 60,000 in Barbados and 300,000 in Virginia; as well as 450,000 in Saint-Domingue, all of which had large-scale sugarcane plantations.
The Seven Years' War, which erupted in 1754 across three continents, eventually arrived in the Spanish Caribbean. Spain's alliance with the French pitched them into direct conflict with the British, and in 1762, a British expedition consisting of dozens of ships and thousands of troops set out from Portsmouth to capture Cuba. The British arrived on 6 June, and by August, had placed Havana under siege. When Havana surrendered, the admiral of the British fleet, George Pocock and the commander of the land forces George Keppel, the 3rd Earl of Albemarle, entered the city, and took control of the western part of the island. The British immediately opened up trade with their North American and Caribbean colonies, causing a rapid transformation of Cuban society.
Though Havana, which had become the third-largest city in the Americas, was to enter an era of sustained development and increasing ties with North America during this period, the British occupation of the city proved short-lived. Pressure from London to sugar merchants, fearing a decline in sugar prices, forced negotiations with the Spanish over the captured territories. Less than a year after Britain captured Havana, it signed the 1763 Treaty of Paris together with France and Spain, ending the Seven Years' War. The treaty gave Britain Florida in exchange for Cuba. Cubans constituted one of the many diverse units which fought alongside Spanish forces during the conquest of British West Florida (1779–81).
The largest factor for the growth of Cuba's commerce in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was the Haitian Revolution. When the enslaved peoples of what had been the Caribbean's richest colony freed themselves through violent revolt, Cuban planters perceived the region's changing circumstances with both a sense of fear and opportunity. They were afraid because of the prospect that slaves might revolt in Cuba as well, and numerous prohibitions during the 1790s of the sale of slaves in Cuba who had previously been enslaved in French colonies underscored this anxiety. The planters saw opportunity, however, because they thought that they could exploit the situation by transforming Cuba into the slave society and sugar-producing "pearl of the Antilles" that Haiti had been before the revolution. As the historian Ada Ferrer has written, "At a basic level, liberation in Saint-Domingue helped entrench its denial in Cuba. As slavery and colonialism collapsed in the French colony, the Spanish island underwent transformations that were almost the mirror image of Haiti's." Estimates suggest that between 1790 and 1820 some 325,000 Africans were imported to Cuba as slaves, which was four times the amount that had arrived between 1760 and 1790.
Although a smaller proportion of the population of Cuba was enslaved, at times, slaves arose in revolt. In 1812, the Aponte Slave Rebellion took place, but it was ultimately suppressed. The population of Cuba in 1817 was 630,980 (of which 291,021 were white, 115,691 were free people of color (mixed-race), and 224,268 black slaves).
In part due to Cuban slaves working primarily in urbanized settings, by the 19th century, the practice of had developed (or "buying oneself out of slavery", a "uniquely Cuban development"), according to historian Herbert S. Klein. Due to a shortage of white labor, blacks dominated urban industries "to such an extent that when whites in large numbers came to Cuba in the middle of the nineteenth century, they were unable to displace Negro workers." A system of diversified agriculture, with small farms and fewer slaves, served to supply the cities with produce and other goods.
In the 1820s, when the rest of Spain's empire in Latin America rebelled and formed independent states, Cuba remained loyal to Spain. Its economy was based on serving the empire. By 1860, Cuba had 213,167 free people of color (39% of its non-white population of 550,000).
Independence movements
Full independence from Spain was the goal of a rebellion in 1868 led by planter Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. De Céspedes, a sugar planter, freed his slaves to fight with him for an independent Cuba. On 27 December 1868, he issued a decree condemning slavery in theory but accepting it in practice and declaring free any slaves whose masters present them for military service. The 1868 rebellion resulted in a prolonged conflict known as the Ten Years' War. A great number of the rebels were volunteers from the Dominican Republic, and other countries, as well as numerous Chinese indentured servants.
The United States declined to recognize the new Cuban government, although many European and Latin American nations did so. In 1878, the Pact of Zanjón ended the conflict, with Spain promising greater autonomy to Cuba. In 1879–80, Cuban patriot Calixto García attempted to start another war known as the Little War but failed to receive enough support. Slavery in Cuba was abolished in 1875 but the process was completed only in 1886. An exiled dissident named José Martí founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party in New York in 1892. The aim of the party was to achieve Cuban independence from Spain. In January 1895, Martí traveled to Monte Cristi and Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to join the efforts of Máximo Gómez. Martí recorded his political views in the Manifesto of Montecristi. Fighting against the Spanish army began in Cuba on 24 February 1895, but Martí was unable to reach Cuba until 11 April 1895. Martí was killed in the Battle of Dos Rios on 19 May 1895. His death immortalized him as Cuba's national hero.
Around 200,000 Spanish troops outnumbered the much smaller rebel army, which relied mostly on guerrilla and sabotage tactics. The Spaniards began a campaign of suppression. General Valeriano Weyler, the military governor of Cuba, herded the rural population into what he called , described by international observers as "fortified towns". These are often considered the prototype for 20th-century concentration camps. Between 200,000 and 400,000 Cuban civilians died from starvation and disease in the Spanish concentration camps, numbers verified by the Red Cross and United States Senator Redfield Proctor, a former Secretary of War. American and European protests against Spanish conduct on the island followed.
The U.S. battleship USS Maine was sent to protect American interests, but soon after arrival, it exploded in Havana harbor and sank quickly, killing nearly three-quarters of the crew. The cause and responsibility for the sinking of the ship remained unclear after a board of inquiry. Popular opinion in the U.S., fueled by an active press, concluded that the Spanish were to blame and demanded action. Spain and the United States declared war on each other in late April 1898.
Republic (1902–1959)
First years (1902–1925)
After the Spanish–American War, Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris (1898), by which Spain ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam to the United States for the sum of and Cuba became a protectorate of the United States. Cuba gained formal independence from the U.S. on 20 May 1902, as the Republic of Cuba. Under Cuba's new constitution, the U.S. retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to supervise its finances and foreign relations. Under the Platt Amendment, the U.S. leased the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base from Cuba.
Following disputed elections in 1906, the first president, Tomás Estrada Palma, faced an armed revolt by independence war veterans who defeated the meager government forces. The U.S. intervened by occupying Cuba and named Charles Edward Magoon as Governor for three years. Cuban historians have characterized Magoon's governorship as having introduced political and social corruption. In 1908, self-government was restored when José Miguel Gómez was elected president, but the U.S. continued intervening in Cuban affairs. In 1912, the Partido Independiente de Color attempted to establish a separate black republic in Oriente Province, but was suppressed by General Monteagudo with considerable bloodshed.
In 1924, Gerardo Machado was elected president. During his administration, tourism increased markedly, and American-owned hotels and restaurants were built to accommodate the influx of tourists. The tourist boom led to increases in gambling and prostitution in Cuba. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to a collapse in the price of sugar, political unrest, and repression. Protesting students, known as the Generation of 1930, turned to violence in opposition to the increasingly unpopular Machado. A general strike (in which the Communist Party sided with Machado), uprisings among sugar workers, and an army revolt forced Machado into exile in August 1933. He was replaced by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada.
Revolution of 1933–1940
In September 1933, the Sergeants' Revolt, led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista, overthrew Céspedes. A five-member executive committee (the Pentarchy of 1933) was chosen to head a provisional government. Ramón Grau San Martín was then appointed as provisional president. Grau resigned in 1934, leaving the way clear for Batista, who dominated Cuban politics for the next 25 years, at first through a series of puppet-presidents. The period from 1933 to 1937 was a time of "virtually unremitting social and political warfare". On balance, during the period 1933–1940 Cuba suffered from fragile politic structures, reflected in the fact that it saw three different presidents in two years (1935–1936), and in the militaristic and repressive policies of Batista as Head of the Army.
Constitution of 1940
A new constitution was adopted in 1940, which engineered radical progressive ideas, including the right to labor and health care. Batista was elected president in the same year, holding the post until 1944. He is so far the only non-white Cuban to win the nation's highest political office. His government carried out major social reforms. Several members of the Communist Party held office under his administration. Cuban armed forces were not greatly involved in combat during World War II—though president Batista did suggest a joint U.S.-Latin American assault on Francoist Spain to overthrow its authoritarian regime. Cuba lost six merchant ships during the war, and the Cuban Navy was credited with sinking the .
Batista adhered to the 1940 constitution's strictures preventing his re-election. Ramon Grau San Martin was the winner of the next election, in 1944. Grau further corroded the base of the already teetering legitimacy of the Cuban political system, in particular by undermining the deeply flawed, though not entirely ineffectual, Congress and Supreme Court. Carlos Prío Socarrás, a protégé of Grau, became president in 1948. The two terms of the Auténtico Party brought an influx of investment, which fueled an economic boom, raised living standards for all segments of society, and created a middle class in most urban areas.
Coup d'état of 1952
After finishing his term in 1944 Batista lived in Florida, returning to Cuba to run for president in 1952. Facing certain electoral defeat, he led a military coup that preempted the election. Back in power, and receiving financial, military, and logistical support from the United States government, Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans. Batista outlawed the Cuban Communist Party in 1952. After the coup, Cuba had Latin America's highest per capita consumption rates of meat, vegetables, cereals, automobiles, telephones and radios, though about one-third of the population was considered poor and enjoyed relatively little of this consumption. However, in his "History Will Absolve Me" speech, Fidel Castro mentioned that national issues relating to land, industrialization, housing, unemployment, education, and health were contemporary problems.
In 1958, Cuba was a well-advanced country in comparison to other Latin American regions. Cuba was also affected by perhaps the largest labor union privileges in Latin America, including bans on dismissals and mechanization. They were obtained in large measure "at the cost of the unemployed and the peasants", leading to disparities. Between 1933 and 1958, Cuba extended economic regulations enormously, causing economic problems. Unemployment became a problem as graduates entering the workforce could not find jobs. The middle class, which was comparable to that of the United States, became increasingly dissatisfied with unemployment and political persecution. The labor unions, manipulated by the previous government since 1948 through union "yellowness", supported Batista until the very end. Batista stayed in power until he resigned in December 1958 under the pressure of the US Embassy and as the revolutionary forces headed by Fidel Castro were winning militarily (Santa Clara city, a strategic point in the middle of the country, fell into the rebels hands on December 31, in a conflict known as the Battle of Santa Clara).
Revolution and Communist Party rule (1959–present)
In the 1950s, various organizations, including some advocating armed uprising, competed for public support in bringing about political change. In 1956, Fidel Castro and about 80 supporters landed from the yacht Granma in an attempt to start a rebellion against the Batista government. In 1958, Castro's July 26th Movement emerged as the leading revolutionary group. The U.S. supported Castro by imposing a 1958 arms embargo against Batista's government. Batista evaded the American embargo and acquired weapons from the Dominican Republic, including Dominican-made Cristóbal Carbines, hand grenades, and mortars.
By late 1958, the rebels had broken out of the Sierra Maestra and launched a general popular insurrection. After Castro's fighters captured Santa Clara, Batista fled with his family to the Dominican Republic on 1 January 1959. Later he went into exile on the Portuguese island of Madeira and finally settled in Estoril, near Lisbon. Fidel Castro's forces entered the capital on 8 January 1959. The liberal Manuel Urrutia Lleó became the provisional president.
According to Amnesty International, official death sentences from 1959 to 1987 numbered 237 of which all but 21 were carried out. The vast majority of those executed directly following the 1959 Revolution were policemen, politicians, and informers of the Batista regime accused of crimes such as torture and murder, and their public trials and executions had widespread popular support among the Cuban population.
The United States government initially reacted favorably to the Cuban Revolution, seeing it as part of a movement to bring democracy to Latin America. Castro's legalization of the Communist Party and the hundreds of executions of Batista agents, policemen, and soldiers that followed caused a deterioration in the relationship between the two countries. The promulgation of the Agrarian Reform Law, expropriating thousands of acres of farmland (including from large U.S. landholders), further worsened relations. In response, between 1960 and 1964 the U.S. imposed a range of sanctions, eventually including a total ban on trade between the countries and a freeze on all Cuban-owned assets in the U.S. In February 1960, Castro signed a commercial agreement with Soviet Vice-Premier Anastas Mikoyan.
In March 1960, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his approval to a CIA plan to arm and train a group of Cuban refugees to overthrow the Castro government. The invasion (known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion) took place on 14 April 1961, during the term of President John F. Kennedy. About 1,400 Cuban exiles disembarked at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban troops and local militias defeated the invasion, killing over 100 invaders and taking the remainder prisoner. In January 1962, Cuba was suspended from the Organization of American States (OAS), and later the same year the OAS started to impose sanctions against Cuba of similar nature to the U.S. sanctions. The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 almost sparked World War III. In 1962 American generals proposed Operation Northwoods which would entail committing terrorist attacks in American cities and against refugees and falsely blaming the attacks on the Cuban government, manufacturing a reason for the United States to invade Cuba. However the plan was rejected by president Kennedy. By 1963, Cuba was moving towards a full-fledged communist system modelled on the USSR.
During the Cold War, Cuban forces were deployed to all corners of Africa, either as military advisors or as combatants. In 1963, Cuba sent 686 troops together with 22 tanks and other military equipment to support Algeria in the Sand War against Morocco. The Cuban forces remained in Algeria for over a year, providing training to the Algerian army. In 1964, Cuba organized a meeting of Latin American communists in Havana and stoked a civil war in the capital of the Dominican Republic in 1965, which prompted 20,000 U.S. troops to intervene there. Che Guevara engaged in guerrilla activities in Africa and was killed in 1967 while attempting to start a revolution in Bolivia. During the 1970s, Fidel Castro dispatched tens of thousands of troops in support of Soviet-backed wars in Africa. He supported the MPLA in Angola (Angolan Civil War) and Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia (Ogaden War).
In November 1975, Cuba poured more than 65,000 troops and 400 Soviet-made tanks into Angola in one of the fastest military mobilizations in history. South Africa developed nuclear weapons due to the threat to its security posed by the presence of large numbers of Cuban troops in Angola. In 1976 and again in 1988 at the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, the Cubans alongside their MPLA allies defeated UNITA rebels and apartheid South African forces. In December 1977, Cuba sent its combat troops from Angola, the People's Republic of the Congo, and the Caribbean to Ethiopia, assisted by mechanized Soviet battalions, to help defeat a Somali invasion. On 24 January 1978, Ethiopian and Cuban troops counterattacked, inflicting 3,000 casualties on the Somali forces. In February, Cuban troops launched a major offensive and forced the Somali army back into its own territory. Cuban forces remained in Ethiopia until 9 September 1989.
Despite Cuba's small size and the long distance separating it from the Middle East, Castro's Cuba played an active role in the region during the Cold War. In 1972, a major Cuban military mission consisting of tank, air, and artillery specialists was dispatched to South Yemen. Cuban military advisors were sent to Iraq in the mid-1970s but their mission was canceled after Iraq invaded Iran in 1980. The Cubans were also involved in the Syrian-Israeli War of Attrition (November 1973–May 1974) that followed the Yom Kippur War (October 1973). Israeli sources reported the presence of a Cuban tank brigade in the Golan Heights, which was supported by two brigades. The Israelis and the Cuban-Syrian tank forces engaged in battle on the Golan front.
The standard of living in the 1970s was "extremely spartan" and discontent was rife. Fidel Castro admitted the failures of economic policies in a 1970 speech. In 1975, the OAS lifted its sanctions against Cuba, with the approval of 16 member states, including the United States. The U.S., however, maintained its own sanctions. In 1979, the U.S. objected to the presence of Soviet combat troops on the island. Following the 1983 coup that resulted in the execution of Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and establishment of the military government led by Hudson Austin, U.S. forces invaded Grenada in 1983, overthrowing the regime. Most resistance came from Cuban construction workers, while the Grenadan People's Revolutionary Army and militia surrendered without putting up much of a fight. 24 Cubans were killed, with only 2 of them being professional soldiers, and the remainder were expelled from the island. U.S. casualties amounted to 19 killed, 116 wounded, and 9 helicopters destroyed. During the 1970s and 1980s, Castro supported Marxist insurgencies in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Cuba gradually withdrew its troops from Angola in 1989–91. An important psychological and political aspect of the Cuban military involvement in Africa was the significant presence of black or mixed-race soldiers among the Cuban forces. According to one source, more than 300,000 Cuban military personnel and civilian experts were deployed in Africa. The source also states that out of the 50,000 Cubans sent to Angola, half contracted AIDS and that 10,000 Cubans died as a consequence of their military actions in Africa.
Soviet troops began to withdraw from Cuba in September 1991, and Castro's rule was severely tested in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse in December 1991 (known in Cuba as the Special Period). The country faced a severe economic downturn following the withdrawal of Soviet subsidies worth to annually, resulting in effects such as food and fuel shortages. The government did not accept American donations of food, medicines and cash until 1993. On 5 August 1994, state security dispersed protesters in a spontaneous protest in Havana. From the start of the crisis to 1995, Cuba saw its gross domestic product (GDP) shrink by 35%. It took another five years for its GDP to reach pre-crisis levels.
Cuba has since found a new source of aid and support in the People's Republic of China. In addition, Hugo Chávez, then-President of Venezuela, and Evo Morales, former President of Bolivia, became allies and both countries are major oil and gas exporters. In 2003, the government arrested and imprisoned a large number of civil activists, a period known as the "Black Spring".
In February 2008, Fidel Castro resigned as President of the State Council due to the serious gastrointestinal illness which he had suffered since July 2006. On 24 February, the National Assembly elected his brother Raúl Castro the new president. In his inauguration speech, Raúl promised that some of the restrictions on freedom in Cuba would be removed. In March 2009, Raúl Castro removed some of his brother's appointees.
On 3 June 2009, the Organization of American States adopted a resolution to end the 47-year ban on Cuban membership of the group. The resolution stated, however, that full membership would be delayed until Cuba was "in conformity with the practices, purposes, and principles of the OAS". Fidel Castro wrote that Cuba would not rejoin the OAS, which, he said, was a "U.S. Trojan horse" and "complicit" in actions taken by the U.S. against Cuba and other Latin American nations.
Effective 14 January 2013, Cuba ended the requirement established in 1961, that any citizens who wish to travel abroad were required to obtain an expensive government permit and a letter of invitation. In 1961 the Cuban government had imposed broad restrictions on travel to prevent the mass emigration of people after the 1959 revolution; it approved exit visas only on rare occasions. Requirements were simplified: Cubans need only a passport and a national ID card to leave; and they are allowed to take their young children with them for the first time. However, a passport costs on average five months' salary. Observers expect that Cubans with paying relatives abroad are most likely to be able to take advantage of the new policy. In the first year of the program, over 180,000 left Cuba and returned.
, talks with Cuban officials and American officials, including President Barack Obama, resulted in the release of Alan Gross, fifty-two political prisoners, and an unnamed non-citizen agent of the United States in return for the release of three Cuban agents currently imprisoned in the United States. Additionally, while the embargo between the United States and Cuba was not immediately lifted, it was relaxed to allow import, export, and certain limited commerce.
Raúl Castro stepped down from the presidency on 19 April 2018 and Miguel Díaz-Canel was elected president by the National Assembly following parliamentary elections. Raúl Castro remained the First Secretary of the Communist Party and retained broad authority, including oversight over the president.
Cuba approved a new constitution in 2019. The optional vote attracted 84.4% of eligible voters. 90% of those who voted approved of the new constitution and 9% opposed it. The new constitution states that the Communist Party is the only legitimate political party, describes access to health and education as fundamental rights, imposes presidential term limits, enshrines the right to legal representation upon arrest, recognizes private property, and strengthens the rights of multinationals investing with the state. Any form of discrimination harmful to human dignity is banned under the new constitution.
Raúl Castro announced at the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, which began on 16 April 2021, that he was retiring as secretary of the Communist Party. His successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel, was voted in on 19 April.
In July 2021, there were several large protests against the government under the banner of Patria y Vida. Cuban exiles also conducted protests overseas. The song associated with the movement received international acclaim including a Latin Grammy Award.
On 25 September 2022, Cuba approved a referendum which amended the Family Code to legalise same-sex marriage and allow surrogate pregnancy and same-sex adoption. Gender reassignment surgery and transgender hormone therapy are provided free of charge under Cuba's national healthcare system. The proposed changes were supported by the government and opposed by conservatives and parts of the opposition. Official policies of the Cuban government from 1959 until the 1990s were hostile towards homosexuality, with the LGBT community marginalized on the basis of heteronormativity, traditional gender roles, and strict criteria for moralism.
Government and politics
The Republic of Cuba is one of the few socialist countries following the Marxist–Leninist ideology. The Constitution of 1976, which defined Cuba as a socialist republic, was replaced by the Constitution of 1992, which is "guided by the ideas of José Martí and the political and social ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin." The constitution describes the Communist Party of Cuba as the "leading force of society and of the state".
The First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba is the most senior position in the one-party state. The First Secretary leads the Politburo and the Secretariat, making the office holder the most powerful person in Cuban government. Members of both councils are elected by the National Assembly of People's Power. The President of Cuba, who is also elected by the Assembly, serves for five years and since the ratification of the 2019 Constitution, there is a limit of two consecutive five-year terms.
The People's Supreme Court serves as Cuba's highest judicial branch of government. It is also the court of last resort for all appeals against the decisions of provincial courts.
Cuba's national legislature, the National Assembly of People's Power (Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular), is the supreme organ of power; 609 members serve five-year terms. The assembly meets twice a year; between sessions legislative power is held by the 31 member Council of Ministers. Candidates for the Assembly are approved by public referendum. All Cuban citizens over 16 who have not been convicted of a criminal offense can vote. Article 131 of the Constitution states that voting shall be "through free, equal and secret vote". Article 136 states: "In order for deputies or delegates to be considered elected they must get more than half the number of valid votes cast in the electoral districts".
There are elections in Cuba, but they are not considered democratic. In elections for the National Assembly of People's Power there is only one candidate for each seat, and candidates are nominated by committees that are firmly controlled by the Communist Party. Most legislative districts elect multiple representatives to the Assembly. Voters can select individual candidates on their ballot, select every candidate, or leave every question blank, with no option to vote against candidates.
No political party is permitted to nominate candidates or campaign on the island, including the Communist Party. The Communist Party of Cuba has held six party congress meetings since 1975. In 2011, the party stated that there were 800,000 members, and representatives generally constitute at least half of the Councils of state and the National Assembly. The remaining positions are filled by candidates nominally without party affiliation. Other political parties campaign and raise finances internationally, while activity within Cuba by opposition groups is minimal.
Cuba is considered an authoritarian regime according to The Economist's Democracy Index and Freedom in the World reports. More specifically, Cuba is considered a military dictatorship in the Democracy-Dictatorship Index, and has been described as "a militarized society" with the armed forces having long been the most powerful institution in the country.
In February 2013, President of the State Council Raúl Castro announced he would resign in 2018, ending his five-year term, and that he hopes to implement permanent term limits for future Cuban presidents, including age limits.
After Fidel Castro died on 25 November 2016, the Cuban government declared a nine-day mourning period. During the mourning period Cuban citizens were prohibited from playing loud music, partying, and drinking alcohol.
Miguel Díaz-Canel was elected president on 18 April 2018 after the resignation of Raúl Castro. On 19 April 2021, Miguel Díaz-Canel became First Secretary of the Communist Party. He is the first non-Castro to be in such top position since the Cuban revolution of 1959.
Foreign relations
Cuba has conducted a foreign policy that is uncharacteristic of such a minor, developing country. Under Castro, Cuba was heavily involved in wars in Africa, Central America and Asia. Cuba supported Algeria in 1961–1965, and sent tens of thousands of troops to Angola during the Angolan Civil War. Other countries that featured Cuban involvement include Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Yemen. Lesser known actions include the 1959 missions to the Dominican Republic. The expedition failed, but a prominent monument to its members was erected in their memory in Santo Domingo by the Dominican government, and they feature prominently at the country's Memorial Museum of the Resistance.
In 2008, the European Union (EU) and Cuba agreed to resume full relations and cooperation activities. Cuba is a founding member of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. At the end of 2012, tens of thousands of Cuban medical personnel worked abroad, with as many as 30,000 doctors in Venezuela alone via the two countries' oil-for-doctors programme.
In 1996, the United States, then under President Bill Clinton, brought in the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, better known as the Helms–Burton Act. In 2009, United States President Barack Obama stated on 17 April, in Trinidad and Tobago that "the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba", and reversed the Bush Administration's prohibition on travel and remittances by Cuban-Americans from the United States to Cuba. Five years later, an agreement between the United States and Cuba, popularly called the "Cuban thaw", brokered in part by Canada and Pope Francis, began the process of restoring international relations between the two countries. They agreed to release political prisoners and the United States began the process of creating an embassy in Havana. This was realized on 30 June 2015, when Cuba and the U.S. reached a deal to reopen embassies in their respective capitals on 20 July 2015 and reestablish diplomatic relations. Earlier in the same year, the White House announced that President Obama would remove Cuba from the American government's list of nations that sponsor terrorism, which Cuba reportedly welcomed as "fair". On 17 September 2017, the United States considered closing its Cuban embassy following mysterious medical symptoms experienced by its staff. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing international isolation of Russia, Cuba emerged as one of the few countries that maintained friendly relations with the Russian Federation. Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow in November 2022, where the two leaders opened a monument of Fidel Castro, as well as speaking out against U.S. sanctions against Russia and Cuba.
Embargo by the United States (1960 – present)
Since 1960, the U.S. embargo on Cuba stands as one of the longest-running trade and economic measures in bilateral relations history, having endured for almost six decades. This action was instated in response to a wave of nationalizations that impacted American properties valued at over US$ 1 billion, the then U.S. President, Dwight Eisenhower, instated an embargo that prohibited all exports to Cuba, with the exception of medicines and certain foods. This measure was intensified in 1962 under the administration of John F. Kennedy, extending the restrictions to Cuban imports, based on the Foreign Assistance Act approved by Congress in 1961. During the Missile Crisis in 1962, the United States even imposed a naval blockade on Cuba, but this was lifted following the resolution of the crisis. The embargo, however, remained in place and has been modified on several occasions over the years.
The Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 states that sanctions will continue "so long as it continues to refuse to move toward democratization and greater respect for human rights". American diplomat Lester D. Mallory wrote an internal memo on April 6, 1960, arguing in favor of an embargo: "The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. [...] to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government." The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution every year since 1992 condemning the embargo and stating that it violates the Charter of the United Nations and international law. Cuba considers the embargo a human rights violation.
The impact and effectiveness of the embargo have been subjects of intense debate. While some argue it has been "extraordinarily porous" and isn't the primary cause of Cuba's economic hardships, others see it as a pressure mechanism aimed at driving change in the Cuban government. According to Arturo Lopez Levy, a professor of international relations, it would be more appropriate to refer to the measure as a "blockade" or "siege", as it goes beyond mere trade restrictions. Other critics of the Cuban government argue that the embargo has been used by the regime as an excuse to justify its own economic and political shortcomings.
On 17 December 2014, United States President Barack Obama announced the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, pushing for Congress to put an end to the embargo, as well as the United States-run Guantanamo Bay detention camp. These diplomatic improvements were later reversed by the Trump Administration, which enacted new rules and re-enforced the business and travel restrictions which were loosened by the Obama Administration. These sanctions were inherited and strengthened by the Biden Administration.
Despite the embargo, Cuba has maintained trade relations with other countries. According to 2019 data, China stands as Cuba's main trading partner, followed by countries such as Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, and Cyprus. Cuba's main exports include tobacco, sugar, and alcoholic beverages, while it primarily imports chicken meat, wheat, corn, and condensed milk.
Military
, Cuba spent about on its armed forces or 2.9% of its GDP. In 1985, Cuba devoted more than 10% of its GDP to military expenditures. During the Cold War, Cuba built up one of the largest armed forces in Latin America, second only to that of Brazil.
From 1975 until the late 1980s, Soviet military assistance enabled Cuba to upgrade its military capabilities. After the loss of Soviet subsidies, Cuba scaled down the numbers of military personnel, from 235,000 in 1994 to about 49,000 in 2021.
In 2017, Cuba signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Law enforcement
All law enforcement agencies are maintained under Cuba's Ministry of the Interior, which is supervised by the Revolutionary Armed Forces. In Cuba, citizens can receive police assistance by dialing "106" on their telephones. The police force, which is referred to as "Policía Nacional Revolucionaria" or PNR is then expected to provide help. The Cuban government also has an agency called the Intelligence Directorate that conducts intelligence operations and maintains close ties with the Russian Federal Security Service.
Administrative divisions
The country is subdivided into 15 provinces and one special municipality (Isla de la Juventud). These were formerly part of six larger historical provinces: Pinar del Río, Habana, Matanzas, Las Villas, Camagüey and Oriente. The present subdivisions closely resemble those of the Spanish military provinces during the Cuban Wars of Independence, when the most troublesome areas were subdivided. The provinces are divided into municipalities.
Human rights
In 2003, the European Union (EU) accused the Cuban government of "continuing flagrant violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms". it has continued to call regularly for social and economic reform in Cuba, along with the unconditional release of all political prisoners.
Cuba was ranked 19th by the number of imprisoned journalists of any nation in according to various sources, including the Committee to Protect Journalists and Human Rights Watch. Cuba ranks 171st out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index.
In July 2010, the unofficial Cuban Human Rights Commission said there were 167 political prisoners in Cuba, a fall from 201 at the start of the year. The head of the commission stated that long prison sentences were being replaced by harassment and intimidation.
Economy
The Cuban state asserts its adherence to socialist principles in organizing its largely state-controlled planned economy. Most of the means of production are owned and run by the government and most of the labor force is employed by the state. Recent years have seen a trend toward more private sector employment. By 2006, public sector employment was 78% and private sector 22%, compared to 91.8% to 8.2% in 1981. Government spending is 78.1% of GDP. Since the early 2010s, following the initial market reforms, it has become popular to describe the economy as being, or moving toward, market socialism. Any firm that hires a Cuban must pay the Cuban government, which in turn pays the employee in Cuban pesos. The average monthly wage was 466 Cuban pesos—about US$19. However, after an economic reform in January 2021, the minimum wage is about 2100 CUP (US$17.50) and the median wage is about 4000 CUP (US$33).
Cuba had Cuban pesos (CUP) set at par with the US dollar before 1959. Every Cuban household has a ration book (known as libreta) entitling it to a monthly supply of food and other staples, which are provided at nominal cost.
According to the Havana Consulting Group, in 2014, remittances to Cuba amounted to US$3,129 million, the seventh highest in Latin America. In 2019, remittances had grown to US$6,616 million, but dropped down to US$1,967 million in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has also devastated Cuba's tourist industry, which along with a tightening of U.S. sanctions, has led to large increase in emigration among younger working-age Cubans. It has been described as a crisis that is "threatening the stability" of Cuba, which "already has one of the hemisphere’s oldest populations". According to a 2023 report by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), 88% of Cuban citizens live in extreme poverty. The report stated that Cubans were concerned about food security and the difficulty in acquiring basic goods.
History
Before the 1959 revolution, Cuba was one of the richest countries in Latin America. Significant inequalities existed between city and countryside and between whites and blacks. Health care and education were not available to the rural poor, many of whom were seriously undernourished. The country's economy in the middle part of the 20th century, fuelled by the sale of sugar to the United States, had grown wealthy. Cuba ranked 5th in the hemisphere in per capita income, 3rd in life expectancy, 2nd in per capita ownership of automobiles and telephones, and 1st in the number of television sets per inhabitant. Cuba's literacy rate, 76%, was the fourth highest in Latin America although two-thirds of the people received three years of education or less; one-third never attended school and half the adult population could neither read nor write. Cuba also ranked 11th in the world in the number of doctors per capita, although there was massive inequality in the distribution of doctors; for example more than 60% of all doctors lived and worked in Havana in 1958 and even when they worked outside Havana province they typically worked in other provincial capitals.
US companies dominated the Cuban economy before the Revolution, controlling 80% of Cuba's trade. US firms ran public utilities, the railroad, and all of the oil refineries. Two-thirds of food production came from US-owned agro-business enterprises. US developers owned half of the arable land on the island. Just 8% of landholders owned three-quarters of the land. At least 25% of the population was unemployed. 20% of the population received 58% of the income, while the bottom 20% took in just 2%.
According to PBS, a thriving middle class held the promise of prosperity and social mobility. According to Cuba historian Louis Perez of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Havana was then what Las Vegas has become."
After the Cuban Revolution and before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba depended on Moscow for substantial aid and sheltered markets for its exports, valued at $65 billion in subsidies in total from 1960 to 1990. This accounted for between 10% and 40% of Cuban GDP, depending on the year. The loss of these subsidies sent the Cuban economy into a rapid depression known in Cuba as the Special Period, which saw the country's GDP decline by 33% between 1990 and 1993. Cuba took limited free-market oriented measures to alleviate severe shortages of food, consumer goods, and services. These steps included allowing some self-employment in certain retail and light manufacturing sectors, the legalization of the use of the US dollar in business, and the encouragement of tourism. Cuba has developed a unique urban farm system called to compensate for the end of food imports from the Soviet Union. The U.S. embargo against Cuba was instituted in 1960 in response to nationalization of U.S.-citizen-held property and was maintained on the grounds of perceived human rights violations. It is widely viewed that the embargo hurt the Cuban economy. In 2009, the Cuban Government estimated this loss at $685 million annually.
In 2005, Cuba had exports of , ranking 114 of 226 world countries, and imports of , ranking 87 of 226 countries. Its major export partners are Canada 17.7%, China 16.9%, Venezuela 12.5%, Netherlands 9%, and Spain 5.9% (2012). Cuba's major exports are sugar, nickel, tobacco, fish, medical products, citrus fruits, and coffee; imports include food, fuel, clothing, and machinery. Cuba presently holds debt in an amount estimated at , approximately 38% of GDP.
According to The Heritage Foundation, Cuba is dependent on credit accounts that rotate from country to country. Cuba's prior 35% supply of the world's export market for sugar has declined to 10% due to a variety of factors, including a global sugar commodity price drop that made Cuba less competitive on world markets. It was announced in 2008 that wage caps would be abandoned to improve the nation's productivity.
Cuba's leadership has called for reforms in the country's agricultural system. In 2008, Raúl Castro began enacting agrarian reforms to boost food production, as at that time 80% of food was imported. The reforms aim to expand land use and increase efficiency. Venezuela supplies Cuba with an estimated of oil per day in exchange for money and the services of some 44,000 Cubans, most of them medical personnel, in Venezuela.
, Cubans were allowed to build their own houses. According to Raúl Castro, they could now improve their houses, but the government would not endorse these new houses or improvements. There is virtually no homelessness in Cuba, and 85% of Cubans own their homes and pay no property taxes or mortgage interest. Mortgage payments may not exceed 10% of a household's combined income..
On 2 August 2011, The New York Times reported that Cuba reaffirmed its intent to legalize "buying and selling" of private property before the year's end. According to experts, the private sale of property could "transform Cuba more than any of the economic reforms announced by President Raúl Castro's government". It would cut more than one million state jobs, including party bureaucrats who resist the changes. The reforms created what some call "New Cuban Economy". In October 2013, Raúl said he intended to merge the two currencies, but , the dual currency system remains in force.
In August 2012, a specialist of the "Cubaenergia Company" announced the opening of Cuba's first Solar Power Plant. As a member of the Cubasolar Group, there was also a mention of ten additional plants in 2013.
In 2016, the Miami Herald wrote, "... about 27 percent of Cubans earn under $50 per month; 34 percent earn the equivalent of $50 to $100 per month; and 20 percent earn $101 to $200. Twelve percent reported earning $201 to $500 a month; and almost 4 percent said their monthly earnings topped $500, including 1.5 percent who said they earned more than $1,000."
In May 2019, Cuba imposed rationing of staples such as chicken, eggs, rice, beans, soap and other basic goods. (Some two-thirds of food in the country is imported.) A spokesperson blamed the increased U.S. trade embargo although economists believe that an equally important problem is the massive decline of aid from Venezuela and the failure of Cuba's state-run oil company which had subsidized fuel costs.
In June 2019, the government announced an increase in public sector wages of about 300%, specifically for teachers and health personnel. In October, the government allowed stores to purchase house equipment and similar items, using international currency, and send it to Cuba by the Cuban emigration. The leaders of the government recognized that the new measures were unpopular but necessary to contain the capital flight to other countries as Panamá where Cuban citizens traveled and imported items to resell on the island. Other measures included allowing private companies to export and import, through state companies, resources to produce products and services in Cuba.
On January 1, 2021, Cuba's dual currency system was formally ended, and the convertible Cuban peso (CUC) was phased out, leaving the Cuban peso (CUP) as the country's sole currency unit. Cuban citizens had until June 2021 to exchange their CUCs. However, this devalued the Cuban peso and caused economic problems for people who had been previously paid in CUCs, particularly workers in the tourism industry. Also, in February, the government dictated new measures to the private sector, with prohibitions for only 124 activities, in areas like national security, health and educational services. The wages were increased again, between 4 and 9 times, for all the sectors. Also, new facilities were allowed to the state companies, with much more autonomy.
The first problems of the new reform, for the public opinion, were with the electricity prices, but that was amended quickly. Other measures corrected were in the prices to the private farmers. In July 2020, Cuba opened new stores accepting only foreign currency while simultaneously eliminating a special tax on the U.S. dollar to combat an economic crisis arising initially due to economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, then later worsened by a lack of tourism during the coronavirus pandemic. These economic sanctions have since been sustained by the Biden administration.
Resources
Cuba's natural resources include sugar, tobacco, fish, citrus fruits, coffee, beans, rice, potatoes, and livestock. Cuba's most important mineral resource is nickel, with 21% of total exports in 2011. The output of Cuba's nickel mines that year was 71,000 tons, approaching 4% of world production. its reserves were estimated at 5.5 million tons, over 7% of the world total. Sherritt International of Canada operates a large nickel mining facility in Moa. Cuba is also a major producer of refined cobalt, a by-product of nickel mining.
Oil exploration in 2005 by the US Geological Survey revealed that the North Cuba Basin could produce about to of oil. In 2006, Cuba started to test-drill these locations for possible exploitation.
Tourism
Tourism was initially restricted to enclave resorts where tourists would be segregated from Cuban society, referred to as "enclave tourism" and "tourism apartheid". Contact between foreign visitors and ordinary Cubans were illegal between 1992 and 1997. The rapid growth of tourism during the Special Period had widespread social and economic repercussions in Cuba, and led to speculation about the emergence of a two-tier economy.
tourists visited Cuba in 2003, predominantly from Canada and the European Union, generating revenue of . Cuba recorded 2,688,000 international tourists in 2011, the third-highest figure in the Caribbean (behind the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico).
The medical tourism sector caters to thousands of European, Latin American, Canadian, and American consumers every year.
A recent study indicates that Cuba has a potential for mountaineering activity, and that mountaineering could be a key contributor to tourism, along with other activities, e.g. biking, diving, caving. Promoting these resources could contribute to regional development, prosperity, and well-being.
The Cuban Justice minister downplays allegations of widespread sex tourism. According to a Government of Canada travel advice website, "Cuba is actively working to prevent child sex tourism, and a number of tourists, including Canadians, have been convicted of offences related to the corruption of minors aged 16 and under. Prison sentences range from 7 to 25 years."
Some tourist facilities were extensively damaged on 8 September 2017 when Hurricane Irma hit the island. The storm made landfall in the Camagüey Archipelago; the worst damage was in the keys north of the main island, however, and not in the most significant tourist areas.
Transport
Geography
Cuba is an archipelago of 4,195 islands, cays and islets located in the northern Caribbean Sea at the confluence with the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. It lies between latitudes 19° and 24°N, and longitudes 74° and 85°W. The United States (Key West, Florida) lies 150 km (93 miles) across the Straits of Florida to the north and northwest, and The Bahamas (Cay Lobos) 21 km (13 mi) to the north. Mexico lies 210 km (130.5 mi) west across the Yucatán Channel (to the closest tip of Cabo Catoche in the State of Quintana Roo).
Haiti is 77 km (47.8 mi) east and Jamaica 140 km (87 mi) south. Cuba is the principal island, surrounded by four smaller groups of islands: the Colorados Archipelago on the northwestern coast, the Sabana-Camagüey Archipelago on the north-central Atlantic coast, the Jardines de la Reina on the south-central coast and the Canarreos Archipelago on the southwestern coast.
The main island, named Cuba, is long, constituting most of the nation's land area () and is the largest island in the Caribbean and 17th-largest island in the world by land area. The main island consists mostly of flat to rolling plains apart from the Sierra Maestra mountains in the southeast, whose highest point is Pico Turquino ().
The second-largest island is Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth) in the Canarreos archipelago, with an area of . Cuba has an official area (land area) of . Its area is including coastal and territorial waters.
Climate
With the entire island south of the Tropic of Cancer, the local climate is tropical, moderated by northeasterly trade winds that blow year-round. The temperature is also shaped by the Caribbean current, which brings in warm water from the equator. This makes the climate of Cuba warmer than that of Hong Kong, which is at around the same latitude as Cuba but has a subtropical rather than a tropical climate. In general (with local variations), there is a drier season from November to April, and a rainier season from May to October. The average temperature is in January and in July. The warm temperatures of the Caribbean Sea and the fact that Cuba sits across the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico combine to make the country prone to frequent hurricanes. These are most common in September and October.
Hurricane Irma hit the island on 8 September 2017, with winds of , at the Camagüey Archipelago; the storm reached Ciego de Avila province around midnight and continued to pound Cuba the next day. The worst damage was in the keys north of the main island. Hospitals, warehouses and factories were damaged; much of the north coast was without electricity. By that time, nearly a million people, including tourists, had been evacuated. The Varadero resort area also reported widespread damage; the government believed that repairs could be completed before the start of the main tourist season. Subsequent reports indicated that ten people had been killed during the storm, including seven in Havana, most during building collapses. Sections of the capital had been flooded.
Biodiversity
Cuba signed the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity on 12 June 1992, and became a party to the convention on 8 March 1994. It has subsequently produced a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, with one revision, that the convention received on 24 January 2008.
The country's fourth national report to the CBD contains a detailed breakdown of the numbers of species of each kingdom of life recorded from Cuba, the main groups being: animals (17,801 species), bacteria (270), chromista (707), fungi, including lichen-forming species (5844), plants (9107) and protozoa (1440). The native bee hummingbird or zunzuncito is the world's smallest known bird, with a length of . The Cuban trogon or tocororo is the national bird of Cuba and an endemic species. Hedychium coronarium, named mariposa in Cuba, is the national flower.
Cuba is home to six terrestrial ecoregions: Cuban moist forests, Cuban dry forests, Cuban pine forests, Cuban wetlands, Cuban cactus scrub, and Greater Antilles mangroves. It had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 5.4/10, ranking it 102nd globally out of 172 countries.
According to a 2012 study, Cuba is the only country in the world to meet the conditions of sustainable development put forth by the WWF.
Demographics
According to the official census of 2010, Cuba's population was 11,241,161, comprising 5,628,996 men and 5,612,165 women. Its birth rate (9.88 births per thousand population in 2006) is one of the lowest in the Western Hemisphere. Although the country's population has grown by about four million people since 1961, the rate of growth slowed during that period, and the population began to decline in 2006, due to the country's low fertility rate (1.43 children per woman) coupled with emigration.
Migration
Immigration
Immigration and emigration have played a prominent part in Cuba's demographic profile. Between the 18th and early 20th century, large waves of Canarian, Catalan, Andalusian, Galician, and other Spanish people immigrated to Cuba. Between 1899 and 1930 alone, close to a million Spaniards entered the country, though many would eventually return to Spain. Other prominent immigrant groups included French, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Greek, British, and Irish, as well as small number of descendants of U.S. citizens who arrived in Cuba in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As of 2015, the foreign-born population in Cuba was 13,336 inhabitants per the World Bank data.
Emigration
Post-revolution Cuba has been characterized by significant levels of emigration, which has led to a large and influential diaspora community. During the three decades after January 1959, more than one million Cubans of all social classes—constituting 10% of the total population—emigrated to the United States, a proportion that matches the extent of emigration to the U.S. from the Caribbean as a whole during that period. Prior to 13 January 2013, Cuban citizens could not travel abroad, leave or return to Cuba without first obtaining official permission along with applying for a government-issued passport and travel visa, which was often denied. Those who left the country typically did so by sea, in small boats and fragile rafts.
On 9 September 1994, the U.S. and Cuban governments agreed that the U.S. would grant at least 20,000 visas annually in exchange for Cuba's pledge to prevent further unlawful departures on boats.
In 2023, Cuba is undergoing its most severe socioeconomic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union, leading to a record number of Cubans fleeing the island. In 2022 alone, the number of Cubans trying to enter the United States, primarily through the Mexican border, surged from 39,000 in 2021 to over 224,000. Many have resorted to selling their homes at very low prices to afford one-way flights to Nicaragua, hoping to travel through Mexico to reach the U.S. For those remaining among the island's 11 million inhabitants, life grows increasingly desperate. Internal migration has led to overpopulation in the capital, Havana, resulting in people living in makeshift shelters or overcrowded buildings, some of which are on the brink of collapse. The island's persistent shortages of food and medicine can be attributed to the U.S. trade embargo in place since 1962 and stringent government control over the economy since 1959. Regular power outages harken back to the early 1990s, a time when Soviet subsidies ended, plunging the island into economic hardship.
Cuba's "Special Period" saw the country relying heavily on foreign tourism and the earnings of nationals working abroad. The pandemic, however, severely affected this revenue stream, decreasing the number of tourists by 75% in 2020. Monetary reforms in 2021 introduced shocks of inflation, further exacerbating the country's food scarcity and boosting the black market's prominence. Despite the increasing hardships, the Cuban spirit remains resilient. Access to the internet since 2018 and widespread use of social media have fueled calls for political and economic liberalization. The power of the internet was evident during the Cuban protests of 2021, which were promptly suppressed by the police, with many prominent artists and bloggers detained.
As of 2013 the top emigration destinations were the United States, Spain, Italy, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. Following a tightening of U.S. sanctions and damage to the tourist industry by the COVID-19 pandemic, emigration has accelerated. In 2022, more than 2% of the population (almost 250,000 Cubans out of 11 million) migrated to the United States, and thousands more went to other countries, a number "larger than the 1980 Mariel boatlift and the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis combined", which were Cuba's previous largest migration events.
Fertility
As of 2022 Cuba's fertility rate is 1.582 births per woman.
Cuba's drop in fertility is among the largest in the Western Hemisphere and is attributed largely to unrestricted access to legal abortion: Cuba's abortion rate was 58.6 per 1000 pregnancies in 1996, compared to an average of 35 in the Caribbean, 27 in Latin America overall, and 48 in Europe. Similarly, the use of contraceptives is also widespread, estimated at 79% of the female population (in the upper third of countries in the Western Hemisphere).
Ethnoracial groups
Cuba's population is multiethnic, reflecting its complex colonial origins. Intermarriage between diverse groups is widespread, and consequently there is some discrepancy in reports of the country's racial composition: whereas the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami determined that 62% of Cubans are black using the one drop rule, the 2002 Cuban census found that a similar proportion of the population, 65.05%, was white.
In fact, the Minority Rights Group International determined that "An objective assessment of the situation of Afro-Cubans remains problematic due to scant records and a paucity of systematic studies both pre- and post-revolution. Estimates of the percentage of people of African descent in the Cuban population vary enormously, ranging from 34% to 62%".
A 2014 study found that, based on ancestry informative markers (AIM), autosomal genetic ancestry in Cuba is 72% European, 20% African, and 8% Indigenous. Around 35% of maternal lineages derive from Cuban Indigenous People, compared to 39% from Africa and 26% from Europe, but male lineages were European (82%) and African (18%), indicating a historical bias towards mating between foreign men and native women rather than the inverse.
Asians make up about 1% of the population, and are largely of Chinese ancestry, followed by Japanese and Filipino. Many are descendants of farm laborers brought to the island by Spanish and American contractors during the 19th and early 20th century. The current recorded number of Cubans with Chinese ancestry is 114,240.
Afro-Cubans are descended primarily from the Yoruba people, Bantu people from the Congo basin, Kalabari tribe and Arará from the Dahomey as well as several thousand North African refugees, most notably the Sahrawi Arabs of Western Sahara.
Religion
In 2010, the Pew Forum estimated that religious affiliation in Cuba is 59.2% Christian, 23% unaffiliated, 17.4% folk religion (such as santería), and the remaining 0.4% consisting of other religions. In a 2015 survey sponsored by Univision, 44% of Cubans said they were not religious and 9% did not give an answer while only 34% said they were Christian.
Cuba is officially a secular state. Religious freedom increased through the 1980s, with the government amending the constitution in 1992 to drop the state's characterization as atheistic.
Roman Catholicism is the largest religion, with its origins in Spanish colonization. Despite less than half of the population identifying as Catholics in 2006, it nonetheless remains the dominant faith. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI visited Cuba in 1998 and 2011, respectively, and Pope Francis visited Cuba in September 2015. Prior to each papal visit, the Cuban government pardoned prisoners as a humanitarian gesture.
The government's relaxation of restrictions on house churches in the 1990s led to an explosion of Pentecostalism, with some groups claiming as many as 100,000 members. However, Evangelical Protestant denominations, organized into the umbrella Cuban Council of Churches, remain much more vibrant and powerful.
The religious landscape of Cuba is also strongly defined by syncretisms of various kinds. Christianity is often practiced in tandem with Santería, a mixture of Catholicism and mostly African faiths, which include a number of cults. La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre (the Virgin of Cobre) is the Catholic patroness of Cuba, and a symbol of Cuban culture. In Santería, she has been syncretized with the goddess Oshun. A breakdown of the followers of Afro-Cuban religions showed that most practitioners of Palo Mayombe were black and dark brown-skinned, most practitioners of Vodú were medium brown and light brown-skinned, and most practitioners of Santeria were light brown and white-skinned.
Cuba also hosts small communities of Jews (500 in 2012), Muslims, and members of the Baháʼí Faith.
Several well-known Cuban religious figures have operated outside the island, including the humanitarian and author Jorge Armando Pérez.
Languages
The official language of Cuba is Spanish and the vast majority of Cubans speak it. Spanish as spoken in Cuba is known as Cuban Spanish and is a form of Caribbean Spanish. Lucumí, a dialect of the West African language Yoruba, is also used as a liturgical language by practitioners of Santería, and so only as a second language. Haitian Creole is the second-most spoken language in Cuba, and is spoken by Haitian immigrants and their descendants. Other languages spoken by immigrants include Galician and Corsican.
Education
The University of Havana was founded in 1728 and there are a number of other well-established colleges and universities. In 1957, just before Castro came to power, the literacy rate was as low as fourth in the region at almost 80% according to the United Nations, yet higher than in Spain. Castro created an entirely state-operated system and banned private institutions. School attendance is compulsory from ages six to the end of basic secondary education (normally at age 15), and all students, regardless of age or gender, wear school uniforms with the color denoting grade level. Primary education lasts for six years, secondary education is divided into basic and pre-university education. Cuba's literacy rate of 99.8 percent is the tenth-highest globally, largely due to the provision of free education at every level. Cuba's high school graduation rate is 94 percent.
Higher education is provided by universities, higher institutes, higher pedagogical institutes, and higher polytechnic institutes. The Cuban Ministry of Higher Education operates a distance education program that provides regular afternoon and evening courses in rural areas for agricultural workers. Education has a strong political and ideological emphasis, and students progressing to higher education are expected to have a commitment to the goals of Cuba. Cuba has provided free education to foreign nationals from disadvantaged backgrounds at the Latin American School of Medicine.
According to the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, the top-ranking universities in the country are Universidad de la Habana (1680th worldwide), Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverría (2893rd) and the University of Santiago de Cuba (3831st).
Health
After the revolution, Cuba established a free public health system.
Cuba's life expectancy at birth is 79.87 years (77.53 for males and 82.35 for females). This ranks Cuba 59th in the world and 4th in the Americas, behind Canada, Chile and the United States. Infant mortality declined from 32 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 1957, to 10 in 1990–95, 6.1 in 2000–2005 and 5.13 in 2009. Historically, Cuba has ranked high in numbers of medical personnel and has made significant contributions to world health since the 19th century. Today, Cuba has universal health care and despite persistent shortages of medical supplies, there is no shortage of medical personnel. Primary care is available throughout the island and infant and maternal mortality rates compare favorably with those in developed nations. That an impoverished nation like Cuba has health outcomes rivaling the developed world is referred to by researchers as the Cuban Health Paradox. Cuba ranks 30th on the 2019 Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index, the highest ranking of a developing country.The Cuban healthcare system, renowned for its medical services, has emphasized the export of health professionals through international missions, aiding global health efforts. However, while these missions generate significant revenue and serve as a tool for political influence, domestically, Cuba faces challenges including medication shortages and disparities between medical services for locals and foreigners. Despite the income from these missions, only a small fraction of the national budget has been allocated to public health, underscoring contrasting priorities within the nation's healthcare strategy.
Disease and infant mortality increased in the 1960s immediately after the revolution, when half of Cuba's 6,000 doctors left the country. Recovery occurred by the 1980s, and the country's health care has been widely praised. The Communist government stated that universal health care was a priority of state planning and progress was made in rural areas. After the revolution, the government increased rural hospitals from one to 62. Like the rest of the Cuban economy, medical care suffered from severe material shortages following the end of Soviet subsidies in 1991, and a tightening of the U.S. embargo in 1992.
Challenges include low salaries for doctors, poor facilities, poor provision of equipment, and the frequent absence of essential drugs.
Cuba has the highest doctor-to-population ratio in the world and has sent thousands of doctors to more than 40 countries around the world. According to the World Health Organization, Cuba is "known the world over for its ability to train excellent doctors and nurses who can then go out to help other countries in need". , there are around 50,000 Cuban-trained health care workers aiding 66 nations. Cuban physicians have played a leading role in combating the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa. Preventative medicine is very important within the Cuban medical system, which provides citizens with easy to obtain regular health checks.
Import and export of pharmaceutical drugs is done by the Quimefa Pharmaceutical Business Group (FARMACUBA) under the Ministry of Basic Industry (MINBAS). This group also provides technical information for the production of these drugs. Isolated from the West by the US embargo, Cuba developed the successful lung cancer vaccine, Cimavax, which is now available to US researchers for the first time, along with other novel Cuban cancer treatments. The vaccine has been available for free to the Cuban population since 2011. According to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center CEO Candace Johnson: "They've had to do more with less, so they've had to be even more innovative with how they approach things. For over 40 years, they have had a preeminent immunology community." During the thaw in Cuba–U.S. relations starting in December 2014 under the Obama administration, a growing number of U.S. lung cancer patients traveled to Cuba to receive vaccine treatment. The end of the thaw under the Trump Administration has resulted in a tightening of travel restrictions, making it harder for U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba for treatment.
In 2015, Cuba became the first country to eradicate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis, a milestone hailed by the World Health Organization as "one of the greatest public health achievements possible".
Diet and Nutrition in the Cuban Household
The traditional diet in Cuban households has raised international concerns due to its lack of micronutrients and diversity. According to the World Food Programme (WFP), an entity of the United Nations, the average diet in Cuba lacks adequate nutritional quality. This is attributed to various factors, including limited availability of nutrient-rich foods, socioeconomic issues, and poor dietary habits. The WFP's annual report on Cuba supports previous testimonies and evidence, pointing to a concerning situation. Even though the country has rolled out food subsidy programs, many backed by the WFP, the populace's diet remains nutritionally insufficient. Specifically, rationed food covers only a small percentage of the daily energy, protein, and fat requirements for the population aged 14 to 60.
Such deficiencies have led to health issues like overweight and obesity, largely due to a diet high in sugars and salts. Additionally, there's a significant disparity in accessing proper nutrition. Individuals without access to foreign currencies and remittances are the most affected. The inadequacy of the minimum wage to meet recommended nutritional requirements is another concern highlighted in the report. The political and socioeconomic landscape has influenced this scenario. The implementation of the "Tarea Ordenamiento," an economic reform that removed many food subsidies, has spurred alarming inflation, intensifying the shortage of basic foods like cereals, vegetables, dairy, and meat. As a result, Cuban households spend between 55% and 65% of their income on food, a proportion deemed disproportionate compared to international standards.
Nevertheless, the report acknowledges the Cuban government's efforts in areas like social protection and universal access to basic services. It highlights Cuba's position in the Human Development Report 2021-2022 and the extensive COVID-19 vaccination coverage. To address food security challenges, the WFP has enhanced its collaboration with Cuban authorities. In 2022, the organization procured essential foods and macronutrients worth $10.7 million in response to alarming figures about anemia prevalence in infants.
Amid this nutritional crisis, international interventions and collaborations are anticipated to alleviate the food and nutrition issues plaguing the Cuban populace.
Largest cities
Media
ETECSA opened 118 cybercafes across the country in 2013. The government of Cuba provides an online encyclopedia website called EcuRed that operates in a "wiki" format. Internet access is controlled, and e-mail is closely monitored.
Since 2018, access to Internet by mobile data is available. In 2019, 7.1 million Cubans could access the Internet. The prices of connections, since WiFi zones, or mobile data, or from houses through "Nauta Hogar" service have been decreasing, especially since the economic reform of January 2021, when all the salaries increased by at least 5 times, and the prices of Internet remain in the same point. In 2021, it was reported that 7.7 million Cuban people have Internet access. There were 6.14 million mobile connections in Cuba in January 2021.
Culture
Cuban culture is influenced by its melting pot of cultures, primarily those of Spain, Africa and the indigenous Taínos of Cuba. After the 1959 revolution, the government started a national literacy campaign, offered free education to all and established rigorous sports, ballet, and music programs.
Architecture
Architecture in Cuba was mainly manifested during the colonial period. It brought the culture of Spain with its Baroque influence. The first villas (settlements) were constituted by a church surrounded by several houses. These houses had an interior or central courtyard and were covered with grilles. There are magnificent religious buildings such as the Basílica de San Francisco of Havana. In addition, large forts were built for defense, preventing the attack of pirates and buccaneers. There are several old historic centers in Cuba that were built during the Spanish colonial period, the most remarkable are the four cities inscribed as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, Havana, Camagüey, Cienfuegos and Trinidad, which has great architectural bastions of all currents and trends from Baroque, Neoclassical to eclectic art, and other preserved colonial towns such as Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas or Remedios.
During the Republican period, large buildings were built, such as the Capitol, modeled after the one in Washington, and other large buildings such as the Focsa and the Habana Hilton, later the Habana Libre. One of the most outstanding Cuban architects of the second half of the 20th century was Antonio Quintana Simonetti (1919-1993).
After the triumph of the Revolution, architecture suffered a strong Soviet influence with its obsession for symmetry and space saving, and entire new neighborhoods were built in the style of the working-class quarters of Moscow or Minsk. When the Berlin Wall fell, architecture received more diverse currents and there was a boom in 5 star hotels with impressive glass and steel facades in the style of modern skyscrapers in Manhattan or other Latin American metropolises such as Mexico City or Caracas.
Cuisine
Cuban cuisine is a fusion of Spanish and Caribbean cuisines. Cuban recipes share spices and techniques with Spanish cooking, with some Caribbean influence in spice and flavor. Food rationing, which has been the norm in Cuba for the last four decades, restricts the common availability of these dishes. The traditional Cuban meal is not served in courses; all food items are served at the same time.
The typical meal could consist of plantains, black beans and rice, ropa vieja (shredded beef), Cuban bread, pork with onions, and tropical fruits. Black beans and rice, referred to as moros y cristianos (or moros for short), and plantains are staples of the Cuban diet. Many of the meat dishes are cooked slowly with light sauces. Garlic, cumin, oregano, and bay leaves are the dominant spices.
Literature
Cuban literature began to find its voice in the early 19th century. Dominant themes of independence and freedom were exemplified by José Martí, who led the Modernist movement in Cuban literature. Writers such as Nicolás Guillén and José Z. Tallet focused on literature as social protest. The poetry and novels of Dulce María Loynaz and José Lezama Lima have been influential. Romanticist Miguel Barnet, who wrote Everyone Dreamed of Cuba, reflects a more melancholy Cuba.
Alejo Carpentier was important in the magic realism movement. Writers such as Reinaldo Arenas, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and more recently Daína Chaviano, Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, Zoé Valdés, Guillermo Rosales and Leonardo Padura have earned international recognition in the post-revolutionary era, though many of these writers have felt compelled to continue their work in exile due to ideological control of media by the Cuban authorities. However, several Cuban writers continue living and writing in Cuba, including Miguel Barnet, Nancy Morejón, Marta Rojas, Fina García Marruz, and Carilda Oliver Labra.
Music
Cuban music is very rich and is the most commonly known expression of Cuban culture. The central form of this music is son, which has been the basis of many other musical styles like "Danzón de nuevo ritmo", mambo, cha-cha-chá and salsa music. Rumba ("de cajón o de solar") music originated in the early Afro-Cuban culture, mixed with Spanish elements of style. The Tres was invented in Cuba from Spanish cordophone instruments models (the instrument is actually a fusion of elements from the Spanish guitar and lute). Other traditional Cuban instruments are of African origin, Taíno origin, or both, such as the maracas, güiro, marímbula and various wooden drums including the mayohuacán.
Popular Cuban music of all styles has been enjoyed and praised widely across the world. Cuban classical music, which includes music with strong African and European influences, and features symphonic works as well as music for soloists, has received international acclaim thanks to composers like Ernesto Lecuona. Havana was the heart of the rap scene in Cuba when it began in the 1990s. In December 2012, the director of the Cuban Music Institute, Orlando Vistel, threatened to bar sexually explicit songs and music videos from public radio and television.
Recognized Cuban artists include Los Van Van orchestra, known as "the music machinery of Cuba", pianists Chucho Valdés and Frank Fernández (the latter won the Golden title at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory), and Omara Portuondo, member of the Buena Vista Social Club. Some U.S.-based singers such as Camila Cabello were born in Cuba. Many Cuban artists have won Grammy Awards. Between the youth, Buena Fe is a popular group.
Dance
Cuban culture encompasses a wide range of dance forms. Danzón was the official musical genre and dance of Cuba. Mambo music and dance developed originally in Cuba, with further significant developments by Cuban musicians in Mexico and the US. The cha-cha-cha is another dance of Cuban origin, while the Cuban bolero originated in Santiago de Cuba in the last quarter of the 19th century. Concert dance is supported by the government and includes internationally renowned companies such as the Ballet Nacional de Cuba.
Salsa dancing originated in Cuba and Cuban salsa is danced around the world.
Sports
Due to historical associations with the United States, many Cubans participate in sports that are popular in North America, rather than sports traditionally played in other Latin American nations. Baseball is the most popular. Other popular sports include volleyball, boxing, athletics, wrestling, basketball and water sports. Cuba is a dominant force in amateur boxing, consistently achieving high medal tallies in major international competitions. Boxers Rances Barthelemy and Erislandy Lara defected to the U.S. and Mexico respectively. Cuba also provides a national team that competes in the Olympic Games. Jose R. Capablanca was a Cuban world chess champion from 1921 to 1927.
See also
Index of Cuba-related articles
Outline of Cuba
List of islands of Cuba
The Cuba Libre Story
List of Caribbean islands
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Official site of the Government of Cuba
Cuba from University of Colorado Boulder Libraries
Cuba. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
Key Development Forecasts for Cuba from International Futures
1515 establishments in the Spanish West Indies
1898 disestablishments in the Spanish West Indies
1898 establishments in the United States
1902 disestablishments in the United States
1902 establishments in North America
Communist states
Countries in North America
Countries in the Caribbean
Eastern Bloc
Former colonies in North America
Former Spanish colonies
Greater Antilles
Island countries
Member states of the United Nations
New Spain
One-party states
Republics
Small Island Developing States
Spanish-speaking countries and territories
Spanish Caribbean
Spanish colonization of the Americas
Spanish West Indies
States and territories established in 1902
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al%20Gore
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Al Gore
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Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1985 to 1993. Gore was the Democratic nominee for president of the United States in the 2000 presidential election, which he lost to George W. Bush.
The son of politician Albert Gore Sr., Gore was an elected official for 24 years. He was a U.S. representative from Tennessee (1977–1985) and from 1985 to 1993 served as a U.S. senator from that state. He served as vice president during the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001, defeating incumbents George H. W. Bush and Dan Quayle in 1992, and Bob Dole and Jack Kemp in 1996. As of 2023, Gore's 1990 re-election remains the last time Democrats won a Senate election in Tennessee.
Gore was the Democratic nominee for president of the United States in the 2000 presidential election - in which he lost the electoral college vote 266–271 to Republican nominee George W. Bush, despite winning the popular vote by approximately 543,895 votes. The election concluded after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5–4 in Bush v. Gore against a previous ruling by the Supreme Court of Florida on a re-count that would have likely given Gore a razor-thin lead in the state of Florida, had the re-count continued as planned. He is one of five presidential candidates in American history to lose a presidential election despite winning the popular vote.
After his term as vice-president ended in 2001, Gore remained prominent as an author and environmental activist, whose work in climate change activism earned him (jointly with the IPCC) the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Gore is the founder and current chair of The Climate Reality Project, the co-founder and chair of Generation Investment Management, the now-defunct Current TV network, a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. and a senior adviser to Google. Gore is also a partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, heading its climate change solutions group. He has served as a visiting professor at Middle Tennessee State University, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Fisk University and the University of California, Los Angeles. He served on the Board of Directors of World Resources Institute.
Gore has received a number of awards that include the Nobel Peace Prize (joint award with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007), a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album (2009) for his book An Inconvenient Truth, a Primetime Emmy Award for Current TV (2007), and a Webby Award (2005). Gore was also the subject of the Academy Award winning (2007) documentary An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, as well as its 2017 sequel An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. In 2007, he was named a runner-up for Time 2007 Person of the Year. In 2008, Gore won the Dan David Prize for Social Responsibility.
Early life and education
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. was born on March 31, 1948, in Washington, D.C., as the second of two children born to Albert Gore Sr., a U.S. Representative who later served for 18 years as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee, and Pauline (LaFon) Gore, one of the first women to graduate from Vanderbilt University Law School. Gore is a descendant of Scots Irish immigrants who first settled in Virginia in the mid-17th-century and moved to Tennessee after the Revolutionary War. His older sister Nancy LaFon Gore died of lung cancer in 1984.
During the school year he lived with his family in The Fairfax Hotel in the Embassy Row section in Washington D.C. During the summer months, he worked on the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee, where the Gores grew tobacco and hay and raised cattle.
Gore attended St. Albans School, an independent college preparatory day and boarding school for boys in Washington, D.C. from 1956 to 1965, a prestigious feeder school for the Ivy League. He was the captain of the football team, threw discus for the track and field team and participated in basketball, art, and government. He graduated 25th in a class of 51, applied to one college, Harvard University, and was accepted.
Harvard
Gore enrolled in Harvard College in 1965; he initially planned to major in English and write novels but later decided to major in government. On his second day on campus, he began campaigning for the freshman student government council and was elected its president. He was roommates with actor Tommy Lee Jones in Dunster House.
Gore was an avid reader who fell in love with scientific and mathematical theories, but he did not do well in science classes and avoided taking math. During his first two years, his grades placed him in the lower one-fifth of his class. During his second year, he reportedly spent much of his time watching television, shooting pool and occasionally smoking marijuana. In his junior and senior years, he became more involved with his studies, earning As and Bs. In his senior year, he took a class with oceanographer and global warming theorist Roger Revelle, who sparked Gore's interest in global warming and other environmental issues. Gore earned an A on his thesis, "The Impact of Television on the Conduct of the Presidency, 1947–1969", and graduated with an A.B. cum laude in June 1969.
Gore was in college during the era of anti Vietnam War protests. He was against that war, but he disagreed with the tactics of the student protest movement. He thought that it was silly and juvenile to use a private university as a venue to vent anger at the war. He and his friends did not participate in Harvard demonstrations. John Tyson, a former roommate, recalled that "We distrusted these movements a lot ... We were a pretty traditional bunch of guys, positive for civil rights and women's rights but formal, transformed by the social revolution to some extent but not buying into something we considered detrimental to our country." Gore helped his father write an anti war address to the Democratic National Convention of 1968 but stayed with his parents in their hotel room during the violent protests.
Military service and early career(1969–1976)
Military service
When Gore graduated in 1969, he immediately became eligible for the military draft. His father, a vocal anti Vietnam War critic, was facing re-election in 1970. Gore eventually decided that enlisting in the Army would be the best course between serving his country, his personal values and interests. Although nearly all of his Harvard classmates avoided the draft and service in Vietnam, Gore believed if he found a way around military service, he would be handing an issue to his father's Republican opponent. According to Gore's Senate biography, "He appeared in uniform in his father's campaign commercials, one of which ended with his father advising: 'Son, always love your country'." Despite this, Gore Sr. lost the election to an opponent who vastly out-fundraised him. This opponent was later found by the Watergate commission to have accepted illegal money from Nixon's operatives.
Gore has said that his other reason for enlisting was that he did not want someone with fewer options than he to go in his place. Actor Tommy Lee Jones, a former college housemate, recalled Gore saying that "if he found a fancy way of not going, someone else would have to go in his place". His Harvard advisor, Richard Neustadt, also stated that Gore decided, "that he would have to go as an enlisted man because, he said, 'In Tennessee, that's what most people have to do.' " In addition, Michael Roche, Gore's editor for The Castle Courier, stated that "anybody who knew Al Gore in Vietnam knows he could have sat on his butt and he didn't."
After enlisting in August 1969, Gore returned to the anti war Harvard campus in his military uniform to say goodbye to his adviser and was "jeered" at by students. He later said he was astonished by the "emotional field of negativity and disapproval and piercing glances that ... certainly felt like real hatred".
Gore had basic training at Fort Dix from August to October, and then was assigned to be a journalist at Fort Rucker, Alabama. In April 1970, he was named Rucker's "Soldier of the Month".
His orders to be sent to Vietnam were "held up" for some time and the Gore family suspected that this was due to a fear by the Nixon administration that if something happened to him, his father would gain sympathy votes. He was finally shipped to Vietnam on January 2, 1971, after his father had lost his seat in the Senate during the 1970 Senate election, becoming one "of only about a dozen of the 1,115 Harvard graduates in the Class of '69 who went to Vietnam". Gore was stationed with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Biên Hòa and was a journalist with The Castle Courier. He received an honorable discharge from the Army in May 1971.
Of his time in the Army, Gore later stated, "I didn't do the most, or run the gravest danger. But I was proud to wear my country's uniform." He also later stated that his experience in Vietnam
Vanderbilt and journalism
Gore was "dispirited" after his return from Vietnam. NashvillePost.com noted that, "his father's defeat made service in a conflict he deeply opposed even more abhorrent to Gore. His experiences in the war zone don't seem to have been deeply traumatic in themselves; although the engineers were sometimes fired upon, Gore has said he didn't see full-scale combat. Still, he felt that his participation in the war was wrong."
Although his parents wanted him to go to law school, Gore first attended Vanderbilt University Divinity School (1971–72) on a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship for people planning secular careers. He later said he went there in order to explore "spiritual issues", and that "he had hoped to make sense of the social injustices that seemed to challenge his religious beliefs".
In 1971, Gore also began to work the night shift for The Tennessean as an investigative reporter. His investigations of corruption among members of Nashville's Metro Council resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two councilmen for separate offenses.
In 1974, he took a leave of absence from The Tennessean to attend Vanderbilt University Law School. His decision to become an attorney was a partial result of his time as a journalist, as he realized that, while he could expose corruption, he could not change it. Gore did not complete law school, deciding abruptly, in 1976, to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives when he found out that his father's former seat in the House was about to be vacated.
Congress (1977–1993)
Gore began serving in the U.S. Congress at the age of 28 and stayed there for the next 16 years, serving in both the House (1977–1985) and the Senate (1985–1993). Gore spent many weekends in Tennessee, working with his constituents.
House and Senate
At the end of February 1976, U.S. Representative Joe L. Evins unexpectedly announced his retirement from Congress, making Tennessee's 4th congressional district seat, to which he had succeeded Albert Gore Sr. in 1953 open. Within hours after The Tennessean publisher John Seigenthaler Sr. called him to tell him the announcement was forthcoming, Gore decided to quit law school and run for the House of Representatives:
Gore won the 1976 Democratic primary for the district with "32 percent of the vote, three percentage points more than his nearest rival", and was opposed only by an independent candidate in the election, recording 94 percent of the overall vote. He went on to win the next three elections, in 1978, 1980 and 1982, where "he was unopposed twice and won 79 percent of the vote the other time". In 1984, Gore successfully ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate, which had been vacated by Republican Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. He was "unopposed in the Democratic Senatorial primary and won the general election going away", despite the fact that Republican President Ronald Reagan swept Tennessee in his reelection campaign the same year. Gore defeated Republican senatorial nominee Victor Ashe, subsequently the mayor of Knoxville, and the Republican-turned-Independent, Ed McAteer, founder of the Christian right Religious Roundtable organization that had worked to elect Reagan as president in 1980.
During his time in Congress, Gore was considered a "moderate" once referring to himself as a "raging moderate" opposing federal funding of abortion, voting in favor of a bill which supported a moment of silence in schools, and voting against a ban on interstate sales of guns. In 1981, Gore was quoted as saying with regard to homosexuality, "I think it is wrong", and "I don't pretend to understand it, but it is not just another normal optional life style." In his 1984 Senate race, Gore said when discussing homosexuality, "I do not believe it is simply an acceptable alternative that society should affirm." He also said that he would not take campaign funds from gay rights groups. Although he maintained a position against homosexuality and gay marriage in the 1980s, Gore said in 2008 that he thinks "gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women...to join together in marriage." His position as a moderate (and on policies related to that label) shifted later in life after he became Vice President and ran for president in 2000.
During his tenure in the House, Gore voted in favor of the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday. While Gore initially did not vote on the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 in January 1988, he voted to override President Reagan's veto the following March. Gore voted against the nomination of William Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the United States, as well as the nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court.
During his time in the House, Gore sat on the Energy and Commerce and the Science and Technology committees, chairing the Science Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for four years. He also sat on the House Intelligence Committee and, in 1982, introduced the Gore Plan for arms control, to "reduce chances of a nuclear first strike by cutting multiple warheads and deploying single-warhead mobile launchers". While in the Senate, he sat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the Rules and Administration, and the Armed Services Committees. In 1991, Gore was one of ten Democrats who supported the Gulf War.
Gore was considered one of the Atari Democrats, given this name due to their "passion for technological issues, from biomedical research and genetic engineering to the environmental impact of the "greenhouse effect". On March 19, 1979, he had become the first member of Congress to appear on C-SPAN. During this time, Gore co-chaired the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future with Newt Gingrich. In addition, he has been described as having been a "genuine nerd, with a geek reputation running back to his days as a futurist Atari Democrat in the House. Before computers were comprehensible, let alone sexy, the poker-faced Gore struggled to explain artificial intelligence and fiber-optic networks to sleepy colleagues." Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn noted that,
Gore introduced the Supercomputer Network Study Act of 1986. He also sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises.
As a Senator, Gore began to craft the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 (commonly referred to as "The Gore Bill") after hearing the 1988 report Toward a National Research Network submitted to Congress by a group chaired by UCLA professor of computer science, Leonard Kleinrock, one of the central creators of the ARPANET (the ARPANET, first deployed by Kleinrock and others in 1969, is the predecessor of the Internet). The bill was passed on December 9, 1991, and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which Gore referred to as the "information superhighway".
After joining the House of Representatives, Gore held the "first congressional hearings on the climate change, and co-sponsor[ed] hearings on toxic waste and global warming". He continued to speak on the topic throughout the 1980s. In 1990, Senator Gore presided over a three-day conference with legislators from over 42 countries which sought to create a Global Marshall Plan, "under which industrial nations would help less developed countries grow economically while still protecting the environment".
Son's 1989 accident and first book
On April 3, 1989, Al, Tipper and their six-year-old son Albert were leaving a baseball game. Albert ran across the street to see his friend and was hit by a car. He was thrown and then traveled along the pavement for another . Gore later recalled: "I ran to his side and held him and called his name, but he was motionless, limp and still, without breath or pulse.... His eyes were open with the nothingness stare of death, and we prayed, the two of us, there in the gutter, with only my voice." Albert was tended to by two nurses who happened to be present during the accident. The Gores spent the next month in the hospital with Albert. Gore also commented: "Our lives were consumed with the struggle to restore his body and spirit." This event was "a trauma so shattering that [Gore] views it as a moment of personal rebirth", a "key moment in his life" which "changed everything".
In August 1991, Gore announced that his son's accident was a factor in his decision not to run for president in 1992. Gore stated: "I would like to be President.... But I am also a father, and I feel deeply about my responsibility to my children.... I didn't feel right about tearing myself away from my family to the extent that is necessary in a Presidential campaign." During this time, Gore wrote Earth in the Balance, a text that became the first book written by a sitting U.S. Senator to make The New York Times Best Seller list since John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.
First presidential run (1988)
In 1988, Gore sought the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States. Gore carried seven states in the primaries, finishing third overall in a field that included Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, then Senator, future Vice President and current President Joe Biden, Gary Hart, Congressman Dick Gephardt, Paul Simon and Jesse Jackson. Dukakis eventually won the Democratic nomination and went on to lose in a landslide to George H. W. Bush in the general election.
Although Gore initially denied that he intended to run, his candidacy was the subject of speculation: "National analysts make Sen. Gore a long-shot for the Presidential nomination, but many believe he could provide a natural complement for any of the other candidates: a young, attractive, moderate Vice Presidential nominee from the South. He currently denies any interest, but he carefully does not reject the idea out of hand." At the time, he was 39 years old, making him the "youngest serious Presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy".
CNN noted that, "in 1988, for the first time, 12 southern states would hold their primaries on the same day, dubbed "Super Tuesday". Gore thought he would be the only serious Southern contender; he had not counted on Jesse Jackson." Jackson defeated Gore in the South Carolina primary, winning, "more than half the total vote, three times that of his closest rival here, Senator Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee". Gore next placed great hope on Super Tuesday where they split the Southern vote: Jackson winning Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia; Gore winning Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Nevada, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. Gore was later endorsed by New York City Mayor Ed Koch who made statements in favor of Israel and against Jackson. These statements cast Gore in a negative light, leading voters away from Gore who received only 10% of the vote in the New York primary. Gore then dropped out of the race. The New York Times said that Gore also lost support due to his attacks against Jackson, Dukakis, and others.
Gore was eventually able to mend fences with Jackson, who supported the Clinton-Gore ticket in 1992 and 1996, and campaigned for the Gore-Lieberman ticket during the 2000 presidential election. Gore's policies changed substantially in 2000, reflecting his eight years as vice president.
1992 presidential election
Gore was initially hesitant to be Bill Clinton's running mate for the 1992 United States presidential election, but after clashing with the George H. W. Bush administration over global warming issues, he decided to accept the offer. Clinton stated that he chose Gore due to his foreign policy experience, work with the environment, and commitment to his family.
Clinton's choice was criticized as unconventional because rather than picking a running mate who would diversify the ticket, Clinton chose a fellow Southerner who shared his political ideologies and who was nearly the same age as Clinton. The Washington Bureau Chief for The Baltimore Sun, Paul West, later suggested that, "Al Gore revolutionized the way Vice Presidents are made. When he joined Bill Clinton's ticket, it violated the old rules. Regional diversity? Not with two Southerners from neighboring states. Ideological balance? A couple of left-of-center moderates. ... And yet, Gore has come to be regarded by strategists in both parties as the best vice presidential pick in at least 20 years."
Clinton and Gore accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention on July 17, 1992. Known as the Baby Boomer Ticket and the Fortysomething Team, The New York Times noted that if elected, Clinton and Gore, at ages 46 and 44 respectively, would be the "youngest team to make it to the White House in the country's history". Gore called the ticket "a new generation of leadership".
The ticket increased in popularity after the candidates traveled with their wives, Hillary and Tipper, on a "six-day, 1,000-mile bus ride, from New York to St. Louis". Al Gore would participate in one vice-presidential debate against Vice President Dan Quayle, and Admiral James Stockdale. That debate, as of 2023, was the only televised Vice-Presidential debate with more than two participating candidates. The Clinton-Gore ticket beat the Bush-Quayle and Perot-Stockdale tickets with 43% of the popular vote, versus their 38% and 19%, respectively. Clinton and Gore received 370 electoral votes, versus the incumbent ticket's 168, and Perot's 0.
Vice presidency (1993–2001)
Al Gore served as vice president during the Clinton administration. Clinton and Gore were inaugurated on January 20, 1993. At the beginning of the first term, they developed a "two-page agreement outlining their relationship". Clinton committed himself to regular lunch meetings; he recognized Gore as a principal adviser on nominations and appointed some of Gore's chief advisers to key White House staff positions. Clinton involved Gore in decision-making to an unprecedented degree for a vice president. Through their weekly lunches and daily conversations, Gore became the president's "indisputable chief adviser".
However, Gore had to compete with First Lady Hillary for President Clinton's influence, starting when she was appointed to the health-care task force without Gore's consultation. Vanity Fair wrote that President Clinton's "failure to confide in his vice president was a telling sign of the real pecking order", and reported "it was an open secret that some of Hillary's advisers...nurtured dreams that Hillary, not Gore, would follow Bill in the presidency".
Gore had a particular interest in reducing "waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government and advocated trimming the size of the bureaucracy and the number of regulations". During the Clinton Administration, the U.S. economy expanded, according to David Greenberg (professor of history and media studies at Rutgers University) who said that "by the end of the Clinton presidency, the numbers were uniformly impressive. Besides the record-high surpluses and the record-low poverty rates, the economy could boast the longest economic expansion in history; the lowest unemployment since the early 1970s; and the lowest poverty rates for single mothers, black Americans, and the aged."
According to Leslie Budd, author of E-economy: Rhetoric or Business Reality, this economic success was due, in part, to Gore's continued role as an Atari Democrat, promoting the development of information technology, which led to the dot-com boom (–2001). Clinton and Gore entered office planning to finance research that would "flood the economy with innovative goods and services, lifting the general level of prosperity and strengthening American industry". Their overall aim was to fund the development of, "robotics, smart roads, biotechnology, machine tools, magnetic-levitation trains, fiber-optic communications and national computer networks. Also earmarked [were] a raft of basic technologies like digital imaging and data storage." Critics claimed that the initiatives would "backfire, bloating Congressional pork and creating whole new categories of Federal waste".
During the election and his term as vice president, Gore popularized the term Information Superhighway, which became synonymous with the Internet, and he was involved in the creation of the National Information Infrastructure. Gore first discussed his plans to emphasize information technology at UCLA on January 11, 1994, in a speech at The Superhighway Summit. On March 29, 1994, Gore made the inaugural keynote to a Georgetown University symposium on governmental reform with a lecture entitled, "The new job of the federal executive". Gore spoke on how technology was changing the nature of government, public administration, and management in general, noting that while in the past deep hierarchical structures were necessary to manage large organizations, technology was offering more accurate and streamlined access to information, thus facilitating flatter management structures. He was involved in a number of projects including NetDay '96 and 24 Hours in Cyberspace. The Clinton–Gore administration also launched the first official White House website in 1994 and subsequent versions through 2000. During 1993 and early 1994, Gore was tapped by the administration to advocate for the adoption of the Clipper Chip, a technology developed by the National Security Agency designed to provide for law enforcement access to encrypted communications. After political and technical objections, the initiative was essentially dropped.
Gore was also involved in environmental initiatives. He launched the GLOBE program on Earth Day '94, an education and science activity that, according to Forbes magazine, "made extensive use of the Internet to increase student awareness of their environment". In 1998, Gore began promoting a NASA satellite (Deep Space Climate Observatory) that would provide a constant view of the Earth, marking the first time such an image would have been made since The Blue Marble photo from the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. During this time, he also became associated with Digital Earth.
Gore negotiated and strongly supported the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gasses, but said upon his return that the administration would not submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification until it was amended to include "meaningful participation by key developing nations", The Senate had previously passed unanimously (95–0) the Byrd–Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), which declared opposition to any greenhouse gas treaty which would limit US emissions without similar limits on third-world countries such as China. The Clinton administration left office three years later without having submitted the treaty for ratification.
In 1996, Gore became involved in a "Chinagate" campaign finance controversy over his attendance at an event at the Buddhist Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, California. In an interview on NBC's Today the following year, Gore said, "I did not know that it was a fund-raiser. I knew it was a political event, and I knew there were finance people that were going to be present, and so that alone should have told me, 'This is inappropriate and this is a mistake; don't do this.' And I take responsibility for that. It was a mistake." A U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the fund-raising activities had uncovered evidence that Chinese agents sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) before the 1996 presidential campaign. The Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. was used for coordinating contributions to the DNC. FBI agents were denied the opportunity to ask President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore questions during Justice Department interviews in 1997 and 1998 and were only allowed to take notes. In March 1997, Gore had to explain phone calls which he made to solicit funds for Democratic Party for the 1996 election. In a news conference, Gore stated that, "all calls that I made were charged to the Democratic National Committee. I was advised there was nothing wrong with that. My counsel tells me there is no controlling legal authority that says that is any violation of any law." The phrase "no controlling legal authority" was criticized by columnist Charles Krauthammer, who stated: "Whatever other legacies Al Gore leaves behind between now and retirement, he forever bequeaths this newest weasel word to the lexicon of American political corruption." Robert Conrad Jr. was the head of a Justice Department task force appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate Gore's fund-raising controversies. In Spring 2000, Conrad asked Reno to appoint an independent counsel to continue the investigation. After looking into the matter, Reno judged that the appointment of an independent counsel was unwarranted.
During the 1990s, Gore spoke out on a number of issues. In a 1992 speech on the Gulf War, Gore stated that he twice attempted to get the U.S. government to pull the plug on support to Saddam Hussein, citing Hussein's use of poison gas, support of terrorism, and his burgeoning nuclear program, but was opposed both times by the Reagan and Bush administrations. In 1998, at a conference of APEC hosted by Malaysia, Gore objected to the indictment, arrest and jailing of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's longtime second-in-command Anwar Ibrahim, a move which received a negative response from leaders there. Ten years later, Gore again protested when Ibrahim was arrested a second time, a decision condemned by Malaysian foreign minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.
In the 1996 presidential election, Clinton and Gore both ran for re-election for president and vice-president. They faced Republican Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, with his running mate, Jack Kemp, a former member of House republican leadership and George H. W. Bush's secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Gore and Kemp debated once, in one of the lowest rated debates in history. Gore held his own against Kemp, and kept President Clinton's large lead against Dole stable. On November 5, 1996, Clinton and Gore were re-elected as president and vice-president with 379 electoral votes and an 8% margin of victory in the popular vote.
Soon afterward, Gore also had to contend with the Lewinsky scandal, which involved an affair between President Clinton and a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Gore initially defended Clinton, whom he believed to be innocent, stating, "He is the president of the country! He is my friend ... I want to ask you now, every single one of you, to join me in supporting him." After Clinton was impeached, Gore continued to defend him stating, "I've defined my job in exactly the same way for six years now ... to do everything I can to help him be the best president possible."
Second presidential run (2000)
There was talk of a potential run in the 2000 presidential race by Gore as early as January 1998. Gore discussed the possibility of running during a March 9, 1999, interview with CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. In response to Wolf Blitzer's question: "Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley", Gore responded:
Former UCLA professor of information studies Philip E. Agre and journalist Eric Boehlert argued that three articles in Wired News led to the creation of the widely spread urban legend that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet", which followed this interview. In addition, computer professionals and congressional colleagues argued in his defense. Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn stated that "we don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he 'invented' the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet." Cerf would later state: "Al Gore had seen what happened with the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956, which his father introduced as a military bill. It was very powerful. Housing went up, suburban boom happened, everybody became mobile. Al was attuned to the power of networking much more than any of his elective colleagues. His initiatives led directly to the commercialization of the Internet. So he really does deserve credit." In a speech to the American Political Science Association, former Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Newt Gingrich also stated: "In all fairness, it's something Gore had worked on a long time. Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is—and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a "futures group"—the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the '80s began to actually happen." Finally, Wolf Blitzer (who conducted the original 1999 interview) stated in 2008 that: "I didn't ask him about the Internet. I asked him about the differences he had with Bill Bradley ... Honestly, at the time, when he said it, it didn't dawn on me that this was going to have the impact that it wound up having, because it was distorted to a certain degree and people said they took what he said, which was a carefully phrased comment about taking the initiative and creating the Internet to—I invented the Internet. And that was the sort of shorthand, the way his enemies projected it and it wound up being a devastating setback to him and it hurt him, as I'm sure he acknowledges to this very day."
Gore himself would later poke fun at the controversy. In 2000, while on the Late Show with David Letterman he read Letterman's Top 10 List (which for this show was called, "Top Ten Rejected Gore – Lieberman Campaign Slogans") to the audience. Number nine on the list was: "Remember, America, I gave you the Internet, and I can take it away!" In 2005 when Gore was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award "for three decades of contributions to the Internet" at the Webby Awards he joked in his acceptance speech (limited to five words according to Webby Awards rules): "Please don't recount this vote." He was introduced by Vint Cerf who used the same format to joke: "We all invented the Internet." Gore, who was then asked to add a few more words to his speech, stated: "It is time to reinvent the Internet for all of us to make it more robust and much more accessible and use it to reinvigorate our democracy."
During a speech that he gave on June 16, 1999, in Carthage, Tennessee, Gore formally announced his candidacy for president. His major theme was the need to strengthen the American family. He was introduced by his eldest daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff. In making the speech, Gore also distanced himself from Bill Clinton, who he stated had lied to him. Gore was "briefly interrupted" by AIDS protesters claiming Gore was working with the pharmaceutical industry to prevent access to generic medicines for poor nations and chanting "Gore's greed kills." Additional speeches were also interrupted by the protesters. Gore responded, "I love this country. I love the First Amendment ... Let me say in response to those who may have chosen an inappropriate way to make their point, that actually the crisis of AIDS in Africa is one that should command the attention of people in the United States and around the world." Gore also issued a statement saying that he supported efforts to lower the cost of the AIDS drugs, provided that they "are done in a way consistent with international agreements".
While Bill Clinton's job-approval ratings were around 60%, an April 1999 study by the Pew Research Center for the People found that respondents suffered from "Clinton fatigue" where they were "tired of all the problems associated with the Clinton administration" including the Lewinsky scandal and impeachment. Texas Governor and likely Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush was leading Gore 54% to 41% in polls during that time. Gore's advisers believed that the "Lewinsky scandal and Bill's past womanizing...alienated independent voters—especially the soccer moms, who stood for traditional values". Consequently, Gore's presidential campaign "veered too far in differentiating himself from Bill and his record and had difficulty taking advantage of the Clinton administration's legitimate successes". In addition, Hillary's candidacy for the open Senate seat in New York exacerbated the "three-way tensions evident in the White House since 1993", as "not only was Hillary unavailable as a campaigner, she was poaching top Democratic fund-raisers and donors who would normally concentrate on the vice president". In one instance "Hillary insisted on being invited [to a Los Angeles fundraiser for the vice president]—over the objections of the event's organizers", where the First Lady "shocked the vice president's supporters by soliciting donations for herself in front of Tipper".
Gore faced an early challenge by former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley. Bradley was the only candidate to oppose Gore and was considered a "fresh face" for the White House. Gore challenged Bradley to a series of debates which took the form of "town hall" meetings. Gore went on the offensive during these debates leading to a drop in the polls for Bradley. In the Iowa caucus the unions pledged their support to Gore, despite Bradley spending heavily in that state, and Bradley was much embarrassed by his two to one defeat there. Gore went on to capture the New Hampshire primary 53-47%, which had been a must-win state for Bradley. Gore then swept all of the primaries on Super Tuesday while Bradley finished a distant second in each state. On March 9, 2000, after failing to win any of the first 20 primaries and caucuses in the election process, Bradley withdrew his campaign and endorsed Gore. Gore eventually went on to win every primary and caucus and, in March 2000 even won the first primary election ever held over the Internet, the Arizona Presidential Primary. By then, he secured the Democratic nomination. As of 2023, Al Gore remains the only presidential candidate in American history who was not the incumbent president to win every single contest in his or her party primary.
On August 13, 2000, Gore announced that he had selected Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut as his vice presidential running mate. Lieberman became "the first person of the Jewish faith to run for the nation's second-highest office". Many pundits saw Gore's choice of Lieberman as further distancing him from the scandals of the Clinton White House. Gore's daughter, Karenna, together with her father's former Harvard roommate Tommy Lee Jones, officially nominated Gore as the Democratic presidential candidate during the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California. Gore accepted his party's nomination and spoke about the major themes of his campaign, stating in particular his plan to extend Medicare to pay for prescription drugs and to work for a sensible universal health-care system. Soon after the convention, Gore hit the campaign trail with running mate Joe Lieberman. Gore and Bush were deadlocked in the polls. They participated in three televised debates. While both sides claimed victory after each, Gore was critiqued as either too stiff, too reticent, or too aggressive in contrast to Bush.
Recount
On election night, news networks first called Florida for Gore, later retracted the projection, and then called Florida for Bush, before finally retracting that projection as well. Florida's Republican Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, eventually certified Florida's vote count. This led to the Florida election recount, a move to further examine the Florida results.
The Florida recount was stopped a few weeks later by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the ruling, Bush v. Gore, the Justices held that the Florida recount was unconstitutional and that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by the December 12 deadline, effectively ending the recounts. This 7–2 vote ruled that the standards the Florida Supreme Court provided for a recount were unconstitutional due to violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and further ruled 5–4 that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by the December 12 deadline. This case ordered an end to recounting underway in selected Florida counties, effectively giving George W. Bush a 537 vote victory in Florida and consequently Florida's 25 electoral votes and the presidency. The results of the decision led to Gore winning the popular vote by approximately 500,000 votes nationwide, but receiving 266 electoral votes to Bush's 271 (one District of Columbia elector abstained). On December 13, 2000, Gore conceded the election. Gore strongly disagreed with the Court's decision, but in his concession speech stated that, "for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession."
Post-vice presidency (2001–present)
Bill Clinton and Gore had maintained an informal public distance for eight years, but they reunited for the media in August 2009. Clinton had arranged for the release of two female journalists who were being held hostage in North Korea. The women were employees of Gore's Current TV. In May 2018, he was included as a member of the Indian Government committee to coordinate year long celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary from October 2, 2019.
Criticism of Bush
Beginning in 2002, Gore began to publicly criticize the Bush administration. In a September 23 speech that he gave before the Commonwealth Club of California, Gore criticized Bush and Congress for the rush to war prior to the outbreak of hostilities in Iraq. He compared this decision to the Persian Gulf War (which Gore had voted for) stating, "Back in 1991, I was one of a handful of Democrats in the United States Senate to vote in favor of the resolution endorsing the Persian Gulf War ... But look at the differences between the resolution that was voted on in 1991 and the one this administration is proposing that the Congress vote on in 2002. The circumstances are really completely different [...] in 1991, Iraq had crossed an international border, invaded a neighboring sovereign nation and annexed its territory. Now by contrast in 2002, there has been no such invasion." In a speech given in 2004, during the presidential election, Gore accused George W. Bush of betraying the country by using the 9/11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of Iraq. The next year, Gore gave a speech which covered many topics, including what he called "religious zealots" who claim special knowledge of God's will in American politics. Gore stated: "They even claim that those of us who disagree with their point of view are waging war against people of faith." After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Gore chartered two planes to evacuate 270 people from New Orleans and criticized the Bush administration's response to the hurricane. In 2006, Gore criticized Bush's use of domestic wiretaps without a warrant. One month later, in a speech given at the Jeddah Economic Forum, Gore criticized the treatment of Arabs in the U.S. after 9/11 stating, "Unfortunately there have been terrible abuses and it's wrong ... I do want you to know that it does not represent the desires or wishes or feelings of the majority of the citizens of my country." Gore's 2007 book, The Assault on Reason, is an analysis of what Gore refers to as the "emptying out of the marketplace of ideas" in civic discourse during the Bush administration. He attributes this phenomenon to the influence of television and argues that it endangers American democracy. By contrast, Gore argues, the Internet can revitalize and ultimately "redeem the integrity of representative democracy". In 2008, Gore argued against the ban of same-sex marriage on his Current TV website, stating, "I think that gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women to make contracts, have hospital visiting rights, and join together in marriage." In a 2009 interview with CNN, Gore commented on former Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration. Referring to his own previous criticism of the Bush administrations, Gore stated: "I waited two years after I left office to make statements that were critical, and then of the policy ... You know, you talk about somebody that shouldn't be talking about making the country less safe, invading a country that did not attack us and posed no serious threat to us at all."
While Gore has criticized Bush for his Katrina response, he has not spoken publicly about his part in the evacuation of 270 patients on September 3 & 4, 2005, from Charity Hospital in New Orleans to Tennessee. On September 1, Gore was contacted by Charity Hospital's Neurosurgeon Dr. David Kline, who had operated on his son Albert, through Greg Simon of FasterCures. Kline informed Gore and Simon of the desperate conditions at the hospital and asked Gore and Simon to arrange relief. On Gore's personal financial commitment, two airlines each provided a plane with one flight later underwritten by Larry Flax. The flights were flown by volunteer airline crews and medically staffed by Gore's cousin, retired Col. Dar LaFon, and family physician Dr. Anderson Spickard and were accompanied by Gore and Albert III. Gore used his political influence to expedite landing rights in New Orleans.
Presidential run speculation
People were speculating that Gore would be a candidate for the 2004 presidential election (a bumper sticker, "Re-elect Gore in 2004!" was popular). On December 16, 2002, however, Gore announced that he would not run in 2004. While Gore seriously considered challenging Bush in 2004, the September 11 attacks and the subsequent stratospheric rise in President Bush's popularity as a result of his response to these attacks were strong factors in Gore's December 2002 decision not to run again in 2004. Despite Gore taking himself out of the race, a handful of his supporters formed a national campaign to draft him into running. The draft movement, however, failed to convince Gore to run.
The prospect of a Gore candidacy arose again between 2006 and early 2008 in light of the upcoming 2008 presidential election. Although Gore frequently stated that he had "no plans to run", he did not reject the possibility of future involvement in politics which led to speculation that he might run. This was due in part to his increased popularity after the release of the 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. The director of the film, Davis Guggenheim, stated that after the release of the film, "Everywhere I go with him, they treat him like a rock star." After An Inconvenient Truth was nominated for an Academy Award, Donna Brazile (Gore's campaign chairwoman from his 2000 campaign) speculated that Gore might announce a possible presidential candidacy during the Oscars. During the 79th Academy Awards ceremony, Gore and actor Leonardo DiCaprio shared the stage to speak about the "greening" of the ceremony itself. Gore began to give a speech that appeared to be leading up to an announcement that he would run for president. However, background music drowned him out and he was escorted offstage, implying that it was a rehearsed gag, which he later acknowledged. After An Inconvenient Truth won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, speculation increased about a possible presidential run. Gore's popularity was indicated in polls which showed that even without running, he was coming in second or third among possible Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards. Grassroots draft campaigns also developed with the hope that they could encourage Gore to run. Gore, however, remained firm in his decision and declined to run for the presidency.
Interest in having Gore run for the 2016 presidential election arose in 2014 and again in 2015, although he did not declare any intention to do so.
Involvement in presidential campaigns
After announcing he would not run in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Gore endorsed Vermont governor Howard Dean in December 2003, weeks before the first primary of the election cycle. He was criticized for this endorsement by eight Democratic contenders particularly since he did not endorse his former running mate Joe Lieberman (Gore preferred Dean over Lieberman because Lieberman supported the Iraq War and Gore did not). Dean's campaign soon became a target of attacks and eventually failed, with Gore's early endorsement being credited as a factor. In The New York Times, Dean stated: "I actually do think the endorsement of Al Gore began the decline." The Times further noted that "Dean instantly amplified his statement to indicate that the endorsement from Mr. Gore, a powerhouse of the establishment, so threatened the other Democratic candidates that they began the attacks on his candidacy that helped derail it." Dean's former campaign manager, Joe Trippi, also stated that after Gore's endorsement of Dean, "alarm bells went off in every newsroom in the country, in every other campaign in the country", indicating that if something did not change, Dean would be the nominee. Later, in March 2004, Gore endorsed John Kerry and gave Kerry $6 million in funds left over from his own unsuccessful 2000 bid. Gore also opened the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
During the 2008 primaries, Gore remained neutral toward all of the candidates which led to speculation that he would come out of a brokered 2008 Democratic National Convention as a "compromise candidate" if the party decided it could not nominate one. Gore responded by stating that these events would not take place because a candidate would be nominated through the primary process. Senator Ted Kennedy had urged Gore to endorse Senator Barack Obama though Gore declined. When Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president on June 3, 2008, speculation began that Gore might be tapped for the vice presidency. On June 16, 2008, one week after Hillary Clinton had suspended her campaign, Gore endorsed Obama in a speech given in Detroit, Michigan which renewed speculation of an Obama-Gore ticket. Gore stated, however, that he was not interested in being vice president again. On the timing and nature of Gore's endorsement, some argued that Gore waited because he did not want to repeat his calamitous early endorsement of Howard Dean during the 2004 presidential election. On the final night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, shortly before Obama delivered his acceptance address, Gore gave a speech offering his full support. Such support led to new speculation after Obama was elected president during the 2008 presidential election that Gore would be named a member of the Obama administration. This speculation was enhanced by a meeting held between Obama, Gore, and Joe Biden in Chicago on December 9, 2008. However, Democratic officials and Gore's spokeswoman stated that during the meeting the only subject under discussion was the climate crisis, and Gore would not be joining the Obama administration. On December 19, 2008, Gore described Obama's environmental administrative choices of Carol Browner, Steven Chu, and Lisa Jackson as "an exceptional team to lead the fight against the climate crisis".
Gore repeated his neutrality eight years later during the Democratic presidential primaries of 2016 until endorsing Hillary Clinton on July 25, 2016, the first day of that year's Democratic National Convention. Gore appeared with her at a rally on Miami Dade College's Kendall Campus on October 11, 2016.
Environmentalism
Gore has been involved with environmental issues since 1976 when as a freshman congressman, he held the "first congressional hearings on the climate change, and co-sponsor[ed] hearings on toxic waste and global warming". He continued to speak on the topic throughout the 1980s, and is still prevalent in the environmental community. He was known as one of the Atari Democrats, later called the "Democrats' Greens, politicians who see issues like clean air, clean water and global warming as the key to future victories for their party".
In 1990, Senator Gore presided over a three-day conference with legislators from over 42 countries which sought to create a Global Marshall Plan, "under which industrial nations would help less developed countries grow economically while still protecting the environment". In the late 1990s, Gore strongly pushed for the passage of the Kyoto Protocol, which called for the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. He was opposed by the Senate, which passed unanimously (95–0) the Byrd–Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States".
In 2004, Gore co-launched Generation Investment Management, a company for which he serves as chair. A few years later, Gore would also found the Alliance for Climate Protection, an organization which eventually founded the We Campaign. Gore would also become a partner in the venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, heading that firm's climate change solutions group. He also helped to organize the Live Earth benefit concerts. In 2010, he attended WE Day (Vancouver, Canada), a WE Charity event.
In 2013, Gore became a vegan. He had earlier admitted that "it's absolutely correct that the growing meat intensity of diets across the world is one of the issues connected to this global crisis – not only because of the [carbon dioxide] involved, but also because of the water consumed in the process" and some speculate that his adoption of the new diet is related to his environmentalist stance. In a 2014 interview, Gore said "Over a year ago I changed my diet to a vegan diet, really just to experiment to see what it was like. ... I felt better, so I've continued with it and I'm likely to continue it for the rest of my life."
Gore's An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, a sequel to his 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth, premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The film documents his continuing efforts to battle climate change.
A "Climate and Health Summit" which was originally going to be held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was cancelled without warning in late January 2017. A few days later, Gore revived the summit, which was held by the Climate Reality Project without the support of the CDC. In 2020 he helped to launch Climate TRACE to independently monitor global greenhouse gas emissions.
In November 2021, Gore spoke at the early stages of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. He later criticised the Morrison government for failing to increase Australia's 2030 emissions reduction target.
Criticism
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Gore was criticized for his involvement in asking the EPA for less strict pollution controls for the Pigeon River, which had long been polluted by a paper mill in Canton, North Carolina.
A number of people and organizations, including Marsha Blackburn, a current U.S. Senator and former Congresswoman from Tennessee, and a conservative Washington, D.C. think tank, have claimed that Gore has a conflict of interest for advocating for taxpayer subsidies of green-energy technologies in which he has a personal investment. Additionally, he has been criticized for his above-average energy consumption in using private jets, and in owning multiple, very large homes, one of which was reported in 2007 as using high amounts of electricity. Gore's spokesperson responded by stating that the Gores use renewable energy which is more expensive than regular energy and that the Tennessee house in question has been retrofitted to make it more energy efficient.
Data in An Inconvenient Truth have been questioned. In a 2007 court case, a British judge said that while he had "no doubt ...the film was broadly accurate" and its "four main scientific hypotheses ...are supported by a vast quantity of research", he upheld nine of a "long schedule" of alleged errors presented to the court. He ruled that the film could be shown to schoolchildren in the UK if guidance notes given to teachers were amended to balance out the film's one-sided political views. Gore's spokesperson responded in 2007 that the court had upheld the film's fundamental thesis and its use as an educational tool. In 2009, Gore described the British court ruling as being "in my favor".
Gore was also criticized when in 2012 he sold his television channel Current TV for around $100 million to Al Jazeera, a media company funded by the government of Qatar, a nation largely dependent on income from the fossil fuel industry.
Allegations of aggrandizement
"Inventing the internet"
Critics of Gore have jumped on a statement he made in a 1999 interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer by misquoting him as claiming he was instrumental in "inventing the internet". In reality, Gore stated: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system. During a quarter century of public service, including most of it long before I came into my current job, I have worked to try to improve the quality of life in our country and in our world. And what I've seen during that experience is an emerging future that's very exciting, about which I'm very optimistic, and toward which I want to lead."
It is easy to misinterpret the claim of "creating" with "inventing" the internet. Gore has been characterized as having either misspoke, or failed to clarify his important part in the transition of the internet from a defense network to a public network. Gore spent years promoting the internet and high-speed telecommunications as being important to the world as far back as the 1970s. A spirited defense of Gore's statement penned by Internet pioneers Bob Kahn and Vinton Cerf (the latter often referred to as the “father of the Internet”) in 2000 noted that “Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development” and that “No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution [to the Internet] over a longer period of time”.
Personal life
Gore met Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Aitcheson at his St. Albans senior prom in 1965. She was from the nearby St. Agnes School. Tipper followed Gore to Boston to attend college, and they married at the Washington National Cathedral on May 19, 1970.
They have four children; Karenna Gore (b. 1973), Kristin Carlson Gore (b. 1977), Sarah LaFon Gore (b. 1979) and Albert Arnold Gore III (b. 1982).
In June 2010, the Gores announced in an e-mail to friends that after "long and careful consideration", they had made a mutual decision to separate. In May 2012, it was reported that Gore started dating Elizabeth Keadle of Rancho Santa Fe, California.
Before beginning his political career, he attended the New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Elmwood, Tennessee. In 1977, when he moved to Arlington County, Virginia, he attended the Mount Vernon Baptist Church. He and his wife were baptized in 1980 and became members of the church. In 2004, he announced he had left the Southern Baptist Convention, but remained a Baptist. In 2007, he received Ethics Daily's "Baptist of the Year" award for his environmental activism. He was a keynote speaker at the 2008 New Baptist Covenant convention.
Awards and honors
Gore is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize (together with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in 2007, a Primetime Emmy Award for Current TV in 2007, a Webby Award in 2005, the Dan David Prize in 2008 and the Prince of Asturias Award in 2007 for International Cooperation. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2008. He also starred in the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2007 and wrote the book An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, which won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2009.
Selected publications
Books
Know Climate Change and 101 Q and A on Climate Change from 'Save Planet Earth Series', 2008 (children's books)
Putting People First: How We Can All Change America. (with William J. Clinton). New York: Times Books, 1992 .
Articles
"Toward Sustainable Capitalism: Long-term incentives are the antidote to the short-term greed that caused our current economic woes . The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2010.(With David Blood)
"We Can't Wish Away Climate Change ." The New York Times, February 27, 2010.
"The Climate for Change ." The New York Times, November 9, 2008.
Vice President Al Gore's introduction to Earthwatch: 24 Hours In Cyberspace. February 8, 1996. 24 Hours in Cyberspace
"Foreword by Vice President Al Gore ." In The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking (2nd edition) by Tracy LaQuey, 1994.
"Introduction. In Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. 1994. New York : Houghton-Mifflin.
The Climate Change Action Plan. Washington, D.C.: The White House, October 1993 (with William J. Clinton).
"Infrastructure for the global village: computers, networks and public policy." Scientific American Special Issue on Communications, Computers, and Networks, September 1991. 265(3): 150–153.
See also
Environmental activism of Al Gore
Vice presidency of Al Gore
Notes
References
Bibliography
Agre, Phil. Who Invented "Invented"?: Tracing the Real Story of the "Al Gore Invented the Internet" Hoax. October 17, 2000
Campbell-Kelly, Martin; Aspray, William. "Chapter 12." Computer: A History of the Information Machine. New York: BasicBooks, 1996.
Chapman, Gary and Marc Rotenberg. The National Information Infrastructure:A Public Interest Opportunity . In Computers, Ethics, & Social Values. Deborah G. Johnson and Helen Nissanbaum (eds.). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1995: 628–644.
Cockburn, Alexander. Al Gore: A User's Manual (2000) (with Jeffrey St. Clair)
Kirk, Andrew G. Counterculture Green: The Whole Earth Catalog and American Environmentalism. Lawrence: Univ. of Kansas Press, 2007.
Rheingold, Howard. "Afterword to the 1994 edition." The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (revised edition). Cambridge: MIT, 2000.
Stix, Gary. Gigabit Gestalt: Clinton and Gore embrace an activist technology policy . Scientific American, May 1993.
Turque, Bill, Inventing Al Gore, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000,
External links
Board of Trustees at World Economic Forum
including his Nobel Lecture December 10, 2007
Living people
1948 births
1992 United States vice-presidential candidates
1996 United States vice-presidential candidates
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century vice presidents of the United States
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Anti-consumerists
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Centrism in the United States
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Grammy Award winners
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin%20American%20literature
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Latin American literature
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Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and the indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the international success of the style known as magical realism. As such, the region's literature is often associated solely with this style, with the 20th century literary movement known as Latin American Boom, and with its most famous exponent, Gabriel García Márquez. Latin American literature has a rich and complex tradition of literary production that dates back many centuries.
History
Pre-Columbian literature
Pre-Columbian cultures are documented as primarily oral, though the Aztecs and Mayans, for instance, produced elaborate codices. Oral accounts of mythological and religious beliefs were also sometimes recorded after the arrival of European colonizers, as was the case with the Popol Vuh. Moreover, a tradition of oral narrative survives to this day, for instance among the Quechua-speaking population of Peru and the Quiché of Peru.
Colonial literature
From the very moment when Europeans encountered the New World, early explorers and conquistadores produced written accounts and crónicas of their experience, such as Columbus's letters or Bernal Díaz del Castillo's description of the conquest of the Aztec Empire. At times, colonial practices stirred a lively debate about the ethics of colonization and the status of the indigenous peoples, as reflected for instance in Bartolomé de las Casas's Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies. The first printing press in North America was established in present-day Mexico City in 1539 by publisher Juan Cromberger.
Mestizos and natives also contributed to the body of colonial literature. Authors such as El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Guaman Poma wrote accounts of the Spanish conquest that show a perspective that often contrasts with the colonizers' accounts.
During the colonial period, written culture was often in the hands of the church, the context within which Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote memorable poetry and philosophical essays. Her interest in scientific thought and experiment led to professional discussions and writings with Isaac Newton. Toward the end of the 18th Century and the beginning of the 19th, a distinctive criollo literary tradition emerged, including the first novels such as José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi's El Periquillo Sarniento (1816). The "libertadores" themselves were also often distinguished writers, such as Simón Bolívar and Andrés Bello.
The 19th Century of Latin American Literature
The 19th century was a period of "foundational fictions" (in critic Doris Sommer's words), novels in the Romantic or Naturalist traditions that attempted to establish a sense of national identity, and which often focused on the role and rights of the indigenous or the dichotomy of "civilization or barbarism", pioneered in Latin America by Esteban Echeverría who was influenced by the Parisian romantics while he lived there from 1825 to 1830. Romanticism was then taken up by other prominent literary figures, for which see, the Argentine Domingo Sarmiento's Facundo (1845). Likewise, Alberto Blest Gana's Martin Rivas (1862), widely acknowledged as the first Chilean novel, was at once a passionate love story and a national epic about revolution. Other foundation fictions include the Colombian Jorge Isaacs's María (1867), Ecuadorian Juan León Mera's Cumandá (1879), or the Brazilian Euclides da Cunha's Os Sertões (1902). Such works are still the bedrocks of national canons, and usually mandatory elements of high school curricula.
Other important works of 19th century Latin American literature include regional classics, such as José Hernández's epic poem Martín Fierro (1872). The story of a poor gaucho drafted to fight a frontier war against Indians, Martín Fierro is an example of the "gauchesque", an Argentine genre of poetry centered around the lives of gauchos.
The literary movements of the nineteenth century in Latin America range from Neoclassicism at the beginning of the century to Romanticism in the middle of the century, to Realism and Naturalism in the final third of the century, and finally to the invention of Modernismo, a distinctly Latin American literary movement, at the end of the nineteenth century. The next sections discuss prominent trends in these movements more thoroughly.
Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, and Emerging Literary Trends
The Latin American wars of Independence that occurred in the early nineteenth century in Latin America led to literary themes of identity, resistance, and human rights. Writers often followed and innovated popular literary movements (such as Romanticism, Realism, and Naturalism), but many were also exploring ideas such as nationalism and independence. Cultural independence spread across Latin America during this time, and writers depicted Latin American themes and locations in their works. While literature that questioned the colonial order may have emerged initially during the seventeenth century in Latin America, it rose in popularity in the form of resistance against Spain, the United States, and other imperialist nations in the nineteenth century. Latin American writers sought a Latin American identity, and this would later be closely tied with the Modernismo literary movement.
Male authors mainly dominated colonial literature, with the exception of literary greats such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, but a shift began in the nineteenth century that allowed for more female authors to emerge. An increase in women's education and writing brought some women writers to the forefront, including the Cuban Romantic author Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda with the novel Sab (1841), a romantic novel offering subtle critique of slavery and the treatment of women in Cuba, the Peruvian Naturalist author Clorinda Matto de Turner who wrote what is considered one of the most important novels of "indigenismo" in the 19th century: Aves sin nido (1889), and the Argentinian Romantic writer Juana Manuela Gorriti (1818–1892), who penned a variety of novels and short stories, such as La hija del mashorquero (1860) and directed a literary circle in Peru. A Naturalist trail-blazer, Peruvian Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera penned Blanca Sol (1888) to critique women's lack of practical work options in her society. Women writers of the nineteenth century often wrote about the inequalities in Latin America that were vestiges of colonialism such as the marginalization and oppression of Indigenous peoples, slaves, and women. Many works by women in this period challenged Latin American patriarchal societies. These prominent women writers discussed the hypocrisy of the dominant class and institutions that existed in their nascent nations and criticized the corruption of the government. Some prime examples of such works include Clorinda Matto de Turner's Indole, Herencia, and El Conspirador: autobiografia de un hombre publico.
Modernismo, the Vanguards, and Boom precursors
In the late 19th century, modernismo emerged, a poetic movement whose founding text was the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío's Azul (1888). This was the first Latin American poetry movement to influence literary culture outside of the region, and was also the first truly Latin American literature, in that national differences were no longer as much of an issue and authors sought to establish Latin American connections. José Martí, for instance, though a Cuban patriot, also lived in Mexico and the United States and wrote for journals in Argentina and elsewhere. In 1900 the Uruguayan José Enrique Rodó wrote what became read as a manifesto for the region's cultural awakening, Ariel. Delmira Agustini, one of the female figures of modernismo, wrote poetry that both utilized typical modernist images (such as swans) and adapted them with feminist messages and erotic themes, as critic Sylvia Molloy describes.
Though modernismo itself is often seen as aestheticist and anti-political, some poets and essayists, Martí among them but also the Peruvians Manuel González Prada and José Carlos Mariátegui, introduced compelling critiques of the contemporary social order and particularly the plight of Latin America's indigenous peoples. In this way, the early twentieth century also saw the rise of indigenismo, a trend previously popularized by Clorinda Matto de Turner, that was dedicated to representing indigenous culture and the injustices that such communities were undergoing, as for instance with the Peruvian José María Arguedas and the Mexican Rosario Castellanos.
Resistance against colonialism, a trend that emerged earlier in the nineteenth century, was also extremely important in modernismo. This resistance literature was promoted by prominent modernists including the aforementioned José Martí (1853–1895) and Rubén Darío (1867–1916). Martí warned readers about the imperialistic tendencies of the United States and described how Latin America should avoid allowing the United States to intervene in their affairs. A prime example of this sort of message is found in Martí's Our America, published in 1892. Darío also worked to highlight the threat of American imperialism, which can be seen in his poem To Roosevelt, as well as his other works Cake-Walk: El Baile de Moda. Many of his works were published in La Revista Moderna de Mexico, a modernist magazine of the time.
The Argentine Jorge Luis Borges invented what was almost a new genre, the philosophical short story, and would go on to become one of the most influential of all Latin American writers. At the same time, Roberto Arlt offered a very different style, closer to mass culture and popular literature, reflecting the urbanization and European immigration that was shaping the Southern Cone. Both writers were the most important emergents in an important controversy in Argentinian literature between the so-called Florida Group of Borges and other writers and artists that used to meet at the Richmond Cafe in the centrical Florida street of Buenos Aires city vs. the Boedo Group of Roberto Arlt that used to meet at the Japanese Cafe in the most periferical Boedo borough of the same city.
The Venezuelan Rómulo Gallegos wrote in 1929 what came to be one of the best known Latin American novels in the twentieth century, Doña Barbara. Doña Barbara is a realist novel describing the conflict between civilization and barbarism in the plainlands of South America, and is a masterpiece of criollismo. The novel became an immediate hit, being translated into over forty languages.
Notable figures in Brazil at this time include the exceptional novelist and short story writer Machado de Assis, whose both ironic view and deep psychological analysis introduced a universal scope in Brazilian prose, the modernist poets Mário de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade (whose "Manifesto Antropófago" praised Brazilian powers of transculturation), and Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
In the 1920s Mexico, the Stridentism and los Contemporáneos represented the influx of avant-garde movements, while the Mexican Revolution inspired novels such as Mariano Azuela's Los de abajo, a committed work of social realism and the revolution and its aftermath would continue to be a point of reference for Mexican literature for many decades. In the 1930's many artists treated to used a new style to express emotions through the written word, however it is essential to name the Venezuelan writer Arturo Uslar Pietri as the greatest exponent, who is considered the undisputed father of this literary avant-garde who gives life to Magical Realism with his novel Las lanzas coloradas published in 1931, since it mentions it in search of a name that would explain and reflect the needs that were lived at the time. The writer who would continue In the 1940s, the Cuban novelist and musicologist Alejo Carpentier coined the term "lo real maravilloso" and, along with the Mexican Juan Rulfo and the Guatemalan Miguel Ángel Asturias, would prove a precursor of the Boom of Latin american literature its signature style of "magic realism". Years later in 1967 with his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, shall win of the Romulo Gallegos Prize for Literature.
Poetry after Modernismo
There is a vibrant tradition of prose poetry in 20th century Latin America; the prose poem becomes a prevalent format for lyrical philosophical inquiry and sensual sentiments of the region's poets. Masters of the prose poem include Jorge Luis Borges ("Everything and Nothing"), Pablo Neruda (Passions and Impressions), Octavio Paz (Aguila o Sol?/Eagle or Sun?), Alejandra Pizarnik ("Sex/Night"), Giannina Braschi (Empire of Dreams) and Rafael Cadenas (Memorial).
Leaders of the vanguard whose poetry express love, romance, and a commitment to left leaning regional politics are Cesar Vallejo (Peru) and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda (Chile). Following their lead are Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaragua), Roque Dalton (El Salvador), Nicolás Guillén (Cuba), Gonzalo Rojas (Chile) and Mario Benedetti (Uruguay), and Peruvians Blanca Varela, Jorge Eduardo Eielson or Javier Sologuren.
After Modernismo several lesser known, short-lived poetry movements emerged in Latin America. In Chile, Braulio Arenas and others founded in 1938 the Mandrágora group, strongly influenced by Surrealism as well as by Vicente Huidobro's Creacionismo. In Peru, Cesar Moro and Emilio Adolfo Westphalen developed Surrealism in the Andes region.
The Boom
After World War II, Latin America enjoyed increasing economic prosperity, and a new-found confidence also gave rise to a literary boom. From 1960 to 1967, some of the major seminal works of the boom were published and before long became widely noticed, admired, and commented on beyond Latin America itself. Many of these novels and collections of short stories were somewhat rebellious from the general point of view of Latin America culture. Authors crossed traditional boundaries, experimented with language, and often mixed different styles of writing in their works.
Structures of literary works were also changing. Boom writers ventured outside traditional narrative structures, embracing non-linearity and experimental narration. The figure of Jorge Luis Borges, though not a Boom author per se, was extremely influential for the Boom generation. Latin American authors were inspired by North American and European authors such as William Faulkner, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf, by the legendary Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca as well as by each other's works; many of the authors knew one another, which led to a mutual crossbreeding of styles.
The Boom launched Latin American literature onto the world stage. It was distinguished by daring and experimental novels such as Julio Cortázar's Rayuela (1963), that were frequently published in Spanish and quickly translated into English. From 1966 to 1968, Emir Rodríguez Monegal published his influential Latin American literature monthly Mundo Nuevo, with excerpts of unreleased novels from then-new writers such as Guillermo Cabrera Infante or Severo Sarduy, including two chapters of Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad in 1966. In 1967, the published book was one of the Boom's defining novels, which led to the association of Latin American literature with magic realism, though other important writers of the period such as Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes do not fit so easily within this framework. In the same year, 1967. Miguel Ángel Asturias was awarded the Nobel prize for literature, making his magical realist, metaphor-heavy, folkloristic and sometimes politically charged novels widely known in Europe and North America. Perhaps, the Boom's culmination arrived in Augusto Roa Bastos's monumental Yo, el supremo (1974). Other important novelists of the period include the Chilean José Donoso, the Guatemalan Augusto Monterroso and the Cuban Guillermo Cabrera Infante.
Though the literary boom occurred while Latin America was having commercial success, the works of this period tended to move away from the positives of the modernization that was underway. Boom works often tended not to focus on social and local issues, but rather on universal and at times metaphysical themes.
Political turmoil in Latin American countries such as Cuba at this time influenced the literary boom as well. Some works anticipated an end to the prosperity that was occurring, and even predicted old problems would resurface in the near future. Their works foreshadowed the events to come in the future of Latin America, with the 1970s and 1980s dictatorships, economic turmoil, and Dirty Wars.
Post-Boom and Macondo
Post-Boom literature is sometimes characterized by a tendency towards irony and humor, as the narrative of Alfredo Bryce Echenique, and towards the use of popular genres, as in the work of Manuel Puig. Some writers felt the success of the Boom to be a burden, and spiritedly denounced the caricature that reduces Latin American literature to magical realism. Hence the Chilean Alberto Fuguet coined McOndo as an antidote to the Macondo-ism that demanded of aspiring writers that they set their tales in steamy tropical jungles in which the fantastic and the real happily coexisted. In a mock diary by post-modernist Giannina Braschi the Narrator of the Latin American Boom is shot by a Macy's make-up artist who accuses the Boom of capitalizing on her solitude. Other writers, however, have traded on the Boom's success: see for instance Laura Esquivel's pastiche of magical realism in Como agua para chocolate.
The Spanish language author who has had most impact in United States has been Roberto Bolaño. Overall, contemporary literature in the region is vibrant and varied, ranging from the best-selling Paulo Coelho and Isabel Allende to the more avant-garde and critically acclaimed work of writers such as Diamela Eltit, Giannina Braschi, Luisa Valenzuela, Marcos Aguinis, Ricardo Piglia, Roberto Ampuero, Jorge Marchant Lazcano, Alicia Yánez, Jaime Bayly, Alonso Cueto, Edmundo Paz Soldán, Gioconda Belli, Jorge Franco, Daniel Alarcon, Víctor Montoya or Mario Mendoza Zambrano. Other important figures include the Argentine César Aira, the Peruvian-Mexican Mario Bellatin or the Colombian Fernando Vallejo, whose La virgen de los sicarios depicted the violence in Medellín under the influence of the drug trade. Emerging voices include Fernando Ampuero, Miguel Gutierrez, Edgardo Rivera Martinez, Jaime Marchán and Manfredo Kempff.
There has also been considerable attention paid to the genre of testimonio, texts produced in collaboration with subaltern subjects such as Rigoberta Menchú.
Finally, a new breed of chroniclers is represented by the more journalistic Carlos Monsiváis and Pedro Lemebel, who draw also on the long-standing tradition of essayistic production as well as the precedents of engaged and creative non-fiction represented by the Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano and the Mexican Elena Poniatowska, among others.
Prominent 20th century writers
According to literary critic Harold Bloom, the most eminent Latin American author of any century is the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges. In his controversial 1994 book The Western Canon, Bloom says: "Of all Latin American authors in this century, he is the most universal... If you read Borges frequently and closely, you become something of a Borgesian, because to read him is to activate an awareness of literature in which he has gone farther than anybody else."
Among the novelists, perhaps the most prominent author to emerge from Latin America in the 20th century is Gabriel García Márquez. His book Cien Años de Soledad (1967), is one of the most important works in world literature of the 20th century. Borges opined that it was "the Don Quixote of Latin America."
Among the greatest poets of the 20th century is Pablo Neruda; according to Gabriel García Márquez, Neruda "is the greatest poet of the 20th century, in any language."
Mexican writer and poet Octavio Paz is unique among Latin American writers in having won the Nobel Prize, the Neustadt Prize, and the Cervantes Prize. Paz has also been a recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, as well as an honorary doctorate from Harvard.
The most important literary prize of the Spanish language is widely considered to be the Cervantes Prize of Spain. Latin American authors who have won this prestigious award include: José Emilio Pacheco (Mexico), Juan Gelman (Argentina), Nicanor Parra (Chile), Sergio Pitol (Mexico), Gonzalo Rojas (Chile), Álvaro Mutis (Colombia), Jorge Edwards (Chile), Guillermo Cabrera Infante (Cuba), Mario Vargas Llosa (Perú), Dulce María Loynaz (Cuba), Adolfo Bioy Casares (Argentina), Augusto Roa Bastos (Paraguay), Carlos Fuentes (Mexico), Ernesto Sabato (Argentina), Octavio Paz (Mexico), Juan Carlos Onetti (Uruguay), Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina), Alejo Carpentier (Cuba) and Rafael Cadenas (Venezuela).
The Latin American authors who have won the most prestigious literary award in the world, the Nobel Prize for Literature, are: Gabriela Mistral (Chile, 1945), Miguel Ángel Asturias (Guatemala, 1967), Pablo Neruda (Chile, 1971), Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia, 1982), Octavio Paz (Mexico, 1990), and Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru, 2010).
The Neustadt International Prize for Literature, perhaps the most important international literary award after the Nobel Prize, counts several Latin American authors among its recipients; they include: Claribel Alegría (Nicaragua), Álvaro Mutis (Colombia), João Cabral de Melo Neto (Brazil), Octavio Paz (Mexico), and Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia). Candidates for the prize include: Arturo Uslar Pietri (Venezuela), Ricardo Piglia (Argentina), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), Marjorie Agosin (Chile), Eduardo Galeano (Uruguay), Homero Aridjis (Mexico), Luis Fernando Verissimo (Brazil), Augusto Monterroso (Guatemala), Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaragua), Carlos Fuentes (Mexico), Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina), Jorge Amado (Brazil), Ernesto Sábato (Argentina), Carlos Drummond de Andrade (Brazil), and Pablo Neruda (Chile).
Another important international literary award is the Jerusalem Prize; its recipients include: Marcos Aguinis (Argentina), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), Ernesto Sabato (Argentina), Octavio Paz (Mexico), and Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina).
Latin American authors who figured in prominent literary critic Harold Bloom's The Western Canon list of the most enduring works of world literature include: Rubén Dário, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Severo Sarduy, Reinaldo Arenas, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, César Vallejo, Miguel Ángel Asturias, José Lezama Lima, José Donoso, Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, and Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
Brazilian authors who have won the Camões Prize, the most prestigious literary award in the Portuguese language, include: João Cabral de Melo Neto, Rachel de Queiroz, Jorge Amado, Antonio Candido, Autran Dourado, Rubem Fonseca, Lygia Fagundes Telles, João Ubaldo Ribeiro, and Ferreira Gullar. Some notable authors who have won Brazil's Prêmio Machado de Assis include: Rachel de Queiroz, Cecília Meireles, João Guimarães Rosa, Érico Veríssimo, Lúcio Cardoso, and Ferreira Gullar.
Prominent 21st-century writers
Latin American literature produced since 2000 spans a wide realm of schools and styles. In the 20th Century, Latin American literary studies was primarily centered around what came before, during, and after The Boom. The scholarly optic has since widened to regularly examine Latin American literature within fields such as the Global South, postcolonial literature, postmodern literature, electronic literature, hysterical realism, speculative fiction, Latin American pop culture, crime fiction, horror fiction, among other fields. Prominent 21st-century authors whose works are widely available, taught, and translated into many languages include Mario Vargas Llosa, Isabel Allende, Jorge Volpi, Junot Díaz, Giannina Braschi, Elena Poniatowska, Julia Alvarez, Diamela Eltit, and Ricardo Piglia.
Latin American Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature
Gabriela Mistral, Chile (1945)
Miguel Ángel Asturias, Guatemala (1967)
Pablo Neruda, Chile (1971)
Gabriel García Márquez, Colombia (1982)
Octavio Paz, Mexico (1990)
Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru (2010)
Chronology: Late 19th century-present day
1888 Azul Rubén Darío (Nicaragua)
1889 Aves sin nido Clorinda Matto de Turner (Peru)
1899 Dom Casmurro Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (Brazil)
1900 Ariel José Enrique Rodó (Uruguay)
1900 El Moto Joaquin Garcia Monge (Costa Rica)
1902 Los maitines de la noche Julio Herrera y Reissig (Uruguay)
1902 Os Sertões Euclides da Cunha (Brazil)
1903 Horas lejanas Darío Herrera (Panama)
1915 El hombre de oro Rufino Blanco-Fombona (Venezuela)
1915 Los de abajo Mariano Azuela (Mexico)
1917 Los sueños son vida Ricardo Jaimes Freyre (Bolivia)
1919 Irremediablemente Alfonsina Storni (Argentina)
1919 Los frutos ácidos Alfonso Hernández Catá (Cuba)
1919 Raza de bronce Alcides Arguedas (Bolivia)
1922 La amada inmóvil Amado Nervo (Mexico)
1922 Trilce César Vallejo (Peru)
1922 Paulicéia desvairada Mário de Andrade (Brazil)
1922 Desolación Gabriela Mistral (Chile)
1922 La señorita Etcétera Arqueles Vela (Mexico)
1924 La vorágine José Eustasio Rivera (Colombia)
1926 Don Segundo Sombra Ricardo Güiraldes (Argentina)
1926 La canción de una vida Fabio Fiallo (Dominican Republic)
1928 Macunaíma Mário de Andrade (Brazil)
1928 Poemas en menguante Mariano Brull (Cuba)
1929 Doña Bárbara Rómulo Gallegos (Venezuela)
1929 Los siete locos Roberto Arlt (Argentina)
1929 Onda Rogelio Sinán (Panama)
1930 O Quinze Rachel de Queiroz (Brazil)
1931 Altazor Vicente Huidobro (Chile)
1931 Las lanzas coloradas Arturo Uslar Pietri (Venezuela)
1931 Sóngoro Cosongo Nicolás Guillén (Cuba)
1934 Huasipungo Jorge Icaza (Ecuador)
1936 Angústia Graciliano Ramos (Brazil)
1937 Doble acento Eugenio Florit (Cuba)
1938 Olhai os Lírios do Campo Érico Veríssimo (Brazil)
1939 El pozo Juan Carlos Onetti (Uruguay)
1940 La invención de Morel Adolfo Bioy Casares (Argentina)
1940 Mamita Yunai Carlos Luis Fallas (Costa Rica)
1941 El mundo es ancho y ajeno Ciro Alegría (Peru)
1943 Todo verdor perecerá Eduardo Mallea (Argentina)
1943 Vestido de Noiva Nelson Rodrigues (Brazil)
1944 Ficciones Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina)
1945 A rosa do povo Carlos Drummond de Andrade (Brazil)
1946 El señor presidente Miguel Ángel Asturias (Guatemala)
1947 Al filo del agua Agustín Yáñez (Mexico)
1948 El túnel Ernesto Sabato (Argentina)
1948 Adán Buenosayres Leopoldo Marechal (Argentina)
1949 Hombres de maíz Miguel Ángel Asturias (Guatemala)
1949 O tempo e o vento Érico Veríssimo (Brazil)
1949 El Aleph Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina)
1949 El reino de este mundo Alejo Carpentier (Cuba)
1950 Canto general Pablo Neruda (Chile)
1950 El laberinto de la soledad Octavio Paz (Mexico)
1950 La vida breve Juan Carlos Onetti (Uruguay)
1950 Prisión verde Ramón Amaya Amador (Honduras)
1951 La mano junto al muro Guillermo Meneses (Venezuela)
1952 Confabulario Juan José Arreola (Mexico)
1952 La carne de René Virgilio Piñera (Cuba)
1953 Los pasos perdidos Alejo Carpentier (Cuba)
1955 El negrero Lino Novás Calvo (Cuba)
1955 Morte e Vida Severina João Cabral de Melo Neto (Brazil)
1955 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo (Mexico)
1956 Grande Sertão: Veredas João Guimarães Rosa (Brazil)
1956 La hora 0 Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaragua)
1958 Gabriela, cravo e canela Jorge Amado (Brazil)
1958 Los ríos profundos José María Arguedas (Peru)
1959 A Morte e a Morte de Quincas Berro d'Água Jorge Amado (Brazil)
1960 Hijo de hombre Augusto Roa Bastos (Paraguay)
1960 La tregua Mario Benedetti (Uruguay)
1962 Sobre héroes y tumbas Ernesto Sabato (Argentina)
1962 El siglo de las luces Alejo Carpentier (Cuba)
1962 La amortajada María Luisa Bombal (Chile)
1962 La muerte de Artemio Cruz Carlos Fuentes (Mexico)
1963 Rayuela Julio Cortázar (Argentina)
1963 La ciudad y los perros Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
1964 A Paixão segundo G.H. Clarice Lispector (Brazil)
1965 O Vampiro de Curitiba Dalton Trevisan (Brazil)
1965 Marzo anterior José Balza (Venezuela)
1966 Cenizas de Izalco Claribel Alegría (El Salvador)
1966 La casa verde Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
1966 Paradiso José Lezama Lima (Cuba)
1967 Tres tristes tigres Guillermo Cabrera Infante (Cuba)
1967 Cien años de soledad Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia)
1967 Quarup Antônio Callado (Brazil)
1968 Fuera del juego Heberto Padilla (Cuba)
1969 El mundo alucinante Reinaldo Arenas (Cuba)
1970 El obsceno pájaro de la noche José Donoso (Chile)
1970 La cruz invertida Marcos Aguinis (Argentina)
1971 Sargento Getúlio João Ubaldo Ribeiro (Brazil)
1973 As Meninas Lygia Fagundes Telles (Brazil)
1974 Yo, el supremo Augusto Roa Bastos (Paraguay)
1974 El limonero real Juan José Saer (Argentina)
1975 El otoño del patriarca Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia)
1975 Lavoura Arcaica Raduan Nassar (Brazil)
1975 Pobrecito poeta que era yo Roque Dalton (El Salvador)
1975 Poema Sujo Ferreira Gullar (Brazil)
1975 Terra nostra Carlos Fuentes (Mexico)
1976 El beso de la mujer araña Manuel Puig (Argentina)
1976 La guaracha del Macho Camacho Luis Rafael Sánchez (Puerto Rico)
1978 Maitreya Severo Sarduy (Cuba)
1978 Casa de campo José Donoso (Chile)
1979 O Que É Isso, Companheiro? Fernando Gabeira (Brazil)
1980 Respiración artificial Ricardo Piglia (Argentina)
1981 La guerra del fin del mundo Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
1982 La casa de los espíritus Isabel Allende (Chile)
1985 El amor en los tiempos del cólera Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia)
1985 El desfile del amor Sergio Pitol (Mexico)
1988 El imperio de los sueños Giannina Braschi (Puerto Rico)
1988 O Alquimista Paulo Coelho (Brazil)
1989 Como agua para chocolate Laura Esquivel (Mexico)
1990 Agosto Rubem Fonseca (Brazil)
1991 La Gesta del Marrano Marcos Aguinis (Argentina)
1992 Antes que anochezca Reinaldo Arenas (Cuba)
1995 Maqroll el gaviero Álvaro Mutis (Colombia)
1998 Yo-Yo Boing! Giannina Braschi (Puerto Rico)
1998 Los detectives salvajes Roberto Bolaño (Chile)
1999 La pasion segun Carmela Marcos Aguinis (Argentina)
2000 La fiesta del chivo Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
2000 Dois irmãos Milton Hatoum (Brazil)
2001 La reina de América Jorge Majfud (Uruguay)
2002 Ojos, de otro mirar: poemas Homero Aridjis (Mexico)
2002 Poesía Dulce María Loynaz (Cuba)
2004 2666 Roberto Bolaño (Chile)
2007 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Díaz (Dominican Republic)
2011 United States of Banana Giannina Braschi (Puerto Rico)
2019 Torto Arado Itamar Vieira Junior (Brazil)
Literature by nationality
Latin American literature written in Spanish and Portuguese by nationality:
Argentine literature
Bolivian literature
Brazilian literature
Chilean literature
Colombian literature
Costa Rican literature
Cuban literature
Dominican literature
Ecuadorian literature
Guatemalan literature
Honduran literature
Mexican literature
Nicaraguan literature
Panamanian literature
Paraguayan literature
Peruvian literature
Puerto Rican literature
Salvadoran literature
Uruguayan literature
Venezuelan literature
See also
List of Latin American writers
Latin American poetry
Latino poetry
Criollismo
Chicano literature
Chicano poetry
Latin American Boom
McOndo
Latin American culture
The Dictator Novel
Nuyorican
Hispanic and Latino literature
Spanish-language literature
References
Further reading
The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: An Anthology / ed. Ilan Stavans, 2011.
The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature / eds. Ilan Stavans, Edna Acosta-Belén, Harold Augenbraum, Gustavo Pérez Firmat, 2010.
Latin American women writers: an encyclopedia / ed. María André; Eva Bueno., 2008
A companion to Latin American literature and culture / ed. Sara Castro-Klarén, 2008
The Cambridge companion to the Latin American novel / ed. Efraín Kristal, 2005
Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean literature, 1900–2003 / ed. Daniel Balderston, 2004
Literary cultures of Latin America : a comparative history / ed. Mario J. Valdés, 2004
Latin American writers at work (Interviews) / ed. George Plimpton, 2003
Literatures of Latin America: from Antiquity to the Present / Willis Barnstone, 2003
Cuerpos errantes: literatura latina y latinoamericana en Estados Unidos/ Laura Rosa Loustau, 2002.
Latin American writers. Supplement I / ed. Carlos A Solé; Klaus Müller-Bergh., 2002
Concise encyclopedia of Latin American literature / ed. Verity Smith, 2000
Latin American literature and its times (12 volumes) / Joyce Moss, 1999
Mutual impressions : writers from the Americas reading one another / ed. Ilan Stavans, 1999
Encyclopedia of Latin American literature / ed. Verity Smith, 1997
From romanticism to modernismo in Latin America / ed. David William Foster, 1997
The Cambridge History of Latin American literature / ed. Roberto González Echevarría, 1996
Modern Latin-American fiction writers / ed. William Luis, 1994
Handbook of Latin American literature / ed. David William Foster, 1992
Feminist readings on Spanish and Latin-American literature / ed. Lisa P Condé, 1991
Past, present, and future : selected studies on Latin American Indian literatures / ed. Mary M. Preuss, 1991
The Polemics of Possession in Spanish American Narrative / Rolena Adorno
Magical realism and beyond : the contemporary Spanish and Latin American novel / ed. Roy C Boland, 1991
Modern Latin American fiction (The Critical Cosmos Series) / ed. Harold Bloom, 1990
Latin American writers (3 Volumes) / ed. Carlos A Solé, 1989
Philosophy and literature in Latin America : a critical assessment of the current situation / ed. Jorge Gracia, 1989
Latin American literature in the 20th century : a guide / ed. Leonard S Klein, 1988
Modern Latin American fiction : a survey / ed. John King, 1987
In retrospect : essays on Latin American literature / ed. Elizabeth S Rogers, 1987
Latin America in its literature / ed. César Fernández Moreno, 1980
Latin American fiction today : a symposium / ed. Rose S Minc, 1979
Tradition and renewal : essays on twentieth-century Latin American literature and culture / ed. Merlin H Forster, 1975
Modern Latin American literature (A Library of Literary Criticism) / David William Foster, 1975
Modern Latin American literature / David Patrick Gallagher, 1973
Contemporary Latin American literature; a conference / ed. Harvey Leroy Johnson, 1973
Scholarly books and papers about 20th century Latin American writers published by Rhina Toruño Haensly.
External links
Literature from Latin America, from LANIC
Palabra virtual Latin American Poetry.
miniTEXTOS.org Contemporary short-stories, poetry, essays and theatre.
Latineos Latin America, Caribbean, arts and culture
Literature
Caribbean literature
Central American literature
North American literature
South American literature
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God
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In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic thought, a god is "a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being". Belief in the existence of at least one god is called theism.
Views regarding God vary considerably. Many notable theologians and philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God. Atheism rejects the belief in any deity. Agnosticism is the belief that the existence of God is unknown or unknowable. Some theists view knowledge concerning God as derived from faith. God is often conceived as the greatest entity in existence. God is often believed to be the cause of all things and so is seen as the creator and sustainer and the ruler of the universe. God is often thought of as incorporeal and independent of the material creation while pantheism holds God is the universe itself. God is sometimes seen as the most benevolent, while deism holds that God is not involved in humanity apart from creation.
Some traditions attach spiritual significance to the relationship with God and see God as the source of all moral obligation, with acts such as worship and prayer. God is sometimes described without reference to gender, while others use terminology that is gender-specific. God is referred to by different names depending on the language and cultural tradition with titles also used to refer to different attributes.
Etymology and usage
The earliest written form of the Germanic word God comes from the 6th-century Christian Codex Argenteus. The English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic *ǥuđan. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form was likely based on the root , which meant either "to call" or "to invoke". The Germanic words for God were originally neuter, but during the process of the Christianization of the Germanic peoples from their indigenous Germanic paganism, the words became a masculine syntactic form. In the English language, capitalization is used when the word is used as a proper noun, as well as for other names by which a god is known. Consequently, the capitalized form of god is not used for multiple gods or when used to refer to the generic idea of a deity.
The English word God and its counterparts in other languages are normally used for any and all conceptions and, in spite of significant differences between religions, the term remains an English translation common to all.
El means God in Hebrew, but in Judaism and in Christianity, God is also given a personal name, the tetragrammaton YHWH, in origin possibly the name of an Edomite or Midianite deity, Yahweh. In many English translations of the Bible, when the word LORD is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton. Jah or Yah is an abbreviation of Jahweh/Yahweh, and often sees usage by Jews and Christians in the interjection "Hallelujah", meaning "Praise Jah", which is used to give God glory. In Judaism some of the Hebrew titles of God are considered holy names.
Allāh () is the Arabic term with no plural used by Muslims and Arabic speaking Christians and Jews meaning "The God", while ʾilāh ( plural `āliha آلِهَة) is the term used for a deity or a god in general. Muslims also use a multitude of other titles for God.
In Hinduism, Brahman is often considered a monistic concept of God. God may also be given a proper name in monotheistic currents of Hinduism which emphasize the personal nature of God, with early references to his name as Krishna-Vasudeva in Bhagavata or later Vishnu and Hari. Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa is the term used in Balinese Hinduism.
In Chinese religion, Shangdi is conceived as the progenitor (first ancestor) of the universe, intrinsic to it and constantly bringing order to it.
Ahura Mazda is the name for God used in Zoroastrianism. "Mazda", or rather the Avestan stem-form Mazdā-, nominative Mazdå, reflects Proto-Iranian *Mazdāh (female). It is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit, and like its Sanskrit cognate medhā, means "intelligence" or "wisdom". Both the Avestan and Sanskrit words reflect Proto-Indo-Iranian *mazdhā-, from Proto-Indo-European mn̩sdʰeh1, literally meaning "placing (dʰeh1) one's mind (*mn̩-s)", hence "wise". Meanwhile 101 other names are also in use.
Waheguru () is a term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God. It means "Wonderful Teacher" in the Punjabi language. Vāhi (a Middle Persian borrowing) means "wonderful" and guru () is a term denoting "teacher". Waheguru is also described by some as an experience of ecstasy which is beyond all descriptions. The most common usage of the word "Waheguru" is in the greeting Sikhs use with each other – Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh "Wonderful Lord's Khalsa, Victory is to the Wonderful Lord."
Baha, the "greatest" name for God in the Baháʼí Faith, is Arabic for "All-Glorious".
Other names for God include Aten in ancient Egyptian Atenism where Aten was proclaimed to be the one "true" supreme being and creator of the universe, Chukwu in Igbo, and Hayyi Rabbi in Mandaeism.
General conceptions
Existence
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether God, the divine or the supernatural exist—are unknown and perhaps unknowable. Theism generally holds that God exists objectively and independently of human thought and is sometimes used to refer to any belief in God or gods.
Some view the existence of God as an empirical question. Richard Dawkins states that "a universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference." Carl Sagan argued that the doctrine of a Creator of the Universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could disprove the existence of a Creator (not necessarily a God) would be the discovery that the universe is infinitely old. Some theologians, such as Alister McGrath, argue that the existence of God is not a question that can be answered using the scientific method. Agnostic Stephen Jay Gould argued that science and religion are not in conflict and proposed an approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). In this view, questions of the supernatural, such as those relating to the existence and nature of God, are non-empirical and are the proper domain of theology. The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the natural world. Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their 2010 book, The Grand Design, that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. Both authors claim however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings.
Ontological arguments refer to any argument for the existence of God that is based on a priori reasoning. Notable ontological arguments were formulated by Anselm and René Descartes. Cosmological arguments, such as those described below, utilizes concepts around the origin of the universe to argue for the existence of God.
The Teleological argument, also called the ‘’argument from design’’, utilizes the complexity within the universe as a proof of the existence of God. It is countered that the fine tuning required for a stable universe with life on earth is illusionary as humans are only able to observe the small part of this universe that succeeded in making such observation possible, called the anthropic principle, and so would not learn of, for example, life on other planets or of universes that did not occur because of different laws of physics. Non-theists have argued that complex processes that have natural explanations yet to be discovered are referred to the supernatural, called god of the gaps. Other theists, such as John Henry Newman who believed theistic evolution was acceptable, have also argued against versions of the teleological argument and held that it is limiting of God to view him having to only intervene specially in some instances rather than having complex processes designed to create order.
The Argument from beauty states that this universe happens to contain special beauty in it and that there would be no particular reason for this over aesthetically neutrality other than God. This has been countered by pointing to the existence of ugliness in the universe. This has also been countered by arguing that beauty has no objective reality and so the Universe could be seen as ugly or that humans have made what is more beautiful than nature.
The Argument from morality argues for the existence of God given the assumption of the objective existence of morals. While prominent non-theistic philosophers such as the atheist J. L. Mackie agreed that the argument is valid, they disagreed with its premises. David Hume argued that there is no basis to believe in objective moral truths while biologist E. O. Wilson theorized that the feelings of morality is a by product of natural selection in humans and would not exist independent of the mind. Philosopher Michael Lou Martin argued that a subjective account for morality can be acceptable. Similar to the argument from morality is the argument from conscience which argues for the existence of God given the existence of a conscience that informs of right and wrong, even against prevailing moral codes. Philosopher John Locke instead argued that conscience is a social construct and thus could lead to contradicting morals.
Oneness
A deity, or "god" (with lowercase g), refers to a supernatural being. Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, referred to as ‘’God’’ (with uppercase g). Comparing or equating other entities to God is viewed as idolatry in monotheism, and is often strongly condemned. Judaism includes some of the oldest monotheistic traditions in the world. Islam's most fundamental concept is tawhid meaning "oneness" or "uniqueness". The first pillar of Islam is an oath that forms the basis of the religion and which non-Muslims wishing to convert must recite, declares that "I testify that there is no deity except God."
In Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity describes God as one God in Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit. In the past centuries, this fundamental mystery of the Christian faith was also summarized by the Latin formula Sancta Trinitas, Unus Deus (Holy Trinity, Unique God), reported in the Litanias Lauretanas. God in Hinduism is viewed differently by diverse strands of the religion with most Hindus having faith in a supreme reality (Brahman) who can be manifested in numerous chosen deities. Thus, the religion is sometimes characterized as Polymorphic Monotheism. Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god at a time while accepting the validity of worshiping other deities. Monolatry is the belief in only a single deity worthy of worship while accepting the existence of other dieties.
Transcendence
Transcendence is the aspect of God's nature that is completely independent of the material universe and its physical laws. Many supposed characteristics of God are described in human terms. Anselm thought that God did not feel emotions such as anger or love, but appeared to do so through our imperfect understanding. The incongruity of judging "being" against something that might not exist, led many medieval philosophers approach to knowledge of God through negative attributes, called Negative theology. For example, one should not say that God is wise, but can say that God is not ignorant (i.e. in some way God has some properties of knowledge). Christian theologian Alister McGrath writes that one has to understand a "personal god" as an analogy. "To say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human, or located at a specific point in the universe."
Pantheism holds that God is the universe and the universe is God and denies that God transcends the Universe. For famed pantheist philosopher Baruch Spinoza, the whole of the natural universe is made of one substance, God, or its equivalent, Nature. Pantheism is sometimes objected to as not providing any meaningful explanation of God with the German philosopher Schopenhauer stating “Pantheism is only a euphemism for atheism”. Pandeism holds that God was a separate entity but then became the Universe. Panentheism holds that God contains, but is not identical to, the Universe.
Creator
God is often viewed as the cause of all that exists. For Pythagoreans, Monad variously referred to divinity, the first being or an indivisible origin. The philosophy of Plato and Plotinus refers to “The One” which is the first principle of reality that is ‘’beyond’’ being and is both the source of the Universe and the teleological purpose of all things. Aristotle theorized a first uncaused cause for all motion in the universe and viewed it as perfectly beautiful, immaterial, unchanging and indivisible. Aseity is the property of not depending on any cause other than itself for its existence. Avicenna held that there must be a necessarily existent guaranteed to exist by its essence – it cannot ‘’not’’ exist – and that humans identify this as God. Secondary causation refers to God creating the laws of the Universe which then can change themselves within the framework of those laws. In addition to the initial creation, occasionalism refers to the idea that the Universe would not by default continue to exist from one instant to the next and so would need to rely on God as a sustainer. While divine providence refers to any intervention by God it is usually used to refer to "special providence" where there is an extraordinary intervention by God, such as miracles.
Benevolence
Deism holds that God exists but does not intervene in the world beyond what was necessary to create it, such as answering prayers or producing miracles. Deists sometimes attribute this to God having no interest in or not being aware of humanity. Pandeists would hold that God does not intervene because God is the Universe.
Of those theists who hold that God has an interest in humanity, most hold that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. This belief raises questions about God's responsibility for evil and suffering in the world. Dystheism, which is related to theodicy, is a form of theism which holds that God is either not wholly good or is fully malevolent as a consequence of the problem of evil.
Omniscience and omnipotence
Omnipotence (all-powerful) is an attribute often ascribed to God. The omnipotence paradox is most often framed with the example "Could God create a stone so heavy that even he could not lift it?" as God could either be unable to create that stone or lift that stone and so could not be omnipotent. This is often countered with variations of the argument that omnipotence, like any other attribute ascribed to God, only applies as far as it is noble enough to befit God and thus God cannot lie, or do what is contradictory as that would entail opposing himself.
Omniscience (all-knowing) is an attribute often ascribed to God. This implies that God knows how free agents will choose to act. If God does know this, either their free will might be illusory or foreknowledge does not imply predestination, and if God does not know it, God may not be omniscient. Open Theism limits God’s omniscience by contending that, due to the nature of time, God's omniscience does not mean the deity can predict the future and process theology holds that God does not have immutability, so is affected by his creation.
Other concepts
Classical theists (such as ancient Greco-Medieval philosophers, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, many Jews and Muslims, and some Protestants) speak of God as a divinely simple 'nothing' that is completely transcendent (totally independent of all else), and having attributes such as immutability, impassibility, and timelessness. Theologians of theistic personalism (the view held by Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig, and most modern evangelicals) argue that God is most generally the ground of all being, immanent in and transcendent over the whole world of reality, with immanence and transcendence being the contrapletes of personality.
God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent". These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers, including Maimonides, Augustine of Hippo, and Al-Ghazali, respectively.
Non-theistic views
Religious traditions
Jainism has generally rejected creationism, holding that soul substances (Jīva) are uncreated and that time is beginningless.
Some interpretations and traditions of Buddhism can be conceived as being non-theistic. Buddhism has generally rejected the specific monotheistic view of a Creator God. The Buddha criticizes the theory of creationism in the early Buddhist texts. Also, major Indian Buddhist philosophers, such as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Dharmakirti and Buddhaghosa, consistently critiqued Creator God views put forth by Hindu thinkers. However, as a non-theistic religion, Buddhism leaves the existence of a supreme deity ambiguous. There are significant numbers of Buddhists who believe in God, and there are equally large numbers who deny God's existence or are unsure.
Taoic religions such as Confucianism and Taoism are silent on the existence of creator gods. However, keeping with the tradition of ancestor veneration in China, adherents worship the spirits of people such as Confucius and Lao Tzu in a similar manner to God.
Anthropology
Some atheists have argued that a single, omniscient God who is imagined to have created the universe and is particularly attentive to the lives of humans has been imagined and embellished over generations.
Pascal Boyer argues that while there is a wide array of supernatural concepts found around the world, in general, supernatural beings tend to behave much like people. The construction of gods and spirits like persons is one of the best known traits of religion. He cites examples from Greek mythology, which is, in his opinion, more like a modern soap opera than other religious systems.
Bertrand du Castel and Timothy Jurgensen demonstrate through formalization that Boyer's explanatory model matches physics' epistemology in positing not directly observable entities as intermediaries.
Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie contends that people project human features onto non-human aspects of the world because it makes those aspects more familiar. Sigmund Freud also suggested that god concepts are projections of one's father.
Likewise, Émile Durkheim was one of the earliest to suggest that gods represent an extension of human social life to include supernatural beings. In line with this reasoning, psychologist Matt Rossano contends that when humans began living in larger groups, they may have created gods as a means of enforcing morality. In small groups, morality can be enforced by social forces such as gossip or reputation. However, it is much harder to enforce morality using social forces in much larger groups. Rossano indicates that by including ever-watchful gods and spirits, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups.
Neuroscience and psychology
Sam Harris has interpreted some findings in neuroscience to argue that God is an imaginary entity only, with no basis in reality.
Johns Hopkins researchers studying the effects of the “spirit molecule” DMT, which is both an endogenous molecule in the human brain and the active molecule in the psychedelic ayahuasca, found that a large majority of respondents said DMT brought them into contact with a "conscious, intelligent, benevolent, and sacred entity," and describe interactions that oozed joy, trust, love, and kindness. More than half of those who had previously self-identified as atheists described some type of belief in a higher power or God after the experience.
About a quarter of those afflicted by temporal lobe seizures experience what is described as a religious experience and may become preoccupied by thoughts of God even if they were not previously. Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran hypothesizes that seizures in the temporal lobe, which is closely connected to the emotional center of the brain, the limbic system, may lead to those afflicted to view even banal objects with heightened meaning.
Psychologists studying feelings of awe found that participants feeling awe after watching scenes of natural wonders become more likely to believe in a supernatural being and to see events as the result of design, even when given randomly generated numbers.
Relationship with humanity
Worship
Theistic religious traditions often require worship of God and sometimes hold that the purpose of existence is to worship God. To address the issue of an all-powerful being demanding to be worshipped, it is held that God does not need or benefit from worship but that worship is for the benefit of the worshipper. Gandhi expressed the view that God does not need his supplication and that "Prayer is not an asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is a daily admission of one's weakness". Invoking God in prayer plays a significant role among many believers. Depending on the tradition, God can be viewed as a personal God who is only to be invoked directly while other traditions allow praying to intermediaries, such as saints, to intercede on their behalf. Prayer often also includes supplication such as asking forgiveness. God is often believed to be forgiving. For example, a hadith states God would replace a sinless people with one who sinned but still asked repentance. Sacrifice for the sake of God is another act of devotion that includes fasting and almsgiving. Remembrance of God in daily life include mentioning interjections thanking God when feeling gratitude or phrases of adoration such as repeating chants while performing other activities.
Salvation
Transtheistic religious traditions may believe in the existence of deities but deny any spiritual significance to them. The term has been used to describe certain strands of Buddhism, Jainism and Stoicism.
Among religions that do attach spirituality to the relationship with God disagree as how to best worship God and what is God's plan for mankind. There are different approaches to reconciling the contradictory claims of monotheistic religions. One view is taken by exclusivists, who believe they are the chosen people or have exclusive access to absolute truth, generally through revelation or encounter with the Divine, which adherents of other religions do not. Another view is religious pluralism. A pluralist typically believes that his religion is the right one, but does not deny the partial truth of other religions. The view that all theists actually worship the same god, whether they know it or not, is especially emphasized in the Baháʼí Faith, Hinduism and Sikhism. The Baháʼí Faith preaches that divine manifestations include great prophets and teachers of many of the major religious traditions such as Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, Muhammad, Bahá'ú'lláh and also preaches the unity of all religions and focuses on these multiple epiphanies as necessary for meeting the needs of humanity at different points in history and for different cultures, and as part of a scheme of progressive revelation and education of humanity. An example of a pluralist view in Christianity is supersessionism, i.e., the belief that one's religion is the fulfillment of previous religions. A third approach is relativistic inclusivism, where everybody is seen as equally right; an example being universalism: the doctrine that salvation is eventually available for everyone. A fourth approach is syncretism, mixing different elements from different religions. An example of syncretism is the New Age movement.
Epistemology
Faith
Fideism is the position that in certain topics, notably theology such as in reformed epistemology, faith is superior than reason in arriving at truths. Some theists argue that there is value to the risk in having faith and that if the arguments for God’s existence were as rational as the laws of physics then there would be no risk. Such theists often argue that the heart is attracted to beauty, truth and goodness and so would be best for dictating about God, as illustrated through Blaise Pascal who said, “The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.” A hadith attributes a quote to God as “I am what my slave thinks of me”. Inherent intuition about God is referred to in Islam as fitra, or “innate nature”. In Confucian tradition, Confucius and Mencius promoted that the only justification for right conduct, called the Way, is what is dictated by Heaven, a more or less anthropomorphic higher power, and is implanted in humans and thus there is only one universal foundation for the Way.
Revelation
Revelation refers to some form of message communicated by God. This is usually proposed to occur through the use of prophets or angels. Al-Maturidi argued for the need for revelation because even though humans are intellectually capable of realizing God, human desire can divert the intellect and because certain knowledge cannot be known except for been specially given to prophets, such as the specifications of acts of worship. It is argued that there is also that which overlaps between what is revealed and what can be derived. According to Islam, one of the earliest revelations to ever be revealed was “If you feel no shame, then do as you wish.” The term General revelation is used to refer to knowledge revealed about God outside of direct or special revelation such as scriptures. Notably, this includes studying nature, sometimes seen as the Book of Nature. An idiom in Arabic states, "The Qur’an is a Universe that speaks. The Universe is a silent Qur’an".
Reason
On matters of theology, some such as Richard Swinburne, take an evidentialist position, where a belief is only justified if it has a reason behind it, as opposed to holding it as a foundational belief. Traditionalist theology holds that one should not opinionate beyond revelation to understand God's nature and frown upon rationalizations such as speculative theology. Notably, for anthropomorphic descriptions such as the “Hand of God” and attributes of God, they neither nullify such texts nor accept a literal hand but leave any ambiguity to God, called tafwid, without asking how. Physico-theology provides arguments for theological topics based on reason.
Specific characteristics
Titles
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, "the Bible has been the principal source of the conceptions of God". That the Bible "includes many different images, concepts, and ways of thinking about" God has resulted in perpetual "disagreements about how God is to be conceived and understood". Throughout the Hebrew and Christian Bibles there are titles for God, who revealed his personal name as YHWH (often vocalized as Yahweh or Jehovah). One of them is Elohim. Another one is El Shaddai, translated "God Almighty". A third notable title is El Elyon, which means "The High God". Also noted in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles is the name "I Am that I Am".
God is described and referred in the Quran and hadith by certain names or attributes, the most common being Al-Rahman, meaning "Most Compassionate" and Al-Rahim, meaning "Most Merciful". Many of these names are also used in the scriptures of the Baháʼí Faith.
Vaishnavism, a tradition in Hinduism, has a list of titles and names of Krishna.
Gender
The gender of God may be viewed as either a literal or an allegorical aspect of a deity who, in classical western philosophy, transcends bodily form. Polytheistic religions commonly attribute to each of the gods a gender, allowing each to interact with any of the others, and perhaps with humans, sexually. In most monotheistic religions, God has no counterpart with which to relate sexually. Thus, in classical western philosophy the gender of this one-and-only deity is most likely to be an analogical statement of how humans and God address, and relate to, each other. Namely, God is seen as begetter of the world and revelation which corresponds to the active (as opposed to the receptive) role in sexual intercourse.
Biblical sources usually refer to God using male or paternal words and symbolism, except , , and (female); , , , , , (a mother); (a mother eagle); and and (a mother hen).
Depiction
In Zoroastrianism, during the early Parthian Empire, Ahura Mazda was visually represented for worship. This practice ended during the beginning of the Sasanian Empire. Zoroastrian iconoclasm, which can be traced to the end of the Parthian period and the beginning of the Sassanid, eventually put an end to the use of all images of Ahura Mazda in worship. However, Ahura Mazda continued to be symbolized by a dignified male figure, standing or on horseback, which is found in Sassanian investiture.
Deities from Near Eastern cultures are often thought of as anthropomorphic entities who have a human like body which is, however, not equal to a human body. Such bodies were often thought to be radiant or fiery, of superhuman size or extreme beauty. The ancient deity of the Israelites (Yahweh) too was imagined as a transcendent but still anthropomorphic deity. Humans could not see him, because of their impurity in contrast to Yahweh's holiness, Yahweh being described as radiating fire and light which could kill a human if looking at him. Further, more religious or spiritual people tend to have less anthropomorphic depictions of God. In Judaism, the Torah often ascribes human features to God, however, many other passages describe God as formless and otherworldly. Judaism is aniconic, meaning it overly lacks material, physical representations of both the natural and supernatural worlds. Furthermore, the worship of idols is strictly forbidden. The traditional view, elaborated by figures such as Maimonides, reckons that God is wholly incomprehensible and therefore impossible to envision, resulting in a historical tradition of "divine incorporeality". As such, attempting to describe God's "appearance" in practical terms is considered disrespectful to the deity and thus is deeply taboo, and arguably heretical.
Gnostic cosmogony often depicts the creator god of the Old Testament as an evil lesser deity or Demiurge, while the higher benevolent god or Monad is thought of as something beyond comprehension having immeasurable light and not in time or among things that exist, but rather is greater than them in a sense. All people are said to have a piece of God or divine spark within them which has fallen from the immaterial world into the corrupt material world and is trapped unless gnosis is attained.
Early Christians believed that the words of the Gospel of John 1:18: "No man has seen God at any time" and numerous other statements were meant to apply not only to God, but to all attempts at the depiction of God. However, later depictions of God are found. Some, like the Hand of God, are depiction borrowed from Jewish art. Prior to the 10th century no attempt was made to use a human to symbolize God the Father in Western art. Yet, Western art eventually required some way to illustrate the presence of the Father, so through successive representations a set of artistic styles for symbolizing the Father using a man gradually emerged around the 10th century AD. A rationale for the use of a human is the belief that God created the soul of man in the image of his own (thus allowing human to transcend the other animals). It appears that when early artists designed to represent God the Father, fear and awe restrained them from a usage of the whole human figure. Typically only a small part would be used as the image, usually the hand, or sometimes the face, but rarely a whole human. In many images, the figure of the Son supplants the Father, so a smaller portion of the person of the Father is depicted. By the 12th century depictions of God the Father had started to appear in French illuminated manuscripts, which as a less public form could often be more adventurous in their iconography, and in stained glass church windows in England. Initially the head or bust was usually shown in some form of frame of clouds in the top of the picture space, where the Hand of God had formerly appeared; the Baptism of Christ on the famous baptismal font in Liège of Rainer of Huy is an example from 1118 (a Hand of God is used in another scene). Gradually the amount of the human symbol shown can increase to a half-length figure, then a full-length, usually enthroned, as in Giotto's fresco of c. 1305 in Padua. In the 14th century the Naples Bible carried a depiction of God the Father in the Burning bush. By the early 15th century, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry has a considerable number of symbols, including an elderly but tall and elegant full-length figure walking in the Garden of Eden, which show a considerable diversity of apparent ages and dress. The "Gates of Paradise" of the Florence Baptistry by Lorenzo Ghiberti, begun in 1425 use a similar tall full-length symbol for the Father. The Rohan Book of Hours of about 1430 also included depictions of God the Father in half-length human form, which were now becoming standard, and the Hand of God becoming rarer. At the same period other works, like the large Genesis altarpiece by the Hamburg painter Meister Bertram, continued to use the old depiction of Christ as Logos in Genesis scenes. In the 15th century there was a brief fashion for depicting all three persons of the Trinity as similar or identical figures with the usual appearance of Christ. In a Trinitarian Pietà, God the Father is often symbolized using a man wearing a papal dress and a papal crown, supporting the dead Christ in his arms. In 1667 the 43rd chapter of the Great Moscow Council specifically included a ban on a number of symbolic depictions of God the Father and the Holy Spirit, which then also resulted in a whole range of other icons being placed on the forbidden list, mostly affecting Western-style depictions which had been gaining ground in Orthodox icons. The Council also declared that the person of the Trinity who was the "Ancient of Days" was Christ, as Logos, not God the Father. However some icons continued to be produced in Russia, as well as Greece, Romania, and other Orthodox countries.
In Islam, Muslims believe that God (Allah) is beyond all comprehension, and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Muslims tend to use the least anthropomorphism among monotheists. They are not iconodules and have religious calligraphy of titles of God instead of pictures.
See also
By religion
God in Abrahamic religions
God in Judaism and God of Israel
God in Christianity
God in Islam
God in Hinduism
Other
Absolute (philosophy)
Apeiron (cosmology)
Deity
Demigod
Existence of God
God complex
God (disambiguation)
God (word)
Relationship between religion and science
References
Footnotes
Citations
Bibliography
Pickover, Cliff, The Paradox of God and the Science of Omniscience, Palgrave/St Martin's Press, 2001.
Collins, Francis, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, 2006.
Miles, Jack, God: A Biography, Vintage, 1996.
Armstrong, Karen, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Ballantine Books, 1994.
Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951).
External links
Concept of God in Christianity
Concept of God in Islam
God Christian perspective
Hindu Concept of God
Jewish Literacy
Who is God
Creator gods
Deities
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Canada
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Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's second-largest country by total area, with the world's longest coastline. Its border with the United States is the world's longest international land border. The country is characterized by a wide range of both meteorologic and geological regions. It is a sparsely inhabited country of 40million people, the vast majority residing south of the 55th parallel in urban areas. Canada's capital is Ottawa and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Indigenous peoples have continuously inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom, highlighted by the Statute of Westminster, 1931, and culminating in the Canada Act 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition. The country's head of government is the prime minister, who holds office by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the elected House of Commons and is "called upon" by the governor general, representing the monarch of Canada, the head of state. The country is a Commonwealth realm and is officially bilingual (English and French) in the federal jurisdiction. It is very highly ranked in international measurements of government transparency, quality of life, economic competitiveness, innovation, education and gender equality. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration. Canada's long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its history, economy, and culture.
A developed country, Canada has a high nominal per capita income globally and its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Canada is recognized as a middle power for its role in international affairs, with a tendency to pursue multilateral solutions. Canada's peacekeeping role during the 20th century has had a significant influence on its global image. Canada is part of multiple major international and intergovernmental institutions.
Etymology
While a variety of theories have been postulated for the etymological origins of Canada, the name is now accepted as coming from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word , meaning "village" or "settlement". In 1535, Indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona. Cartier later used the word Canada to refer not only to that particular village but to the entire area subject to Donnacona (the chief at Stadacona); by 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this small region along the Saint Lawrence River as Canada.
From the 16th to the early 18th century, "Canada" referred to the part of New France that lay along the Saint Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada. These two colonies were collectively named the Canadas until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841.
Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the legal name for the new country at the London Conference and the word dominion was conferred as the country's title. By the 1950s, the term Dominion of Canada was no longer used by the United Kingdom, which considered Canada a "realm of the Commonwealth".
The Canada Act 1982, which brought the Constitution of Canada fully under Canadian control, referred only to Canada. Later that year, the name of the national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day. The term Dominion was used to distinguish the federal government from the provinces, though after the Second World War the term federal had replaced dominion.
History
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples in present-day Canada include the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, the last being of mixed descent who originated in the mid-17th century when First Nations people married European settlers and subsequently developed their own identity.
The first inhabitants of North America are generally hypothesized to have migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 14,000 years ago. The Paleo-Indian archeological sites at Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are two of the oldest sites of human habitation in Canada. The characteristics of Indigenous societies included permanent settlements, agriculture, complex societal hierarchies, and trading networks. Some of these cultures had collapsed by the time European explorers arrived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and have only been discovered through archeological investigations.
The Indigenous population at the time of the first European settlements is estimated to have been between 200,000 and two million, with a figure of 500,000 accepted by Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. As a consequence of European colonization, the Indigenous population declined by forty to eighty percent and several First Nations, such as the Beothuk, disappeared. The decline is attributed to several causes, including the transfer of European diseases, such as influenza, measles, and smallpox, to which they had no natural immunity, conflicts over the fur trade, conflicts with the colonial authorities and settlers, and the loss of Indigenous lands to settlers and the subsequent collapse of several nations' self-sufficiency.
Although not without conflict, European Canadians' early interactions with First Nations and Inuit populations were relatively peaceful. First Nations and Métis peoples played a critical part in the development of European colonies in Canada, particularly for their role in assisting European coureurs des bois and voyageurs in their explorations of the continent during the North American fur trade. These early European interactions with First Nations would change from friendship and peace treaties to the dispossession of Indigenous lands through treaties. From the late 18th century, European Canadians forced Indigenous peoples to assimilate into a western Canadian society. These attempts reached a climax in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with forced integration through state-funded boarding schools, health-care segregation, and displacement. A period of redress began with the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada by the Government of Canada in 2008. This included recognition of past colonial injustices and settlement agreements and betterment of racial discrimination issues, such as addressing the plight of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
European colonization
It is believed that the first European to explore the east coast of Canada was Norse explorer Leif Erikson. In approximately 1000 AD, the Norse built a small short-lived encampment that was occupied sporadically for perhaps 20 years at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland. No further European exploration occurred until 1497, when Italian seafarer John Cabot explored and claimed Canada's Atlantic coast in the name of King Henry VII of England. In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier explored the Gulf of Saint Lawrence where, on July 24, he planted a cross bearing the words, "long live the King of France", and took possession of the territory New France in the name of King Francis I. The early 16th century saw European mariners with navigational techniques pioneered by the Basque and Portuguese establish seasonal whaling and fishing outposts along the Atlantic coast. In general, early settlements during the Age of Discovery appear to have been short-lived due to a combination of the harsh climate, problems with navigating trade routes and competing outputs in Scandinavia.
In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, by the royal prerogative of Queen Elizabeth I, founded St John's, Newfoundland, as the first North American English seasonal camp. In 1600, the French established their first seasonal trading post at Tadoussac along the Saint Lawrence. French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603 and established the first permanent year-round European settlements at Port Royal (in 1605) and Quebec City (in 1608). Among the colonists of New France, Canadiens extensively settled the Saint Lawrence River valley and Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana. The Beaver Wars broke out in the mid-17th century over control of the North American fur trade.
The English established additional settlements in Newfoundland in 1610 along with settlements in the Thirteen Colonies to the south. A series of four wars erupted in colonial North America between 1689 and 1763; the later wars of the period constituted the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War. Mainland Nova Scotia came under British rule with the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht and Canada and most of New France came under British rule in 1763 after the Seven Years' War.
British North America
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 established First Nation treaty rights, created the Province of Quebec out of New France, and annexed Cape Breton Island to Nova Scotia. St John's Island (now Prince Edward Island) became a separate colony in 1769. To avert conflict in Quebec, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act 1774, expanding Quebec's territory to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley. More importantly, the Quebec Act afforded Quebec special autonomy and rights of self-administration at a time when the Thirteen Colonies were increasingly agitating against British rule. It re-established the French language, Catholic faith, and French civil law there, staving off the growth of an independence movement in contrast to the Thirteen Colonies. The Proclamation and the Quebec Act in turn angered many residents of the Thirteen Colonies, further fuelling anti-British sentiment in the years prior to the American Revolution.
After the successful American War of Independence, the 1783 Treaty of Paris recognized the independence of the newly formed United States and set the terms of peace, ceding British North American territories south of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi River to the new country. The American war of independence also caused a large out-migration of Loyalists, the settlers who had fought against American independence. Many moved to Canada, particularly Atlantic Canada, where their arrival changed the demographic distribution of the existing territories. New Brunswick was in turn split from Nova Scotia as part of a reorganization of Loyalist settlements in the Maritimes, which led to the incorporation of Saint John, New Brunswick, as Canada's first city. To accommodate the influx of English-speaking Loyalists in Central Canada, the Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the province of Canada into French-speaking Lower Canada (later Quebec) and English-speaking Upper Canada (later Ontario), granting each its own elected legislative assembly.
The Canadas were the main front in the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. Peace came in 1815; no boundaries were changed. Immigration resumed at a higher level, with over 960,000 arrivals from Britain between 1815 and 1850. New arrivals included refugees escaping the Great Irish Famine as well as Gaelic-speaking Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances. Infectious diseases killed between 25 and 33 percent of Europeans who immigrated to Canada before 1891.
The desire for responsible government resulted in the abortive Rebellions of 1837. The Durham Report subsequently recommended responsible government and the assimilation of French Canadians into English culture. The Act of Union 1840 merged the Canadas into a united Province of Canada and responsible government was established for all provinces of British North America east of Lake Superior by 1855. The signing of the Oregon Treaty by Britain and the United States in 1846 ended the Oregon boundary dispute, extending the border westward along the 49th parallel. This paved the way for British colonies on Vancouver Island (1849) and in British Columbia (1858). The Anglo-Russian Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1825) established the border along the Pacific coast, but, even after the US Alaska Purchase of 1867, disputes continued about the exact demarcation of the Alaska–Yukon and Alaska–BC border.
Confederation and expansion
Following three constitutional conferences, the British North America Act, 1867 officially proclaimed Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867, initially with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Canada assumed control of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to form the Northwest Territories, where the Métis' grievances ignited the Red River Rebellion and the creation of the province of Manitoba in July 1870. British Columbia and Vancouver Island (which had been united in 1866) joined the confederation in 1871 on the promise of a transcontinental railway extending to Victoria in the province within 10 years, while Prince Edward Island joined in 1873. In 1898, during the Klondike Gold Rush in the Northwest Territories, Parliament created the Yukon Territory. Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces in 1905. Between 1871 and 1896, almost one quarter of the Canadian population emigrated south to the US.
To open the West and encourage European immigration, the Government of Canada sponsored the construction of three transcontinental railways (including the Canadian Pacific Railway), passed the Dominion Lands Act to regulate settlement and established the North-West Mounted Police to assert authority over the territory. This period of westward expansion and nation building resulted in the displacement of many Indigenous peoples of the Canadian Prairies to "Indian reserves", clearing the way for ethnic European block settlements. This caused the collapse of the Plains Bison in western Canada and the introduction of European cattle farms and wheat fields dominating the land. The Indigenous peoples saw widespread famine and disease due to the loss of the bison and their traditional hunting lands. The federal government did provide emergency relief, on condition of the Indigenous peoples moving to the reserves. During this time, Canada introduced the Indian Act extending its control over the First Nations to education, government and legal rights.
Early 20th century
Because Britain still maintained control of Canada's foreign affairs under the British North America Act, 1867, its declaration of war in 1914 automatically brought Canada into the First World War. Volunteers sent to the Western Front later became part of the Canadian Corps, which played a substantial role in the Battle of Vimy Ridge and other major engagements of the war. Out of approximately 625,000 Canadians who served in World War I, some 60,000 were killed and another 172,000 were wounded. The Conscription Crisis of 1917 erupted when the Unionist Cabinet's proposal to augment the military's dwindling number of active members with conscription was met with vehement objections from French-speaking Quebecers. The Military Service Act brought in compulsory military service, though it, coupled with disputes over French language schools outside Quebec, deeply alienated Francophone Canadians and temporarily split the Liberal Party. In 1919, Canada joined the League of Nations independently of Britain, and the Statute of Westminster, 1931, affirmed Canada's independence.
The Great Depression in Canada during the early 1930s saw an economic downturn, leading to hardship across the country. In response to the downturn, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Saskatchewan introduced many elements of a welfare state (as pioneered by Tommy Douglas) in the 1940s and 1950s. On the advice of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, war with Germany was declared effective September 10, 1939, by King George VI, seven days after the United Kingdom. The delay underscored Canada's independence.
The first Canadian Army units arrived in Britain in December 1939. In all, over a million Canadians served in the armed forces during the Second World War and approximately 42,000 were killed and another 55,000 were wounded. Canadian troops played important roles in many key battles of the war, including the failed 1942 Dieppe Raid, the Allied invasion of Italy, the Normandy landings, the Battle of Normandy, and the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944. Canada provided asylum for the Dutch monarchy while that country was occupied and is credited by the Netherlands for major contributions to its liberation from Nazi Germany.
The Canadian economy boomed during the war as its industries manufactured military materiel for Canada, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union. Despite another Conscription Crisis in Quebec in 1944, Canada finished the war with a large army and strong economy.
Contemporary era
The financial crisis of the Great Depression led the Dominion of Newfoundland to relinquish responsible government in 1934 and become a Crown colony ruled by a British governor. After two referendums, Newfoundlanders voted to join Canada in 1949 as a province.
Canada's post-war economic growth, combined with the policies of successive Liberal governments, led to the emergence of a new Canadian identity, marked by the adoption of the maple leaf flag in 1965, the implementation of official bilingualism (English and French) in 1969, and the institution of official multiculturalism in 1971. Socially democratic programs were also instituted, such as Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, and Canada Student Loans; though, provincial governments, particularly Quebec and Alberta, opposed many of these as incursions into their jurisdictions.
Finally, another series of constitutional conferences resulted in the Canada Act 1982, the patriation of Canada's constitution from the United Kingdom, concurrent with the creation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canada had established complete sovereignty as an independent country under its own monarchy. In 1999, Nunavut became Canada's third territory after a series of negotiations with the federal government.
At the same time, Quebec underwent profound social and economic changes through the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, giving birth to a secular nationalist movement. The radical Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) ignited the October Crisis with a series of bombings and kidnappings in 1970, and the Parti Québécois was elected in 1976, organizing an unsuccessful referendum on sovereignty-association in 1980. Attempts to accommodate Quebec nationalism constitutionally through the Meech Lake Accord failed in 1990. This led to the formation of the Bloc Québécois in Quebec and the invigoration of the Reform Party of Canada in the West. A second referendum followed in 1995, in which sovereignty was rejected by a slimmer margin of 50.6 to 49.4 percent. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession by a province would be unconstitutional, and the Clarity Act was passed by Parliament, outlining the terms of a negotiated departure from Confederation.
In addition to the issues of Quebec sovereignty, a number of crises shook Canadian society in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These included the explosion of Air India Flight 182 in 1985, the largest mass murder in Canadian history; the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989, a university shooting targeting female students; and the Oka Crisis of 1990, the first of a number of violent confrontations between provincial governments and Indigenous groups. Canada also joined the Gulf War in 1990 as part of a United States–led coalition force and was active in several peacekeeping missions in the 1990s, including the UNPROFOR mission in the former Yugoslavia. Canada sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001 but declined to join the United States–led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In 2011, Canadian forces participated in the NATO-led intervention into the Libyan Civil War and also became involved in battling the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq in the mid-2010s. The country celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2017, three years before the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada began on January 27, 2020, with widespread social and economic disruption. In 2021, the possible graves of hundreds of Indigenous people were discovered near the former sites of Canadian Indian residential schools. Administered by various Christian churches and funded by the Canadian government from 1828 to 1997, these boarding schools attempted to assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture.
Geography
By total area (including its waters), Canada is the second-largest country in the world, after Russia. By land area alone, Canada ranks fourth, due to having the world's largest area of fresh water lakes. Stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the east, along the Arctic Ocean to the north, and to the Pacific Ocean in the west, the country encompasses of territory. Canada also has vast maritime terrain, with the world's longest coastline of . In addition to sharing the world's largest land border with the United States—spanning —Canada shares a land border with Greenland (and hence the Kingdom of Denmark) to the northeast, on Hans Island, and a maritime boundary with France's overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon to the southeast. Canada is also home to the world's northernmost settlement, Canadian Forces Station Alert, on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island—latitude 82.5°N—which lies from the North Pole.
Canada can be divided into seven physiographic regions: the Canadian Shield, the interior plains, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands, the Appalachian region, the Western Cordillera, Hudson Bay Lowlands, and the Arctic Archipelago. Boreal forests prevail throughout the country, ice is prominent in northern Arctic regions and through the Rocky Mountains, and the relatively flat Canadian Prairies in the southwest facilitate productive agriculture. The Great Lakes feed the St. Lawrence River (in the southeast) where the lowlands host much of Canada's economic output. Canada has over 2,000,000 lakes—563 of which are larger than —containing much of the world's fresh water. There are also fresh-water glaciers in the Canadian Rockies, the Coast Mountains, and the Arctic Cordillera. Canada is geologically active, having many earthquakes and potentially active volcanoes, notably Mount Meager massif, Mount Garibaldi, Mount Cayley, and the Mount Edziza volcanic complex.
Climate
Average winter and summer high temperatures across Canada vary from region to region. Winters can be harsh in many parts of the country, particularly in the interior and Prairie provinces, which experience a continental climate, where daily average temperatures are near , but can drop below with severe wind chills. In non-coastal regions, snow can cover the ground for almost six months of the year, while in parts of the north snow can persist year-round. Coastal British Columbia has a temperate climate, with a mild and rainy winter. On the east and west coasts, average high temperatures are generally in the low 20s °C (70s °F), while between the coasts, the average summer high temperature ranges from , with temperatures in some interior locations occasionally exceeding .
Much of Northern Canada is covered by ice and permafrost. The future of the permafrost is uncertain because the Arctic has been warming at three times the global average as a result of climate change in Canada. Canada's annual average temperature over land has risen by , with changes ranging from in various regions, since 1948. The rate of warming has been higher across the North and in the Prairies. In the southern regions of Canada, air pollution from both Canada and the United States—caused by metal smelting, burning coal to power utilities, and vehicle emissions—has resulted in acid rain, which has severely impacted waterways, forest growth, and agricultural productivity in Canada.
Biodiversity
Canada is divided into 15 terrestrial and five marine ecozones. These ecozones encompass over 80,000 classified species of Canadian wildlife, with an equal number yet to be formally recognized or discovered. Although Canada has a low percentage of endemic species compared to other countries, due to human activities, invasive species, and environmental issues in the country, there are currently more than 800 species at risk of being lost. About 65 percent of Canada's resident species are considered "Secure". Over half of Canada's landscape is intact and relatively free of human development. The boreal forest of Canada is considered to be the largest intact forest on Earth, with approximately undisturbed by roads, cities or industry. Since the end of the last glacial period, Canada has consisted of eight distinct forest regions, with 42 percent of its land area covered by forests (approximately 8 percent of the world's forested land).
Approximately 12.1 percent of the nation's landmass and freshwater are conservation areas, including 11.4 percent designated as protected areas. Approximately 13.8 percent of its territorial waters are conserved, including 8.9 percent designated as protected areas. Canada's first National Park, Banff National Park established in 1885, spans of mountainous terrain, with many glaciers and ice fields, dense coniferous forest, and alpine landscapes. Canada's oldest provincial park, Algonquin Provincial Park, established in 1893, covers an area of . It is dominated by old-growth forest with over 2,400 lakes and 1,200 kilometres of streams and rivers. Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area is the world's largest freshwater protected area, spanning roughly of lakebed, its overlaying freshwater, and associated shoreline on of islands and mainland. Canada's largest national wildlife region is the Scott Islands Marine National Wildlife Area, which spans and protects critical breeding and nesting habitat for over 40 percent of British Columbia's seabirds. Canada's 18 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves cover a total area of .
Government and politics
Canada is described as a "full democracy", with a tradition of liberalism, and an egalitarian, moderate political ideology. An emphasis on social justice has been a distinguishing element of Canada's political culture. Peace, order, and good government, alongside an Implied Bill of Rights, are founding principles of the Canadian government.
At the federal level, Canada has been dominated by two relatively centrist parties practising "brokerage politics": the centre-left leaning Liberal Party of Canada and the centre-right leaning Conservative Party of Canada (or its predecessors). The historically predominant Liberals position themselves at the centre of the political scale. Five parties had representatives elected to the Parliament in the 2021 election—the Liberals, who formed a minority government; the Conservatives, who became the Official Opposition; the New Democratic Party (occupying the left); the Bloc Québécois; and the Green Party of Canada. Far-right and far-left politics have never been a prominent force in Canadian society.
Canada has a parliamentary system within the context of a constitutional monarchy—the monarchy of Canada being the foundation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The reigning monarch is also monarch of 14 other Commonwealth countries (though, all are sovereign of one another) and each of Canada's 10 provinces. To carry out most of their federal royal duties in Canada, the monarch appoints a representative, the governor general, on the advice of the prime minister.
The monarchy is the source of sovereignty and authority in Canada. However, while the governor general or monarch may exercise their power without ministerial advice in certain rare crisis situations, the use of the executive powers (or royal prerogative) is otherwise always directed by the Cabinet, a committee of ministers of the Crown responsible to the elected House of Commons and chosen and headed by the prime minister, the head of government. To ensure the stability of government, the governor general will usually appoint as prime minister the individual who is the current leader of the political party that can obtain the confidence of a majority of members in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) is thus one of the most powerful institutions in government, initiating most legislation for parliamentary approval and selecting for appointment by the Crown, besides the aforementioned, the governor general, lieutenant governors, senators, federal court judges, and heads of Crown corporations and government agencies. The leader of the party with the second-most seats usually becomes the leader of the Official Opposition and is part of an adversarial parliamentary system intended to keep the government in check.
The Parliament of Canada passes all statute laws within the federal sphere. It comprises the monarch, the House of Commons, and the Senate. While Canada inherited the British concept of parliamentary supremacy, this was later, with the enactment of the Constitution Act, 1982, all but completely superseded by the American notion of the supremacy of the law.
Each of the 338 members of Parliament in the House of Commons is elected by simple plurality in an electoral district or riding. The Constitution Act, 1982, requires that no more than five years pass between elections, although the Canada Elections Act limits this to four years with a "fixed" election date in October; general elections still must be called by the governor general and can be triggered by either the advice of the prime minister or a lost confidence vote in the House. The 105 members of the Senate, whose seats are apportioned on a regional basis, serve until age 75.
Canadian federalism divides government responsibilities between the federal government and the 10 provinces. Provincial legislatures are unicameral and operate in parliamentary fashion similar to the House of Commons. Canada's three territories also have legislatures; but, these are not sovereign and have fewer constitutional responsibilities than the provinces. The territorial legislatures also differ structurally from their provincial counterparts.
The Bank of Canada is the central bank of the country. The minister of finance and minister of innovation, science, and industry use the Statistics Canada agency for financial planning and economic policy development. The Bank of Canada is the sole authority authorized to issue currency in the form of Canadian bank notes. The bank does not issue Canadian coins; they are issued by the Royal Canadian Mint.
Law
The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of the country and consists of written text and unwritten conventions. The Constitution Act, 1867 (known as the British North America Act, 1867 prior to 1982), affirmed governance based on parliamentary precedent and divided powers between the federal and provincial governments. The Statute of Westminster, 1931, granted full autonomy, and the Constitution Act, 1982, ended all legislative ties to Britain, as well as adding a constitutional amending formula and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter guarantees basic rights and freedoms that usually cannot be over-ridden by any government; though, a notwithstanding clause allows Parliament and the provincial legislatures to override certain sections of the Charter for a period of five years.
Canada's judiciary plays an important role in interpreting laws and has the power to strike down acts of Parliament that violate the constitution. The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court, final arbiter, and has been led since December 18, 2017, by Richard Wagner, the Chief Justice of Canada. The governor general appoints the court's nine members on the advice of the prime minister and minister of justice. The federal Cabinet also appoints justices to superior courts in the provincial and territorial jurisdictions.
Common law prevails everywhere, except in Quebec, where civil law predominates. Criminal law is solely a federal responsibility and is uniform throughout Canada. Law enforcement, including criminal courts, is officially a provincial responsibility, conducted by provincial and municipal police forces. In most rural and some urban areas, policing responsibilities are contracted to the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Canadian Aboriginal law provides certain constitutionally recognized rights to land and traditional practices for Indigenous groups in Canada. Various treaties and case laws were established to mediate relations between Europeans and many Indigenous peoples. Most notably, a series of 11 treaties, known as the Numbered Treaties, were signed between the Indigenous peoples and the reigning monarch of Canada between 1871 and 1921. These treaties are agreements between the Canadian Crown-in-Council, with the duty to consult and accommodate. The role of Aboriginal law and the rights they support were reaffirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. These rights may include provision of services, such as healthcare through the Indian Health Transfer Policy, and exemption from taxation.
Foreign relations and military
Canada is recognized as a middle power for its role in international affairs with a tendency to pursue multilateral solutions. Canada's foreign policy based on international peacekeeping and security is carried out through coalitions, international organizations, and the work of numerous federal institutions. Canada's peacekeeping role during the 20th century has played a major role in its global image. The strategy of the Canadian government's foreign aid policy reflects an emphasis to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, while also providing assistance in response to foreign humanitarian crises.
Canada and the United States have a long, complex, and intertwined relationship; they are close allies, co-operating regularly on military campaigns and humanitarian efforts. Canada also maintains historic and traditional ties to the United Kingdom and to France, along with both countries' former colonies through its membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and the . Canada is noted for having a positive relationship with the Netherlands, owing, in part, to its contribution to the Dutch liberation during World War II. Canada was a founding member of the United Nations and has membership in the World Trade Organization, the G20, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Canada is also a member of various other international and regional organizations and forums for economic and cultural affairs. Canada acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1976. The country joined the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1990 and hosted the OAS General Assembly in 2000 and the 3rd Summit of the Americas in 2001. Canada seeks to expand its ties to Pacific Rim economies through membership in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC).
Canada's earlier strong attachment to the British Empire and, later, the Commonwealth, led it to make significant contributions to British military efforts in the Second Boer War (1899–1902), the First World War (1914–1918), and the Second World War (1939–1945). Since then, Canada has been an advocate for multilateralism, making efforts to resolve global issues in collaboration with other nations. During the Cold War, Canada was a major contributor to UN forces in the Korean War and founded the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), in cooperation with the United States, to defend against potential aerial attacks from the Soviet Union.
During the Suez Crisis of 1956, future prime minister Lester B. Pearson eased tensions by proposing the inception of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, for which he was awarded the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize. As this was the first UN peacekeeping mission, Pearson is often credited as the inventor of the concept. Canada has since served in over 50 peacekeeping missions, including every UN peacekeeping effort until 1989, and has since maintained forces in international missions in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. Canada has sometimes faced controversy over its involvement in foreign countries, notably in the 1993 Somalia affair.
In 2001, Canada deployed troops to Afghanistan as part of the US stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. In August 2007, Canada's territorial claims in the Arctic were challenged after a Russian underwater expedition to the North Pole; Canada has considered that area to be sovereign territory since 1925.
The unified Canadian Forces (CF) comprise the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Force. The nation employs a professional, volunteer force of approximately 68,000 active personnel and 27,000 reserve personnel—increasing to 71,500 and 30,000 respectively under "Strong, Secure, Engaged"—with a sub-component of approximately 5,000 Canadian Rangers. In 2021, Canada's military expenditure totalled approximately $26.4 billion, or around 1.3 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Canada's total military expenditure is expected to reach $32.7 billion by 2027. Canada's military currently has over 3000 personnel deployed overseas in multiple operations, such as Operation Snowgoose in Cyprus, Operation Unifier supporting Ukraine, Operation Caribbe in the Caribbean Sea, and Operation Impact, a coalition for the military intervention against ISIL.
Provinces and territories
Canada is a federation composed of 10 federated states, called provinces, and three federal territories. In turn, these may be grouped into four main regions: Western Canada, Central Canada, Atlantic Canada, and Northern Canada (Eastern Canada refers to Central Canada and Atlantic Canada together). Provinces and territories have responsibility for social programs such as healthcare, education, and welfare, as well as administration of justice (but not criminal law). Together, the provinces collect more revenue than the federal government, a rarity among other federations in the world. Using its spending powers, the federal government can initiate national policies in provincial areas such as health and child care; the provinces can opt out of these cost-share programs but rarely do so in practice. Equalization payments are made by the federal government to ensure reasonably uniform standards of services and taxation are kept between the richer and poorer provinces.
The major difference between a Canadian province and a territory is that provinces receive their sovereignty from the Crown and power and authority from the Constitution Act, 1867, whereas territorial governments have powers delegated to them by the Parliament of Canada and the commissioners represent the King in his federal Council, rather than the monarch directly. The powers flowing from the Constitution Act, 1867, are divided between the federal government and the provincial governments to exercise exclusively and any changes to that arrangement require a constitutional amendment, while changes to the roles and powers of the territories may be performed unilaterally by the Parliament of Canada.
Economy
Canada has a highly developed mixed-market economy, with the world's ninth-largest economy , and a nominal GDP of approximately . It is one of the world's largest trading nations, with a highly globalized economy. In 2021, Canadian trade in goods and services reached $2.016 trillion. Canada's exports totalled over $637 billion, while its imported goods were worth over $631 billion, of which approximately $391 billion originated from the United States. In 2018, Canada had a trade deficit in goods of $22 billion and a trade deficit in services of $25 billion. The Toronto Stock Exchange is the ninth-largest stock exchange in the world by market capitalization, listing over 1,500 companies with a combined market capitalization of over .
Canada has a strong cooperative banking sector, with the world's highest per-capita membership in credit unions. It ranks low in the Corruption Perceptions Index (14th in 2023) and "is widely regarded as among the least corrupt countries of the world". It ranks high in the Global Competitiveness Report (14th in 2019) and Global Innovation Index (15th in 2023). Canada's economy ranks above most Western nations on The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom and experiences a relatively low level of income disparity. The country's average household disposable income per capita is "well above" the OECD average. Canada ranks among the lowest of the most developed countries for housing affordability and foreign direct investment.
Since the early 20th century, the growth of Canada's manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy to an urbanized, industrial one. Like many other developed countries, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs about three-quarters of the country's workforce. Among developed countries, Canada has an unusually important primary sector, of which the forestry and petroleum industries are the most prominent components. Many towns in northern Canada, where agriculture is difficult, are sustained by nearby mines or sources of timber.
Canada's economic integration with the United States has increased significantly since World War II. The Automotive Products Trade Agreement of 1965 opened Canada's borders to trade in the automobile manufacturing industry. The Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1988 eliminated tariffs between the two countries, while the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) expanded the free-trade zone to include Mexico in 1994 (later replaced by the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement). As of 2023, Canada is a signatory to 15 free trade agreements with 51 different countries.
Canada is one of the few developed nations that are net exporters of energy. Atlantic Canada possess vast offshore deposits of natural gas, and Alberta hosts the fourth-largest oil reserves in the world. The vast Athabasca oil sands and other oil reserves give Canada 13 percent of global oil reserves, constituting the world's third or fourth-largest. Canada is additionally one of the world's largest suppliers of agricultural products; the Canadian Prairies region is one of the most important global producers of wheat, canola, and other grains. The country is a leading exporter of zinc, uranium, gold, nickel, platinoids, aluminum, steel, iron ore, coking coal, lead, copper, molybdenum, cobalt, and cadmium. Canada has a sizeable manufacturing sector centred in southern Ontario and Quebec, with automobiles and aeronautics representing particularly important industries. The fishing industry is also a key contributor to the economy.
Science and technology
In 2020, Canada spent approximately $41.9 billion on domestic research and development, with supplementary estimates for 2022 at $43.2 billion. , the country has produced 15 Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, and medicine. The country ranks seventh in the worldwide share of articles published in scientific journals, according to the Nature Index, and is home to the headquarters of a number of global technology firms. Canada has one of the highest levels of Internet access in the world, with over 33 million users, equivalent to around 94 percent of its total population.
Canada's developments in science and technology include the creation of the modern alkaline battery, the discovery of insulin, the development of the polio vaccine, and discoveries about the interior structure of the atomic nucleus. Other major Canadian scientific contributions include the artificial cardiac pacemaker, mapping the visual cortex, the development of the electron microscope, plate tectonics, deep learning, multi-touch technology, and the identification of the first black hole, Cygnus X-1. Canada has a long history of discovery in genetics, which include stem cells, site-directed mutagenesis, T-cell receptor, and the identification of the genes that cause Fanconi anemia, cystic fibrosis, and early-onset Alzheimer's disease, among numerous other diseases.
The Canadian Space Agency operates a highly active space program, conducting deep-space, planetary, and aviation research and developing rockets and satellites. Canada was the third country to design and construct a satellite after the Soviet Union and the United States, with the 1962 Alouette 1 launch. Canada is a participant in the International Space Station (ISS), and is a pioneer in space robotics, having constructed the Canadarm, Canadarm2, Canadarm3 and Dextre robotic manipulators for the ISS and NASA's Space Shuttle. Since the 1960s, Canada's aerospace industry has designed and built numerous marques of satellite, including Radarsat-1 and 2, ISIS, and MOST. Canada has also produced one of the world's most successful and widely used sounding rockets, the Black Brant.
Demographics
The 2021 Canadian census enumerated a total population of 36,991,981, an increase of around 5.2 percent over the 2016 figure. It is estimated that Canada's population surpassed 40,000,000 in 2023. The main drivers of population growth are immigration and, to a lesser extent, natural growth. Canada has one of the highest per-capita immigration rates in the world, driven mainly by economic policy and also family reunification. A record 405,000 immigrants were admitted to Canada in 2021. Canada leads the world in refugee resettlement; it resettled more than 28,000 in 2018. New immigrants settle mostly in major urban areas in the country, such as Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Canada's population density, at , is among the lowest in the world. Canada spans latitudinally from the 83rd parallel north to the 41st parallel north and approximately 95 percent of the population is found south of the 55th parallel north. About 80 percent of the population lives within of the border with the contiguous United States. Canada is highly urbanized, with over 80 percent of the population living urban centres. The most densely populated part of the country, accounting for nearly 50 percent, is the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor in Southern Quebec and Southern Ontario along the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River.
The majority of Canadians (81.1 percent) live in family households, 12.1 percent report living alone, and those living with other relatives or unrelated persons reported at 6.8 percent. Fifty-one percent of households are couples with or without children, 8.7 percent are single-parent households, 2.9 percent are multigenerational households, and 29.3 percent are single-person households.
Ethnicity
According to the 2021 Canadian census, over 450 "ethnic or cultural origins" were self-reported by Canadians. The major panethnic groups chosen were: European (), North American (), Asian (), North American Indigenous (), African (), Latin, Central and South American (), Caribbean (), Oceanian (), and other (). Over 60 percent of Canadians reported a single origin, and 36 percent of Canadians reported having multiple ethnic origins, thus the overall total is greater than 100 percent.
The country's ten largest self-reported specific ethnic or cultural origins in 2021 were Canadian (accounting for 15.6 percent of the population), followed by English (14.7 percent), Irish (12.1 percent), Scottish (12.1 percent), French (11.0 percent), German (8.1 percent), Chinese (4.7 percent), Italian (4.3 percent), Indian (3.7 percent), and Ukrainian (3.5 percent).
Of the 36.3 million people enumerated in 2021, approximately 25.4 million reported being "White", representing 69.8 percent of the population. The Indigenous population representing 5 percent or 1.8 million individuals, grew by 9.4 percent compared to the non-Indigenous population, which grew by 5.3 percent from 2016 to 2021. One out of every four Canadians or 26.5 percent of the population belonged to a non-White and non-Indigenous visible minority, the largest of which in 2021 were South Asian (2.6 million people; 7.1 percent), Chinese (1.7 million; 4.7 percent), and Black (1.5 million; 4.3 percent).
Between 2011 and 2016, the visible minority population rose by 18.4 percent. In 1961, about 300,000 people, less than two percent of Canada's population, were members of visible minority groups. The 2021 census indicated that 8.3million people, or almost one-quarter (23.0 percent) of the population, reported themselves as being or having been a landed immigrant or permanent resident in Canada—above the 1921 census previous record of 22.3 percent. In 2021, India, China, and the Philippines were the top three countries of origin for immigrants moving to Canada.
Languages
A multitude of languages are used by Canadians, with English and French (the official languages) being the mother tongues of approximately 54 percent and 19 percent of Canadians, respectively. As of the 2021 census, just over 7.8 million Canadians listed a non-official language as their mother tongue. Some of the most common non-official first languages include Mandarin (679,255 first-language speakers), Punjabi (666,585), Cantonese (553,380), Spanish (538,870), Arabic (508,410), Tagalog (461,150), Italian (319,505), German (272,865), and Tamil (237,890). Canada's federal government practises official bilingualism, which is applied by the commissioner of official languages in consonance with section 16 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the federal Official Languages Act. English and French have equal status in federal courts, Parliament, and in all federal institutions. Citizens have the right, where there is sufficient demand, to receive federal government services in either English or French and official-language minorities are guaranteed their own schools in all provinces and territories.
The 1977 Charter of the French Language established French as the official language of Quebec. Although more than 82 percent of French-speaking Canadians live in Quebec, there are substantial Francophone populations in New Brunswick, Alberta, and Manitoba; Ontario has the largest French-speaking population outside Quebec. New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province, has a French-speaking Acadian minority constituting 33 percent of the population. There are also clusters of Acadians in southwestern Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton Island, and in central and western Prince Edward Island.
Other provinces have no official languages as such, but French is used as a language of instruction, in courts, and for other government services, in addition to English. Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec allow for both English and French to be spoken in the provincial legislatures and laws are enacted in both languages. In Ontario, French has some legal status, but is not fully co-official. There are 11 Indigenous language groups, composed of more than 65 distinct languages and dialects. Several Indigenous languages have official status in the Northwest Territories. Inuktitut is the majority language in Nunavut and is one of three official languages in the territory.
Additionally, Canada is home to many sign languages, some of which are Indigenous. American Sign Language (ASL) is used across the country due to the prevalence of ASL in primary and secondary schools. Quebec Sign Language (LSQ) is used primarily in Quebec.
Religion
Canada is religiously diverse, encompassing a wide range of beliefs and customs. The Constitution of Canada refers to God and the monarch carries the title of Defender of the Faith; however, Canada has no official church and the government is officially committed to religious pluralism. Freedom of religion in Canada is a constitutionally protected right, allowing individuals to assemble and worship without limitation or interference.
Rates of religious adherence have steadily decreased since the 1970s. With Christianity in decline after having once been central and integral to Canadian culture and daily life, Canada has become a post-Christian, secular state. Although the majority of Canadians consider religion to be unimportant in their daily lives, they still believe in God. The practice of religion is generally considered a private matter throughout Canadian society and by the state.
According to the 2021 census, Christianity is the largest religion in Canada, with Roman Catholics representing 29.9 percent of the population having the most adherents. Christians overall representing 53.3 percent of the population, are followed by people reporting irreligion or having no religion at 34.6 percent. Other faiths include Islam (4.9 percent), Hinduism (2.3 percent), Sikhism (2.1 percent), Buddhism (1.0 percent), Judaism (0.9 percent), and Indigenous spirituality (0.2 percent). Canada has the second-largest national Sikh population, behind India.
Health
Healthcare in Canada is delivered through the provincial and territorial systems of publicly funded health care, informally called Medicare. It is guided by the provisions of the Canada Health Act of 1984 and is universal. Universal access to publicly funded health services "is often considered by Canadians as a fundamental value that ensures national healthcare insurance for everyone wherever they live in the country." Around 30 percent of Canadians' healthcare is paid for through the private sector. This mostly pays for services not covered or partially covered by Medicare, such as prescription drugs, dentistry and optometry. Approximately 65 to 75 percent of Canadians have some form of supplementary health insurance; many receive it through their employers or access secondary social service programs.
In common with many other developed countries, Canada is experiencing an increase in healthcare expenditures due to a demographic shift toward an older population, with more retirees and fewer people of working age. In 2021, the average age in Canada was 41.9 years. Life expectancy is 81.1 years. A 2016 report by the chief public health officer found that 88 percent of Canadians, one of the highest proportions of the population among G7 countries, indicated that they "had good or very good health". Eighty percent of Canadian adults self-report having at least one major risk factor for chronic disease: smoking, physical inactivity, unhealthy eating or excessive alcohol use. Canada has one of the highest rates of adult obesity among OECD countries, contributing to approximately 2.7 million cases of diabetes. Four chronic diseases—cancer (leading cause of death), cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, and diabetes—account for 65 percent of deaths in Canada.
In 2021, the Canadian Institute for Health Information reported that healthcare spending reached $308billion, or 12.7 percent of Canada's GDP for that year. In 2022, Canada's per-capita spending on health expenditures ranked 12th among health-care systems in the OECD. Canada has performed close to, or above the average on the majority of OECD health indicators since the early 2000s, ranking above the average on OECD indicators for wait-times and access to care, with average scores for quality of care and use of resources. The Commonwealth Fund's 2021 report comparing the healthcare systems of the 11 most developed countries ranked Canada second-to-last. Identified weaknesses were comparatively higher infant mortality rate, the prevalence of chronic conditions, long wait times, poor availability of after-hours care, and a lack of prescription drugs and dental coverage. An increasing problem in Canada's health system is a lack of healthcare professionals.
Education
Education in Canada is for the most part provided publicly, funded and overseen by federal, provincial, and local governments. Education is within provincial jurisdiction and the curriculum is overseen by the province. Education in Canada is generally divided into primary education, followed by secondary education and post-secondary. Education in both English and French is available in most places across Canada. Canada has a large number of universities, almost all of which are publicly funded. Established in 1663, is the oldest post-secondary institution in Canada. The largest university is the University of Toronto with over 85,000 students. Four universities are regularly ranked among the top 100 world-wide, namely University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, McGill University, and McMaster University, with a total of 18 universities ranked in the top 500 worldwide.
According to a 2019 report by the OECD, Canada is one of the most educated countries in the world; the country ranks first worldwide in the percentage of adults having tertiary education, with over 56 percent of Canadian adults having attained at least an undergraduate college or university degree. Canada spends about 5.3 percent of its GDP on education. The country invests heavily in tertiary education (more than per student). , 89 percent of adults aged 25 to 64 have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, compared to an OECD average of 75 percent.
The mandatory education age ranges between 5–7 to 16–18 years, contributing to an adult literacy rate of 99 percent. Just over 60,000 children are homeschooled in the country as of 2016. The Programme for International Student Assessment indicates Canadian students perform well above the OECD average, particularly in mathematics, science, and reading, ranking the overall knowledge and skills of Canadian 15-year-olds as the sixth-best in the world, although these scores have been declining in recent years. Canada is a well-performing OECD country in reading literacy, mathematics, and science, with the average student scoring 523.7, compared with the OECD average of 493 in 2015.
Culture
Canada's culture draws influences from its broad range of constituent nationalities and policies that promote a "just society" are constitutionally protected. Since the 1960s, Canada has emphasized equality and inclusiveness for all its people. The official state policy of multiculturalism is often cited as one of Canada's significant accomplishments and a key distinguishing element of Canadian identity. In Quebec, cultural identity is strong and there is a French Canadian culture that is distinct from English Canadian culture.
Canada's approach to governance emphasizing multiculturalism, which is based on selective immigration, social integration, and suppression of far-right politics, has wide public support. Government policies such as publicly funded health care, higher taxation to redistribute wealth, the outlawing of capital punishment, strong efforts to eliminate poverty, strict gun control, a social liberal attitude toward women's rights (like pregnancy termination) and LGBT rights, and legalized euthanasia and cannabis use are indicators of Canada's political and cultural values. Canadians also identify with the country's foreign aid policies, peacekeeping roles, the national park system, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Historically, Canada has been influenced by British, French, and Indigenous cultures and traditions. Through their language, art, and music, Indigenous peoples continue to influence the Canadian identity. During the 20th century, Canadians with African, Caribbean, and Asian nationalities have added to the Canadian identity and its culture.
Symbols
Themes of nature, pioneers, trappers, and traders played an important part in the early development of Canadian symbolism. Modern symbols emphasize the country's geography, cold climate, lifestyles, and the Canadianization of traditional European and Indigenous symbols. The use of the maple leaf as a Canadian symbol dates to the early 18th century. The maple leaf is depicted on Canada's current and previous flags and on the Arms of Canada. Canada's official tartan, known as the "maple leaf tartan", has four colours that reflect the colours of the maple leaf as it changes through the seasons—green in the spring, gold in the early autumn, red at the first frost, and brown after falling. The Arms of Canada are closely modelled after those of the United Kingdom, with French and distinctive Canadian elements replacing or added to those derived from the British version.
Other prominent symbols include the national motto, "" ("From Sea to Sea"), the sports of ice hockey and lacrosse, the beaver, Canada goose, common loon, Canadian horse, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Rockies, and, more recently, the totem pole and Inuksuk. Canadian beer, maple syrup, tuques, canoes, nanaimo bars, butter tarts, and poutine are defined as uniquely Canadian. Canadian coins feature many of these symbols: the loon on the $1 coin, the Arms of Canada on the 50¢ piece, and the beaver on the nickel. An image of the previous monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, appears on $20 bank notes and the obverse of all current Canadian coins.
Literature
Canadian literature is often divided into French- and English-language literatures, which are rooted in the literary traditions of France and Britain, respectively. The earliest Canadian narratives were of travel and exploration. This progressed into three major themes that can be found within historical Canadian literature: nature, frontier life, and Canada's position within the world, all three of which tie into the garrison mentality. In recent decades, Canada's literature has been strongly influenced by immigrants from around the world. By the 1990s, Canadian literature was viewed as some of the world's best.
Numerous Canadian authors have accumulated international literary awards, including novelist, poet, and literary critic Margaret Atwood, who received two Booker Prizes; Nobel laureate Alice Munro, who has been called the best living writer of short stories in English; and Booker Prize recipient Michael Ondaatje, who wrote the novel The English Patient, which was adapted as a film of the same name that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. L. M. Montgomery produced a series of children's novels beginning in 1908 with Anne of Green Gables.
Media
Canada's media is highly autonomous, uncensored, diverse, and very regionalized. The Broadcasting Act declares "the system should serve to safeguard, enrich, and strengthen the cultural, political, social, and economic fabric of Canada". Canada has a well-developed media sector, but its cultural output—particularly in English films, television shows, and magazines—is often overshadowed by imports from the United States. As a result, the preservation of a distinctly Canadian culture is supported by federal government programs, laws, and institutions such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
Canadian mass media, both print and digital, and in both official languages, is largely dominated by a "handful of corporations". The largest of these corporations is the country's national public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which also plays a significant role in producing domestic cultural content, operating its own radio and TV networks in both English and French. In addition to the CBC, some provincial governments offer their own public educational TV broadcast services as well, such as TVOntario and Télé-Québec.
Non-news media content in Canada, including film and television, is influenced both by local creators as well as by imports from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and France. In an effort to reduce the amount of foreign-made media, government interventions in television broadcasting can include both regulation of content and public financing. Canadian tax laws limit foreign competition in magazine advertising.
Visual arts
Art in Canada is marked by thousands of years of habitation by its Indigenous peoples, and, in later times, artists have combined British, French, Indigenous, and American artistic traditions, at times embracing European styles while working to promote nationalism. The nature of Canadian art reflects these diverse origins, as artists have taken their traditions and adapted these influences to reflect the reality of their lives in Canada.
The Canadian government has played a role in the development of Canadian culture through the department of Canadian Heritage, by giving grants to art galleries, as well as establishing and funding art schools and colleges across the country, and through the Canada Council for the Arts, the national public arts funder, helping artists, art galleries and periodicals, and thus contributing to the development of Canada's cultural works.
Canadian visual art has been dominated by figures, such as painter Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. The latter were painters with a nationalistic and idealistic focus, who first exhibited their distinctive works in May 1920. Though referred to as having seven members, five artists—Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley—were responsible for articulating the group's ideas. They were joined briefly by Frank Johnston and commercial artist Franklin Carmichael. A. J. Casson became part of the group in 1926. Associated with the group was another prominent Canadian artist, Emily Carr, known for her landscapes and portrayals of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast.
Music
Canadian music reflects a variety of regional scenes. Canada has developed a vast music infrastructure that includes church halls, chamber halls, conservatories, academies, performing arts centres, record companies, radio stations, and television music video channels. Government support programs, such as the Canada Music Fund, assist a wide range of musicians and entrepreneurs who create, produce and market original and diverse Canadian music. As a result of its cultural importance, as well as government initiatives and regulations, the Canadian music industry is one of the largest in the world, producing internationally renowned composers, musicians, and ensembles. Music broadcasting in the country is regulated by the CRTC. The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences presents Canada's music industry awards, the Juno Awards. The Canadian Music Hall of Fame honours Canadian musicians for their lifetime achievements.
Patriotic music in Canada dates back over 200 years. The earliest work of patriotic music in Canada, "The Bold Canadian", was written in 1812. "The Maple Leaf Forever", written in 1866, was a popular patriotic song throughout English Canada and, for many years, served as an unofficial national anthem. "O Canada" was adopted as the official anthem in 1980. Calixa Lavallée wrote the music, which was a setting of a patriotic poem composed by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The text was originally only in French before it was adapted into English in 1906.
Sports
The roots of organized sports in Canada date back to the 1770s, culminating in the development and popularization of the major professional games of ice hockey, lacrosse, curling, basketball, baseball, soccer, and Canadian football. Canada's official national sports are ice hockey and lacrosse. Other sports such as golf, volleyball, skiing, cycling, swimming, badminton, tennis, bowling, and the study of martial arts are all widely enjoyed at the youth and amateur levels. Great achievements in Canadian sports are recognized by Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. There are numerous other sport "halls of fame" in Canada, such as the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Canada shares several major professional sports leagues with the United States. Canadian teams in these leagues include seven franchises in the National Hockey League, as well as three Major League Soccer teams and one team in each of Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. Other popular professional competitions include the Canadian Football League, National Lacrosse League, the Canadian Premier League, and the various curling tournaments sanctioned and organized by Curling Canada.
Canada has enjoyed success both at the Winter Olympics and at the Summer Olympics—though, particularly, the Winter Games as a "winter sports nation"—and has hosted several high-profile international sporting events such as the 1976 Summer Olympics, the 1988 Winter Olympics, the 2010 Winter Olympics, and the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup. Most recently, Canada hosted the 2015 Pan American Games and 2015 Parapan American Games in Toronto. The country is scheduled to co-host the 2026 FIFA World Cup alongside Mexico and the United States.
See also
Index of Canada-related articles
Outline of Canada
Topics by provinces and territories
Notes
References
Further reading
Overview
Culture
Demography and statistics
Economy
– (Previous surveys)
Foreign relations and military
Geography and climate
Government and law
History
,
Social welfare
External links
Overviews
Canada from UCB Libraries GovPubs
Canada profile from the OECD
Key Development Forecasts for Canada from International Futures
Government
Official website of the Government of Canada
Official website of the Governor General of Canada
Official website of the Prime Ministers of Canada
Travel
Canada's official website for travel and tourism
Countries in North America
Countries and territories where English is an official language
Federal monarchies
Former British colonies and protectorates in the Americas
French-speaking countries and territories
G20 members
Member states of NATO
Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations
Member states of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie
Member states of the United Nations
Northern America
States and territories established in 1867
OECD members
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate%20change
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Climate change
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In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global average temperature is more rapid than previous changes, and is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices add to greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide and methane. Greenhouse gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight. Larger amounts of these gases trap more heat in Earth's lower atmosphere, causing global warming.
Climate change is causing a range of increasing impacts on the environment. Deserts are expanding, while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common. Amplified warming in the Arctic has contributed to melting permafrost, glacial retreat and sea ice loss. Higher temperatures are also causing more intense storms, droughts, and other weather extremes. Rapid environmental change in mountains, coral reefs, and the Arctic is forcing many species to relocate or become extinct. Even if efforts to minimise future warming are successful, some effects will continue for centuries. These include ocean heating, ocean acidification and sea level rise.
Climate change threatens people with increased flooding, extreme heat, increased food and water scarcity, more disease, and economic loss. Human migration and conflict can also be a result. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. Societies and ecosystems will experience more severe risks without action to limit warming. Adapting to climate change through efforts like flood control measures or drought-resistant crops partially reduces climate change risks, although some limits to adaptation have already been reached. Poorer communities are responsible for a small share of global emissions, yet have the least ability to adapt and are most vulnerable to climate change.
Many climate change impacts are already felt at the current level of warming. Additional warming will increase these impacts and can trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about by the end of the century. Limiting warming to 1.5 °C will require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Reducing emissions requires reducing energy use and generating electricity from low-carbon sources rather than burning fossil fuels. This change includes phasing out coal and natural gas fired power plants while vastly increasing electricity generated from wind, solar, and nuclear power. This electricity will need to replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and operating industrial facilities. Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover and farming with methods that capture carbon in soil.
Terminology
Before the 1980s, when it was unclear whether the warming effect of increased greenhouse gases was stronger than the cooling effect of airborne particulates in air pollution, scientists used the term inadvertent climate modification to refer to human impacts on the climate.
In the 1980s, the terms global warming and climate change became more common. Though the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, scientifically, global warming refers only to increased surface warming, while climate change describes the totality of changes to Earth's climate system. Global warming—used as early as 1975—became the more popular term after NASA climate scientist James Hansen used it in his 1988 testimony in the U.S. Senate. Since the 2000s, climate change has increased in usage. Climate change can also refer more broadly to both human-caused changes or natural changes throughout Earth's history.
Various scientists, politicians and media now use the terms climate crisis or climate emergency to talk about climate change, and global heating instead of global warming.
Observed temperature rise
Multiple independent instrumental datasets show that the climate system is warming. A so-called "global warming hiatus" from 1998 to 2013 when warming was relatively slow was likely caused by negative phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). The 2013-2022 decade warmed to an average 1.15 °C [1.00–1.25 °C] compared to the pre-industrial baseline (1850–1900). Surface temperatures are rising by about 0.2 °C per decade, with 2020 reaching a temperature of 1.2 °C above the pre-industrial era. Since 1950, the number of cold days and nights has decreased, and the number of warm days and nights has increased.
Evidence of warming from air temperature measurements is reinforced by a wide range of other observations. For example, changes to the natural water cycle have been predicted and observed, such as an increase in the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation, melting of snow and land ice, and increased atmospheric humidity. Flora and fauna are also behaving in a manner consistent with warming; for instance, plants are flowering earlier in spring. Another key indicator is the cooling of the upper atmosphere, which demonstrates that greenhouse gases are trapping heat near the Earth's surface and preventing it from radiating into space.
Different regions of the world warm at different rates. The pattern is independent of where greenhouse gases are emitted, because the gases persist long enough to diffuse across the planet. Since the pre-industrial period, the average surface temperature over land regions has increased almost twice as fast as the global-average surface temperature. This is because of the larger heat capacity of oceans, and because oceans lose more heat by evaporation. The thermal energy in the global climate system has grown with only brief pauses since at least 1970, and over 90% of this extra energy has been stored in the ocean. The rest has heated the atmosphere, melted ice, and warmed the continents.
The Northern Hemisphere and the North Pole have warmed much faster than the South Pole and Southern Hemisphere. The Northern Hemisphere not only has much more land, but also more seasonal snow cover and sea ice. As these surfaces flip from reflecting a lot of light to being dark after the ice has melted, they start absorbing more heat. Local black carbon deposits on snow and ice also contribute to Arctic warming. Arctic temperatures are increasing at over twice the rate of the rest of the world. Melting of glaciers and ice sheets in the Arctic disrupts ocean circulation, including a weakened Gulf Stream, further changing the climate.
Temperature records prior to global warming
Human beings evolved over the last few million years in a climate that cycled through ice ages, with global average temperature ranging between current levels and 5–6 °C colder than today. The temperature record prior to human evolution includes hotter temperatures and occasional abrupt changes, such as the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum 55.5 million years ago.
Historical patterns of warming and cooling, like the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, did not occur at the same time across different regions. Temperatures may have reached as high as those of the late 20th century in a limited set of regions.
There was little net warming between the 18th century and the mid-19th century. Climate information for that period comes from climate proxies, such as trees and ice cores. Thermometer records began to provide global coverage around 1850.
Attribution of recent temperature rise
The climate system experiences various cycles on its own which can last for years (such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)), decades or even centuries. Other changes are caused by an imbalance of energy that is "external" to the climate system, but not always external to the Earth. Examples of external forcings include changes in the concentrations of greenhouse gases, solar luminosity, volcanic eruptions, and variations in the Earth's orbit around the Sun.
To determine the human contribution to climate change, known internal climate variability and natural external forcings are ruled out. Unique "fingerprints" for all potential causes are determined and compared with observed patterns of climate change. For example, solar forcing—whose fingerprint involves warming the entire atmosphere—is ruled out because only the lower atmosphere has warmed. Attribution of recent climate change shows that the climate's main driver is elevated greenhouse gases, with aerosols having a dampening effect.
Greenhouse gases
Greenhouse gases are transparent to sunlight, and thus allow it to pass through the atmosphere to heat the Earth's surface. The Earth radiates it as heat, and greenhouse gases absorb a portion of it. This absorption slows the rate at which heat escapes into space, trapping heat near the Earth's surface and warming it over time. Before the Industrial Revolution, naturally-occurring amounts of greenhouse gases caused the air near the surface to be about 33 °C warmer than it would have been in their absence. While water vapour (≈50%) and clouds (≈25%) are the biggest contributors to the greenhouse effect, they increase as a function of temperature and are therefore feedbacks. On the other hand, concentrations of gases such as (≈20%), tropospheric ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide are not temperature-dependent, and are therefore external forcings.
Human activity since the Industrial Revolution, mainly extracting and burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, resulting in a radiative imbalance. In 2019, the concentrations of and methane had increased by about 48% and 160%, respectively, since 1750. These levels are higher than they have been at any time during the last 2 million years. Concentrations of methane are far higher than they were over the last 800,000 years.
Global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 were equivalent to 59 billion tonnes of . Of these emissions, 75% was , 18% was methane, 4% was nitrous oxide, and 2% was fluorinated gases. emissions primarily come from burning fossil fuels to provide energy for transport, manufacturing, heating, and electricity. Additional emissions come from deforestation and industrial processes, which include the released by the chemical reactions for making cement, steel, aluminum, and fertiliser. Methane emissions come from livestock, manure, rice cultivation, landfills, wastewater, and coal mining, as well as oil and gas extraction. Nitrous oxide emissions largely come from the microbial decomposition of fertiliser.
Despite the contribution of deforestation to greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth's land surface, particularly its forests, remain a significant carbon sink for . Land-surface sink processes, such as carbon fixation in the soil and photosynthesis, remove about 29% of annual global emissions. The ocean also serves as a significant carbon sink via a two-step process. First, dissolves in the surface water. Afterwards, the ocean's overturning circulation distributes it deep into the ocean's interior, where it accumulates over time as part of the carbon cycle. Over the last two decades, the world's oceans have absorbed 20 to 30% of emitted .
Aerosols and clouds
Air pollution, in the form of aerosols, affects the climate on a large scale. Aerosols scatter and absorb solar radiation. From 1961 to 1990, a gradual reduction in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface was observed. This phenomenon is popularly known as global dimming, and is attributed to aerosols produced by dust, pollution and combustion of biofuels and fossil fuels. Globally, aerosols have been declining since 1990 due to pollution controls, meaning that they no longer mask greenhouse gas warming as much.
Aerosols also have indirect effects on the Earth's radiation budget. Sulfate aerosols act as cloud condensation nuclei and lead to clouds that have more and smaller cloud droplets. These clouds reflect solar radiation more efficiently than clouds with fewer and larger droplets. They also reduce the growth of raindrops, which makes clouds more reflective to incoming sunlight. Indirect effects of aerosols are the largest uncertainty in radiative forcing.
While aerosols typically limit global warming by reflecting sunlight, black carbon in soot that falls on snow or ice can contribute to global warming. Not only does this increase the absorption of sunlight, it also increases melting and sea-level rise. Limiting new black carbon deposits in the Arctic could reduce global warming by 0.2 °C by 2050.
Land surface changes
Humans change the Earth's surface mainly to create more agricultural land. Today, agriculture takes up 34% of Earth's land area, while 26% is forests, and 30% is uninhabitable (glaciers, deserts, etc.). The amount of forested land continues to decrease, which is the main land use change that causes global warming. Deforestation releases contained in trees when they are destroyed, plus it prevents those trees from absorbing more . The main causes of deforestation are: permanent land-use change from forest to agricultural land producing products such as beef and palm oil (27%), logging to produce forestry/forest products (26%), short term shifting cultivation (24%), and wildfires (23%).
The type of vegetation in a region affects the local temperature. It impacts how much of the sunlight gets reflected back into space (albedo), and how much heat is lost by evaporation. For instance, the change from a dark forest to grassland makes the surface lighter, causing it to reflect more sunlight. Deforestation can also affect temperatures by modifying the release of chemical compounds that influence clouds, and by changing wind patterns. In tropic and temperate areas the net effect is to produce significant warming, while at latitudes closer to the poles a gain of albedo (as forest is replaced by snow cover) leads to a cooling effect. Globally, these effects are estimated to have led to a slight cooling, dominated by an increase in surface albedo. According to FAO, forest degradation aggravates the impacts of climate change as it reduces the carbon sequestration abilities of forests. Indeed, among their many benefits, forests also have the potential to reduce the impact of high temperatures.
Solar and volcanic activity
As the Sun is the Earth's primary energy source, changes in incoming sunlight directly affect the climate system. Solar irradiance has been measured directly by satellites, and indirect measurements are available from the early 1600s onwards. Since 1880, there has been no upward trend in the amount of the Sun's energy reaching the Earth.
Explosive volcanic eruptions represent the largest natural forcing over the industrial era. When the eruption is sufficiently strong (with sulfur dioxide reaching the stratosphere), sunlight can be partially blocked for a couple of years. The temperature signal lasts about twice as long. In the industrial era, volcanic activity has had negligible impacts on global temperature trends. Present-day volcanic CO2 emissions are equivalent to less than 1% of current anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
Physical climate models are unable to reproduce the rapid warming observed in recent decades when taking into account only variations in solar output and volcanic activity. Further evidence for greenhouse gases causing global warming comes from measurements that show a warming of the lower atmosphere (the troposphere), coupled with a cooling of the upper atmosphere (the stratosphere). If solar variations were responsible for the observed warming, the troposphere and stratosphere would both warm.
Climate change feedback
The response of the climate system to an initial forcing is modified by feedbacks: increased by "self-reinforcing" or "positive" feedbacks and reduced by "balancing" or "negative" feedbacks. The main reinforcing feedbacks are the water-vapour feedback, the ice–albedo feedback, and the net effect of clouds. The primary balancing mechanism is radiative cooling, as Earth's surface gives off more heat to space in response to rising temperature. In addition to temperature feedbacks, there are feedbacks in the carbon cycle, such as the fertilizing effect of on plant growth. Uncertainty over feedbacks is the major reason why different climate models project different magnitudes of warming for a given amount of emissions.
As air warms, it can hold more moisture. Water vapour, as a potent greenhouse gas, holds heat in the atmosphere. If cloud cover increases, more sunlight will be reflected back into space, cooling the planet. If clouds become higher and thinner, they act as an insulator, reflecting heat from below back downwards and warming the planet. The effect of clouds is the largest source of feedback uncertainty.
Another major feedback is the reduction of snow cover and sea ice in the Arctic, which reduces the reflectivity of the Earth's surface.
More of the Sun's energy is now absorbed in these regions, contributing to amplification of Arctic temperature changes. Arctic amplification is also melting permafrost, which releases methane and into the atmosphere. Climate change can also cause methane releases from wetlands, marine systems, and freshwater systems. Overall, climate feedbacks are expected to become increasingly positive.
Around half of human-caused emissions have been absorbed by land plants and by the oceans. Climate change increases droughts and heat waves that inhibit plant growth, which makes it uncertain whether this carbon sink will continue to grow. Soils contain large quantities of carbon and may release some when they heat up. As more and heat are absorbed by the ocean, it acidifies, its circulation changes and phytoplankton takes up less carbon, decreasing the rate at which the ocean absorbs atmospheric carbon. Overall, at higher concentrations the Earth will absorb a reduced fraction of our emissions.
Modelling
A climate model is a representation of the physical, chemical and biological processes that affect the climate system. Models also include natural processes like changes in the Earth's orbit, historical changes in the Sun's activity, and volcanic forcing. Models are used to estimate the degree of warming future emissions will cause when accounting for the strength of climate feedbacks, or reproduce and predict the circulation of the oceans, the annual cycle of the seasons, and the flows of carbon between the land surface and the atmosphere.
The physical realism of models is tested by examining their ability to simulate contemporary or past climates. Past models have underestimated the rate of Arctic shrinkage and underestimated the rate of precipitation increase. Sea level rise since 1990 was underestimated in older models, but more recent models agree well with observations. The 2017 United States-published National Climate Assessment notes that "climate models may still be underestimating or missing relevant feedback processes". Additionally, climate models may be unable to adequately predict short-term regional climatic shifts.
A subset of climate models add societal factors to a simple physical climate model. These models simulate how population, economic growth, and energy use affect—and interact with—the physical climate. With this information, these models can produce scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions. This is then used as input for physical climate models and carbon cycle models to predict how atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases might change. Depending on the socioeconomic scenario and the mitigation scenario, models produce atmospheric CO2 concentrations that range widely between 380 and 1400 ppm.
The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report projects that global warming is very likely to reach 1.0 °C to 1.8 °C by the late 21st century under the very low GHG emissions scenario. In an intermediate scenario global warming would reach 2.1 °C to 3.5 °C, and 3.3 °C to 5.7 °C under the very high GHG emissions scenario. These projections are based on climate models in combination with observations.
The remaining carbon budget is determined by modelling the carbon cycle and the climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases. According to the IPCC, global warming can be kept below 1.5 °C with a two-thirds chance if emissions after 2018 do not exceed 420 or 570 gigatonnes of . This corresponds to 10 to 13 years of current emissions. There are high uncertainties about the budget. For instance, it may be 100 gigatonnes of smaller due to methane release from permafrost and wetlands. However, it is clear that fossil fuel resources are too abundant for shortages to be relied on to limit carbon emissions in the 21st century.
Even though the temperature will need to stay at or above 1.5 °C for 20 years to pass the threshold defined by the Paris agreement, a temporary rise above this limit also can have severe consequences. According to the World Meteorological Organization, there is a 66% chance that global temperature will rise temporarily above 1.5 °C in the years 2023–2027.
Impacts
Environmental effects
The environmental effects of climate change are broad and far-reaching, affecting oceans, ice, and weather. Changes may occur gradually or rapidly. Evidence for these effects comes from studying climate change in the past, from modelling, and from modern observations. Since the 1950s, droughts and heat waves have appeared simultaneously with increasing frequency. Extremely wet or dry events within the monsoon period have increased in India and East Asia. The rainfall rate and intensity of hurricanes and typhoons is likely increasing, and the geographic range likely expanding poleward in response to climate warming. Frequency of tropical cyclones has not increased as a result of climate change.
Global sea level is rising as a consequence of glacial melt, melt of the Greenland ice sheets and Antarctica, and thermal expansion. Between 1993 and 2020, the rise increased over time, averaging 3.3 ± 0.3 mm per year. Over the 21st century, the IPCC projects that in a very high emissions scenario the sea level could rise by 61–110 cm. Increased ocean warmth is undermining and threatening to unplug Antarctic glacier outlets, risking a large melt of the ice sheet and the possibility of a 2-meter sea level rise by 2100 under high emissions.
Climate change has led to decades of shrinking and thinning of the Arctic sea ice. While ice-free summers are expected to be rare at 1.5 °C degrees of warming, they are set to occur once every three to ten years at a warming level of 2 °C. Higher atmospheric concentrations have led to changes in ocean chemistry. An increase in dissolved is causing oceans to acidify. In addition, oxygen levels are decreasing as oxygen is less soluble in warmer water. Dead zones in the ocean, regions with very little oxygen, are expanding too.
Tipping points and long-term impacts
Greater degrees of global warming increase the risk of passing through 'tipping points'—thresholds beyond which certain impacts can no longer be avoided even if temperatures are reduced. An example is the collapse of West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, where a temperature rise of 1.5 to 2 °C may commit the ice sheets to melt, although the time scale of melt is uncertain and depends on future warming. Some large-scale changes could occur over a short time period, such as a shutdown of certain ocean currents like the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Tipping points can also include irreversible damage to ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest and coral reefs.
The long-term effects of climate change on oceans include further ice melt, ocean warming, sea level rise, and ocean acidification. On the timescale of centuries to millennia, the magnitude of climate change will be determined primarily by anthropogenic emissions. This is due to 's long atmospheric lifetime. Oceanic uptake is slow enough that ocean acidification will continue for hundreds to thousands of years. These emissions are estimated to have prolonged the current interglacial period by at least 100,000 years. Sea level rise will continue over many centuries, with an estimated rise of after 2000 years.
Nature and wildlife
Recent warming has driven many terrestrial and freshwater species poleward and towards higher altitudes. Higher atmospheric levels and an extended growing season have resulted in global greening. However, heatwaves and drought have reduced ecosystem productivity in some regions. The future balance of these opposing effects is unclear. Climate change has contributed to the expansion of drier climate zones, such as the expansion of deserts in the subtropics. The size and speed of global warming is making abrupt changes in ecosystems more likely. Overall, it is expected that climate change will result in the extinction of many species.
The oceans have heated more slowly than the land, but plants and animals in the ocean have migrated towards the colder poles faster than species on land. Just as on land, heat waves in the ocean occur more frequently due to climate change, harming a wide range of organisms such as corals, kelp, and seabirds. Ocean acidification makes it harder for marine calcifying organisms such as mussels, barnacles and corals to produce shells and skeletons; and heatwaves have bleached coral reefs. Harmful algal blooms enhanced by climate change and eutrophication lower oxygen levels, disrupt food webs and cause great loss of marine life. Coastal ecosystems are under particular stress. Almost half of global wetlands have disappeared due to climate change and other human impacts.
Humans
The effects of climate change are impacting humans everywhere in the world. Impacts can be observed on all continents and ocean regions, with low-latitude, less developed areas facing the greatest risk. Continued warming has potentially "severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts" for people and ecosystems. The risks are unevenly distributed, but are generally greater for disadvantaged people in developing and developed countries.
Food and health
The WHO calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. Extreme weather leads to injury and loss of life, and crop failures to malnutrition. Various infectious diseases are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate, such as dengue fever and malaria. Young children are the most vulnerable to food shortages. Both children and older people are vulnerable to extreme heat. The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change would cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year. They assessed deaths from heat exposure in elderly people, increases in diarrhea, malaria, dengue, coastal flooding, and childhood malnutrition. Over 500,000 more adult deaths are projected yearly by 2050 due to reductions in food availability and quality. By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population may face climate conditions that are life-threatening due to combined effects of extreme heat and humidity.
Climate change is affecting food security. It has caused reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans between 1981 and 2010. Future warming could further reduce global yields of major crops. Crop production will probably be negatively affected in low-latitude countries, while effects at northern latitudes may be positive or negative. Up to an additional 183 million people worldwide, particularly those with lower incomes, are at risk of hunger as a consequence of these impacts. Climate change also impacts fish populations. Globally, less will be available to be fished. Regions dependent on glacier water, regions that are already dry, and small islands have a higher risk of water stress due to climate change.
Livelihoods
Economic damages due to climate change may be severe and there is a chance of disastrous consequences. Climate change has likely already increased global economic inequality, and this trend is projected to continue. Most of the severe impacts are expected in sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the local inhabitants are dependent upon natural and agricultural resources and South-East Asia. The World Bank estimates that climate change could drive over 120 million people into poverty by 2030.
Inequalities based on wealth and social status have worsened due to climate change. Major difficulties in mitigating, adapting, and recovering to climate shocks are faced by marginalized people who have less control over resources. Indigenous people, who are subsistent on their land and ecosystems, will face endangerment to their wellness and lifestyles due to climate change. An expert elicitation concluded that the role of climate change in armed conflict has been small compared to factors such as socio-economic inequality and state capabilities.
Low-lying islands and coastal communities are threatened by sea level rise, which makes flooding more common. Sometimes, land is permanently lost to the sea. This could lead to statelessness for people in island nations, such as the Maldives and Tuvalu. In some regions, the rise in temperature and humidity may be too severe for humans to adapt to. With worst-case climate change, models project that almost one-third of humanity might live in extremely hot and uninhabitable climates, similar to the climate found in the Sahara. These factors can drive climate or environmental migration, within and between countries. More people are expected to be displaced because of sea level rise, extreme weather and conflict from increased competition over natural resources. Climate change may also increase vulnerability, leading to "trapped populations" who are not able to move due to a lack of resources.
Reducing and recapturing emissions
Climate change can be mitigated by reducing the rate at which greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere, and by increasing the rate at which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere. In order to limit global warming to less than 1.5 °C global greenhouse gas emissions needs to be net-zero by 2050, or by 2070 with a 2 °C target. This requires far-reaching, systemic changes on an unprecedented scale in energy, land, cities, transport, buildings, and industry. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that countries need to triple their pledges under the Paris Agreement within the next decade to limit global warming to 2 °C. An even greater level of reduction is required to meet the 1.5 °C goal. With pledges made under the Paris Agreement as of October 2021, global warming would still have a 66% chance of reaching about 2.7 °C (range: 2.2–3.2 °C) by the end of the century. Globally, limiting warming to 2 °C may result in higher economic benefits than economic costs.
Although there is no single pathway to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2 °C, most scenarios and strategies see a major increase in the use of renewable energy in combination with increased energy efficiency measures to generate the needed greenhouse gas reductions. To reduce pressures on ecosystems and enhance their carbon sequestration capabilities, changes would also be necessary in agriculture and forestry, such as preventing deforestation and restoring natural ecosystems by reforestation.
Other approaches to mitigating climate change have a higher level of risk. Scenarios that limit global warming to 1.5 °C typically project the large-scale use of carbon dioxide removal methods over the 21st century. There are concerns, though, about over-reliance on these technologies, and environmental impacts. Solar radiation modification (SRM) is also a possible supplement to deep reductions in emissions. However, SRM raises significant ethical and legal concerns, and the risks are imperfectly understood.
Clean energy
Renewable energy is key to limiting climate change. For decades, fossil fuels have accounted for roughly 80% of the world's energy use. The remaining share has been split between nuclear power and renewables (including hydropower, bioenergy, wind and solar power and geothermal energy). That mix is projected to change significantly over the next 30 years. Fossil fuel use is expected to peak prior to 2030, and begin to decline by then. Coal use will experience the sharpest decline. Solar panels and onshore wind are now among the cheapest forms of adding new power generation capacity in many locations. Renewables represented 75% of all new electricity generation installed in 2019, nearly all solar and wind. Other forms of clean energy, such as nuclear and hydropower, currently have a larger share of the energy supply. However, their future growth forecasts appear limited in comparison.
To achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, renewable energy would become the dominant form of electricity generation, rising to 85% or more by 2050 in some scenarios. Investment in coal would be eliminated and coal use nearly phased out by 2050.
Electricity generated from renewable sources would also need to become the main energy source for heating and transport. Transport can switch away from internal combustion engine vehicles and towards electric vehicles, public transit, and active transport (cycling and walking). For shipping and flying, low-carbon fuels would reduce emissions. Heating could be increasingly decarbonised with technologies like heat pumps.
There are obstacles to the continued rapid growth of clean energy, including renewables. For wind and solar, there are environmental and land use concerns for new projects. Wind and solar also produce energy intermittently and with seasonal variability. Traditionally, hydro dams with reservoirs and conventional power plants have been used when variable energy production is low. Going forward, battery storage can be expanded, energy demand and supply can be matched, and long-distance transmission can smooth variability of renewable outputs. Bioenergy is often not carbon-neutral and may have negative consequences for food security. The growth of nuclear power is constrained by controversy around radioactive waste, nuclear weapon proliferation, and accidents. Hydropower growth is limited by the fact that the best sites have been developed, and new projects are confronting increased social and environmental concerns.
Low-carbon energy improves human health by minimising climate change. It also has the near-term benefit of reducing air pollution deaths, which were estimated at 7 million annually in 2016. Meeting the Paris Agreement goals that limit warming to a 2 °C increase could save about a million of those lives per year by 2050, whereas limiting global warming to 1.5 °C could save millions and simultaneously increase energy security and reduce poverty. Improving air quality also has economic benefits which may be larger than mitigation costs.
Energy conservation
Reducing energy demand is another major aspect of reducing emissions. If less energy is needed, there is more flexibility for clean energy development. It also makes it easier to manage the electricity grid, and minimises carbon-intensive infrastructure development. Major increases in energy efficiency investment will be required to achieve climate goals, comparable to the level of investment in renewable energy. Several COVID-19 related changes in energy use patterns, energy efficiency investments, and funding have made forecasts for this decade more difficult and uncertain.
Strategies to reduce energy demand vary by sector. In the transport sector, passengers and freight can switch to more efficient travel modes, such as buses and trains, or use electric vehicles. Industrial strategies to reduce energy demand include improving heating systems and motors, designing less energy-intensive products, and increasing product lifetimes. In the building sector the focus is on better design of new buildings, and higher levels of energy efficiency in retrofitting. The use of technologies like heat pumps can also increase building energy efficiency.
Agriculture and industry
Agriculture and forestry face a triple challenge of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, preventing the further conversion of forests to agricultural land, and meeting increases in world food demand. A set of actions could reduce agriculture and forestry-based emissions by two thirds from 2010 levels. These include reducing growth in demand for food and other agricultural products, increasing land productivity, protecting and restoring forests, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production.
On the demand side, a key component of reducing emissions is shifting people towards plant-based diets. Eliminating the production of livestock for meat and dairy would eliminate about 3/4ths of all emissions from agriculture and other land use. Livestock also occupy 37% of ice-free land area on Earth and consume feed from the 12% of land area used for crops, driving deforestation and land degradation.
Steel and cement production are responsible for about 13% of industrial emissions. In these industries, carbon-intensive materials such as coke and lime play an integral role in the production, so that reducing emissions requires research into alternative chemistries.
Carbon sequestration
Natural carbon sinks can be enhanced to sequester significantly larger amounts of beyond naturally occurring levels. Reforestation and tree planting on non-forest lands are among the most mature sequestration techniques, although the latter raises food security concerns. Farmers can promote sequestration of carbon in soils through practices such as use of winter cover crops, reducing the intensity and frequency of tillage, and using compost and manure as soil amendments. In one of its recent publications, FAO maintains that forest and landscape restoration yields many benefits for the climate, including greenhouse gas emissions sequestration and reduction. Restoration/recreation of coastal wetlands, prairie plots and seagrass meadows increases the uptake of carbon into organic matter. When carbon is sequestered in soils and in organic matter such as trees, there is a risk of the carbon being re-released into the atmosphere later through changes in land use, fire, or other changes in ecosystems.
Where energy production or -intensive heavy industries continue to produce waste , the gas can be captured and stored instead of released to the atmosphere. Although its current use is limited in scale and expensive, carbon capture and storage (CCS) may be able to play a significant role in limiting emissions by mid-century. This technique, in combination with bioenergy (BECCS) can result in net negative emissions: is drawn from the atmosphere. It remains highly uncertain whether carbon dioxide removal techniques will be able to play a large role in limiting warming to 1.5 °C. Policy decisions that rely on carbon dioxide removal increase the risk of global warming rising beyond international goals.
Adaptation
Adaptation is "the process of adjustment to current or expected changes in climate and its effects". Without additional mitigation, adaptation cannot avert the risk of "severe, widespread and irreversible" impacts. More severe climate change requires more transformative adaptation, which can be prohibitively expensive. The capacity and potential for humans to adapt is unevenly distributed across different regions and populations, and developing countries generally have less. The first two decades of the 21st century saw an increase in adaptive capacity in most low- and middle-income countries with improved access to basic sanitation and electricity, but progress is slow. Many countries have implemented adaptation policies. However, there is a considerable gap between necessary and available finance.
Adaptation to sea level rise consists of avoiding at-risk areas, learning to live with increased flooding and protection. If that fails, managed retreat may be needed. There are economic barriers for tackling dangerous heat impact. Avoiding strenuous work or having air conditioning is not possible for everybody. In agriculture, adaptation options include a switch to more sustainable diets, diversification, erosion control and genetic improvements for increased tolerance to a changing climate. Insurance allows for risk-sharing, but is often difficult to get for people on lower incomes. Education, migration and early warning systems can reduce climate vulnerability. Planting mangroves or encouraging other coastal vegetation can buffer storms.
Ecosystems adapt to climate change, a process that can be supported by human intervention. By increasing connectivity between ecosystems, species can migrate to more favourable climate conditions. Species can also be introduced to areas acquiring a favorable climate. Protection and restoration of natural and semi-natural areas helps build resilience, making it easier for ecosystems to adapt. Many of the actions that promote adaptation in ecosystems, also help humans adapt via ecosystem-based adaptation. For instance, restoration of natural fire regimes makes catastrophic fires less likely, and reduces human exposure. Giving rivers more space allows for more water storage in the natural system, reducing flood risk. Restored forest acts as a carbon sink, but planting trees in unsuitable regions can exacerbate climate impacts.
There are synergies but also trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation. An example for synergy is increased food productivity which has large benefits for both adaptation and mitigation. Two examples for trade-offs include: Firstly, the increased use of air conditioning allows people to better cope with heat, but increases energy demand. Secondly, more compact urban development may lead to reduced emissions from transport and construction which is good. But at the same time, this kind of urban development may increase the urban heat island effect, leading to higher temperatures and increased exposure of people to heat-related health risks.
Policies and politics
Countries that are most vulnerable to climate change have typically been responsible for a small share of global emissions. This raises questions about justice and fairness. Climate change is strongly linked to sustainable development. Limiting global warming makes it easier to achieve Sustainable Development Goals, such as eradicating poverty and reducing inequalities. The connection is recognised in Sustainable Development Goal 13 which is to "take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts". The goals on food, clean water and ecosystem protection have synergies with climate mitigation.
The geopolitics of climate change is complex. It has often been framed as a free-rider problem, in which all countries benefit from mitigation done by other countries, but individual countries would lose from switching to a low-carbon economy themselves. This framing has been challenged. For instance, the benefits of a coal phase-out to public health and local environments exceed the costs in almost all regions. Furthermore, net importers of fossil fuels win economically from switching to clean energy, causing net exporters to face stranded assets: fossil fuels they cannot sell.
Policy options
A wide range of policies, regulations, and laws are being used to reduce emissions. As of 2019, carbon pricing covers about 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon can be priced with carbon taxes and emissions trading systems. Direct global fossil fuel subsidies reached $319 billion in 2017, and $5.2 trillion when indirect costs such as air pollution are priced in. Ending these can cause a 28% reduction in global carbon emissions and a 46% reduction in air pollution deaths. Money saved on fossil subsidies could be used to support the transition to clean energy instead. More direct methods to reduce greenhouse gases include vehicle efficiency standards, renewable fuel standards, and air pollution regulations on heavy industry. Several countries require utilities to increase the share of renewables in power production.
Climate justice
Policy designed through the lens of climate justice tries to address human rights issues and social inequality. For instance, wealthy nations responsible for the largest share of emissions would have to pay poorer countries to adapt. A 2023 study published in One Earth estimated that the top 21 fossil fuel companies would owe cumulative climate reparations of $5.4 trillion over the period 2025–2050. As the use of fossil fuels is reduced, jobs in the sector are lost. To achieve a just transition, these people would need to be retrained for other jobs. Communities with many fossil fuel workers would need additional investments.
International climate agreements
Nearly all countries in the world are parties to the 1994 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The goal of the UNFCCC is to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. As stated in the convention, this requires that greenhouse gas concentrations are stabilised in the atmosphere at a level where ecosystems can adapt naturally to climate change, food production is not threatened, and economic development can be sustained. The UNFCCC does not itself restrict emissions but rather provides a framework for protocols that do. Global emissions have risen since the UNFCCC was signed. Its yearly conferences are the stage of global negotiations.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol extended the UNFCCC and included legally binding commitments for most developed countries to limit their emissions. During the negotiations, the G77 (representing developing countries) pushed for a mandate requiring developed countries to "[take] the lead" in reducing their emissions, since developed countries contributed most to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Per-capita emissions were also still relatively low in developing countries and developing countries would need to emit more to meet their development needs.
The 2009 Copenhagen Accord has been widely portrayed as disappointing because of its low goals, and was rejected by poorer nations including the G77. Associated parties aimed to limit the global temperature rise to below 2 °C. The Accord set the goal of sending $100 billion per year to developing countries for mitigation and adaptation by 2020, and proposed the founding of the Green Climate Fund. , only 83.3 billion were delivered. Only in 2023 the target is expected to be achieved.
In 2015 all UN countries negotiated the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep global warming well below 2.0 °C and contains an aspirational goal of keeping warming under . The agreement replaced the Kyoto Protocol. Unlike Kyoto, no binding emission targets were set in the Paris Agreement. Instead, a set of procedures was made binding. Countries have to regularly set ever more ambitious goals and reevaluate these goals every five years. The Paris Agreement restated that developing countries must be financially supported. , 194 states and the European Union have signed the treaty and 191 states and the EU have ratified or acceded to the agreement.
The 1987 Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to stop emitting ozone-depleting gases, may have been more effective at curbing greenhouse gas emissions than the Kyoto Protocol specifically designed to do so. The 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol aims to reduce the emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, a group of powerful greenhouse gases which served as a replacement for banned ozone-depleting gases. This made the Montreal Protocol a stronger agreement against climate change.
National responses
In 2019, the United Kingdom parliament became the first national government to declare a climate emergency. Other countries and jurisdictions followed suit. That same year, the European Parliament declared a "climate and environmental emergency". The European Commission presented its European Green Deal with the goal of making the EU carbon-neutral by 2050. Major countries in Asia have made similar pledges: South Korea and Japan have committed to become carbon-neutral by 2050, and China by 2060. In 2021, the European Commission released its "Fit for 55" legislation package, which contains guidelines for the car industry; all new cars on the European market must be zero-emission vehicles from 2035. While India has strong incentives for renewables, it also plans a significant expansion of coal in the country. Vietnam is among very few coal-dependent fast developing countries that pledged to phase out unabated coal power by the 2040s or as soon as possible thereafter.
As of 2021, based on information from 48 national climate plans, which represent 40% of the parties to the Paris Agreement, estimated total greenhouse gas emissions will be 0.5% lower compared to 2010 levels, below the 45% or 25% reduction goals to limit global warming to 1.5 °C or 2 °C, respectively.
Society
Denial and misinformation
Public debate about climate change has been strongly affected by climate change denial and misinformation, which originated in the United States and has since spread to other countries, particularly Canada and Australia. The actors behind climate change denial form a well-funded and relatively coordinated coalition of fossil fuel companies, industry groups, conservative think tanks, and contrarian scientists. Like the tobacco industry, the main strategy of these groups has been to manufacture doubt about scientific data and results. Many who deny, dismiss, or hold unwarranted doubt about the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change are labelled as "climate change skeptics", which several scientists have noted is a misnomer.
There are different variants of climate denial: some deny that warming takes place at all, some acknowledge warming but attribute it to natural influences, and some minimise the negative impacts of climate change. Manufacturing uncertainty about the science later developed into a manufactured controversy: creating the belief that there is significant uncertainty about climate change within the scientific community in order to delay policy changes. Strategies to promote these ideas include criticism of scientific institutions, and questioning the motives of individual scientists. An echo chamber of climate-denying blogs and media has further fomented misunderstanding of climate change.
Public awareness and opinion
Climate change came to international public attention in the late 1980s. Due to media coverage in the early 1990s, people often confused climate change with other environmental issues like ozone depletion. In popular culture, the climate fiction movie The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth (2006) focused on climate change.
Significant regional, gender, age and political differences exist in both public concern for, and understanding of, climate change. More highly educated people, and in some countries, women and younger people, were more likely to see climate change as a serious threat. Partisan gaps also exist in many countries, and countries with high emissions tend to be less concerned. Views on causes of climate change vary widely between countries. Concern has increased over time, to the point where in 2021 a majority of citizens in many countries express a high level of worry about climate change, or view it as a global emergency. Higher levels of worry are associated with stronger public support for policies that address climate change.
Climate movement
Climate protests demand that political leaders take action to prevent climate change. They can take the form of public demonstrations, fossil fuel divestment, lawsuits and other activities. Prominent demonstrations include the School Strike for Climate. In this initiative, young people across the globe have been protesting since 2018 by skipping school on Fridays, inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. Mass civil disobedience actions by groups like Extinction Rebellion have protested by disrupting roads and public transport. Litigation is increasingly used as a tool to strengthen climate action from public institutions and companies. Activists also initiate lawsuits which target governments and demand that they take ambitious action or enforce existing laws on climate change. Lawsuits against fossil-fuel companies generally seek compensation for loss and damage.
History
Early discoveries
Scientists in the 19th century such as Alexander von Humboldt began to foresee the effects of climate change. In the 1820s, Joseph Fourier proposed the greenhouse effect to explain why Earth's temperature was higher than the sun's energy alone could explain. Earth's atmosphere is transparent to sunlight, so sunlight reaches the surface where it is converted to heat. However, the atmosphere is not transparent to heat radiating from the surface, and captures some of that heat, which in turn warms the planet.
In 1856 Eunice Newton Foote demonstrated that the warming effect of the sun is greater for air with water vapour than for dry air, and that the effect is even greater with carbon dioxide (). She concluded that "An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a high temperature..."
Starting in 1859, John Tyndall established that nitrogen and oxygen—together totaling 99% of dry air—are transparent to radiated heat. However, water vapour and gases such as methane and carbon dioxide absorb radiated heat and re-radiate that heat into the atmosphere. Tyndall proposed that changes in the concentrations of these gases may have caused climatic changes in the past, including ice ages.
Svante Arrhenius noted that water vapour in air continuously varied, but the concentration in air was influenced by long-term geological processes. Warming from increased levels would increase the amount of water vapour, amplifying warming in a positive feedback loop. In 1896, he published the first climate model of its kind, projecting that halving levels could have produced a drop in temperature initiating an ice age. Arrhenius calculated the temperature increase expected from doubling to be around 5–6 °C. Other scientists were initially skeptical and believed that the greenhouse effect was saturated so that adding more would make no difference, and that the climate would be self-regulating. Beginning in 1938, Guy Stewart Callendar published evidence that climate was warming and levels were rising, but his calculations met the same objections.
Development of a scientific consensus
In the 1950s, Gilbert Plass created a detailed computer model that included different atmospheric layers and the infrared spectrum. This model predicted that increasing levels would cause warming. Around the same time, Hans Suess found evidence that levels had been rising, and Roger Revelle showed that the oceans would not absorb the increase. The two scientists subsequently helped Charles Keeling to begin a record of continued increase, which has been termed the "Keeling Curve". Scientists alerted the public, and the dangers were highlighted at James Hansen's 1988 Congressional testimony. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up in 1988 to provide formal advice to the world's governments, spurred interdisciplinary research. As part of the IPCC reports, scientists assess the scientific discussion that takes place in peer-reviewed journal articles.
There is a near-complete scientific consensus that the climate is warming and that this is caused by human activities. As of 2019, agreement in recent literature reached over 99%. No scientific body of national or international standing disagrees with this view. Consensus has further developed that some form of action should be taken to protect people against the impacts of climate change. National science academies have called on world leaders to cut global emissions. The 2021 IPCC Assessment Report stated that it is "unequivocal" that climate change is caused by humans.
See also
Anthropocene – proposed new geological time interval in which humans are having significant geological impact
List of climate scientists
References
Sources
IPCC reports
Fourth Assessment Report
Fifth Assessment report
. AR5 Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis – IPCC
. Chapters 1–20, SPM, and Technical Summary.
. Chapters 21–30, Annexes, and Index.
Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5 °C
Global Warming of 1.5 °C –.
Special Report: Climate change and Land
Special Report: The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate
Sixth Assessment Report
Other peer-reviewed sources
Books, reports and legal documents
Dessler, Andrew E. and Edward A. Parson, eds. The science and politics of global climate change: A guide to the debate (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Non-technical sources
Associated Press
BBC
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Carbon Brief
Climate.gov
Deutsche Welle
EPA
EUobserver
European Parliament
The Guardian
International Energy Agency
NASA
National Conference of State Legislators
National Geographic
National Science Digital Library
Natural Resources Defense Council
Nature
The New York Times
NOAA
Our World in Data
Pew Research Center
Politico
RIVM
Salon
ScienceBlogs
Scientific American
Smithsonian
The Sustainability Consortium
UN Environment
UNFCCC
Union of Concerned Scientists
Vice
The Verge
Vox
World Health Organization
World Resources Institute
● Mongabay graphing WRI data from
Yale Climate Connections
External links
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
UK Met Office: Climate Guide
NOAA Climate website – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States
Anthropocene
Articles containing video clips
History of climate variability and change
Global environmental issues
Human impact on the environment
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf%20Vrba
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Rudolf Vrba
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Rudolf Vrba (born Walter Rosenberg; 11 September 1924 – 27 March 2006) was a Slovak-Jewish biochemist who, as a teenager in 1942, was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. He escaped from the camp in April 1944, at the height of the Holocaust, and co-wrote the Vrba-Wetzler report, a detailed report about the mass murder taking place there. Distribution of the report by George Mantello in Switzerland is credited with having halted the mass deportation of Hungary's Jews to Auschwitz in July 1944, saving more than 200,000 lives. After the war, Vrba trained as a biochemist, working mostly in England and Canada.
Vrba and his fellow escapee Alfréd Wetzler fled Auschwitz three weeks after German forces invaded Hungary and shortly before the SS began mass deportations of Hungary's Jewish population to the camp. The information the men dictated to Jewish officials when they arrived in Slovakia on 24 April 1944, which included that new arrivals in Auschwitz were being gassed and not "resettled" as the Germans maintained, became known as the Vrba–Wetzler report. When the War Refugee Board published it with considerable delay in November 1944, the New York Herald Tribune described it as "the most shocking document ever issued by a United States government agency". While it confirmed material in earlier reports from Polish and other escapees, the historian Miroslav Kárný wrote that it was unique in its "unflinching detail".
There was a delay of several weeks before the report was distributed widely enough to gain the attention of governments. Mass transports of Hungary's Jews to Auschwitz began on 15 May 1944 at a rate of 12,000 people a day. Most went straight to the gas chambers. Vrba argued until the end of his life that the deportees might have refused to board the trains, or at least that their panic would have disrupted the transports, had the report been distributed sooner and more widely.
From late June and into July 1944, material from the Vrba–Wetzler report appeared in newspapers and radio broadcasts in the United States and Europe, particularly in Switzerland, prompting world leaders to appeal to Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy to halt the deportations. On 2 July, American and British forces bombed Budapest, and on 6 July, in an effort to exert his sovereignty, Horthy ordered that the deportations should end. By then, over 434,000 Jews had been deported in 147 trains—almost the entire Jewish population of the Hungarian countryside—but another 200,000 in Budapest were saved.
Early life and arrest
Vrba was born Walter Rosenberg on 11 September 1924 in Topoľčany, Czechoslovakia (part of Slovakia from 1993), one of the four children of Helena Rosenberg, née Gruenfeldová, and her husband, Elias. Vrba's mother was from Zbehy; his maternal grandfather, Bernat Grünfeld, an Orthodox Jew from Nitra, was murdered in the Majdanek concentration camp. Vrba took the name Rudolf Vrba after his escape from Auschwitz.
The Rosenbergs owned a steam sawmill in Jaklovce and lived in Trnava. In September 1941 the Slovak Republic (1939–1945)—a client state of Nazi Germany—passed a "Jewish Codex", similar to the Nuremberg Laws, which introduced restrictions on Jews' education, housing and travel. The government set up transit camps at Nováky, Sereď and Vyhne. Jews were required to wear a yellow badge and live in certain areas, and available jobs went first to non-Jews. When Vrba was excluded, at age 15, from the gymnasium (high school) in Bratislava as a result of the restrictions, he found work as a labourer and continued his studies at home, particularly chemistry, English and Russian. He met his future wife, Gerta Sidonová, around this time; she had also been excluded from school.
Vrba wrote that he learned to live with the restrictions but rebelled when the Slovak government announced, in February 1942, that thousands of Jews were to be deported to "reservations" in German-occupied Poland. The deportations came at the request of Germany, which needed the labour; the Slovak government paid the Germans RM 500 per Jew on the understanding that the government would lay claim to the deportees' property. Around 800 of the 58,000 Slovakian Jews deported between March and October 1942 survived. Vrba blamed the Slovak Jewish Council for having cooperated with the deportations.
Insisting that he would not be "deported like a calf in a wagon", Vrba decided to join the Czechoslovak Army in exile in England and set off in a taxi for the border, aged 17, with a map, a box of matches, and the equivalent of £10 from his mother. After making his way to Budapest, Hungary, he decided to return to Trnava but was arrested at the Hungarian border. The Slovak authorities sent him to the Nováky transit camp; he escaped briefly but was caught. An SS officer instructed that he be deported on the next transport.
Majdanek and Auschwitz
Majdanek
Vrba was deported from Czechoslovakia on 15 June 1942 to the Majdanek concentration camp in Lublin, German-occupied Poland, where he briefly encountered his older brother, Sammy. They saw each other "almost simultaneously and we raised our arms in brief salute"; it was the last time he ever saw him. He also encountered "kapos" for the first time: prisoners appointed as functionaries, one of whom he recognized from Trnava. Most wore green triangles, signalling their category as "career criminals":
Vrba's head and body were shaved, and he was given a uniform, wooden shoes and a cap. Caps had to be removed whenever the SS came within three yards. Prisoners were beaten for talking or moving too slowly. At roll call each morning, prisoners who had died during the night were piled up behind the living. Vrba was given a job as a builder's labourer. When a kapo asked for 400 volunteers for farm work elsewhere, Vrba signed up, looking for a chance to escape. A Czech kapo who had befriended Vrba hit him when he heard about this; the kapo explained that the "farm work" was in Auschwitz.
Auschwitz I
On 29 June 1942, the Reich Security Main Office transferred Vrba and the other volunteers to Auschwitz I, the main camp (Stammlager) in Oświęcim, a journey of over two days. Vrba considered trying to escape from the train, but the SS announced that ten men would be shot for every one who went missing.
On his second day in Auschwitz, Vrba watched as prisoners threw bodies onto a cart, stacked in piles of ten, "the head of one between the legs of another to save space". The following day he and 400 other men were beaten into a cold shower in a shower room built for 30, then marched outside naked to register. He was tattooed on his left forearm as no. 44070 and given a striped tunic, trousers, cap and wooden shoes. After registration, which took all day and into the evening, he was shown to his barracks, an attic in a block next to the main gate and the Arbeit macht frei sign.
Young and strong, Vrba was "purchased" by a kapo, Frank, in exchange for a lemon (sought after for its vitamin C) and assigned to work in the SS food store. This gave him access to soap and water, which helped to save his life. Frank, he learned, was a kind man who would pretend to beat his prisoners when the guards were watching, although the blows always missed. The camp regime was otherwise marked by its pettiness and cruelty. When Heinrich Himmler visited on 17 July 1942 (during which he watched a gassing), the inmates were told everything had to be spotless. As the prison orchestra assembled by the gate for Himmler's arrival, the block senior and two others started beating an inmate because he was missing a tunic button:
Auschwitz II
"Kanada" commando
In August 1942 Vrba was reassigned to the Aufräumungskommando ("clearing-up") or "Kanada" commando, in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the extermination camp, 4 km (2.5 miles) from Auschwitz I. Around 200–800 prisoners worked on the nearby Judenrampe where freight trains carrying Jews arrived, removing the dead, then sorting through the new arrivals' property. Many brought kitchen utensils and clothes for different seasons, suggesting to Vrba that they believed the stories about resettlement.
It took 2–3 hours to clear out a train, by which time most new arrivals were dead. Those deemed fit for work were selected for slave labour and the rest taken by truck to the gas chamber. Vrba estimated that 90 percent were gassed. He told Claude Lanzmann in 1978 that the process relied on speed and making sure no panic broke out, because panic meant the next transport would be delayed.
The new arrivals' property was taken to barracks known as Effektenlager I and II in Auschwitz I (moved to Auschwitz II after Vrba's escape). Inmates, and apparently also some of the camp administration, called the barracks Kanada I and II because they were a "land of plenty". Everything was there—medicine, food, clothing, and cash—much of it repackaged by the Aufräumungskommando to be sent to Germany. The Aufräumungskommando lived in Auschwitz I, block 4, until 15 January 1943 when they were transferred to block 16 in Auschwitz II, sector Ib, where Vrba lived until June 1943.
After Vrba had been in Auschwitz for about five months, he fell sick with typhus; his weight dropped to and he was delirious. At his lowest point, he was helped by Josef Farber, a Slovakian member of the camp resistance, who brought him medication and thereafter extended to him the protection of the Auschwitz underground.
In early 1943 Vrba was given the job of assistant registrar in one of the blocks; he told Lanzmann that the resistance movement had manoeuvered him into the position because it gave him access to information. A few weeks later, in June, he was made registrar (Blockschreiber) of block 10 in Auschwitz II, the quarantine section for men (BIIa), again because of the underground. The position gave him his own room and bed, and he could wear his own clothes. He was also able to speak to new arrivals who had been selected to work, and he had to write reports about the registration process, which allowed him to ask questions and take notes.
Estimates of numbers murdered
From his room in BIIa, Vrba said he could see the trucks drive toward the gas chambers. In his estimate, 10 percent of each transport was selected to work and the rest murdered. During his time on the Judenrampe from 18 August 1942 to 7 June 1943, he told Lanzmann in 1978, he had seen at least 200 trains arrive, each containing 1,000–5,000 people. In a 1998 paper, he wrote that he had witnessed 100–300 trains arrive, each locomotive pulling 20–40 freight cars and sometimes 50–60. He calculated that, between the spring of 1942 and 15 January 1944, 1.5 million had been murdered. According to the Vrba–Wetzler report, 1,765,000 were murdered in Auschwitz between April 1942 and April 1944. In 1961 Vrba swore in an affidavit for the trial of Adolf Eichmann that he believed 2.5 million had been murdered overall in the camp, plus or minus 10 percent.
Vrba's estimates are higher than those of Holocaust historians but in line with estimates from SS officers and Auschwitz survivors, including members of the Sonderkommando. Early estimates ranged from one to 6.5 million. Rudolf Höss, the first Auschwitz commandant, said in 1946 that three million had been murdered in the camp, although he revised his view. In 1946 the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland estimated four million. Later scholarly estimates were lower. According to Polish historian Franciszek Piper, writing in 2000, most historians place the figure at one to 1.5 million. His own widely accepted estimate was that at least 1.3 million were sent to Auschwitz and at least 1,082,000 died (rounded up to 1.1 million or 85 percent), including 960,000 Jews. Piper's estimate of the death toll for April 1942 to April 1944 was 450,000, against Vrba's 1,765,000.
Hungarian Jews
According to Vrba, a kapo from Berlin by the name of Yup told him on 15 January 1944 that he was part of a group of prisoners building a new railway line to lead straight to the crematoria. Yup said he had overheard from an SS officer that a million Hungarian Jews would soon arrive and that the old ramp could not handle the numbers. A railway line leading directly to the crematoria would cut thousands of truck journeys from the old ramp. In addition Vrba heard directly, courtesy of drunk SS guards, he wrote, that they would soon have Hungarian salami. When Dutch Jews arrived, they brought cheese; likewise there were sardines from the French Jews, and halva and olives from the Greeks. Now it was Hungarian salami.
Vrba had been thinking of escaping for two years but, he wrote, he was now determined, hoping to "undermine one of the principal foundations—the secrecy of the operation". A Soviet captain, Dmitri Volkkov, told him he would need Russian tobacco soaked in petrol, then dried, to fool the dogs; a watch to use as a compass; matches to make food; and salt for nutrition. Vrba began studying the layout of the camps. Both Auschwitz I and II consisted of inner camps where the prisoners slept, surrounded by a six-yard-wide trench of water, then high-voltage barbed-wire fences. The area was lit at night and guarded by the SS in watchtowers. When a prisoner was reported missing, the guards searched for three days and nights. The key to a successful escape would be to remain hidden just outside the inner perimeter until the search was called off.
His first escape was planned for 26 January 1944 with Charles Unglick, a French Army captain, but the rendezvous did not work out; Unglick tried to escape alone and was killed. The SS left his body on display for two days, seated on a stool. An earlier group of escapees had been killed and mutilated with dumdum bullets, then placed in the middle of Camp D with a sign reading "We're back!"
Czech family camp
On 6 March 1944 Vrba heard that the Czech family camp was about to be sent to the gas chambers. The group of around 5,000, including women and children, had arrived in Auschwitz in September 1943 from the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. That they had been allowed to live in Auschwitz for six months was unusual, not least because women with children were usually murdered immediately. Correspondence found after the war between Adolf Eichmann's office and the International Red Cross suggested that the Germans had set up the family camp as a model for a planned Red Cross visit to Auschwitz. The group was housed in relatively good conditions in block BIIb near the main gate, although in the six months they were held there 1,000 died despite the better treatment. They did not have their heads shaved, and the children were given lessons and access to better food, including milk and white bread.
On 1 March, according to the Vrba–Wetzler report (5 March, according to Danuta Czech), the group was asked to write postcards to their relatives, telling them they were well and asking for parcels of provisions, and to postdate the cards to 25–27 March. On 7 March, according to the report (8–9 March, according to Czech), the group of 3,791 was gassed. The report stated that 11 twins had been kept alive for medical experiments. On 20 December 1943, a second Czech family group of 3,000 arrived, according to the report (2,473, according to Czech). Vrba assumed that this group would also be murdered after six months, i.e. around 20 June 1944.
Escape
Vrba resolved again to escape. In Auschwitz he had encountered an acquaintance from Trnava, Alfréd Wetzler (prisoner no. 29162, then aged 26) who had arrived on 13 April 1942 and was working in the mortuary. Czesław Mordowicz, who escaped from Auschwitz weeks after Vrba, said decades later that it was Wetzler who had initiated and planned the escape.
According to Wetzler, writing in his book Čo Dante nevidel (1963), later published as Escape from Hell (2007), the camp underground had organized the escape, supplying information for Vrba and Wetzler to carry ("Karol" and "Val" in the book). "Otta" in Hut 18, a locksmith, had created a key for a small shed in which Vrba and others had drawn a site plan and dyed clothes. "Fero" from the central registry supplied data from the registry; "Filipek" (Filip Müller) in Hut 13 added the names of the SS officers working around the crematoria, a plan of the gas chambers and crematoria, his records of the transports gassed in crematoria IV and V, and the label of a Zyklon B canister. "Edek" in Hut 14 smuggled out clothes for the escapees to wear, including suits from Amsterdam. "Adamek", "Bolek" and Vrba had supplied socks, underpants, shirts, a razor and a torch, as well as glucose, vitamins, margarine, cigarettes and a cigarette lighter that said "made in Auschwitz".
The information about the camp, including a sketch of the crematorium produced by a Russian prisoner, "Wasyl", was hidden inside two metal tubes. The tube containing the sketch was lost during the escape; the second tube contained data about the transports. Vrba's account differs from Wetzler's; according to Vrba, they took no notes and wrote the Vrba–Wetzler report from memory. He told the historian John Conway that he had used "personal memotechnical methods" to remember the data, and that the stories about written notes had been invented because no one could explain his ability to recall so much detail.
Wearing suits, overcoats, and boots, at 14:00 on Friday, 7 April 1944—the eve of Passover—the men climbed inside a hollowed-out space they had prepared in a pile of wood stacked between Auschwitz-Birkenau's inner and outer perimeter fences, in section BIII in a construction area known as "Meksyk" ("Mexico"). They sprinkled the area with Russian tobacco soaked in gasoline, as advised by Dmitri Volkov, the Russian captain, to ward off dogs. Bolek and Adamek, both Polish prisoners, moved the planks back in place once they were hidden.
Kárný writes that at 20:33 on 7 April SS-Sturmbannführer Fritz Hartjenstein, the Birkenau commander, learned by teleprinter that two Jews were missing. On 8 April the Gestapo at Auschwitz sent telegrams with descriptions to the Reich Security Head Office in Berlin, the SS in Oranienburg, district commanders, and others. The men hid in the wood pile for three nights and throughout the fourth day. Soaking wet, with strips of flannel tightened across their mouths to muffle coughing, Wetzler wrote that they lay there counting: "[N]early eighty hours. Four thousand eight hundred minutes. Two hundred and eighty-eight thousand seconds." On Sunday morning, 9 April, Adamek urinated against the pile and whistled to signal that all was well. At 9 pm on 10 April, they crawled out of the wood pile. "Their circulation returns only slowly," Wetzler wrote. "They both have the sensation of ants running along in their veins, that their bodies have been transformed into big, very slowly warming ant-heaps. ... The onset of weakness is so fierce that they have to support themselves on the inner edges of the panels." Using a map they'd taken from "Kanada", the men headed south toward Slovakia away, walking parallel to the Soła river.
Vrba–Wetzler report
Walking to Slovakia
According to Henryk Świebocki of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, local people, including members of the Polish underground who lived near the camp, did what they could to help escapees. Vrba wrote that there was no organized help for them on the outside. At first the men moved only at night, eating bread taken from Auschwitz and drinking from streams. On 13 April, lost in Bielsko-Biala, they approached a farmhouse and a Polish woman took them in for a day. Feeding them bread, potato soup and ersatz coffee, she explained that most of the area had been "Germanized" and that Poles helping Jews risked death.
They continued following the river; every so often, a Polish woman would drop half a loaf of bread near them. They were shot at on 16 April by German gendarmes but escaped. Two other Poles helped them with food and a place to stay, until they finally crossed the Polish–Slovakian border near Skalité on 21 April 1944. By this time, Vrba's feet were so swollen he had had to cut off his boots and was wearing carpet slippers one of the Polish peasants had given him.
A peasant family in Skalité took them in for a few days, fed and clothed them, then put them in touch with a Jewish doctor in nearby Čadca, Dr. Pollack. Vrba and Pollack had met in a transit camp in Nováky. Through a contact in the Slovak Jewish Council, Pollack arranged for them to send people from Bratislava to meet the men. Pollack was distressed to learn the probable fate of his parents and siblings, who had been deported from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942.
Meeting with the Jewish Council
Vrba and Wetzler spent the night in Čadca in the home of a relative of the rabbi Leo Baeck, before being taken to Žilina by train. They were met at the station by Erwin Steiner, a member of the Slovak Jewish Council (or Ústredňa Židov), and taken to the Jewish Old People's Home, where the council had offices. Over the following days, they were introduced to Ibolya Steiner, who was married to Erwin; Oskar Krasniansky, an engineer and stenographer (who later took the name Oskar Isaiah Karmiel); and, on 25 April, the chair of the council, Dr. Oskar Neumann, a lawyer.
The council was able to confirm who Vrba and Wetzler were from its deportation lists. In his memoir, Wetzler described (using pseudonyms) several people who attended the first meeting: a lawyer (presumably Neumann), a factory worker, a "Madame Ibi" (Ibolya Steiner) who had been a functionary in a progressive youth organization, and the Prague correspondent of a Swiss newspaper. Neumann told them the group had been waiting two years for someone to confirm the rumours they had heard about Auschwitz. Wetzler was surprised by the naïvete of his question: "Is it so difficult to get out [of] there?" The journalist wanted to know how they had managed it, if it was so hard. Wetzler felt Vrba lean forward angrily to say something, but he grabbed his hand and Vrba drew back.
Wetzler encouraged Vrba to start describing conditions in Auschwitz. "He wants to speak like a witness," Wetzler wrote, "nothing but facts, but the terrible events sweep him along like a torrent, he relives them with his nerves, with every pore of his body, so that after an hour he is completely exhausted." The group, in particular the Swiss journalist, seemed to have difficulty understanding. The journalist wondered why the International Red Cross had not intervened. "The more [Vrba] reports, the angrier and more embittered he becomes." The journalist asked Vrba to tell them about "specific bestialities by the SS men". Vrba replied: "That is as if you wanted me to tell you of a specific day when there was water in the Danube."
Vrba described the ramp, selection, the Sonderkommando, and the camps' internal organization; the building of Auschwitz III and how Jews were being used as slave labour for Krupp, Siemens, IG Farben, and DAW; and the gas chambers. Wetzler gave them the data from the central registry hidden in the remaining tube, and described the high death toll among Soviet POWs, the destruction of the Czech family camp, the medical experiments, and the names of doctors involved in them. He also handed over the label from the Zyklon B canister. Every word, he wrote, "has the effect of a blow on the head".
Neumann said the men would be brought a typewriter in the morning, and the group would meet again in three days. Hearing this, Vrba exploded: "Easy for you to say 'in three days'! But back there they are flinging people into the fire at this moment and in three days they'll kill thousands. Do something immediately!" Wetzler pulled on his arm, but Vrba continued, pointing at each one: "You, you, you'll all finish up in the gas unless something is done! Do you hear?"
Writing the report
The following day, Vrba began by sketching the layout of Auschwitz I and II, and the position of the ramp in relation to the camps. The report was rewritten several times over three days; according to Wetzler, on two of those days, he and Vrba wrote until daybreak. Wetzler wrote the first part, Vrba the third, and they worked on the second part together. Then they re-wrote it six times. Oskar Krasniansky translated it from Slovak into German as it was being written, with the help of Ibolya Steiner, who typed it up. The original Slovak version is lost. The report in Slovak and, it seems, in German was completed by Thursday, 27 April 1944.
According to Kárný, the report describes the camp "with absolute accuracy", including its construction, installations, security, the prisoner number system, the categories of prisoner, the diet and accommodation, as well as the gassings, shootings and injections. It provides details known only to prisoners, including that discharge forms were filled out for prisoners who were gassed, indicating that death rates in the camp were falsified. Although presented by two men, it was clearly the product of many prisoners, including the Sonderkommando working in the gas chambers. It contains sketches of the gas chambers and states that there were four crematoria, each of which contained a gas chamber and furnace room. The report estimated the total capacity of the gas chambers to be 6,000 daily.
In a sworn deposition for the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961, Vrba said that he and Wetzler had obtained the information about the gas chambers and crematoria from Sonderkommando Filip Müller and his colleagues who worked there. Müller confirmed this in his Eyewitness Auschwitz (1979). The Auschwitz scholar Robert Jan van Pelt wrote in 2002 that the description contains errors, but that given the circumstances, including the men's lack of architectural training, "one would become suspicious if it did not contain errors".
Distribution and publication
Rosin and Mordowicz escape
The Jewish Council found an apartment for Vrba and Wetzler in Liptovský Svätý Mikuláš, Slovakia, where the men kept a copy of the Vrba–Wetzler report, in Slovak, hidden behind a picture of the Virgin Mary. They made clandestine copies with the help of a friend, Josef Weiss of the Bratislava Office for the Prevention of Venereal Disease, and handed them out to Jews in Slovakia with contacts in Hungary, for translation into Hungarian.
According to the historian Zoltán Tibori Szabó, the report was first published in Geneva in May 1944, in German, by Abraham Silberschein of the World Jewish Congress as Tatsachenbericht über Auschwitz und Birkenau, dated 17 May 1944. Florian Manoliu of the Romanian Legation in Bern took the report to Switzerland and gave it to George Mantello, a Jewish businessman from Transylvania, who was working as the first secretary of the El Salvador consulate in Geneva. It was thanks to Mantello that the report received, in the Swiss press, its first wide coverage.
Arnošt Rosin (prisoner no. 29858) and Czesław Mordowicz (prisoner no. 84216) escaped from Auschwitz on 27 May 1944 and arrived in Slovakia on 6 June, the day of the Normandy landings. Hearing about the invasion of Normandy and believing the war was over, they got drunk to celebrate, using dollars they had smuggled out of Auschwitz. They were arrested for violating the currency laws, and spent eight days in prison before the Jewish Council paid their fines.
Rosin and Mordowicz were interviewed, on 17 June, by Oskar Krasniansky, the engineer who had translated the Vrba–Wetzler report into German. They told him that, between 15 and 27 May 1944, 100,000 Hungarian Jews had arrived at Auschwitz II-Birkenau and that most had been murdered on arrival. Vrba concluded from this that the Hungarian Jewish Council had not informed its Jewish communities about the Vrba–Wetzler report. The seven-page Rosin-Mordowicz report was combined with the longer Vrba–Wetzler report and a third report, known as the Polish Major's report (written by Jerzy Tabeau, who had escaped from Auschwitz in November 1943), to become the Auschwitz Protocols.
According to David Kranzler, Mantello asked the Swiss-Hungarian Students' League to make 50 mimeographed copies of the Vrba–Wetzler report and the two shorter Auschwitz reports, which by 23 June 1944 he had distributed to the Swiss government and Jewish groups. On or around 19 June Richard Lichtheim of the Jewish Agency in Geneva, who had received a copy of the report from Mantello, cabled the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem to say they knew "what has happened and where it has happened" and that 12,000 Jews were being deported from Budapest daily. He also reported the Vrba–Wetzler figure that 90 per cent of Jews arriving at Auschwitz II were being murdered.
The Swiss students made thousands of copies, which were passed to other students and MPs. At least 383 articles about Auschwitz appeared in the Swiss press between 23 June and 11 July 1944. According to Michael Fleming, this was more than the number of articles published about the Holocaust during the war by all the British popular newspapers combined.
Importance of dates
The dates on which the report was distributed became a matter of importance within Holocaust historiography. According to Randolph L. Braham, Jewish leaders were slow to distribute the report, fearful of causing panic. Braham asks: "Why did the Jewish leaders in Hungary, Slovakia, Switzerland and elsewhere fail to distribute and publicize the Auschwitz Reports immediately after they had received copies in late April or early May 1944?" Vrba alleged that lives were lost because of this. In particular he blamed Rudolf Kastner of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee. The committee had organized safe passage for Jews into Hungary before the German invasion. The Slovakian Jewish Council handed Kastner the report at the end of April or by 3 May 1944 at the latest.
Reverend József Éliás, head of the Good Shepherd Mission in Hungary, said he received the report from Géza Soós, a member of the Hungarian Independence Movement, a resistance group. Yehuda Bauer believes that Kastner or Ottó Komoly, leader of the Aid and Rescue Committee, gave Soós the report. Éliás's secretary, Mária Székely, translated it into Hungarian and prepared six copies, which made their way to Hungarian and church officials, including Miklós Horthy's daughter-in-law, Countess Ilona Edelsheim-Gyulai. Braham writes that this distribution occurred before 15 May.
Kastner's reasons for not distributing the report further are unknown. According to Braham, "Hungarian Jewish leaders were still busy translating and duplicating the Reports on June 14–16, and did not distribute them till the second half of June. [They] almost completely ignored the Reports in their postwar memoirs and statements." Vrba argued until the end of his life that Rudolf Kastner withheld the report in order not to jeopardize negotiations between the Aid and Rescue Committee and Adolf Eichmann, the SS officer in charge of the transport of Jews out of Hungary. As the Vrba–Wetzler report was being written, Eichmann had proposed to the Committee in Budapest that the SS trade up to one million Hungarian Jews for 10,000 trucks and other goods from the Western Allies. The proposal came to nothing, but Kastner collected donations to pay the SS to allow over 1,600 Jews to leave Budapest for Switzerland on what became known as the Kastner train. In Vrba's view, Kastner suppressed the report in order not to alienate the SS.
The Hungarian biologist George Klein worked as a secretary for the Hungarian Jewish Council in Síp Street, Budapest, when he was a teenager. In late May or early June 1944, his boss, Dr. Zoltán Kohn, showed him a carbon copy of the Vrba–Wetzler report in Hungarian and said he should tell only close family and friends. Klein had heard Jews mention the term Vernichtungslager (extermination camp), but it had seemed like a myth. "I immediately believed the report because it made sense," he wrote in 2011. " ... The dry, factual, nearly scientific language, the dates, the numbers, the maps and the logic of the narrative coalesced into a solid and inexorable structure." Klein told his uncle, who asked how Klein could believe such nonsense: "I and others in the building in Síp Street must have lost our minds under the pressure." It was the same with other relatives and friends: middle-aged men with property and family did not believe it, while the younger ones wanted to act. In October that year, when the time came for Klein to board a train to Auschwitz, he ran instead.
News coverage
Details from the Vrba–Wetzler report began to appear elsewhere in the media. On 4 June 1944 the New York Times reported on the "cold-blooded murder" of Hungary's Jews. On 16 June the Jewish Chronicle in London ran a story by Isaac Gruenbaum of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem with the headline "Bomb death camps"; the writer had clearly seen the Vrba–Wetzler report. On the same date, in Germany, the BBC World Service reported the murder in March of the Czech family camp and the second Czech group the Vrba–Wetzler report said would be killed around 20 June. The broadcast alluded to the Vrba–Wetzler report:
A 22-line story on page five of the New York Times, "Czechs report massacre", reported on 20 June that 7,000 Jews had been "dragged to gas chambers in the notorious German concentration camps at Birkenau and Oświęcim [Auschwitz]". Walter Garrett, the Swiss correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph, a British news agency, sent four dispatches to London on 24 June with details from the report received from George Mantello, including Vrba's estimate that 1,715,000 Jews had been murdered. As a result of his reporting, at least 383 articles about Auschwitz appeared over the following 18 days, including a 66-page report in Geneva, Les camps d'extermination.
On 26 June the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that 100,000 Hungarian Jews had been executed in gas chambers in Auschwitz. The BBC repeated this on the same day but omitted the name of the camp. The following day, as a result of the information from Walter Garrett, the Manchester Guardian published two articles. The first said that Polish Jews were being gassed in Auschwitz and the second: "Information that the Germans systematically exterminating Hungarian Jews has lately become more substantial." The report mentioned the arrival "of many thousands of Jews ... at the concentration camp at Oswiecim". On 28 June the newspaper reported that 100,000 Hungarian Jews had been deported to Poland and gassed, but without mentioning Auschwitz.
Daniel Brigham, the New York Times correspondent in Geneva, published a story on 3 July, "Inquiry Confirms Nazi Death Camps", with the subtitle "1,715,000 Jews Said to Have Been Put to Death by the Germans up to April 15", and on 6 July a second, "Two Death Camps Places of Horror; German Establishments for Mass Killings of Jews Described by Swiss". According to Fleming, the BBC Home Service mentioned Auschwitz as an extermination camp for the first time on 7 July 1944. It said that over "four hundred thousand Hungarian Jews [had been] sent to the concentration camp at Oświęcim" and that most were murdered in gas chambers; it added that the camp was the largest concentration camp in Poland and that gas chambers had been installed in 1942 that could murder 6,000 people a day. Fleming writes that the report was the last of nine on the 9 pm news.
Meetings with Martilotti and Weissmandl
At the request of the Slovakian Jewish Council, Vrba and Czesław Mordowicz (one of the 27 May escapees), along with a translator and Oskar Krasniasnky, met Vatican Swiss legate Monsignor Mario Martilotti at the Svätý Jur monastery on 20 June 1944. Martilotti had seen the report and questioned the men about it for five hours. Mordowicz was irritated by Vrba during this meeting. In an interview in the 1990s for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, he said Vrba, 19 at the time, had behaved cynically and childishly; at one point he appeared to mock the way Martilotti was cutting his cigar. Mordowicz feared that the behaviour would make their information less credible. To maintain Martilotti's attention, he told him that Catholics and priests were being murdered along with the Jews. Martilotti reportedly fainted, shouting "Mein Gott! Mein Gott!" Five days later, Pope Pius XII sent a telegram appealing to Miklós Horthy.
Also at the Jewish Council's request, Vrba and Mordowicz met Michael Dov Weissmandl, an Orthodox rabbi and one of the leaders of the Bratislava Working Group, at his yeshiva in the centre of Bratislava. Vrba writes that Weissmandl was clearly well informed and had seen the Vrba–Wetzler report. He had also seen, as Vrba found out after the war, the Polish major's report about Auschwitz. Weissmandl asked what could be done. Vrba explained: "The only thing to do is to explain ... that they should not board the trains ...". He also suggested bombing the railway lines into Birkenau. (Weissmandl had already suggested this, on 16 May 1944, in a message to the American Orthodox Jewish Rescue committee.) Vrba wrote about the incongruity of visiting Weissmandl at his yeshiva, which he assumed was under the protection of the Slovak government and the Germans. "The visibility of yeshiva life in the center of Bratislava, less than south of Auschwitz, was in my eyes a typical piece of Goebbels–inspired activity .... There—before the eyes of the world—the pupils of Rabbi Weissmandel could study the rules of Jewish ethics while their own sisters and mothers were being murdered and burned in Birkenau."
Deportations halted
Several appeals were made to Horthy, including by the Spanish, Swiss and Turkish governments, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gustaf V of Sweden, the International Committee of the Red Cross and, on 25 June 1944, Pope Pius XII. The Pope's telegram did not mention Jews: "We are being beseeched in various quarters to do everything in our power that, in this noble and chivalrous nation, the sufferings, already so heavy, endured by a large number of unfortunate people, because of their nationality or race, may not be extended and aggravated."
John Clifford Norton, a British diplomat in Bern, cabled the British government on 27 June with suggestions for action, which included bombing government buildings in Budapest. On 2 July American and British forces did bomb Budapest, killing 500 and dropping leaflets warning that those responsible for the deportations would be held to account. Horthy ordered an end to the mass deportations on 6 July, "deeply impressed by Allied successes in Normandy", according to Randolph Braham, and anxious to exert his sovereignty over the Germans in the face of threats of a pro-German coup. According to Raul Hilberg, Horthy may also have been worried about information cabled by the Allies in Bern to their governments at the request of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee, informing them of the deportations. The cables were intercepted by the Hungarian government, which may have feared that its own members would be held responsible for the murders.
War Refugee Board publication
The Vrba–Wetzler report received widespread coverage in the United States and elsewhere when, after many months delay, John Pehle of the US War Refugee Board issued a 25,000-word press release on 25 November 1944, along with a full version of the report and a preface calling it "entirely credible". Entitled The Extermination Camps of Auschwitz (Oświęcim) and Birkenau in Upper Silesia, the release included the 33-page Vrba–Wetzler report; a six-page report from Arnost Rosin and Czesław Mordowicz, who escaped from Auschwitz on 27 May 1944; and the 19-page Polish major's report, written in December 1943 by Polish escapee Jerzy Tabeau. Jointly the three reports came to be known as the Auschwitz Protocols.
The Washington Times Herald said the press release was "the first American official stamp of truth to the myriad of eyewitness stories of the mass massacres in Poland", while the New York Herald Tribune called the Protocols "the most shocking document ever issued by a United States government agency". Pehle passed a copy to Yank magazine, an American armed-forces publication, but the story, by Sergeant Richard Paul, was turned down as "too Semitic"; the magazine did not want to publish it, they said, because of "latent antisemitism in the Army". In June 1944 Pehle had urged John J. McCloy, US assistant secretary of war, to bomb Auschwitz, but McCloy had said it was "impracticable". After the publication of the Protocols, he tried again. McCloy replied that the camp could not be reached by bombers stationed in France, Italy or the UK, which meant that heavy bombers would have to fly to Auschwitz, a journey of 2,000 miles, without an escort. McCloy told him: "The positive solution to this problem is the earliest possible victory over Germany."
After the report
Resistance activities
After dictating the report in April 1944, Vrba and Wetzler stayed in Liptovský Mikuláš for six weeks, and continued to make and distribute copies of the report with the help of a friend, Joseph Weiss. Weiss worked for the Office for Prevention of Venereal Diseases in Bratislava and allowed copies to be made in the office. The Jewish Council gave Vrba papers in the name of Rudolf Vrba, showing Aryan ancestry going back three generations, and supported him financially with 200 Slovak crowns per week, equivalent to an average worker's salary; Vrba wrote that it was "sufficient to sustain me underground in Bratislava". On 29 August 1944 the Slovak Army rose up against the Nazis and the reestablishment of Czechoslovakia was announced. Vrba joined the Slovak partisans in September 1944 and was later awarded the Czechoslovak Medal of Bravery.
Auschwitz was liberated by the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front (part of the Red Army) on 27 January 1945; 1,200 prisoners were found in the main camp and 5,800 in Birkenau. The SS had tried to destroy the evidence, but the Red Army found what was left of four crematoria, as well as 5,525 pairs of women's shoes, 38,000 pairs of men's, 348,820 men's suits, 836,225 items of women's clothing, large numbers of carpets, utensils, toothbrushes, eyeglasses and dentures, and seven tons of hair.
Marriage and education
In 1945 Vrba reconnected with a childhood friend, Gerta Sidonová, from Trnava. They both wanted to study for degrees, so they took courses set up by Czechoslovakia's Department of Education for those who had missed out on schooling because of the Nazis. They moved after that to Prague, where they married in 1947; Sidonová took the surname Vrbová, the female version of Vrba. She graduated in medicine, then went into research. In 1949 Vrba obtained a degree in chemistry (Ing. Chem.) from the Czech Technical University in Prague, which earned him a postgraduate fellowship from the Ministry of Education, and in 1951 he received his doctorate (Dr. Tech. Sc.) for a thesis entitled "On the metabolism of butyric acid". The couple had two daughters: Helena (1952–1982) and Zuzana (b. 1954). Vrba undertook post-doctoral research at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, where he received his C.Sc. in 1956. From 1953 to 1958 he worked for Charles University Medical School in Prague. His marriage ended around this time.
Defection to Israel, move to England
With the marriage over and Czechoslovakia ruled by a Soviet Union-dominated socialist government, Vrba and Vrbová both defected, he to Israel and she to England with the children. Vrbová had fallen in love with an Englishman and was able to defect after being invited to an academic conference in Poland. Unable to obtain visas for her children, she returned illegally to Czechoslovakia and walked her children back over the mountains to Poland. From there they flew to Denmark with forged papers, then to London.
In 1957 Vrba became aware, when he read Gerald Reitlinger's The Final Solution (1953), that the Vrba–Wetzler report had been distributed and had saved lives; he had heard something about this in or around 1951, but Reitlinger's book was the first confirmation. The following year he received an invitation to an international conference in Israel, and while there, he defected. For the next two years, he worked at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. He later said that he had been unable to continue living in Israel because the same men who had, in his view, betrayed the Jewish community in Hungary were now in positions of power there. In 1960 he moved to England, where he worked for two years in the Neuropsychiatric Research Unit in Carshalton, Surrey, and seven years for the Medical Research Council. He became a British subject by naturalization on 4 August 1966.
Testimony
Trial of Adolf Eichmann
On 11 May 1960 Adolf Eichmann was captured by the Mossad in Buenos Aires and taken to Jerusalem to stand trial. (He was sentenced to death in December 1961.) Vrba was not called to testify because the Israeli Attorney General had apparently wanted to save the expense. Because Auschwitz was in the news, Vrba contacted the Daily Herald in London, and one of their reporters, Alan Bestic, wrote up his story, which was published in five installments over one week, beginning on 27 February 1961 with the headline "I Warned the World of Eichmann's Murders." In July 1961 Vrba submitted an affidavit to the Israeli Embassy in London, stating that, in his view, 2.5 million had been murdered in Auschwitz, plus or minus 10 percent.
Trial of Robert Mulka, book publication
Vrba testified against Robert Mulka of the SS at the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, telling the court that he had seen Mulka on the Judenrampe at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The court found that Vrba "made an excellent and intelligent impression" and would have been particularly observant at the time because he was planning to escape. It ruled that Mulka had indeed been on the ramp, and sentenced him to 14 years in prison.
Following the Herald articles, Bestic helped to write Vrba's memoir, I Cannot Forgive (1963), also published as Factory of Death (1964). Bestic's writing style was criticized; reviewing the book, Mervyn Jones wrote in 1964 that it has the flavour of "the juicy bit on page 63". Erich Kulka criticized the book in 1985 for minimizing the role played by the other three escapees (Wetzler, Mordowicz and Rosin); Kulka also disagreed with Vrba regarding his criticism of Zionists, the Slovak Jewish Council, and Israel's first president. The book was published in German (1964), French (1988), Dutch (1996), Czech (1998) and Hebrew (1998). It was republished in English in 1989 as 44070: The Conspiracy of the Twentieth Century and in 2002 as I Escaped from Auschwitz.
Move to Canada, Claude Lanzmann interview
Vrba moved to Canada in 1967, where he worked for the Medical Research Council of Canada from 1967 to 1973, becoming a Canadian citizen in 1972. From 1973 to 1975 he was a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, where he met his second wife, Robin Vrba, originally from Fall River, Massachusetts. They married in 1975 and returned to Vancouver, where she became a real-estate agent and he an associate professor of pharmacology at the University of British Columbia. He worked there until the early 1990s, publishing over 50 research papers on brain chemistry, diabetes, and cancer.
Claude Lanzmann interviewed Vrba in November 1978, in New York's Central Park, for Lanzmann's nine-and-a-half-hour documentary on the Holocaust, Shoah (1985); the interview is available on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHHM). The film was first shown in October 1985 at the Cinema Studio in New York. A quote from Vrba's interview is inscribed on a USHMM exhibit:
Trial of Ernst Zündel
Vrba testified in January 1985, along with Raul Hilberg, at the seven-week trial in Toronto of the German Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel. Zündel's lawyer, Doug Christie, tried to undermine Vrba (and three other survivors) by requesting ever more detailed descriptions, then presenting any discrepancy as significant. According to Lawrence Douglas, when Vrba said he had watched bodies burn in a pit, Christie asked how deep the pit had been; when Vrba described an SS officer climbing onto the roof of a gas chamber, Christie asked about the height and angle. When Vrba told Christie he was not willing to discuss his book unless the jury had read it, the judge reminded him not to give orders.
Christie argued that Vrba's knowledge of the gas chambers was secondhand. According to Vrba's deposition for Adolf Eichmann's trial in 1961, he obtained information about the gas chambers from Sonderkommando Filip Müller and others who worked there, something that Müller confirmed in 1979. Christie asked whether he had seen anyone gassed. Vrba replied that he had watched people being taken into the buildings and had seen SS officers throw in gas canisters after them: "Therefore, I concluded it was not a kitchen or a bakery, but it was a gas chamber. It is possible they are still there or that there is a tunnel and they are now in China. Otherwise, they were gassed." The trial ended with Zündel's conviction for knowingly publishing false material about the Holocaust. In R v Zundel (1992), the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Zundel's appeal on free-speech grounds.
Meeting with George Klein
In 1987 the Swedish–Hungarian biochemist George Klein travelled to Vancouver to thank Vrba; he had read the Vrba–Wetzler report in 1944 as a teenager in Budapest and escaped because of it. He wrote about the meeting in an essay, "The Ultimate Fear of the Traveler Returning from Hell", for his book Pietà (1992). The traveller's ultimate fear, English scholar Elana Gomel wrote in 2003, was that he had seen Hell but would not be believed; in this case, the traveller knows something that "cannot be put into any human language".
Despite the significant influence Vrba had on Klein's life, Klein's first sight of Vrba was the latter's interview in Shoah in 1985. He disagreed with Vrba's allegations about Kastner; Klein had seen Kastner at work in the Jewish Council offices in Budapest, where Klein had worked as a secretary, and he viewed Kastner as a hero. He told Vrba how he had tried himself, in the spring of 1944, to convince others in Budapest of the Vrba–Wetzler report's veracity, but no one had believed him, which inclined him to the view that Vrba was wrong to argue that the Jews would have acted had they known about the death camps. Vrba said that Klein's experience illustrated his point: distributing the report via informal channels had lent it no authority.
Klein asked Vrba how he could function in the pleasant, provincial atmosphere of the University of British Columbia, where no one had any concept of what he had been through. Vrba told him about a colleague who had seen him in Lanzmann's film and asked whether what the film had discussed was true. Vrba replied: "I do not know. I was only an actor reciting my lines." "How strange," the colleague replied. "I didn't know that you were an actor. Why did they say that film was made without any actors?" Klein wrote:
Death
Vrba's fellow escapee, Alfréd Wetzler, died in Bratislava, Slovakia, on 8 February 1988. Wetzler was the author of Escape From Hell: The True Story of the Auschwitz Protocol (2007), first published as Čo Dante nevidel (lit. "What Dante didn't see", 1963) under the pseudonym Jozef Lánik.
Vrba died of cancer, aged 81, on 27 March 2006 in hospital in Vancouver. He was survived by his first wife, Gerta Vrbová; his second wife, Robin Vrba; his daughter, Zuza Vrbová Jackson; and his grandchildren, Hannah and Jan. He was pre-deceased by his elder daughter, Dr. Helena Vrbová, who died in 1982 in Papua New Guinea during a malaria research project. Robin Vrba made a gift of Vrba's papers to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in New York.
Reception
Documentaries, books, annual walk
Several documentaries have told Vrba's story, including Genocide (1973), directed by Michael Darlow for ITV in the UK; Auschwitz and the Allies (1982), directed by Rex Bloomstein and Martin Gilbert for the BBC; and Claude Lanzmann's Shoah. Vrba was also featured in Witness to Auschwitz (1990), directed by Robin Taylor for the CBC in Canada; Auschwitz: The Great Escape (2007) for the UK's Channel Five; and Escape From Auschwitz (2008) for PBS in the United States. George Klein, the Hungarian-Swedish biologist who read the Vrba–Wetzler report in Budapest as a teenager, and who escaped rather than board a train to Auschwitz, wrote about Vrba in his book Pietà (MIT Press, 1992).
In 2001 Mary Robinson, then United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Vaclav Havel, then President of the Czech Republic, established the "Rudy Vrba Award" for films in the "right to know" category about unknown heroes. In 2014 the Vrba–Weztler Memorial began organizing an annual 130-km, five-day walk from the "Mexico" section of Auschwitz, where the men hid for three days, to Žilina, Slovakia, following the route they took. In January 2020 a PBS film Secrets of the Dead: Bombing Auschwitz presented a reconstruction of Vrba's escape, with David Moorst as Vrba and Michael Fox as Wetzler.
In 2022, Vrba was the subject of The Escape Artist a biography by Jonathan Freedland detailing Vrba's life, escape and its aftermath, and his life after the war.
Scholarship
Vrba's place in Holocaust historiography was the focus of Ruth Linn's Escaping Auschwitz: A Culture of Forgetting (Cornell University Press, 2004). The Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies at the City University of New York held an academic conference in April 2011 to discuss the Vrba–Wetzler and other Auschwitz reports, resulting in a book, The Auschwitz Reports and the Holocaust in Hungary (Columbia University Press, 2011), edited by Randolph L. Braham and William vanden Heuvel. In 2014 the British historian Michael Fleming reappraised the impact of the Vrba–Wetzler report in Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Awards
The University of Haifa awarded Vrba an honorary doctorate in 1998 at the instigation of Ruth Linn, with support from Yehuda Bauer.
For having fought during the Slovak National Uprising, Vrba was awarded the Czechoslovak Medal for Bravery, the Order of Slovak National Insurrection (Class 2), and the Medal of Honor of Czechoslovak Partisans.
In 2007 he received the Order of the White Double Cross, 1st class, from the Slovak government.
British historian Martin Gilbert supported an unsuccessful campaign in 1992 to have Vrba awarded the Order of Canada. The campaign was supported by Irwin Cotler, the former Attorney General of Canada, who at the time was a professor of law at McGill University. Similarly, Bauer proposed unsuccessfully that Vrba be awarded an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University.
Disputes
About Hungarian Jews
Vrba stated that warning the Hungarian community was one of the motives for his escape. His statement to that effect was first published on 27 February 1961, in the first installment of a five-article series about Vrba by a journalist, Alan Bestic, for the Daily Herald in England. In the second installment the next day, Vrba described having overheard the SS say they were looking forward to Hungarian salami, a reference to the provisions Hungarian Jews were likely to carry. Vrba said that in January 1944 a kapo had told him the Germans were building a new railway line to bring the Jews of Hungary directly into Auschwitz II.
The Czech historian Miroslav Kárný noted that there is no mention of Hungarian Jews in the Vrba–Wetzler report. Randolph L. Braham also questioned Vrba's later recollections. The Vrba–Wetzler report said only that Greek Jews were expected: "When we left on April 7, 1944 we heard that large convoys of Greek Jews were expected." It also said: "Work is now proceeding on a still larger compound which is to be added later on to the already existing camp. The purpose of this extensive planning is not known to us."
In 1946, Dr. Oskar Neumann, head of the Jewish Council in Slovakia, whose interviews with Vrba and Wetzler in April 1944 helped to form the Vrba–Wetzler report, wrote in his memoir Im Schatten des Todes (published in 1956) that the men had indeed mentioned Hungarian salami to him during the interviews: "These chaps did also report that recently an enormous construction activity had been initiated in the camp and very recently the SS often spoke about looking forward to the arrival of Hungarian salami." Vrba wrote that the original Slovak version of the Vrba–Wetzler report, some of which he wrote by hand, may have referred to the imminent Hungarian deportations. That version of the report did not survive; it was the German translation that was copied. Vrba had argued strongly for the inclusion of the Hungarian deportations, he wrote, but he recalled Oskar Krasniansky, who translated the report into German, saying that only actual deaths should be recorded, not speculation. He could not recall which argument prevailed. Alfred Wetzler's memoirs, Escape from Hell (2007), also say that he and Vrba told the Slovakian Jewish Council about the new ramp, the expectation of half a million Hungarian Jews, and the mention of Hungarian salami.
Attorney-General v. Gruenwald
It was a source of distress to Vrba for the rest of his life that the Vrba–Wetzler report had not been distributed widely until June–July 1944, weeks after his escape in April. Between 15 May and 7 July 1944, 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz, and most murdered on arrival. In his view, the deportees boarded the trains in the belief they were being sent to some kind of Jewish reservation.
Arguing that the deportees would have fought or run had they known the truth, or at least that panic would have slowed the transports, Vrba alleged that Rudolf Kastner of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee (who had a copy of the Vrba–Wetzler report by 3 May 1944 at the latest) had held back the report to avoid jeopardizing complex, and mostly futile, negotiations with Adolf Eichmann and other SS officers to exchange Jews for money and goods. In taking part in these negotiations, Vrba argued, the SS was simply placating the Jewish leadership to avoid rebellion within the community.
In I Cannot Forgive (1963), Vrba drew attention to the 1954 trial in Jerusalem of Malchiel Gruenwald, a Hungarian Jew living in Israel. In 1952 Gruenwald accused Rudolf Kastner, who had become a civil servant in Israel, of having collaborated with the SS so that he could escape from Hungary with a select few, including his family. Kastner had bribed the SS to allow over 1,600 Jews to leave Hungary for Switzerland on the Kastner train in June 1944, and he had testified on behalf of leading SS officers, including Kurt Becher, at the Nuremberg trials.
Vrba agreed with Gruenwald's criticism of Kastner. In Attorney-General of the Government of Israel v. Malchiel Gruenwald, the Israeli government sued Gruenwald for libel on Kastner's behalf. In June 1955, Judge Benjamin Halevi decided mostly in Gruenwald's favour, ruling that Kastner had "sold his soul to the devil". "Masses of ghetto Jews boarded the deportation trains in total obedience," Halevi wrote, "ignorant of the real destination and trusting the false declaration that they were being transferred to work camps in Hungary." The Kastner train had been a pay-off, the judge said, and the protection of certain Jews had been "an inseparable part of the maneuvers in the 'psychological war' to destroy the Jews". Kastner was assassinated in Tel Aviv in March 1957; the verdict was partly overturned by the Supreme Court of Israel in 1958.
Criticism of Jewish Councils
In addition to blaming Kastner and the Hungarian Aid and Rescue Committee for having failed to distribute the Vrba–Wetzler report, Vrba criticized the Slovakian Jewish Council for having failed to resist the deportation of Jews from Slovakia in 1942. When he was deported from Slovakia to the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland in June that year, the Jewish Council had known, he alleged, that Jews were being murdered in Poland, but they did nothing to warn the community and even assisted by drawing up lists of names. He referred to Jewish leaders in Slovakia and Hungary as "quislings" who were essential to the smooth running of the deportations: "The creation of Quislings, voluntary or otherwise, was, in fact, an important feature of Nazi policy" in every occupied country, in his view.
The Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer argued that while the Council knew that being sent to Poland meant severe danger for Jews, at that stage they did not know about the Final Solution It is true, Bauer wrote, that Jewish Council members, under Karol Hochberg, head of the council's "department for special tasks", had worked with the SS, offering secretarial and technical help to draw up lists of Jews to be deported (lists supplied by the Slovak government). But other members of the Jewish Council warned Jews to flee and later formed a resistance, the Working Group, which in December 1943 took over the Jewish Council, with Oskar Neumann (the lawyer who helped to organize the Vrba–Wetzler report) as its leader. Vrba did not accept Bauer's distinctions.
Responses
Vrba's position that the Jewish leadership in Hungary and Slovakia betrayed their communities was supported by the Anglo-Canadian historian John S. Conway, a colleague of his at the University of British Columbia, who from 1979 wrote a series of papers in defence of Vrba's views. In 1996 Vrba repeated the allegations in an article, "Die mißachtete Warnung: Betrachtungen über den Auschwitz-Bericht von 1944" ("The warning that was ignored: Considerations of an Auschwitz report from 1944") in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, to which the Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer responded in 1997 in the same journal. Bauer responded to Conway in 2006.
In Bauer's opinion, Vrba's "wild attacks on Kastner and on the Slovak underground are all a-historical and simply wrong from the start", although he acknowledged that many survivors share Vrba's view. By the time the Vrba–Wetzler report had been prepared, Bauer argued, it was too late for anything to alter the Nazis' deportation plans. Bauer expressed the view that Hungarian Jews knew about the mass murder in Poland even if they did not know the particulars; and if they had seen the Vrba–Wetzler report, they would have been forced onto the trains anyway. In response, Vrba alleged that Bauer was one of the Israeli historians who, in defence of the Israeli establishment, had downplayed Vrba's place in Holocaust historiography.
The British historian Michael Fleming argued in 2014 against the view that Hungarian Jews had sufficient access to information. After the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944, the British government's Political Warfare Executive (PWE) directed the BBC's Hungarian Service to run Allied warnings to the Hungarian government that "racial persecution will be regarded as a war crime". However, on 13 April, the PWE decided against broadcasting warnings directly to Hungarian Jews on the grounds that it would "cause unnecessary alarm" and that "they must in any case be only too well-informed of the measures that may be taken against them". Fleming writes that this was a mistake: the Germans had tricked the Jewish community into thinking they were being sent to Poland to work. The first mention of extermination camps in the PWE's directives to the BBC's Hungarian Service came on 8 June 1944.
Randolph L. Braham, a specialist in the Holocaust in Hungary, agreed that Hungarian Jewish leaders did not keep the Jewish communities informed or take "any meaningful precautionary measures" to deal with the consequences of a German invasion. He called this "one of the great tragedies of the era". Nevertheless, it remains true, he argued, that by the time the Vrba–Wetzler report was available, the Jews of Hungary were in a helpless state: "marked, hermetically isolated, and expropriated". In northeastern Hungary and Carpatho-Ruthenia, the women, children and elderly were living in crowded ghettos, in unsanitary conditions and with little food, while the younger men were in military service in Serbia and the Ukraine. There was nothing they could have done to resist, he wrote, even if they had known about the report.
Vrba was criticized in 2001 in a collection of articles in Hebrew, Leadership under Duress: The Working Group in Slovakia, 1942–1944, by a group of Israeli activists and historians, including Bauer, with ties to the Slovak community. The introduction, written by a survivor, refers to the "bunch of mockers, pseudo-historians and historians" who argue that the Bratislava Working Group collaborated with the SS, a "baseless" allegation that ignores the constraints under which the Jews in Slovakia and Hungary were living. Vrba (referred to as "Peter Vrba") is described as "the head of these mockers", although the introduction makes clear that his heroism is "beyond doubt". It concludes: "We, Czechoslovakian descendants, who personally experienced [the war] cannot remain silent in face of these false accusations."
Vrba's place in Holocaust historiography
In Vrba's view, Israeli historians tried to erase his name from Holocaust historiography because of his views about Kastner and the Hungarian and Slovak Jewish Councils, some of whom went on to hold prominent positions in Israel. When Ruth Linn first tried to visit Vrba in British Columbia, he practically "chased her out of his office", according to Uri Dromi in Haaretz, saying he had no interest in "your state of the Judenrats and Kastners".
Linn wrote in her book about Vrba, Escaping Auschwitz: A Culture of Forgetting (2004), that Vrba's and Wetzler's names had been omitted from Hebrew textbooks or their contribution minimized: standard histories refer to the escape by "two young Slovak Jews", "two chaps", and "two young men", and represent them as emissaries of the Polish underground in Auschwitz. Bauer also attacked Vrba, calling him 'bitter Auschwitz survivor’, ‘embittered and furious’, and ‘(his) despair and bitterness are overdone’. Bauer didn't admit until 1997 that Vrba was a trustworthy eyewitness. Dr. Oskar Neumann of the Slovak Jewish Council referred to them in his memoir as "these chaps"; Oskar Krasniansky, who translated the Vrba–Wetzler report into German, mentioned them only as "two young people" in his deposition for the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. There was also a tendency to refer to the Vrba–Wetzler report as the Auschwitz Protocols, which is a combination of the Vrba–Wetzler and two other reports. The 1990 edition of the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, published by Yad Vashem in Israel, did name Vrba and Wetzler, but in the 2001 edition they are "two Jewish prisoners".
Vrba's memoir was not translated into Hebrew until 1998, 35 years after its publication in English. As of that year, there was no English or Hebrew version of the Vrba–Wetzler report at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, an issue the museum attributed to lack of funding. There was a Hungarian translation, but it did not note the names of its authors and, Linn wrote, could be found only in a file that dealt with Rudolf Kastner. Linn herself, born and raised in Israel and schooled at the prestigious Hebrew Reali School, first learned about Vrba when she watched Claude Lanzmann's film Shoah (1985). In 1998 she polled 594 students at the University of Haifa, either third-year undergraduates or first-year graduate students; 98 percent said that no one had ever escaped from Auschwitz, and the remainder did not know the escapees' names. This failure to acknowledge Vrba has played into the hands of Holocaust deniers, who have tried to undermine his testimony about the gas chambers.
In 2005 Uri Dromi of the Israel Democracy Institute responded that there were at least four Israeli books on the Holocaust that mention Vrba, and that Wetzler's testimony is recounted at length in Livia Rothkirchen's Hurban yahadut Slovakia ("The Destruction of Slovak Jewry"), published by Yad Vashem in 1961.
Selected works
Holocaust
(1998). "Science and the Holocaust", Focus, University of Haifa (edited version of Vrba's speech when he received his honorary doctorate).
(1997). "The Preparations for the Holocaust In Hungary: An Eyewitness Account", in Randolph L. Braham, Attila Pok (eds.). The Holocaust in Hungary. Fifty years later. New York: Columbia University Press, 227–285.
(1998). "The Preparations for the Holocaust In Hungary: An Eyewitness Account", in Randolph L. Braham, Attila Pok (eds.). The Holocaust in Hungary. Fifty years later. New York: Columbia University Press, 227–285.
(1996). "Die mißachtete Warnung. Betrachtungen über den Auschwitz-Bericht von 1944". Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 44(1), 1–24.
(1992). "Personal Memories of Actions of SS-Doctors of Medicine in Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II (Birkenau)", in Charles G. Roland et al. (eds.). Medical Science without Compassion, Past and Present. Hamburg: Stiftung für Sozialgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts.
(1989). "The Role of Holocaust in German Economy and Military Strategy During 1941–1945", Appendix VII in I Escaped from Auschwitz, 431–440.
(1966). "Footnote to the Auschwitz Report", Jewish Currents, 20(3), 27.
(1963) with Alan Bestic. I Cannot Forgive. London: Sidgwick and Jackson.
(1964) with Alan Bestic. Factory of Death. London: Transworld Publishers.
(1989) with Alan Bestic. 44070: The Conspiracy of the Twentieth Century. Bellingham, WA: Star & Cross Publishing House.
(2002). I Escaped from Auschwitz. London: Robson Books.
Academic research
(1975) with E. Alpert; K. J. Isselbacher. "Carcinoembryonic antigen: evidence for multiple antigenic determinants and isoantigens". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 72(11), November 1975, 4602–4606.
(1974) with A. Winter; L. N. Epps. "Assimilation of glucose carbon in vivo by salivary gland and tumor". American Journal of Physiology, 226(6), June 1974, 1424–1427.
(1972) with A. Winter. "Movement of (U- 14 C)glucose carbon into and subsequent release from lipids and high-molecular-weight constituents of rat brain, liver, and heart in vivo". Canadian Journal of Biochemistry, 50(1), January 1972, 91–105.
(1970) with Wendy Cannon. "Molecular weights and metabolism of rat brain proteins". Biochemical Journal, 116(4), February 1970, 745–753.
(1968) with Wendy Cannon. "Gel filtration of [U-14C]glucose-labelled high-speed supernatants of rat brains". Journal of Biochemistry, 109(3), September 1968, 30P.
(1967). "Assimilation of glucose carbon in subcellular rat brain particles in vivo and the problems of axoplasmic flow". Journal of Biochemistry, 105(3), December 1967, 927–936.
(1966). "Effects of insulin-induced hypoglycaemia on the fate of glucose carbon atoms in the mouse". Journal of Biochemistry, 99(2), May 1966, 367–380.
(1964). "Utilization of glucose carbon in vivo in the mouse". Nature, 202, 18 April 1964, 247–249.
(1963) with H. S. Bachelard; J. Krawcynski. "Interrelationship between glucose utilization of brain and heart". Nature, 197, 2 March 1963, 869–870.
(1962) with H. S. Bachelard, et al. "Effect of reserpine on the heart". The Lancet, 2(7269), 22 December 1962, 1330–1331.
(1962) with M. K. Gaitonde; D. Richter. "The conversion of the glucose carbon into protein in the brain and other organs of the rat". Journal of Neurochemistry, 9(5), September 1962, 465–475.
(1962). "Glucose metabolism in rat brain in vivo". Nature, 195 (4842), August 1962, 663–665.
(1961) with Kunjlata Kothary. "The release of ammonia from rat brain proteins during acid hydrolysis". Journal of Neurochemistry, 8(1), October 1961, 65–71.
(1959) with Jaroslava Folbergrova. "Observations on endogenous metabolism in brain in vitro and in vivo". Journal of Neurochemistry 4(4), October 1959, 338–349.
(1958) with Jaroslava Folbergrova. "Endogenous Metabolism in Brain Cortex Slices". Nature, 182, 26 July 1958, 237–238.
(1957) with Jaroslava Folbergrova; V. Kanturek. "Ammonia Formation in Brain Cortex Slices". Nature, 179(4557), March 1957, 470–471.
(1956). "On the participation of ammonia in cerebral metabolism and function". Review of Czechoslovak Medicine, 3(2), 81–106.
(1955). "Significance of glutamic acid in metabolic processes in the rat brain during physical exercise". Nature, 176(4496), 31 December 1955, 1258–1261.
(1955). "A source of ammonia and changes of protein structure in the rat brain during physical exertion". Nature, 176(4472), 16 July 1955, 117–118.
(1955). "Effect of physical stress on metabolic function of the brain. III. Formation of ammonia and structure of proteins in the brain". Chekhoslovatskaia Fiziologila., 4(4), 397–408 (in German).
(1954) with Arnošt Kleinzeller; Jiři Málek. Manometrické metody a jejich použití v biologii a biochemii. Prague: Státní Zdravotnické Nakladatelství ("State Health Publishing").
Sources
Notes
Citations
Works cited
First published as Dealing with Satan: Rezso Kasztner's Daring Rescue Mission. London: Jonathan Cape, 2008.
. First published as Lánik, Jozef (1964). Čo Dante nevidel. Bratislava: Osveta.
Further reading
Vrba–Wetzler memorial site.
"Rudolf Vrba Papers, 1934–2008. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum.
The most extensive and authoritative website about Rudolf Vrba is www.rudolfvrba.com This mammoth undertaking contains exclusive interviews with people who knew him and has been created as a public service by Canadian journalist Alan Twigg.
Vrba–Wetzler report
"Report of Alfred Wetzler: I. Auschwitz and Birkenau", pp. 169–196; "Report of Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler", pp. 196–255; "Report of Rudolf Vrba: II. Majdanek", 256–274.
.
As sent to George Mantello:
Audio/video
"Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection, Interview with Rudolf Vrba", Washington, D.C.: Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (transcript); Rudolf Vrba in Shoah, part 1, part 2, courtesy of YouTube.
Audio interview with Rudolf Vrba, World at War. Thames Television, 1972 (transcript).
"Escape from Auschwitz" (video), Secrets of the Dead. PBS, 29 April 2008.
Books and articles
Kasztner, Rezső (1946). Der Bericht des jüdischen Rettungskomitees aus Budapest, 1942–1945. Basel: Va'a'dat Ezra Vo-Hazalah. In English: The Kasztner Report: The Report of the Budapest Jewish Rescue Committee, 1942–1945. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem.
Linn, Ruth (13 April 2006). "Rudolf Vrba". The Guardian.
Rose, Hilary and Rose, Steven (25 April 2006). "Letter: Rudolf Vrba", The Guardian.
Vrba, Rudolf (14 April 2006). "The one that got away". The Guardian (extract from I Escaped from Auschwitz).
Wetzler, Alfred (as Jožko Lánik) (1945). Oswiecim, hrobka štyroch miliónov l'udí (Auschwitz, the Graveyard of Four Million People). Košice: Vyd. and
Wetzler, Alfréd (as Jozef Lánik) (1964). Čo Dante nevidel (What Dante did not see). Bratislava: Osveta.
Wetzler, Alfréd (as Jozef Lánik); Mehnert, Erich (1964). Was Dante nicht sah. Roman. Berlin: Verlag der Nation.
1924 births
2006 deaths
Articles containing video clips
Blood for goods
Canadian educators
Canadian people of Slovak-Jewish descent
Canadian pharmacologists
Czechoslovak emigrants to Israel
Israeli emigrants to the United Kingdom
British emigrants to Canada
Deaths from cancer in British Columbia
Escapees from Auschwitz
Holocaust historiography
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary%20Clinton
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Hillary Clinton
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Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (born October 26, 1947) is an American politician and diplomat who served as the 67th United States secretary of state under president Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a U.S. senator representing New York from 2001 to 2009, and as the first lady of the U.S. to president Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party's nominee in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party.
Raised in Park Ridge, Illinois, Rodham graduated from Wellesley College in 1969 and from Yale Law School in 1973. After serving as a congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas and, in 1975, married Bill Clinton, whom she had met at Yale. In 1977, Clinton co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. She was appointed the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978 and became the first female partner at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm the following year. The National Law Journal twice listed her as one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America. Clinton was the first lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992. As the first lady of the U.S., Clinton advocated for healthcare reform. In 1994, her health care plan failed to gain approval from Congress. In 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a leading role in advocating the creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act. She also advocated for gender equality at the 1995 World Conference on Women. In 1998, Clinton's marital relationship came under public scrutiny during the Lewinsky scandal, which led her to issue a statement that reaffirmed her commitment to the marriage.
Clinton was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000, becoming the first female senator from New York and the first first lady to simultaneously hold elected office. As a senator, she chaired the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee from 2003 to 2007. She advocated for medical benefits for September 11 first responders. She supported the resolution authorizing the Iraq War in 2002, but opposed the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. Clinton ran for president in 2008, but was defeated by Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries. After resigning from the Senate to become Obama's secretary of state in 2009, she established the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. She responded to the Arab Spring by advocating the 2011 military intervention in Libya, but was harshly criticized by Republicans for the failure to prevent or adequately respond to the 2012 Benghazi attack. Clinton helped to organize a diplomatic isolation and a regime of international sanctions against Iran in an effort to force it to curtail its nuclear program, which eventually led to the multinational Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015. Her use of a private email server as secretary was the subject of intense scrutiny; while no charges were filed against Clinton, the email controversy was the single most covered topic during the 2016 presidential election.
Clinton made a second presidential run in 2016, winning the Democratic nomination, but losing the general election to Republican opponent Donald Trump in the Electoral College, despite winning the popular vote. Following her loss, she wrote multiple books and launched Onward Together, a political action organization dedicated to fundraising for progressive political groups. Since 2020, she has served as the chancellor of the Queen's University Belfast.
Early life and education
Early life
Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in a Methodist family who first lived in Chicago. When she was three years old, her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was of English and Welsh descent, and managed a small but successful textile business, which he had founded. Her mother, Dorothy Howell, was a homemaker of Dutch, English, French Canadian (from Quebec), Scottish, and Welsh descent. She had two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.
As a child, Rodham was a favorite student among her teachers at the public schools she attended in Park Ridge. She participated in swimming and softball and earned numerous badges as a Brownie and a Girl Scout. She was inspired by U.S. efforts during the Space Race and sent a letter to NASA around 1961 asking what she could do to become an astronaut, only to be informed that women were not being accepted into the program. She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in the student council and school newspaper and was selected for the National Honor Society. She was elected class vice president for her junior year but then lost the election for class president for her senior year against two boys, one of whom told her that "you are really stupid if you think a girl can be elected president". For her senior year, she and other students were transferred to the then-new Maine South High School. There she was a National Merit Finalist and was voted "most likely to succeed." She graduated in 1965 in the top five percent of her class.
Rodham's mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career. Her father, who was otherwise a traditionalist, felt that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender. She was raised in a politically conservative household, and she helped canvass Chicago's South Side at age 13 after the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election. She stated that, investigating with a fellow teenage friend shortly after the election, she saw evidence of electoral fraud (a voting list entry showing a dozen addresses that was an empty lot) against Republican candidate Richard Nixon; she later volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election.
Rodham's early political development was shaped mostly by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and afterwards briefly met, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1962 speech in Chicago's Orchestra Hall.
Wellesley College years
In 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science. During her first year, she was president of the Wellesley Young Republicans. As the leader of this "Rockefeller Republican"-oriented group, she supported the elections of moderate Republicans John Lindsay to mayor of New York City and Massachusetts attorney general Edward Brooke to the United States Senate. She later stepped down from this position. In 2003, Clinton would write that her views concerning the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War were changing in her early college years. In a letter to her youth minister at that time, she described herself as "a mind conservative and a heart liberal". In contrast to the factions in the 1960s that advocated radical actions against the political system, she sought to work for change within it.
By her junior year, Rodham became a supporter of the antiwar presidential nomination campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy. In early 1968, she was elected president of the Wellesley College Government Association, a position she held until early 1969. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Rodham organized a two-day student strike and worked with Wellesley's black students to recruit more black students and faculty. In her student government role, she played a role in keeping Wellesley from being embroiled in the student disruptions common to other colleges. A number of her fellow students thought she might some day become the first female president of the United States.
To help her better understand her changing political views, Professor Alan Schechter assigned Rodham to intern at the House Republican Conference, and she attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program. Rodham was invited by moderate New York Republican representative Charles Goodell to help Governor Nelson Rockefeller's late-entry campaign for the Republican nomination. Rodham attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. However, she was upset by the way Richard Nixon's campaign portrayed Rockefeller and by what she perceived as the convention's "veiled" racist messages, and she left the Republican Party for good.
Rodham wrote her senior thesis, a critique of the tactics of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky, under Professor Schechter. Years later, while she was the first lady, access to her thesis was restricted at the request of the White House and it became the subject of some speculation. The thesis was later released.
In 1969, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, with departmental honors in political science. After some fellow seniors requested that the college administration allow a student speaker at commencement, she became the first student in Wellesley College history to speak at the event. Her address followed that of the commencement speaker, Senator Edward Brooke. After her speech, she received a standing ovation that lasted seven minutes. She was featured in an article published in Life magazine, because of the response to a part of her speech that criticized Senator Brooke. She also appeared on Irv Kupcinet's nationally syndicated television talk show as well as in Illinois and New England newspapers. She was asked to speak at the 50th anniversary convention of the League of Women Voters in Washington, D.C., the next year. That summer, she worked her way across Alaska, washing dishes in Mount McKinley National Park and sliming salmon in a fish processing cannery in Valdez (which fired her and shut down overnight when she complained about unhealthy conditions).
Yale Law School and postgraduate studies
Rodham then entered Yale Law School, where she was on the editorial board of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. During her second year, she worked at the Yale Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development and working as a research assistant on the seminal work, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (1973). She also took on cases of child abuse at Yale–New Haven Hospital, and volunteered at New Haven Legal Services to provide free legal advice for the poor. In the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project, where she was assigned to Senator Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. There she researched various migrant workers' issues including education, health and housing. Edelman later became a significant mentor. Rodham was recruited by political advisor Anne Wexler to work on the 1970 campaign of Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Joseph Duffey. Rodham later crediting Wexler with providing her first job in politics.
In the spring of 1971, she began dating fellow law student Bill Clinton. During the summer, she interned at the Oakland, California, law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein. The firm was well known for its support of constitutional rights, civil liberties and radical causes (two of its four partners were current or former Communist Party members); Rodham worked on child custody and other cases. Clinton canceled his original summer plans and moved to live with her in California; the couple continued living together in New Haven when they returned to law school. The following summer, Rodham and Clinton campaigned in Texas for unsuccessful 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. She received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1973, having stayed on an extra year to be with Clinton. He first proposed marriage to her following graduation, but she declined, uncertain if she wanted to tie her future to his.
Rodham began a year of postgraduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center. In late 1973, her first scholarly article, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review. Discussing the new children's rights movement, the article stated that "child citizens" were "powerless individuals" and argued that children should not be considered equally incompetent from birth to attaining legal age, but instead that courts should presume competence on a case-by-case basis, except when there is evidence otherwise. The article became frequently cited in the field.
Marriage, family, legal career and first ladyship of Arkansas
From the East Coast to Arkansas
During her postgraduate studies, Rodham was staff attorney for Edelman's newly founded Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children. In 1974, she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., and advised the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal. The committee's work culminated with the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.
By then, Rodham was viewed as someone with a bright political future. Democratic political organizer and consultant Betsey Wright moved from Texas to Washington the previous year to help guide Rodham's career. Wright thought Rodham had the potential to become a future senator or president. Meanwhile, boyfriend Bill Clinton had repeatedly asked Rodham to marry him, but she continued to demur. After failing the District of Columbia bar exam and passing the Arkansas exam, Rodham came to a key decision. As she later wrote, "I chose to follow my heart instead of my head". She thus followed Clinton to Arkansas, rather than staying in Washington, where career prospects were brighter. He was then teaching law and running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in his home state. In August 1974, Rodham moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and became one of only two female faculty members at the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Early Arkansas years
Rodham became the first director of a new legal aid clinic at the University of Arkansas School of Law. During her time in Fayetteville, Rodham and several other women founded the city's first rape crisis center.
In 1974, Bill Clinton lost an Arkansas congressional race, facing incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt. Rodham and Bill Clinton bought a house in Fayetteville in the summer of 1975 and she agreed to marry him. The wedding took place on October 11, 1975, in a Methodist ceremony in their living room. A story about the marriage in the Arkansas Gazette indicated that she decided to retain the name Hillary Rodham. Her motivation was threefold. She wanted to keep the couple's professional lives separate, avoid apparent conflicts of interest, and as she told a friend at the time, "it showed that I was still me". The decision upset both mothers, who were more traditional.
In 1976, Rodham temporarily relocated to Indianapolis to work as an Indiana state campaign organizer for the presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter. In November 1976, Bill Clinton was elected Arkansas attorney general, and the couple moved to the state capital of Little Rock. In February 1977, Rodham joined the venerable Rose Law Firm, a bastion of Arkansan political and economic influence. She specialized in patent infringement and intellectual property law while working pro bono in child advocacy. In 1977, Rodham cofounded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a state-level alliance with the Children's Defense Fund.
Later in 1977, President Jimmy Carter (for whom Rodham had been the 1976 campaign director of field operations in Indiana) appointed her to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation. She held that position from 1978 until the end of 1981. From mid-1978 to mid-1980, she served as the first female chair of that board.
Following her husband's November 1978 election as governor of Arkansas, Rodham became that state's first lady in January 1979. She would hold that title for twelve nonconsecutive years (1979–81, 1983–92). Clinton appointed his wife to be the chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee the same year, in which role she secured federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas's poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees.
In 1979, Rodham became the first woman to be made a full partner in Rose Law Firm. From 1978 until they entered the White House, she had a higher salary than her husband. During 1978 and 1979, while looking to supplement their income, Rodham engaged in the trading of cattle futures contracts; an initial $1,000 investment generated nearly $100,000 when she stopped trading after ten months. At this time, the couple began their ill-fated investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation real estate venture with Jim and Susan McDougal. Both of these became subjects of controversy in the 1990s.
On February 27, 1980, Rodham gave birth to the couple's only child, a daughter whom they named Chelsea. In November 1980, Bill Clinton was defeated in his bid for re-election.
Later Arkansas years
Two years after leaving office, Bill Clinton returned to the governorship of Arkansas after winning the election of 1982. During her husband's campaign, Hillary began to use the name "Hillary Clinton", or sometimes "Mrs. Bill Clinton", to assuage the concerns of Arkansas voters; she also took a leave of absence from Rose Law to campaign for him full-time. During her second stint as the first lady of Arkansas, she made a point of using Hillary Rodham Clinton as her name.
Clinton became involved in state education policy. She was named chair of the Arkansas Education Standards Committee in 1983, where worked to reform the state's public education system. In one of the Clinton governorship's most important initiatives, she fought a prolonged but ultimately successful battle against the Arkansas Education Association to establish mandatory teacher testing and state standards for curriculum and classroom size. In 1985, she introduced Arkansas's Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth, a program that helps parents work with their children in preschool preparedness and literacy.
Clinton continued to practice law with the Rose Law Firm while she was the first lady of Arkansas. The firm considered her a "rainmaker" because she brought in clients, partly thanks to the prestige she lent it and to her corporate board connections. She was also very influential in the appointment of state judges. Bill Clinton's Republican opponent in his 1986 gubernatorial reelection campaign accused the Clintons of conflict of interest because Rose Law did state business; the Clintons countered the charge by saying that state fees were walled off by the firm before her profits were calculated. Clinton was twice named by The National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America—in 1988 and 1991. When Bill Clinton thought about not running again for governor in 1990, Hillary Clinton considered running. Private polls were unfavorable, however, and in the end he ran and was reelected for the final time.
From 1982 to 1988, Clinton was on the board of directors, sometimes as chair, of the New World Foundation, which funded a variety of New Left interest groups. Clinton was chairman of the board of the Children's Defense Fund and on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital's Legal Services (1988–92) In addition to her positions with nonprofit organizations, she also held positions on the corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985–92), Wal-Mart Stores (1986–92) and Lafarge (1990–92). TCBY and Wal-Mart were Arkansas-based companies that were also clients of Rose Law. Clinton was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board, added following pressure on chairman Sam Walton to name a woman to it. Once there, she pushed successfully for Wal-Mart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices. She was largely unsuccessful in her campaign for more women to be added to the company's management and was silent about the company's famously anti-labor union practices. According to Dan Kaufman, awareness of this later became a factor in her loss of credibility with organized labor, helping contribute to her loss in the 2016 election, where slightly less than half of union members voted for Donald Trump.
Bill Clinton 1992 presidential campaign
Clinton received sustained national attention for the first time when her husband became a candidate for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination. Before the New Hampshire primary, tabloid publications printed allegations that Bill Clinton had engaged in an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers. In response, the Clintons appeared together on 60 Minutes, where Bill denied the affair, but acknowledged "causing pain in my marriage". This joint appearance was credited with rescuing his campaign. During the campaign, Hillary made culturally disparaging remarks about Tammy Wynette's outlook on marriage as described in her classic song "Stand by Your Man". Later in the campaign, she commented she could have chosen to be like women staying home and baking cookies and having teas, but wanted to pursue her career instead. The remarks were widely criticized, particularly by those who were, or defended, stay-at-home mothers. In retrospect, she admitted they were ill-considered. Bill said that in electing him, the nation would "get two for the price of one", referring to the prominent role his wife would assume. Beginning with Daniel Wattenberg's August 1992 The American Spectator article "The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock", Hillary's own past ideological and ethical record came under attack from conservatives. At least twenty other articles in major publications also drew comparisons between her and Lady Macbeth.
First Lady of the United States (1993–2001)
When Bill Clinton took office as president in January 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first lady. Her press secretary reiterated she would be using that form of her name. She was the first in this role to have a postgraduate degree and her own professional career up to the time of entering the White House. She was also the first to have an office in the West Wing of the White House in addition to the usual first lady offices in the East Wing. During the presidential transition, she was part of the innermost circle vetting appointments to the new administration. Her choices filled at least eleven top-level positions and dozens more lower-level ones. After Eleanor Roosevelt, Clinton was regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history.
Some critics called it inappropriate for the first lady to play a central role in public policy matters. Supporters pointed out that Clinton's role in policy was no different from that of other White House advisors, and that voters had been well aware she would play an active role in her husband's presidency.
Health care and other policy initiatives
In January 1993, President Clinton named Hillary to chair a task force on National Health Care Reform, hoping to replicate the success she had in leading the effort for Arkansas education reform. The recommendation of the task force became known as the Clinton health care plan. This was a comprehensive proposal that would require employers to provide health coverage to their employees through individual health maintenance organizations. Its opponents quickly derided the plan as "Hillarycare" and it even faced opposition from some Democrats in Congress.
Failing to gather enough support for a floor vote in either the House or the Senate (although Democrats controlled both chambers), the proposal was abandoned in September 1994. Clinton later acknowledged in her memoir that her political inexperience partly contributed to the defeat but cited many other factors. The first lady's approval ratings, which had generally been in the high-50 percent range during her first year, fell to 44 percent in April 1994 and 35 percent by September 1994.
The Republican Party negatively highlighted the Clinton health care plan in their campaign for the 1994 midterm elections. The Republican Party saw strong success in the midterms, and many analysts and pollsters found the healthcare plan to be a major factor in the Democrats' defeat, especially among independent voters. After this, the White House subsequently sought to downplay Clinton's role in shaping policy.
Along with senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, Clinton was a force behind the passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997, which gave state support to children whose parents could not provide them health coverage. She participated in campaigns to promote the enrollment of children in the program after it took effect.
Enactment of welfare reform was a major goal of Bill Clinton's presidency. When the first two bills on the issue came from a Republican-controlled Congress lacking protections for people coming off welfare, Hillary urged her husband to veto the bills, which he did. A third version came up during his 1996 general election campaign that restored some of the protections but cut the scope of benefits in other areas. While Clinton was urged to persuade the president to similarly veto the bill, she decided to support the bill, which became the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, as the best political compromise available.
Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice. In 1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as the first lady. In 1999, she was instrumental in the passage of the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal monies for teenagers aging out of foster care.
International diplomacy and promotion of women's rights
Clinton traveled to 79 countries as first lady, breaking the record for most-traveled first lady previously held by Pat Nixon. She did not hold a security clearance or attend National Security Council meetings, but played a role in U.S. diplomacy attaining its objectives.
In a September 1995 speech before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in the People's Republic of China itself. She declared, "it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights". Delegates from over 180 countries heard her declare, In delivering these remarks, Clinton resisted both internal administration and Chinese pressure to soften her remarks. The speech became a key moment in the empowerment of women and years later women around the world would recite Clinton's key phrases.
During the late 1990s, Clinton was one of the most prominent international figures to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Taliban. She helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative sponsored by the U.S. to encourage the participation of women in the political processes of their countries.
Scandals and investigations
Clinton was a subject of several investigations by the United States Office of the Independent Counsel, committees of the U.S. Congress, and the press.
One prominent investigation was related Whitewater controversy, which arose out of real estate investments by the Clintons and associates made in the 1970s. As part of this investigation, on January 26, 1996, Clinton became the first spouse of a U.S. president to be subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury. After several Independent Counsels had investigated, a final report was issued in 2000 that stated there was insufficient evidence that either Clinton had engaged in criminal wrongdoing.
Another investigated scandal involving Clinton was the White House travel office controversy, often referred to as "Travelgate". Another scandal that arose was the Hillary Clinton cattle futures controversy, which related to cattle futures trading Clinton had made in 1978 and 1979. Some in the press had alleged that Clinton had engaged in a conflict of interest and disguised a bribery. Several individuals analyzed her trading records, however, no formal investigation was made and she was never charged with any wrongdoing in relation to this.
An outgrowth of the "Travelgate" investigation was the June 1996 discovery of improper White House access to hundreds of FBI background reports on former Republican White House employees, an affair that some called "Filegate". Accusations were made that Clinton had requested these files and she had recommended hiring an unqualified individual to head the White House Security Office. The 2000 final Independent Counsel report found no substantial or credible evidence that Clinton had any role or showed any misconduct in the matter.
In early 2001, a controversy arose over gifts that were sent to the White House; there was a question whether the furnishings were White House property or the Clintons' personal property. During the last year of Bill Clinton's time in office, those gifts were shipped to the Clintons' private residence.
It Takes a Village and other writings
In 1996, Clinton presented a vision for American children in the book It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us. In January 1996, she went on a ten-city book tour and made numerous television appearances to promote the book, although she was frequently hit with questions about her involvement in the Whitewater and Travelgate controversies.
The book spent 18 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List that year, including three weeks at number one. By 2000, it had sold 450,000 copies in hardcover and another 200,000 in paperback. Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.
Other books published by Clinton when she was the first lady include Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998) and An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000). In 2001, she wrote an afterword to the children's book Beatrice's Goat.
Clinton also published a weekly syndicated newspaper column titled "Talking It Over" from 1995 to 2000. It focused on her experiences and those of women, children and families she met during her travels around the world.
Response to Lewinsky scandal
In 1998, the Clintons' private concerns became the subject of much speculation when investigations revealed the president had engaged in an extramarital affair with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Events surrounding the Lewinsky scandal eventually led to the impeachment of the president by the House of Representatives; he was later acquitted by the Senate. When the allegations against her husband were first made public, Hillary Clinton stated that the allegations were part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy". Clinton characterized the Lewinsky charges as the latest in a long, organized, collaborative series of charges by Bill's political enemies rather than any wrongdoing by her husband. She later said she had been misled by her husband's initial claims that no affair had taken place. After the evidence of President Clinton's encounters with Lewinsky became incontrovertible, she issued a public statement reaffirming her commitment to their marriage. Privately, she was reported to be furious at him and was unsure if she wanted to remain in the marriage. The White House residence staff noticed a pronounced level of tension between the couple during this period.
Public response to Clinton's handling of the matter varied. Women variously admired her strength and poise in private matters that were made public. They sympathized with her as a victim of her husband's insensitive behavior and criticized her as being an enabler to her husband's indiscretions. They also accused her of cynically staying in a failed marriage as a way of keeping or even fostering her own political influence. In the wake of the revelations, her public approval ratings shot upward to around 70 percent, the highest they had ever been.
Save America's Treasures initiative
Clinton was the founding chair of Save America's Treasures, a nationwide effort matching federal funds with private donations to preserve and restore historic items and sites. This included the flag that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the First Ladies National Historic Site in Canton, Ohio.
Traditional duties
Clinton was the head of the White House Millennium Council and hosted Millennium Evenings, a series of lectures that discussed futures studies, one of which became the first live simultaneous webcast from the White House. Clinton also created the first White House Sculpture Garden, located in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden.
Working with Arkansas interior decorator Kaki Hockersmith over an eight-year period, Clinton oversaw extensive, privately funded redecoration efforts of the White House. Overall the redecoration received a mixed reaction.
Clinton hosted many large-scale events at the White House. Examples include a state dinner for visiting Chinese dignitaries, a New Year's Eve celebration at the turn of the 21st century, and a state dinner honoring the bicentennial of the White House in November 2000.
U.S. Senate (2001–2009)
2000 U.S. Senate election
When New York's long-serving U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his retirement in November 1998, several prominent Democratic figures, including Representative Charles Rangel of New York, urged Clinton to run for his open seat in the Senate election of 2000. Once she decided to run, the Clintons purchased a home in Chappaqua, New York, north of New York City, in September 1999. She became the first wife of the president of the United States to be a candidate for elected office. Initially, Clinton expected to face Rudy Giuliani—the mayor of New York City—as her Republican opponent in the election. Giuliani withdrew from the race in May 2000 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and matters related to his failing marriage became public. Clinton then faced Rick Lazio, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives who represented New York's 2nd congressional district. Throughout the campaign, opponents accused Clinton of carpetbagging, because she had never resided in New York State or participated in the state's politics before the 2000 Senate race.
Bill de Blasio was Clinton's campaign manager. She began her drive to the U.S. Senate by visiting all 62 counties in the state, in a "listening tour" of small-group settings. She devoted considerable time in traditionally Republican Upstate New York regions. Clinton vowed to improve the economic situation in those areas, promising to deliver 200,000 jobs to the state over her term. Her plan included tax credits to reward job creation and encourage business investment, especially in the high-tech sector. She called for personal tax cuts for college tuition and long-term care.
The contest drew national attention. During a September debate, Lazio blundered when he seemed to invade Clinton's personal space by trying to get her to sign a fundraising agreement. Their campaigns, along with Giuliani's initial effort, spent a record combined $90 million. Clinton won the election on November 7, 2000, with 55 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43 percent. She was sworn in as U.S. senator on January 3, 2001, and as George W. Bush was still 17 days away from being inaugurated as president after winning the 2000 presidential election, that meant from January 3–20, she simultaneously held the titles of First Lady and Senator – a first in U.S. history.
First term
Because Bill Clinton's term as president did not end until 17 days after she was sworn in, upon entering the Senate, Clinton became the first and so far only first lady to serve as a senator and first lady concurrently. Clinton maintained a low public profile and built relationships with senators from both parties when she started her term. She forged alliances with religiously inclined senators by becoming a regular participant in the Senate Prayer Breakfast. She sat on five Senate committees: Committee on Budget (2001–02), Committee on Armed Services (2003–09), Committee on Environment and Public Works (2001–09), Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (2001–09) and Special Committee on Aging.
She was also a member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (2001–09).
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Clinton sought to obtain funding for the recovery efforts in New York City and security improvements in her state. Working with New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer, she was instrumental in securing $21 billion in funding for the World Trade Center site's redevelopment. She subsequently took a leading role in investigating the health issues faced by 9/11 first responders. Clinton voted for the USA Patriot Act in October 2001. In 2005, when the act was up for renewal, she expressed concerns with the USA Patriot Act Reauthorization Conference Report regarding civil liberties. In March 2006, she voted in favor of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 that had gained large majority support.
Clinton strongly supported the 2001 U.S. military action in Afghanistan, saying it was a chance to combat terrorism while improving the lives of Afghan women who suffered under the Taliban government. Clinton voted in favor of the October 2002 Iraq War Resolution, which authorized President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq.
After the Iraq War began, Clinton made trips to Iraq and Afghanistan to visit American troops stationed there. On a visit to Iraq in February 2005, Clinton noted that the insurgency had failed to disrupt the democratic elections held earlier and that parts of the country were functioning well. Observing that war deployments were draining regular and reserve forces, she co-introduced legislation to increase the size of the regular U.S. Army by 80,000 soldiers to ease the strain. In late 2005, Clinton said that while immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake, Bush's pledge to stay "until the job is done" was also misguided, as it gave Iraqis "an open-ended invitation not to take care of themselves". Her stance caused frustration among those in the Democratic Party who favored quick withdrawal. Clinton supported retaining and improving health benefits for reservists and lobbied against the closure of several military bases, especially those in New York. She used her position on the Armed Services Committee to forge close relationships with a number of high-ranking military officers. By 2014 and 2015 Clinton had fully reversed herself on the Iraq War Resolution, saying she "got it wrong" and the vote in support had been a "mistake".
Clinton voted against President Bush's two major tax cut packages, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. Simon & Schuster released Living History: The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages. Clinton's audio recording of the book earned her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.
Clinton voted against the 2005 confirmation of John Roberts as chief justice of the United States and the 2006 confirmation of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, filibustering the latter.
In 2005, Clinton called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate how hidden sex scenes showed up in the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Along with senators Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, she introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act, intended to protect children from inappropriate content found in video games. In 2004 and 2006, Clinton voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment that sought to prohibit same-sex marriage.
Looking to establish a "progressive infrastructure" to rival that of American conservatism, Clinton played a formative role in conversations that led to the 2003 founding of former Clinton administration chief of staff John Podesta's Center for American Progress, shared aides with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, founded in 2003 and advised the Clintons' former antagonist David Brock's Media Matters for America, created in 2004. Following the 2004 Senate elections, she successfully pushed new Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid to create a Senate war room to handle daily political messaging.
2006 reelection campaign
In November 2004, Clinton announced she would seek a second Senate term. She easily won the Democratic nomination over opposition from antiwar activist Jonathan Tasini. The early frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, withdrew from the contest after several months of poor campaign performance. Clinton's eventual opponent in the general election was Republican candidate John Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers. Clinton won the election on November 7, 2006, with 67 percent of the vote to Spencer's 31 percent, carrying all but four of New York's sixty-two counties. Her campaign spent $36 million for her reelection, more than any other candidate for Senate in the 2006 elections. Some Democrats criticized her for spending too much in a one-sided contest, while some supporters were concerned she did not leave more funds for a potential presidential bid in 2008. In the following months, she transferred $10 million of her Senate funds toward her presidential campaign.
Second term
Clinton opposed the Iraq War troop surge of 2007, for both military and domestic political reasons (by the following year, she was privately acknowledging the surge had been successful). In March of that year, she voted in favor of a war-spending bill that required President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by a deadline; it passed almost completely along party lines but was subsequently vetoed by Bush. In May, a compromise war funding bill that removed withdrawal deadlines but tied funding to progress benchmarks for the Iraqi government passed the Senate by a vote of 80–14 and would be signed by Bush; Clinton was one of those who voted against it. She responded to General David Petraeus's September 2007 Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq by saying, "I think that the reports that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief."
In March 2007, in response to the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, Clinton called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. Regarding the high-profile, hotly debated immigration reform bill known as the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, Clinton cast several votes in support of the bill, which eventually failed to gain cloture.
As the financial crisis of 2007–08 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008, Clinton supported the proposed bailout of the U.S. financial system, voting in favor of the $700 billion law that created the Troubled Asset Relief Program, saying it represented the interests of the American people. It passed the Senate 74–25.
In 2007, Clinton and Virginia senator Jim Webb called for an investigation into whether the body armor issued to soldiers in Iraq was adequate.
2008 presidential campaign
Clinton had been preparing for a potential candidacy for U.S. president since at least early 2003. On January 20, 2007, she announced via her website the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for the United States presidential election of 2008, stating: "I'm in and I'm in to win." No woman had ever been nominated by a major party for the presidency, and no first lady had ever run for president.
When Bill Clinton became president in 1993, a blind trust was established; in April 2007, the Clintons liquidated the blind trust to avoid the possibility of ethical conflicts or political embarrassments as Hillary undertook her presidential race. Later disclosure statements revealed the couple's worth was now upwards of $50 million. They had earned over $100 million since 2000—most of it coming from Bill's books, speaking engagements and other activities.
Throughout the first half of 2007, Clinton led candidates competing for the Democratic presidential nomination in opinion polls for the election. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina were her strongest competitors. The biggest threat to her campaign was her past support of the Iraq War, which Obama had opposed from the beginning. Clinton and Obama both set records for early fundraising, swapping the money lead each quarter.
At the end of October, Clinton fared poorly in her debate performance against Obama, Edwards, and her other opponents. Obama's message of change began to resonate with the Democratic electorate better than Clinton's message of experience.
In the first vote of 2008, she placed third in the January3 Iowa Democratic caucus behind Obama and Edwards. Obama gained ground in national polling in the next few days, with all polls predicting a victory for him in the New Hampshire primary. Clinton gained a surprise win there on January 8, narrowly defeating Obama. It was the first time a woman had won a major American party's presidential primary for the purposes of delegate selection. Explanations for Clinton's New Hampshire comeback varied but often centered on her being seen more sympathetically, especially by women, after her eyes welled with tears and her voice broke while responding to a voter's question the day before the election.
The nature of the contest fractured in the next few days. Several remarks by Bill Clinton and other surrogates, and a remark by Hillary Clinton concerning Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson, were perceived by many as, accidentally or intentionally, limiting Obama as a racially oriented candidate or otherwise denying the post-racial significance and accomplishments of his campaign. Despite attempts by both Hillary and Obama to downplay the issue, Democratic voting became more polarized as a result, with Clinton losing much of her support among African Americans. She lost by a two-to-one margin to Obama in the January 26, South Carolina primary, setting up, with Edwards soon dropping out, an intense two-person contest for the twenty-two February5 Super Tuesday states. The South Carolina campaign had done lasting damage to Clinton, eroding her support among the Democratic establishment and leading to the prized endorsement of Obama by Ted Kennedy.
On Super Tuesday, Clinton won the largest states, such as California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, while Obama won more states; they almost evenly split the total popular vote. But Obama was gaining more pledged delegates for his share of the popular vote due to better exploitation of the Democratic proportional allocation rules.
The Clinton campaign had counted on winning the nomination by Super Tuesday and was unprepared financially and logistically for a prolonged effort; lagging in Internet fundraising as Clinton began loaning money to her campaign. There was continuous turmoil within the campaign staff, and she made several top-level personnel changes. Obama won the next eleven February contests across the country, often by large margins and took a significant pledged delegate lead over Clinton. On March 4, Clinton broke the string of losses by winning in Ohio among other places, where her criticism of NAFTA, a major legacy of her husband's presidency, helped in a state where the trade agreement was unpopular. Throughout the campaign, Obama dominated caucuses, for which the Clinton campaign largely ignored and failed to prepare. Obama did well in primaries where African Americans or younger, college-educated, or more affluent voters were heavily represented; Clinton did well in primaries where Hispanics or older, non-college-educated, or working-class white voters predominated. Behind in delegates, Clinton's best hope of winning the nomination came in persuading uncommitted, party-appointed superdelegates.
Following the final primaries on June 3, 2008, Obama had gained enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee. In a speech before her supporters on June 7, Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama. By campaign's end, Clinton had won 1,640 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,763; at the time of the clinching, Clinton had 286 superdelegates to Obama's 395, with those numbers widening to 256 versus 438 once Obama was acknowledged the winner. Clinton and Obama each received over 17 million votes during the nomination process with both breaking the previous record. Clinton was the first woman to run in the primary or caucus of every state and she eclipsed, by a very wide margin, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm's 1972 marks for most votes garnered and delegates won by a woman. Clinton gave a passionate speech supporting Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and campaigned frequently for him in fall 2008, which concluded with his victory over McCain in the general election on November 4. After her loss, Clinton and her top advisers carried out a thorough review of internal campaign communications to analyze dysfunctions and mistakes made.
Secretary of State (2009–2013)
Nomination and confirmation
In mid-November 2008, President-elect Obama and Clinton discussed the possibility of her serving as secretary of state in his administration. She was initially quite reluctant, but on November 20 she told Obama she would accept the position. On December 1, President-elect Obama formally announced that Clinton would be his nominee for secretary of state. Clinton said she did not want to leave the Senate, but that the new position represented a "difficult and exciting adventure". As part of the nomination and to relieve concerns of conflict of interest, Bill Clinton agreed to accept several conditions and restrictions regarding his ongoing activities and fundraising efforts for the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.
The appointment required a Saxbe fix, passed and signed into law in December 2008. Confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began on January 13, 2009, a week before the Obama inauguration; two days later, the committee voted 16–1 to approve Clinton. By this time, her public approval rating had reached 65 percent, the highest point since the Lewinsky scandal. On January 21, 2009, Clinton was confirmed in the full Senate by a vote of 94–2. Clinton took the oath of office of secretary of state, resigning from the Senate later that day. She became the first former first lady to be a member of the United States Cabinet.
Tenure
During her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton and President Obama forged a positive working relationship that lacked power struggles. Clinton was regarded to be a team player within the Obama administration. She was also considered a defender of the administration to the public. She was regarded to be cautious to prevent herself or her husband from upstaging the president. Obama and Clinton both approached foreign policy as a largely non-ideological, pragmatic exercise. Clinton met with Obama weekly, but did not have the close, daily relationship that some of her predecessors had had with their presidents. Nevertheless, Obama was trusting of Clinton's actions. Clinton also formed an alliance with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates with whom she shared similar strategic outlooks.
As secretary of state, Clinton sought to lead a rehabilitation of the United States' reputation on the world stage. After taking office, Clinton spent several days telephoning dozens of world leaders and indicating that U.S. foreign policy would change direction. Days into her tenure, she remarked, "We have a lot of damage to repair."
Clinton advocated an expanded role in global economic issues for the State Department, and cited the need for an increased U.S. diplomatic presence, especially in Iraq where the Defense Department had conducted diplomatic missions. Clinton announced the most ambitious of her departmental reforms, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which establishes specific objectives for the State Department's diplomatic missions abroad; it was modeled after a similar process in the Defense Department that she was familiar with from her time on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The first such review was issued in late 2010 and called for the U.S. to lead through "civilian power". and prioritize the empowerment of women throughout the world. One cause that Clinton promoted throughout her tenure was the adoption of cookstoves in the developing world, to foster cleaner and more environmentally sound food preparation and reduce smoke dangers to women.
In a 2009 internal Obama administration debate regarding the War in Afghanistan, Clinton sided with the military's recommendations for a maximal "Afghanistan surge", recommending 40,000 troops and no public deadline for withdrawal. She prevailed over Vice President Joe Biden's opposition but eventually supported Obama's compromise plan to send an additional 30,000 troops and tie the surge to a timetable for eventual withdrawal.
In March 2009, Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a "reset button" symbolizing U.S. attempts to rebuild ties with that country under its new president, Dmitry Medvedev. The policy, which became known as the Russian reset, led to improved cooperation in several areas during Medvedev's presidency Relations between the United States and Russia, however, would decline considerably, after Medvedev's presidency ended in 2012 and Vladimir Putin's returned to the Russian presidency.
In October 2009, on a trip to Switzerland, Clinton's intervention overcame last-minute snafues and managed to secure the final signing of an historic Turkish–Armenian accord that established diplomatic relations and opened the border between the two long-hostile nations. Beginning in 2010, she helped organize a diplomatic isolation and international sanctions regime against Iran, in an effort to force curtailment of that country's nuclear program; this would eventually lead to the multinational Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action being agreed to in 2015.
In a prepared speech in January 2010, Clinton drew analogies between the Iron Curtain and the free and unfree Internet, which marked the first time that a senior American government official had clearly defined the Internet as a key element of American foreign policy.
In July 2010, she visited South Korea, where she and Cheryl Mills successfully worked to convince SAE-A, a large apparel subcontractor, to invest in Haiti despite the company's deep concerns about plans to raise the minimum wage. This tied into the "build back better" program initiated by her husband after he was named the UN Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009 following a tropical storm season that caused $1 billion in damages to Haiti.
The 2011 Egyptian protests posed the most challenging foreign policy crisis yet for the Obama administration. Clinton's public response quickly evolved from an early assessment that the government of Hosni Mubarak was "stable", to a stance that there needed to be an "orderly transition [to] a democratic participatory government", to a condemnation of violence against the protesters. Obama came to rely upon Clinton's advice, organization and personal connections in the behind-the-scenes response to developments. As Arab Spring protests spread throughout the region, Clinton was at the forefront of a U.S. response that she recognized was sometimes contradictory, backing some regimes while supporting protesters against others.
As the Libyan Civil War took place, Clinton's shift in favor of military intervention aligned her with Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and National Security Council figure Samantha Power. This was a key turning point in overcoming internal administration opposition from Defense Secretary Gates, security advisor Thomas E. Donilon and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan in gaining the backing for, and Arab and U.N. approval of, the 2011 military intervention in Libya. Secretary Clinton testified to Congress that the administration did not need congressional authorization for its military intervention in Libya, despite objections from some members of both parties that the administration was violating the War Powers Resolution. The State Department's legal advisor argued the same point when the Resolution's 60-day limit for unauthorized wars was passed (a view that prevailed in a legal debate within the Obama administration). Clinton later used U.S. allies and what she called "convening power" to promote unity among the Libyan rebels as they eventually overthrew the Gaddafi regime. The aftermath of the Libyan Civil War saw the country becoming a failed state. The wisdom of the intervention and interpretation of what happened afterward would become the subject of considerable debate.
During April 2011, internal deliberations of the president's innermost circle of advisors over whether to order U.S. special forces to conduct a raid into Pakistan against Osama bin Laden, Clinton was among those who argued in favor, saying the importance of getting bin Laden outweighed the risks to the U.S. relationship with Pakistan. Following the completion of the mission on May2 resulting in bin Laden's death, Clinton played a key role in the administration's decision not to release photographs of the dead al-Qaeda leader. During internal discussions regarding Iraq in 2011, Clinton argued for keeping a residual force of up to 10,000–20,000 U.S. troops there. (All of them ended up being withdrawn after negotiations for a revised U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement failed.)
In a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council in December 2011, Clinton said that, "Gay rights are human rights", and that the U.S. would advocate for gay rights and legal protections of gay people abroad. The same period saw her overcome internal administration opposition with a direct appeal to Obama and stage the first visit to Burma by a U.S. secretary of state since 1955. She met with Burmese leaders as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and sought to support the 2011 Burmese democratic reforms. She also said the 21st century would be "America's Pacific century", a declaration that was part of the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia".
During the Syrian Civil War, Clinton and the Obama administration initially sought to persuade Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to engage popular demonstrations with reform. As government violence allegedly rose in August 2011, they called for him to resign from the presidency. The administration joined several countries in delivering non-lethal assistance to so-called rebels opposed to the Assad government and humanitarian groups working in Syria. During mid-2012, Clinton formed a plan with CIA Director David Petraeus to further strengthen the opposition by arming and training vetted groups of Syrian rebels. The proposal was rejected by White House officials who were reluctant to become entangled in the conflict, fearing that extremists hidden among the rebels might turn the weapons against other targets.
In December 2012, Clinton was hospitalized for a few days for treatment of a blood clot in her right transverse venous sinus. Her doctors had discovered the clot during a follow-up examination for a concussion she had sustained when she fainted and fell nearly three weeks earlier, as a result of severe dehydration from a viral intestinal ailment acquired during a trip to Europe. The clot, which caused no immediate neurological injury, was treated with anticoagulant medication, and her doctors have said she has made a full recovery.
Overall themes
Throughout her time in office (and mentioned in her final speech concluding it), Clinton viewed "smart power" as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values. In a world of varied threats, weakened central governments and increasingly important nongovernmental entities, smart power combined military hard power with diplomacy and U.S. soft power capacities in global economics, development aid, technology, creativity and human rights advocacy. As such, she became the first secretary of state to methodically implement the smart power approach. In debates over use of military force, she was generally one of the more hawkish voices in the administration. In August 2011 she hailed the ongoing multinational military intervention in Libya and the initial U.S. response towards the Syrian Civil War as examples of smart power in action.
Clinton greatly expanded the State Department's use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to get its message out and to help empower citizens of foreign countries vis-à-vis their governments.
And in the Mideast turmoil, Clinton particularly saw an opportunity to advance one of the central themes of her tenure, the empowerment and welfare of women and girls worldwide. Moreover, in a formulation that became known as the "Hillary Doctrine", she viewed women's rights as critical for U.S. security interests, due to a link between the level of violence against women and gender inequality within a state, and the instability and challenge to international security of that state. In turn, there was a trend of women around the world finding more opportunities, and in some cases feeling safer, as the result of her actions and visibility.
Clinton visited 112 countries during her tenure, making her the most widely traveled secretary of state (Time magazine wrote that "Clinton's endurance is legendary".) The first secretary of state to visit countries like Togo and East Timor, she believed that in-person visits were more important than ever in the virtual age. As early as March 2011, she indicated she was not interested in serving a second term as secretary of state should Obama be re-elected in 2012; in December 2012, following that re-election, Obama nominated Senator John Kerry to be Clinton's successor. Her last day as secretary of state was February 1, 2013. Upon her departure, analysts commented that Clinton's tenure did not bring any signature diplomatic breakthroughs as some other secretaries of state had accomplished, and highlighted her focus on goals she thought were less tangible but would have more lasting effect. She has also been criticized for accepting millions in dollars in donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Benghazi attack and subsequent hearings
On September 11, 2012, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked, resulting in the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The attack, questions surrounding the security of the U.S. consulate, and the varying explanations given afterward by administration officials for what had happened became politically controversial in the U.S. On October 15, Clinton took responsibility for the question of security lapses saying the differing explanations were due to the inevitable fog of war confusion after such events.
On December 19, a panel led by Thomas R. Pickering and Michael Mullen issued its report on the matter. It was sharply critical of State Department officials in Washington for ignoring requests for more guards and safety upgrades and for failing to adapt security procedures to a deteriorating security environment. It focused its criticism on the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; four State Department officials at the assistant secretary level and below were removed from their posts as a consequence. Clinton said she accepted the conclusions of the report and that changes were underway to implement its suggested recommendations.
Clinton gave testimony to two congressional foreign affairs committees on January 23, 2013, regarding the Benghazi attack. She defended her actions in response to the incident, and while still accepting formal responsibility, said she had had no direct role in specific discussions beforehand regarding consulate security. Congressional Republicans challenged her on several points, to which she responded. In particular, after persistent questioning about whether or not the administration had issued inaccurate "talking points" after the attack, Clinton responded with the much-quoted rejoinder, "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they'd they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."
In November 2014, the House Intelligence Committee issued a report that concluded there had been no wrongdoing in the administration's response to the attack.
The Republican-led House Select Committee on Benghazi was created in May 2014 and conducted a two-year investigation related to the 2012 attack. The committee was criticized as partisan, including by one of its ex-staffers. Some Republicans admitted that the committee aimed to lower Clinton's poll numbers. On October 22, 2015, Clinton testified at an all-day and nighttime session before the committee. Clinton was widely seen as emerging largely unscathed from the hearing, because of what the media perceived as a calm and unfazed demeanor and a lengthy, meandering, repetitive line of questioning from the committee. The committee issued competing final reports in June 2016; the Republican report offered no evidence of culpability by Clinton.
Email controversy
During her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton conducted official business exclusively through her private email server, as opposed to her government email account. Some experts, officials, members of Congress and political opponents contended that her use of private messaging system software and a private server violated State Department protocols and procedures, and federal laws and regulations governing recordkeeping requirements. The controversy occurred against the backdrop of Clinton's 2016 presidential election campaign and hearings held by the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
In a joint statement released on July 15, 2015, the inspector general of the State Department and the inspector general of the intelligence community said their review of the emails found information that was classified when sent, remained so at the time of their inspection and "never should have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system". They also stated unequivocally this classified information should never have been stored outside of secure government computer systems. Clinton had said over a period of months that she kept no classified information on the private server that she set up in her house. Government policy, reiterated in the nondisclosure agreement signed by Clinton as part of gaining her security clearance, is that sensitive information can be considered as classified even if not marked as such. After allegations were raised that some of the emails in question fell into the so-called "born classified" category, an FBI probe was initiated regarding how classified information was handled on the Clinton server. The New York Times reported in February 2016 that nearly 2,100 emails stored on Clinton's server were retroactively marked classified by the State Department. Additionally, the intelligence community's inspector general wrote Congress to say that some of the emails "contained classified State Department information when originated". In May 2016, the inspector general of the State Department criticized her use of a private email server while secretary of state, stating that she had not requested permission for this and would not have received it if she had asked.
Clinton maintained she did not send or receive any emails from her personal server that were confidential at the time they were sent. In a Democratic debate with Bernie Sanders on February 4, 2016, Clinton said, "I never sent or received any classified material—they are retroactively classifying it." On July 2, 2016, Clinton stated: "Let me repeat what I have repeated for many months now, I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified."
On July 5, 2016, the FBI concluded its investigation. In a statement, FBI director James Comey said:
110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were "up-classified" to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.
Out of 30,000, three emails were found to be marked as classified, although they lacked classified headers and were marked only with a small "c" in parentheses, described as "portion markings" by Comey. He also said it was possible Clinton was not "technically sophisticated" enough to understand what the three classified markings meant. The probe found Clinton used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, both sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Comey acknowledged that it was "possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account". He added that "[although] we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information". Nevertheless, Comey asserted that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring criminal charges in this case, despite the existence of "potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information". The FBI recommended that the Justice Department decline to prosecute. On July 6, 2016, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch confirmed that the probe into Clinton's use of private email servers would be closed without criminal charges.
Two weeks before the election, on October 28, 2016, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had begun looking into newly discovered Clinton emails. On November 6, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had not changed the conclusion it had reached in July. The notification was later cited by Clinton as a factor in her loss in the 2016 presidential election. The emails controversy received more media coverage than any other topic during the 2016 presidential election.
The State Department finished its internal review in September 2019. It found that Clinton's use of a personal email server increased the risk of information being compromised, but concluded there was no evidence of "systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information".
Clinton Foundation, Hard Choices, and speeches
When Clinton left the State Department, she returned to private life for the first time in thirty years. She and her daughter joined her husband as named members of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation in 2013. There she focused on early childhood development efforts, including an initiative called Too Small to Fail and a $600 million initiative to encourage the enrollment of girls in secondary schools worldwide, led by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
In 2014, Clinton published a second memoir, Hard Choices, which focused on her time as secretary of state. , the book has sold about 280,000 copies.
Clinton also led the No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project, a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to gather and study data on the progress of women and girls around the world since the Beijing conference in 1995; its March 2015 report said that while "There has never been a better time in history to be born a woman ... this data shows just how far we still have to go." The foundation began accepting new donations from foreign governments, which it had stopped doing while she was secretary of state. However, even though the Clinton Foundation had stopped taking donations from foreign governments, they continued to take large donations from foreign citizens who were sometimes linked to their governments.
She began work on another volume of memoirs and made appearances on the paid speaking circuit. There she received $200,000–225,000 per engagement, often appearing before Wall Street firms or at business conventions. She also made some unpaid speeches on behalf of the foundation. For the fifteen months ending in March 2015, Clinton earned over $11 million from her speeches. For the overall period 2007–14, the Clintons earned almost $141 million, paid some $56 million in federal and state taxes and donated about $15 million to charity. , she was estimated to be worth over $30 million on her own, or $45–53 million with her husband.
Clinton resigned from the board of the Clinton Foundation in April 2015, when she began her presidential campaign. The foundation said it would accept new foreign governmental donations from six Western nations only.
2016 presidential campaign
On April 12, 2015, Clinton formally announced her candidacy for the presidency in the 2016 election. She had a campaign-in-waiting already in place, including a large donor network, experienced operatives and the Ready for Hillary and Priorities USA Action political action committees and other infrastructure. Prior to her campaign, Clinton had claimed in an interview on NDTV in May 2012 that she would not seek the presidency again, but later wrote in her 2014 autobiography Hard Choices that she had not decided. The campaign's headquarters were established in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Her campaign focused on: raising middle class incomes, establishing universal preschool, making college more affordable and improving the Affordable Care Act. Initially considered a prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. His longtime stance against the influence of corporations and the wealthy in American politics resonated with a dissatisfied citizenry troubled by the effects of income inequality in the U.S. and contrasted with Clinton's Wall Street ties.
In the initial contest of the primaries season, Clinton only very narrowly won the Iowa Democratic caucuses, held February 1, over an increasingly popular Sanders — the first woman to win them. In the first primary, held in New Hampshire on February 9, she lost to Sanders by a wide margin. Sanders was an increasing threat in the next contest, the Nevada caucuses on February 20, but Clinton managed a five-percentage-point win, aided by final-days campaigning among casino workers. Clinton followed that with a lopsided victory in the South Carolina primary on February 27. These two victories stabilized her campaign and showed an avoidance of the management turmoil that harmed her 2008 effort.
On March 1 Super Tuesday, Clinton won seven of eleven contests, including a string of dominating victories across the South buoyed, as in South Carolina, by African-American voters. She opened up a significant lead in pledged delegates over Sanders. She maintained this delegate lead across subsequent contests during the primary season, with a consistent pattern throughout. Sanders did better among younger, whiter, more rural and more liberal voters and states that held caucuses or where eligibility was open to independents. Clinton did better among older, black and Hispanic voter populations, and in states that held primaries or where eligibility was restricted to registered Democrats.
By June 5, 2016, she had earned enough pledged delegates and supportive superdelegates for the media to consider her the presumptive nominee. On June 7, after winning most of the states in the final major round of primaries, Clinton held a victory rally in Brooklyn becoming the first woman to claim the status of presumptive nominee for a major American political party. By campaign's end, Clinton had won 2,219 pledged delegates to Sanders' 1,832; with an estimated 594 superdelegates compared to Sanders' 47. She received almost 17 million votes during the nominating process, as opposed to Sanders' 13 million.
Clinton was formally nominated at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 26, 2016, becoming the first woman to be nominated for president by a major U.S. political party. Her choice of vice presidential running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, was nominated by the convention the following day. Her opponents in the general election included Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party. Around the time of the convention, WikiLeaks released emails that suggested the DNC and the Clinton campaign tilted the primary in Clinton's favor.
Clinton held a significant lead in national polls over Trump throughout most of 2016. In early July, Trump and Clinton were tied in major polls following the FBI's conclusion of its investigation into her emails. FBI Director James Comey concluded Clinton had been "extremely careless" in her handling of classified government material. In late July, Trump gained his first lead over Clinton in major polls following a three to four percentage point convention bounce at the Republican National Convention. This was in line with the average bounce in conventions since 2004, although it was toward the low side by historical standards. Following Clinton's seven percentage point convention bounce at the Democratic National Convention, she regained a significant lead in national polls at the start of August. In fall 2016, Clinton and Tim Kaine published Stronger Together, which outlined their vision for the United States.
Clinton was defeated by Donald Trump in the November 8, 2016, presidential election. By the early morning hours of November 9, Trump had received 279 projected electoral college votes, with 270 needed to win; media sources proclaimed him the winner. Clinton then phoned Trump to concede and to congratulate him on his victory, whereupon Trump gave his victory speech. The next morning Clinton made a public concession speech in which she acknowledged the pain of her loss, but called on her supporters to accept Trump as their next president, saying: "We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead." Though Clinton lost the election by capturing only 232 electoral votes to Trump's 306, she won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes, or 2.1% of the voter base. She is the fifth presidential candidate in U.S. history to win the popular vote but lose the election. She won the most votes of any candidate who did not take office and the third-most votes of any candidate in history, though she did not have the greatest percentage win of a losing candidate. (Andrew Jackson won the popular vote by 10.4% but lost to John Quincy Adams).
On December 19, 2016, when electors formally voted, Clinton lost five of her initial 232 votes due to faithless electors, with three of her Washington votes being cast instead for Colin Powell, one being cast for Faith Spotted Eagle, and one in Hawaii being cast for Bernie Sanders.
Post-2016 election activities
Clinton attended the inauguration of Donald Trump, writing on her Twitter account, "I'm here today to honor our democracy & its enduring values, I will never stop believing in our country & its future."
Clinton delivered a St. Patrick's Day speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on March 17, 2017. In it, alluding to reports that she had been seen taking walks in the woods around Chappaqua following her loss in the presidential election, Clinton indicated her readiness to emerge from "the woods" and become politically active again. However, the following month she confirmed she would not seek public office again. She reiterated her comments in March 2019 and stated she would not run for president in 2020.
In May 2017, Clinton announced the formation of Onward Together, a new political action committee that she wrote is "dedicated to advancing the progressive vision that earned nearly 66 million votes in the last election". Clinton has also made occasional comments on political issues in the time since losing her presidential campaign, and a "shameful failure of policy & morality by GOP". even authoring several op-eds.
On April 28, 2020, Clinton endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, for president in the 2020 election and she addressed the 2020 Democratic National Convention in August.
Clinton has authored several books since her 2016 defeat. In September 2017, Clinton's third memoir, What Happened, was published The same day, a picture book adaption of her 1996 book It Takes a Village was also published. Marla Frazee was the illustrator. Clinton had worked on it with Frazee during her 2016 presidential election campaign. Clinton and her daughter Chelsea co-authored the 2019 book The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience. Clinton co-wrote her first fiction book with Louise Penny. The book, a political mystery thriller, is titled State of Terror and was released in October 2021.
Clinton has also been involved in a number of media ventures. Clinton collaborated with director Nanette Burstein on the documentary film Hillary, which was released on Hulu in March 2020. On September 29, 2020, Clinton launched an interview podcast in collaboration with iHeartRadio titled You and Me Both. She has also produced television series, so far being a producer on the Apple TV+ series Gutsy and the upcoming The CW adaption of The Woman's Hour.
On January 2, 2020, it was announced that Clinton would take up the position of Chancellor at Queen's University Belfast. Clinton became the 11th and first female chancellor of the university, filling the position that had been vacant since 2018 after the death of her predecessor, Thomas J. Moran.
In January 2023, Columbia University announced that Clinton would join the university as professor of practice at the School of International and Public Affairs and as a presidential fellow at Columbia World Projects.
Political positions
Using her Senate votes, several organizations have attempted to measure Clinton's place on the political spectrum scientifically. National Journals 2004 study of roll-call votes assigned Clinton a rating of 30 on the political spectrum, relative to the Senate at the time, with a rating of1 being most liberal and 100 being most conservative. National Journals subsequent rankings placed her as the 32nd-most liberal senator in 2006 and 16th-most liberal senator in 2007. A 2004 analysis by political scientists Joshua D. Clinton of Princeton University and Simon Jackman and Doug Rivers of Stanford University found her likely to be the sixth-to-eighth-most liberal senator. The Almanac of American Politics, edited by Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen, rated her votes from 2003 through 2006 as liberal on economics, social issues, and foreign policy. According to FiveThirtyEights measure of political ideology, "Clinton was one of the most liberal members during her time in the Senate."
Organizations have also attempted to provide more recent assessments of Clinton after she reentered elective politics in 2015. Based on her stated positions from the 1990s to the present, On the Issues places her in the "Left Liberal" region on their two-dimensional grid of social and economic ideologies, with a social score of 80 on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances, with an economic score of ten on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances. Crowdpac, which does a data aggregation of campaign contributions, votes and speeches, gives her a 6.5L rating on a one-dimensional left-right scale from 10L (most liberal) to 10C (most conservative).
Economics
In March 2016, Clinton laid out a detailed economic plan, which The New York Times called "optimistic" and "wide-ranging". Basing her economic philosophy on inclusive capitalism, Clinton proposed a "clawback" that would rescind tax relief and other benefits for companies that move jobs overseas; providing incentives for companies that share profits with employees, communities and the environment, rather than focusing on short-term profits to increase stock value and rewarding shareholders; increasing collective bargaining rights; and placing an "exit tax" on companies that move their headquarters out of America to pay a lower tax rate overseas.
Domestic policy
Clinton accepts the scientific consensus on climate change and supports cap-and-trade, and opposed the Keystone XL pipeline. She supported "equal pay for equal work", to address current shortfalls in how much women are paid to do the same jobs men do. Clinton has explicitly focused on family issues and supports universal preschool. These programs would be funded by proposing tax increases on the wealthy, including a "fair share surcharge". Clinton supported the Affordable Care Act and would have added a "public option" that competed with private insurers and enabled people "50 or 55 and up" to buy into Medicare.
LGBT rights
Clinton supports the right to same-sex marriage, a position that has developed throughout her political career. In 2000, she was against such marriages altogether. In 2006, she said only that she would support a state's decision to permit same-sex marriages, but opposed federally amending the Constitution to permit same-sex marriage. While running for president in 2007, she again reiterated her opposition to same-sex marriage, although expressed her support of civil unions. 2013 marked the first time that Clinton expressed support for a national right to same-sex marriage. In 2000, she was the first spouse of a U.S. president to march in an LGBT pride parade. In 2016, she was the first major-party presidential candidate ever to write an op-ed for an LGBT newspaper, the Philadelphia Gay News.
Immigration
Clinton held that allowing undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship "s at its heart a family issue", and expressed support for Obama's Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program, which would allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. However, in 2014, Clinton stated that unaccompanied children crossing the border "should be sent back." She opposed and criticized Trump's call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.
Foreign policy
On foreign affairs, Clinton voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq in October 2002, a vote she later "regretted". She favored arming Syria's rebel fighters in 2012 and has called for the removal of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. She supported the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the NATO-led military intervention in Libya to oust former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Clinton is in favor of maintaining American influence in the Middle East. She has told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, "America can't ever be neutral when it comes to Israel's security and survival." Clinton expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2006 Lebanon War and 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In a 2017 interview, after a poison gas attack in Syria, Clinton said that she had favored more aggressive action against Bashar al-Assad: "I think we should have been more willing to confront Assad. I really believe we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them."
Religious views
Clinton has been a lifelong Methodist, and has been part of United Methodist Church congregations throughout her life. She has publicly discussed her Christian faith on several occasions, although seldom while campaigning. Professor Paul Kengor, author of God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life, has suggested that Clinton's political positions are rooted in her faith. She often expresses a maxim often attributed to John Wesley: "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can."
Cultural and political image
Over a hundred books and scholarly works have been written about Clinton. A 2006 survey by the New York Observer found "a virtual cottage industry" of "anti-Clinton literature" put out by Regnery Publishing and other conservative imprints. Some titles include Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House, Hillary's Scheme: Inside the Next Clinton's Ruthless Agenda to Take the White House and Can She Be Stopped?: Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless ... Books praising Clinton did not sell nearly as well (other than her memoirs and those of her husband). When she ran for Senate in 2000, several fundraising groups such as Save Our Senate and the Emergency Committee to Stop Hillary Rodham Clinton sprang up to oppose her. Don Van Natta found that Republican and conservative groups viewed her as a reliable "bogeyman" to mention in fundraising letters, on a par with Ted Kennedy, and the equivalent of Democratic and liberal appeals mentioning Newt Gingrich.
Clinton has also been featured in the media and popular culture in a wide spectrum of perspectives. In 1995, writer Todd S. Purdum of The New York Times characterized Clinton as a Rorschach test, an assessment echoed at the time by feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan, who said, "Coverage of Hillary Clinton is a massive Rorschach test of the evolution of women in our society." She has been the subject of many satirical impressions on Saturday Night Live, beginning with her time as the first lady. She has made guest appearances on the show herself, in 2008 and in 2015, to face-off with her doppelgängers. Jonathan Mann wrote songs about her including "The Hillary Shimmy Song", which went viral.
She has often been described in the popular media as a polarizing figure, though some argue otherwise. In the early stages of her 2008 presidential campaign, a Time magazine cover showed a large picture of her with two checkboxes labeled "Love Her", "Hate Her". Mother Jones titled its profile of her "Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Hillary". Following Clinton's "choked up moment" and related incidents in the run-up to the January 2008 New Hampshire primary, both The New York Times and Newsweek found that discussion of gender's role in the campaign had moved into the national political discourse. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham summed up the relationship between Clinton and the American public by saying the New Hampshire events, "brought an odd truth to light: though Hillary Rodham Clinton has been on the periphery or in the middle of national life for decades ... she is one of the most recognizable but least understood figures in American politics".
Once she became secretary of state, Clinton's image seemed to improve dramatically among the American public and become one of a respected world figure. Her favorability ratings dropped, however, after she left office and began to be viewed in the context of partisan politics once more. By September 2015, with her 2016 presidential campaign underway and beset by continued reports regarding her private email usage at the State Department, her ratings had slumped to some of her lowest levels ever. In March 2016, she acknowledged that: "I'm not a natural politician, in case you haven't noticed."
In September 2022, Clinton discussed the evolution of her trademark pantsuits. She noted that she began wearing them because of "suggestive" photos taken during a trip to Brazil in 1995 that showed her underwear when she was seated that ended up being used in an ad for lingerie company DuLoren. The ad was supposedly meant as a compliment but ended up being pulled once the American embassy complained.
Books and recordings
It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us (1996). Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.
Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998)
An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000)
Living History (Simon & Schuster, 2003). The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages.
Hard Choices (2014). The book has sold about 280,000 copies.
With Tim Kaine, Stronger Together (2016)
What Happened (Simon & Schuster, 2017, in print, e-book, and audio read by the author)
With Chelsea Clinton, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience (Simon & Schuster, 2019, in print, e-book, and audio)
With Louise Penny, State of Terror (Simon & Schuster & St. Martin's Press, 2021).
Ancestry
See also
Electoral history of Hillary Clinton
2016 United States presidential election timeline
Barack Obama Supreme Court candidates
List of female United States Cabinet members
Women in the United States Senate
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre%20of%20Pakistan
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Theatre of Pakistan
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Theatre in Pakistan has been developed and influenced by the traditional and ritual Persian theatre as well as the classical Indian dance practices of the Mughal Empire. As an Islamic state, the production of plays and theatrical performances in the past was not condoned in the country for religious reasons that is why this performing art did not have the opportunity to develop and flourish. The concept of Pakistani theater as a national heritage could only be traced back to modern plays due to the absence of any classical theatrical tradition while folk literature has also been largely obscured except the performances of the Bhand.
Background
With the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate that began in the 10th and 11th centuries, theatre was discouraged or forbidden entirely. Pakistan, like its Middle Eastern neighbors, did not condone the performing arts except the popular performances of comic dialogues that crudely displayed the female body.
Later, however, in an attempt to re-assert indigenous values and ideas, village theatre was encouraged across South Asia, developing in a large number of regional languages from the 15th to the 19th centuries. The history of theatre beginning this period coincided with- and often mirrored the political developments in Pakistan. Theater groups, for instance, performed repertoires that depicted and challenged extremism as well as biased notions of nationalism, religion, and gender.
Urdu theater
The modern theatre in Pakistan, which emerged in 1853, is equated with the Urdu-language theater. It was developed during the period of colonial rule under the British Empire, from the mid-19th century until the mid-20th. The performance of the play Inder Sabha (The Heavenly Court of Indra) written by Agha Hasan Amanat in the court of the last Nawab of Oudh, Wajid Ali Shah in 1855, has been highly regarded as the beginning of Urdu theatre.
There is a controversy with regards to whether Urdu theater was influenced by Western sources or mainly a product of Urdu's literary tradition. There are historians, for instance, who proposed that the style of Inder Sabha had elements that can be traced to the French, a position that Masud Hasan Rizvi rejected. This Indian author claimed that Urdu literature is patterned after ancient Sanskrit plays.
Today, Pakistan has a growing theatre culture, and Urdu theater competes with English plays for dominance in the country's entertainment industry. The major competition with theatre is that represented by growing television industry and the spread of films produced in the Pakistani film industry based in Karachi and Lahore, known as "Lollywood". Lack of finance is another major obstacle.
Inder Sabha
In 1855, the enactment of the play Inder Sabha written by Agha Hasan Amanat in the court of the last Nawab of Oudh, Wajid Ali Shah, marked the beginning of Urdu theatre. The drama dealt with the love story between a fairy and a prince. The Nawab, who was a Kathak dancer and had written theses on stage techniques, composed some of the songs and choreographed the dances for the play. It was a huge success. Its characters (Sabaz Pari (Green Fairy), Kala Deo (Black Devil) and Lal Deo (Red Devil)) live on as a part of the vocabulary of South Asia.
Post independence theatre
Pakistani literature
The distinct voice of Pakistani literature came soon after the Partition of India in 1947. Since there were many cultural similarities, Urdu and English Literature was inherited by this new state. Over due course, a literature which was somewhat uniquely Pakistani has emerged in every province. Initially the plays were all about the Pakistan Movement and the Persecution of Muslims and anti-Muslim pogroms during the independence by the Hindus and Sikhs. This gradually began to change in 1960s and the current trend is specifically Pakistani venturing into many different genres.
Saadat Hasan Manto
Manto is arguably the most influential Urdu writer of the 20th century. He was one of the most controversial as well. His work is comparable with D. H. Lawrence. This comparison is made because like Lawrence he also wrote about the topics considered social taboos of his Society. He addressed topics ranging from the socio-economic injustice prevailing in pre- and post-colonial South Asia; he stirred up quite a fury when he wrote about controversial topics of love, sex, incest, prostitution and the typical hypocrisy of a traditional South Asian male. In dealing with these topics, he wasn't careful to conceal any of the facts and clearly showed the true state of affairs. His short stories were often intricately structured, with vivid satire and a good sense of humor.
Manto was a well known film writer of the Indian cinema and was making good money. He however, chose to abandon his lucrative career and migrated to Pakistan. In the seven years that Manto lived in Lahore he continuously struggled for survival. However, he proved to be a productive individual who gave some of his best writings to the literary world regardless of his domestic situation. It was in Lahore that he wrote many of his best known works.
Manto was primarily known for his short stories of the South Asia, great literature out of the events relating to the Partition of India. The literature, which came out of the period that followed, is considered to have been progressive in its tone and spirit. According to several critics it had not only evolved its own identity, but also had played a significant role in documenting the hardships and hopes of Pakistan in the latter part of the 20th century.
Manto also wrote plays and many of his stories have been successfully adapted for the stage. Some of his characters have become legends in the minds of theatergoers.
Umer Shareef
During the late 1980s Umer Sharif became the most well known stage performer in Pakistan after his extremely popular 1989 comedy stage plays Bakra Qistoon Pay and Buddha Ghar Pe Hai. In both he starred with another comedy legend Moin Akhter. Bakra Qistoon Pay is considered by critics in India & Pakistan to be the show that made stage plays what they are today in Pakistan. Before the advent of Bakra Qistoon Pay majority stage shows in Pakistan used to be classy with rather poetic dialogs. After Bakra Qistoon Pay stage shows became a vibrant, majorly comical (and often gritty) part of the Pakistani culture. Sharif now host a program The Shareef Show Mubarak Ho on Geo TV.
Types of theatre
The general complaint in conservative circles is that commercial theatre is lowbrow and thrives on obscene dialogue and dances. The fact is that at least three departments are tasked with monitoring the activities of commercial theatre. From the Punjab Arts Council, which is responsible for vetting the scripts to District Coordination Officers, who are authorized to monitor the screening of plays, to the Home Department that actually takes action against producers, directors, artistes and theatre owners, the dice is loaded against entertainment at every step."
Karachi is also creating theatre of all forms especial karachi arts council setting examples of quality theatre and required literature for theatre on the other hand Napa ( National academy of performing arts) nurturing talents in all the domains and forms of theatre. both conduct theatre festivals on regular basis that's not provide quality entertainment to citizen but also develop their curiosity to literature and arts. and provide opportunities to the artist in all forms.
Local theatre
Commercial theatre is surviving this accusation and, in some cases, even thriving this shows that people want entertainment and are prepared to watch plays despite the hazards of doing so. Just like any demand and supply situation, since there is a demand there will be a supply.
The arrival of commercial theatre in Lahore was in the early 1980s. The joint efforts of Naheed Khanum, Amanullah, Mastana and Baboo Baral ushered in the art the lively dialogues and innovative style was like a breath of fresh air for the citizens. The initial venue for the staging of these plays was Alhamra but a replacement venue had to be sought once Alhamra closed down for renovations in 1981–1982.
Each and every script has to be cleared by the Punjab Arts Council (PAC).
Lahore has five private (Tamaseel, Mehfil, Naz, Crown and Alfalah) and a government theatre (Alhamra). The moral citizens were scandalized by the low-quality, obscene and vulgar shows called for the closure of commercial theatre have become common in Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan and Sahiwal. Most of the complaints originate from religious conservative populace while mostly male crowd enjoy these performances.
In Lahore, most of the audience come from other cities. The theatres are packed on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. A stage play usually runs for 16 days and earns around two million rupees in that time. Tickets cost from Rs. 200 to Rs. 1,
Training institutions
Punjab Lok Rahs
Punjab Lok Rahs started working as an independent alternative theater group in 1986. The group has seen a number of upheavals both internal and external during its history. On average, the group has held a performance every fortnight since its creation.
It started as a group of young men and women, primarily students, that was concerned with the military oppression of arts and cultural activities in Pakistan. The group cherished a society that has gender equity and democratic values, respects all humans and offers equal economic opportunities to all. Rahs believes in organized and conscious efforts to realize this dream. Theater is its medium.
Rahs' experience in the art of theatre is very deep as well. From staging classical epics to quick response street skits and from working out foreign adaptations to improvising ones with community and from performing at overseas festivals to villages and urban slums, Rahs has touched upon a host of issues. Rahs' canvas is very wide and diverse as it has dealt with subjects like child marriage and women's right to marry of their free will and staged plays against arms race and military dictatorship.
Besides experimentation and experience, Rahs has learned theatre from its gurus like Badal Sarkar. Its members have received training from many institutions in other countries.
The group has imparted theatre training to a number of civil society organizations as well. It has supported scores of other organizations by performing for the communities with which they work.
Rahs draws inspiration from Punjab's indigenous theatre tradition. Its name 'Rahs' is the Punjabi word for local form of theatre and its logo shows the basic props of this theatre. The group aims to marry the tradition with modern techniques and concepts and make it an effective tool in the hands of organizations working for social change.
Rahs performs plays only in the mother language of its audience – the people of Punjab. The group believes that the mother language lies at the heart of the issue of cultural identity.
The group not only performs but also trains other dramatic societies and community organizations to do theatre as an art and use it as an effective tool of communication.
Napa (National academy of performing arts, Karachi)
NAPA is a performing arts school located at Hindu Gymkhana in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. NAPA was established in 2005 as an institution to conserve and teach performing arts and music. Napa are acutely aware that in every society there is only a small creative minority which keeps the flame of its country's culture alive. This creative minority is the most valuable asset of a society. Napa under leadership of Zia Mohyeddin
NAPA empowers its graduates to go forth with zeal to establish and promote a positive regard for higher accomplishment in the Performing Arts. It also provide opportunities to their alumni and students to display their talent through different festivals and in house NRT productions which shows plays on regular basis. It also creates opportunity to citizen of karachi to observe high quality of performing arts, language and literature.
NAPA'S mission is to give Pakistan's rich cultural texture its rightful place not just within the country, but in the world. Napa ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Academy_of_Performing_Arts) offered short and long courses in theatre and music where students from all over the pakistan participates.
The advent of commercial theatre in Pakistan
Theatre in the capital
Theatre in Pakistan has been given a professional and commercial face by private production companies that attempt to infuse theatre as a cultural norm in the country. In this respect, the Capital has been exceptionally successful, through the support of the Government and Private Investors, to give a platform to the youth to showcase their talent. 2006 alone saw around eight lavish theatrical productions, and was touted as the year of comedy, as residents of the Capital were treated to a liberal dose of humor and farce.
Improvisational Theatre
The Acting Wheel
The Acting Wheel, founded in Jan 2011, is Karachi's first drama club of its kind. It's not a theater company, or a school of any kind. It's simply a group of people passionate about acting, who meet every other week in Karachi to spontaneously act out. The "act-ups" or "act-olutions" (like revolutions of The Acting Wheel) consist of giving out scripts to participants and enabling them to spontaneously act out the scripts creatively. Participants also play acting games frequently, including improv and comedy. The blog talks about each act-up http://theactingwheel.blogspot.com
Black Fish
Founded in 2002, Black Fish was the first of its kind improvisational theatre troupe in Pakistan. It had a huge following and was very popular among the youth. The group catered to all age groups.
The troupe used to perform every Sunday but reduced the frequency of their public shows to every fortnight. Even though they did not advertise heavily, the troupe's popularity spread from word of mouth and an occasional radio announcement that helped the shows manage to draw a packed crowd who sometimes had no place to sit, thus, resorting to sitting on the stairs.
Despite being a Karachi-based group, Black Fish managed to take its performances to other Pakistani cities such as Lahore, Islamabad and even Faisalabad.
In 2004 Black Fish was also selected by the British Council to represent Pakistan in an International Youth Theatre Festival Manchester called Contacting The World.
The troupe has worked with Pakistan's leading English Newspaper, Dawn, to put together the first ever Comedy Festival which was held in Karachi in November 2006.
The group has since disbanded and 'Sami Shah', a member of the group is now a standup comedian.
Modern and Cultural Theater
Few names that come up who are still making Theater alive in Pakistan, After Ajoka Theatre and Punjab Lok Rahs, we have individual personalities who are teaching and doing theatre in Pakistan to make us proud.
Omair Rana is an Actor/Director/Producer/Teacher/Trainer.
Osman Khalid Butt is a Writer [poetry, short prose, film], actor [theatre & film], Director, choreographer & vlogger based in Islamabad who drinks too much Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster for his own good. His forever immortalized performances are "Moulin Rouge", "Count of Monte Cristo", "Beauty and the Beast", "The Pillowman" and Many more.
These people also have the privilege Ilaaj-e-Zid Dastiyaab Hai (aka Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew in Urdu) -2012 (directed by Haissam Hussain - Theatre Walley/Kashf Foundation and Hamza Kamal - Actor and choreographer based in lahore (Director of DENGUE the play). The play was selected as Pakistan's entry to the Cultural Olympiad preceding the London Olympics and was performed at the Globe (Also known as Shakespeare Globe), London to rave reviews.
School plays
Each year, the Old Grammarians Society (OGS) gets together and puts up a play at the PACC. These plays are usually in English and the audiences are mostly Grammarians. These plays act as sort of a reunion for all the current students to get together in a single place and feel a sense of unity with their predecessors.
The plays consist of actors who are the alumni of the old school and are to a degree quite seasoned in their vocation. The props and settings of the plays are of a high standard and this explains the cost of the tickets which range from Rs. 500 to Rs. 1000 or more. This explains the kind of audience that is expected.
These plays are popularized through word of mouth.
Foreign theatre companies
At the Lahore World Performing Arts Festival the Euro Theatre Central performed for the fifth time. It had performed a German play dialogues of which were learnt by the troupe in English for the benefit of the local audience. The play entitled "Liebesgeflüster" (Raaz and Nias) from Bonn to Lahore. The sponsor of the festival was Rafi Peer. This attracted a huge amount of attention from the locals. The German ambassador even made the journey from Islamabad for the Pakistani premier.
There were artists from Switzerland, Germany and the Wall Street Theatre group from Cologne/Aachen with its Anglo-Saxon two-man artistic comedy show is perfect proof of the fact that humour. A youth group from Uzbekistan was also present along with many Indian and Pakistani dancers and performers.
Academic Institutes
Beaconhouse National University
National Academy of Performing Arts
References
External links
70 Years of Theatre in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistani culture
Performing arts in Pakistan
Urdu theatre
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Iraq War
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The Iraq War (; ) was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion of Iraq by the United States-led coalition that overthrew the Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the coalition forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government. US troops were officially withdrawn in 2011. The United States became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition, and the insurgency and many dimensions of the armed conflict are ongoing. The invasion occurred as part of the George W. Bush administration's war on terror following the September 11 attacks.
In October 2002, the United States Congress passed a joint resolution which granted Bush the power to use military force against the Iraqi government. The Iraq War officially began on 20 March 2003, when the US, joined by the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, launched a "shock and awe" bombing campaign. Shortly following the bombing campaign, US-led forces launched a ground invasion of Iraq. Iraqi forces were quickly overwhelmed as coalition forces swept through the country. The invasion led to the collapse of the Ba'athist government; Saddam Hussein was captured during Operation Red Dawn in December of that same year and executed three years later. The power vacuum following Saddam's demise, and mismanagement by the Coalition Provisional Authority, led to widespread civil war between Shias and Sunnis, as well as a lengthy insurgency against coalition forces. The United States responded with a build-up of 170,000 troops in 2007. This build-up gave greater control to Iraq's government and military while also giving the United States a greater say in the postwar reconstruction of Iraq. In 2008, President Bush agreed to a withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq. The withdrawal was completed under Barack Obama in December 2011.
The United States based most of its rationale for the invasion on claims that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program and posed a threat to the United States and its allies. Additionally, some US officials accused Saddam of harbouring and supporting al-Qaeda. However, in 2004 the 9/11 Commission concluded there was no evidence of any relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda. No stockpiles of WMDs or active WMD program were ever found in Iraq. Bush administration officials made numerous claims about a purported Saddam–al-Qaeda relationship and WMDs that were based on insufficient evidence rejected by intelligence officials. The rationale for the Iraq War faced heavy criticism both domestically and internationally. Kofi Annan, then the Secretary-General of the United Nations, called the invasion illegal under international law, as it violated the UN Charter. The 2016 Chilcot Report, a British inquiry into the United Kingdom's decision to go to war, concluded that not every peaceful alternative had been examined, that the UK and US had undermined the United Nations Security Council in the process of declaring war, that the process of identification for a legal basis of war was "far from satisfactory", and that, these conclusions taken together, the war was unnecessary. When interrogated by the FBI, Saddam Hussein confirmed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction prior to the US invasion, although the Iraq Survey Group did find that Saddam had the aim of WMD proliferation and maintained the laboratories and scientists necessary for WMD development.
In the aftermath of the invasion, Iraq held multi-party elections in 2005. Nouri al-Maliki became Prime Minister in 2006 and remained in office until 2014. The al-Maliki government enacted policies that alienated the country's previously dominant Sunni minority and worsened sectarian tensions.
The war resulted in 150,000–1,033,000 fatalities in the first three to five years of conflict. In total, the war caused 100,000 or more civilian deaths – about 61% of the total death count – as well as tens of thousands of military deaths (see estimates below). The majority of deaths occurred as a result of the insurgency and civil conflicts between 2004 and 2007. Subsequently, the War in Iraq of 2013 to 2017, which is considered a domino effect of the invasion and occupation, caused at least 155,000 deaths, in addition to the displacement of more than 3.3 million people within the country. Additionally, the war hampered the domestic popularity and public image of Bush. Furthermore, the international reputation of the United States suffered as a result of the Iraq War. The war also affected the politics of the United Kingdom, curbing the popularity of Blair, leading to his resignation in 2007.
Background
Strong international opposition to the Saddam Hussein regime began following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The international community condemned the invasion, and in 1991 a military coalition led by the United States launched the Gulf War to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
Following the Gulf War, the US and its allies tried to keep Saddam Hussein in check with a policy of containment. This policy involved numerous economic sanctions by the UN Security Council; the enforcement of Iraqi no-fly zones declared by the US and the UK to protect the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan and Shias in the south from aerial attacks by the Iraqi government, and ongoing inspections to ensure Iraq's compliance with United Nations resolutions concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The inspections were carried out by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). UNSCOM, in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, worked to ensure that Iraq destroyed its chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and facilities.
In the decade following the Gulf War, the United Nations passed 16 Security Council resolutions calling for the complete elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Member states communicated their frustration over the years that Iraq was impeding the work of the special commission and failing to take seriously its disarmament obligations. Iraqi officials harassed the inspectors and obstructed their work, and in August 1998, the Iraqi government suspended cooperation with the inspectors completely, alleging that the inspectors were spying for the US. The spying allegations were later substantiated.
In October 1998, removing the Iraqi government became official US foreign policy with the enactment of the Iraq Liberation Act. The act provided $97 million for Iraqi "democratic opposition organizations" to "establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq." This legislation contrasted with the terms set out in United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which focused on weapons and weapons programs and made no mention of regime change.
One month after the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, the US and UK launched a bombardment campaign of Iraq called Operation Desert Fox. The campaign's express rationale was to hamper Saddam Hussein's government's ability to produce chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, but US intelligence personnel also hoped it would help weaken Saddam's grip on power.
Following the election of George W. Bush as president in 2000, the US moved towards a more aggressive Iraq policy. The Republican Party's campaign platform in the 2000 election called for "full implementation" of the Iraq Liberation Act as "a starting point" in a plan to "remove" Saddam.
Little formal movement towards an invasion occurred until the September 11 attacks although plans were drafted and meetings were held from the first days of his administration.
Pre-war events
Following 9/11, the Bush administration's national security team actively debated an invasion of Iraq. On the day of the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked his aides for: "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit Saddam Hussein at the same time. Not only Osama bin Laden." President Bush spoke with Rumsfeld on 21 November and instructed him to conduct a confidential review of OPLAN 1003, the war plan for invading Iraq. Rumsfeld met with General Tommy Franks, the commander of US Central Command, on 27 November to go over the plans. A record of the meeting includes the question "How start?", listing multiple possible justifications for a US–Iraq War. The rationale for invading Iraq as a response to 9/11 has been refuted, as there was no cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
President Bush began laying the public groundwork for an invasion of Iraq in January 2002 State of the Union address, calling Iraq a member of the Axis of Evil, and saying "The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." Bush said this and made many other dire allegations about the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction despite the fact that the Bush administration knew that Iraq had no nuclear weapons and had no information about whether Iraq had biological weapons. He began formally making his case to the international community for an invasion of Iraq in his 12 September 2002 address to the UN Security Council. However, a 5 September 2002 report from Major General Glen Shaffer revealed that the Joint Chiefs of Staff's J2 Intelligence Directorate had concluded that the United States' knowledge on different aspects of the Iraqi WMD program ranged from essentially zero to about 75%, and that knowledge was particularly weak on aspects of a possible nuclear weapons program: "Our knowledge of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program is based largely – perhaps 90% – on analysis of imprecise intelligence," they concluded. "Our assessments rely heavily on analytic assumptions and judgment rather than hard evidence. The evidentiary base is particularly sparse for Iraqi nuclear programs." Similarly, the British government found no evidence that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq posed no threat to the West, a conclusion British diplomats shared with the US government.
Key US allies in NATO, such as the United Kingdom, agreed with the US actions, while France and Germany were critical of plans to invade Iraq, arguing instead for continued diplomacy and weapons inspections. After considerable debate, the UN Security Council adopted a compromise resolution, UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which authorized the resumption of weapons inspections and promised "serious consequences" for non-compliance. Security Council members France and Russia made clear that they did not consider these consequences to include the use of force to overthrow the Iraqi government. The US and UK ambassadors to the UN publicly confirmed this reading of the resolution.
Resolution 1441 set up inspections by the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Saddam accepted the resolution on 13 November and inspectors returned to Iraq under the direction of UNMOVIC chairman Hans Blix and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. As of February 2003, the IAEA "found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq"; the IAEA concluded that certain items which could have been used in nuclear enrichment centrifuges, such as aluminum tubes, were in fact intended for other uses. In March 2003, Blix said progress had been made in inspections, and no evidence of WMD had been found.
In October 2002, the US Congress passed the "Iraq Resolution", which authorized the President to "use any means necessary" against Iraq. Americans polled in January 2003 widely favored further diplomacy over an invasion. Later that year, however, Americans began to agree with Bush's plan (see popular opinion in the United States on the invasion of Iraq). The US government engaged in an elaborate domestic public relations campaign to promote the war to its citizens. Americans overwhelmingly believed Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction: 85% said so, even though the inspectors had not uncovered those weapons. By February 2003, 64% of Americans supported taking military action to remove Saddam from power.
On 5 February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the UN to present evidence that Iraq was hiding unconventional weapons. However, despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service and the British Secret Intelligence Service that the source was untrustworthy, Powell's presentation included information based on the claims of Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed "Curveball", an Iraqi emigrant living in Germany who also later admitted that his claims had been false. Powell also presented evidence alleging Iraq had ties to al-Qaeda. As a follow-up to Powell's presentation, the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy, Australia, Denmark, Japan, and Spain proposed a resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, but NATO members like Canada, France, and Germany, together with Russia, strongly urged continued diplomacy. Facing a losing vote as well as a likely veto from France and Russia, the US, the UK, Poland, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Japan, and Australia eventually withdrew their resolution.
In March 2003, the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Australia, Spain, Denmark, and Italy began preparing for the invasion of Iraq with a host of public relations and military moves. In an address to the nation on 17 March 2003, Bush demanded that Saddam and his two sons, Uday and Qusay, surrender and leave Iraq, giving them a 48-hour deadline.
The UK House of Commons held a debate on going to war on 18 March 2003 where the government motion was approved 412 to 149. The vote was a key moment in the history of the Blair government, as the number of government MPs who rebelled against the vote was the greatest since the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. Three government ministers resigned in protest at the war, John Denham, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the then Leader of the House of Commons Robin Cook.
Opposition to invasion
In October 2002, former US President Bill Clinton warned about the possible dangers of pre-emptive military action against Iraq. Speaking in the UK at a Labour Party conference he said: "As a preemptive action today, however well-justified, may come back with unwelcome consequences in the future... I don't care how precise your bombs and your weapons are when you set them off, innocent people will die." Of 209 House Democrats in Congress, 126 voted against the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, although 29 of 50 Democrats in the Senate voted in favor of it. Only one Republican Senator, Lincoln Chafee, voted against it. The Senate's lone Independent, Jim Jeffords, voted against it. Retired US Marine, former Navy Secretary and future US senator Jim Webb wrote shortly before the vote, "Those who are pushing for a unilateral war in Iraq know full well that there is no exit strategy if we invade."
In the same period, Pope John Paul II publicly condemned the military intervention. During a private meeting, he also said directly to George W. Bush: "Mr. President, you know my opinion about the war in Iraq. Let's talk about something else. Every violence, against one or a million, is a blasphemy addressed to the image and likeness of God."
On 20 January 2003, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin declared "we believe that military intervention would be the worst solution". Meanwhile, anti-war groups across the world organized public protests. According to French academic Dominique Reynié, between 3 January and 12 April 2003, people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against the war in Iraq, with demonstrations on 15 February 2003 being the largest. Nelson Mandela voiced his opposition in late January, stating "All that (Mr. Bush) wants is Iraqi oil," and questioning if Bush deliberately undermined the U.N. "because the secretary-general of the United Nations [was] a black man".
In February 2003, the US Army's top general, Eric Shinseki, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it would take "several hundred thousand soldiers" to secure Iraq. Two days later, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the post-war troop commitment would be less than the number of troops required to win the war, and that "the idea that it would take several hundred thousand US forces is far from the mark." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Shinseki's estimate was "way off the mark," because other countries would take part in an occupying force.
Germany's Foreign Secretary Joschka Fischer, although having been in favor of stationing German troops in Afghanistan, advised Federal Chancellor Schröder not to join the war in Iraq. Fischer famously confronted United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the 39th Munich Security Conference in 2003 on the secretary's purported evidence for Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction: "Excuse me, I am not convinced!" Fischer also cautioned the United States about biting off more than it could chew by assuming that democracy would easily take root post-invasion; "You're going to have to occupy Iraq for years and years, the idea that democracy will suddenly blossom is something that I can't share. … Are Americans ready for this?"
There were serious legal questions surrounding the launching of the war against Iraq and the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war in general. On 16 September 2004, Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, said of the invasion "...was not in conformity with the UN Charter. From our point of view, from the Charter point of view, it was illegal."
In November 2008 Lord Bingham, the former British Law Lord, described the war as a serious violation of international law, and accused Britain and the United States of acting like a "world vigilante". He also criticized the post-invasion record of Britain as "an occupying power in Iraq". Regarding the treatment of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib, Bingham said: "Particularly disturbing to proponents of the rule of law is the cynical lack of concern for international legality among some top officials in the Bush administration." In July 2010, Deputy Prime Minister of the UK Nick Clegg, during PMQs session in Parliament, condemned the invasion of Iraq as "illegal" – though he later clarified that this was a personal opinion, not an official one.
Course of the war
2003: Invasion
The first Central Intelligence Agency team entered Iraq on 10 July 2002. This team was composed of members of the CIA's Special Activities Division and was later joined by members of the US military's elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Together, they prepared for an invasion by conventional forces. These efforts consisted of persuading the commanders of several Iraqi military divisions to surrender rather than oppose the invasion, and identifying all the initial leadership targets during very high risk reconnaissance missions.
Most importantly, their efforts organized the Kurdish Peshmerga to become the northern front of the invasion. Together this force defeated Ansar al-Islam in Iraqi Kurdistan before the invasion and then defeated the Iraqi army in the north. The battle against Ansar al-Islam, known as Operation Viking Hammer, led to the death of a substantial number of militants and the uncovering of a chemical weapons facility at Sargat.
At 5:34 am Baghdad time on 20 March 2003 (9:34 pm, 19 March EST) the surprise military invasion of Iraq began. There was no declaration of war. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was led by US Army General Tommy Franks, under the code-name Operation Iraqi Freedom, the UK code-name Operation Telic, and the Australian code-name Operation Falconer. Coalition forces also cooperated with Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the north. Approximately forty other governments, the "Coalition of the Willing", participated by providing troops, equipment, services, security, and special forces, with 248,000 soldiers from the United States, 45,000 British soldiers, 2,000 Australian soldiers and 194 Polish soldiers from Special Forces unit GROM sent to Kuwait for the invasion. The invasion force was also supported by Iraqi Kurdish militia troops, estimated to number upwards of 70,000.
According to General Franks, there were eight objectives of the invasion:
The invasion was a quick and decisive operation encountering major resistance, though not what the US, British and other forces expected. The Iraqi regime had prepared to fight both a conventional and irregular, asymmetric warfare at the same time, conceding territory when faced with superior conventional forces, largely armored, but launching smaller-scale attacks in the rear using fighters dressed in civilian and paramilitary clothes.
Coalition troops launched air and amphibious assaults on the al-Faw Peninsula to secure the oil fields there and the important ports, supported by warships of the Royal Navy, Polish Navy, and Royal Australian Navy. The United States Marine Corps' 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, attached to 3 Commando Brigade and the Polish Special Forces unit GROM, attacked the port of Umm Qasr, while the British Army's 16 Air Assault Brigade secured the oil fields in southern Iraq.
The heavy armor of the US 3rd Infantry Division moved westward and then northward through the western desert toward Baghdad, while the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force moved more easterly along Highway 1 through the center of the country, and 1 (UK) Armoured Division moved northward through the eastern marshland. The American 1st Marine Division fought through Nasiriyah in a battle to seize the major road junction. The United States Army 3rd Infantry Division defeated Iraqi forces entrenched in and around Talil Airfield.
With the Nasiriyah and Talil Airfields secured in its rear, the 3rd Infantry Division supported by the 101st Airborne Division continued its attack north toward Najaf and Karbala, but a severe sand storm slowed the coalition advance and there was a halt to consolidate and make sure the supply lines were secure. When they started again they secured the Karbala Gap, a key approach to Baghdad, then secured the bridges over the Euphrates River, and US Army forces poured through the gap on to Baghdad. In the middle of Iraq, the 1st Marine Division fought its way to the eastern side of Baghdad and prepared for the attack to seize the city.
On 9 April, Baghdad fell, ending Saddam's 24‑year rule. US forces seized the deserted Ba'ath Party ministries and, according to some reports later disputed by the Marines on the ground, stage-managed the tearing down of a huge iron statue of Saddam, photos and video of which became symbolic of the event, although later controversial. Allegedly, though not seen in the photos or heard on the videos, shot with a zoom lens, was the chant of the inflamed crowd for Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric. The abrupt fall of Baghdad was accompanied by a widespread outpouring of gratitude toward the invaders, but also massive civil disorder, including the looting of public and government buildings and drastically increased crime.
According to the Pentagon, (of total) of ordnance was looted, providing a significant source of ammunition for the Iraqi insurgency. The invasion phase concluded when Tikrit, Saddam's home town, fell with little resistance to the US Marines of Task Force Tripoli on 15 April.
In the invasion phase of the war (19 March – 30 April), an estimated 9,200 Iraqi combatants were killed by coalition forces along with an estimated 3,750 non-combatants, i.e. civilians who did not take up arms. Coalition forces reported the death in combat of 139 US military personnel and 33 UK military personnel.
Post-invasion phase
2003: Beginnings of insurgency
On 1 May 2003, President Bush visited the aircraft carrier operating a few miles west of San Diego, California. At sunset, he held his nationally televised "Mission Accomplished" speech, delivered before the sailors and airmen on the flight deck. Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq, due to the defeat of Iraq's conventional forces, while maintaining that much still needed to be done.
Nevertheless, Saddam Hussein remained at large, and significant pockets of resistance remained. After Bush's speech, coalition forces noticed a flurry of attacks on its troops began to gradually increase in various regions, such as the "Sunni Triangle". The initial Iraqi insurgents were supplied by hundreds of weapons caches created before the invasion by the Iraqi army and Republican Guard.
Initially, Iraqi resistance (described by the coalition as "Anti-Iraqi Forces") largely stemmed from fedayeen and Saddam/Ba'ath Party loyalists, but soon religious radicals and Iraqis angered by the occupation contributed to the insurgency. The three governorates with the highest number of attacks were Baghdad, Al Anbar, and Saladin. Those three governorates account for 35% of the population, but by December 2006 they were responsible for 73% of US military deaths and an even higher percentage of recent US military deaths (about 80%).
Insurgents used various guerrilla tactics, including mortars, missiles, suicide attacks, snipers, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), car bombs, small arms fire (usually with assault rifles), and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), as well as sabotage against the petroleum, water, and electrical infrastructures.
Coalition efforts to establish post-invasion Iraq commenced after the fall of Saddam's regime. The coalition nations, together with the United Nations, began to work to establish a stable, compliant democratic state capable of defending itself from non-coalition forces, as well as overcoming internal divisions.
Meanwhile, coalition military forces launched several operations around the Tigris River peninsula and in the Sunni Triangle. A series of similar operations were launched throughout the summer in the Sunni Triangle. In late 2003, the intensity and pace of insurgent attacks began to increase. A sharp surge in guerrilla attacks ushered in an insurgent effort that was termed the "Ramadan Offensive", as it coincided with the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
To counter this offensive, coalition forces began to use air power and artillery again for the first time since the end of the invasion, by striking suspected ambush sites and mortar launching positions. Surveillance of major routes, patrols, and raids on suspected insurgents was stepped up. In addition, two villages, including Saddam's birthplace of al-Auja and the small town of Abu Hishma, were surrounded by barbed wire and carefully monitored.
Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraq Survey Group
Shortly after the invasion, the multinational coalition created the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA; ), based in the Green Zone, as a transitional government of Iraq until the establishment of a democratic government. Citing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483 (22 May 2003) and the laws of war, the CPA vested itself with executive, legislative, and judicial authority over the Iraqi government from the period of the CPA's inception on 21 April 2003 until its dissolution on 28 June 2004.
The CPA was originally headed by Jay Garner, a former US military officer, but his appointment lasted only until 11 May 2003, when President Bush appointed L. Paul Bremer. On 16 May 2003, his first day on the job, Paul Bremer issued Coalition Provisional Authority Order 1 to exclude from the new Iraqi government and administration members of the Baathist party. This policy, known as De-Ba'athification, eventually led to the removal of 85,000 to 100,000 Iraqi people from their jobs, including 40,000 school teachers who had joined the Baath Party simply to stay employed. US army general Ricardo Sanchez called the decision a "catastrophic failure". Bremer served until the CPA's dissolution in June 2004.
In May 2003, the US Advisor to Iraq Ministry of Defense within the CPA, Walter B. Slocombe, advocated changing the pre-war Bush policy to employ the former Iraq Army after hostilities on the ground ceased. At the time, hundreds of thousands of former Iraq soldiers who had not been paid for months were waiting for the CPA to hire them back to work to help secure and rebuild Iraq. Despite advice from US Military Staff working within the CPA, Bremer met with President Bush, via video conference, and asked for authority to change the US policy. Bush gave Bremer and Slocombe authority to change the pre-war policy. Slocombe announced the policy change in the Spring of 2003. The decision led to the alienation of hundreds of thousands of former armed Iraq soldiers, who subsequently aligned themselves with various occupation resistance movements all over Iraq. In the week before the order to dissolve the Iraq Army, no coalition forces were killed by hostile action in Iraq; the week after, five US soldiers were killed. Then, on 18 June 2003, coalition forces opened fire on former Iraq soldiers protesting in Baghdad who were throwing rocks at coalition forces. The policy to disband the Iraq Army was reversed by the CPA only days after it was implemented. But it was too late; the former Iraq Army shifted their alliance from one that was ready and willing to work with the CPA to one of armed resistance against the CPA and the coalition forces.
Another group created by the multinational force in Iraq post-invasion was the 1,400-member international Iraq Survey Group, who conducted a fact-finding mission to find Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. In 2004, the ISG's Duelfer Report stated that Iraq did not have a viable WMD program.
Capturing former government leaders
In the summer of 2003, the multinational forces focused on capturing the remaining leaders of the former government. On 22 July, a raid by the US 101st Airborne Division and soldiers from Task Force 20 killed Saddam's sons (Uday and Qusay) along with one of his grandsons. In all, over 300 top leaders of the former government were killed or captured, as well as numerous lesser functionaries and military personnel.
Most significantly, Saddam Hussein himself was captured on 13 December 2003, on a farm near Tikrit in Operation Red Dawn. The operation was conducted by the United States Army's 4th Infantry Division and members of Task Force 121. Intelligence on Saddam's whereabouts came from his family members and former bodyguards.
With the capture of Saddam and a drop in the number of insurgent attacks, some concluded that multinational forces were prevailing in the fight against the insurgency. The provisional government began training the new Iraqi security forces intended to police the country, and the United States promised over in reconstruction money in the form of a credit against Iraq's future oil revenues. Oil revenue was also used for rebuilding schools and for work on the electrical and refining infrastructure.
Shortly after the capture of Saddam, elements left out of the Coalition Provisional Authority began to agitate for elections and the formation of an Iraqi Interim Government. Most prominent among these was the Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The Coalition Provisional Authority opposed allowing democratic elections at this time. The insurgents stepped up their activities. The two most turbulent centers were the area around Fallujah and the poor Shia sections of cities from Baghdad (Sadr City) to Basra in the south.
Looting of artifacts from Iraqi museums
Following the United States' invasion of Iraq in 2003, large numbers of antiquities including the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet were stolen, both from museums, such as the Iraq National Museum, but also because of illegal excavations at archeological sites throughout the country. Many of them were smuggled into the United States through the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel, contrary to federal law. Donald Rumsfeld rejected the claim that they were removed by US military personnel. In the 2020s, about 17,000 artifacts were returned to Iraq from the U.S. and Middle Eastern countries. But according to an Iraqi archeology professor at the University of Baghdad, the repatriation of these items was only a partial success; the Baghdad office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) continues to search for the loot worldwide. Many Iraqis blame the United States for the loss of so many pieces of their country's history.
2004: Insurgency expands
The start of 2004 was marked by a relative lull in violence. Insurgent forces reorganised during this time, studying the multinational forces' tactics and planning a renewed offensive. However, violence did increase during the Iraq Spring Fighting of 2004 with foreign fighters from around the Middle East as well as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, an al-Qaeda-linked group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, helping to drive the insurgency.
As the insurgency grew there was a distinct change in targeting from the coalition forces towards the new Iraqi Security Forces, as hundreds of Iraqi civilians and police were killed over the next few months in a series of massive bombings. An organized Sunni insurgency, with deep roots and both nationalist and Islamist motivations, was becoming more powerful throughout Iraq. The Shia Mahdi Army also began launching attacks on coalition targets in an attempt to seize control from Iraqi security forces. The southern and central portions of Iraq were beginning to erupt in urban guerrilla combat as multinational forces attempted to keep control and prepared for a counteroffensive.
The most serious fighting of the war so far began on 31 March 2004, when Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah ambushed a Blackwater USA convoy led by four US private military contractors who were providing security for food caterers Eurest Support Services. The four armed contractors, Scott Helvenston, Jerko Zovko, Wesley Batalona, and Michael Teague, were killed with grenades and small arms fire. Subsequently, their bodies were dragged from their vehicles by local people, beaten, set ablaze, and their burned corpses hung over a bridge crossing the Euphrates. Photos of the event were released to news agencies worldwide, causing a great deal of indignation and moral outrage in the United States, and prompting an unsuccessful "pacification" of the city: the First Battle of Fallujah in April 2004.
The offensive was resumed in November 2004 in the bloodiest battle of the war: the Second Battle of Fallujah, described by the US military as "the heaviest urban combat (that they had been involved in) since the Battle of Hue City in Vietnam." During the assault, US forces used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against insurgent personnel, attracting controversy. The 46‑day battle resulted in a victory for the coalition, with 95 US soldiers killed along with approximately 1,350 insurgents. Fallujah was totally devastated during the fighting, though civilian casualties were low, as they had mostly fled before the battle.
Another major event of that year was the revelation of widespread prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, which received international media attention in April 2004. First reports of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, as well as graphic pictures showing US military personnel taunting and abusing Iraqi prisoners, came to public attention from a 60 Minutes II news report (28 April) and a Seymour M. Hersh article in The New Yorker (posted online on 30 April). Military correspondent Thomas Ricks claimed that these revelations dealt a blow to the moral justifications for the occupation in the eyes of many people, especially Iraqis, and was a turning point in the war.
2004 also marked the beginning of Military Transition Teams in Iraq, which were teams of US military advisors assigned directly to New Iraqi Army units.
2005: Elections and transitional government
On 31 January, Iraqis elected the Iraqi Transitional Government in order to draft a permanent constitution. Although some violence and a widespread Sunni boycott marred the event, most of the eligible Kurd and Shia populace participated. On 4 February, Paul Wolfowitz announced that 15,000 US troops whose tours of duty had been extended in order to provide election security would be pulled out of Iraq by the next month. February to April proved to be relatively peaceful months compared to the carnage of November and January, with insurgent attacks averaging 30 a day from the prior average of 70.
The Battle of Abu Ghraib on 2 April 2005 was an attack on United States forces at Abu Ghraib prison, which consisted of heavy mortar and rocket fire, under which an estimated 80–120 armed insurgents attacked with grenades, small arms, and two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). The US force's munitions ran so low that orders to fix bayonets were given in preparation for hand-to-hand fighting. It was considered to be the largest coordinated assault on a US base since the Vietnam War.
Hopes for a quick end to the insurgency and a withdrawal of US troops were dashed in May, Iraq's bloodiest month since the invasion. Suicide bombers, believed to be mainly disheartened Iraqi Sunni Arabs, Syrians and Saudis, tore through Iraq. Their targets were often Shia gatherings or civilian concentrations of Shias. As a result, over 700 Iraqi civilians died in that month, as well as 79 US soldiers.
The summer of 2005 saw fighting around Baghdad and at Tall Afar in northwestern Iraq as US forces tried to seal off the Syrian border. This led to fighting in the autumn in the small towns of the Euphrates valley between the capital and that border.
A referendum was held on 15 October in which the new Iraqi constitution was ratified. An Iraqi National Assembly was elected in December, with participation from the Sunnis as well as the Kurds and Shia.
Insurgent attacks increased in 2005 with 34,131 recorded incidents, compared to a total 26,496 for the previous year.
2006: Civil war and permanent Iraqi government
The beginning of 2006 was marked by government creation talks, growing sectarian violence, and continuous anti-coalition attacks. Sectarian violence expanded to a new level of intensity following the al-Askari Mosque bombing in the Iraqi city of Samarra, on 22 February 2006. The explosion at the mosque, one of the holiest sites in Shi'a Islam, is believed to have been caused by a bomb planted by al-Qaeda.
Although no injuries occurred in the blast, the mosque was severely damaged and the bombing resulted in violence over the following days. Over 100 dead bodies with bullet holes were found on 23 February, and at least 165 people are thought to have been killed. In the aftermath of this attack, the US military calculated that the average homicide rate in Baghdad tripled from 11 to 33 deaths per day. In 2006 the UN described the environment in Iraq as a "civil war-like situation".
On 12 March, five United States Army soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment raped the 14-year-old Iraqi girl Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, and then murdered her, her father, her mother Fakhriya Taha Muhasen, and her six-year-old sister Hadeel Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. The soldiers then set fire to the girl's body to conceal evidence of the crime. Four of the soldiers were convicted of rape and murder and the fifth was convicted of lesser crimes for their involvement in the events, which became known as the Mahmudiyah rape and killings.
On 6 June 2006, the United States was successful in tracking Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in a targeted killing, while attending a meeting in an isolated safehouse approximately north of Baqubah. Having been tracked by a British UAV, radio contact was made between the controller and two United States Air Force F-16C jets, which identified the house and at 14:15 GMT, the lead jet dropped two 500‑pound (230 kg) guided bombs, a laser-guided GBU‑12 and GPS-guided GBU‑38 on the building where he was located. Six othersthree male and three female individualswere also reported killed. Among those killed were one of his wives and their child.
The government of Iraq took office on 20 May 2006, following approval by the members of the Iraqi National Assembly. This followed the general election in December 2005. The government succeeded the Iraqi Transitional Government, which had continued in office in a caretaker capacity until the formation of the permanent government.
Iraq Study Group report and Saddam's execution
The Iraq Study Group Report was released on 6 December 2006. The Iraq Study Group made up of people from both of the major US parties, was led by co-chairs James Baker, a former Secretary of State (Republican), and Lee H. Hamilton, a former US Representative (Democrat). It concluded that "the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating" and "US forces seem to be caught in a mission that has no foreseeable end." The report's 79 recommendations include increasing diplomatic measures with Iran and Syria and intensifying efforts to train Iraqi troops. On 18 December, a Pentagon report found that insurgent attacks were averaging about 960 attacks per week, the highest since the reports had begun in 2005.
Coalition forces formally transferred control of a governorate to the Iraqi government, the first since the war. Military prosecutors charged eight US Marines with the murders of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in November 2005, 10 of them women and children. Four officers were also charged with dereliction of duty in relation to the event.
Saddam Hussein was hanged on 30 December 2006, after being found guilty of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi court after a year-long trial.
2007: US troops surge
On 10 January 2007, in a televised address to the US public, Bush proposed 21,500 more troops for Iraq, a job program for Iraqis, more reconstruction proposals, and $1.2 billion for these programs. On 23 January 2007, in the 2007 State of the Union Address, Bush announced he was "deploying reinforcements of more than 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Iraq".
On 10 February 2007, David Petraeus was made commander of Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF-I), the four-star post that oversees all coalition forces in the country, replacing General George Casey. In his new position, Petraeus oversaw all coalition forces in Iraq and employed them in the new "Surge" strategy outlined by the Bush administration.
On 10 May 2007, 144 Iraqi Parliamentary lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal. On 3 June 2007, the Iraqi Parliament voted 85 to 59 to require the Iraqi government to consult with Parliament before requesting additional extensions of the UN Security Council Mandate for Coalition operations in Iraq.
Pressures on US troops were compounded by the continuing withdrawal of coalition forces. In early 2007, British Prime Minister Blair announced that following Operation Sinbad, British troops would begin to withdraw from Basra Governorate, handing security over to the Iraqis. In July Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen also announced the withdrawal of 441 Danish troops from Iraq, leaving only a unit of nine soldiers manning four observational helicopters. In October 2019, the new Danish government said it would not re-open an official probe into the country's participation in the US-led military coalition in 2003 Iraqi war.
Planned troop reduction
In a speech made to Congress on 10 September 2007, Petraeus "envisioned the withdrawal of roughly 30,000 US troops by next summer, beginning with a Marine contingent [in September]." On 13 September, Bush backed a limited withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Bush said 5,700 personnel would be home by Christmas 2007, and expected thousands more to return by July 2008. The plan would take troop numbers back to their level before the surge at the beginning of 2007.
Effects of the surge on security
By March 2008, violence in Iraq was reportedly curtailed by 40–80%, according to a Pentagon report. Independent reports raised questions about those assessments. An Iraqi military spokesman claimed that civilian deaths since the start of the troop surge plan were 265 in Baghdad, down from 1,440 in the four previous weeks. The New York Times counted more than 450 Iraqi civilians killed during the same 28‑day period, based on initial daily reports from Iraqi Interior Ministry and hospital officials.
Historically, the daily counts tallied by The New York Times underestimated the total death toll by 50% or more when compared to studies by the United Nations, which rely upon figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry and morgue figures.
The rate of US combat deaths in Baghdad nearly doubled to 3.14 per day in the first seven weeks of the "surge" in security activity, compared to the previous period. Across the rest of Iraq, it decreased slightly.
On 14 August 2007, the deadliest single attack of the whole war occurred. Nearly 800 civilians were killed by a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks on the northern Iraqi settlement of Kahtaniya. More than 100 homes and shops were destroyed in the blasts. US officials blamed al‑Qaeda. The targeted villagers belonged to the non-Muslim Yazidi ethnic minority. The attack may have represented the latest in a feud that erupted earlier that year when members of the Yazidi community stoned to death a teenage girl called Du'a Khalil Aswad accused of dating a Sunni Arab man and converting to Islam. The killing of the girl was recorded on camera-mobiles and the video was uploaded onto the internet.
On 13 September 2007, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was killed in a bomb attack in the city of Ramadi. He was an important US ally because he led the "Anbar Awakening", an alliance of Sunni Arab tribes that opposed al-Qaeda. The latter organization claimed responsibility for the attack. A statement posted on the Internet by the shadowy Islamic State of Iraq called Abu Risha "one of the dogs of Bush" and described Thursday's killing as a "heroic operation that took over a month to prepare".
There was a reported trend of decreasing US troop deaths after May 2007, and violence against coalition troops had fallen to the "lowest levels since the first year of the American invasion". These, and several other positive developments, were attributed to the surge by many analysts.
Data from the Pentagon and other US agencies such as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that daily attacks against civilians in Iraq remained "about the same" since February. The GAO also stated that there was no discernible trend in sectarian violence. However, this report ran counter to reports to Congress, which showed a general downward trend in civilian deaths and ethno-sectarian violence since December 2006. By late 2007, as the US troop surge began to wind down, violence in Iraq had begun to decrease from its 2006 highs.
Entire neighborhoods in Baghdad were ethnically cleansed by Shia and Sunni militias and sectarian violence broke out in every Iraqi city where there was a mixed population. Investigative reporter Bob Woodward cited US government sources according to which the US "surge" was not the primary reason for the drop in violence in 2007–08. Instead, according to that view, the reduction of violence was due to newer covert techniques by US military and intelligence officials to find, target, and kill insurgents, including working closely with former insurgents.
In the Shia region near Basra, British forces turned over security for the region to Iraqi Security Forces. Basra was the ninth governorate of Iraq's 18 governorates to be returned to local security forces' control since the beginning of the occupation.
Political developments
More than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country for the first time. 144 of the 275 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition that would require the Iraqi government to seek approval from Parliament before it requests an extension of the UN mandate for foreign forces to be in Iraq, which expires at the end of 2008. It also calls for a timetable for troop withdrawal and a freeze on the size of foreign forces. The UN Security Council mandate for US‑led forces in Iraq will terminate "if requested by the government of Iraq." 59% of those polled in the US support a timetable for withdrawal.
In mid-2007, the Coalition began a controversial program to recruit Iraqi Sunnis (often former insurgents) for the formation of "Guardian" militias. These Guardian militias are intended to support and secure various Sunni neighborhoods against the Islamists.
Tensions with Iran
In 2007, tensions increased greatly between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan due to the latter's giving sanctuary to the militant Kurdish secessionist group Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK). According to reports, Iran had been shelling PEJAK positions in Iraqi Kurdistan since 16 August. These tensions further increased with an alleged border incursion on 23 August by Iranian troops who attacked several Kurdish villages killing an unknown number of civilians and militants.
Coalition forces also began to target alleged Iranian Quds force operatives in Iraq, either arresting or killing suspected members. The Bush administration and coalition leaders began to publicly state that Iran was supplying weapons, particularly EFP devices, to Iraqi insurgents and militias although to date have failed to provide any proof for these allegations. Further sanctions on Iranian organizations were also announced by the Bush administration in the autumn of 2007. On 21 November 2007, Lieutenant General James Dubik, who is in charge of training Iraqi security forces, praised Iran for its "contribution to the reduction of violence" in Iraq by upholding its pledge to stop the flow of weapons, explosives, and training of extremists in Iraq.
Tensions with Turkey
Border incursions by PKK militants based in Northern Iraq have continued to harass Turkish forces, with casualties on both sides. In the fall of 2007, the Turkish military stated their right to cross the Iraqi Kurdistan border in "hot pursuit" of PKK militants and began shelling Kurdish areas in Iraq and attacking PKK bases in the Mount Cudi region with aircraft.
The Turkish parliament approved a resolution permitting the military to pursue the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan. In November, Turkish gunships attacked parts of northern Iraq in the first such attack by Turkish aircraft since the border tensions escalated. Another series of attacks in mid-December hit PKK targets in the Qandil, Zap, Avashin and Hakurk regions. The latest series of attacks involved at least 50 aircraft and artillery and Kurdish officials reported one civilian killed and two wounded.
Additionally, weapons that were given to Iraqi security forces by the US military were being recovered by authorities in Turkey after being used by PKK in that state.
Blackwater private security controversy
On 17 September 2007, the Iraqi government announced that it was revoking the license of the US security firm Blackwater USA over the firm's involvement in the killing of eight civilians, including a woman and an infant, in a firefight that followed a car bomb explosion near a State Department motorcade.
2008: Civil war continues
Throughout 2008, US officials and independent think tanks began to point to improvements in the security situation, as measured by key statistics. According to the US Defense Department, in December 2008 the "overall level of violence" in the country had dropped 80% since before the surge began in January 2007, and the country's murder rate had dropped to prewar levels. They also pointed out that the casualty figure for US forces in 2008 was 314 against a figure of 904 in 2007.
According to the Brookings Institution, Iraqi civilian fatalities numbered 490 in November 2008 as against 3,500 in January 2007, whereas attacks against the coalition numbered somewhere between 200 and 300 per week in the latter half of 2008, as opposed to a peak of nearly 1,600 in summer 2007. The number of Iraqi security forces killed was under 100 per month in the second half of 2008, from a high of 200 to 300 in the summer of 2007.
Meanwhile, the proficiency of the Iraqi military increased as it launched a spring offensive against Shia militias, which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had previously been criticized for allowing to operate. This began with a March operation against the Mahdi Army in Basra, which led to fighting in Shia areas up and down the country, especially in the Sadr City district of Baghdad. By October, the British officer in charge of Basra said that since the operation, the town had become "secure" and had a murder rate comparable to Manchester in England. The US military also said there had been a decrease of about a quarter in the quantity of Iranian-made explosives found in Iraq in 2008, possibly indicating a change in Iranian policy.
Progress in Sunni areas continued after members of the Awakening movement were transferred from US military to Iraqi control. In May, the Iraqi army – backed by coalition support – launched an offensive in Mosul, the last major Iraqi stronghold of al-Qaeda. Despite detaining thousands of individuals, the offensive failed to lead to major long-term security improvements in Mosul. At the end of the year, the city remained a major flashpoint.
In the regional dimension, the ongoing conflict between Turkey and PKK intensified on 21 February, when Turkey launched a ground attack into the Quandeel Mountains of Northern Iraq. In the nine-day-long operation, around 10,000 Turkish troops advanced up to 25 km into Northern Iraq. This was the first substantial ground incursion by Turkish forces since 1995.
Shortly after the incursion began, both the Iraqi cabinet and the Kurdistan regional government condemned Turkey's actions and called for the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops from the region. Turkish troops withdrew on 29 February. The fate of the Kurds and the future of the ethnically diverse city of Kirkuk remained a contentious issue in Iraqi politics.
US military officials met these trends with cautious optimism as they approached what they described as the "transition" embodied in the US–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, which was negotiated throughout 2008. The commander of the coalition, US General Raymond T. Odierno, noted that "in military terms, transitions are the most dangerous time" in December 2008.
Spring offensives on Shiite militias
At the end of March, the Iraqi Army, with Coalition air support, launched an offensive, dubbed "Charge of the Knights", in Basra to secure the area from militias. This was the first major operation where the Iraqi Army did not have direct combat support from conventional coalition ground troops. The offensive was opposed by the Mahdi Army, one of the militias, which controlled much of the region. Fighting quickly spread to other parts of Iraq: including Sadr City, Al Kut, Al Hillah and others. During the fighting Iraqi forces met stiff resistance from militiamen in Basra to the point that the Iraqi military offensive slowed to a crawl, with the high attrition rates finally forcing the Sadrists to the negotiating table.
Following intercession by the Iranian government, al‑Sadr ordered a ceasefire on 30 March 2008. The militiamen kept their weapons.
By 12 May 2008, Basra "residents overwhelmingly reported a substantial improvement in their everyday lives" according to The New York Times. "Government forces have now taken over Islamic militants' headquarters and halted the death squads and 'vice enforcers' who attacked women, Christians, musicians, alcohol sellers and anyone suspected of collaborating with Westerners", according to the report; however, when asked how long it would take for lawlessness to resume if the Iraqi army left, one resident replied, "one day".
In late April roadside bombings continued to rise from a low in Januaryfrom 114 bombings to more than 250, surpassing the May 2007 high.
Congressional testimony
Speaking before Congress on 8 April 2008, General David Petraeus urged delaying troop withdrawals, saying, "I've repeatedly noted that we haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel," referencing the comments of then-President Bush and former Vietnam-era General William Westmoreland. When asked by the Senate if reasonable people could disagree on the way forward, Petraeus said, "We fight for the right of people to have other opinions."
Upon questioning by then Senate committee chair Joe Biden, Ambassador Crocker admitted that Al‑Qaeda in Iraq was less important than the Al Qaeda organization led by Osama bin Laden along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Lawmakers from both parties complained that US taxpayers are carrying Iraq's burden as it earns billions of dollars in oil revenues.
Iraqi security forces rearm
Iraq became one of the top purchasers of US military equipment with their army trading its AK‑47 assault rifles for the US M‑16 and M‑4 rifles, among other equipment. In 2008 alone, Iraq accounted for more than of the US weapon sales to foreign countries (not including the potential F-16 fighter planes.).
Iraq sought 36 F‑16s, the most sophisticated weapons system Iraq has attempted to purchase. The Pentagon notified Congress that it had approved the sale of 24 American attack helicopters to Iraq, valued at as much as $2.4 billion. Including the helicopters, Iraq announced plans to purchase at least in US tanks and armored vehicles, transport planes, and other battlefield equipment and services. Over the summer, the Defense Department announced that the Iraqi government wanted to order more than 400 armored vehicles and other equipment worth up to , and six C-130J transport planes, worth up to . From 2005 to 2008, the United States had completed approximately $20 billion in arms sales agreements with Iraq.
Status of forces agreement
The US–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement was approved by the Iraqi government on 4 December 2008. It established that US combat forces would withdraw from Iraqi cities by 30 June 2009, and that all US forces would be completely out of Iraq by 31 December 2011. The pact was subject to possible negotiations which could have delayed withdrawal and a referendum scheduled for mid-2009 in Iraq, which might have required all US forces to completely leave by the middle of 2010. The pact required criminal charges for holding prisoners over 24 hours, and required a warrant for searches of homes and buildings that are not related to combat.
US contractors working for US forces were to be subject to Iraqi criminal law, while contractors working for the State Department and other US agencies may retain their immunity. If US forces commit still undecided "major premeditated felonies" while off-duty and off-base, they will be subject to the still undecided procedures laid out by a joint US‑Iraq committee if the United States certifies the forces were off-duty.
Some Americans have discussed "loopholes" and some Iraqis have said they believe parts of the pact remain a "mystery". US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates predicted that after 2011 he expected to see "perhaps several tens of thousands of American troops" as part of a residual force in Iraq.
Several groups of Iraqis protested the passing of the SOFA accord as prolonging and legitimizing the occupation. Tens of thousands of Iraqis burned an effigy of George W. Bush in a central Baghdad square where US troops five years previously organized a tearing down of a statue of Saddam Hussein. Some Iraqis expressed skeptical optimism that the US would completely end its presence by 2011. On 4 December 2008, Iraq's presidential council approved the security pact.
A representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al‑Sistani expressed concern with the ratified version of the pact and noted that the government of Iraq has no authority to control the transfer of occupier forces into and out of Iraq, no control of shipments and that the pact grants the occupiers immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts. He said that Iraqi rule in the country is not complete while the occupiers are present, but that ultimately the Iraqi people would judge the pact in a referendum. Thousands of Iraqis have gathered weekly after Friday prayers and shouted anti‑US and anti-Israeli slogans protesting the security pact between Baghdad and Washington. A protester said that despite the approval of the Interim Security pact, the Iraqi people would break it in a referendum next year.
2009: Coalition redeployment
Transfer of the Green Zone
On 1 January 2009, the United States handed control of the Green Zone and Saddam Hussein's presidential palace to the Iraqi government in a ceremonial move described by the country's prime minister as a restoration of Iraq's sovereignty. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he would propose 1 January be declared national "Sovereignty Day". "This palace is the symbol of Iraqi sovereignty and by restoring it, a real message is directed to all Iraqi people that Iraqi sovereignty has returned to its natural status", al‑Maliki said.
The US military attributed a decline in reported civilian deaths to several factors including the US‑led "troop surge", the growth of US-funded Awakening Councils, and Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's call for his militia to abide by a cease fire.
Provincial elections
On 31 January, Iraq held provincial elections. Provincial candidates and those close to them faced some political assassinations and attempted assassinations, and there was also some other violence related to the election.
Iraqi voter turnout failed to meet the original expectations which were set and was the lowest on record in Iraq, but US Ambassador Ryan Crocker characterized the turnout as "large". Of those who turned out to vote, some groups complained of disenfranchisement and fraud. After the post-election curfew was lifted, some groups made threats about what would happen if they were unhappy with the results.
Exit strategy announcement
On 27 February, United States President Barack Obama gave a speech at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in the US state of North Carolina announcing that the US combat mission in Iraq would end by 31 August 2010. A "transitional force" of up to 50,000 troops tasked with training the Iraqi Security Forces, conducting counterterrorism operations, and providing general support may remain until the end of 2011, the president added. However, the insurgency in 2011 and the rise of ISIL in 2014 caused the war to continue.
The day before Obama's speech, Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al‑Maliki said at a press conference that the government of Iraq had "no worries" over the impending departure of US forces and expressed confidence in the ability of the Iraqi Security Forces and police to maintain order without US military support.
Sixth anniversary protests
On 9 April, the 6th anniversary of Baghdad's fall to coalition forces, tens of thousands of Iraqis thronged Baghdad to mark the anniversary and demand the immediate departure of coalition forces. The crowds of Iraqis stretched from the Sadr City slum in northeast Baghdad to the square around away, where protesters burned an effigy featuring the face of US President George W. Bush. There were also Sunni Muslims in the crowd. Police said many Sunnis, including prominent leaders such as a founding sheikh from the Sons of Iraq, took part.
Coalition forces withdraw
On 30 April, the United Kingdom formally ended combat operations. Prime Minister Gordon Brown characterized the operation in Iraq as a "success story" because of UK troops' efforts. Britain handed control of Basra to the United States Armed Forces.
The withdrawal of US forces began at the end of June, with 38 bases to be handed over to Iraqi forces. On 29 June 2009, US forces withdrew from Baghdad. On 30 November 2009, Iraqi Interior Ministry officials reported that the civilian death toll in Iraq fell to its lowest level in November since the 2003 invasion.
On 28 July, Australia withdrew its combat forces as the Australian military presence in Iraq ended, per an agreement with the Iraqi government.
Iraq awards oil contracts
On 30 June and 11 December 2009, the Iraqi ministry of oil awarded contracts to international oil companies for some of Iraq's many oil fields. The winning oil companies entered joint ventures with the Iraqi ministry of oil, and the terms of the awarded contracts included extraction of oil for a fixed fee of approximately $1.40 per barrel. The fees will only be paid once a production threshold set by the Iraqi ministry of oil is reached.
2010: US drawdown and Operation New Dawn
On 17 February 2010, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that as of 1 September, the name "Operation Iraqi Freedom" would be replaced by "Operation New Dawn".
On 18 April, US and Iraqi forces killed Abu Ayyub al-Masri the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq in a joint American and Iraqi operation near Tikrit, Iraq. The coalition forces believed al-Masri to be wearing a suicide vest and proceeded cautiously. After the lengthy exchange of fire and bombing of the house, the Iraqi troops stormed inside and found two women still alive, one of whom was al-Masri's wife, and four dead men, identified as al-Masri, Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi, an assistant to al-Masri, and al-Baghdadi's son. A suicide vest was indeed found on al-Masri's corpse, as the Iraqi Army subsequently stated.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the killings of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri at a news conference in Baghdad and showed reporters photographs of their bloody corpses. "The attack was carried out by ground forces which surrounded the house, and also through the use of missiles," Mr Maliki said. "During the operation computers were seized with e-mails and messages to the two biggest terrorists, Osama bin Laden and [his deputy] Ayman al-Zawahiri", Maliki added. US forces commander Gen. Raymond Odierno praised the operation. "The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al‑Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency", he said. "There is still work to do but this is a significant step forward in ridding Iraq of terrorists."
US Vice President Joe Biden stated that the deaths of the top two al‑Qaeda figures in Iraq are "potentially devastating" blows to the terror network there and proof that Iraqi security forces are gaining ground.
On 20 June, Iraq's Central Bank was bombed in an attack that left 15 people dead and brought much of downtown Baghdad to a standstill. The attack was claimed to have been carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq. This attack was followed by another attack on Iraq's Bank of Trade building that killed 26 and wounded 52 people.
In late August 2010, insurgents conducted a major attack with at least 12 car bombs simultaneously detonating from Mosul to Basra and killing at least 51. These attacks coincided with the US plans for a withdrawal of combat troops.
From the end of August 2010, the United States attempted to dramatically cut its combat role in Iraq, with the withdrawal of all US ground forces designated for active combat operations. The last US combat brigades departed Iraq in the early morning of 19 August. Convoys of US troops had been moving out of Iraq to Kuwait for several days, and NBC News broadcast live from Iraq as the last convoy crossed the border. While all combat brigades left the country, an additional 50,000 personnel (including Advise and Assist Brigades) remained in the country to provide support for the Iraqi military. These troops were required to leave Iraq by 31 December 2011 under an agreement between the US and Iraqi governments.
The desire to step back from an active counter-insurgency role did not however mean that the Advise and Assist Brigades and other remaining US forces would not be caught up in combat. A standards memo from the Associated Press reiterated "combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials".
State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley stated "... we are not ending our work in Iraq, We have a long-term commitment to Iraq." On 31 August, from the Oval Office, Barack Obama announced his intent to end the combat mission in Iraq. In his address, he covered the role of the United States' soft power, the effect the war had on the United States economy, and the legacy of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
On the same day in Iraq, at a ceremony at one of Saddam Hussein's former residences at Al-Faw Palace in Baghdad, a number of US dignitaries spoke in a ceremony for television cameras, avoiding overtones of the triumphalism present in US announcements made earlier in the war. Vice President Joe Biden expressed concerns regarding the ongoing lack of progress in forming a new Iraqi government, saying of the Iraqi people that "they expect a government that reflects the results of the votes they cast". Gen. Ray Odierno stated that the new era "in no way signals the end of our commitment to the people of Iraq". Speaking in Ramadi earlier in the day, Gates said that US forces "have accomplished something really quite extraordinary here, [but] how it all weighs in the balance over time I think remains to be seen". When asked by reporters if the seven-year war was worth doing, Gates commented that "It really requires a historian's perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run". He noted the Iraq War "will always be clouded by how it began" regarding Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction, which were never confirmed to have existed. Gates continued, "This is one of the reasons that this war remains so controversial at home". On the same day Gen. Ray Odierno was replaced by Lloyd Austin as Commander of US forces in Iraq.
On 7 September, two US troops were killed and nine wounded in an incident at an Iraqi military base. The incident is under investigation by Iraqi and US forces, but it is believed that an Iraqi soldier opened fire on US forces.
On 8 September, the US Army announced the arrival in Iraq of the first specifically designated Advise and Assist Brigade, the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment. It was announced that the unit would assume responsibilities in five southern governorates. From 10 to 13 September, Second Advise and Assist Brigade, 25th Infantry Division fought Iraqi insurgents near Diyala.
According to reports from Iraq, hundreds of members of the Sunni Awakening Councils may have switched allegiance back to the Iraqi insurgency or al-Qaeda.
In October, WikiLeaks disclosed 391,832 classified US military documents on the Iraq War. Approximately, 58 people were killed with another 40 wounded in an attack on the Sayidat al‑Nejat church, a Chaldean Catholic church in Baghdad. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq organization.
Coordinated attacks in primarily Shia areas struck throughout Baghdad on 2 November, killing approximately 113 and wounding 250 with around 17 bombs.
Iraqi arms purchases
As US forces departed the country, the Iraq Defense Ministry solidified plans to purchase advanced military equipment from the United States. Plans in 2010 called for $13 billion of purchases, to include 140 M1 Abrams main battle tanks. In addition to the $13 billion purchase, the Iraqis also requested 18 F-16 Fighting Falcons as part of a $4.2 billion program that also included aircraft training and maintenance, AIM‑9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, laser-guided bombs and reconnaissance equipment. All Abrams tanks were delivered by the end of 2011, but the first F-16s did not arrive in Iraq until 2015, due to concerns that the Islamic State might overrun Balad Air Base.
The Iraqi Navy also purchased 12 US‑built Swift-class patrol boats, at a cost of $20 million each. Delivery was completed in 2013. The vessels are used to protect the oil terminals at Basra and Khor al-Amiya. Two US‑built offshore support vessels, each costing $70 million, were delivered in 2011.
The UN lifts restrictions on Iraq
In a move to legitimize the existing Iraqi government, the United Nations lifted the Saddam Hussein-era UN restrictions on Iraq. These included allowing Iraq to have a civilian nuclear program, permitting the participation of Iraq in international nuclear and chemical weapons treaties, as well as returning control of Iraq's oil and gas revenue to the government and ending the Oil-for-Food Programme.
2011: US withdrawal
Muqtada al-Sadr returned to Iraq in the holy city of Najaf to lead the Sadrist movement after being in exile since 2007.
On 15 January 2011, three US troops were killed in Iraq. One of the troops was killed on a military operation in central Iraq, while the other two troops were deliberately shot by one or two Iraqi soldiers during a training exercise.
On 6 June, five US troops were killed in an apparent rocket attack on JSS Loyalty. A sixth soldier, who was wounded in the attack, died 10 days later of his wounds.
On 13 June 2011, two US troops were killed in an IED attack located in Wasit Governorate.
On 26 June 2011, a US soldier was killed. Sergeant Brent McBride was sentenced to four years, two months for his involvement in the death.
On 29 June, three US troops were killed in a rocket attack on a US base located near the border with Iran. It was speculated that the militant group responsible for the attack was the same one which attacked JSS Loyalty just over three weeks before. With the three deaths, June 2011, became the bloodiest month in Iraq for the US military since June 2009, with 15 US soldiers killed, only one of them outside combat.
On 7 July, two US troops were killed and one seriously injured in an IED attack at Victory Base Complex outside Baghdad. They were members of the 145th Brigade Support Battalion, 116th Cavalry Heavy Brigade Combat Team, an Idaho Army National Guard unit base in Post Falls, Idaho. Spc. Nathan R. Beyers, 24, and Spc. Nicholas W. Newby, 20, were killed in the attack, Staff Sgt. Jazon Rzepa, 30, was seriously injured.
In September, Iraq signed a contract to buy 18 Lockheed Martin F-16 warplanes, becoming the 26th nation to operate the F-16. Because of windfall profits from oil, the Iraqi government is planning to double this originally planned 18, to 36 F-16s. Iraq is relying on the US military for air support as it rebuilds its forces and battles a stubborn Islamist insurgency.
With the collapse of the discussions about extending the stay of any US troops beyond 2011, where they would not be granted any immunity from the Iraqi government, on 21 October 2011, President Obama announced at a White House press conference that all remaining US troops and trainers would leave Iraq by the end of the year as previously scheduled, bringing the US mission in Iraq to an end. The last American soldier to die in Iraq before the withdrawal, SPC. David Hickman, was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on 14 November.
In November 2011, the US Senate voted down a resolution to formally end the war by bringing its authorization by Congress to an end.
On 15 December, an American military ceremony was held in Baghdad putting a formal end to the US mission in Iraq.
The last US combat troops withdrew from Iraq on 18 December 2011, although the US embassy and consulates continue to maintain a staff of more than 20,000 including 100+ military personnel within the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq (OSC-I), US Marine Embassy Guards and between 4,000 and 5,000 private military contractors. The next day, Iraqi officials issued an arrest warrant for the Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi. He has been accused of involvement in assassinations and fled to the Kurdish part of Iraq.
Aftermath
Emerging conflict and insurgency
The invasion and occupation led to sectarian violence, which caused widespread displacement among Iraqi civilians. Since the beginning of the war, the first parliamentary elections were held in 2005 which brought greater representation and autonomy to Iraqi Kurds. By 2007 the Iraqi Red Crescent estimated 2.3 million Iraqis were internally displaced, with an estimated 2 million Iraqis fleeing to neighboring countries, mostly to Syria and Jordan.
Sectarian violence continued in the first half of 2013. At least 56 people died in April when a Sunni protest in Hawija was interrupted by a government-supported helicopter raid and a series of violent incidents occurred in May. On 20 May 2013, at least 95 people died in a wave of car bomb attacks that was preceded by a car bombing on 15 May that led to 33 deaths; also, on 18 May 76 people were killed in the Sunni areas of Baghdad. Some experts have stated that Iraq could return to the brutal sectarian conflict of 2006.
On 22 July 2013, at least five hundred convicts, most of whom were senior members of al-Qaida who had received death sentences, were freed from Abu Ghraib jail in an insurgent attack, which began with a suicide bomb attack on the prison gates. James F. Jeffrey, the United States ambassador in Baghdad when the last American troops exited, said the assault and resulting escape "will provide seasoned leadership and a morale boost to Al Qaeda and its allies in both Iraq and Syria ... it is likely to have an electrifying impact on the Sunni population in Iraq, which has been sitting on the fence."
By mid-2014 Iraq was in chaos with a new government yet to be formed following national elections, and the insurgency reaching new heights. In early June 2014 the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took over the cities of Mosul and Tikrit and said it was ready to march on Baghdad, while Iraqi Kurdish forces took control of key military installations in the major oil city of Kirkuk. The al-Qaida breakaway group formally declared the creation of an Islamic state on 29 June 2014, in the territory under its control.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unsuccessfully asked his parliament to declare a state of emergency that would give him increased powers. On 14 August 2014, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki succumbed to pressure at home and abroad to step down. This paved the way for Haidar al-Abadi to take over on 19 August 2014.
In September 2014, President Obama acknowledged that the US underestimated the rise of the Islamic State and overestimated the Iraqi military's ability to fight ISIL. Obama announced the return of US forces, in the form of aerial support, in an effort to halt the advance of ISIL forces, render humanitarian aid to stranded refugees and stabilize the political situation.
A civil war between ISIL and the central government continued for the next three years. Following the election of Donald Trump, the United States intensified its campaign against the Islamic State by January 2017. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said a tactical shift to surrounding Islamic State strongholds in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, was devised not only to "annihilate" ISIL fighters hunkered down there, but also to prevent them from returning to their home nations in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. In 2017, US-backed Kurdish forces captured Raqqa, which had served as the ISIL capital. The Iraqi government declared victory against ISIL in December 2017. By 2018, violence in Iraq was at its lowest level in ten years. This was greatly a result of the defeat of ISIL forces and the subsequent calming-down of the insurgency.
In January 2020, after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the Iraqi parliament voted for all foreign troops to leave the country. This would end its standing agreement with the United States to station 5,200 soldiers in Iraq. Then-President Trump objected to withdrawing troops and threatened Iraq with sanctions over this decision. In 2023, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani indicated his support for an indefinite U.S. military presence in Iraq.
Casualties
Casualty estimates
For coalition death totals see the infobox at the top right. See also Casualties of the Iraq War, which has casualty numbers for coalition nations, contractors, non-Iraqi civilians, journalists, media helpers, aid workers, and the wounded. Casualty figures, especially Iraqi ones, are highly disputed.
There have been several attempts by the media, coalition governments and others to estimate the Iraqi casualties. The table below summarizes some of these estimates and methods.
Impacts
Financial cost
In March 2013, the total cost of the Iraq War to date was estimated at $1.7 trillion by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. Some argue that the total cost of the war to the US economy will range from $3 trillion to , including interest rates, by 2053, as described in the Watson Institute's report. The upper ranges of these estimates include long-term veterans costs and economic impacts. For example, Harvard's public finance expert Linda J. Bilmes has estimated that the long-term cost of providing disability compensation and medical care to US troops injured in the Iraq conflict will reach nearly $1 trillion over the next 40 years, and that the war in Iraq diverted resources from the war in Afghanistan, led to rising oil prices, increased the federal debt, and contributed to a global financial crisis.
A CNN report noted that the United States–led interim government, the Coalition Provisional Authority lasting until 2004 in Iraq had lost $8.8 billion in the Development Fund for Iraq. In June 2011, it was reported by CBS News that $6 billion in neatly packaged blocks of $100 bills was air-lifted into Iraq by the George W. Bush administration, which flew it into Baghdad aboard C‑130 military cargo planes. In total, the Times says $12 billion in cash was flown into Iraq in 21 separate flights by May 2004, all of which has disappeared. An inspector general's report mentioned that "'Severe inefficiencies and poor management' by the Coalition Provisional Authority would leave no guarantee that the money was properly used", said Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., director of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. "The CPA did not establish or implement sufficient managerial, financial, and contractual controls to ensure that funds were used in a transparent manner." Bowen told the Times the missing money may represent "the largest theft of funds in national history."
Reparations
By 2013, some human rights groups in both Iraq and the U.S. had begun campaigning for reparations from the US for the devastation and health effects suffered by Iraqis during the war.
Economic recession in 2021
As of 2021, Iraq had fallen into an economic depression, caused by the ongoing COVID pandemic and falling oil and gas prices, which economists described as the country's biggest financial threat since the rule of Saddam Hussein. Iraq suffered from currency devaluation in 2021 for the first time in decades and was unable to import crucial products, including medicines and food, and had a lack of foreign currency to pay off the national debt.
Humanitarian crisis
According to a 2007 Oxfam report, the child malnutrition rate had risen to 28%, and the rate of people without access to clean drinking water had risen to 70%. In 2007, Nasser Muhssin, a researcher on family and children's affairs affiliated to the University of Baghdad claimed that 60–70% of Iraqi children suffered from psychological problems. A 2007 cholera outbreak in northern Iraq was thought to be the result of poor water quality. As many as half of Iraqi doctors left the country between 2003 and 2006.
By the end of 2015, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 4.4 million Iraqis had been internally displaced. The population of Iraqi Christians dropped dramatically during the war, from 1.5 million in 2003 to 500,000 in 2015, and perhaps only 275,000 in 2016.
The Foreign Policy Association reported that: "Perhaps the most perplexing component of the Iraq refugee crisis ... has been the inability for the United States to absorb more Iraqis following the 2003 invasion of the country. To date, the United States has granted around 84,000 Iraqis refugee status, of the more than two million global Iraqi refugees. By contrast, the United States granted asylum to more than 100,000 South Vietnamese refugees during the Vietnam War."
Environmental impact
Oil pollution
The war has led to oil spills, which increased carbon emissions and contaminated the surrounding water resources. During the invasion period, the retreating Iraqi army damaged the oil infrastructure and destroyed more than 736 oil wells in southern Iraq, resulting in massive oil spills and the ignition of fires. In 2003, more than 50 billion tonnes of carbon emissions were produced from burning oil fields and released into the atmosphere. Also, over 130 million gallons of oil leaked into surrounding water resources, such as Sawa Lake. Between 2003 and 2010, more than 5,000 birds from three species died around Sawa Lake.
Radioactive contamination
The U.S.-led coalition used depleted uranium (DU) munitions during the war to pierce tank armour. of DU munitions were fired, which caused ammunition fragments containing radioactive material to spread across the country. According to a United Nations Environment Programme report, radioactive material contaminated air and soil; with the radioactive concentration found in Iraqi soil at 709.52 Bq in 2003 compared to 143.22 Bq in 2002. The report states that high levels of radiation prevented plants, especially crop seeds, from sprouting; with about 22% (9.5 million ha) of the farmland in Iraq unable to grow barley.
In addition, radiation contamination may have had harmful public health outcomes through poisoning and increased incidence of various cancers and birth defects. Several studies have identified increased occurrence of deformities, cancers, and other serious health problems in areas where DU shells were used. Some Iraqi doctors attributed these malformations to possible long-term effects of depleted uranium. Studies disagree on whether DU ammunition has any measurable detrimental health effects. According to research from the UK Atomic Energy Authority in 2005, the cancer rate had increased by 35% since 2003. As of 2013, 140,000 Iraqis were suffering from cancer, with between 7,000 and 8,000 new cases yearly. According to a 2012 journal article by Al-Hadithi et al., existing studies and research evidence does not show a "clear increase in birth defects" or a "clear indication of a possible environmental exposure including depleted uranium". The article further states that "there is actually no substantial evidence that genetic defects can arise from parental exposure to DU in any circumstances."
Ecosystem destruction
The war has also led to damage to ecosystems though pollution and physical destruction. Approximately 25,000 tons of bombs were dropped by the U.S. military during the war. More than 250 chemical and armament factories were destroyed, which caused over 50,000 cubic meters of hazardous chemicals, such as fertilizer, and raw sewage to leak into water, leading to surrounding freshwater ecosystem becoming polluted and species' habitat being impacted. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, 33 Iraqi wetlands, especially the Mesopotamian Marshland, have been contaminated by chemicals, which has caused 60 types of mammal species to lose their habitats, and more than 45 types of plants to become extinct.
Impact on the Global War on Terrorism
Though explicitly stating that Iraq had "nothing" to do with 9/11, erstwhile President George W. Bush consistently referred to the Iraq War as "the central front in the War on Terror", and argued that if the United States pulled out of Iraq, "terrorists will follow us here". While other proponents of the war regularly echoed this assertion, as the conflict dragged on, members of the US Congress, the US public, and even US troops questioned the connection between Iraq and the fight against anti-US terrorism. In particular, a consensus developed among intelligence experts that the Iraq War actually increased terrorism. Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna frequently referred to the invasion of Iraq as a "fatal mistake".
London's International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded in 2004 that the occupation of Iraq had become "a potent global recruitment pretext" for Mujahideen and that the invasion "galvanised" al-Qaeda and "perversely inspired insurgent violence" there. The US National Intelligence Council concluded in a January 2005 report that the war in Iraq had become a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists; David Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, indicated that the report concluded that the war in Iraq provided terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills ... There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will, therefore, disperse to various other countries." The council's chairman Robert Hutchings said, "At the moment, Iraq is a magnet for international terrorist activity." And the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, which outlined the considered judgment of all 16 US intelligence agencies, held that "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause célèbre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."
A report by the Council on Foreign Relations, released on the 20th anniversary of the invasion analyzed the rationale to go to war and the subsequent decisions during the occupation.
The report states that the "justification for going to war was based on scanty and deeply flawed intelligence" and that the invasion was an "error compounded by the absence of an agreed exit strategy and the decision to embark on a massive, open-ended nation-building project". The same report also ascertained that "the occupation authority's first acts were to disband the Iraqi army and the Ba'athist governing party, igniting what would become a lethal, long-running insurgency and eventually a multinational terrorist organization that took over most of the country".
Geopolitical tensions
From a geopolitical perspective, the war in Iraq has been interpreted as weakening the West's moral high ground and hampering its ability to effectively counter Russia and China. With regard to the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said in March 2022 that the U.S. exerted similar pressures on Iraq in 2003, which the US invaded later for no reason other than "a vial of unidentified chemicals". In March 2023, Tony Blair, former British prime minister rejected comparisons between Russia's war in Ukraine and the US-led invasion of Iraq, claiming that the Iraq War cannot be used as a justification by Russia to annex Russian-speaking zones in eastern Ukraine.
Criticism
The Bush administration's rationale for the Iraq War has faced heavy criticism from an array of popular and official sources both inside and outside the United States, with many US citizens finding many parallels with the Vietnam War. For example, a former CIA officer described the Office of Special Plans as a group of ideologues who were dangerous to US national security and a threat to world peace, and stated that the group lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam. The Center for Public Integrity stated that the Bush administration made a total of 935 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States.
Both proponents and opponents of the invasion have also criticized the prosecution of the war effort along with a number of other lines. Most significantly, critics have assailed the United States and its allies for not devoting enough troops to the mission, not adequately planning for post-invasion Iraq, and for permitting and perpetrating human rights abuses. As the war has progressed, critics have also railed against the high human and financial costs. In 2016, the United Kingdom published the Iraq Inquiry, a public inquiry which was broadly critical of the actions of the British government and military in making the case for the war, in tactics and in planning for the aftermath of the war.
Criticisms include:
Legality of the invasion
Human casualties
Human rights violations such as the Iraq prison abuse scandals
Insufficient post-invasion plans, in particular inadequate troop levels (A RAND Corporation study stated that 500,000 troops would be required for success.)
Financial costs with approximately spent as of 4/09 the CBO has estimated the total cost of the war in Iraq to the United States will be around .
Adverse effect on US-led global "war on terror"
Damage to US' traditional alliances and influence in the region.
Endangerment and ethnic cleansing of religious and ethnic minorities by insurgents
Disruption of Iraqi oil production and related energy security concerns (the price of oil quadrupled between 2002 and 2008).
War crimes
Throughout the Iraq War, many human rights abuses and war crimes were committed.
By Coalition forces and private contractors
Deaths of civilians as a result of bombing and missile strikes that fail to take all feasible precautions with regards to civilians casualties.
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse by US Army personnel, involving the detention of thousands of Iraqi men and women. Torture at Abu Ghraib included rape, sodomy and extensive sexual abuse, waterboarding, pouring phosphoric acid on detainees, sleep deprivation and physical beatings.
Haditha massacre of 24 civilians by US soldiers.
Widespread use of the incendiary munition white phosphorus such as during the battle of Fallujah. The documentary Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre, claimed that Iraqi civilians, including women and children, had died of burns caused by white phosphorus during the battle, however, US Department of Defense spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable denied that this was true but confirmed to the BBC that US forces had used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon there against enemy combatants. The use of white phosphorus against civilian populations is banned by international legislation.
Mahmudiyah rape and killings, where US soldiers raped and killed 14-year old Abeer Qasim Humza. They also killed 3 of her relatives.
The torture and killing of prisoner of war, Iraqi Air Force commander, Abed Hamed Mowhoush.
The death of Baha Mousa while in British Army custody.
Mukaradeeb wedding party massacre, where 42 civilians were allegedly killed by coalition airstrikes.
Planting weapons on noncombatant, unarmed Iraqis by three US Marines after killing them. According to a report by The Nation, other similar acts have been witnessed by US soldiers.
Nisour Square massacre by Blackwater Security Consulting personnel.
Allegations of beatings, electrocution, mock executions, and sexual assault by British troops were presented to the International Criminal Court (ICC) by Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) on 12 January 2014.
By Insurgent groups
Killing over 12,000 Iraqis from January 2005 to June 2006, according to Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, giving the first official count for the victims of bombings, ambushes and other deadly attacks. The insurgents have also conducted numerous suicide attacks on the Iraqi civilian population, mostly targeting the majority Shia community. An October 2005 report from Human Rights Watch examines the range of civilian attacks and their purported justification.
Attacks against civilians by sectarian death squads primarily during the Iraqi Civil War. Iraq Body Count project data shows that 33% of civilian deaths during the Iraq War resulted from execution after abduction or capture. These were overwhelmingly carried out by unknown actors including insurgents, sectarian militias and criminals.
Attacks on diplomats and diplomatic facilities including; the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003 killing the top UN representative in Iraq and 21 other UN staff members; beheading several diplomats: two Algerian diplomatic envoys Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi, Egyptian diplomatic envoy al-Sherif, and four Russian diplomats
The February 2006 bombing of the al-Askari Mosque, destroying one of the holiest Shiite shrines, killing over 165 worshipers and igniting sectarian strife and reprisal killings
The publicised killing of several contractors; Eugene Armstrong, Jack Hensley, Kenneth Bigley, Ivaylo Kepov and Georgi Lazov (Bulgarian truck drivers.) Other non-military personnel murdered include: translator Kim Sun-il, Shosei Koda, Fabrizio Quattrocchi (Italian), charity worker Margaret Hassan, reconstruction engineer Nick Berg, photographer Salvatore Santoro (Italian) and supply worker Seif Adnan Kanaan (Iraqi.) Four private armed contractors, Scott Helvenston, Jerko Zovko, Wesley Batalona and Michael Teague, were killed with grenades and small arms fire, their bodies dragged from their vehicles, beaten and set ablaze. Their burned corpses were then dragged through the streets before being hung over a bridge crossing the Euphrates.
Torture or killing of members of the New Iraqi Army, and assassination of civilians associated with the Coalition Provisional Authority, such as Fern Holland, or the Iraqi Governing Council, such as Aqila al-Hashimi and Ezzedine Salim, or other foreign civilians, such as those from Kenya
By Post-invasion Iraqi Government
The post-invasion Iraqi government used torture against detainees, including children. Some techniques of torture used included beatings, electric shocks, prolonged hanging by the wrists, food and water deprivation, and blindfolding for multiple days. Iraqi police from the Interior Ministry were accused of forming Death Squads and committing numerous massacres of Sunni Arabs. Many of these human rights abuses were carried out by Iraqi government-sponsored Shi'ite militias.
Public opinion on the war
International opinion
In a March 2003 Gallup poll, the day after the invasion, 76% of Americans had approved of military action against Iraq. In a March 2003 YouGov poll, 54% of Britons supported the military action against Iraq. A remarkable aspect was the support for invasion expressed by many left-wing intellectuals such as Christopher Hitchens, Paul Berman, Michael Walzer and Jean Bethke Elshtain. In a February 2003 poll by the national public research institute CIS, 91% of Spaniards opposed any military intervention in Iraq.
According to a January 2007 BBC World Service poll of more than 26,000 people in 25 countries, 73% of the global population disapproved of US handling of the Iraq War. A September 2007 poll conducted by the BBC found that two-thirds of the world's population believed the US should withdraw its forces from Iraq.
In 2006 it was found that majorities in the UK and Canada believed that the war in Iraq was "unjustified" and – in the UK – were critical of their government's support of US policies in Iraq.
According to polls conducted by the Arab American Institute, four years after the invasion of Iraq, 83% of Egyptians had a negative view of the US role in Iraq; 68% of Saudi Arabians had a negative view; 96% of the Jordanian population had a negative view; 70% of the population of the United Arab Emirates and 76% of the Lebanese population also described their view as negative. The Pew Global Attitudes Project reports that in 2006 majorities in the Netherlands, Germany, Jordan, France, Lebanon, Russia, China, Canada, Poland, Pakistan, Spain, Indonesia, Turkey, and Morocco believed the world was safer before the Iraq War and the toppling of Saddam, while pluralities in the United States and India believe the world is safer without Saddam Hussein.
Iraqi opinion
Directly after the invasion, polling suggested that a slight majority supported the US invasion. Polls conducted between 2005 and 2007 showed 31–37% of Iraqis wanted US and other Coalition forces to withdraw once security was restored and that 26–35% wanted immediate withdrawal instead. In 2006, a poll conducted on the Iraqi public revealed that 52% of the ones polled said Iraq was going in the right direction and 61% claimed it was worth ousting Saddam Hussein. In a March 2007 BBC poll, 82% of Iraqis expressed a lack of confidence in coalition forces based in Iraq. According to a 2009 poll conducted by the University of Maryland, 7 out of 10 Iraqis wanted US troops to withdraw within one year and also 78% felt that US military presence was "provoking more conflict than it is preventing". Despite a majority having previously been opposed to the US presence, according to a poll conducted by the Asharq Research Centre, a private Iraqi company, 60% of Iraqis had believed it was "the wrong time" for a major withdrawal of American troops prior to the withdrawal in 2011, with 51% saying withdrawal would have a negative effect.
Foreign involvement
Suicide bombers
According to studies, most of the suicide bombers in Iraq were foreigners, especially Saudis.
Role of Iran
According to two unnamed US officials, the Pentagon is examining the possibility that the Karbala provincial headquarters raid, in which insurgents managed to infiltrate an American base, kill five US soldiers, wound three, and destroy three humvees before fleeing, was supported by Iranians. In a speech on , Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stated that Iran was supporting attacks against Coalition forces in Iraq and some Iraqis suspect that the raid may have been perpetrated by the Quds Force in retaliation for the detention of five Iranian officials by US forces in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil on . In 2014, the legacy of Iran's presence in Iraq after the invasion had been mixed with regard to the fight against regional terrorist groups. The U.S. occupation and subsequent regional instability had spawned the creation of the PMF (Popular Mobilization Forces), an Iranian militia that effectively fought the influence of emerging caliphates in the region.
Later, a 1,300-page US Army Iraq War study, released in January 2019, concluded that "At the time of this project's completion in 2018, an emboldened and expansionist Iran appears to be the only victor" and that the outcome of the war triggered a "deep skepticism about foreign interventions" among America's public opinion.
Role of Israel
Role of Russia
The invasion of Iraq prompted a widespread wave of criticism from several world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. Before and during the invasion of Iraq, the Russian government provided intelligence to Saddam Hussein about the location of US forces and their plans.
See also
Foreign interventions by the United States
United States involvement in regime change
Criticism of United States foreign policy
Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict
Iraq–United States relations
The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs
List of wars by death toll
National Network to End the War Against Iraq
United States military casualties of war
Joint Special Operations Command Task Force in the Iraq War
Footnotes
References
Sources
Further reading
Butt, Ahsan. 2019. "Why did the United States Invade Iraq in 2003?" Security Studies
318 pages
MacDonald, Michael. 2014. Overreach: Delusions of Regime Change in Iraq. Harvard University Press.
Mikulaschek, Christoph and Jacob Shapiro. (2018). Lessons on Political Violence from America's Post-9/11 Wars. Journal of Conflict Resolution 62(1): 174–202.
Payne, Andrew. 2019/2020. "Presidents, Politics, and Military Strategy: Electoral Constraints during the Iraq War." International Security 44(3):163–203
Robben, Antonius C.G.M., ed. (2010). Iraq at a Distance: What Anthropologists Can Teach Us About the War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. .
Siracusa, Joseph M., and Laurens J. Visser, "George W. Bush, Diplomacy, and Going to War with Iraq, 2001–2003." The Journal of Diplomatic Research/Diplomasi Araştırmaları Dergisi (2019) 1#1: 1–29 online
Wertheim, Stephen, "Iraq and the Pathologies of Primacy: The Flawed Logic That Produced the War Is Alive and Well", Foreign Affairs, vol. 102, no. 3 (May/June 2023), pp. 136–140, 142–152. "Washington is still in thrall to primacy and caught in a doom loop, lurching from self-inflicted problems to even bigger self-inflicted problems, holding up the latter while covering up the former. In this sense, the Iraq war remains unfinished business for the United States." (p. 152.)
External links
International Center for Transitional Justice, Iraq
Dollar cost of war: total US cost of the Iraq War
"Bleak Pentagon study admits 'civil war' in Iraq", by Rupert Cornwell, The Independent, March 2007
High resolution maps of Iraq, GulfWarrior.org
Presidential address by George W. Bush on the evening of 19 March 2003, announcing war against Iraq.
Bibliography: The Second US–Iraq War (2003– )
1st Major Survey of Iraq. Zogby International, 10 September 2003.
Iraq at Polling Report.com. Chronological polls of Americans 18 and older
Just War in Iraq 2003 (PDF) – Legal dissertation by Thomas Dyhr from University of Copenhagen.
Iraq war stories, a Guardian and Observer archive in words and pictures documenting the human and political cost, The Guardian, April 2009.
Iraq: The War Card . Center for Public Integrity.
Jargin SV. "Health care in Iraq: 2013 vs. 2003". CMAJ. 17 September 2013.
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